Robyn’s Secret Passage

It’s New Zealand Music Month. Because there’s a whole month to fill with events, a lot of unremarkable stuff is included - C4 plays a music video by a New Zealand artist, or a local band plays at the Kings Arms and, whoo-hoo, it’s a New Zealand music celebration!

Except that ordinary sort of stuff shouldn’t be singled out as being special. That stuff should just be (and indeed is) the everyday healthy state of the New Zealand music industry.

But amid all the hype, there have been a few decent events that make up for all the non-events.

One such rockstravaganza was Harden Up Ow, an evening of the best of Hamilton’s incestuous music scene (and that’s good incest, like when the fictional hot mom seduces her fictional hot son, not the real-life bad uncle incest). The idea behind the evening was that each of the bands would play three songs - one original and two covers of songs by other Hamilton bands.

Being a bit of a Hamilton exile, I wasn’t familiar with a few of the bands who played, but that didn’t matter so much when the band played a song I knew and could happily jump along with.

Me and my beatnik friends are through with being laid-back.
If I had something bigger than a pushbike I’d run you down.

The evening opened with Amy Racecar doing the permanently glorious “Caroline” (originally by Jahna, I think), and then Split Enz’s “Shark Attack”. It’s a bit of a tenuous connection linking Te Awamutu/Auckland with Hamilton, but it can sort of be done, but for such a shit song as “Shark Attack” it’s not worth it.

Date-Month-Year started playing a slow, waltzy song. The audience had a collective “Hmm… what’s this one?” think, but it wasn’t until the first verse started that it became apparent they were doing 48 May’s “Leather and Tattoos”. The tempo change magically transformed it from a happy joy-time vapid punk-pop song into a bittersweet story of a messed-up young lady. However, it went on a bit too long and Petra Jane was forced to blow her whistle and hold up the “HURRY UP OW” sign.

Frogletter did a wild medley with bits and pieces of songs from all over the city, including a snatch of “Leather and Tattoos” from you-know-who. It was fun, and, despite the temptation (or indeed the theme of the evening), it didn’t get all that wanky.

I hadn’t seen Rose Petals and Confetti plays before, but I am all for bands with a goth/punk/glam thing, especially when the lead singer introduces his microphone to his tight trousers. RPAC did the Shrugs’ “I don’t know what I’m doing” and ended with Knightshade’s (yes!) “Last night in the city”, that also managed to segue into “Sweet Child o’ Mine”. It took years to undo the damage Knightshade did to Hamilton’s musical reputation, but now no one cares and we can happily wave our lighters in the air.

Ten years in the jailer’s eye
And I’m thinkin’ ’bout my baby
Lookin’ at my life go by

St Lucy - at the heart of which is Mark Tupuhi, who organised the whole event - managed to find a connection between Hamilton and Dragon and used that as an excuse to play “Are you old enough”. There was a brief concern that the munters in Diggers’ front bar might get excited at what possibly sounded like a Kiwi covers band, but it seemed they stayed away, leaving the Harden Up crowd to sing along with every chorus.

Aether (and who cannot love a band who does the ae thing in their name?) did a thrashy, sped-up version of Wendyhouse’s “Suit Suit Kill Kill” (one of my favourite songs of all time; I wrote “Suit Suit Kill Kill” on my wardrobe door when I was 18.)

Then along came the Shrugs and they were excellent, as always. They finished their trio with Mobile Stud Unit’s “Stu’s Piecart”. Geoff Shrugs couldn’t quite remember the spoken bit in the middle, but the crowd enthusiastically filled in all his something-somethings.

Next were the Clerics and I all I can remember is a) they did “Rose Petals and Confetti” and b) they finished with a cool shouty song that included Mark Tupuhi on guest shouty vocals.

Cosmic Ska Child did another Shrugs songs, “I wanna feel myself”, reggaeing it into one of those “Be yourself! Stand up for what you believe in!” songs that potheads like. They also covered “Suit suit kill kill,” this time slowing it down and playing with the rhythm.

Shroedingers Cat played some songs, but I don’t seem to remember that. What was I doing? Perhaps queuing for a beer. I remember I tried to buy a bottle but the dude sold me a handle. I’m ok with that, though.

Finally Disjecta Membra played. DM has been around for ages, in various incarnations. Tonight it was The Goth Guy with an earlier form of Trucker. Their set was stellar, the highlight being a Blackjack song - I don’t know its name, but it was of the “Watch out, devilwoman!” variety and sounded terrific with the gothy vocals and Stan Jagger’s shredtastic guitar.

I like Metallica
I like Metallica
I like Metallica
I don’t know what I’m doing

The evening’s emcee called it the first-annual circle jerk, which immediately got everyone excited as they eagerly anticipated the 2006 one.

Plans are already afoot to get some Prime Devastation songs covered in 2006, or possibly even an appearance from Devastating Prime: The Prime Devastation Experience.

Petra’s magical camera has hot rock pics a go-go.

I went along to the Civic to see the heat in which “Fruits of Passion” was screen. Keen readers who have been following my 48 Hour film competition adventures will realise with glee this this meant seeing myself up on the giant Civic screen saying, “Arrr! Shit me balls!” in a pirate voice.

“Fruits of Passion” was last on the list of films in that session, so I had to sit through 11 other films. A couple were really good. I especially liked “Hood” a hot hot hot retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story. Other films were so-so - usually good ideas let down by crappy sound and/or slow pacing. And more than a few were just shit, with the only redeeming features being when they moved into “so bad it’s good” territory.

HINT: If you are a 20-year-old skinny-arse whiteboy, wearing a suit, putting on an American accent and adopting a hard-arse persona will not transform you into a world-weary 40-year-old American private eye. Suspension of disbelief has its limits. Be that skinny-arse white boy and you will go far.

By the time “Fruits of Passion” came along, the audience was getting a little restless, but it got laughs in all the right places (and no wrong ones). The girl who can’t swear properly got big laughs, but swear words are usually good for a few laughs. There was even an “aww…” moment, which is good for a romance.

I stuck around to see the next heat with the “Fruits” co-director and the camera guy. There were fewer quite good ones and more average ones. There were a couple with ex-Shortland Street actors that turned out to be pretty good. I guess that’s a good training ground for fast-turnaround acting.

Out of the 150-ish films being screened in the heats, a mere 12 will make it to the Auckland final. Eek! I don’t know how “Fruits” will fare, but fingers crossed, yes.

I had to work today, but that’s ok cos working on a Saturday never quite feels the same as a regular weekday. I have come to the conclusion that the cancellation (voluntary ending?) of “Everyone Loves Raymond” is a blessed thing indeed.

After work I ambled along Hobson Street to the Maritime Museum where the third Public Address Great Blend event was being held. The function room at the museum (where, back in the Xtra days, I recall attending an event involving a Power Point presentation and drinks) is very tastefully decorated, with not a a ship’s wheel or mermaid in sight.

The audience was treated to clips from a three-part documentary by David Herkt about New Zealand’s history of illegal drugs. He noted that older people were more open to talking about their drug use. I suppose there’s less fear of the cops bashing down the door of a pensioner who admits to smoking pot in the ’60s than for a 20-year-old who did so last weekend.

The documentary looks very interesting, though it also seemed to be going to pain with the editing style in order to be really really dynamic and undocumentary-like, though the bit that really hooked the audience was Graham Brazier’s frank account of the first time he shot up.

Then there was a panel discussion on blogs and the media, or something like that. It should have been longer, because it felt like just as things got going, it had to be ended.

Oh, yes. There was the woman in the audience. She seemed to be in a state where she was acting like everyone on the panel was having a personal conversation with her and so she commented in response to things that people said. Most of the time it was, “Hear, hear,” or “Definitely, definitely.” But, for example, after Russell Brown mentioned how David Lange’s Oxford Union speech would be included in his book on New Zealand essays, she said something like, “Good, yeah, that’s a really important one.” As annoying as she was, there was also an odd entertainment value attached to her remarks.

Next up the Phoenix Foundation played. They are a magical band. They all look like they should be waiting in line to get Star Wars tickets, or sitting at home painting fantasy figurines, but there they are in a really cool band, making incredibly good music. They made me want to race out and buy their CDs.

The other attendees were of a slightly different make-up due to this Great Blend being part of the Readers and Writers Festival. I’m not normally down with the Readers and Writers Festival, but it’s good for the online side of things to be acknowledged with more than a “Ha ha!!! Bloggers!!!!” kind of thing.

This reminds me - the ninth anniversary of my website is coming up. How does one celebrate almost a decade of online writing?

I worked for about 15 hours yesterday. I would have much rather been on the couch feeling snotty and miserable, but I wasn’t and I think I had much more fun than I would have if I’d stay on the couch.

The day involved travelling around Auckland filming various bit of the as-yet-untitled film. I got to continue with my writerly duties, but as the day went on, I also was script girl, security guard, actor, dialogue coach, pirate, boom girl (yes!), and various other little jobs.

Things went well. I believe we got everything filmed that needed to be done, and a few things that probably didn’t. We even managed to improvise after discovering that one prime location had been taken over by Japanese students having a movie evening. But the best location find was scoring a completely empty upstairs function room in an Irish pub to use after our previous pub was taken over by a 21st.

By the end of the night, things were getting a little weird and sleep deprived. There’s a point where someone makes a suggestions and the ability to know if it’s a good suggestion or not has been numbed by tiredness. I suppose that’s where the magic of the editors comes into play.

I showed up to the bus stop at 6.30 this morning and there was a lady there frantically trying to hitch a ride with any vehicle that went past, including a police car.

A couple of taxis drove past and she attempted to hail them, but they drove on by. Then a cab pulled up and she let out a huge sigh of relief and walked towards it. But she was soon stopped in her tracks when a passenger got out of the taxi and dashed over to the ATM while the taxi waited for him.

The woman turned to me and said in a cranky, rude voice, “You know, there are no buses today. They are all on strike,” with a silent “you stupid girl” added by her sneer.

“Oh,” I said. “I guess I’ll have to walk.”

“Hmph. Lucky for some,” she muttered, before returning to her mission of attempt to bum a ride to wherever it was she so urgently had to be.