An in-depth chat with Adam Page, Australian saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, musical force - and massive Van Halen fan! We chew the fat about Stevie Ray Vaughan and Charlie Hunter and Coltrane and other musical influences. We talk about Adam's time growing up in Australia, the huge impact he had on the Wellington music scene in the early 2010s and his focus now as a new dad, label owner and continued creative spirit. Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.substack.com/subs...
Jan 18, 2018•1 hr 5 min
An in-depth chat with Yvonne Lorkin, wine taster, critic, judge, enthusiast. She's also behind "WineFriend", a subscription model where her expert tasting notes and palate will provide individual wine choices, pay the fee and have the wine delivered to your door. We talked about wine and wine-tasting and wine-writing and how Yvonne turned her passion into a brand. Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.substack.com/subscribe...
Jan 11, 2018•1 hr 33 min
A second in-depth chat with Wellington-based writer and musician and curator/collector Jules Desmond. We catch up on the bits we missed in the first talk (ep.90) and discuss the Wellington music scene in the mid-90s as well as talking about music journalism and touching on many other tangents... Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.substack.com/subscribe
Jan 04, 2018•2 hr 20 min
An in-depth conversation with Andrew Johnstone of the now defunct Rip It Up Radio. He interviews me about my life and influences and writing interests. I play a few clips of favourite songs and discuss some of my favourite tracks and my approach to writing, reviewing and listening. This interview was originally party of Rip It Up Radio's podcast series and was recorded around two to three years ago. It's represented here thanks to Andrew Johnstone and Rip It Up. A bit of summer holiday bonus con...
Dec 28, 2017•1 hr 27 min
An in-depth chat with Wellington-based actor Gavin Rutherford. We talk about the various forms of work he has done - TV, film, voiceovers, adverts, theatre. We talk too about his recurring Pantomime roles and his work as one of the new stalwarts of Circa Theatre. In early 2018 he'll be directing a play on the main stage (Circa One). Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.substack.com/subscribe...
Dec 21, 2017•1 hr 30 min
An in-depth chat with Adam McGrath, lead singer and a songwriter for The Eastern, also a solo artist; prolific busker. We talk about his early years stealing cars and obsessing over music. We talk punk and the influence of The Clash and Henry Rollins and the move to making American music in America and then back in New Zealand. We talk about the rise of The Eastern, the setback of the Christchurch earthquakes and the relief work the band was involved in. He has a solo album due next year and a n...
Dec 14, 2017•1 hr 45 min
An in-depth chat with Wellington-based singer/songwriter, busker, multi-instrumentalist Vorn Colgan, leader of the band VORN, part of the group Gold Medal Famous, solo artist, musician for hire...we talk about the albums he's made and the work he's done, his influences, travel, jobs, and the aims and ambitions of his music, including a brand new project which is an 'album' you can only access via YouTube. Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.substack.com/subscribe...
Dec 07, 2017•1 hr 51 min
An in-depth chat with "The Godfather of New Zealand Comedy" Scott Blanks. We talk about the 20th Anniversary of his comedy club, The Classic, his various roles as manager, promoter, talent spotter and his background in performance and promotion. We talk about the development and evolution of the New Zealand comedy scene from the wasteland of the early 90s to the robust TV-career-driven roster that now abounds. Scott and his club were both name-dropped in a book by British comedian Stewart Lee. G...
Nov 30, 2017•2 hr 7 min
A return visit from Shelagh Magadza, this time to preview and discuss the 2018 New Zealand Festival (still known by many as The Arts Festival). We talk through the shows and highlight several key acts and events. (In our earlier talk, episode 65, we talked all things Jazz Festival). Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.substack.com/subscribe
Nov 23, 2017•49 min
An in-depth chat with Jules Desmond - bass player, music reviewer, archivist, noise-maker...Jules and I know each other best through Facebook but we've known each other for a while. I was first aware of him as a music reviewer/writer but also as a member of Letterbox Lambs. He's gone on to play in several bands, release albums, run a label, make noise/improv music and meet Henry Rollins. We talk about that - and more. And this is just the first conversation - recorded a year ago...we go on to ta...
Nov 16, 2017•2 hr 2 min
An in-depth chat with Wellington writer and publicist Kirsten McDougall. She is the author of two books - The Invisible Rider (2012) and Tess (2017) and works as a publicist for VUP. We talk about her role as literary manager for Eleanor Catton during the height of interest around The Luminaries and Kirsten's role working in publishing. We talk about her aims and ambitions as a writer and her process. We talk too about her need to have a job outside of writing, how working as a writer full-time ...
