Weekender: 'A Night With Buda' + Better Living IRL + The Summit
Three gigs in three nights meant a lot of great music and good coffee with very little sleep.
Listen to the audio episode below to hear snippets from gigs, bands and interviews alongside my narration. You can also subscribe to Hahko FM to listen to this episode in podcast form as well as interviews and album deep dives!
I spent an incredible night with Luke Buda.
Finding myself at the Manners St Maccas on a late night, post-gig food run discussing burger and combo selection with a musical inspiration of mine was so surreal, yet so comfortable it reminded me of just how mundane the magical has become in my music career. I’ll never take that for granted.
You can truly find yourself somewhere magical if you stray from the path of ‘should’.
It took burnout to shake me awake and push me off the traditional music industry path and faith (with obsession mixed in) to imagine there were other ways to channel my love for music that isn’t unsustainable for my mental, physical and emotional health.
So its incredibly powerful to find myself sat on stage at a beautiful venue, hosting my own bespoke show, to an engaged crowd of fellow music fanatics listening along to one of my favourite songwriters sat across from me performing some of my favourite music.
Start asking yourself if you really want to be doing what you’re doing and if the answer isn’t a resounding yes - then consider it might be time to be brave and step off the well trodden path - like me!
Better Living IRL
I love a good multi-stage local festival - seeing so many bands on one night, skipping soundchecks and straight from one act into the other, getting a strong sense of the ‘scene’ - they’re fantastic.
We’re lucky in Aotearoa to have quite a few of these now - Great Sounds Great, Port Noise, The Others Way, Moral Supports Deep Dive, Mermgrown - the list goes on and on.
I had a great time at Better Living IRL - put on by Ōtautahi label & community Melted Ice Cream across Darkroom & Space Academy.
Big stand-out for me were the raucous and discordant BNP which featured a guitar band flirting with industrial grooves and a raving frontman with vocals somewhere perfectly between yelling, screaming and spoken word.
Jim Nothing delivered a super tight set of tunes from their severely underrated record In The Marigolds and its always a pleasure watching Best Bets, a band whose members ive been watching make energetic guitar music since The Transistors and T54 days.
I also loved Kool Aid - a reformation of a band that Id never been able to catch who referred to themselves as previously being Christchurch’s premier opening band. Ft the core members of too many other bands to name, it was an entertaining mix of rock, indie, country and jangle-pop that somehow felt like more than the some of its parts stylistically.
I can confidently say Otautahi has a very healthy band scene -we just need to get some more places for them to play!
The Summit - Favourite New Tunes Playlist
Its surprisingly chill & groovy this week on The Summit - with some relaxing vibes from Dandelion, Sufjan Stevens & group O mixed with some (dare I say) summer grooves from Supershy (Tom Misch) Salute and DJ Cuddles.
There’s also a touch of in-your-face from Shelf Lives and Genisis Owusu just to keep you on your toes. Make sure to subscribe to the playlist as I update it weekly - every week!
And if you missed it I had the privilege of appearing on one of my favourite live session series - What Was That Thing? the Flying Nun live session filmed inside the FN store on Cuba St, Wellington.
Check it out!