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Whangarei Jazz & Blues Festival - October 2006 |
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A Rather Long Rave From DerekRecently returned from the Whangarei Jazz & Blues Festival, Derek shares his thoughts on the weekend. As usual the boys forgot to take a camera, so any pics would be gratefully appreciated! SATURDAY Once again - with Kokomo currently unable to travel too far – Grant and I (with sterling support from Sonia) heading up North to play the blues. And, reflecting the fact that this year’s Whagarei Jazz & Blues Festival was booked by Ian Goodsman, himself a great acoustic blues guitarist, we weren’t alone in the blues field. In fact, if they run another festival with this sort of line-up they’ll have to change the name to the Whangarei Blues & Jazz Festival! This festival has the same model as the Bay Of Islands festival, with seven venues and around 35 bands moving between them at hour intervals. We kicked off on the Saturday afternoon in a new bar called The Butter Factory, actually the site of the old original butter factory and a fantastic place, one wall lined with fine wine and a cool and classy old stone store ambience. Caught a little bit of Shimian before we started who I know nothing about but who played some nice laid-back blues and Latino stuff with a couple of acoustic guitars and a woman singing. Also a woman playing drums. Nice guitars, nice sound, interesting material. Despite being early in the day we were chuffed with the size of the crowd and had a good set. Grant played some particularly fine harp on "How Long Blues" and Sonia joined us for the final three tunes (and played "Malted Milk" sensationally!). The set was: WALK ON (B McGhee) Following that our friend (and often drummer) Matt Hennessey, was playing next door in Ibanez with a group called, rather dubiously, E7. They turned out to be quite good – a big Maori guy singing and playing excellent harp, and another guitarist fighting his way through playing slide with what looked like two broken fingers (he’s a builder apparently and broke them the previous week!). Interesting, slightly different blues. Meanwhile in The Butter Factory I caught a bit of June Hayes and Barry Clewett, one of the only legitimate jazz groups I saw all weekend. They are pros and from Auckland and played enjoyable mainstream jazz with June singing. Amongst other things she does an Ella Fitzgerald tribute show and her voice has a similar smoothness to Ella’s. Then it was our friends Brilleaux in Ibanez. They include Beano Gilpin (who drummed on Kokomo À Gogo) and singer Graham Clark (who does our cover designs). They were sensational. I’ll say more a little later. From there we went down to the Red Iguana bar at the Grand Hotel and caught the semi-legendary Al Young, one of the first generation of Kiwi blues players that I was aware of. And – with his gold teeth, watch chain and old tunes by Fred McDowell and others - he was as rough and glorious as ever. He even played the “Kokomo Blues” for us (and very well too!). By the time we started the Red I was pretty packed and we had a storming set. Being 8.00pm on a Saturday night I guess people wanted to party and I had to take the rare step of actually asking them to shut the fuck up during “Home Of The Blues”, but it was certainly the most fun gig of the festival and Grant & Sonia thrilled the crowd with Grant jumping on tables. A guy came up to me afterwards and said he’d missed out on seeing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee live some years back, but that our set had made up for it! What a sweet thing to say! We even had a woman join us on (thankfully) in-time tambourine. She was called Sally, which was quite appropriate given the choice of songs. Damn fine! The set was: STEALIN’ (Trad) Brilleaux were on after us and were simply superb. OK, so it was a Saturday night, and I’m sure the red wine had been flowing with the generosity that you would expect at a festival, but seeing them pumping it out in a hot sweaty bar full of enraptured punters I formed the firm opinion that they are pretty much the best rhythm and blues band in New Zealand today. They are now - as was only one other band I saw in Whangarei - the complete package; they could play on any stage, anywhere in the world, and get the same reaction. As far as I see it, they have several essential factors - which every top band need - going for them. Firstly, in Graham Clark they have a great frontman. I’ve watched Graham perform for a couple of decades now and – without wanting to sound condescending - he has become really good at it. He is both relaxed and energized while on stage, can talk to a crowd at the level required, has slick moves, and projects absolute commitment. Second up, they have a great rock guitar player. Bruce Rolands, with a suit, bald head and grinding guitar, is the Keith Richards of the band: driving rhythms, crunching R&B lead and… that X-factor, the fact that he just looks right, absolutely embodying what a cool rock ‘n’ roll guitar player should be on stage. Then there’s the rhythm section, with Beano and Brian Frank playing together as one unit. It takes years to do this properly