Nov 09, 2017•1 hr 11 min
An in-depth chat with Anika Moa - singer/songwriter, mother, TV show host, creator of music for kids (the successful "Songs For Bubbas" albums and shows) and one of New Zealand's best-known, most loved performers. Apparently this is her first ever podcast. She says the 'C'-word HEAPS and there's a bit more street-noise and background sounds than usual A really fun chat about reviews and reviewing, politics, parenting and music. Lots of music. Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.subs...
Nov 02, 2017•1 hr 30 min
An in-depth chat with Luke Buda, singer, songwriter, film composer, member of The Phoenix Foundation and TEETH, solo artist also. We talk through his various roles - across solo and band works including film soundtrack composing and the 20-year journey of The Phoenix Foundation from a classroom in a Wellington High School to stages at Glastonbury and on Jools Holland via various other highs and lows... Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.substack.com/subscribe...
Oct 27, 2017•1 hr 46 min
An in-depth chat with Claire Mabey and Andrew Laking (Pirate & Queen), co-creators of Litcrawl. We detail the 2017 programme and discuss the history of the event. Claire and Andrew are also the creators of a mid-winter festival called Lōemis so we talk too about that and various other events (musical and literary) but the main focus is to plug the upcoming Litcrawl Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.substack.com/subscribe...
Oct 19, 2017•1 hr 17 min
An in-depth chat with Stu McKinlay - one of the creators of the Yeastie Boys craft-beer brand. We talk about his life and interest in food/drink and hospitality. We talk about the shaping of the brand and about his life across the last decade - moving from New Zealand to England to take his beer to the world. We talk too about music (one of the big influences in his life, and on his beer) and a bit of discussion around social responsibility and safe drinking, some diversions into politics too......
Oct 12, 2017•1 hr 40 min
An in-depth chat with Kiwi blues legend Midge Marsden. We talk about his childhood in New Plymouth and early bands and then the escape to Wellington to join The Breakaways, to work across several bands and then to radio shows, to interviewing B.B. King for TV and the establishment of a solo career. To collaborations with Rodger Fox and a special friendship with Stevie Ray Vaughan and to many albums across the years. A great conversation about a life in music. Get full access to Sounds Good! at s...
Oct 05, 2017•1 hr 43 min
An in-depth chat with Wellington-based filmmaker and playwright Stuart McKenzie. We talk a lot about the adaptation of the Margaret Mahy novel The Changeover, the brand new feature film he co-directed with his partner Miranda Harcourt (a previous podcast guest)but we talk too about his writing across his life, his early plays and experimental theatre, his fascination with religion, his time abroad, the movie "For Good" and other writing projects. Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman....
Sep 28, 2017•1 hr 26 min
An in-depth conversation with one of NZ's great session drummers. Wayne Bell is also a producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist...so we talk about his work in the studio and on the road, a veteran of so many tours and records, of work with When The Cat's Away, Greg Johnson, The Bads, Tim Finn, Bic Runga, Bike, These Wilding Ways, Finn/Runga/Dobbyn and so many more. We talk about "the hang", and the ability to work with so many different people, provide what they want and fit in at just the righ...
Sep 21, 2017•1 hr 29 min
An in-depth conversation with Taimi Allan, CEO, Changing Minds. We talk about mental health and follow Taimi's own journey from multiple diagnoses and medications and pursuit of creative arts to working in the industry, to sharing and using her lived experience to help facilitated conversations. We talk symptoms and cycles and experiences. We talk about how to support friends and family members and we talk a lot about trigger warnings and online life, about the good and bad aspects of social med...
Sep 14, 2017•1 hr 52 min
An in-depth track-by-track conversation through the brand new Spines album Epidural with Hannah Fraser and Jon McLeary. Jon is the singer/songwriter and founding member of the Spines, a Wellington band of over 36 years - Hannah is the new girl in the band, she's been a member of the Spines across the last 2-3 years (backing vocals, keys, violin). We talk about the history of these songs and the band and discuss the aims and ambitions of the group with their first new (released) album in 30 years...
