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Oh Hi issue four. March 2012. Contact jem@ohhi.co.nz or go to ohhi.co.nz
Thank you: Axel de Maupeou D’ableiges Amelia Shadbolt Anne Cheer Te Ra Moriarty Michael James Tilley Elise Hubbard Hannah Blackburn Gareth Warnock Tim Upperton Craig Black Hayden Sin Katie Cheer Adam Curry David Stevens Amy Shannon Cam Wilkes
Oh Hi © 2012
Please excuse the spelling. Unless otherwise noted, artists featured in Oh Hi retain copyright to their work. Oh Hi will be please to correct any fuck ups in the next issue. Editorial submissions are welcome. All letters will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright purposes are subject to Oh Hi’s right to edit and comment editorially. Please feel free to use and abuse any of the content here, just please contact the artist first. This is yours. Please don’t waste it.
Oh Hi, and welcome to issue four or whatever it is we’re up to. Hopefully it’s obvious that this is about creative minds and making the most of what you’ve got. It’s not easy in a town like Palmerston North to stay motivated or inspired, but hopefully you find something in here that keeps you going and helps you get something done. Love each other and share the things you learn. If this zine isn’t your thing please pass it on to someone you think might enjoy it. Thank you for your curiosity.
Amelia Shadbolt What’s your deal? What’s my deal. Ha. I play ukulele, and write songs… yea. And some other stuff, but mainly ukulele because it’s more fun. Yea it looks pretty fun. What other stuff? I play the guitar, and keyboards, or keyboard like things. Oooo... Yum, thank you. This looks exciting, I should let other people order my drinks more often. Yea, it might taste like alcohol but I’m not very good at tasting alcohol so sorry if it’s yuck. No no, it totally works. Ah that’s good, it’s just whiskey. This is how you get the scoops, ginger ale and whiskey. Usually it’s better when they put in some lime, somehow the citrus eliminates any potential yuckness. Ha yea that works with sangria as well. Limes are the magic ingredient. Not too many limes though, I’ve made some very bad batches. Actually apples, apples were the worst, apples fucked everything up. Yea, if you’re making sangria. I’ll remember that. I don’t usually go far off my beer whiskey combo though. So guitar, ukulele…. Oh I’ve just started playing the djembe, like the African drum, which is really fun. True, you’re quite in the loop with MUG and MAD and all that? Jennifer Moss, the magic woman who makes music happen. She’s a ninja huh. She is a total musical ninja, that’s how I would describe her. Like I just helped her out on Saturday, she did a vocal workshop, which was cool. Right, she does the community choir too yea? Yep. Everything. So you’re in all those groups? I am now yea. I only just started the drumming one. But yea. She’s a very cool lady to hang out with.
So where are you taking this ukulele song writing extravaganza?
I’m not sure, I’m playing at Zest on March third.
Um, I don’t know. I just keep writing songs and trying to get better at writing songs. And then I don’t know, that’s it really, until I get better at it. Then one day maybe make like a fully fleshed out album, that would be cool.
Nice plug.
Why don’t you do that now? Seems like you’ve got lots of material. Yea I have lots of songs but I’m sort of not… you’re never happy with your own songs I don’t think. Like there’s always something that you think you could do better, but I just don’t think I feel like I have the cohesive group of songs that I want. But then I might never feel that, I might just have to start and see what happens. I’ve never felt that, however that may be because they’re not good yet. No I like them, I’ve been listening to your little memos. True story. Haha oh poor me. Haha yea I love the title by the way. I was like damn memos is taken now. I cant use that. You can have it. We’ll make it a Palmerston North series, like the Poor Me Memos then I don’t know. Then we could get other local sad female singer songwriters to do there own whatever memos. I only called it that to be honest because that’s what my iPhone calls voice memos, like the one we’re making right now, so it wasn’t me being clever, it was me being lazy. Nah sounds good I like it. Thanks man. Outside of music shit do you have anything else going on? I don’t think so. Not really. That seems to be all I do. Music. I try and write, I try and… I’m probably going to do this more because I’m going to university this year, I try and keep the writing ball rolling with poems and short stories and stuff. But it takes a lot of discipline I find, but writing a song, you can do it in fits and starts and you can sometimes write a whole song in one go, where as if you do something any bigger than a poem, to me you actually have to sit down, and think about it, give it some serious thought. Where as writing songs is a lot more fun and spontaneous. So is writing what you’re doing at university? Kind of, I’m doing communications. I’m not really sure what it is, but the major I’m potentially going to have is expressive arts. Which I thought sounded fun, it sounds really flaky and really me. So I was like sweet, expressive arts. That sounds totally not useful and like it wont get me a job anywhere, therefore I will love it. So. I wish I loved engineering but I don’t. Engineering? Yea something like that, where you know, you do the degree then get a job. Plus there’s heaps of scholarships for chicks wanting to be engineers. Where as chicks wanting to go do a BA, or a comms degree, its like ‘no you’re not special, you don’t get money’. You are special. Yea we’re all special, individual snow flakes but…. There’s only so much money to go