St. James Theatre
November 27 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

ONE OF THE big debates in music video analysis is whether the visuals or the music are the most important for a viewer. Handle the Jandle pretends the music doesn’t exist. Outside the obvious criterion that the video is made for a song, this is a contest for the directors and the visual artists. It’s a great forum, it rewards directors and musicians who come up with a good visual idea and bring it to fruition off their own steam. The rules mean that the videos are to be of a DIY nature – the music has to be New Zealand made and the videos self-funded. One hundred and twenty-two entries were received for this year’s Handle the Jandal, and fifteen finalists were chosen from around the country. In the end, the brilliant Hot Grits’ video ‘Headlights’ (the first video banned by TVNZ since 1987, which would matter if TVNZ played music videos these days) won the top prizes from the judges and the audience.

Dispatched from Australia, STUART LYNCH reports on Melbourne’s live music scene.

DELVING into the murky world of Alternative Country is never a predictable experience, the vast range of potential influences making it difficult to know exactly what to expect. So it was with tentative steps that we entered the feral-chic cavern of the Old Bar for this Alt Country double bill. The subtle lighting and abundance of checked shirts lent the venue a suitable ambience, looking like something between a Midwestern honky-tonk bar and a back-alley lumberjack convention. The late cancellation of the promised barbecue did little to dampen spirits, with the easy going crowd much more interested in the $10 jugs on offer than any other form of sustenance.

By Roger Donaldson and Hamish Keith
Random House, $49.95 | Reviewed by Andy Palmer

IN HIS foreword Hamish Keith says: “We live in a cloud of pragmatic photographic images. The practical uses of the medium tend to limit our view of its possibilities – if our experience of painting was mediated by signwriting, we might see it as predominantly only for the making of visual messages. Clear way the noisy swarm of our daily encounters with photographs and photography becomes art again.”

By Tim Jones
Random House, $27.95 | Reviewed by Jennifer van Beynen

SHORT STORIES are tough. Tough to write and, at times, tough to read. And in a collection of short stories, how should they fall together into one book? Should there be links, an overriding theme? The short story can be seen as a small universe unto itself – a good short story should bring the reader straight into this universe and keep them there, absorbed, until the end. It seems that a collection of these universes should then make a whole. In Transported, Tim Jones tackles climate change, fantasy, science fiction (I assume if one story has orcs and another aliens, both bases are covered), some small pieces involving Borges, Gorbachev, and of course human relationships. This means a lot of angles in one short story collection, and at times the material doesn’t sit together all that well.

Circa Theatre
Nov 15-Dec 21 | Reviewed by Kate Blackhurst

PANTOMINE is recipe theatre; if you put in all the correct ingredients it comes out exactly as advertised, with no surprises, unpleasant or otherwise.

Take one old tale/legend/nursery rhyme and give it a new twist. Here we have Red Riding Hood – note, it is not Little Red Riding Hood, as she is no longer a little girl but a young lady with a hooded tracksuit and headphones who jogs through the forest, brightly played by Danielle Mason with grin wattage turned up high. She wants to study zoology which she knows ‘may not earn a great living but it will be an interesting life’.

Te Papa, Soundings Theatre
November 15 | Reviewed by Brannavan Gnanalingam

INTEREST for this show put on by the Japanese Embassy was so intense that its free tickets were snapped up within half an hour. The big queue at Te Papa before the performance suggested that many were hoping to sneak in too, that some foolish souls who had reserved tickets would decide not to show up. Those who weren’t able to obtain a ticket, or relinquished theirs, missed out on a pretty incredible performance by the Yoshida Brothers, two shamisen players from Noboribetsu, Hokkaido. The brothers, Ryoichiro and Kenichi Yoshida demolished the audience’s expectations with their music, their playing breathtaking in its execution and its virtuosity. And their sound was so playful and joyful, that it was easy to forget how impressive their control of rhythm, melody and harmony really was.

Geneviève Castrée, aka WOELV, arrives in New Zealand late November for two shows. BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM finds out, via email, about risk-taking, the English language, and being a musical provocateur.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM chats to LA-based Jeremy Jay, set to dreamweave his indie pop to audiences in Auckland and Wellington this week.

JEFFREY S. CORREA is an undergraduate and lives in New Jersey. He is forever indebted to Zbigniew Herbert.

Dispatched from Australia, STUART LYNCH reports on Melbourne’s live music scene.

THE TOTE HOTEL in Collingwood has earned an iconic reputation over the years for its support of local bands and continual promotion of the underground live music scene. The eclectic line-up assembled here epitomised the establishment’s ‘anything goes’ attitude, and provided a perfect platform for the launch of Major Major’s EP Great Leagues.

By J J Joseph
Exisle Publishing, $35 | Reviewed by Christine Linnell

AT THE beginning of Fighting for My Life: The Confession of a Violent Offender, J J Joseph writes, “I hope my story takes you out of your world and into mine for a day or so”. This insight is the main strength of a Waikato man’s memoir about domestic abuse.

ALEXANDER BISLEY chats with trombonist Joe Lindsay and drummer Paul Hoskins of The Eggs, Wellington’s funk and boogaloo supergroup made up of members from a mix of bands, including Fat Freddy’s Drop, Twinset, The Recloose Live Band, and Phoenix Foundation.

By Roddy Doyle
Vintage, $26.95 | Reviewed by Jodie Mullish

RODDY DOYLE’s 1997 novel The Woman Who Walked into Doors was a worldwide success. A hit. A smash. Call it what you will, it invaded the literary scene with the same violence that Doyle’s character Charlo Spencer used to thump, kick, and rape his wife Paula. In that book, alcoholic Paula is recently widowed, and looks back on her pitiable life in the hands of the thuggish, dangerous Charlo; the searing emotional and physical abuse she suffered at his hands ensure she feels she’s nothing more than vessel for hate and shame.

Circa Theatre
Oct 11-Nov 8 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

Wait Until Dark was a successful Broadway play before it became a well known film. I have never seen the film, so I was seeing the play without that influence. I was told by various members of the production that they had tried to make this version as close to the original as possible. The result definitely felt a little dated, and showed that despite the script being immaculately crafted, it too ultimately suffers from the same fault.

By Iain Sharp
AUP, $64.99 | Reviewed by Andy Palmer

MAJOR Charles Heaphy: artist, explorer, propagandist, cabbage grower, surveyor, soldier, Member of Parliament, Commissioner of Native Reserves, Victoria Cross. Like many early settlers Heaphy seemed to throw himself into various roles. It is his art for which he is most remembered, although this wasn’t always the case. As he drew for much of his life, this biography principally focuses on his art while discussing the various other roles he played. It’s a great read, written in an easy style, with bits of light-hearted humour and tongue-in-cheek modern reappraisal.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM previews the Big Day Out’s first and second announcement of acts for 2009.

ANOTHER summer is coming up, which means another Big Day Out. And it’s a bit of doozy this one (it took a little bit of growing into, but it’s good, really good) – there is a lot already announced, and there are some considerable highlights, making it one of the best value-for-money music fests around the world. BDOs around Australia are selling out in record time, so it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see Auckland’s one go too.

Yule’s debut release Aaaarrrggh!!! features an almost schizophrenic change of genres and sounds, often within songs. BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM chats with the Auckland artist about the album’s restless energy.

In Melbourne, John Clarke talks Conchords and Billy T, Colbert and LD with ALEXANDER BISLEY.

BATS Theatre
Oct 18-Nov 1 | Reviewed by Helen Sims

THE FIRST of this year’s STAB productions feels a little more like it fits with the ethos of STAB – exciting, experimental and full of potential for further development. Apollo 13 presents a theatrical take on the much chronicled space mission. It does so in a way that attempts to charge the audience with the responsibility for the three astronauts racing against the odds and break the ‘fourth wall’ so as to submerge them fully in the ‘world’ of Mission Control.

Dispatched from Australia, STUART LYNCH reports on Melbourne’s live music scene.

ON AN unusually balmy October evening, The Edinburgh Castle Hotel in Brunswick played host to psych-folk rockers Tom Woodward & The Orphanage, a band clearly in their element, and on top form. In the latest show of their Thursday night residency, the precocious Canberrians performed an eclectic set to their ever-growing band of supporters, showcasing a range of styles but maintaining a consistently original sound throughout.