The Wellington International Ukelele Orchestra - Be Mine Tonite National Tour

The Kid interviews Age Pryor about the upcoming shows and the debut album 9 years into their 'career'.

The Wellington International Ukelele Orchestra Launch Be Mine Tonite

Festival fav's The Wellington International Ukelele Orchestra are about to embark on a national tour in support of their debut, all Kiwi sing-along-able CD "Be Mine Tonight" which is due for release on iTunes and in stores on November 7th. The band has already been on the road and are just back for a quick home visit before heading back out again.　 Taking a breather their recent excursion to China and Japan founding musician Age Pryor found a few moments to chat over the blower from his digs in Auckland.　 Auckland, Age. Really?　 Not Wellington? "Ah, yes.　 I relocated up here about 6 years ago to teach music at Unitec part time."　 But he's still a Welly at heart, he assures me.　

A few years ago Age led a number of projects including the Woolshed sessions, recorded on Jane Campion's Nelson farm and two solo albums.　 These days his main focus is the 'Uke's' (as he calls them), with whom he plays and co manages with fellow musician Gemma Gracewood. "It's incredible," he remarks, "that the band is still together.　 As such it's scattered to the four winds these days.　 Some are back in Wellington.　 I'm in Auckland.　 Gemma's based in New York and there's another in Singapore."　 Truly international locals!　 　

The band’s reputation has built up over the years based on a live show of madcap hilarity and spontaneous audience participation. But behind the hijinks is a finely-tuned musical group who've　 have truly cemented their place on New Zealand’s entertainment scene. Their unique sound – a choir of gorgeous voices set to magnificent ukulele riffs and licks – is now in hot demand worldwide and they've long been the darlings of festivals and special events with tickets for their shows snapped up almost before they go on sale. The band's original line up has changed little over the years and includes session musicians, a member of twinset and occasionally Brett Mckenzie.

The last time I talked to Age must have been over 9 years ago, when the Uke's first was playing bars and Summer City gigs.　 Right from the start the aim of the band was to be interactive.　 Age relays tales of playing in morning cafe's and sending people off to their day happy and cheery having sung and boogied away to the Uke's interpretations of well-known songs, reinterpreted for the ukulele.　 "The sign of a good song is that it can be played on a uke.　 Like a school choir doing Beatle songs because their so easy to arrange.　 Ukes have become the ‘new recorder’ - simple, interactive and easy to get into.　 I read that we are in the Uke's third age.　 The first was the 1920's, then the 40's and 50's when Pacific music was the rage.　 And now there are a new generation of performers."　 Uke music is everywhere - from the immensely popular Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain to the avant-punk of Amanda Palmer and the skilled quirkiness of James Hill, a favourite at the last International Festival of the Arts.　 Hill also features on the new album.　 James does a brilliant little solo on Aadarana's "wake Up".　 "He recorded it in a hotel bathroom for us, when he was on tour, jammed into a tiny space."　 Other guests on this all Kiwi repertoire include Amanda Billing (the recently deceased Dr Potts from Shorty Street). "Amanda's got a great voice, she does choir work too.　 She's been in shows like Cabernet.　 She'll be touring with us.　 We got her to do vocals on "E Ipo" (an old Prince Tui Teka number)."　 Although in hot demand by the likes of Fat Freddy's Drop and Neil Finn, of late, star vocalist Lisa Tomlins also found a moment to work o the project, with an old Aotearoa track: "Long Ago".　 That one also includes Hawaiian uke specialist Pi’ikea Clark.　 Age tells me that Pi’ikea is schooled in traditional Hawaiian music, "from the ones who were the keeper of the knowledge.　 He is a really fine player and we really learned a lot from him traditional playing."

