Rare As Hen's Teeth



I like to go hunting for records in garage sales. Mostly I find crappy James Last, Roger Whittaker or My Fair Lady albums but there is the occasional gem. The best two finds have been the Toy Love album and The Gordons Future Shock EP. 50 cents each! However, there are a number of records that haven't seen release that I still desperately hang-out for, hoping that they will be sitting right behind that Genesis or Neil Diamond LP - records by say, Bored Games, Marie and the Atom or Sam Hunt's 70s outing with Mammal. So, I was thrilled when my neighbour Craig said he had some records I could borrow for Counting The Beat. Amongst them were some treasures such as the Dunedin Double EP and the second Gordons album. I didn't even know that one existed!

This episode of Counting The Beat features some of those rare and out of print records. There are songs from Bored Games (I have added a clip of the song to the blog video page), Bill Direen (a brilliant video for the song here), The Pterodactyls, Bird Nest Roys, The Gordons and the inexplicably overlooked The Stones. There really is no reason for this music to be so inaccessible - the record companies just need to loosen up a bit and make it available for purchase as digital downloads - the artwork could become limited edition t-shirts. Russell Brown of Public Address has recently written an insightful post about this too.

In the mean-time the internet serves the fans of out-of-print music reasonably well. Check out the fantastic Kiwitapes for extensive amounts of downloadable rare NZ music and The Punk Archives for downloads of a number of 1980s kiwi punk 7" singles.

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In Memory of Hone Tuwhare

Lyrics are quite different from poetry, you only have to read most lyric sheets to figure that out - they often make lousy poems. But sometimes poems are set to music - with interesting results. In memory of Hone Tuwhare this episode of Counting the Beat focusses on musical interpretations of NZ poetry.

The poems of Hone Tuwhare were interpreted musically by 12 NZ musical artists on the 2005 album Tuwhare. The podcast features O Africa performed by Golden Horse.The Tuwhare album was produced by Charlotte Yates who also produced the 2000 album Baxter where the poems of James K. Baxter were put to music by artists such as Dave Dobbyn (featured in the podcast) Martin Phillips and Emma Paki.

David Eggleton is a poet and writer who has put his own words to music on the albums Poetry Demon and Versifier. These are both out of print but you can download the tracks from Poetry Demon at the NZ Electronic Poetry Centre site.

Gaylene, a poet infamous in her home town of Dunedin for her vitriol and green tights, produced a single in 1995 titled She Could Cause Death. Originally limited to 50 copies it is now available for download on the Gaylene and the Undertakers myspace page.

The final poet featured in the podcast is Sam Hunt. He first made music in the 70s with Mammal (the album now goes for around $500, if anyone has a recording please contact me), then later a couple of tracks with the Warratahs. In 2001 he released Your Body Has No Flaw, recorded and released by Trevor Reekie of Pagan Records. Incidentally Radio Live have a podcast available of Sam Hunt talking about Hone Tuwhare.

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True Crime Stories

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David Mitchell Special

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I Read the News Today

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New Releases Dec 07

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HDU et al

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Covers Special part 1

NZ bands covering The Chills

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New Releases Nov 07

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Nuclear Free NZ

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Alternatuis 07

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Silver Scrolls 07 part 2

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Silver Scrolls 07 part 1

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17 Sept 07

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Wild Things

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New Releases Sept 07

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City Scenes

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26 Aug 07

Counting The Beat radio show 26 Aug 07

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Silver Scroll Finalists 07

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12 Aug 07

Counting The Beat radio show 12 08 07

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6 Aug 07

Counting The Beat radio show 6 Aug 2007

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29 July 07

29 July 2007 Counting The Beat radio show

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Everwhere and Back

A NZ Music special featuring songs named after New Zealand towns and locations. First broadcast on The Beach 99.4fm, a community radio station on Waiheke Island, New Zealand, on Sunday July 22, 2007


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Welcome to Counting The Beat

Counting The Beat is a New Zealand Music podcast and radio show focusing on showcasing great kiwi music that doesn't necessarily reach the audience that it deserves. I'm also dead keen on themes, so there are plenty of episodes that centre around a particular genre, song subject or artist.

The show began in 2002 as a weekly Sunday night radio show broadcast on The Beach on Waiheke Island and continued in this form until late 2007. It is is soon to take up residency on Waiheke Radio, a non-commercial community station to be run by the Waiheke Community Radio Trust.

The podcasts began in 2007 as recorded and edited radio shows, usually revolved around a special theme or a recording of a live act. Currently each episode is being compiled specifically as a podcast, although they will soon be broadcast on Waiheke Radio too. A full archive of all the Counting The Beat podcasts is available at Bigpod, the fine people who host my podcast along with many others you should check out.

Here I will be making short posts to accompany each episode focusing on links, further info and how to access the music. Occasionally I will post about one of the historical episodes or some other New Zealand music related topic.

I look forward to your feedback on the blog and the podcasts, either through the comments or by emailing me via the link above.

Thanks for listening.

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Links

Blogs

Waiheke Radio: Home to Counting The Beat - a great little community radio station on Waiheke Island

Einstein Music Journal: A local mp3 blog with heaps of NZ content - great for commentary and info on new kiwi music

Podcasts

Counting the Beat: The place to access the whole back catalogue of the Counting The Beat podcast

The New Zealand Music Show with Liz Barry: The country's most popular kiwi music podcast

Bigpod: Host of a wide variety of NZ podcasts


Music and Downloads

Kiwitapes: Downloadable files of rare and out of print NZ music

NZ Punk Archives: Downloads of rare and out-of-print NZ punk rock

Pure NZ: Internet radio playing NZ alternative and indie rock music from the 80s through to today. Well worth a listen.



News and Information

Cheese on Toast: Tour news, photos, interviews, gig guide and reviews of alternative kiwi acts.

Under the Radar: New Zealand music news and information

NZ Music of the 60s, 70s and a bit of the 80s: Highly recommended. Very comprehensive resource on music and artists of this era

The Big City: Indispensable resource with hundreds of NZ band and artist profiles including discographies.


Resources


Tandem Voice Booth: Professional podcast producers Tandem Voice Booth

NZS.com — New Zealand Web directory and search engine.

NZPAGES - New Zealand Web Site Directory

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Sound and Vision

A selection of videos for songs included in the podcast. Move the mouse over the thumbnails for titles and click to play (screen will expand). Scroll down for some audio material exclusive to the blog.





The 2007 Alternatuis

Each year Counting The beat hosts its very own music awards - The Alternatuis. Here are the 2007 winners.




Silver Scroll Award Ceremony 2007

The Silver Scrolls are the annual NZ song-writing awards. A feature of the awards ceremony is the performance of each of the finalist songs by another kiwi artist. Here are the live performances from the 2007 ceremony.

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