and they’ve put in the hard yards. Brian having a weird DIY bass doesn’t hurt either. A bit of quirky character is always good. Next there are the songs: the band are amassing a slew of solid originals (remember Graham wrote most of "Wonder Why I Can't Get No Sleep" from our Songs Of Love And Not album), and from the crowd reaction in Whangarei they’re songs an audience can relate to. It helps that being blues-based they have familiar rhythms, but when you’re slotting your own tunes in amongst classic R&B they better be strong enough to hold up. And lastly (though I’m skipping a few things) Brilleaux have a gimmick. They have Graham’s theremin, that strange electronic instrument beloved of sci-fi movies and Brian Wilson. People are understandably gobsmacked by it and it provides that most essential thing for a band - it is memorable. Often bands forget this. You can be really really good without being memorable. Brilleaux manage to be both. From there we wandered up to Deluge and caught the Mike Garner Band, sounding as good as ever, and more up-tempo and energised than I think I’ve ever heard them. If this keeps up Mike’s going to have to bite the bullet and stand up rather than sitting down! Grant joined them on harp on a couple of tunes. Then it was time for Smokestack, always a treat as they play together so seldom. This year’s line-up has a new guitarist – Chris Cross - an old jug band refugee from way back and, as I learned talking to him the next day, a very interesting guy. Anyway, Smokestack sounded better than ever despite the usual one rehearsal in the past year or so! And that was it for me. Grant stayed out and partied with Al Young and Jack Craw from Smokestack. I followed Sonia back to the motel to bed. SUNDAY Sunday started slowly (though I’m sure I felt a lot better than Grant!). The two of us rendezvoused at The Grand to catch Railway Pie at midday, and they were simply fantastic – loose, and totally unprepared, but just wonderful. Jim Lawrie sat in on snare and Cliff Pawley on his fantastic upright bass and they played old jug band tunes that put me on cloud nine. I love these guys, in case you couldn’t tell! Then we headed back down to The Butter Factory and eased into the day with a bottle of rosé and a fine relaxed set from Al Young. Then we had our quietest gig of the festival, which suited me fine as it still seemed like early morning (it was 1.30pm when we started). Still, it was most enjoyable and I played the best “Throwin’ Up My Hands” that I’ve managed in quite a while. The full set was: STEALIN’ (Trad) Then Grant and I stayed on and played a song with Pink Champagne, a duo (female vocals, male guitar) from down New Plymouth way, and then headed up to Deluge for another slice of Railway Pie. After that was out last set which, again, was immensely enjoyable. I abandoned the idea of playing all the songs we hadn’t yet played and we just chose favourites. They were: DIDDIE WAH DIDDIE (W Blake) Then we settled in for Smokestack and hit the wine along with Jim Crawford from Railway Pie, guitarist Terry Toohill, Al Young and others. Great to catch up and talk old blues. Jim was one of the people who really schooled me in blues about 25 years ago and it’s always a pleasure to hear his opinions – he seems to have an endless knowledge of the most obscure people and bands you can imagine. After Smokestack I finally caught Ian Goodsman’s set. I haven’t heard him for a while and he was simply out of this world. Despite being obviously tired and wired from a weekend of endless work and serious sleep deprivation, he played superbly, those little fingers veritably dancing across the fingerboard. Highpoints included a great slide version of Skip James’ “I’m So Glad” (and pretty much everything else he played). Dynamite stuff! Then things came to a close for me (I was too tired to stay and see if jamming occurred) with a brilliant set from Billy TK Jr. This is the other festival act that was the complete package. Billy looks like a star – toned and muscled – and plays with what seems to be almost unlimited technique. He can apparently play anything, as fast as he wants and, while I once thought his speed was a bit of a drawback (too many notes!) he is now becoming a more melodic player and really understands the dynamics of what he plays as he proved with an awesome 10 minute take on Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing”. I can’t help but think that he’s only going to get better too as his playing matures and becomes even more melodic. There are great players out there (Johnny Winter, Albert Lee etc) who play very fast and manage to remain melodic. I think Billy can be one of them. Couple that with some good original material and a crack band and I’m not going too much out on a limb saying that Billy will be a STAR. And he deserves it. Damn, the man works hard on stage. Great, great stuff! OK. That was it for us. Good job by the organisers – I saw a pile of fine music, and probably missed just as much. We’ll be back next year, hopefully with the full band. In the meantime, send us those pics, and thanks to all the people who came to see us play and supported us up North. |
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