around so… So, technical stuff, what type of ukulele do you play? Are the people who are super wanky about it like they are with guitars? Oh yea, absolutely. The thing is a lot of people start with like a forty-dollar ukulele, and I have one of those, they’re perfectly fine to be honest. There’s really nothing wrong with it. You do have to replace the strings, like you know when people buy guitars they say ‘oh get the factory strings off it, get some decent ones on there’, that’s like super true for ukuleles, because they sound like shit if you don’t have decent strings. Which usually costs as much as the ukulele. True, forty bucks. Yea, like they’re coming down now. It’s real mean, because so many people play them you can get really decent ones, so I’ve got three, I’ve got my forty dollar one which is like covered in nail polish and super sentimental, love it, but don’t really use it for anything except parties because it doesn’t matter if it gets beat up. And then the next one I got, it’s a Lanikai, and its, there’s three different sizes, the first ones your soprano, that’s the basic, and then I’ve got the tenor size, which is the biggest you can get without changing the tuning. And that one is electrified, so I use that for gigs, it’s my workhorse. Yea, and my favourite one is, it’s a resonator ukulele, its concert size so it’s in-between, and its got a metal cone in it, so it sounds a little bit like a banjo, like just a little bit. Yea.
Yea, which I’m really looking forward to. It looks so cool. I didn’t even know how big it was going to be and then I saw that Blink’s doing a workshop in the library and other cool stuff. But yea by myself I don’t really do gigs, it’s just with my band. I would do gigs by myself but I don’t know. I’m really bad at going out and making stuff happen, so I wait for other people to ask me. That’s kind of how it goes in Palmy though. So your band is Ukephoria right? Ukephoria, and we are a good times band. So, if anyone needs music for like a wedding, or a baptism, birthday party, we are fun. Yea. It’s quite cool because it’s just covers, so it’s really nice because you can enjoy the performance a bit more because your own ego isn’t in the way. That’s what I find about it any way, it’s like, get up and have a good time and it’s with other people, where as when you’re by yourself singing your own songs I tend to get a little more.. It’s a little exposing, singing your own songs, especially if they’re like my Poor Me Memos, just having a good old whinge about everything. Yea. What do you write about? Um, well oddly enough I seem to write love songs, even though I’m like a cat lady in training. They seem to be love songs, it’s almost the way that we’re bought up, listening to like pop music, like you listen to the radio and every song is about love, so any problem in your life, anything you want to write a song about, you end up telling the story through the lens of a romantic relationship, even if that’s not what it’s about. You just reach for those metaphors instantly, even though that’s not really what you’re talking about. I find that songs make way more sense in hindsight. You sit down, you write them and they just sort of come out, you’re not really sure what’s happening, and then you look at it later and you go ‘oh, that’s what I meant’. I don’t know, stuff comes out subconsciously. So you’re a lyrics and music at the same time person? Yea, pretty much. Because I find if I sit down and just write lyrics, then I cant fit them into the music later, because I’m not… it’s like I can bend words to fit around a tune, but I can’t bend a tune to fit around words. So generally it’s better if they come at the same time, but if not I just I don’t know, I end up having all these documents in my computer of lyrics that I’m waiting for music to come along for and it just doesn’t happen, I don’t know, it’s like a one way valve. No doubt they’ll come together one day. For sure. I was real stoked because last night I finally nailed this song that I’ve had for like over a year that I haven’t been able to… like I had the chorus, and it’s a really strong chorus I loved it but I could never find the verse and I found it last night and I was like ‘yes! It does happen!’. Where can people listen to you? They can listen to me on band camp. That’s ameliaandtheotherstuff.bandcamp.com Band camps awesome aye. It is. I’m really excited about how incredibly easy music is to make and record and to share. Its quite cool. It doesn’t matter what you look like or what genre you are, you can just do whatever you like and you don’t have to worry about it. And if people want it they’ll find it, and if they don’t, then you uploaded something on the internet you know, it’s fine, no one dies. No, more cats were produced during the upload. Exactly! It’s all about the cats. And I have a sound cloud but that’s mainly bad covers and stuff. I think it’s soundcloud.com/melinoma I think. Do you have a blog with your writing on it? I do have a wordpress that’s got poems on it. I think it’s melinoma which is melinoma.wordpress. com yea, it was one of… I’ve always been tossing around stage names and stuff because I don’t like using my own name, but I don’t know, nothing really fits. I guess that’s where Amelia and The Other Stuff came from, even though I don’t really like that anymore. I like it. Someone said to me that it sounds like I’m being kind of sarcastic and making fun of like Florence and The Machine and all those ones, and I wasn’t doing that. I kind of used it to refer to the fact that all my ukuleles have names, and semi personalities but… I maybe should stop doing that because sometimes you get a really awkward conversation. When you start talking about your ukulele like it’s a person.
