To Play Or Not To Play, That Is The (dumbest) Question
Embracing creativity as chaos may not be good for brand consistency, but its much better for the soul.
I feel the need to acknowledge the experimentation or ’play’ I’ve been partaking in with the Hahko project recently.
As I wrote a while back, connecting with a sense of play has been a focus of mine this year and the upsides have been numerous - increased fulfilment creatively being the major one.
This approach of experimenting for excitement doesn’t necessarily gel with social media and content creation / consumption however. It can be chaotic from a followers perspective when formats, visuals or vibes change constantly - I get that.
I just don’t care. I decided long ago that focusing on marketing concepts like brand strategy or content consistency is a Faustian bargain with the devil that benefits the very few at the expense of many.
I’d rather take my chances and express whatever I feel like in whatever form I feel and right now that focus is transitory and my excitement is shifting fairly consistently.
Hahko will always be a project focused on music and creativity and thats enough of a solid foundation for me.
Weekender
In that spirit, I just really didn’t feel like taking my camera or zoom recorder out with me this weekend. Maybe I was craving feeling more present in my experience, maybe I was just bored with the process. Regardless, I had a good weekend.
Culture & Music writer / DJ Martyn Pepperell was in town for WORD festival and kindly agreed to a coffee date with me - we’ve recently connected in Wellington at the ‘A Night With’ shows and Martyn is someone who writes and thinks about culture with a sense of clarity and wealth of knowledge I really admire.
This is his newsletter below ‘Selected Works’ - you should absolutely check it out
It’s great hanging with him and having my borderline psychotic hyper-focus on music chat reciprocated - I left with more interesting cultural ideas than I entered, which Im incredibly grateful for.
I’m also grateful for Auckland band Soft Bait making their way down south on tour - they played Friday night at Darkroom to very impressed room of Ōtautahi guitar heads.
Id been lucky to follow Soft Bait from very early on in the journey of the band - Patrick (lead guitar / bv’s) is a long-time friend and incredible graphic designer, who amongst work for many others, was the hand behind every ‘A Night With’ poster - and they’ve gone from strength to strength as a live band.
A group of lovely guys as well - proving the stereotype of the angrier the music the nicer the musicians once again.
THINKS
In the spirit of experimenting I’ve been enjoying sharing ideas visually and in my own handwriting - Ive always loved the visual fields and never really dabbled so this is super fresh and exciting for me!
These are little thoughts I had throughout the week - who knows maybe I’ll manage a few more in the future (thoughts, that is)
A Night With Buda
Im currently mixing the ‘A Night With Buda’ recordings and while I think it may have been my worse interview performance of the year, it also includes some of the best musical performances from Luke - especially ‘My Imminent Demise’ and ‘Here Comes The Wind’.
It can be extremely hard to interview musicians who’s music I have strong attachment to - I find myself trying to communicate with my perceived ideas of them that I’ve built up through my own fandom - as opposed to interacting with the human sitting directly opposite me and this was one of those.
Here’s Luke Buda performing ‘I’m A Bit Out Of Shape’ live at ‘A Night With Buda’
I tried far too hard to be ‘cool’ in an effort to make Luke like me and that twisted my interviewing into more of a performance than an authentic conversation - super valuable lessons to learn though as I strive to get better and better at this show.
Im feeling really excited about the 2024 run and am currently formulating the A-list dream team of guests to approach - feel free to send me any requests or ideas you have too!
Violet Hirst ‘Donegal’
Lost amongst the chaos of the last week was this Violet Hirst interview I produced for her record ‘Donegal’ - if you haven’t checked out VH or the ‘Donegal’ record make sure you do and if you’re looking for an introduction to the music or a deeper dive into the record the podcast interview is a great resource.
Best New Music For You
I’ve restocked and renamed my weekly favourite new music Spotify playlist - now called ‘Hahko’s Songs For Personal Consumption’ this week was a stacked one coming through with new music from Toro Y Moi, Bombay Bicycle Club and A. Savage (Parquet Courts) as well as tunes from smaller artists like W. H. Lung, Jack Slade, Slow Pulp and more.
The Lot Radio has a lot of great DJ sets up and available on their YouTube page and its a big go-to for background music while working. As I’m writing this Jacques Greene and Bonobo are playing a great b2b set.
I grabbed myself a couple of hoodies this week - one from Garbage Records and the other from 95bFM - both with great designs and both supporting absolute legends of the NZ music scene.
Great Sounds Great announced their first line-up for this years edition of the Wellington festival and it featured another banging poster by Patrick Hickley (Soft Bait) alongside a solid lineup ft favourites of mine Dale Kerrigan, Ha The Unclear, Vanessa Worm, PollyHill and more!
For all the Gizzheads reading I’ve come across some well recorded sets from their latest tour including this one that features the Mindfuzz medley into thrash tracks from their latest Petro-Dragon (etc etc name).
Sneaky: Here’s a little clip of some music I’ve been working on myself.
The best place to start is with an end goal.
A vision of what you, on your own terms want to end up with at the finish of any project or undertaking. The more specific you can envision that, the clearer the path towards it.
Having a strong sense of what equals success for each thing you do makes it so much easier to know which opportunities to chase and which to ignore. Whether you need to follow someones advice or not. Because if you don’t set your own measures fro success, then you’re setting yourself up for failure on someone else’s terms.
p.s you can’t please everyone - I’m still shook at a friend of mine telling me (non-sarcastically) that I just “need to actually do something” in regards to the music industry - smh 🤦♂️