White
Bret Easton Ellis
Knopf; 1st Edition edition
“Stop whining, take your medicine; grow the fuck up” – this is Bret Easton Ellis’ advice in his first effort at non-fiction; a book written to largely justify a series of individual tweets and then all-out Twitter brawls, a book that starts promisingly as actual memoir and then shifts just as surreally and uncomfortably as Lunar Park did – but where that was funny/intriguing – this is just painful. Read More
Waiting For Godot
Direction: Ross Jolly (written by Samuel Beckett)
Circa Theatre; Circa One (May 4 – June 1)
Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot is as close to his existential novels as it is to his other theatre pieces – and when it first arrived on the stage post WWII, pre-The Beatles, it was a revelation. Remarkably, it still is. “Nothing to be done?” We are told/asked early on – we watch as the two characters on the stage (Andrew Foster is Vladimir, Jeff Kingsford-Brown is Estragon) lob unanswerable questions in a philosophical tennis match of dialogue. They, as we know from the title, are waiting for Godot. But who – or what – is Godot? Is it a metaphor, a pen-name for God? Is it a catch-all for anything new, for something to sweep them away from the mundane existence of purely waiting?
Godot’s themes abound – religion/spirituality, comradery/companionship, boredom, death, the intolerable delay in knowing what form the inevitable might happen to take…but in terms of narrative it’s all exposition and no plot. That was – and still is – a bold move. It was a door-opener then and now it seems to exist to still tell us much (and even much more) about ourselves.
Though there’s little scenery to chew in Andrew Foster’s stark, modernist set (greys and a bare tree with a moon projected on the back wall) Peter Hambleton still has a mighty munch when he arrives mid-scene to dominate in both acts with his grotesque and wonderful slave-owner Pozzo. Jack Buchanan is wildly impressive as the unlucky punk-slave Lucky. He stoops, bent over, silent for most of his appearance. He is beaten, he falls, he dances while tethered, his madcap monologue is both silence- and wall-breaking. And his efforts are electric.
But where and what is the mirror? When we meet Pozzo and Lucky again they’re still connected by the rope. But the dynamic has shifted. Their slave/master relationship is different now. Their needs have shifted. Their reliance has as result. Are they a dream within a dream? And are they there to remind us of the push and pull and love and hate in any relationship that’s lasted as long as the bumbling shoe-shuffling of Estragon and Vladimir? 
Questions. Nothing but questions. No answers arrive in this play. They’re for you to contemplate after.
But I did laugh at the way that Pozzo’s way of shifting the mood from him being the brute with an explanation of Lucky’s viciousness has taken on a whole new meaning since I last saw a production of this classic. Our internet-rage and the pile-ons pitchforking for cancel-culture’s foolish errands have their precedent here perhaps.
It’s the energy of the words and inventiveness – the freedom – of not seeking a conclusion, of not needing a punchline or a mark to hit that seemingly imbues this production. And so its director and actors all respond as such – delivering very fine work.
In the second act the tree has blossomed – signalling both hope and a passing of time – but still nothing has (actually) changed. Until we meet Lucky and Pozzo again. And then we have only further hints of the apocalyptic purgatory, the claw of this fever-dream.
I last saw Waiting For Godot some 20 years ago. To see it again was startling, revitalising, dismaying, distressing and wholly wonderful. That’s all that Beckett and this fine cast and crew could ask for I’m sure.
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Reese Wynans & Friends
Sweet Release
J&R Adventures
This Sweet Release is also, no doubt, sweet relief for Reese Wynans, a sideman for some 50 years across a range of rock, blues and roots acts with – most notably – time spent at Stevie Ray Vaughan’s side as part of the Double Trouble band. He also has a story of very nearly being in the earliest incarnation of the Allman Bros.
So, for his debut solo album you could think of Benmont Tench’s solo record from a half-decade ago – not a bad comparison, from similarly talently journeyman musicians. But Wynans is more open about both the number of special guests involved (crediting this “& Friends”) and to the debt of his erstwhile bandleader; Sweet Release is, in part, a tribute to SRV and regathers the members of Double Trouble to work through no less than four killer Vaughan tracks – including the lush instrumental, Riviera Paradise.
Handling the production duties is Wynans’ current boss, Joe Bonamassa (Wynans is the keyboards in Bona’s band. He’s on hand to offer a guitar line or two and a lead vocal. Most winningly he and Kenny Wayne Shepherd combine to take Riviera Paradise to the right place. They allow space for Wynans to showcase his soloing skills where, when on the opening brace of SRV tunes, Reese is more about being a cog in the machine, a band-player. Kenny Wayne’s wah is the star of Say What! And the veteran Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave fame) howls out a killer lead vocal for the album-opening Crossfire.
Sure, these songs don’t improve on the Stevie originals – but they pay tribute and remind of where Wynans musical adventures of taking him. To that end the album-closing instrumental take on The Beatles’ evergreen Blackbird has Wynans on solo grand piano. It’s lovely. Really warm and gentle and beautiful.
As is the playing and spirit throughout this album.
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Hammock
Universalis
Hammock Music
Well into their second decade, ambient guitar duo Hammock (Andrew Thompson and Marc Byrd) can subtly surprise with a gorgeous string arrangement (Scattering Light) or play the Eno card so well (Mouth To Dust…Waiting) that it’s almost a given their albums will be great. Consistent, dependable. They make safe-places for ambient music fans to huddle and this is true of their most recent album, Universalis. Read More
Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
Jaron Lanier
Henry Holt and Co.
Jaron Lanier was there for the building of the internet, an early chat-room visitor (and developer), a guy with major tech credentials. He’s become an internet philosopher, a fierce critic of Silicon Valley; he’s like any writer with a troubled history and complicated relationship with their hometown. Silicon Valley is the home of Jaron Lanier The Tech Wizard. He likes to throw stones from inside and all around that particular glasshouse. Read More
Sam Hunt: Off The Road
Colin Hogg (w/ Sam Hunt)
HarperCollins
When I read The Spinoff’s review of this book – I laughed. I loved it. Brilliantly written – and I winced at the thought that it was probably true, but that I still wanted to read Off The Road because the book that started the friendship between Hunt and Hogg, and the book that Off The Road is an intended tribute to – Angel Gear – was a firm favourite; arriving in my life at the right time. (I even have my copy now signed by its author). Read More
The Individualist – Digressions, Dreams & Dissertations
Todd Rundgren
CLEOPATRA; First edition
When I first heard Something/Anything? it blew my mind. It still does actually. Regularly. I knew about Todd Rundgren the guitarist and producer – with credits ranging from Meat Loaf and XTC through to creating the score for the movie Dumb and Dumber…but I had never heard any of his own songs until Something/Anything. And then I realised that I had been hearing his songs on the radio – and that music I thougth might have been Carole King’s or Laura Nyro’s was actually this wizard, this true star: Todd. Read More
Once a month or so I have a chat on RNZ on their Afternoons show with Jesse Mulligan. These things start – randomly and stop in much the same way. I hope to keep doing this. For a while at least. I think I started in December of 2015, so now four years into it or so…
This month was a little different. For a couple of reasons. First it was with fill-in host Wallace Chapman – which creates a different dynamic of course. And I decided to focus on just one album. I talked about Phil Judd’s brand new CD, Flightless Bird. Read More
MoodPorn
Direction: James Cain (written by Matthew Loveranes)
BATS Theatre, The Heyday Dome (April 23 – May 4)
Ali Foa’i (Atlas) and Heather O’Carroll (Jane) are the stars of this two-hander – and though James Cain’s direction is assured and Matthew Loveranes’ script is a delight it is because of the two actors and the chemistry between them that MoodPorn succeeds at the level it does. This might be fair to say of any play featuring just two characters that equally share the stage and dialogue – but it’s important to mention here. Because MoodPorn is not looking for answers, even though its characters might seem to be. MoodPorn is, as its title winks, a setting up of questions and questioning, a reveal of layers also; MoodPorn is an establishment of love and lust and longing, of grief and grieving – it is a peek behind the curtain of deep human psyche. Read More
Norah Jones
TSB Bank Arena; Wellington
Wednesday, April 24
Listening to a Norah Jones album and attending a Norah Jones concert…they used to be a very similar experience. I know this because I saw Jones on her first two tours of New Zealand. Back then she was shy and the demure, deer-in-headlights thing was a further selling point for the thousands that had lapped up her polite dinner jazz-marketed albums (well there was a wee flirtation with country on the second, but that was allowed, the troops were still happy). Read More
Bob Gaulke
Transportation
BobGaulkeProds
The obsessions of prolific New York-based writer and musician Bob Gaulke are neatly assimilated on Transportation – it might seem an odd juxtaposition of assemblage but Gaulke’s love of poetry, New Zealand music from the 1980s and 1990s and more modern Brazilian feels is instantly on display for the opening, scene-setter: Bad Writer. It’s like The Bats or early solo Phil Judd taking the words and delivery style of New York-era Lou Reed but asking for production and arrangement suggestions from Zach Condon, Tchad Blake and Mitchell Froom.
In short: it’s wonderful.
OnFoot’s soft-shoe shuffle of a narrative is couched in a tunnel of percussive grooves as horns trickle and ooze at the sides.
UpSyndrome has some of the feel and flavour of solo David Byrne – but imagine, if you could, Chris Knox stepping up to deliver a cover of a song from Rei Momo.
I love the material here – but just as much I love imagining how these song-settings were created and how Gaulke has reconciled all of the sounds and moods in his head.
There are a couple of guest-vocalist tracks too. Vivian Benford delivers light jazz in a manner reminiscent of the St. Vincent of her earliest records. And across a saxophone waft and a groove that seems to somehow pulse a samba and bossanova together it’s a brief, beguiling affair.
Peri Mason takes the lead on Another Rat, again it’s a David Byrne-sounding rhythm guitar part, with slinky drums and soulful horns. 
There’s a huge exploration of music across a brief running time. Ten tracks, and just over 30-minute run time – but like great songwriters from Todd Rundgren to John Hiatt there is something in compositional sharpness and dogged self-belief of Gauke that inspires this collection, that binds these songs. There’s brittle edges of cornball funk (Turkmenistan), plaintive balladry finds a home inside a lithe pop song (Subway Lovers) and if you can imagine Ed Motta and Joe Jackson ever collaborating – then those would be the impossible friends that made closing track Impossible Friends.
I love where this album takes me. Strange, fascinating places. You have to hear it.
Aldous Harding