‘Hardy, creative, perhaps a bit eccentric’
Writer, musician and radio host talks about growing up with Rita Angus living just around the corner and the capital’s high concentration of quality songwriters.
Wellington-born author, reviewer and musician Nick Bollinger has been a member of bands such as Rough Justice, Ducks, Pelicans, Living Daylights, Laconics and the Windy City Strugglers. He has written, produced and presented music review programme The Sampler for RNZ since 2001.
Right now, he’s finishing his fourth book, described as being about the rise and fall of 60s counterculture in New Zealand.
What does it mean to be a Wellingtonian?
You have to be hardy, creative, perhaps a bit eccentric, and have other priorities than money and glamour.
I live here because . . .
I was born here, my family are here, and I’ve never found anywhere else where I feel more at home.
We may not have great weather but we have . . .
A lively intellectual culture. It’s a home to great writers, musicians, actors, teachers, artists, thinkers and talkers.
Best place to swim?
I live in Island Bay where it is only warm enough to venture into Cook Strait’s icy waters about twice a year, but I’ll often have a dip up the coast at Paekākāriki.
Where’s your favourite place to take in some art?
Bowen Galleries on Ghuznee St always has something worth seeing. I’m also looking forward to catching the Rita Angus retrospective at Te Papa. Rita lived just round the corner from us in Thorndon when I was a kid and I remember her vividly.
The best meal in the region?
Usually at our place, but Queen Sally’s Diamond Deli in Lyall Bay does a great takeaway salad.
Best festival in town?
The Newtown Festival is easy to get to from Island Bay. It’s a good place to hear a wide variety of the city’s many great musicians, and to generally celebrate Wellington’s most diverse neighbourhood.
What is your ideal night out in Wellington?
Seeing friends from out of town and catching up over a bottle of wine somewhere uniquely Wellington like Cicio Cacio Osteria in Newtown.
The perfect Saturday morning in the city is . . .
Buying the veggies and a coffee at the Harbourside Market, then heading up the coast or into the hills for a ramble and a scramble.
My guilty pleasure in the city is to go to . . .
Slow Boat Records. I often end up in there exchanging opinions and arcane musical facts with Jeremy Taylor when I’m supposed to be elsewhere getting on with some work.
What part of the city are you most at home in?
As a postie in the 1980s I got to know whole chunks of the city really well, but the most familiar place of all might be the Botanic Garden. I grew up right on the edge of the gardens and as kids it was like a vast playground where we would build forts and find vines to swing on.
Not many people know this about Wellington but . . .
There are more good songwriters here per square metre than anywhere else in New Zealand, from Luke Buda to Ebony Lamb to Bill Lake to Vera Ellen.
Wellington’s best feature?
The Town Belt, which someone in the 19th century referred to as the city’s lungs. From anywhere in the city you can be on a bush track and heading for the skyline in a matter of minutes. Very therapeutic.
What is your greatest hope for this city?
That it can affordably house everyone who wants to live here without trampling over its history, or letting its character be determined by landlords and property developers. I’m also looking forward to the reopening of the public library, the city’s democratic heart. – As told to Bill Hickman