Recently the Uke's have toured Asia, opening them up to a whole new audience base.　 "We found China very challenging, especially the language.　 I don't speak Mandarin.　 They don't speak English and even relying on gestures was hard because they do theirs different to us.　 But we learned a lot.　 Chinese audiences are very polite," Ages says.　 Relying on a translator to convey their frivolous banter provided some extra complexities, too.　 There were moments of blank-faced embarrassment. "Japan was different as we mainly did festivals and community events.　 And English is not a problem.　 Also the Japanese are less inhibited once they understand what you are doing.　 They know about New Zealand.　 So that helped."　 So, how will Kiwi audiences react in the coming month when the Uke's arrive in their local halls and theatres?　 One thing you can rely on - plenty of fun and hilarity.　 "Be prepared to sing your lungs out - From Lorde to Sherbert, you'll know all the songs!"　 　

The Be Mine Tonight Album Release Tour:

8 Nov – Glenroy Auditorium, Dunedin
9 Nov – Stadium Southland, Invercargill
10 Nov – Alexandra Memorial Theatre
11 Nov – Lake Wanaka Centre
13 Nov – Ashburton Trust Event Centre
14 Nov – Roy Stokes Hall, Christchurch – JUST ADDED!
15 Nov – Roy Stokes Hall, Christchurch
21 Nov – Regent on Broadway, Palmerston North
22 Nov – TSB Showplace, New Plymouth
23 Nov – Great Lake Centre, Taupo
25 Nov – MTG Theatre, Napier
27 Nov – Baycourt Theatre, Tauranga
28 Nov – Wintergarden, Auckland 7pm SHOW SOLD OUT! 10pm show still available.
29 Nov – NZ Ukulele Festival
30 Nov – Turner Centre, Kerikeri
5 & 6 Dec – James Cabaret, Wellington

All ticket info can be found at www.ukulele.co.nz/tour.html.

　

Graeme Simpson

 

The Rosie Project author Graeme Simpson, on the rise of his book, why he wrote the sequel The Rosie Effect having promised himself that he wouldn't, progress on a film deal and why so many people have fallen in love with his unlikely hero, Don Tillman.

The CoffeeBar Kid had a chat to Graeme when he was in town last week

I'm blogging backwards for Xmas. It's the first Xmas Book list!

Yes, indeed, people.  This is the first f several book lists you NEED to consult before heading out with you Xmas list!  This year I've listed them into categories, as you'll see below.  Not the usual 'for Dad', or 'for Nana' type nonsense.  this one is a little more suitable for Groove's discerning readership..

For Social Historians.

Mademoiselle: Coco Chanel and the Pulse of History

by Rhonda K. Garlick



"Certain lives are at once so exceptional", goes the blurb, "and yet so in step with their historical moments, that they illuminate cultural forces far beyond the scope of a single person."  Coco was a traitor, a spy, a collaborator, a bitch, a cold callous evil and calculating pariah on the rich and powerful.  She came from nothing and she made an empire out of every failure.  Or was she?  She not only re-invented fashion - she made elegance and Women's place in that social dialogue important. She did what she did. Unapologetic and utterly beguiling.  Garelick takes us down a trail re-written a few times in the past but this time places her in the middle of the transient and turbulent history that evolves around the first 3 quarters of the last century - from poverty to an economic dynamo and a fashion icon.  The photos and the insights are new, and given that it's hard to revisit that well trodden path and leave new footprints - that's remarkable!



Vivienne Westwood

by Vivienne Westwood & Ian Kelly

 

 

Kelly opens this book with his own introduction, hastily written under a work table at a Westwood show.  Between the model's legs and a forest of outrageous garments - both in price and taste - he observes Westwood's nigh on obsessive control of her works as she primps her charges for the runway.  He reflects on her methodical work ethic as she plans a show - that time when she removes herself from charities and business to create that special moment hat only the elite press and richest of the rich will ever see.  And he contemplates how a woman who practically invented Punk - the mouthpiece of the social classes in the 1980's (and later the most radical and political fashion movement of the 20th and 21st Century to date) could create clothes for the very people that she loathed and sneered at through her youth.  In reality, Westwood later chimes in, she didn't.  The mere fact that she was creating and eternal cycle of subversive, underground inspired, rebellious styles that always challenged the normalities of the establishment and end up being the coveted possessions of the elitist members simply shows her unique and inspiring personality and her larger than Johnny Rotten personality.  She is twisting the norm.  Westwood is way more than just the Teddy Boy revival, and the bondage suits, SEX - the shop or safety pins and ripped clothes (she didn't actually come up with those it turns out).  For the first AND only time this is her own words about her, about what she really is, was and wants to be.  It is history unfolding and breeding!  God will Save the Queen.  Fuck that. Save Vivienne Westwood instead!