So it’s twangy?
I’ve been there; I named my first guitar Wes Borland, after the Limp Bizkit guitarist.
Yea it’s a bit twangy. Its made by this guy Gevin Balwaith, they’re called captain ukuleles, he lives up in Hamilton and makes ukuleles, and they’re amazing.
Oh my god, that’s… wow. The Limp Bizkit guitarist. Wow. That’s um… yea that would lead to awkward conversations.
The man.
Yep. So do you have anything else to say?
Yea totally, the only bummer is it’s not electrified so I don’t get to use it for anything. But it’s the prettiest. So yea I’ve got three, but I keep wanting another one, a Tahitian one, they’re really cool. They’re like eight string, and it’s doubled so they sound crazy.
Not really, um… not really. There’s got to be something, but I don’t know.
Do you have any shows coming up?
How painless.
Well that’s it!
Anne Cheer
So what do you want to know?
all the time. I quite like organizing things too.
Ok Grandma, what’s your story?
Do you think it’s important to keep busy, in life?
What do you mean what’s my story?
Yes.
Um…
Same.
You don’t want to know the soppy bits.
Otherwise you can get depressed, and you know. Life just doesn’t have any meaning if you’re not busy. Not just for me, but even for you. You’re busy.
What do you do? What do I do? I’m in a retirement village. What do you do there? What do I do there? I’m the cheer person of the Village committee. You want to know all the things I do there? Just in general. Are you popular? Well how would you know? I keep very busy. I try to go to everything that’s on, and there are lots of functions on. Just say I’m on the Village committee. Ok.
Yea, bit busy. Any words of wisdom for younger people? Yes. I would advise people, and you do this so I don’t have to worry about you, is to live by the golden rule. I think the golden rule is the most essential thing. What’s the golden rule? To do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you don’t want people to be nasty to you, then you shouldn’t be nasty to anybody else. Agreed? Agreed. My uncle taught me that, many many years ago. He never went to church but he believed in the golden rule, and he lived by it.
And I’m involved with as many activities in the Village as it’s possible to be. I go to Probus. I go to Thai Chi at the Village and I go to, well I go to all the functions that are on there that I can. I go out every week on the mystery trip.
No doubt.
Have you always been this busy?
If you could change one thing about the way the world is, what would it be?
Have I always been this busy? Ooo, I’ve always been busy.
I’d like to see people live peacefully, and harmoniously, together. Which is a big ask isn’t it.
What did you do before you retired?
It is. How do you suggest making that happen?
What did I do before I retired? I was a teacher dear.
Well that’s also a big ask. I don’t know. I’d like to see it happen, and also id like to see a bit more fairness over the board. Wouldn’t you like to see more fairness over the board?
Do you miss being a teacher? Yes. Why? Because it’s a challenging occupation, and I miss doing reading recovery. Because I changed direction from being an assistant principal, to doing reading recovery, ten years before I retired, and I really miss it. I miss the challenge of working with children with reading problems. Reading is my passion. You haven’t written anything down?
I just think that’s what you’ve got to do.
Yea. And that’s not happening today. And not just in New Zealand, but all over the world. You’ve got the haves and the have not’s and I just don’t like that. Do you really want to be a big have? It’s just, all you want is enough money to live on happily, without wanting. But to have masses and masses and masses of money, well look what happens to them. They get very unhappy a lot of them. They turn into have not’s, full circle.
It’s being recorded…
Yea. So it’s just nice to have enough money. What else do you want to know?
Oh, I see what you mean. Reading is my passion.
What else would you like to tell the zine?
Cool. So you went into teaching to help children?
What else do I want to tell it? Well I don’t know. What sort of things do you need for it?
Um, I’d always wanted to be a teacher; my ambition was to become a teacher. When I left AGGS, that’s Auckland Girls Grammar School, I went onto Teacher’s College, residential college in those days. It was a very good college.
I need to know your inspirations, or something cheesy like that.
Do you think, um…
Why’s that?
Do I think what?
Well no, I do think, and I will say this, that once you stop learning, you might as well give up. See I’ve got computers, and an iPhone and goodness knows what else, and I like to keep learning all the time, and it is important.
