The gift of the gab
Broadcasting stalwart Graeme Hill seems to have disappeared from the airwaves lately, but there are a few rants in him yet, writes Chris Schulz.
Graeme Hill is sitting out back of his Auckland home on a hazy summer afternoon. There’s a cold Corona in his left hand, a lit cigarette in his right, and a twinkle in his eye. ‘‘This is going to take a while,’’ he warns. The broadcaster and musician, a popular figure thanks to his band, Able Tasmans, and a media career that stretches four decades, is about to launch into a story.
He knows it’s a good one.
‘‘I was at the dentist,’’ he says, his legs jiggling up and down as he warms up.
‘‘I had this bast... crown. Over and over again, something’s wrong with it.’’
As he leaned back in the dentist’s chair, Hill requested something to listen to.
‘‘I’m thinking, ‘It’s Tuesday. That means
Bill Burr’s latest podcast will be on. I haven’t heard it yet.’ ’’
Burr, an actor and stand-up comic, is known for rants full of expletives.
‘‘It’s not something your nana, unless you have a very special nana, is going to enjoy,’’ says Hill, who’s a big fan.
He took a punt anyway, hoping it was a tame episode, but warned the dentist and the assistant that there could be some ‘‘fruity language’’.
‘‘So we cranked it up,’’ says Hill, flicking ash on to the concrete as he builds to his punchline.
‘‘It just so happened to be 20 straight minutes of the most hard-out, vitriolic, anger-spewing brilliance, with the longest collection, without a break, or a noun, of [swearing that] Bill Burr has ever done,’’ he says.
A grin spreads across Hill’s face. ‘‘I saw the assistant flinch.’’
Hill wanted it to stop, but was powerless.
‘‘I could, being prone and anaesthetised, do nothing about this, except just watch it unfold.’’
Funny? For sure. Being stuck in a dentist’s chair while swear words cascade over the room is exactly the kind of awkward yarn Hill would play for laughs on one of his radio shows, from bFM in the 1980s to a Radio Sport talkback show in the 90s.
It could easily have been turned into a skit on one of the TV shows he’s contributed to, such as Sky TV’s long-running chat show SportsCafe ,or Eating Media Lunch, the prankster series presented by Jeremy Wells, which Hill wrote for in the 2000s.
And it would have been a perfect fit for Weekend Variety Wireless, the radio show Hill hosted for 13 years, until it got canned in a Mediaworks rebranding exercise that turned RadioLive into the more conservative Magic at the end of 2018.
Hill’s always had an outlet for stories like his shocker at the dentist but, lately, he’s been missing from our airwaves.
Aside from an occasional stint reviewing music on The AM Show, Hill’s rarely been seen or heard from over the past year.
It’s the longest break he’s had.
So, what’s he been up to?
Hill grins and recites the answer he gives everyone who asks him that. ‘‘I’ve dedicated myself
‘‘[Graeme Hill] walked into my funny little office at Sky and he had a mohawk, but it wasn’t straight, it was on the side of his head. I said, ‘Mate, I need some help.’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s how he showed up.’’
Ric Salizzo
to making lists of things to tell people when they ask me what am I doing now.’’
That cheekiness has always been there. Jane Dodd, a veteran Dunedin musician, has a vivid memory of the first time she saw Hill performing live.
‘‘He was a mad man playing keyboards,’’ she remembers.
His Able Tasmans were opening for Dodd’s group, The Verlaines, at former Auckland venue, Windsor Castle. It was the mid-80s, and Hill – who performed under his birth name ‘‘Humphreys’’ – was ‘‘wild’’.
‘‘He practically threw the keyboards around,’’ says Dodd. ‘‘He rocked them. He had this maniacal way of playing and singing . . . I remember thinking, this is quite crazy stuff.’’
Dodd, a bassist, got to know Hill through music circles, but kept her distance. She was surprised when, in 1990, Hill asked her if she’d join his band. She was reluctant.
‘‘I thought, I should stay away from him. It frightened me.’’ But she knew other members of his band, and tentatively agreed.
Dodd spent six years in the Able Tasmans, recording three albums with them before they split in 1996. They remain a well-respected part of New Zealand’s musical heritage, and Dodd is still good friends with Hill.
Hill’s broadcasting career began at bFM, where he juggled his radio show with band life.
Paul Casserly met Hill during that time. ‘‘People consider him to be one of the great bFM hosts, alongside Marcus Lush and Mikey Havoc,’’ he says.
