There’s no place like Newtown
IT shouldn’t really surprise anyone that when Newtown in Wellington was recently named as the second most popular postcode for songwriters in New Zealand that a member of one of the capital’s musical institution’s Fat Freddy’s Drop would live there.
Trumpeter Toby Laing has called it home since 2006.
‘‘Everything is here,’’ he says. ‘‘There is no need to go north of the Basin usually. Newtown is the kind of place where you might stand a ghost of a chance of affording a modest flat that isn’t a leaky dark shoebox in town. Or perhaps even buy a place, if you have received a lucky windfall. For this reason artistes flock here in droves. This all contributes to Newtown maintaining something of that famous Wellington underground creativity which is sadly almost completely extinct up in town. Sorry guys.’’
At various times all of the members of Fat Freddy’s Drop have lived in Newton but nowadays it’s just Laing and vocalist Dallas Tamaira.
So has the suburb been immortalised in song yet?
‘‘Let me see,’’ Laing says. ‘‘There are certainly a lot of blackbirds in Newtown. At the studio I have made a few impromptu speeches regarding south Wellington bird lore. I think Dallas was listening in one time and got a few ideas for that song.’’
MOONBEAMS
Los Angeles-based Kiwi Ginny Blackmore releases her debut album Over The Moon on March 20. Blackmore, who has written songs for Christina Aguilera, Adam Lambert and Nicole Scherzinger, topped the New Zealand charts last year with Holding You, a duet with Stan Walker. ‘‘ Over The Moon is as honest as I could make it,’’ she says. ‘‘It’s my perspective on love and life. I made the album I wanted to make. I’m stubborn like that!’’
GIFTED COLLABORATION
Third3eye’s MeloDownz and The Means’ Abraham Kunin, who are both part of the Young Gifted and Broke musical family, have collaborated on a new single, Tell Me. ‘‘It’s a reflective song, inspired by interactions with those in a state of narcissistic confidence [or a few too many] when self-indulgence becomes all you can hear,’’ MeloDownz says.
Mike Alexander FROM the moment he was born Shannon Fowler, Tom Lark has spent much of his life in his bedroom.
As a teenager growing up in Christchurch, that’s where he doodled away for hours writing music ‘‘diaries’’ and humming away to the quirky pop melodies that always seemed to be floating around in his head.
When the Christchurch earthquakes hit, he was forced back into bedroom production after his practice space had to be demolished. The result was his self-titled eight-track EP, which metamorphosised a Fowler into a Lark.
‘‘When creating an alias for myself to release music under, I just wanted to pick a name that was short and snappy and had the same syllable count as someone like James Bond,’’ the now Auckland-based songwriter says. ‘‘I suppose I think of myself as somewhat of a special agent working in a not so secret alternative pop division.’’
At the time of it’s release in 2011, Lark hit the road on a national tour with Lydia Cole before heading to Berlin where he did the unthinkable and rerecorded the EP.
‘‘In 2011, I put out six songs