Like… do you wish you’d done something else? No not really. No. I was very happy as a teacher. Working with basically five’s sixes and sevens, basically fives, but sixes and sevens at different stages. What’s the most valuable thing you learned from being a teacher? The most valuable thing? Patience and tolerance. What are you going to do in the future? What will I do in the future? Well I’m going to keep very active for as long as I can. I’m going to continue going to aerobics as long as I can. I’m going to continue walking as much as I can, and doing all the things I like doing. I like going to cultural things. For instance last week I went to the air force band, I went to the vector orchestra in wellington and I went at Te Papa. So that’s neat. And these are the sorts of things I like doing, I really do. I like to be kept busy
Well I’m a bit old now to have inspirations aren’t I?
Yea, I agree. If you stop learning I guess you have given up. Yea. And there are people I know who have done just that. Because they think that they’ve learned all there is to learn, and they just wont even try. It’s the same with being active. I believe also you’ve got to be active, in mind and body. And have a cat. I’d like a cat, but I haven’t got him. It really didn’t work out. Unfortunately, but a cat’s company. Well I think that’s enough Grandma, you can spell check it for me. I’ve had an interesting life. I’ve had quite a lot happen to me in my life, I’ve always been busy though, always.
Te Ra Moriarty Introduce yourself Introduce myself. I guess my name, now days, I go by is Te Ra Moriarty, Ah, musician, both solo and in a band, when I need to be but, I guess I don’t know. Still trying to find my sound my sound, and get myself out there. Need to reconnect with my roots in Palmy. That’s all I can think to say about myself. What’s your aim with your music at the moment? I guess I want to definitely do something with it. I figured before that I’d end up being in a band, and playing for another band, and playing shows, but this is a way I can get myself out there musically. Sound wise, my biggest influences are old music, old acoustic, and a lot of it’s American, but also the modern style. I want to kind of have this thing where I could put on a performance anywhere. Here, there, and just on the guitar, make people maybe even dance. But I want to make something with a rhythm, so as people can get into it. I don’t want to isolate people with my own, too far into my own obscure taste. My main aim is to have something that I can just set up and try, and rock the house. What do you write about? Your lyrics sound way older than you are. Shit, I don’t know where that comes from. I guess a lot of the things I write about sometimes, I might just feel blue about a certain situation. Just that feeling, I’ll write some lyrics and they end up being a song, and I may listen to them, or sometimes I’ll sing them, and each time I sing them I’ll think differently about what they mean. So sometimes how I feel about a song lyrically is way different than where it actually came from. Too, a lot of what I like writing about is nature, and again, with that sort of, to put that blues sort of spin on it. Nature, and environmental issues, all the destruction of it. I like focusing on green, you know, nature, birds, waterways, mountains. Yea, that’s a lot of my influence mainly. I want to get into politics, definitely, get some serious issues in there. Protest songs. Yea. I’m no good with the old pen and paper. Sometimes I can retain lyrics in my head, but other times I’m always thinking ‘what’s that bit that goes in there’. Thinking about those songs I play, that you saw, a couple of them were definitely environmental. And also, there’s an old theme that those old American blues people focus on, which I think comes from where they were situated, waiting to catch the train out of where they were. And even sort of the rhythm of their music is the train. I like that sort of idea of the train, going somewhere. Even the train doesn’t need to be a train; it’s just a word. You know, I’ll sing a song about chasing a train, but it’s not an actual train. I should get into it more, writing. Do you write lyrics much? I do. I spend, maybe, at least ten or fifteen minutes a day writing down what’s in my head. And from there I go back, look at them, and perhaps if there’s one good thing that sticks out I can make something from it.
Some days it’s like, the world, I see it as like a positive as place, every one’s cool and, yea it’s positive because you’re seeing that, and you’re switched onto that. But some days, just one little thing could send you on a downward like, just hearing something on the news or hearing some racial reporting or something bad and all of a sudden your mood changes, and the world is different, and you just keep making it worse. But I think its good, the way to see it is to see it positive, too much negativity makes the world go down. But I like singing about it. Down. I like singing about dark things because I think once you put it in a song you can leave it there, and move on, but still have it in that medium. That’s true. The main thing I find here, in the world, is you just, fuck… taking advantage of the little person, and power, is just so like concentrated in a small number of people. I mean, all people have power I guess, and in those relationships with people, people can abuse it, but like, actual wealth, power, is like, power with an evil twist. I read this one saying, which I like, it’s from a politics paper I did: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. It’s like once it’s been introduced it sort of grows and grows and grows and takes over every body. Its almost as if its like, it exists, but there’s no balance. People who have power have taken it from other people, but it can come back, it’s fluid. It can move back to those other people who are under privileged. Even with personal relationships. Sometimes people try and abuse you, in like a friendship or just you know, the fact they think they might be able to, they just want to take the power for a second. I don’t even think people see it like that when they do it. That’s true. It’s easy to observe with a fair eye, but if you’re in it, it’s hard to know what’s going on. No wonder sometimes, with the person trying to get power, they feel deep down that they don’t have it. It’s as if, in a global sense, power comes from not having it. There’s insecurity about it. It’s not rational. The people who are trying to take the power aren’t at peace with the fact that they can never completely control someone else. Have you read the Celestine Prophecy? I’ve heard of it. It’s so gay, but it has some good points in it. More people should talk more about, they call it philosophy aye, but there’s a lot of philosophy that’s natural in humans. Philosophy is juts a word for what it is you know. It actually exists; you don’t have to be some renowned philosopher to have good views on the world. It’s not an academic thing; it’s an experience thing.
