Tonite's guest on the Adventures of the CoffeeBar Kid - Donovan Bixley

It's a Kiwiana theme!  Tonite we talk to the wonder Donovan Bixley, illustrator and designer about his wonderful new 'Where's Wally style kid's book. His design company, Magma Design, is based in Taupo. Donovan has illustrated more than 100 stories and book covers as well as over 50 books, including Harry Hobnail & the Pungapeople and Mr Tanglewood & the Pungapeople by beloved New Zealand author Barry Crump. Donovan was the illustrator of the bestselling children's book The Wheels on the Bus (2010) and Old Macdonald's Farm (2011). He has also written and illustrated half a dozen books of his own, including Faithfully Mozart which was a finalist in the 2006 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.

Hours of fun for the kids - and the adults! The Looky Book is a puzzle book mostly for young children with 11 different puzzles all with colourful New Zealand landscapes, birds and animals. Find the numbers with the crazy All Black lambs, spot the difference: the mischievous keas have changed around somebody's campervan, find the animals hidden deep in the bush, match the farmers to their animals. Plus spot what's wrong in the weird and wonderful scenes: Should a kiwi be flying? Could a sheep round up the dogs? And why is there a penguin at the top of that tree? For the under 8s.

Available through Hachette - $20.00

Check Donovan's Website: http://www.donovanbixley.com/

Also on the show, we feature music from the wonderful new collection: Kiwiana goes pop! 

Kiwiana Goes Pop is a unique celebration of all the sounds we have grown up with and is the soundtrack to every Kiwi's life (young and old). It encompasses and embraces over 60 years of classic Kiwiana, from the fifties right through to Kiwiana 2012 style. The compilation album will be released on November 16.

78 tracks which have been rounded up and herded into their appropriate pens - farm songs, pub songs, Rugby songs, Kiwi telly themes, Kiwi comedy, politics and just about everything in between.

The unique stories behind the songs are also told in a mini encyclopaedic 20 page booklet, filled with enough trivia to win you 10 meat packs at your local pub quiz.

While the track listing rings with instant recognition, over two thirds of the tracks appear on CD for the very first time.

The Contacts unreleased performance of ‘Ten Guitars' was recorded just weeks after Engelbert's version, and is the very first local outing of this imported kiwi party staple. The Chesdale Cheese ad was saved from a skip bin at the 11th hour and takes its place in our alternative national anthem chapter.

Music lovers can rejoice, as Ashley Clinton and his Sheep's Choir baa and bleat their way through ‘Pokarekare Ana,' while The Waikato Dairy Lab Singers advise us on how to treat our herd's teats (in song).

Barry Crump's ‘A Dog Named Blue' makes its CD debut ("Bought a dog off a bloke who was passing through, for a retread tyre and a beer or two"). And one of Kiwiana's most revered and well known tracks, Lou & Simon's ‘A Maori Car', has never been available since its original release in the mid-sixties. It now takes its place alongside Fred Dagg's ‘Gumboots', the stand-up comedy of Billy T.James, McPhail and Gadsby, Brian Edwards, Rod Derrett, Ash Burton, Gerry Merito (with and without The Howard Morrison Quartet), while Justin Brown puts a new twist on Kiwiana with his 2010 track ‘Good Keen Metrosexual'.

Kiwi TV themes such as ‘Country Calendar,' ‘C'mon,' ‘Graham Kerr- The Galloping Gourmet' and ‘Fergie Fang' (the first indigenous local kids show) also feature.

There's more Kiwiana on ‘Kiwiana goes Pop‘' than you can shake a stick at.

Kiwiana Goes Pop is released November 16.

Full Tracklisting below...

KIWIANA GOES POP - THE ULTIMATE KIWI COMP

Chris Bourke (writer, historian & broadcaster) "Kiwiana Goes Pop is authoritative, scholarly and fun."

Murdoch Riley (Viking Sevenseas) "I have been in the New Zealand music industry for 55 years. Kiwiana goes Pop is the best compilation of local material that I have ever seen."

John Clarke (aka Fred Dagg) "Aahh yeah...she looks pretty interesting."

Richard Wolfe (writer & Kiwiana expert) "From Barry Crump to the National Anthem, taking in gumboots, Rob Muldoon and the State House, nothing is overlooked (not even the hu hu bug) in this mesmerising muster of essential Kiwi culture."

Max Cryer (Entertainer, writer and broadcaster) "The New Zealand Encyclopaedia provides history for the eye ... Kiwiana Goes Pop brings instant history to the ear."

http://nzmusic.org.nz/news/artist/kiwiana-goes-pop-is-the-ultimate-kiwi-comp/




See you at 7.30 Tonite only on Groove 107.7FM.

Tonite on the Adventures of the CoffeeBar Kid - The Story behind the Songs

Tonite we go head to head with freelancer Journo Simon Sweenman on his new book "On Song" all about some of the stories behind those well known Kiwi songs This special show will feature an interview with Simon and music mentioned in the IV as well.  What's your favourite Kiwi Song?

Click here to read more anout Simon or The book: On Song: Stories Behind New Zealand's Pop Classics



or Click here for a work about the book from Simon.

This week on the adventures of the CoffeeBar Kid

On a Saturday Night - Community halls of small-town New Zealand - Michele Frey and Sara Newman/Photographs John Maillard and John O'Malley - Canterbury University Press $45.00

Yeah, it's great being out with the jokers
When the jokers are sparking and bright,
And its great giving cheek to the sheilas
Down the hall on a Saturday night ...
- Peter Cape, 1958

Down the Hall on a Saturday Night - Peter Cape 1958
I got a new pair of grey strides,

Michele Frey and Sara Newman visited these halls with photographers John Maillard (North Island) and John O'Malley (South Island) to talk to the locals and try to capture the essence of what each hall has meant - and means - to its community. This is the heart of the book and what makes this different from, say, a Robyn Morrison photo book. And it's these stories and pictures that give an aspect of New Zealand's unique culture that seems to be passing into history but fortunately is still alive.

 

And....

 

Stag Spooner - Wild Man from the Bush (Craig Potton Press) $49.99

 

An illustrated diary kept by a deer hunter during 1939 and 1940 lies at the heart of an exciting new biography published later this month by Craig Potton Publishing . Neville ‘Stag’ Spooner grew up in the Wairarapa during the Great Depression. His father was an enthusiastic carver, musician and hunter who taught his whole family to shoot and also encouraged their artistic abilities.

Stag started keeping records of his daily life as a child and continued the practice during his military service in World War II, until his early death in Fiordland aged just 28. It was the illustrated diary that he kept while working as a deer culler for the Department of Internal Affairs, first in the Tararuas and then on the West Coast of the South Island, that is being reproduced for the first time as part of this new book.

 

 

Go to http://adventuresofthecoffeebarkid.blogspot.co.nz/ for more.  See you at 7.30 - This Thursday

This Thursday (8/11/12) on the Adventures of the CoffeeBar Kid - We Go All Nuke - again!

This week we are going to repeat last weeks show as some people have said they missed it due to our stream being temporarily 'off-air' due to the power cuts in New York (it's a strange world we now live in! - Shouldn't happen again as we now have backup servers in various parts of the world).

Our guest is Rebecca Priestley, a science writer and historian with a particular interest in New Zealand’s science history. Her anthology, The Awa Book of New Zealand Science, won the 2009 Royal Society of New Zealand Science Book Prize and Atoms, Dinosaurs & DNA: 68 Great New Zealand Scientists, co-authored with Veronika Meduna, won the Elsie Locke Award for Children’s Non-fiction in 2009. Rebecca curated The Art of Science, a joint exhibition between the Royal Society of New Zealand and the New Zealand Portrait Gallery, which opened in March 2011. As well as her regular science column for The Listener, she writes the occasional book review or travel feature and is working on two books: an anthology of Antarctic science and another on New Zealand’s nuclear and radiation history - Mad on Radium: New Zealand in the Atomic Age (AUP $44.99) .

Click her for background about this book and some very interesting vintage instruction movies about life in the Nuclear Age:  http://adventuresofthecoffeebarkid.blogspot.co.nz/

Tune in to the Adventures of the CoffeeBar Kid - Tonite from 7.30PM.

Vodaphone New Zealand Music Awards - Congratulations to all the Winners

Especially Kimbra (who we've supported from the start here at Groove). Her Song "Good Intent", from the album, Vows, is one hot little swing number and worth many more listens.  Also congrats to Ria Hall (Best Maori Album) and our friends The Black Seeds for best Roots Album. 

The award for best Jazz album has already been given out to Rodger Fox’s Wellington Jazz Orchestra for the album 'Journey Home' at the National jazz festival in Tauranga at Easter.

"International star Kimbra took out five Tuis, including the coveted album of the year prize, at the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards in Auckland last night.

The Hamilton-born 22-year-old was presented with the Tui for her debut album Vows by British folk band Mumford and Sons at the Vector Arena.

Kimbra also won an international achievement award – along with last year's big winners The Naked and Famous – and claimed best female solo artist, breakthrough artist of the year and best pop album.

Legendary Kiwi band Toy Love were inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame with the presentation of the Legacy Award.

Band Six60 won six Tuis – best single, people's choice, best group, highest selling New Zealand album, and single, and the New Zealand radio airplay record of the year. Their self-titled album debuted at No 1 in the New Zealand charts and was certified gold in its first week.

There was glamour on the red carpet, but not from controversial group Home Brew, which arrived with a goat, which left an unfortunate brown stain on the red carpet. They picked up best urban/hip hop album for their No 1 self-titled release.

Local-actor-done-good Karl Urban took time out of his promotional schedule for the Hollywood hit Dredd 3D to present Auckland company Special Problems the best music video award for The Naked and Famous' The Sun. The production team was nominated for all three video finalists.

American singer Ben Harper presented the best roots award to The Black Seeds.

In a double win for the Nielson family, Ruban's Unknown Mortal Orchestra were best male solo artists, while Kody's Opossom group won the alternative album gong.

The Checks took out the male-dominated rock album award.

- © Fairfax NZ News
Click below for FULL LIST OF WINNERS and Video clips of the winners!