From there, Hill moved to Radio Sport, hosting a talkback show. Hill’s bFM hijinks weren’t welcome, courting trouble for secretly recording newsroom banter and preparing it to air.
‘‘I was out of line. I didn’t know what I was doing there. I wasn’t very good at it,’’ Hill says.
But Casserly remembers that time differently. ‘‘Lots of older guys I come across say, ‘I loved Graeme Hill on Radio Sport.’ He brought something extra.’’
Hill’s five years there led to an introduction to Ric Salizzo, a journalist and documentary maker who had been commissioned by Sky TV in 1996 to make 40 episodes of a new, off-the-wall show called SportsCafe.
Like Dodd, Salizzo easily recalls their first meeting.
‘‘He walked into my funny little office at Sky and he had a mohawk, but it wasn’t straight, it was on the side of his head. I said, ‘Mate, I need some help.’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s how he showed up.’’
SportsCafe became a very big deal, turning Salizzo’s co-hosts Lana Coc-Kroft, Leigh Hart, Marc
Ellis, Matthew Ridge and Eva Evguenieva into huge stars.
It ran for more than a decade, and Salizzo says Hill was a huge reason for its longevity, helping balance out the cast’s huge personalities.
Salizzo can’t speak highly enough of him.
‘‘I loved working with him. He’s a genius. He’s one of the smartest, most talented people I’ve ever worked with. He’s just phenomenal.’’
Hill was offered Brian Edwards’ weekend RadioLive slot just as SportsCafe’s run was coming to an end in 2005. He poured all of his skills into it, veering between features, guests, rants and pranks like a hyperactive puppeteer, somehow crafting a show that was curated and composed.
It might have been the perfect radio show.
‘‘It was highly eccentric and opinionated,’’ says music journalist Grant Smithies, who was a regular contributor. ‘‘It was appointment listening, you’d be excited about where he’d take you.’’
Casserly was a guest, too, and he was staggered by how much work it was to get the show to air.
‘‘He didn’t have a producer, he did it all himself,’’ he says. ‘‘He’d go to the Ellerslie Car Show and talk to obsessive people about cars, and he’d record the sound of a car door closing. Then he’d go home and edit it.’’
Casserly, who now works on Seven Sharp, once filled in for Hill over a Christmas break.
‘‘It nearly killed me,’’ he says. ‘‘I thought, ‘How the hell do you do this?’ I’d never felt so drained in my life. Ever.’’
Fans still miss it.
‘‘His show filled a huge gap in the country’s media landscape,’’ says Siouxsie Wiles, a former contributor.
‘‘Someone really needs to give him his own podcast,’’ says Tamar Munch, a media commentator and guest.
Christchurch journalist James Croot was another devotee.
‘‘It was certainly part of my week, and it was like one big family,’’ he says.
Croot was supposed to review movies, but he’d often take Hill’s calls on the sideline of his
Saturday soccer games, and they’d end up talking about football. ‘‘It was great, seat-of-the-pants radio,’’ he says.
When Weekend Variety Wireless ended, Hill says he was approached by another network that wanted the show, but negotiations broke down. He isn’t bitter. Instead, he’s kept himself busy. ‘‘I’ve been doing a bunch of things that I never thought I’d get time for,’’ he says, pointing to the butterflies and geckos he’s been breeding.
Hill’s garden is laden with shiny red chillies that he’s been growing for salsa.
He wrote a book. He saw some contemporary dance. He joined a pest control team, and killed a few wasps.
And he did earthworks around the backyard we’re sitting in now.
‘‘It was intense and very satisfying – that feeling when you go to bed and your muscles feel like you’ve done something,’’ he says.
When it comes to his broadcasting career, Hill admits he’s been a little ‘‘lazy’’.
‘‘I should have done more to resurrect the show,’’ he says. ‘‘I should be more active, but other things have conspired – personal life, as well – that it’s been good to have this time not really headdown, bum-up.’’
But he has news for his guests, his friends, his fans, and the people who keep stopping him in the street to ask what he’s been doing.
Sitting back in his chair, with his hands behind his head, an empty Corona in front of him, and another glint in his eye, Hill admits he’s not done.
Weekend Variety Wireless isn’t over. In one format or another, he believes it will return.
‘‘Here we go. It’s a new year now,’’ he says. ‘‘I feel it’s not going to be long . . . if someone would pick up the show, that would be fabulous.
Then he declares: ‘‘It’s ready to go.’’