Pacific Curls

We hosted the Pacific Curls last night and were treated to a fabulous mix of traditional and contemporary Maori and Scottish music on guitar, ukelele, fiddle, percussion beatbox, tambourine, nose flute, porotiti, stompbox and vocals. Band leader Ora Barlow is steeped in Maori lore and gives out a strong message to care for Aotearoa and it's people.
They are playing Katikati tonight then Te Papa our national museum then leave for a tour of Korea and Scotland.

Live music

Wow! We hosted the lovely Mel Parsons last night for her first gig on a nation wide tour to celebrate the release of her debut album 'Over my shoulder'. Beautiful voice, inspired song writing and all delivered with a down to earth country girl (Westport) innocence.
Then there was her band! Keyboard, guitar, double bass and percussion, I don't know about their name (the Rhythm Kings) but they sure could play music! After Mel finished and most punters had gone home they jammed for an hour and treated us to something very special. Sometimes music just works, it can't be forced, the individuals join to become one organism ebbing and flowing between each other and we could see they loved playing music.
So lift that cold, grey day and go out and support live music at a venue near you. It'll rock your socks!

Mamaku Project

We hosted the fabulous Mamaku Project on Friday night and they preceeded to blow the audience away with their unique blend of bohemian roots and pacifica dub. All six members are great musicians in their own right with Tui Mamaki vocals, Monsieur Escargot bass/guitar/keys, Craig Denham accordian/keys, Finn Scholes trumpet, John Ellis, saxaphone/bass clarinet and Simon Walker drums. Here is a video of their performance at the Womad festival last year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKqb1gig-6U

Live music

Wow we're half way through our winter break of 5 months. The lady chasing us to buy the restaurant offered us next to nothing so we will be back with a vengeance come October. Already my mind has shifted towards new menus, new art attacks and I have started booking musicians. I am amazed at the explosion of music venues, apart from bands in pubs, since we started nine years ago. It's great for the musicians to have so many to choose from but I am concerned that there just aren't enough punters to go around and we are adamant that we won't book gigs that are playing in other local venues.
It's not easy hosting live music. At first people would walk away rather than pay a $5 cover charge although they would come in and buy a beer for that. We lost money on every gig for the first couple of years so it took a greater vision of helping struggling musicians, educating people about the value of performance and building ourselves into a serious music venue. We still have trouble with some agents in the industry who think that because we are small (110 max.) we don't qualify for the big names but we have done the hard yards and their 'big names' had to start somewhere. The musicians once they have played here love to come back because of the intimate atmosphere where they can get a rapport going with the audience.
So now most people recognise the value of paying musicians well (the movies cost $15!!) and are willing to pay $5 up to $30 depending on the artist.
They probably recognise also that by supporting other musicians coming into the area it keeps me off the stage! I'm learning new songs I promise!