where goodIdeas come from.

goodShot of the month.

Ruatorea : the Nati Awards on the Coast.

Last Week I was invited to be a guest speaker at the annual 'Nati Awards', where all of the East Coast colleges & all schools compete in a variety of media studies. the other guest speakers were the all mighty all girl hiphop crew 'ReQuest', who took out the World Champs this year in Las Vegas. If you havent seen their routine & win over there, watch it here. It was great to meet those girls & their manager Brett, as well as all the warm folk from the Coast who looked after me during my two days there. Especially Paora & Daryl who I stayed with & then sent me back on the plane with four Cray's as carry on. Kia Ora to Jasmine, Leanne, Taryne, Tai & all for looking after me. I had a blast & one day I'll be back with the whole whanau. Tu Meke.

The next morena, I looked around the smaller towns & through Tikitiki to pay respect to Wi Kuki Kaa's grave, which is yet to be unveiled next to his whanau. Then back to Gissy through Tolaga.

DubFX : the Looping Aussie Busker.

                          

Homebrew : I wish you weren't a Lesbian. [Ode to Anika Moa]

Radiolab : Moments & Words in Life.

Eye have been researching for a project recently & found this deeply inspiring. Both editorially & photographically. In shot association & audio mixing associating. Moments in time, snippets of Life. Montage of things that happen to us daily & also sometimes, only once in our lifetimes. Makes you think. thanks to my goodFriend StJohnSmith for the thought. You can see more videos & inspiration from the 'everynone' project : Hear.

Q&A about Homebrew & the Vidyo by the Corner.

The NZ music Blog 'the Corner' interviewed me a few days ago about whatsup with Homebrew, myself & the incoming musicVid for 'Under the Shade'.  Peep the full interview Hear. 

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The Home Brew Crew tour kicked off yesterday and continues throughout the month and ends with a one-off gig on Great Barrier Island in October. We’ll be posting our interview with them next week but in the meantime check out our interview with  Chris Graham to find out the latest on his collaboration with the group including a Home Brew TV show, and when we’ll finally see the video for Underneath The Shade.Grab the Crew’s EP’s over here and check out the IV below.

1. Where did you first hear of Home Brew? What attracted you to them in the first place?

I initially heard a buzz about the Brew early last year when my mate Edmund Skillary, [aka MikkiD] an ex-pat DJ based in Dublin, emailed me the Friday song & told me about the classic, conceptual Last Week EP. Ironic, considering I live in Balmoral & the Homebrew were mostly living in Sandringham at the time. Only a stones throw of an EP away, but it got sent to me via Dublin. So I hunted & gathered all their EPs & drank it all up. I guess my initial attraction musically, was Tom Scotch’s accent, so quintessentially kiwi, so Hori, that I assumed he was Maori, only to later meet a skinny jewish dude & his Niuen brothers. But even on that first listen to Friday, it was the accent, the storytelling, the humour, the Hazbeats, the Lui character voices, the memorable hooks. I was amped that NZ had finally birthed our own unique version of the Pharcyde.

2. I read on your blog that it was you who personally contacted the band about directing a video for them. Have you ever done that with an artist before?

Not for ages. When I moved back to Welly in 99′ from living 7 years in NYC, I came back with hunger to make local music videos & make my mark. So I approached all the local bands I wanted to make videos for; Trinity Roots, Rhombus, P-Money, & Scribe.. After I made a handful, I started getting approached by other artists who liked those videos; Bic Runga, Dei Hamo, Kapisi, Smashproof. So I guess it had been a minute since I approached a band. Once I marinated on the various Homebrew EP’s & heard that they were as local, I got Tom’s phone, called him up & expressed my fan-dom & invited myself over for brews. That webisode where they approach me to make a video is a reversed myth.

3. The Radio Promo and Drinking Tour videos you made for the benefit show were a huge success. Who’s idea was it to do them?

I guess it was a collab Idea one day down at Plaything Gallery. Basically, they didn’t get NZ on Air funding for the ‘Under the Shade’ song that we agreed was going to be their first Video that I’d make, so we came up with the Idea of throwing a Music Video fund raising party. The Webisode ideas came from us wanting to raise awareness of the party & get heads through the door to raise as big a budget as we could.. It worked, as much like a classic Homebrew vs. Goliath on Air story, missing out on standard 5K funding, meant we just did it ourselves & raised 14K instead.

4. What other ideas have you been exploring with the band? When I interviewed them, they mentioned that you wanted to make a sitcom about them. Is this true?

It tis true. I haven’t been telling anyone about that, but after making those Webisodes & recognising their potential for comedy, I pitched the Idea of a TV show to them, not a sitcom, but more like a local version of ‘How to Make It in America’ [HBO] & ‘Entourage’. Although they were keen enough for months of development & writing on it, its a shame as they recently decided they don’t have the balls to do it after all.

5. You’ve been busy with a whole bunch of other projects but when can we expect to see the video for Underneath The Shade?

Late Octobor. Coming to a YouTube near you. Im amped for it, its a huge, ambitious & metaphorical concept for an important song with meaning.