Daily News Channel
ONE TRUE VINE Mavis Staples (Warner) The second collaboration between soul great Mavis Staples and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, like the first, owes as much to Tweedy’s deft guidance and production skills as it does to Staples’ power-punch vocals. He manages to plug into the emotional centre of a singer bought up on gospel, who became a powerful voice for the US civil rights movement.
Simon Gooding and Brendon Morrow already knew their way around the studio as session musicians for other bands and had already mapped out their future before they ever met. While studying audio engineering at SAE in Byron Bay, Australia, they shared a cramped dorm room, and discovered a mutual love for Radiohead, The Beatles and The Mars Volta and when they returned to Auckland, The Map Room was already half born.
Tickets for the latest reincarnation of Fly My Pretties are going on sale today and we have a great prize for one lucky fan. The 20-date Homeland Tour, proudly presented by Stuff, kicks off on September 5 in Kaitaia and makes its way through the heartland to finish in Invercargill on October 2.
New Zealand’s most exciting musical collective, Fly My Pretties, is assembling for another reincarnation.
Tenacious D The Opera House, Wellington Tuesday, May 21 You know you’re in for a night of fun when a gig starts with a comedian talking about racism, raw mince and porn while a man dressed in a Sasquatch costume plays the guitar and the drums. A happy, bogan-y crowd followed Tenacious D – actor Jack Black and his “brother of rock” Kyle Glass’ – call to the noble halls of the Wellington Opera House last night, and they were ecstatic from the first chord of opening number Rize of the Feniz.
After wowing crowds over three nights in Auckland in March 2012, Taylor Swift is set to return this spring.
Bonnie Raitt Founders Theatre, Hamilton, 12 April This was a gig I think a lot of people went into not knowing what to expect.
New Zealand jazz icon Nathan Haines drew some public complaints about “really loud saxophone coming out of the carpark” when he recorded upcoming album, Vermillion Skies.
Ed Sheeran TSB Arena, Wellington, March 8 There’s a lot about Ed Sheeran that I didn’t know.