 

 

For Eco-Braniacs.

Time and Time again by Ben Elton

 

 

If you had one chance to change history - where would you go? What would you do?  Who would you kill?  I haven't quite finished this one yet but I can tell this isn't your histo cowboy novel.  This is not the time traveller's wife.  thank god!  following his return an x-soldier returns from WWI battles to discover he's the loneliest man on earth.  He knows know one and that is a scary thing.  But what if you could re-invent everything that brought you to that point?  Our protagonist Hugh Stanton must somehow go back in time, to stop that famous assassination in Sarajevo, to somehow make it all be different.  Somehow make the mass suicide and the madness stop?  But what consequences will come of this.  Marty McFly faced the same predicament.  this time there's no Delorian or hoverboard.  I really want to finish this.  So bugger off for now.  After 7 November you can find out for yourself! 

Elton is, as always a superb and thoughtful, protagonist writer.  I'm loving this and always have enjoyed his stuff. I recommend it!

 



 

For that plane trip or beach sitting

Confessions - The Paris Mysteries - by James Paterson

 

Believe it or not not everyone wants Ellie Catton, brilliant as she is!  Sometimes a good romp is fine as!  So...Her parents are dead...and her sister and she's next.  And it's happening in Paris! The city of her dreams and fantasies!  After trying to figure out the mysteries that have torn her family apart, Tandy Angel (yes, I know!) longs for a fresh start.  Nahhh! not likely! She goes to Paris (like we all can do that!).  But the ghosts and the spectres follow her.  the past catches up and reveal terrifying , lethal secrets.  Obviously this is a miniseries waiting to be produced. It's a cheap thrill.  But why not.  Perfect for the beach! Love it!

 



For the kid Book Geek

Skuldugery Pleasant - The Dying of the Light by Derek Landy

 

 

This the ninth and final book in the series. Landy has confirmed that the ninth book will be about the Darquesse vision that was forseen in Dark Days and set in motion during Last Stand Of Dead Men.  He completed the book in May this year.   Aparently a A Black Edition was produced with a  limited to 1000 copies hidden in Waterstones Stores (UK bookseller).  RK Rowling never thought of that!   I read this one and wondered why I'd never heard of those before it!  Why has this been a secret!  I'm not a 13 year old book freak.  Ask them to explain it.  I couldn't possibly explain!  

 

 



For the Factulicious!

The 60th Anniversary Guinness Book of Records 2015

 

No beer commercials any more but the whizzy graphics are neat.  The whole feel would suit a 15 year old boy, the layout the feel but in this day and age are these irrelevant facts any good?  Absolutely.  By the way my version of the accompanying app didn't work.  there was no 3D for me.  but I had the review version and it could have still been in prototype.  Now Who when the first solo Antarctic traverse by a woman made?  November 2011 by UK adventurer Felicity Aston on skis no less!   In this there are a huge number of Commonwealth records, perhaps emphasising the power of the Empire, in spite of many other nations.  Maybe the Guinness influence remains? 



 





The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel

If the author’s name is familiar then that’s because she’s a two time Man Booker prize winner.  Her first was for the 2009 novel Wolf Hall, a fictional account of Thomas Cromwell's rise to power in the court of Henry VIII.  Her second Booker came in 2012 novel Bring Up the Bodies, the second installment of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy.   Mantel’s the first woman to receive the award twice.  The third installment to her Cromwell trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, is set to be published in 2015. 

