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“Humankind cannot bear very much reality,” said T.S. Eliot.
At least so said the bird in Eliot’s poem Burnt Norton. We do seem to be getting a lot of it these days. I can’t remember more people saying they’ve stopped watching or listening to the news. Too much bloody reality.
But things will pass you by if you stop paying attention. One of my favourite annual news story has just dropped.
It’s the list of rejected baby names. In my generation boys were called sensible things like John and Michael. And occasionally Winston. Girls? Mary, Susan, Jane...no friends were named Chelsea or any spelling of Britney.
Not that I object to today’s free-form approach to baby names and their spelling. But some of the declined offerings amuse me. Most disallowed names are titles – Queen, Judge, so on – but I do wonder about calling your baby Heil? Lucifer also seems iffy. Weird was the attempt to get round the ‘no titles’ thing by using similarly-pronounced words. Who wants to be named Qwen or Jhudg?
Trevor Braunias. Photo / Supplied
The big trend last year though was calling kids after dope strains. Turns out babies are not allowed to be named Indica, Indika, or Sativa. Possibly a lucky escape there for the kids.
Fortuitously this column is largely about music, one of humankind’s greatest escapes from reality. As another poet said: “Rock ‘n’ Roll might not solve your problems, but it does let you dance all over them”. Thanks Mr Townshend.
Omnipresent
Currently music is omnipresent. A deluge is about to occur on Friday, March 20.
There’s a lot of blues: for the first time Black Coffee night at the Tauranga Club is shifting sideways into the blues, with a tribute to the great Fleetwood Mac guitarist, the late Peter Green.
If anyone in town was doing that I’d want it to be guitarist Trevor Braunias, a master of 1960s blues styles, and so it is, along with his trio comprising Julian Clark, bass, and Stefan Braunias, drums. Braunias has played Green’s music a lot over the years, from hard-edged shuffles to cool miniatures such as Jigsaw Blues. For blues-lovers this will be a treat.
The same night at The Matua Bar from 6.30pm there’s Autumn Blues, old-timey sounds with Mike Garner and Joanne Melbourne. No charge.
Trevor Braunias at The Matua Bar. Photo / Sally Garner
And – blues adjacent – at Totara Street, Dutch/New Zealand trio My Baby is touring New Zealand to celebrate their most recent album Echo, bringing their modern bluesy, roots-driven grooves. Excellent stuff.
Hard to describe
Same night at The Jam Factory brilliant a cappella Lancashire punk folk singer Jennifer Reid returns to New Zealand. She’s hard to describe, continuing the tradition of using music as social provocation, an archivist, storyteller and fantastic singer, who has opened for Pulp and toured the world. Local duo Poetic Justice – of Meshell Hardman and John Baxter – open.
Then there’s Saturday, March 21. The Harmonic Resonators will perform at Baycourt, and punk rules at Ōkahukura on Grey St with Pipeline Punk, Raglan’s Critter and Hamilton youngsters Hoon.
It will be a busy weekend…
Hear Winston’s latest Playlist: