Blues hounds

Blues with ‘‘a kick of rockabilly and something shameless’’ is on the menu in Picton tonight, with Australia-based Moondog Gypsy Blues in town as part of a nationwide tour.

Moondog (voice, guitars and harp) and Kate Le Jam (stand up drum kit and cajon) have left their home in Byron Bay, New South Wales, to spend the summer in New Zealand.

It is a homecoming for Moondog, who still has family living in the Bay of Islands, and Kate says she loves the land on this side of the Tasman, too.

‘‘We love New Zealand, north and south, east and west, and we love playing for all the groovy folk,’’ she says.

‘‘And Moondog comes back to check up on folk and family and to make sure they’re all having fun.’’

Asked how their music came together, she says: ‘‘for the love of blues’’.

‘‘Both of us have fathers who loved the blues; we live it, walk it, breathe it, eat it, brush our teeth with it.’’

Moondog plays a range of guitars. Most are steel – ‘‘and modestly abused’’ – and include Alley Tyn types, resonators, a custom-made, lap-steel ‘‘Frankenslide’’, and an 80-year-old ‘‘Flo’ Nightingale’’.

He also plays a harp, ‘‘because that’s the sound of the blues’’.

Blues has been Moondog’s passion for more than 35 years while Kate identifies herself as a ‘‘go go’’ drummer and stands up whether she is playing a drum kit, a percussion set or a cajon, a six-sided Peruvian percussion instrument.

‘‘How the hell do you sit down and play drums?’’ she asks metaphorically.

Tonight’s show comes with a story, ‘‘a love one gone wrong’’.

Photo: SUPPLIED Homecoming: Moondog, left, and blues partner Kate Le Jam are playing in Picton tonight.