This collection of short stories is not, however, historic in the usual sense.  It does, at times meddle with recent historical characters but in different ways to her swash buckling and mind behind the title story was originally commissioned a couple of years ago by the Telegraph.  The topic was, obviously, polarizing.  Anyone growing up or around in the 80’s remember, in vivid 80’s yellowed colour the TV footage of miner’s strikes, hunger strikes and factory closures, the handbag and the venomous serpent teeth and the patronizing accent.  She was the most hated woman in England.  She event inspired an entire music/cultural movement: Punk.  If it were me, well!  And that’s the story.  This collection begins with the intrusion of a male – in Sorry to Disturb – when a business man in a claustrophobic Middle Eastern country bursts into the apartment of an Ex Pat Brit.  That time a ‘friendship’ develops.  The final story is another interruption, when an assassin fakes his way into a woman’s flat pretending to be a plumber.  A strange Stockholm syndrome relationship develops over cups of tea and sympathy for the cause.  The IRA shooter is only interested in his quarry.  But then so is the flat owner.  She’s not really a victim and she’s not really aiding or abetting either.  So what is she?  I love this simple dilemma.  It just seems to arrive, announced wanting attention, uncontrived.  And sometimes leaves, unresolved.  Like life.

Not all of these are like this.  Comma, for example is a fleeting is about childhood cruelty metamorphosing into the narrator’s own child.  “Harley Street” has slight lesbian overtones in a professional setting.  Winter Break is like the Madeline McCann case in reverse, implicating a childless couple in the murder of a child in the picturesque Greek Islands.  Then there’s the most disturbing.  The Heart Fails Without Warning constructs a final scenario of a spectral girl holding a ghostly white dog, out of an anorexic teenager growing doglike hair on her face.  This is juxtaposed against her father's interest in porn featuring naked girls on dog leads. It’s all perplexing.  Mantel likes to twist our perceptions and play with our expectations, tease our assumptions and throw them back in our faces.  From Saudi to Greece she travels on paper to play out her scenarios.  None of these are big enough to build a real novel around, too fragmented but perfect for short, punchy vignettes. 

This is not the placeholder until Mantel gets her latest installment finished next year – or whenever.  Some of these have been lurking around since 2009, published and unpublished.  But short stories are like itches that need to be scratched.  They are small distractions, that when effectively administered to are most satisfactorily dealt to.  That said, this collection is a near on perfect scratching session.  Irritations aside, it’s a fine collection – short and perfect for train journeys, lunch breaks or those moments you try to snatch to relieve those intellectual irritations.  But look out for installment #3 of the bigger novel if you need longer appeasements.                  

Al Brown - Depot Eatery - Biography of a resteraunt (with recipes) - Random House

Depot Eatery is has been one of Auckland's favourite restaurants, and has been since the day it opened.  It's a bit of a landmark, even featuring in Paul Thomas' new Tito Ihaka novel Fallout, and now here is its stunning cookbook. The posh café is not overly precious or pretentious - and the book reflects perfectly Al Brown's attitude towards food: go for in season, cook it well and enjoy with friends. This book is subtitled 'The biography of a restaurant' features quite a bit about Brown writing on his philosophy at the Depot - why Depot has achieved iconic status among New Zealanders.  He wanted to recreate the feeling of being at a Kiwi bach. 

There's also a retro feel with mismatched old crockery and chairs and there's always a feeling of generosity, of sharing the fish you caught that day, of enjoying meal times with the whanau and neighbours.  Even the sugar bowl are 'Tohearoa Sugar' - appropriated from the original soup cans. 

And so this is the feel and the design aesthetic that Al wanted to recreate with Depot never forget that Al is a highly trained chef. So while the food looks simple, everything is top quality and the flavours are out of this world. His dishes favour the unusual - using cheap cuts of meat and fish but cooking them with skill and talent.

There are 'cheffy moments' like squid ink pasta, tempura oysters with wasabi and smoked Kahawai potatoe cakes.  Who knew that you use milk in pasta making ?  And there are also simple recipes that really shouldn't be in a cook book because, honestly they are no brainers.  How you perfect them on the other hand should.

With Christmas coming, I'm not blushing when I tell you that this is a handsome with a stunning book.  I'd be well happy to have it in my kitchen! 

Hanging in the air - the way bricks dont!

