The Return to Live Music Was A Truly Beautiful Experience

Friday is Music.

On Fridays, I write about music. If you’re reading this newsletter, you likely know the deal. Monday is TV and movies, Wednesday is books and/or writing and Friday is the music day. With a playlist – or two. But that’s it. That’s the whole plan. There’s no structure, no forward planning, no reserves. I wake up each day, or stay up at night on a Thursday, and I wonder what I’ll write about – within the reserved topic. You can bend things to suit of course. Sometimes on a Wednesday I’ll write about music still, because it’ll be a musician’s bio that has taken my fancy, possibly I’ll write about music on a Monday because I’m talking about biopics…

But, yeah. No plan beyond that. And I can usually coast through Monday and Wednesday and find something to write about because I’ve always got books on the go or writing that I’m doing and I’m always watching TV shows or movies.

One thing you might not know is that I’m about 75% retired from being a music-writer. Writing about music is something I used to do all the time. Now I do it one day a week. Okay, last night I wrote an album review – but that was pretty rare. The main thing is this newsletter, and I never have a clue what I’ll write about until I sit down to do it.

I might make the playlist earlier in the week, but that’s never guaranteed.

I’m incredibly at peace with being a 75%-retired music-writer. It’s working out pretty well actually. Last week one of the country’s major newspapers commissioned me to do a story for the upcoming New Zealand Music Month. And it was a total pleasure to file that copy. Getting back on the horse isn’t so hard. But riding every day, that’s just something I don’t want to do anymore. Giving up my spots on RNZ has been liberating and doing away with the Facebook page that was pretty much 100% music and very nearly around the clock was the final piece of that puzzle. Freedom!

Now, today’s newsletter was going to be about Dave Grohl. Because I just finished reading his autobiography – and I really liked it! That wasn’t a guarantee going in. I really liked meeting Grohl on the page. And he has stories for days. It reminded me of some of the great music he’s been involved with too (so many cameos). So I was all set to write about that…

And then I went to a gig. Remember those? Rumour has it they’re making a comeback.

Earlier in the week I bought a ticket to see Hermione Johnson with Riki Gooch and Anthony Donaldson. Because I knew that if I didn’t book it then and there I’d make any excuse at the end of a short week and just flag, stay in, watch Netflix. But why should I do that when three incredible musicians were playing a short stroll from my house. Three incredible players, improvisers all of them. I’ve seen them all before – but in some cases not for a long time. COVID has made it so for everyone. And that’s fine. We wait. You must be patient (pardon the pun).

Last night, I was rewarded.

There I was, saying to someone recently – and probably trotting it out as a line in one of these newsletters – that I had seen enough gigs anyway; didn’t need to see any other ones, pretty much.

Not true. Thursday night’s gig was enough to hook me right in. And all over again.

First up, Gooch and Donaldson took the stage together. Riki sitting at a conventional drumkit, Ant behind a table of bells and blocks, trash and treasure. They tinkered together before finding a groove and from there it rolled and flowed – the unspoken, and often blind communication between the two absolutely mesmerising. This was a dance. A conversation. Donaldson was like a scientist testing elements to contribute to his hypothesis. Meanwhile, Gooch rolled thunder up deep inside bottled lightning.

Hermione Johnson was next. A solo set that saw a percussive approach to the piano – elbows on keys, hands hitting down hard, the piano prepared and tuned to a very high tension; the music effortlessly flowing from the fingers, but of course also from the mind and heart and soul of the performer.

It's been a long time since I last saw Johnson play. But I was transported back to when I first saw her on a stage. The best music will do that.

It wasn’t so much music as it was a magic trick. Some strange, beautiful alchemy. Gooch and Johnson and Donaldson taking the elements, abstracting them, rebuilding a groove from displaced parts.

You can dance to music and with music, but this – collectively – was a dance of music.

The two drummers joined Johnson for a trio performance to close. Here they hurled the music back and forth across the stage like kittens with balls of wool. Johnson typing the world’s longest, angriest letter on a musical typewriter. But anger has an energy. And this was lyrical and eloquent, this wasn’t quite anger in the end – just passion. All passion.

What a thing to witness. To be there – part of a small crowd, but not that small (particularly for this type of music). Small, as in intimate. Small, as in lucky. Lucky to be there for this in particular. Lucky to be able to partake.

I have been so jaded from so many lacklustre performances and albums, from unpaid invoices, from begging for scraps, from worrying about how to even try to encapsulate something in a few hundred words just a few minutes after seeing it.

What a treat to just be there, and be in that moment, just feeling the music move across the stage and through every part of each of the performers.

Of course, old habits die hard. So here I am writing about it – in some sense. Shelving Grohl for another time.

At the end of the show, I bumped into John Kingston. He’s a huge music fan, and a musician too. We know each other, but it’s mostly from going to gigs, as friends of friends, in the social media world of music-lovers in a small city. He was talking about how he’d seen Donaldson play so many times, since the early 1980s. He’s older than me, and has lived in Wellington longer, but it made me realise that I’ve been watching Donaldson play since about 1996. And I met Riki in late 1995 – was there at the birth of Trinity Roots (in the audience for their first gig, I believe) and have been lucky to know Riki as a friend, to learn so much from him. And to just constantly be in awe of his playing, his evolution as a person, the way he plays the instrument of music and strikes it using his soul.

John was talking about social media, and music. He was telling me he should do more to promote his own music probably – but couldn’t. I was telling him I’d given up Facebook. He said he’d spotted that and had wondered how I was going with promoting my writing. I said, quite simply, “I’m not”. I’m done with that. It’s there. And people can find it. All this crowing about the thing you are doing is a distraction from actually doing the thing.

And then I realised that I had in fact heard John’s music – on and off – across nearly a quarter of a century too. He was in a band called The Hairy Lollies. They blew my mind back in the day. The sort of music you just used to stumble on into. In Wellington. In a different time. When music felt free and was freeing, when there was no pressure, and no COVID.

John is now creating ambient and minimalist music – some of it actually quite abrasive, but only in a beautiful way – under the moniker, Box of Hammers. You can find his solo soundscapes on Bandcamp, you can click on that link right there.

He had sent me his latest EP earlier in the week. We didn’t know we were going to bump into each other last night, but I was pleased that it happened. I told him I’d be off home to listen to the music. Which I’ve just done, on repeat. It’s exactly the music that I’m interested in most right now. Music that is transporting, music that doesn’t tell you how to feel, doesn’t tell you anything – just shows you, takes you places, gives you room to breathe, allows you to bring parts of yourself back to it.

I bought John Kingston’s Box of Hammers catalogue on Bandcamp. The entire discography is available for just $11. Or you can pay more if you like. It gives you access to eight separate releases – some of them just single tracks, some of them albums, some of them two, three or four-track EPs. Here they all are.

You might like to dive into this world too.

What a great way to end the week. Seeing an incredible show, having a lovely chat about music, experiencing a full catalogue of music from someone just wanting to pretty up the world for a few moments in exploration. Not expecting fame, nor riches. Just wanting to do the thing.

I like that about music. I always have. I’ve forever been deeply suspicious of the fame thing, even as a fan of some of the biggest names in music. It’s not about obscurity, it’s about authenticity. It’s about talent. It’s about dedication.

My return to seeing live gigs feels like it’s already given me so much.

What an honour to be in that room last night.

What gigs are you off to see this weekend – or soon? Have you been to anything transcendent/transportive recently?

Also, as always – here’s your weekend playlist.

Happy long weekend to you all. And thanks, as always, for reading. You will probably never know how much I truly appreciate your interest in this newsletter, your very kind support.

Stay safe.