Hannah Fraser

The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary # 203 Visions of JoHannah

“But Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues You can tell by the way she smiles” Bob Dylan I’ve said it before – It’s hard to talk about the act of painting without appearing pretentious

The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary # 187 The Things That Stay (Bloodmonster Part Two)

I think like most songwriters – I have my favourites amongst my own songs. In my case they are the ones I feel will still be around after my band and I have shuffled off. They tend to be the songs that other people take to their hearts – almost like I’m out of the […]

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September 7, 2017 by Simon Sweetman

Sweetman Podcast: Episode 80 – Hannah Fraser & Jon McLeary (Spines)

Welcome to episode 80 of Sweetman Podcast with support from our sponsors – T Leaf T, Yeastie Boys and Le Petite Chocolat. This one is a little different – it’s a chat with Hannah and Jon from the Spines, specifically, a track-by-track walk-through of their new album, Epidural. It’s the first album released by the Spines for 30 years, Hannah is […]

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December 25, 2016 by Simon Sweetman

The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary # 142 The Spines – 2016

1981 – “It was a terrible song but The right name for this band” 2016 – This being our thirty-fifth anniversary I was hoping to get to play a lot of gigs and things always shape up differently than you had planned… In the summer we played at a few carnivals and parks. There was […]

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December 4, 2016 by Simon Sweetman

The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary # 139 The Bodge

I’ve got this foot pedal called Dr. Overlord and it has a mind of its own It’s very old and wont take batteries – you have to plug it into the wall but it has a valve in it The trick is to let it warm up for a good while and then it starts […]

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November 29, 2015 by Simon Sweetman

The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary # 87 A Tour of Two Cities Part One: Masterton

Fishing In our first year of existence, the Spines travelled and played around the lower North Island a fair bit and one of those early gigs was in Masterton. It started out as a holiday but it soon got bigger than that You know you’re fishing know your bait but you don’t know what you’ll […]

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September 6, 2015 by Simon Sweetman

The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary # 75 The Spines Girls

I’ve always enjoyed playing music with women. Louise Loft – In the early days it was with Louise in Negative Theatre – we had a rare chemistry and played off each other’s strengths. The man/woman relationship that was at the centre of what we were trying to do and our little song dramas played out […]