The Frood - The authorised and very official history od Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The introduction of this wonderful tome is written by Doug himself and could of been an excerpt from his own irreverent last will and testament.  It's a rambling, pun-filled rant - much like Adam's books.  The HHGG was always one of my favourite bits of the Eighties - partly because it tore down the seriousness of the Miner's Strikes, the bland paleness of the Muldoon era, and the silly-ness of the New Romantics.  He was like Monty Python for our generation - with all the in-jokes and geeky quirkiness that our parents puzzled over and many of our peer (those outside this literary cliché) shunned in ignorance.  Adams was our anti hero. 

As a wise ape once said - space is big, really big.  And so was Adams - his brain was like Dr Who's Tardis - but possibly without the affinity to crash on a regular basis.  Who else could have invented the answer to life, the universe and everything!

Like many biographers Jem Roberts chose to announce his new work in the most overbloated rant on on his blog.  He wrote "

Douglas Adams would have honed this long and flabby blog entry down to about fifty words. This is why he can with relative safety be called a genius, and I can be called something else. Nonetheless…
This is to announce the forthcoming publication of my third book, THE FROOD: A COMEDIC HISTORY OF DOUGLAS ADAMS’ HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. Or at least, this is a displacement activity when I should be writing my third book, THE FROOD: ACHODAHHGTTG. It has the full official blessing of Adams’ family, agent and estate, and will be published by Preface in the autumn of 2014, to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the release of Adams’ first novel in the trilogy of five (or six now, lest we forget, which is one of the issues this book will mull over)."

He goes on to rant that his previous book on Blackadder was written entirely in secret, not announced until it was ready for publication.  and. consequently was only purchased by a man in Sussex with three cats, called Simon.  His blog rabbits on for about an hour trying to find some kind of cohesive way of getting to the point - and that is Douglas Adams was really cool, really clever and just plain interesting.  This book will tell you more, but be warned, like Roberts and Adams, it's an irreverent read that does not take the fast track, facts are accurate way to explaining anything about Adams.  So approach with caution.  If you really want to know about Douglas Adams - consult Wikipedia - at least you know it's an official lie!

Extracts from an abandoned draft of a Hitchhiker's Guide are included after they were discovered amongst the papers in his Cambridge archive.  Unfortunately, Adams died in 2001, aged 49, leaving behind him seven much-loved novels and three co-authored works of non fiction including my favourite The Meaning of Lif. The Salmon of Doubt, published posthumously in 2002, was a collection of fragments and part of an unfinished novel culled from his hard drive, but Jem Roberts, who was given full and exclusive access by Adams' family to his papers, found a treasure trove of unsuspected work within the boxes and boxes of material housed in St John's College.

A selection is included in The Frood, from cut extracts from the first Hitchhiker's Guide novel, The Dentrassi and Arthur's Reverie (yes are we all glad that particular title didn't stick!), to extracts from the "lost" draft of Life The Universe and Everything, including one on "Inter-Species Sex".
"The Salmon of Doubt was taken from the hard drive of all Douglas's many different Apple Macs," Roberts is quoted in various interweb sources "Nobody had ever thought about a paper trail though. Douglas Adams was the king of new technology, and people probably thought he'd had a huge bonfire of all his papers. But there are boxes and boxes of notebooks, lots of typescript stuff, paper printed from the computer … it was just an enormous job."

There is "an enormous amount of material out there that has never been seen before", Roberts writes in The Frood. As well as Life, the Universe and Everything, the biography will feature an alternative original pitch for Hitchhiker, a lost rough script for the second television series, and further scraps of unused material, with names like Baggy the Runch and The Assumption of Saint Zalabad.
The Life, the Universe and Everything draft, Roberts said, has "whole chapters where the characters are doing different things – different ideas he never got round to using, [such as] chapters written from Arthur Dent's point of view".

Of course, none of this stuff is finished", he's added. "It's very important to contextualise this material properly … and I understand people thinking that this is raw material and he didn't want it to be seen. I spend part of the book asking what Douglas would have wanted …but I think it's wonderful that we finally get to read some of this stuff."

