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One festival finishes, another arrives. Busy times...
Last week was Loserpalooza at Totara Street as well as the announcement of the full programme for the Tauranga Arts Festival.
The arts festival is not until the latter part of October but let’s get in early, given that one of the headline acts, Macy Gray – possibly Tauranga’s most impressive booking since Dr John at the 2010 jazz festival – has already sold out.
First, a few words about Loserpalooza, celebration of the hardcore and alternative, 25 bands in 12 hours. It was fantastic. I know I keep issuing semi-warnings like “it’s not for everybody” but I’m now wondering why. No music is for everybody. I have friends who would pluck out their own eyeballs if I played them a 12-bar blues. That’s okay. Each to their own.
Music transcending age
Indeed what struck me at Totara Street was the all-ages nature of the gig. I left at 5pm, by which time the place was full, the tenth band was playing, and the 7pm age-restriction hadn’t started. The crowd ranged from 16 to 70. Same with the bands. And everyone dug it all, the oldest enjoying the youngest and vice versa. I’m not sure that's true of many musical genres.
Two of the big beasts, Threat.Meet.Protocol and Grown Downz, kicked things off. Why is there no more Big Day Out for these bands to play at? An early highlight was Joel from Grown Downz playing Rumble by Link Wray. Talk about music transcending age...
Michael Baxter of Cat Face. Photo / Corrine Rutherford
My picks were a very tight set from three-piece Kingfish that rattled the walls, the pop-punk pleasure of Cat Face, and an imposing set from Eddie and The Dreamers, whose songs all start as friendly 1950s garage rock and finish as screaming apocalypses.
They’re very much a family unit, fronted by Ed Gains, AKA Ross Sutherland. His son Wilco played impressive guitar, but attention kept going to a shirtless Mitchell Shannon, also on guitar, son of bass player Dave Shannon, not just for his playing but for a most active stage presence which included bouncing his guitar neck-first on the stage. It survived.
Sounds enrapturing
I was particularly knocked out because I’d just seen him in guitar-drum duo Everything is F****ed. Sorry, no way around that name really. It was possibly the most extreme half hour of music I’ve heard all year. Three songs. The one with singing was 50 seconds long. Other than that it was a raging cauldron of noise from which rhythms and riffs and sounds emerged only to be subsumed again by the churn. All at brain-boggling volume. Well, it's not for everyone...
Oops. Got carried away and forgot the arts festival. I will, obviously, return to it. Topping my musical list there are Li’l Chuck The One-Man Skiffle Machine, soulful singer Louis Baker, who arrives with a hot new album, and Michael Houstoun, combining with ambient explorers Jack Hooker and John Psathas, who create ambient soundscapes for his playing of Debussy, Satie and other French piano composers. Sounds enrapturing.
Hear Winston’s latest Playlist: