ARTDICK

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Since late last year I have been jamming some old and new songs with Big Rick! drummer extraordinaire Helen O’Rourke. This slowly turned into a more serious project with the addition of Yawn guitar legend Rupert Hunter. We played a few gigs under a variety of names (Dick Whyte and the Red-Headed Step-Child, Dick Whyte and Epic Friends, Dick Whyte and the Easy Travellers) until Noel Meek described us as ‘bent folk’ at the last Crypt Sessions, which seemed to stick.

Since then we’ve played a few more gigs and started recording. There is a bootleg of our last live show up on Bandcamp, a 7″ recorded by the wonderful Finn Johansson (of ex-Wellington country band Johnsonville City Nights) ready to come out (as soon as we find a label or some cash to release it) and two more gigs this month (one on the 11th of May at Evil Genius Records with Toucan Stubbs, and one at The Crypt on the 18th of May, with Seth Frightening, Baba Rosa and Saint Cosmos, curated by Noel Meek). We’re also planning another recording session soon and will be opening for David Rovics at Puppies later this year.

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I have recently been playing guitar in the band Yawn, whose founding members Precarious (bass, vocals, guitar) and Sathanis (guitar) have been busy organising recording sessions and live performances, often joined by the amazing Hope Robertson on drums (who is also in the most recent incarnation of Peter Gutteridge’s seminal NZ band Snapper). So far, five single track EPs have surfaced over the last few weeks (all of which are available for free download) with more to come soon. UPDATE: Yawn are also playing at the Crypt Sessions under the St. Mary of the Angels Church, in Wellington on the 9th of March. See you there!

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Two new Supercomposer albums just out! The first is a series of remixes of the improv-noise musician Unknown Rockstar, in which I reduce each of his albums to a single track of music, through speed manipulation and layering, released on Postmoderncore Records last month. Free to download and listen here.

The second is a series of supercompositions made from free 30s song samples on the ESP Disc website (for those who don’t know, ESP is one of the preeminent free-jazz labels of the 20th century). Based on the following simple instructions: “1) Open an album at random on espdisc.com. 2) Start playing the first free 30s song sample. 3) After approximately 10s start playing the second 30s song sample. 4) Repeat process until the source material is exhausted, while recording the outcomes.” It includes remixes of Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Charles Manson and Billie Holliday (among others). Have a listen to Supercomposer’s efforts below – or try making your own! Free to download on Bandcamp.

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“Since its inception in 2009, Dick Whyte and Laurence Stacey’s Haiku News – the newspaper written in the Japanese poetic form of haiku – has continued to promote the idea that “the personal is the political is the poetical”, allowing writers to share their personal reflections on noteworthy news items, presenting the current political climate in a new, often very personal light. And it is certainly no arena for cheap attempts at word-game haiku. This is a very serious literary journal that documents our times in the short form poetry of writers across the globe. Indeed, the poems that have graced the pages of this unique newspaper since 2009 have, with and without the stories that inspired them, presented some staggeringly exquisite and moving moments of micropoetry.” (Liam Wilkinson)

We are proud to announce the publication of the very first Haiku News Anthology on the independent NZ press Lawrence & Gibson, later this month. It contains 258 haiku, tanka, kyoka and senryu by 48 different authors from all over the globe, originally published on the Haiku News website between 2009 and 2011, edited by myself and Laurence Stacey, with an introduction by Liam Wilkinson. Pre-order your copy today for a very reasonable price (postage included).

We are launching the book (what is it, a ship?) on the 15th of November at Unity Books in Wellington at 6pm, along with two other new Lawrence & Gibson titles – Richard Meros’ Easy Whistle Solo and William Dewey’s The Homeland of Pure Joy. We are truly proud to be in such fine company. See you there!

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I am currently playing bass for the Wellington rock band Big Rick, and having a blast doing it (that’s us above, with me in the funny hat). The band also includes the wonderful Heleyni Pratly on guitar and vocals, Joel Cosgrove on guitar and vocals, and Helen O’Rourke on drums. My time in the band ends in December, when the new bass player Rohan takes over (an exciting addition). At that time I will resume production duties (Heleyni jokingly refers to me as their Brian Eno – although Jim O’Rourke and Bob Rock are also apt comparisons, though I am unsure which I prefer). For now you can check out their first EP ‘Big Rick To France’ on Bandcamp (which I did not play on, but did help engineer and mix). I especially recommend the first song Boogie Dance, which is an absolute gem (and if that doesn’t satisfy your appetite, they have some demos online as well).

Big Rick are also playing a lot of shows in the next two months so keep your eyes and ears open. The EP release gig is happening on Dec. 1st at the Newtown Bowls Club in Wellington, and we’re playing in Auckland, Dunedin and possibly Christchurch too, later in December (as well as various parties and some other surprise appearances). Find out more by checking out their Facebook Page.

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Fourth album by electroacoustic improvisers Nova Scotia (Dean Brown, Rick Jensen, Dick Whyte). Originally released on the independent label Nezvanova Nova this album was unavailable pretty much as soon as it came out. Finally, thanks to the beauty of Bandcamp, it’s in print again for the first time in two years. And while I may be slightly bias, this album is one of my favorite Nova Scotia releases so it makes me especially happy to see it reissued digitally. Find out more about Nova Scotia on the weirdly comprehensive H-Town Wiki.

Liner Notes: Track 2, 3 and 4 recorded at the Photospace Gallery in Wellington on 16/07/03. Track 5 recorded during the 2002 Lines of Flight festival at Arc Cafe in Dunedin on 29/09/02. Track 6 recorded at the Photospace Gallery on 17/12/05. Who knows what instruments we’re all playing – but I can hear horns, harmonicas, bells, tape loops, acoustic guitar and radios, among other things.

“Clearly, the practice of employing geographical themes in band designations has produced largely dubious outcomes (e.g. Asia, Boston, Chicago, America, Kansas, Berlin, Danzig, Hanoi Rocks, etc.). Also personally, I regard naming anything after anything to do with the frozen wasteland otherwise known as Canada to be a questionable aesthetic move. This is just my prejudice. I firmly believe that America has been watching the wrong border for far too long. But that’s another discussion. The music of Nova Scotia, however, has got enough swank to make me forgive any misgivings about their moniker. For those who thrive on other band comparisons, their m.o. could be described as the Animacathedral Lab Technicians Orchestra of Admittance. This is not, however, to imply that these folks smartly rip off obscure bands whilst most stupidly rip off well-known bands. No, if you dig the four outfits I just referred to, you’ll be happy to shovel this dirt too. Sparse, ramshackle drug shuffle that fuses kooky “ethnic” influences and improv abstractions with aplomb.” (Reid Gilchrist, from a review of the 2002 Lines of Flight Festival)

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First episode of The Face Of Panic, a new radio show produced by Laura Wells and hosted by Tao Wells, is up on Soundcloud for anyone that missed it last Thursday. Featuring a great selection of music (Yoko Ono, Crude, Lightning Bolt), an interview with activist/politician Sue Bradford, a reading from Peter Burger’s ‘Theory of the Avant-Garde’ and a short appearance by yours truly. The show airs fortnightly, with the next episode on Thursday June 21st from 8-10pm (NZ time) streaming live on Fresh FM. UPDATE: Listen to more episodes on their blog.

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Video work by Wellington artist Claire Harris exploring the relationship between colonialisation and feminism. I operated the camera, Matt Whitwell did the sound recording, and Euan Robertson played the bagpipes. Originally screened as part of Typical Girls: Comedic Feminist Video from Wellington (curated by Bryce Galloway, Wellington Film Archive, 2011).

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Live recording of Dick Whyte and his Golden Guitar at The Space in 2002, which I finally released as an EP in 2011. For your health!

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