AUCKLAND CALLING – NOTES FROM THE KIWI SUMMER

FAMILY, FRIENDS, SUNSHINE, SEA & CRATE DIGGING (+JOSHUA IDEHEN)

Dock of the bay: how I start my mornings, with a dip in the Manukau harbour.

I’ve been back in Aotearoa for ten days now. Initially, I was jet-lagged and disoriented – a mix of in-flight insomnia and the extreme contrast from English winter to the Kiwi summer. The latter has got underway after an apparently pitiful January and currently consists of long, hot, sunny days. If you are reading this in a winter zone so thinking “how blissful” do note that New Zealanders’ suffer the world’s worst skin cancer – fierce sun fuelled by holes in the ozone layer ensure its easy for skin to burn here – and eye cancer (everything is very bright here).

Which means Kiwis’ slap on the sun cream and wear hats and sun glasses when stepping out. And I’ve been stepping out a lot. I’m primarily here to spend time with my mum and she’s an extremely active 89-year old. We visited family in the Coromandel – a region of remarkable coastline that once was home to a 19^th century gold-rush (leaving colonial-era buildings of no small charm), then potters and hippie communes took root, before a new gold rush in second home owners decided the 3-4 hour drive from Auckland made Coro’ the perfect weekend getaway – and I’ve caught up with a selection of old friends. There’s something comforting in re-encountering people you’ve known most of your life, akin to a pair of slippers that fit so well, they’re just easy to be around. Maybe because I only encounter them every few years it makes the reunions sweeter, lacking the familiarity that breeds if not contempt then a sense of indifference.

Dumb and dumber? Friends reunited - behind us the crate digging is underway.

Actually, one reunion at a record fair this morning was the first time we’d set eyes on one another in 34 years: I last encountered Andrew Boak at a Buffalo Tom concert in the Haight Ashbury area in 1991. I was then living in the Haight and it was a great place for live music – this is before Silicon Valley bros colonised it – and I was surprised to see Andrew there, we’d spent out mid-teens on the Auckland punk scene andpreviously been in the same music space at (I think) a gig in a disused cow shed where his band No Tag played and skinheads threw beer bottles against the shed’s concrete floor. Social media meant we reconnected – as is the case with so many old pals – and I once interviewed Andrew via email for a piece I wrote on the Kiwi punk scene, so when FB told us we were both in AK to visit our mums (Andrew having stayed put in San Francisco – where he continues to lead punk bands, but no longer plays cow sheds) we arranged to meet in a makeshift temple for middle aged men (and a few women): yes, a record fair.

So far I’ve only been to one concert in NZ - Midge Marsden, the foremost blues singer, played a free event by the sea. Midge has worked closely with Stevie Ray Vaughan, Charlie Musselwhite, venerable Mississippi blues artists et al. At 79 he remains in fine voice.

As soon as I’d finished chatting with Andrew, I was accosted by another old pal – this one Adam, a journalist who had recently been made redundant, allowing us to bemoan our profession’s increasingly rapid decline. He helped me commiserate by suggesting I pick through the LPs he was unloading - I chose several Kiwi titles: the La De Da’s debut and The Mod World of Dinah Lee being about as good as ‘60s Antipodean beat music got, while The Impressions Showband LP documents a long lost era when Maori vocal troupes worked the NZ-Australian-South Pacific club/cabaret circuit.

Record fair tends to bring odd fellas together so I soon had a chap telling my how my brother’s punk rock show on BfM, Auckland university’s radio station, changed his life 40 years ago. I know, we’re a weird mob. Anyway, in-between interruptions I did manage to find lots of inexpensive 45s, which made me a very happy bunny.

Old Kiwi pop gold. Dug out of crates yesterday.

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Anything of note? Goofy Kiwi efforts (My Old Man’s An All Black), US soul singles (Joe Tex, King Floyd, Wilson Pickett), a Nelson Riddle EP where he performs the theme to Route 66 and other TV themes, the Hollies’ Bus Stop (I recently interviewed Graham Gouldman and he told me how his father, Hymie, gave him the opening verse and he then went and wrote the rest of the song in a matter of minutes), Rico Rodriques’ What A Wonderful World (I know, will it be of interest? Mum got rid of our record player after my dad died – yes, she was obviously grief stricken to commit such a heinous act – so I can’t listen yet), Lee & Nancy’s Some Velvet Morning (perfect summer psyche 45 – annoyingly, I now realise its got a small warp; anyone got warp resolution advice?), Amen Corner’s If Paradise Is Half As Nice (Andy Fairweather Low – who started with AC – recently was interviewed by Cerys on her Radio 2 Blues show and had lots of interest to say), Jimmy Jones’ Handy Man, Roy Head’s Get Back, Donovan (more summer psyche) etc.

Auckland is my home town, where I was born and bred, and a city I have very mixed feelings about. Auckland sprawls like LA, and offers a similar mix of poor public transport (ensuring its car dominated and roads are congested - I have to adapt to driving whenever I return), gorgeous surf beaches, multicultural inhabitants (its the world’s foremost Polynesian city, alongside home to sizeable Chinese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani and other Asian communities), myriad eating places, thuggish street gangs (often involved in the crystal meth trade – meth is the Kiwi crack...), obesity alongside body beautiful, rich and poor (housing is a serious problem and there are now many homeless beggars – largely Maori/Polynesian men who have fallen through the cracks), a city of beautiful colonial villas and endless, shoddily designed suburbs.

I grew up in one such suburb, Mt Roskill. When I was young Roskill was “dry” (being dominated by evangelical churches who controlled the local govt) so no alcohol could be sold. It also had no cinema, theatre, music venue, library or anything much else of interest. If I ever try and understand my restless wanderlust, I point to growing up in Roskill. Today Roskill is predominantly Indian and a former Polynesian church is now the city’s largest mosque. Its more colourful than when I was raised here, but still not a place I care much for.

A Coromandel suburb - one with a message from Tutu that is always worth sharing.

Then there’s the beaches, especially the West Coast beaches, and the “bush” ie the native forest of the Waitakeres. These factors mark Auckland as distinct from LA and any other city I know – both dynamic and vulnerable: when I last visited two years ago constant heavy rain saw roads collapsing and houses sliding off hillsides. Climate change will ensure more turmoil is wreaked here, and across the South Pacific, especially upon the smaller islands.

Aotearoa – the Maori name for these islands that apparently translates as “land of the long white cloud” (now “land of the wrong white crowd” to Maori activists) - has been piecing together its identity as a post-colonial, South Pacific nation in fits and starts. Right now the governing coalition of centrist conservatives and libertarian zealots are playing an anti-Maori card that’s fiercely divisive: Waitangi Day, our national day that celebrates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi (between Maori tribes and representatives of the British Crown in 1840 – a treaty subsequently broken by the British state) just passed on Thursday with lots of heated voices.

Aotearoa is mad, bad, happy, sad, beautiful, ugly, welcoming, insecure, friendly, tense, loving, frustrating, inspiring, infuriating, a cosy place to live if you have a decent job and very challenging if you don’t (like much of the world), a place of remarkable energies and much creativity and the world’s finest pies! And fabulous fish & chips. I’m happy to be back. While the sun is shining, at least.

Right now I should be introducing you to a cutting edge Kiwi musician I think everyone should check out. But I’m not yet up on my new New Zealand talent. So I’d like to introduce you to Joshua Idehen – he’s a British Nigerian spoken word artist who has broken through (to a degree) with Mum Does The Washing, an extremely witty (and incisive) take on laundry and how you can interpret all shades of humanity/ideology via such (with a tasty, minimalist techno pulse). 

I first heard Joshua on Jamz Supernova’s 6 Music show – Jamz plays contemporary dance music from across the globe, spinning tunes I’m unlikely to hear otherwise – and I liked Idehen so much I posted the video on FB. To which I received zero response. Oh well, must be too niche I thought. I then sent it to my Nigerian ex who has 3 munchkins - lots of mum doing the washing going on there - and, again, received no response. Maybe it sucks, I wondered, to everyone but me.

Then Cerys came to the rescue and played it on her 6 Music show. She later mentioned getting a huge response from listeners. So it’s not just me – whew! Anyway, this is the freshest tune I’ve heard in 2025. And as I often write about old music I thought I’d share Joshua’s very new one with you. Enjoy (I hope)!

Mum and I wish you all a very sunny Sunday!