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Rock and Scroll - Dunedin Beckons!

The very minute that the college semester ended, I was off like a puff of smoke. There was no time to waste - I was on a mission to find inspiration in Dunedin, and re-unite with my band Sheep!

Woken by the whiplash of dawn the following day, I tossed two weeks of belongings and my gnarly keyboard into the wagon, and zoomed off into the yawning day. Mountains were guarding my passage - the titans of the South, bathing in the glorious sunshine. They gestured me on at my own risk, and I carved through their shadow as it crouched in the valleys like a panther, waiting to leap away at the sight of the sun.


























When I emerged from the valleys, Central Otago stretched out before me, golden and magnificent like a lions mane. It was my first journey behind the wheel of my emerald wagon, and freedom gasped as I winded down the window. Roads opened up all around me, gliding off into the sun soaked horizon. The breeze brushed me like whiskers, and I focussed on the road ahead instead of the forks jutting off to the sides. I was Dunedin bound!


When I thought about the chapter ahead, excitement ruptured my insides. Just the journey to Dunedin itself was a journals' worth of inspiration. And I was yet to reunite with my band! Through Lawrence and the gullies of Waitahuna onward, I entertained memories of Sheep, a band of 3 rogue gronnyknockles!


Fashioned through years of weaselling out of high school classes to play music in the band room, Sheep was a power trio first heard by Tom Holmes and sculpted by myself on bass synth and Toby on drums. We were a trine of punch energy, and we smuggled our show into various venues around Auckland city, from Scout halls in Mt Eden to the tinny UFO in New Lynn. In 5 months we fired an entire belt of ammunition in the practice room and around town, coming out the other side with an EP called Backslam, and then splatting against the New Year like flies on a windscreen. We were each ejected from Auckland in succession - Tom to Dunedin, Toby to Europe, and me to Queenstown. Sheep was over.



But Sheep's story was still yet to be told. Tom had the scroll, and snuck it away with him to Dunedin. He was tasseled around by the Otago University and Unicol, but eventually found his tribe of instrument wielding bonobos after finding Robert Wilkinson and his philosophers stone. Robert was the guitarist of The Paradise Stone, another band that bashed their way into the Auckland underage gig scene. A die hard rocker, Robert grabbed his chunk of the Paradise Stone and scrambled down to Dunedin, where he started The Rothmans with Johnny, Tom, and Mitchell. And now after some negotiations, Tom had seen Sheep on the lineup of a gig at the Crown hotel with The Rothmans.




I sailed into Dunedin upon the afternoon sun, and followed a scribbled address to the humble valley of North Dunedin. I arrived at the address - it was a faint yellow house plump on the valley hillside. I knew I had made it to the right place, because my fellow bandits Tom and Toby were outside waiting for me. We clasped hands - it looked like we had just surmounted the greatest obstacle, and had officially resurrected Sheep!

Tom, now Tommy, ushered me in to the flat with his goldy locks springing about behind him. I gazed up at the yellow house as Tommy was swallowed in - this was The Rothmans headquarters, the Chambers street flat. Stepping over the froth that was piling up outside, I walked into the flat and had to readjust my eyes to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. The Rothmans headquarters was the Chambers street flat of secrets!


The mess was a basilisk! The clutter had curdled like mouldy yoghurt. The carpet had more crumbs than five packets of sultana pasties. This flat was such a state that it was actually a work of art. I had to admit, I had never seen anything like it! And I didn't mind that I was staying here for the next 2 weeks, because it was all part of the Dunedin experience. I was here to find inspiration after all, and beggars can't be choosers.

I quickly discovered that Dunedin was awash with new experiences. I never expected to spend my first night at the Elephant rocks in Central Otago, partying under the stars at a bush doof festival called the Winter Solstice. It was a flavoursome night - a scribble of trance music, colours, tribal fires, hippies, and fire spinning. I was entranced - I had seen nothing like this place, and my intuition was telling me that I was going to discover something special here.


I sat atop a grumbling elephant rock and was enveloped by the sun as it returned to the skies and  bought life back to Central Otago. Like straight out of the dream realm, a beautiful blonde woman named Helen came to sit with me, and keep me company. I must have looked lonely. She was a musician - a flute player - and was telling me about the times she used to perform with her jazz band back home in the UK. I spoke about how I was feeling stuck in the mud with my own music and with my life. I told her how I was feeling uncreative, unoriginal, and unsure of how I wanted to spice up my music.

"Jazz", she said. "Play Jazz!"


Returning back to Dunedin from the Winter Solstice felt like waking up from a dream. But Dunedin was was yet another dream, because I was here for 2 weeks to play music and explore! And even more so, I was on a quest - a quest of attaining a new sense of music-hood.

Band 'admin' (cleaning up the lounge) was flung at us left right and centre like spanners, but we finally launched into practice on about day 4. Our raw energy was still there, a presence that was rattling the clutter of the living room. A year and half had passed, and yet Sheep was more powerful than ever. My keyboard was wriggling underneath my fingers, tearing its way through the amplifier and into the world as BASS!! I could hear lust in the tone, a hunger for something more.


Re-uniting with Sheep and practicing for the gig was what brought me to Dunedin, but I was secretly here to explore! And Dunedin was a swallows nest of inspiration. Over the two weeks, it seemed to keep unfolding like a cinnamon scroll. Tommy took us out to Sandfly Bay, where Sea Lions walloped the shores. He took us up to the sun spire of the Otago Peninsula, where the Albatross build kites. He took us to a giant cave where families of blue penguins snuggled in the crevices. Who would have thought - Dunedin is Wild!


I had achieved my goal - I was now guzzling inspiration. And Sheep was still yet to play our show!

On the 7th of July, Sheep was smuggled into the Crown hotel under the wing of The Rothmans. Safe between heavy hitters Russian Blue and the ravenous Koizilla, we officially planted the flag of Sheep in Dunedin. Unbeknownst to us all, it was the beginnings of an epic story that Sheep had just miraculously become a part of - the story of the Dunedin Sound, and the wider Dunedin Arts Collective. But that would have to wait for another whole year!

As Mr Robert Rothman clanked his rock with The Rothmans, and Sheep had made the first jottings in Tommy's scroll, a new age had begun. The age of Rock and Scroll!


You can find photos and video performances of the other bands (The Rothmans, Koizilla and Russian Blue) here:

http://dunedinsound.com/gigs/a-very-great-gig/

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