NZ moves to the Traffic light system at 11:59pm on Thursday 2 December 2021 with Auckland at RED. The rest of New Zealand level is still to be decided.
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Hey Groovers We've recently added fantastic tracks from Scott Bradlee's Post Modern Jukebox including their Swing versions of 'All about that bass', 'Creep' and 'I will survive'. We also have an amazing Barbershop vocal version of 'Happy' (Pharrell Williams) by 'Straight no chaser', Galdys Knight & The Pips doing the 'Sesame Street Theme' and some nice new Jazz grooves. If you haven't listened to Groove for a while the time to tune in is now. Don't forget we're on the (free) Tunein app on mobile devices.
Other new grooves: Sunset Lover - Petit Biscuit Shake ya Boogie - Mocean Worker Feat. Steven Bernstein Toxic - Postmodern Jukebox Swing You Winners - Bart & Baker feat. Tape 5 Adding this week: Tracks from the Amazing 'La la land' movie soundtrack.
Yesterday was ANZAC day, commemorating 102 years since New Zealand and Australia's involvement in WWI.
At a service at the National War Memorial Pukeahu Park in Wellington Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy thanked veterans for their service and commitment to the country:
"A hundred years ago most of our troops were on the western front in northern France and Belgium. As the war progressed, the names of obscure villages, towns and ridge-lines where so many of our men lost their lives, became part of our national memory."
Below is a small selection of responses to the day, from various sources on the web.
DISCLAIMER: WHILE GROOVE HAS QUOTED FROM THE SITES ABOVE WE HAVE DONE SO IN THE INTERESTS OF SHARING INFORMATION. WE DO NOT NECESSARILY AGREE OR DISAGREE WITH ANY OF THE CONTENT ABOVE AND THE IMAGES AND OPINIONS OF THE SITES QUOTED ARE THEIRS AND THEIRS ALONE. WE THANK THE SITES FOR ALLOWING US TO SHARE THEIR VIEWS.
Groove photographer, The CoffeeBar Kid, went down to Slow Boat Records to snap up in-store performances by 'French For Rabbits' and 'Teeth'. (Teeth are a new collaboration between Luke Buda (Phoenix Foundation), David Long (The Mutton Birds), Ant Donaldson (The Labcoats) and Tom Callwood (Phoenix Foundation).
Yes, it's a little outside our brief but our friend, the wonderful Trevor Villers sent us photos of the concert featuring the return of Mike Havoc's bogan band Push Push and the return of the jumpsuit rockers The Darkness.
English hard-rockers The Darkness played the first show of their three-date New Zealand tour last night at The Powerstation in Auckland joined by recently reformed rockers Push Push. Flamboyant frontman Justin Hawkins brought his A-game for the show, squeezing himself into a skintight electric purple jumpsuit and while the rest of the band weren't as sartorially outlandish they were no slouches on the stage, going guns blazing for the energetic live performance.
The addition of the reunited Push Push to the bill was a small stroke of genius. Mikey Havoc and his crew don’t take themselves too seriously either. After all, they are everyone's favorite High School joke. The looked and sounded like they were having a ball. Their lack of stage experience caught up with them when they were forced to wait while a malfunctioning computer was made to behave…leaving both band and audience silent for a few moments. But other than that, a good time was had, and they left the stage trippin’ (LOL).
To me, at least, there are very few decent thriller writers that can maintain that happy balance between creating a fast, readable story with up to the minute relevance and still surprise me with a plot that is refreshing and new. Surely, every scenario has been done to death? Nesbø is not only the master of Scandinavian crime fiction, but he's also a TV pundit. Sometimes reality reflects his books (as at the time of the Breivik massacres, as Nesbø had written so persuasively about the rise of the far right in his country). While enjoying steady, prodigious sales, his last few books have been favourites with the critics, myself included. However, The Thirst (brilliantly translated by Neil Smith) could well correct the imbalance. It’s a big-boned, big-paged, technicolor epic in the current Nesbø style, starting adagio and ending accelerando. It's entirely up to date. There are nods to hipster musicians Sufjan Stevens and Father John Misty and plenty of Tinder dates with young modern 'f**k-and-run' neo-feminists. One of these is the main lead, a young female inspector. She's been given her first major case, only to have it snatched from her later by a politically hungry Police Chief. His 'baddie', on the surface at least, is a bit cliche'. Really, a killer with iron teeth? How many novels have featured some kind of pscho character like that? Images of the protagonist in The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, who hones her teeth, also pop into my head. Because of the political power situation we get the return of detective Harry Hole, Nesbo's wonderfully flawed 'hero', who is reluctantly co-opted to track down a vicious murderer who has killed a woman after an internet date. And when a second victim is found, Harry realises, against all other odds and advice, that there is a connection with the one case that defeated him. Both justice and closure may be within his grasp – as well as a return to his lost childhood.
There is a party in town and all of Wellington is invited! The BeatGirls’ will return to Circa Theatre in April with their latest show The BeatGirls’ 21st – All Grown Up, celebrating 21 years entertaining audiences the world over.
The group has a long and successful history with Circa Theater which began in 1999 and has continued over the years with 'The BeatGirls’ 21st – All Grown Up' marking the trios unprecedented seventh show at the theatre. Their back catalogue of shows include the popular 'It’s My Party' (1999), 'It’s My Party 2' (2000) and 'Beatcamp' (2010).
The BeatGirls’ 21st – All Grown Up is not only set to be another stand-out show from the girl group, but a chance to reflect and look back on 21 years in the entertainment industry – a truly remarkable accomplishment and very rarely seen in NZ.
Initially only performing music by The Beatles, the repertoire now spans 8 decades incorporating many styles from Swing and Bossa Nova, Girl-group to Glam Rock, Soul to 70’s and 80’s to current songs by popular contemporary artists topping the charts.
“We’ve really re-invented ourselves over the years with new rep and costumes and kept the energy fresh and the show exciting” Founder of the BeatGirls’ (and The BeatGirls’ 21st – All Grown Up creator) Andrea Sanders stated when reflecting on the groups success over the years.
Circa One
Preview 31 March
1 – 15 April
Tues – Thurs 6.30pm, Fri – Sat 8pm. Sun 4pm
$25 – $52
Devised and choreographed by Andrea Sanders Featuring Andrea Sanders, Kali Kopae &
Carolyn McLaughlin.
Recently, I found myself caught up in the great Nobel Literacy Prize debate over whether Bob Dylan should have been awarded one or not. The arguments came from many sides but it all came down to this: Are lyrics poetry? That is, what makes lyrics suitable to be read; or recited; or sung or quoted; or used in a wedding speech; or a eulogy; or put on a pedestal and displayed around a Harbour walkway? Or anywhere? Do lyrics need music. Is that that what defines them or differentiates them from poetry? I guess the Nobel panel of judges decided that lyrics could stand alone as a legitimate branch of poetry – and QED a legitimate literacy work. That begs another question, too. Does a great literacy work have to be in a published book? Have any text or SMS works ever been nominated? Or even Kindle only editions. And, of course, one could easily argue that Rap is poetry – set to music or just recited. It doesn't need Hip Hop to sell it, but it helps. Don’t let’s get started on that one.
The debate will rage, no doubt. In the meantime, here in New Zealand, there’s a world-famous poet whose writings often end up set to music, although he doesn't intentionally set out that way. In the case of poet and National Treasure, Bill Manhire, it was poetry. More to the point the poetry of Riddles. Manhire should know a thing or two about poetry as he founded the International Institute of Modern Letters, home to New Zealand’s leading creative writing program. He is now Emeritus Professor of English and Creative Writing at Victoria University of Wellington. Riddling entered Manhire's life when he was very small child. In the introduction to his new collection Tell Me My Name, he reveals the first riddle his mother ever sang to him. He might not have really understood then what the nonsense all meant but it created a strong memory and he sings it still:
“A wee wee man in a red red coat
Staff in my hand and a stone in my throat.”
(Answer: a cherry) From the traditional English Riddle, The Cherry Song.
As a university student he was introduced to Old English and Norse languages and Anglo Saxon riddle poems. "Objects like a cloud, a swan, an iceberg, would be described in slightly oblique, misleading ways.” This has affected the way he writes this new collection. Oblique but ultimately transparent references are important to this sequence of thirteen riddles.
To add another dimension jazz scholar Norman Meehan has composer and plays some very atmospheric piano accompanied by Jazz vocalist Hannah Griffin. What’s interesting about the compositions is that none of them give any clues as to the answers to these riddles but they are revealing once you do know the answers. There’s one about ice that Manhire has peppered with tiny cluesin the lyrics. But musically Meehan gives little away save for the opening few notes of a melancholy violin, slowly groaning like and iceberg.
Manhire’s worked with Meehan and Griffin before, on Buddhist Rain, Small Holes in the Silence (Rattle Records), These Rough Notes (VUP) and the acclaimed Making Baby Float – poems written by Manhire about growing up in 1950’s New Zealand. Griffin’s voice is just as lush and warm on this new CD as it was on that earlier project. It’s almost a maternal angelic presence. Calming and soothing. She could sing the phone book or the US presidential results and still make the world seem alright. What’s abundant here is the space between lyrics and music. Like Manhire’s reading voice, it is slow, relaxed and measured. It is also slightly monotonic, with Griffin holding fast her course. Again giving away little but surprisingly it’s still seductive and enticing. You want to solve these. Or at least try.
The little hardback book that comes with the CD includes the full texts and eight photographs by celebrated artist Peter Peryer – none of which truly give the game away, either. They’re actually red herrings – images that provocatively lure you one way, and then another but ultimately have little obvious conections to the subject of the riddle. This is yet another layer of playfulness.
I approached this as a CD review but it’s as much a book review – or a poetry review – as well. Upon my first reading, I looked at the ‘riddleness’ of each poem – what lies within the rhyme. I was looking for the word-smithing and the echoes, the enigma, and because of the rhymes the sweetly crafted melody. As poems, along there is an openness, as if you are walking through a wide-open paddock – endless green stretching to the horizon to meet the blue skies. No wind. Calm. Slow. Sensually sun kissed skin. A vast plain that could generate both movement and stillness. This is a bit of a trade mark for Manhire. He likes to leave the doors open and for the poem to breath. You can hear his soft, gentle voice in these lines. With him, it’s always what he doesn’t say that is important.
Take this poem. Simply numbered ‘1’. I won’t spoil it by telling you the subject of the riddle but if you put yourself in the mind of the speaker you will travel with him to the destination:
The road goes by the house
the wind sings in the tree
we sing the travelling worlds
we sing quietly
(we sing quietly)
Army veteran Hunter Grant thought he had left war behind in Afghanistan – a conflict that left him with physical and psychological scars. But finding an unconscious girl in the Northland bush and gradually untangling her story involves him in a war of a different kind in his own country.
Hunter sets out to find and punish the man Dao calls Master, but he soon discovers there is more to this than enslavement. Before long he himself is being hunted by the boss of a drug empire whose sole objective is to kill Dao – she knows too much.
Protecting Dao and waging war while trying to keep the police from stifling his enterprise takes all Hunter’s ingenuity and determination and exposes him to deadly jeopardy. He enlists his old army buddy Charlie and her helicopter to help him, but things become complicated when Dao disappears.
Tina Clough grew up in Sweden and lives in Napier, New Zealand. Her crime novels are character-based with the emphasis on how ordinary people react when faced with danger – an exploration of what we might all be capable of when faced with threat and brutality.
Tina divides her time between translating and editing science research papers and writing crime novels.
Groove is New Zealand's only Cafe Style Jazz Radio Station. Also the only locally owned & operated, independent commercial radio station in Wellington. We specialise in Lounge, Swing, Classic Jazz, Blues, Acid Jazz, Funk, Soul and anything with a Groove. We also champion local artists, DJs, funk collectives - anyone who makes groovy music. We love to help the local community including on-air messages and broadcasting live at events. We want all Groovers, young and old to live and breathe the vibe in Wellington's funky, vibrant city. Groove is your soundtrack. Tune in here or on the Tunein mobile app (Search for Groove 107.7FM or Stations in Wellington NZ). We're not currently broadcasting on FM but hope to be back as soon as we get some sponsorship for a new transmission site. Are you in business? We are also the most cost effective way to reach the people with style & money in New Zealand via radio. To find out more about our advertising deals, click on the link above.