Oh lucky you do because I don’t.
Yea, it’s just thinking about things. Its almost as if there is too much lack of thought. With the political thing, I’m sure they think a lot about some of the bad things they end up doing, but their thoughts would be influenced by the situation they’re in, decisions they think they have to make. No names included, but powerful people, and politicians especially. Shit what was I talking about? Power though, it’s just a word for something. I think at the moment, the blues is something I’m into because I’ve started thinking about the world, in the way we can see it, but blue. With anything, the negative emotions that come from being you know, their power being sucked from them, and the blues you know is just something to… there’s something about singing the blues, it’s like a peoples music. So, everybody sings about the blues, but it’s not the blues. Blues is just a word. I guess musically it’s a style, but it goes beyond the music. Even people that do things, big powerful people, they’ve still got the blues because they’ve had to go and do things that make them that much more powerful. Yea, power doesn’t get created just like that, people are disenfranchised for people to gain that from them. The blues is everywhere.
Is metal still of interest to you?
There’s a lot of beauty to be found in that.
It’s not a lot of what I listen to now. When I was full on into metal it was all I really listened to, with a couple of other things on the side, different styles. There’s always that, I guess we all listen to different styles of music, but when I was playing it too, in the band, it was like, that whole fact was driving being into metal, and being into that style, wanting to build on that style. And when you sort of stop playing it, I just started looking outside of that style of music. For a while I was singing in this other band from Upper Hutt.
There’s a lot of inspiration in that aye, mentally, physically and spiritually, and then somehow it flows when you pick up an instrument. I find sometimes, I can almost sedate myself with that. There’s an old saying, blues is a healer, and I think it is a healer musically. Just thinking you’ve got the blues, even if you’re just feeling down, from there you do something to make yourself feel good again. The blues is all about the glory of the rise up. About highlighting the down, and then there’s always a new day, the sun will always shine. That’s another one I like singing about aye. The sun. I’m named after him, Te Ra. There’s something about it, I always try to relate myself to it. I guess that’s just, only I would understand it through my lyrics. It’s probably completely nonsensical.
That’s cool. That’s what I need to start doing. It’s not like I think ‘I’m going to sit down and write’ though, it’s just me doodling with words when I can. That’s cool. That’s a good way to put. Are you going to start up anything else musical? I remember when you were in Cathedra…
I remember you having to catch the train there. Yea, it’s a bad train ride out to Upper Hutt. It’s forty minutes of suburban nightmare. It’s terrible. But the blues stuff is like, where that metal stuff came from. Some metal is really emotional, and the fact that it’s so loud adds to it. But I think band wise, I want to do something that is more creative with that beat. Laid back at the same time, but definitely has that energy. I haven’t had the opportunity to make that music with other people, just jams here and there, that’s all it is you know, stoned as.
It’s valid if it’s what you feel. That’s all there is. Thank you very much for allowing me this opportunity. Whatever man, it’s just a shitty magazine.
How do you see the world?
But that’s cool. There’s no such thing as just a shitty magazine. I’m looking forward to it.
I didn’t think you were going to ask me that, that’s a cool one. Can I get a glass of water first?
Well thanks for letting me talk to you.
Of course.
No worries, I haven’t had this opportunity before, to just go on and on. Normally someone would’ve started talking over me, you know, louder, and taken out what I was saying.
That’s a good one. Um, where do I start on the world… the world is like, thinking of the world… the whole thing, could be the universe as well, but it also could just be up in your head. Like Palmy, earth, shit, I don’t know where I was going to go with that. But I think politically, it’s like the frustration from it, inspires me to try and make music, or sometimes I’ll just be watching the news and think ‘fuck this shit’ and just you know, go do something else, pick up a guitar maybe.
