NZ Tunes

First off, I should probably say that overall, Kiwi music isn't all that extraordinarily different from what you might see in the States - in fact, American music is really popular here (sadly, they like a lot of the same crap we do, too). Some New Zealand music has had success in the US, too - you may recognize 'So Bizarre' by OMC, which was a hit in the mid-90s, and 'Walkie Talkie Man' by Steriogram was used in an iPod commercial, obviously the epitome of success. You may have even heard of the Rocky Horror Show - that was written by a transplanted Brit. Close enough. And most recently, if you watch HBO, you'll know about Flight of the Conchords, 'the almost award-winning fourth-most-popular folk duo in New Zealand." They're the best.

Anyway, one of my favorite things about being at a big university (for those not in the know, Otago has around 20,000 students) is that there's a pretty good music scene around here, and more importantly, it's a real draw for a lot of Kiwi bands - and that's great news for me. Back in September, I had a three week run of going to some pretty cool shows:

The first one was for Shapeshifter, a drum and bass act from Christchurch. I'm not the biggest drum and bass fan, but for what they are, I think they put on a pretty good show. The concerts here are put on by ReFuel, the on-campus bar, but are actually held in a gym-like concert hall, which works as a pretty good venue. This was by far the biggest show I've been to here - the entire place was packed and really bumping, and the entire place basically smelled of sweat, weed and beer (not to mention the beer cups and puddles on the floor). An entirely classy concert. Overall, I just find their music hard to listen too (music videos here, here and here), especially because it feels like you're at a rave and need to be on ecstasy to enjoy it. Not my thing, man. Crazy concert though.

Next up, a week later, was The Black Seeds. They were just awesome, and I loved the whole show, even the opening acts. One of them, Dubwize, was a Kiwi reggae group whose lead singer had the longest dreads I have ever seen - they literally went down to his feet (far left in this pic). Insane. The Black Seeds, however, were the main attraction, and with good reason. They're a reggae/dub band from Wellington with some great music - check out two really good songs/videos here and here - and see if you can find Bret from Flight of the Conchords in there, too - he's a former member. This wasn't as huge a show, since it fell on a Thursday, but it was just very well done.

Finally, we saw Katchafire, another pretty popular reggae/dub act from the North Island, south of Auckland. This was by far my favorite show, for a couple reasons. First off, they started out as a Bob Marley cover band, so they played several great covers, the best one, I though, being Iron Lion Zion. Secondly, they played was must have been at least a two hour set, if not longer - major props to any act that can play that well, for that long, in that hot a venue. Anyway, you can check out a couple videos here and here. Good stuff.

If anyone's still reading at this point in the post, I'm impressed. But if you are, I just have to end this with some FOTC stuff - they're a Kiwi version of Tenacious D (with more musical variety), and their show is like Curb Your Enthusiasm meets Napoleon Dynamite. I can't really get over them. This one here's 'Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros.'