NZ Music Month - Our View

As you may or may not know, we’re doing a ‘Mr Vintage Music Month Series’ in celebration of NZ Music Month. We’ve got a few surprises in there, and I even got to talk to ‘Wing’ today on the phone! She’s a lovely lady with a great grasp of the English language. For those of you that don’t know who I’m talking about, check her out. http://www.wingmusic.co.nz/

All this NZ Music talk got me thinking though, we’ve all got pretty differing music tastes here at Mr Vintage (although Joe and I both delight in celebrating John Mayer’s entire catalogue). So I thought I’d share a little bit about our takes on NZ Music. This may be of no interest to you whatsoever, but you don’t write the blog. I do. So let’s take this one person at a time.

Wing - 'Too much Heaven'. Her best work yet.

Rob – Robs taste in Music is often the subject of ridicule at work. Before you feel sympathy though, he’s a self confessed “not much of a music guy, and more in to digital sounds” guy. His first comment about NZ Music was, “Well, they don’t play much of it at the clubs do they”? Name-drop much? While at Gilmours, he worked with Ty (of Smashproof fame). He attended Papatoetoe High with David Dallas, and he once saw Jordan Luck from ‘The Exponents’ face down drunk in a gutter. But then again, who in Auckland City hasn’t? His favourite album is ‘Once Bitten, Twice Shy’ from the Exponents, and he also has a lot of time for Supergroove, OMC, Recloose, Peter Urlich, and Ladyhawke.

Andy – I’m not really sure I can do Andy justice in less than a page but I’ll give it my best shot. Andy is an enigma. At times I feel like Andy and I are on the same page musically, but mostly I don’t. His first thoughts when I asked him to talk to me about NZ Music. “Shit mate, Real shit”. He did find time however to praise a few NZ artists however. He recalls fondly the time we got to meet the lovely Kirsten from Golden Horse backstage at some lavish Juice TV party, he counts Minuit among the 86 artists currently residing on his iPhone, he’s seen both Scribe and The Feelers live (under duress), and has watched an entire Johnny Love video. Only once though, the remote were broke.

Me (Jay) – I’m probably the most well-balanced music lover here at Mr Vintage. lol. I’m just getting in to using lol, and I like it. Used correctly it’s crack-up bro. Joe and the others will have a laugh that I’m an ‘Indie Kid’, calling me Indie-ray and the like (racist), but that’s rubbish and I think they know that. I like quite a few NZ bands. Here goes; The Mint Chicks, Neil Finn, Motocade, The Veils, Shihad, Goldenhorse, Phoenix Foundation, SJD, Cut off your hands, Midnight Youth, GNN, Kingston, Weta, Evermore, Streetwise Scarlett, and Liam Finn. Often I think I’m too nice to really dislike a band, but then I heard the Feelers and Autozam. The guys give me crap about Evermore, but I love a feel-good tune to lift the spirits (no homo).

Joe – Joe’s brown, and his music tastes tells you this. It’s ok, I’m also a chocolate assassin and I’m allowed to say such things. BP4L (Black Panthers 4 Life!). Nah, just kidding, Joe’s taste is reasonably varied but he does love his gangsta rap. Joe attends a lot of gigs, and his favourite NZ artists are; Brooke Fraser, Gin Wigmore, Janine Foster, David Dallas, Che Fu, Nesian Mystik, Needles & Bees, and Salmonella Bud. Told you he had brown in him. But seriously, Joe has a deep passion for music and I guess you could say he’s one of those “likes anything that’s un-signed” kind of guys. He also loves Kiwi FM. Swears by it. I think an apt description of Joe would be ‘The human Auckland City gig-guide’.

Mel – As the youngest of the Mr Vintage team at 21, I thought Mel would be in to bands like Blindspott and Rubicon. Not so however. Mel greeted the question of “What do you think of NZ Music” very enthusiastically. She doesn’t download Kiwi music at all, frequents gigs rather often, and has a crush on Nathan King from Zed. Must have been after she heard “Glorafilia”. She’s friends with the younger sister of one of the members from Midnight Youth, likes to chill out to Kora, Tiki Tane, Katchafire, Fly my pretties, and Shapeshifter, while also Ladi 6 is her favourite live act in NZ. Her latest CD purchase was the new work from Savage, and she listens to Concord Dawn when she is going to sleep. Trance much?