I’ve enjoyed it. I’m glad I came up here. Photo taken by Katie Cheer
Michael Tilley
Ok Michael Tilley, this is it. Introduce yourself. Hello world, I am Michael James Tilley. What do you get up to? I am a man, who likes to ah…. Explore the music world through many different instruments, numerous bands, synth, fulfilling every little aspect of my musical brain I guess. I like anything to do with art, and shit like that. Yea. What bands? My main band would be Nutella Monk, which is my solo shabangle, and I play drums for Bing Turkby, which is more just a jam around to have fun. And play synth in Project Blood, which is an industrial band, which is good fun, and I play bass in another band but we don’t have a name yet, so if you have any good ideas let me know. You’re open to submissions? We are. Where can people submit their ideas? Don’t know. Just yell them out to the sky. Yell them out at the moon at night. Where are you taking things? With music. At the moment I guess it’s a hobby, but its more something that I feel compelled to do. Every sort of waking moment when I’m not working or whatever, I seem to be trying to do something with music. Whether it’s writing music, or playing music or whatever. Pretty much I think my goal is to have fun and enjoy life really, and that’s what I do, and that’s what I enjoy. I want to write a Nutella Monk album, actually do something with that because I’ve been, I was sort of going to release my album about two years ago, then I was going to release it in two weeks, and a few weeks have elapsed since then, so that’s the main goal at the moment, this Nutella Monk thing. But there’s lots of other things, lots of other bands, all the other bands I’m in now have lots of shows on and stuff so it’s hard to find time to conjure up a good song. That’s an ongoing life problem right, not enough time. It is, I have a lot of baskets and not enough eggs. But, I will sort it. Got to get laying. What do you spend most of your time thinking about? Well… when I’m not thinking about Jemma Cheer…. No I don’t know, I spend a lot of time learning stuff online, I do a lot of documentary watching. Seems like I’m doing all of my learning now, it’s quite intuitive, so I’ll kind of go off on tangents online and just learn about lots of random shit, and watch documentaries about anything I can think of, whether it’s the universe or existence and stuff. A lot of that comes into Nutella Monk as well, a lot of the songs are exploring ideas or… that didn’t really make any sense? What’s your inspiration? Inspiration behind music? Life. Um, I guess the inspiration behind life is, my life, it’s like our conversation the other night about the meaning of life, inspiration right now is just experience and knowledge. So that’s what wakes you up in the morning? Well I don’t really wake up in the morning very easily but… that’s why I wake up at 2pm when I can. Where can people hear your music? You can go to nutellamonk.com and that’s got a link to the reverb nation site, which is where I’ve got most of my stuff online. Which is reverbnation.com/nutellamonk but yea just go to nutellamonk.com and you’ll be able to get to it from there. There’s still only about four songs on there, I’ve got to get my ass into gear and actually release songs because there’s a lot of songs where I’ve played them live but never actually recorded them. Anything else for print land? Balls deep.
Illustration by Michael Tilley
Yes I agree with that, but where does that come from? Where does the insight come from? Does it come from the person who wrote it? Or did they arrange language in the way that produced insight? I’ve found insight in your poems before, and it didn’t come from me. Well it came from the poem. But it’s your poem. Well yea, but all I did really was arrange some words on a page right? And you try to arrange them in ways that please you, and you hope they will please other people. But the insights really they end up happening by accident, you end up saying something you never knew you were going to say. And it’s not even something you really know, it’s what’s ended up on a line on a page. I’ve had lots of poems like that. So you’ve found insight in your own poems? I have when people have pointed it out to me. They’ve derived some meaning from the poem which I didn’t think about, I wasn’t conscious of when I wrote it. And sometimes it might be a bad reading of the poem, but other times they’ve seen something that I wasn’t really aware of when I wrote it. And that’s language, its just language doing that, its got nothing really to do with me. So yea, poetry, it’s an art that involves language doesn’t it. And the language is quite separate from the person producing the language. You’re still in control of it.
Tim Upperton Do you know what you want to ask me?
You can say it the other way around, language can control you, language is through you onto the page. I’m not really sure who’s in charge. I bet its like that when you’re writing a song, I bet there are times when your not sure quite what’s in charge. Whether it’s you or just a melody that’s starting to assert itself. I guess language and music are just tools to create with.
Usually I just art by asking you who you are, and it goes from there. Tim, who are you?
But isn’t it more interesting when it does something you didn’t expect it to do? That’s what’s I think anyway. If a poem ends up surprising me, then it will probably surprise other people as well. But if it doesn’t surprise me, it probably wont surprise other people. You know?
I’m Tim, and I’m a PhD student at Massey University, and a writer and reviewer, and a father.
Fair point.
Have you always been these things?
And you do read a lot of poems that are working entirely within what you already know. They might do it really well, but they don’t offer any new insight or any surprise at all. The moment you start reading, you’re kind of in tune with it, you know what it’s going to say. I don’t want to write that.
No, I haven’t always been a father, and I’ve been a writer since about… first publication was about ten r twelve years ago, I’ve sort of been a writer part time ever since then, and more and more as times progressed, so a lot more now that I used to be. What have you published so far? I have one book of poems out, called A House On Fire, which is available at book shops, and I’m about a third of my way through another one, and I try to publish as I go, so I send poems away to magazines, periodicals, and try to get them published, and when I have enough I put them together as a book. I’ve just put an e-book together in the last couple of weeks, which is on my website, I’ve got a new website called aspiredword. If you type that into google you’ll get it, aspiredword.com
Do you have any ‘man I wish I was them’ writers? Ooo, maybe not ‘I wish I was them’, but there are some I really admire. Who? In New Zealand there are quite a few. A lot of younger poets in New Zealand. People like Anna Jackson, a poet in Wellington. Aleksandra Lane, she’s a newish poet in Wellington. Helen Lendorf here, you know Helen.
Did JD from the library do that?
I love Helen.
She did! And do you know what she charged me for that? A book of poems. I gave her my book and she gave me a website.
Yep. **** orpit, she’s my supervisor up at Massey and she’s a poet. Probably the main, pre-eminent one for me in New Zealand would be Bill Manhire, which is, I think a lot of people who write in New Zealand would offer him as their guiding light in a way. But there are many other, Greg O’brien, Jenny Bornholdt, lots of writers for such a small country, lots of interesting writers.
What a good sort. She is. Look at you having a web presence. Who would’ve thought it? So what are your plans with your book and beyond? Really, to write another book, and then another book, that’ about as far as I think along those lines. Is to write more and publish more, and try and find more time for writing. So if I can fins ways and means of doing that I grab them, like doing the Ph D. So that’s what your time is committed to these days?
I feel bad not knowing their work. If you named people in the music scene I wouldn’t know who you meant either. So your work is up on your blog and in bookstores? Yep, Bruce McKenzine has my book, Whilcols did but I’m not sure if they still do. Yea and on my blog, I put poems up there. There’s a new one every day on the blog. Yea and magazines, Listener… Will you take your new book on tour?
Yea, it’s like a job. Its what I wake up each morning to do is to write. It’s the first time in my life that that’s the case.
Well I know writers are doing that, and it really works. You know, they sell a lot more books, and have a lot of fun. I think I will do it. I didn’t really do that last time, I just launched it and that was that. But yea to go up and down the country, that would be fun.
What have you learned so far through your writing?
And wild!
I’d have to say not very much. I don’t think of writers being any smarter than anyone else, and I don’t really think that writing and intelligence have much relation to each other. I’ve known people who are very smart who can’t write, and people who can write who aren’t really all that smart.
Maybe not wild. But it would be fun.
Whenever I read something there’s always at least some small insight within it.
Anything else? I got nothing.
Sonnet Fuck your simile. Fuck your elegy for. Fuck your homily, your extended metaphor. Fuck your metonymy. Fuck your exquisite language economy. Fuck your metre, your keeping time. Fuck your free verse. Fuck your rhyme. Fuck your Elizabethan men in doublets. Fuck their wheedling come-to-bed couplets. Fuck your turn after the octave. Fuck whoever poetry’s meant to save. Fuck the avant-garde. Fuck tradition. Fuck your slightly foxed first edition. Fuck your sonnet about wanting to fuck Tiffany. Fuck your totally unexpected epiphany.
Poem by Tim Upperton (obviously).
Our second one was for the Wanganui YMCA, it was during the day time. That was interesting. It was bizarre, fun though. Yea it was bizarre, and third show is in the Square on Monday for Access Radio, and we’re playing at The Stomach for their first two shows, and I am just in the midst of organising a tour, but the very first date in Wellington keeps getting changed by the Wellington peoples. But we have a date for that now, and it’s May the fourth, and there will be other dates around that. A huf tour? A huf tour, yep. Fun. So you’ve been plying together for a while then? huf
Craig Black. Hayden Sin. Nakedness will be the reward. Way to start the interview. So who are you? Oh man. I’m Hayden. I thought about this today actually, because I re-read some of the zines, and I thought, you ask that question, and then people respond in different ways and I thought ‘I wonder how I will respond tonight’ and turns out just the same as everyone else. I’m Hayden? They didn’t say Hayden. They said someone else. I’ve turned it into a real long-winded one now. Yea. That’s a lot to write, sorry. I’ll get there. Oh and I’m Craig. Hi Craig. Hi Hayden. Hi Jem. Hello. Who are you? I’m Jemma and I’m interviewing you. Cool. Ok, so what do you do together? You’re way better with words that I am. Um, we are a two piece live electronic act, band, musical, band thing. I’m happy with band. Ok we’re a two piece electronic band. Hayden plays drums machines a synthesizers, and um weirdo noises. And I play weirdo noises and samples and occasionally sing stuff about things. And keys. And keys, yea ok, I occasionally play synthesiser as well and effects, I play quite a lot of effects. And we don’t have laptops. No laptops. So vocals? Um, I do vocals and there are also vocal samples. I don’t do vocals. He does do facial expressions. Oh good ones too. Yea he does do facial expressions. I did a nice little preacher thing at band practice tonight. Oh yea yea. You had both your hands out like that! I saw that. That won’t come across, but I felt like it was awesome. Sometimes when we jam we just stand back and wave our hands in the air. Because we really really fucking enjoy it, basically. It’s a stupidly good time. It’s really neat. So have you played many shows yet? We’ve played three; this will be our third Monday coming up. Yea, our first show together was at your birthday party, right here, or just over there. It was awesome. Got drunk.