The book is authorised by the Adams estate and Douglas Adams' family.  ""It would be ridiculous to pretend that Douglas Adams' life and work has gone unexamined since his dismayingly early death at 49, but throughout the decade since the last book to tackle the subject, the universes Adams created have continued to develop, to beguile and expand minds, and will undoubtedly do so for generations to come," said the publisher

As Adams put it: "any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

And if you were wondering just who this Jem person is...then here's a wee note or two on him.  He was born in Ludlow, studied in English, Film & Television at Aberystwyth University.  A lifetime in magazines led to the honour of writing his first book, the acclaimed Clue Bible: The Fully Authorised History of the Sorry I Haven't a Clue.  It was followed up by a book on Blackadder.  This is his third book.

An interview with Paula Green

Today the Kid interviewed Paula Green about her new book A Treasury of NZ Poems for Children.

The best New Zealand poems for children, collected by star New Zealand poet Paula Green and illustrated inventively by Jenny Cooper. This exciting collection is truly a must-have for every home, school and library. Bursting with wonderful poems that will make you laugh, cry, nod and ponder, this book is beautifully illustrated and makes a perfect gift book. With a handsome modern design, it will make poetry fresh and alive to a new generation. There are poems by all the big names in both children's and adult writing, from Margaret Mahy and Hone Tuwhare to Denis Glover as well as some fresh new poets.  

Useful Links

• Follow Paula Green on Twitter
• Poetry Box – an NZ poetry blog for children by Paula Green.
• Poetry Shelf - a poetry page with reviews, interviews and other things

Today Paula is setting off on a poetry tour to celebrate poetry for and by children, my two new books (The Letterbox Cat with Scholastic and A Treasury of NZ Poems for Children with Random House) and my blog NZ Poetry Box. She will I will be keeping a travel diary on my blog over the month. http://nzpoetrybox.wordpress.com/ Where: Gisborne, New Plymouth, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Dunedin, Queenstown, Arrowtown, Tauranga, Papamoa and Auckland Who: Elizabeth Smither, Apirana Taylor, Anna Jackson, Maria McMillan, Richard Langston, Adrienne Jansen, Belinda Wong, Fifi Colston, Melanie Drewery, Rachel Bush, Fiona Farrell, Gavin Bishop, Bill Nagelkirke, Greg O’Connell, James Norcliffe, Helen Jacobs, Doc Drumheller, David Eggleton, Sue Wootton, Jenny Powell, Elizabeth Pulford, Kyle Mewburn, Brian Turner, Wendy Clarke, Pauline Cartwright, Peter Bland, Elena de Roo, Tessa Duder, Stephanie Mayne, Claire Gummer, John Parker, Siobhan Harvey, Tamsin Flynn Te Papa Wellington, Puke Ariki New Plymouth Wainui Beach School, Ormond School, Matawai School, Egmont Village School, Woodleigh School, Frankley School, Ngaio School, Adventure School, Te Aro School, Brooklyn School, Karori West School, St Brigid’s School, Lyall Bay School, Pakakariki School, Kapanui School, Newbury School, Khandallah School, Pauatahanui School, St Joseph’s School Nelson, Russley School, Fendalton School, Cobham Intermediate, Kirkwood Intermediate, Ilam School, Lyttelton School, Paparoa School, Medbury School, Freeville School, Redcliffs School, Selwyn House School, East-Taieri School, Columbia College, Remarkables School, Arrowtown School, Queenstown School, Golden Sands School, Maungatapere School, Kamai School, Gladstone School, Richmond Road School, Ellerslie School, Freemans Bay School, St Kentigern’s School, Cornall Park District School, Upper Harbour Primary School, Royal Oak Primary School, Westmere School Taranaki Libraries, Eltham Library, Wellington Libraries, Porirua Library, Nelson Libraries, South Library, Dunedin Libraries, Queenstown Library, Tauranga City Library, Auckland Libraries, National Library Muir’s Bookshop Gisborne, Poppies New Plymouth, New Plymouth Paper Plus, Children’s Bookshop Wellington, Page & Blackmoore Nelson, Canterbury University Bookshop, University Bookshop Dunedin, Paper Plus Queenstown Airport, Children’s Bookshop Auckland Events open to the public involving local authors and children: