​​I N T E R V I E W
‘Hope for the Best’: A Q&A with Yann Le Dorre of YOLK
With Ian Duggan

Another whose music we have been loving up here is Wellington’s ‘YOLK’, having featured a couple of his tracks on our Hamilton Underground Press/The Hum 106.7FM's Tekau Nga Waiata Pai Top 10; ‘Angels are Real and I Know Them’ in February and ‘Losing Day’ on our May countdown. On the back of a brand new release, 'SADEGO', we talked to the person behind the project, Yann Le Dorre, about the change from high-fi to low-fi between albums, his high musical productivity, and more!

HUP: I particularly like your ‘Bad Water’ album, released in November 2018, and especially tracks like ‘Angels are Real and I Know Them’ and ‘Your Independence Will Kill You in the End’, which remind me a lot of Australian band Gerling. Who are your influences?

Yann: Thank you! ‘Angels’ was written during a period when my son and I were temporarily homeless. A couple of friends really dug in deep for me so that song is pretty much a complete ode to them (shout out to Casey and Grace). Musically I had been thrashing ‘White Light/White Heat’ by The Velvet Underground, so the almost abrasive ‘pop’ style of the song could be attributed to that and the weird vocal treatment was reminiscent of ‘Sandy (Alex G)’. ‘Your Independence Will Kill You in The End’ began its life as this soft little country number but once again after White Light, I really wanted something completely overdriven with high energy. I thought it was a nice contrast to end the album on; you gotta dig through the shit to get to the gold. As far as general influences go, I am huge Neil Young fan, alongside Dylan, Springsteen, etc. ‘90s alt-rock is cool too; Silver Jews and Smashing Pumpkins (weird contrast) though local acts such as Womb, Seth Frightening, and T.I.M.E. have been huge inspirations to me also.
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​HUP: Your recent album, ‘Sadderdays’ (and new one SADEGO) is so different to ‘Bad Water’. ‘Sadderdays’, in particular, is super lo-fi, to the point of having the clicks on it at the start of songs, which seem to be where you have pressed record on a tape deck. Why the massive change in sound between releases?

Yann: ‘Bad Water’ was a very experimental album for me, not only in terms of instrumentation but also production. It was the first album I had gotten somebody else in to master. I wanted to get as close to high fidelity as my means (small bedroom studio, limited knowledge - hah) would allow. It was a very bright record but in hindsight, I didn’t feel it was a true representation of my ‘sound’, or what I want to sound like. ‘Sadderdays’ was essentially a rebellion against ‘Bad Water’. I wanted to throw the subtle nuances of hi-fi mixing out the door (as they were beginning to drive me insane) and just make something as raw as possible (within reason). My dear friend (New Zealand’s best kept musical secret) always recorded straight to tape through a Panasonic dictaphone he brought for a couple bucks at the op shop. While hitchhiking down south I was just playing his tapes all day, something about the raw quality of the audio just made it sound like god to me. So when the chance came for me to buy one it was a no brainer. The entire EP was recorded and ‘mastered’ in about five hours, all of the songs were intended to be throwaways so I felt like I didn’t really care too much about the production and the tape just made it sound super lo-fi regardless. I left the clicks in there because I’m lazy. If you listen closely on pretty much all my albums you can hear mouse clicks and spacebars, but it also just adds a nice Cobain home demo element to it.
 
HUP: Do you play all the instruments on the recordings?

Yann: Unfortunately, yes… I have a live band though consisting of some pretty competent musicians, Baxter Perry (STINK) on guitar and Josh Brown (Heavy Chest) on drums. I would love to record a live album but the allure of my bedroom can prove too strong sometimes, haha. However, Baxter and I have been trying and will eventually succeed in recording and releasing the songs we play together.

HUP: You have released five albums over the last two years. How have you stayed so productive?

Yann: Hmmm, it's kinda crazy when you put it like that! I’m kind of an O.C.D. songwriter. I'll write at least one a week and I get these ‘periods’ in my head where I feel the songs of a specific time are all meant to be together on an album. I record with these grand concepts as quickly as I can so I don’t lose any of the magic or excitement, in hopes of capturing sonic timepieces of my life. I firmly believe “we only leave behind what we create”, so it’s some weird cathartic madness I live by. I am planning to release two more full-length albums by the end of the year.
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HUP: What is your background? Have you been in bands previously?

Yann: Well… it’s a long convoluted story, haha! I was born and raised in Nelson, went to a Pearl Jam concert when I was 15 and saw the video for [Nirvana’s] ‘Heart Shaped Box’ on C4 that same weekend, and I guess it was all over from that moment on. My uncle Bob Heinz (Christchurch Jazz master) brought me my first guitar around then and I haven’t looked back. I played in a two-piece acoustic grunge band (Selfless Selfish) for a couple of years just after high school; we were really. really raw. The birth of my son in 2014 forced me to change pace as the guttural screaming wasn’t really a pleasant thing for him to sleep through, and thus I began my journey down the deep hole of folk music. I was in enamoured by artists like Nick Drake and J. Tillman. Their super-soft delivery with this emotional intensity seemed to fit nicely into my pastoral life I had begun living at the time. I moved to Wellington shortly after and formed this crazy psychedelic punk band called LEFT; we played only one show and broke up but rocked nonetheless (ha ha). All the while I was recording and releasing albums under another moniker (Lightpaw), which was super introspective alt-folk - and though it was beautiful music, it felt pointlessly vague or too poetic for its own good. YOLK was a decision to cut the crap, shoot the shit, and bring all of my influences together. I wanted to try and write the real and just go nuts with the music. I don’t want to be held down by any genre constraints or whatever, so this moniker embodies that.

HUP: How do you see the music scene in Wellington at the moment?

Yann: The scene is always changing. It felt like a couple of years ago things were a lot more gothic sounding, whereas these days I hear a shit load of good times indie. Bands exist for a minute then disappear; the life span of a university student seems to be three years or so, which often translates into these groups of bands all playing together while everybody is at school and once that's over they dissipate into the void of real jobs or travel, etc. In saying that, it’s always a healthy and positive experience. Everybody likes everything and the bonds of fellowship seem to be pretty strong around here.

HUP: What are your aspirations for ‘YOLK’?

Yann: To keep rocking in the free world, release another hundred albums, play some shows, a tour would be cool? I’m happy to be heard, but I’d be here no matter what the weather. I don’t see music as some lucrative business and I am aware of the small niche in which YOLK appeals to, so to just keep trucking and stay alive is a fair aspiration. Hope for the best, expect the worst.

​Visit YOLK's Bandcamp HERE, and his Facebook HERE.

I N T E R V I E W
The End is Nigh: An Interview with Milpool
With Ian Duggan
​
We have featured a couple of tracks by Dunedin band ‘Milpool’ on the HUP/The Hum 106.7FM's Top 10 over the last few months; Mydriasis was #7 in March and Ambulance Driver made #7 in our May countdown. We talked to guitarist Tom Monaghan about their evolving sound, the band’s future, and the ‘The Simpsons’ connection in their moniker. 

HUP: Tom, I was reading that you were leaving the country in May. But looking at your Facebook, you have still been playing the last few days! Are we soon to see the end of Milpool? Or are the reports of your death greatly exaggerated?

Tom: I am leaving the country in a couple of weeks, slightly later than expected. But yeah, we just finished playing our last couple of Dunedin gigs this weekend and will be playing our last two gigs in Auckland and Wellington on the 7th and 8th of June.
 
HUP: The band was aiming to do a lot of recording before you left, and you have just released another EP in late May called ‘BLOOD/​TAR’. Are there some more releases to come soon?

Tom: We're about halfway through recording our fourth and final EP, which should be released within a few weeks. After that we're planning to release a compilation album of the best tracks from the four EPs plus some new/rerecorded songs.
 
HUP: Do you feel your sound on ‘BLOOD​/​TAR’ has changed since ‘Down’, released in January, or ‘START’, released on October last year?

Tom: We recorded ‘START’ before [vocalist] Adelaide [Dunn] joined, and as such the songs were a lot punkier and noisy as I can't sing. After Adelaide joined things got a lot more melodic and atmospheric. Between ‘DOWN’ and ‘BLOOD/TAR’ we've gotten a lot more collaborative; most of ‘DOWN’ was written by Adelaide and I and then taken to Hamish and Josh to get fleshed out, whereas pretty much all of ‘BLOOD/TAR’ was written with all four of us jamming together. Adelaide also wrote a lot more of the lyrics on ‘BLOOD/TAR’.

​HUP: Are there bands that have influenced your sound?

Tom: International bands that we enjoy/have ripped off include Cate Le Bon, Hop Along, Women and Charly Bliss. Local bands that we enjoy/have ripped off include Koizilla, The Mint Chicks, Ha the Unclear and Wet Specimen.
 
HUP: The ‘Milpool’ name comes from a Simpsons episode, with Milhouse misspelling his name due to getting distracted. Who is the Simpson’s fan, and why did you choose this name?

Tom: I am the obsessive Simpsons fan - of the first eight seasons - and decided early on that the name was going to have to be a Simpsons reference. It was actually my sister Laura that suggested Milpool, and we felt really clever and original until we made the Facebook page and realised that there were ten other emo Bands also called Milpool!
 
HUP: How long are you gone for? Is it possible new bands will evolve out your departure, or will the band be sitting around awaiting your return?

Tom: Sadly, I am leaving indefinitely to go to Bristol with my other band 'The Rothmans', and I do not know when I'll be back. I imagine we'll keep making music under the Milpool name as soon as we're all in the same country again, however long that'll take. I know Adelaide, Hamish [Morgan; drums] and Josh [Howley; bass] plan to keep making music together under some new guise, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes.

Everyone also has other bands on the go. Hamish plays drums in Marlin's Dreaming, Adelaide produces/sings/plays keys in Repulsive Woman, and Josh has been secretly growing a new band called G.I DRO. So, I imagine everyone will have a lot to do while I'm gone.
 
HUP: What is behind The Rothmans moving to Bristol?

Tom: It feels like it's time to leave Dunedin/New Zealand, haha! Half of us have British Citizenship and Bristol is a cool town, so it seems like the logical place to go.

HUP: A lot of Hamiltonians haven’t seen you before. What should they expect?

Bob: It’s pretty simple: I take a guitar and turn it into a party. There’s a lot of ways to do that, and I’ve figured out most of ‘em, ha ha haaa! Having fun with my guitar is the ultimate goal in every song: “This is a really fun thing to play on guitar, oh my god I love playing this thing on guitar! How can I make this thing more fun?”

Then I add some drums to it. With my drumming it’s electronic beats, but not a whole song programmed, so it can change at any time. Then I also play real drums on top of that. I’m trying to sound like two drummers, and one of my drummers is good and the one of my drummers is terrible and they absolutely hate each other! And I finger-pick on top of that and sing into a telephone in my helmet attached to my head.

The basic idea is I’m doing this fun thing with my guitar and making it as fun as possible until people spill their drinks and someone loses a shoe. If there’s one shoe on the ground, and it’s totally wet because of the puddles of spilled drinks, then I‘ve done my job right.

HUP: For a guy with no rhythm section, that’s a lot of work.

Bob: Yeah, who needs a rhythm section? They say drummers are crazy, guitar players are idiots and singers are assholes. And I gotta be all of ‘em.

I’ve been a one-man band for about 22 years now. I came up with a new way to play drums, a different way to play guitar and a different style of singing and I’ve kinda been sticking with it ever since 1996.

HUP: Is it possible to disguise how good you are at guitar by putting on a great party?

Bob: There’s no disguise. It’s all there, believe me. When I make a record, it’s all about the guitar. You’re not seeing me riding a boat, and I’m not making you drink out of a duck, it’s just guitar and drums. So the records are designed to put on at a party, and your party goes up a notch. 

Then I try to add to that in a live situation. But the guitar parts are all there and you will notice, if you’re at the show, what the guitar is doing, because there’s nothing else making any noise. You can’t be all jumping around and not playing anything. 

That’s probably why so many clubs are having me back, because it’s not just about drinking out of a duck or a dogbowl. The guitar part is in front of all that. I get invited back so many times because people are still tryin’ to work out what the hell I’m doin’.

HUP: Have you played Hamilton before?

Bob: I’m not entirely sure. I played a bunch of places with Cortina and I don't think Hamilton was on that list. This would have been 15-something years ago - and I wasn’t driving, so sometimes things got a little hazy.

I get a new stop almost every tour, I insist on it. All my agents know they gotta give me some adventure show, or things get weird.

HUP: You’re playing Raglan’s Yot Club, too, where you’ve been before.

Bob: Yeah, this’ll be my third time to Raglan. There are some places that will always be an adventure no matter how many times, and Raglan’s certainly one of those!

​HUP: The number of shows you play, like 37 dates already this year already, is ridiculous.

Bob: I’ve toured about half the year, every year, for at least 30 years. I’ll go back to the States and Canada in June and July, there’ll be Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam hopefully around November and back to Europe sometime before then, I think.

HUP: What happens to you when you stay still?

Bob: I do both. I tour for about forty days, then I usually go home for about the same amount of time and tour around on my motorcycle, drive my daughter to dance class, cook lasagne - I try and cover all my bases. I’ve been living in Melbourne for about 13 years now. 

There are a million places to play in Melbourne. It pretty much never stops here - there’s something going on all the time. In some ways I’m glad I didn’t grow up here.

HUP: Where did you grow up? 

Bob: I grew up in Tucson [Arizona, USA] where there was nothing to do and you had to make your own fun, which can go a lot of different ways. 

HUP: That’s why you start a band, right?

Bob: Yeah, man, when you’re bored out of your mind! There’s a couple of ways to invent something, and it’s either sheer panic or absolute boredom. And I’ve had a bit of both in my life.

Tucson’s funny, like when they write about me in the New Yorker they just assume I have two teeth because I’m from Tucson. I got all my teeth, we all got all our teeth! But New York City is like, “oh, Tucson, you must only have two teeth.” I don’t know if Auckland would think that of Hamilton…

HUP: Oh, yeah, totally. When you get here you’ll discover what the crowd is like at a rural supply village that outgrew itself.

Bob: Ok, man, well it sounds like we’re all kinda from the same place here. 

HUP: And you’re touring with Labretta Suede and the Motel 6... 

Bob: Yes. We’ve played together quite a few times. Every time I play with them, one of their songs, ‘Mexican Coke Bottle’, gets stuck in my head for weeks!

They brought me to New Zealand the last time, and I went all over the place with them. I returned the favour and they came to Australia. We played some fun shows in Melbourne and around Ballarat and other places near here. Tiny mining towns are my specialty.

HUP: When you record, do you play everything all at once like you do live?

Bob: I do most of it live, because as a one-man band I can slow time down, I can speed time up, I can take time out to dinner, I can buy a piece of cake and shove it in time’s mouth and shove some bubblegum in there and make time chew it all at the same time! I can do anything I want to time and this is the most addicting thing about being a one-man band. 

Being the complete master of time is the advantage of being a one-man band. So when I record, I can’t go back and adjust my acoustic sound to match up to my electric sound [Log’s guitar is equipped with two pick-ups] and get that kick drum slowing down at the same time. You have to do that live.

I will sometimes sing the song after the fact, but the music itself has to be done live because of the way I turn time into a rubber band.

HUP: I’m thinking of Bump Pow, Bump Bump Bump Pow which slows right down and comes right back up again.

Bob: The Bump Pow single I made with this guy in Spain. He had two kids, about 6 and 4, and he put Bump Pow on the stereo and the kids went absolutely ballistic! They broke a lamp! And he’s like, “See? This music is for children!”

I take that as a compliment. When I sometimes get to play for drunk people and kids at the same time, they do the same exact thing. When I’m playing guitar, I’m actually trying to become that 11-year-old kid I was when I started, like, “Oh my god, this is so fun!” 

Little kids just innately know what’s fun. If you put on a complain-y  folk song to a little kid, they’re not going to do anything. But if you put on AC/DC to a little kid, they are going to move. Kids innately know what’s a party, and that’s why I’ll test my songs out on little kids.

HUP: Is your daughter too old to be your song-testing kid?

Bob: My daughter’s 12 now, it’s unbelievable. She’s still my test kid on some of it, but she’s heard too much of it at this point. There was a time when I was playing a little too much banjo, and every time I picked it up she’d be like, “Papa, no!” 

I learned to play banjo while running away from her. So I play running banjo now.

HUP: Is it harder to play running banjo or crowd-surfing-in-a-boat slide guitar?

Bob: The boat is much more prone to injury, and much more difficult, depending on the drunkenness of the crowd. People keep landing me on my head. C’mon people, you’ve got the choice of killin’ me or not killin’ me, hahahhaha!

HUP: You do bring your own helmet, though.

Bob: Yeah, they think I’m covered, they’ll make me live for days. Don’t you make me live for days, Hamilton!

HUP: Which leads to this question sourced from a fan - How many helmets you have been through?

Bob: The very first one, I tried to cut earholes in it and that was a disaster. The second I used for years and years, but the foam in it started to disintegrate and at the end of every show I was coming out all bloody. Now I’ve got two, a gold one and a silver one, and that’s it. Four. I have done a couple of one-offs, like when I wanna go purple tonight or whatever.

The faceplate can change, depending on damage and, umm, amount of spit.

HUP: Is it still easy to find telephone receivers to stick into the front of those faceplates?

Bob: Hell no, man! I’m old, and when I started doing this we used to have these things called payphones, hahaha! So when I started, you could just go up with some scissors and boom. Then one day I went to get one and the payphone cable was now metal. Do you remember that? I feel partially responsible for that change to payphones, but I didn't take that many. 

Phones were a dime a dozen, too. Nobody cared about them, so you’d get ‘em at thrift stores no problem. Now they’re all in antique stores for fifty or a hundred bucks. Buying a phone like I used to use because I couldn’t afford a microphone is now more expensive than buying a microphone.

HUP: Another fan question, from a guitar nerd: What is your tuning? Because it is looooow.

Bob: A lot of people ask me that. Think of an A or an E chord, then just put on big, bad strings and go way low.

I have two different tunings; both of ‘em are an open chord. One is like an open A chord, but the lowest string is a baritone string tuned all the way down to an octave lower A. It’s almost like a banjo tuning. A banjo goes donk donk donk donk...dink, whereas I go dink dink dink donk...whomp!

Now, I say it’s an open A chord, but I’m tuned down almost an octave from that, to C. So the whole thing is tuned way lower, but in the shape of an open A chord.

The other guitar is tuned to an open E chord, but again I’m using baritone strings and I’m tuned down to A on that one.

HUP: And that’s your bass taken care of.

Bob: If you finger-pick with it, which is what I do, then it sounds like there’s a bass player and a guitar player at the same time. That’s what I’m going for. So I try to sound like two guitar players, two drummers, and one guy who’s trying to sing through a phone.

HUP: Have you ever worried that the phone makes lyrics hard to hear?

Bob: For me it’s never been about the lyrics, but I spend more time writing lyrics than I do almost anything else, which is crazy. When I listen to AC/DC or the Rolling Stones, I don’t know what the fuck they’re saying. I’m listening to the guitar and drums. That’s what I’ve always listened to. But you kinda know what they mean, and some words you get, some words you don’t. 

That doesn’t mean that I don’t want my vocals understood, it just not up front. 

Auckland-based noiseniks Swallow The Rat is a band making big noises on the music scene both here in Aotearoa and beyond, with their delicious slabs of discordant post-punk. Having recently returned from the prestigious SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, the five-piece band is about to tour Aotearoa in support of the release of their debut self-titled EP, and, happily, it all starts in Hamilton this coming Friday, April 26th, with a show at Nivara Lounge. HUP caught up with Austin-native Brian Purington (guitar) ahead of the show.

​HUP: First of all, congratulations on a pretty exciting few months! Playing SXSW is kind of a big deal…how was it in reality? It looked kind of hectic…did I read it was nine shows in a week or something?!

Brian:  Yeah, we played 9 shows over 8 days.  I think we had 6 shows booked when I flew over and added a few more last minute. We closed out the Shifting Sounds party and a band on the bill (Ex-Optimists) invited us out to Bryan Texas (about a 90 min drive from Austin) to play another show with them the next night.  So the following day after playing a house party in the late afternoon we headed out there, arriving around 10pm, played around 12:30am, and drove back to Austin after the show ended.  I think I made to bed around 4:30am...

HUP: How did you guys go down over there? Were there any stand out shows? Would you do it again?

Brian:  Believe it or not all of the shows were good but I would say the stand out gigs were our Official Showcase at Barracuda, the NZ Music day party at the Parish and the Shifting Sounds party at the Hole in the Wall. We were lucky enough to share the stage will a number of great band.  Everyone we worked with over there was super welcoming, supportive and seemed to have a genuine interest in what we are doing. I think we would certainly do it again if given the opportunity.

HUP: Congratulations also on the EP! Releasing it on vinyl is pretty special too, what can you tell us about that, how did it come about/where was it mastered/pressed etc?

Brian:  Essentially we were invited to play SXSW and didn’t have any merch to sell!  So I did a limited run of 7”s, which includes the 3 singles we have released thus far, on a label I co-run with a friend/collaborator back in Austin (Headbump Records).  The UK label, Reverb Worship, also did a small run of CDs for the release.  It was pressed through A to Z Media, recorded/mixed by Nick Abbot at Northwestern and Mastered by Alex Lyon at the Bubble.  All the artwork/design was done by our drummer, Hayden. We have a few copies left that we will be selling at our upcoming NZ shows.

​​HUP: How do you find the music scene here compared to the one you grew up with back home in the US? 

Brian:  I wouldn’t say it’s fundamentally any different.  It’s just much smaller and you don’t have the same volume of touring bands coming through New Zealand.

HUP: What are the plans for the rest of this year, any more writing/recording/shows etc?

Brian:  We just finished our debut LP and are looking to release it later in the year and that will be followed by some NZ/Aussie touring.  We are also looking to get back to the USA sometime early next year.  In the meanwhile we are working on some new material and hopefully get to recording it soonish.

Catch Swallow The Rat at Nivara lounge this Friday,  April 26th, with two amazing support bands – Taurangans Threat.Meet.Protocol, and Kirikiriroans Cartoon Villain.

HUP: As a co-host of HUP and The Hum 106.7FM’s Tekau Nga Waiata Pai Top 10 show, and as a frequent gig goer, we know you have a love of new music, and particularly that from New Zealand. How did your interest develop in garage punk/garage rock, freakbeat and psych from the ‘60s?
​
Phil: I grew up loving ‘60s music. Even in my teens I was all about the Beatles, then The Who, Stones, Kinks… and naturally dug deeper. I got stuck on the Velvet Underground for a good few years, then Beefheart.  In a previous life I worked in libraries, and an old mate Terry Bishop was the music buyer for Hamilton’s libraries. We’d pore over catalogues, and he’d turn up with all sorts of cool stuff, as many of us around in the 90s will attest!  One day Terry added an amazing compilation called ‘Everything You Always Wanted To Know About ´60s Expansive Punkadelic Garage Rock Instrumentals But were afraid To Ask’ to the collection, then a few more ‘60s garage and psych releases.  They didn’t get borrowed much and ended up in my collection, to which I soon added the legendary Lenny Kaye-curated Nuggets box set, and then there was no looking back.

​HUP: What are some of your favourite songs from this era?
 
Phil: Wow, hard question.

As actual songs, I’d list:
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‘Gloria’, by the Van Morrison-fronted Them. The perfect song, and one that was widely covered by garage bands. At last count I have versions by well over fifty ‘60s garage bands; faves being Los Temperatios, Los Sharps, Los Young Beats, and Delfini from Zagreb.

The 13th Floor Elevators’ debut single ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’ and ‘Slip Inside This House’.
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The Who’s ‘My Generation’ – not so much the original, but weird covers such as Zlatni Akordi’s, an Italian freakbeat band called The Geordies, and Som Beat from Brazil. And Los Shakes’ Spanish version ‘el Mugroso’!

​HUP: How long has ‘Retrospect’ been going?
​
Phil: Somewhere around 7 years
 
HUP: How frequently do you make new shows? Are you still discovering plenty of new songs to play on the show? How often are you now having to repeat content?
 
Phil: Weekly. It’s produced and aired at Free FM before syndication across New Zealand, and via a handful of selected Canadian stations and one in California.
Yes, I am discovering new stuff all the time. It’s all about the hunt!  Just this week I’ve scored new stuff from [old] bands The Bojax, The Muldoons, The Bucket City Distortion Racket, a bizarre LP by The Four Skins, which seems to be a bunch of medical students [?] singing about STDs, and one useful track called LSD, and global garage tracks from Hector et les Mediators [French freakbeat], Norwegian band Firebeats Inc., and a psychedelic Czech band Blue Effect.
​
I have somewhere around 15,000 tracks to play with, so I only repeat things I really want to. I still have a backlog of 100 or so full LPs to sort through, yet to be played.

​HUP: What kind of following does the show have, and what sort of feedback have you received from your followers?

Phil: Social media makes all the difference – I share artist and song info there, and also the podcast links. That generates a heap of feedback from all over the world, and a bunch of stuff I can’t translate. Retrospect has over 7,000 Facebook followers and in a good month has over 10,000 podcast listens.
 
It’s cool having loyal listeners keep in touch. In fact, this month I invited one of the biggest fans to select all the tracks [episode 358] and co-host from North Carolina.
 
HUP: How much New Zealand and Hamilton content is there among the songs?

Phil: A fair bit, although a lot of the NZ ‘60s stuff is more soul or R&B rather than real garage punk. There’s a few good comps for sure [Wyld Things, A Day In The Mind’s Mind] and I do have a few faves including some early Ray Columbus material that is reallllly good, a super-obscure cover of The Who’s ‘I’m A Boy’ done by Wellington’s The Rising Sons featuring Denis O’Brien [owner of Slow Boat records and brother of RNZ’s Phil O’Brien], who doesn’t even have a copy. In fact, they hadn’t heard it for many years until I played it.
​
Not much Hamilton content. The few bands I do have are a bit ‘pop’ for my podcast, with one exception – the incredible ‘Belly Board Beat’ by local band The Music Convention! That’s totally WILD and someone should get the rights for their local government election campaign ads. LOL!

Retrospect 60s Garage Punk Show is available from:
The Access Internet Radio NZ app
 
Free FM's website

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Apple Podcasts via iTunes

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​I N T E R V I E W
Nod your Head and Shake it at the Same Time: an Interview with Peter McCall of ‘Fazed on a Pony’
with Ian Duggan
 
Dunedin’s ‘Fazed on a Pony’ released their fantastic EP ‘That’s How the Light Gets In’ late in February.  We have featured a couple of the tracks on our HUP/The Hum 106.7FM Top 10 of new New Zealand songs, including ‘Natural Toast’ - which made our #1 a couple of months ago. We talked to front-person Peter McCall about his musical influences, the artwork of the release, the meaning of the band's name, and more!

HUP: My first, second and third impression on first hearing ‘Natural Toast’ was how much the song reminded me of Pavement. I, and the other primary contributor here at HUP, grew up on different sides of the world, but we were independently obsessed with Pavement in the ‘90s, so for us this is a great thing! Listening to an interview you did on Radio One, you confirm the Pavement, and also Silver Jews, influences. How did you get into these bands, and why do you think Pavement still has such an influence on you and other bands 20 years after they split?

Peter: I had a friend in high school that was into a lot of 80s and 90s guitar music and was always trying to get me to listen to bands like My Bloody Valentine, Slint, Dinosaur Jr, etc. He must have given me [the Pavement album] ‘Slanted and Enchanted’ on USB at some point and it probably sat on my computer for a couple of years before I listened to it. When I did finally put it on – one summer afternoon back at my parents place, cleaning my old room – I listened to the first half thinking that I didn’t really get it. Then ‘Here’ came on and I just thought it was the best thing I’d ever heard. It was sad, catchy, nostalgic, clever, messy and mysterious. I suppose it expressed something, or a combination of things, that I’d felt but never heard before.

After that, Pavement was really all I listened to for a long time, searching out every b-side and live clip, learning their songs (there’s an amazing website called slay tracks, which has tabs for every Malkmus song, including Jicks stuff). I found the Silver Jews through the Malkmus connection, around the time they put out ‘Early Times’. David Berman has his own thing going on and is one of my favourite lyricists. ‘Starlite Walker’ is, to me, a perfect album.

I think what I find compelling and inspiring in Pavement and in the Silver Jews are their contradictions – that the music can be ironic and sincere, epic and pathetic, tight and loose, often within a single phrase. It’s profoundly pathetic country music that makes you want to nod your head and shake it at the same time.
 
HUP: It isn’t just the music I love with your EP; the art work, featuring ponies galloping in front of a mountain range, is also fantastic. Who painted it? What else can you tell me about it?

Peter: My partner, Rosa, did the painting of Aoraki with galloping horses in front of it. I think it was initially a somewhat ironic attempt at making a stoner art poster – with all the bright colours and cliché beauty of mountains and water and horses running. She had it at her brothers flat and would go to his place once and a while to hang out, adding a bit more to it each time. Eventually her nephew, two at the time and completely obsessed with horses, saw the picture and freaked out – started jumping on it and kissing all the horses - so she finished the painting and gave it to him.

Around that time I had decided to really lean in to the pony vibe of the band and thought it would make a good cover. However, what you see on the EP cover is me holding a photo copy of the image sticky-taped to another piece of paper that has the band name added. It was the stencil for a screen we made up to print t-shirts with. While making the t-shirts I realised I like the look of the stencil more than the original art. The orangey-brown paint around the top of the mountain is paint-stopper from the screen. [continued below]

HUP: What is the scene like in Dunedin currently? Are there still good numbers of people – and students in particular – interested in live, original music? What other bands from down there should we be checking out?

Peter: It’s hard to say, really. From what I can tell, there’s the student scene, which consists of a few student bands that play pop music and draw huge crowds, and then there’s everyone else, who sometimes get a great attendance and sometimes don’t. I don’t go to as many shows as I used to and would not consider myself an authority on the state of any scene.

Some of my favourite current Dunedin bands are Wet Specimen (led by Lucy Hunter of Opposite Sex), Tiny Pieces of Eight, Koizilla, and the Rothmans.
 
HUP: What are your aspirations for the band? Should we expect more songs soon?

Peter: I don’t have any careerist aspirations; I would just like to keep going for as long as it feels good. I’d like to put out a full length, which will be the next project and one I’ve started working on. We’re taking a short break from playing to write. Hopefully we could have something out by the end of the year, maybe sooner.
 
HUP: What does the band name, ‘Fazed on a Pony’, mean?

Peter: I’m not sure, but perhaps Malkmus or Berman could tell you. It was a phrase written on the insert from ‘Early Times’.
 
HUP: You toured the release of ‘Light Gets In’ in January, including Auckland, but you had no Hamilton date included. Do you think you will make it up here at some stage?

Peter: I would’ve loved to have played Hamilton and hopefully we can at some point in the future. It was the first tour I’d organised so I tried to keep it simple – we also all have jobs and had to do it over a couple weekends. Perhaps next time we can take some time off and go to a few more places in between the big cities.

Trepidations play at Nivara Lounge this Saturday, March 23rd, along with Bruises and Nagasaki Tan. HUP caught up with Will Saunders (guitar) to shoot the proverbial shit. Here are some Q's and As to those Qs...

​Who are Trepidations and from where do you hail?
Heath on drums, Jared on bass and Will on guitar from Auckland where we all ended up one way or another

How long have you been together, and have you been in any bands previously?
About a year now and yep we've been and are in bands from Royal Falcon through to The Quick and the Dead, Bearhat and The Lowest Fidelity

You have a cool song out on Bandcamp, I Can't Go On - any more releases imminent?
ta very much! ...That's the first demo recording we did and we will have an album out later this year with any luck

How does the songwriting work in the band? And where does the inspiration come from?
Originally I wrote some tunes and asked Heath to play drums - then we cajoled Jared into whacking some bass on top - after rehearsing a few times we just started making more sounds and songs up as we went along. 
Inspiration now feels a bit like we're swimming through a stream somewhere between Can't Buy Me Love, Helter Skelter and improvised sound - the water wings are slightly deflated, we only have one flipper between us but we're splashing away optimistically!

You're heading to Hamilton on Sat March 23rd - tell us about the show...
The fantastic bruises organised the gig so we are stoked to be able to join them - they have four twisted tunes out now on bandcamp so I'm looking forward to kicking out some jams with them and Nagasaki Tan. This will be Trepidations third show.
​

​Have you played here before in any other bands, or do you know any bands here?
Hamilton is a first for me gig wise so hopefully it won't be the last... Royal Falcon must have swooped through at some stage!

Some less important information about the band...

Who is the most likely member of the band to get arrested? And what for?
We're all pretty straight arrows here at Trepidations - but I wear two pairs of glasses at once sometimes and you know how these things can go occasionally...

Who is the best cook in the band?
Heath - black beans maestro that he is

Which Trepidation is the sportiest, and what do they like playing/doing?
Jared probably. No idea which ones but he's definitely proven a good sport all round I'd say!

If you could plan a gig anywhere in the world with 3 bands dead or alive, where would it be, who is playing, and what are we drinking?
Pyramids, MC5, Dead Moon and Syd Floyd. Drinking in the wonder of it all...

​A R T I C L E
‘A Little Trap I Made’: An Interview with Ben Woods
with Ian Duggan
​
‘Future City Festival’ is looming! And one of the acts that I am most looking forward to is Ben Woods, whose song ‘Lozenge’ is seriously good! An earworm that you aren’t unhappy to have there, no matter how many times it repeats through your mind. We caught up with Ben to discuss that song, his upcoming album, the Christchurch music scene that keeps on giving, and more!

​HUP: Your debut solo song, ‘Lozenge’, was released last year on Melted Ice Cream’s fantastic 'Sickest Smashes from Arson City’ compilation. ‘Lozenge’ is also the title track to your upcoming album. When can we expect to see the rest of the album?
 
Ben: I was hoping to release it early this year, but booking this tour ended up being a lot more energy and time than I had anticipated, so it's been put on the shelf a little bit. As soon as the tour is over it's number one on my priority list. It's all finished; I just need to figure out who's going to put it out or whether I’ll put it out independently.
 
HUP: Is Lozenge indicative of the rest of the songs on the album?
 
Ben: Nope! That one's the lone charger for sure. A little trap I made to lure everyone in so they listen to my sad arse, draggy, downbeat songs. Really, there's a common thread in all of them, but LOZENGE is definitely the only one at that pace.
 