If you don’t say stuff it’ll just all be me. Yea I know, but you’ve got a lovely voice. I like both voices. Yep. Well we’ve known each other for a long long time. A very long time. So we’ve been in a band before, and Craig was the one who helped me come out of my shell. That’s true, he used to be a caterpillar and now he’s a beautiful butterfly. Yep. Yep. And I mate for twelve seconds and then die. But I come back. Don’t say you mate for twelve seconds, because you’re not getting laid… I bet ya I will though. Yea. Affirmative from Jem. Yep so, I don’t know, it feels like we’ve playing together since forever, so it’s just real intuitive, and there’s bits when stuff happens and, what’s the word? I call it the mind meld. Yea, it’s that. It’s perfect. Because the songs are a jam basically, um, and we just occasionally glance at each other or just do stuff, and stuff just happens. The thing we most have to stop doing live is when something’s real awesome we have to cuddle each other, because it’s so cool. Yea, it’s quite awesome. That’s lovely. Yea. Yea. So you guys both have your own projects, will they continue? Ah, with my work, and my work outside work, I can normally only really do one project at a time, so my slowed down alter-ego Researchintospeed is on hiatus, yea, that’s what the big bands do. We’re on hiatus. Where as huf is more a lifestyle choice. huf is a lifestyle choice. It is. Hairy chests, bling, dead bear jets. Cocaine and hookers obviously, and alligator plated tui. You stick all of that inside a lead jet and grind it up… And that’s like a smoothy. Yea like a smoothy. Are you still doing stuff? You see, the thing is, not really. I write a lot, would you say? Yea he writes fucking constantly. One of our problems is, Hayden keeps writing songs. That’s a good problem. It’s not a bad problem. It’s just, at work all day I think about it, and if I don’t get it out, I don’t know what happens. But it’s not good. But yea, no, huf is it at the moment. I mean I’ve got all the chosen instruments out of the selection at home, like you know when you’ve got kids… well no, imagine, ok, it’s your family Christmas right, and as soon as you walk in you separate the good ones, like oh nah, I don’t want to hang out with those ones, like your kids, like you hang out with them all the time, so I pick the selected instruments, and the miscellaneous ones I sometimes pick up and plug in and do stuff with just to give them a go. That’s yea. But other than that no.
Where are you taking it Are you releasing something? Assuming the guy hasn’t spent the money on paco. P-A-C-O. Paco. What the heck is that? Look it up. All the kids are doing it. Assuming the dude hasn’t spent the money on paco, we’re going to do a two song cassette, just as like a promo thing, there’ll be a digital download as well, um, but that’s going to be our first thing. Because basically fuck, CDs are really boring, and it’s still nice to have a physical thing to give people, and then, because we’ve got a bunch of new songs as well, later on… Sorry about that, it’s the writing thing. No, don’t apologise for that. In about six months, or less possibly, in less than six months, in four months, we’ll do like a five track ep thing. Flash. It’ll be brain smashing. It will be brain smashing. Will there be a party? Fuck yea. Yea lets do a party! We will totally do a party; we’re all about the party. We’ll film it and make it into the video bit, would you like to be there? That’s what you said about the last one, and we still don’t have a video. I know, but we’ve got rights to songs now, there was more to worry about back then. What we don’t have is a video. That’s ok, this is printed, we couldn’t use it anyone. Is that what you mean? Nope. I was just saying stuff. I got lost in that. All I was thinking was you should get yourself and your friends and convince them that it’s a good idea, like you know Japanese kuso parties and all that, and come in costume. Oh yea that would be awesome. I’m convinced. And we’ll put an eight box in my lounge, like on every corner, and we’ll go in the middle. Your lounge isn’t very big either. That’s why it’s awesome. Yea. Small lounges are the best lounges. They are. Wicked. Anything else? Playing music with Hayden is some one the best times I’ve had in my life. Oh yea, same, not with me, but with Craig, it’s awesome. Thanks man. Thanks man. Can we see your boobs now?
Thank you.