Community songbook

Sunday marked one whole year since this seismic shittery began disrupting our lives. As it was a year ago, the day was warm and sunny... although the objects at ground level don't always look the same as they did then.

Once upon a time, this was a grandstand at Addington Raceway...

...now it's just another demo job.

The raceway is across the carpark from the CBS Arena, where I was working that evening for "Christchurch Sings" - an Arts Festival event that took place on September 4th. A crowd of over 3000 gathered to bathe in the sounds of combined local choirs, backed by the CSO. The crowd seemed to have a lovely evening - hardly anyone even noticed the aftershock we had during the concert (4.4M at 7.41pm).

Last Thursday I wandered down to Sydenham (next suburb over!) to catch a live-to-air performance by The Unfaithful Ways - one of the bands that feature on the Harbour Union album.

This is how we roll in C-city these days... this converted horse truck - the rdunit - is currently home to student radio station, rdu, who lost their studio & office when the UC Student Union building was red-stickered after February's quakes.

The weather held off long enough for the small crowd to watch 3/4 of The Unfaithful Ways play on an even smaller stage... there wasn't any room for the drummer!

See the woman with the red belt? Kirsten Johnstone from NatRad's Music 101... who was down in Chch to capture some local music sounds & stories for the 'anniversary weekend'. Once we'd established our mutual radio credentials, the questions went straight to the 'describe' variety... check out the full story on the rdunit and the live-to-air.
Another item from that episode that's definitely worth a listen is this chat with local muso Ed Muzik, including his brilliant new single, EQC are visiting my house.

So I ended up being on National Radio twice in one weekend... and sitting in the sunshine with my darling, listening to my doco play on Spectrum, was a fitting way to mark the date.

There's one more addition to the community songbook for today - a totally fitting remake by Shakeytown's talented (& troubled) hip-hop king, Scribe. How many cities you know rock a show like this? Huh? Not many, if any....

For the original song, go here.

And big ups to the BNZ for creating & funding the concept. They're quite correct when they say it's not an ad... but it's the best ad they've never made.

 Proceeds to Plunket...yeahhh

gonna have this song on the brain again... yeahhh

ah-huh, ah-huh, I don't know anybodycity