Sep 07, 2017•1 hr 29 min
An in-depth chat with Kiwi-based, internationally renowned pianist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Crayford. We talk through his time in New Zealand and abroad as student and teacher, as player of solo piano and bandleader of small and large combos, as bassist and multi-instrumentalist, as acoustic and electric performer and writer. We talk too of music theory, of the nature of influence, of finding the music in everything and everywhere. Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonswee...
Aug 31, 2017•1 hr 48 min
An in-depth chat with Roy Phillips of The Peddlers. We talk Swinging Sixties London and the trajectory of the band across a decade of international touring - with stories of meeting and hanging out with the likes of Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Donny Hathaway, Rod Steiger and so many more. And then to New Zealand, where Roy's been based since 1981, to the evolution of his solo show as one-man-band peddling the hits of his old group and new arrangements of standards. We talk all about a life in music,...
Aug 23, 2017•1 hr 10 min
An in-depth chat with Steve Rattle - record producer, engineer, musician, and label owner. Steve is the man behind Rattle Records - an imprint of quality 'art' music from New Zealand - featuring jazz, classical and the bits in-between, home to movie soundtracks and ambitious pieces. Steve is also a drummer who has worked with Sharon O'Neill, the earliest version of The Mutton Birds and many more acts across a diverse range of genres. We sat down to chat through his life in music, the aims and am...
Aug 17, 2017•1 hr 43 min
An in-depth chat with Tamzin Beazley, wife of Head Like A Hole frontman, Booga Beazley. We talk about the documentary film, "Swagger of Thieves", currently doing the NZ Film Festival circuit. We talk too of the impacts on her and family as key parts of the film and filming process; we talk band and rock'n'roll, drug addiction, break-ups, reunions and rock'n'roll... Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.substack.com/subscribe...
Aug 09, 2017•1 hr 28 min
An in-depth chat with filmmaker Gaylene Preston. We talk, mostly, about Helen Clark and Gaylene's current film festival-touring doco, My Year With Helen. We talk United Nations, feminism, women, the "glass ceiling", the making of the film - but we also talk about Preston's other movies, her docos in particular - films about Kiwi icons like Rita Angus and the movie 'Utu', the power "War Stories Our Mothers Never Told Us" and about a creative life making sense of the world through a lens... Get fu...
Aug 03, 2017•1 hr 25 min
An in-depth chat with broadcaster, freelance writer and now podcaster Melody Thomas. We preview her upcoming RNZ podcast, "Bang!" and talk through her life and career as a freelancer for RNZ, her time at radio school, her broadcast training, her love of podcasts - and music - and we reminisce about the time/s we were going to do a radio show (or podcast) together as co-hosts... Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.substack.com/subscribe...
Jul 27, 2017•1 hr 4 min
An in-depth chat with Janna Lapidus Leblanc. She was Stevie Ray Vaughan's fiancee at the time of his death; they met four years earlier in Wellington - she's a Kiwi, now based in America. She has recently written and published a book of photos that tells the story of their love affair. Janna and I talk about Stevie, his music, their relationship, her book. We talk too about her life, her upbringing, her career (professional model), her grieving of Stevie. Get full access to Sounds Good! at simon...
Jul 20, 2017•1 hr 32 min
An in-depth chat with Holly Walker, mother, former Greens MP, author of "The Whole Intimate Mess" a brief, candid memoir that addresses her struggles with depression and self-harm, with working in politics as a mother; we talk also of the work she had done ahead of politics and after as student newspaper editor and freelance writer, radio commentator, podcast guest and host and as book reviewer. We talk through her book and the process of writing and her world around all of that. Get full access...
Jul 13, 2017•1 hr 22 min
An in-depth chat with musician, critic and educator Norman Meehan. We talk through his involvement with music as a writer of biographies and dialogues around music, as a player and composer, as a critic and a teacher. And we pay special attention to the winning collaboration/s with poet Bill Manhire and singer Hannah Griffin across a half-dozen or more recording projects and performance pieces over the last decade. Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.substack.com/subscribe...
Jul 06, 2017•1 hr 25 min
An in-depth chat with Rodger Fox - very much the face of jazz and big band music for New Zealand; ex member of The Quincy Conserve and now leader, for over 40+ years of The Rodger Fox Big Band and various other smaller ensembles, including his Funkbone Experience, also a promoter, arranger, educator and tireless supporter of music and musicians. We talked through his career, his highlights and his passion for music. Get full access to Sounds Good! at simonsweetman.substack.com/subscribe...
Jun 26, 2017•1 hr 21 min