HUP: How has Christchurch come to have such a healthy scene currently? Or has the scene simply never waned there?
 
Ben: I don't know if it's any healthier than any other of the main centres around. There're people who put a lot of work into making stuff happen, especially Brian [Feary] who runs MIC. There's certainly a lot of different little pockets of people who will stick with whatever artists or bands they feel connected to. But, because of that it can sometimes feel like you're playing to the same room of people over and over, and it's often not a big room at all. I feel like the hope for a lot of people playing in somewhat alternative bands in Christchurch is that all the little indie sects will slip over into each other and combine to be something a bit more open and inclusive, and available. That's what I'd like at least, but don't know how it happens!

​HUP: You are described as a multi-instrumentalist. What instruments do you play?
 
Ben: Nothing too wild. I'm getting worse and worse at guitar over time, despite it supposedly being my main instrument, but I kind of like it. I also try play a bit of bass, drums and piano. I'm really horrific on the cello, but have been trying to figure out how to work my flatmates one recently.
 
HUP: Are you playing Future City Festival solo, or with ‘Ben Woods Group’? What instruments are you bringing with you?
 
Ben: Playing with Symon Palmer, Ryan Chin, and IRD Rory Dalley. We've got drums, guitars, bass, synth; we've even got lap steel this time around!
 
HUP: You played guitar on the Wurld Series EP ‘Stately and Befrothed’, which, with its heavy Pavement overtones, was another favourite among us here at HUP and on the Hum 106.7fm. Did you have much of a hand in writing those songs? Who are your major influences?
 
Ben: Luke [Towart] wrote all those songs just on guitar, and then we'd workshop them as a band. I wrote all my guitar parts, but then sometimes someone would have something in mind they really wanted to hear and sing it. Then I'd work something out around that. I have a special place in my heart for Luke, Brian and Abi [Macilquham] who were the line-up for that EP.
​
I think in regards to that EP, the big influences might have been stuff like Guided by Voices, Alex G and Silver Jews. Though if you mean mine currently, I've been listening to lots of Chris Knox, that album Armchair Boogie by Michael Hurley, and also getting back into PJ Harvey. There's other ones that'll always be somewhere within me like Cat Power, Will Oldham's stuff, and Fugazi. 

​HUP: You are playing at Future City Festival with the original line-up, performing just the early songs. What has led to this reformation?
​
Adam: Rob asked nicely.

Jae: Full credit to Rob for sparking this off. I've been in hiding for years and I needed a catalyst. At first I thought we'd ease into it with some more relaxed, low-key support gigs. But hey, why not come back guns blazing.

Rob: We’d been toying with the idea for a while on-and-off, and I thought that making it a bit special - playing a festival, and just doing the early stuff - might give us the extra oomph we needed to get going. Everyone seemed keen and after a bit of texting back and forth we got together and it was pretty much exactly like it was in 2006! Shit jokes… lots of noise… mean songs!
 
HUP: Sora Shima, perhaps more than any other Hamilton band this millennium, gained critical approval outside of the city. It felt for a while like the band were on the verge of something. Why did Sora Shima stop performing?

Rob: It did, eh?! We got some decent press, and great support slots with the likes of Broken Social Scene, Mono, Jakob, Dimmer, and Sonic Boom from Spacemen 3. I left in 2010 due to a change in career. Becoming a teacher meant little free mind-space and no time to focus on the band. It knackered me out completely. So Sora Shima Mk III was formed and they carried on for some time, recording an album. Gav [McDermott, drums] eventually moved to Switzerland, so I guess that was a fairly big factor. Jae can probably answer that better!

Jae: Gav recorded all of his drum tracks for the album ('You Are Surrounded') before he left NZ, so fortunately we were able to get the album finished in his absence. But there was no release show, tour, or anything, so it was very bittersweet. At that point it was just myself left from the original line-up, and just after Gavin left I also lost my job and went through some heavy shit. So I descended into a pretty dark place, financially, emotionally and eventually creatively. Essentially the answer to the question is... I simply couldn't do Sora Shima without Gavin.
 
HUP: What are your best memories of the times the original band were together?

Jae: Yeah, probably the four of us making hellish noise in my spare bedroom in quiet Forest Lake. I remember we went to the neighbours to apologise for the noise pollution and they said they actually opened their windows to listen to us! That was great. I'm immensely proud of those early tracks, particularly Spinetingler, which was recorded all live and we didn't even care about mixing it. So I love the raw energy of it. Musically, I think the song Tornado vs Trailerpark is our crowning achievement; we've never quite captured lightning in a bottle again like that... yet! On the live side, being taken very generously under Jakob's wing early on was really amazing for us. We played some fantastic gigs, enjoyed it all, and it was always a laugh a minute.

Rob: Sora Shima was instrumental (no pun intended) in helping me settle in New Zealand. I joined via an online ad, just after moving here from Amsterdam. I made pals early in my new hometown through music, and that was really nice on a human level. We used to make a hell of a racket in Jae’s spare room. I don’t know how we didn’t get shut down. The camaraderie was ace; recording, making CDs, getting a decent reception, playing with some great bands. It was a lot of fun.

Adam: Driving long hours to play music to strangers, which is more enjoyable for the most part than it looks on paper. [continued below]

​HUP: What have all the original members been doing since you all last played together?

Jae: I needed some kind of expressive outlet so I formed Gang Violins, which remains (very) active. I also did some solo/duo ambient and loop project stuff on the side under the name Palaces, which I've since shelved. We've all done and are doing other stuff.

Rob: It was probably 2008 when we last played together, I think. Adam left around then and Tu took over on guitar. Eleven years pretty much. I’ve played in Ancient Tapes, and now do Bitter Defeat too. Gav plays in Broadcast State, and Adam has done and still does loads of stuff; Hedge Fund Trader, amongst others. All fairly active musically.

Adam: Living outside of this country, playing in various heavy bands and recording various other heavy bands, driving long hours to play music to strangers.
 
HUP: In what ways did the band change after Adam Fulton and Rob Shirlow left?
​
Jae: I guess there was an element of "staying the course", forging on as best Gavin and I could - and it seemed to work for us as, for a while. The momentum kept building. Full credit to those who came after: Tuhua [Mutu; guitars], Nick [Johnston; keyboards] and Liam [Clancy; bass], for continuing that momentum, bringing new elements to the sound.
 
HUP: There have been hints dropped over the last few years that the band were emerging from the hiatus, but it’s never happened. What was behind the hints, and what prevented a reformation prior to this time?
​
Jae: Those were false starts, nothing more. A lot of wishful thinking, mostly on my part. Life just gets in the way. Gavin's been back for a while now, but it's taken this opportunity and Rob's positivity and persistence to really get me back into it. I'm moody. I can't just turn the switch back on... it needed to feel right. The original line-up playing the original tracks just felt perfectly right to me. We've stripped it right back to the big bang and maybe now we get to do it all over again, perhaps differently this time.

Rob: We’ve wanted to do it I think, but life and stuff made it hard; family, living on the other side of the world, etc. This time was a proper effort at committing though, and it’s worked so far. ​ [continued below]

​HUP: You have teased on Facebook that this could be start of something, depending on how things go?

Rob: Yeah who knows! I reckon we’ve got some decent new stuff in us, but there’s also the album that never got toured, so who knows. Not that Adam or I were involved with that, so I guess we’ll just see how things go. I’d be into making a new EP though for sure.
​
Jae: Nothing's planned as yet, but I think we're all secretly hoping for more. The planets have aligned again, so it'd make sense to seize the opp. Right now though, this gig is a one-off reunion. So if you want to see more, come and support it... please! I want to do more because I can't take any more bitter-sweetness! Gonna give this gig 100%. It's been said that on a good night it's like this band can open blackholes and that's my intention. I hope this isn't fleeting.
 
HUP: How have recent practices been feeling? Does it have the same sense of excitement as it did when the band were first together? No lingering tensions, I trust, if they ever existed in the first place?
​
Jae: The feeling is pretty comfy. I love these guys! Tensions that might have existed have completely evaporated to the point where I can't even remember what we squabbled about. In saying that though, a little tension generally does good for the music itself! I'm sure I owe a few apologies... Playing these songs again feels like "ahhh, so THIS is what was missing from my life". Guitar riffs I totally forgot have returned like magic. It's like the synapses reconnected - just surreal and awesome. Let's open a blackhole. Bring earplugs and an open mind.

Rob: Really good actually! A few bum notes here and there, and remembering the subtleties of the music, where you played certain things. It’s come back quickly though, and I can’t believe how good it sounds. We were really good, eh?! There’re no tensions at all – at least from my perspective. It’s getting together for a one-off and then see how we feel after that really.

Adam: The practices have been more efficient than I remember them being ten years ago. It would be a logistical miracle managing to continue with the original line-up, but with a band that has had 7 members and countless contributors, who knows...

​HUP: For the uninitiated, how would you describe Te Huhu’s sound? Who are bands that you are most similar to?
Sam: That’s a really hard one. It’s probably easier for an outsider to answer that one. Who do we sound like?

HUP: As an outsider, I think you probably sound a bit like the most laid-back moments of Naenae Express, if they were to lay back a little further. Fair assessment?
Sam: Yeah, I guess we've got a similar connection to that kind of retro kiwiana type of sound that Naenae does, or something. Te Huhu is kinda nostalgic sounding. [We were] once described as 'a drowsy blend of atmospheric, stoner, blues, psych-folk-rock jams'.

HUP: You debut album ‘Recychedelia’ is listed on Bandcamp both as released on October 2018, and as “coming soon”. So far, only three of the ten songs have appeared. When can we expect the rest?
Sam: We put those first three songs from the album up towards the end of last year as a kind of motivation to get the vinyl pressed and ready for release with the remaining digital tracks. The vinyl record might still be a few months away, so we’re going to release it all digitally in the next few weeks with a pre-order option for the vinyl lovers out there. It’s been a long haul due to the DIY nature of it all.

HUP: Your song ‘For Love’ topped the 95bfm charts late last year. What have been some of the other highlights for Te Huhu since your formation?  
Sam: Well, we’ve had a couple of other singles in the 95bfm Top Ten going back a few years, and we played at a combined 65th birthday party at the Ngataringa Tennis Club, which lingers in the memory as easily our best live outing to date. We also opened for The Phoenix Foundation at Shadows Bar & Grill one afternoon and they mentioned that our set was very relaxing, and we took that as a great compliment. [continued below]

HUP: Where does the band name ‘Te Huhu’ come from?
Sam: The Beatles was taken.
 
HUP: Prior to Future City Festival, I understand you have your own ‘Field of Dreams’ festival. What can you tell me about that, and how is preparation for it going?
Sam: Yes. We’ve put together a high-quality line-up of psychy bands on a limited-edition cassette and we’re having a geg party to celebrate. We’ve called it ‘Field of Dreams’. It’s kind of a mutation out of a month-long residency we held down at the Kings Arms Sports Bar a few years ago with some of these same bands.
 
HUP: I assume this is a Kevin Costner, "Build it and they will come" reference?
Sam: Yes, it is precisely that. What a buzzy film. We’ve put together the stage over the last few weekends in my back yard out here on the Awhitu Peninsula and it’s all shaping up really nicely for what should be a mint day out in the countryside with some mates and some of the best bands in the country.
 
HUP: What are the other bands at Future City Festival you are looking forward to seeing?
Sam: I think we’re only in the city of the future for the Friday night and I haven’t seen any of the other acts playing that night so am looking forward to seeing as much as I can, but especially The Fatalities who I have just discovered and am quite enjoying.

Visit:
Te Huhu website: http://www.tehuhu.com
Field of Dreams website: fieldofdreamsnz.com