Poem: Turnabout
It’s hard to know where you’re from if you’re
still finding out where you’re going – they say
to not forget your roots; they say that home is
where the heart is; they say that a cliché is worth
its weight in gold of course, but I don’t believe
in that kind of curse…we are all free to grow and
therefore free to be someone new. We don’t need
anchors, we don’t need grounding. That was how
the journey started. After that, you head out in the
world – if you’re lucky. You shrug off the baggage
if you have such privilege. You work out where you
are going as a way of knowing just where you’ve been.
I’m always looking for music to write about. Which is not my ‘job’. But it is my ‘role’. Something I selected for myself a long time ago, long before I was ever published or paid. Music started speaking to me on the level where I felt I had to speak back to it – and about it – when I was 13. Music and writing have been connected for me since then. I was listening to music a lot earlier, obsessed since six or seven I would say. But since I was 13 years old, since I had an electric typewriter, since I armed myself with a copy of Leonard Cohen’s tome, Stranger Music (lyrics and poems), since I started typing out my favourite lyrics, writing my own poems, keeping diaries, listing the albums I bought, listing the albums I listened to – it’s been on. 
Wellington Comedy: Friday Laughs
Just the other day 
I’ve started listening to a lot of 
In 2015 I started reviewing albums on RNZ – a quick chat, mentioning a couple of artists, playing a couple of songs. I loved it. I love talking on radio. Love the medium. Love the challenge of “reviewing” music that way. It’s different from writing about music – or should be. Some radio reviewers write their thoughts and then just read them out. I never did that. I didn’t use notes. I just like to go in and chat. It’s that live, seat-of-the-pants thing that makes it for me. Sounding rehearsed is not my thing.