Standing Room Only for Sunday 17 June 2018
This Sunday on Standing Room Only: The Chills provide our music, and are the subject of a Dunedin exhibition; Jess Johnson and Simon Ward prepare a virtual reality exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra; we're off to Waikanae for Matariki at Mahara Gallery; on At The Movies, the film on everyone's mind is the horror movie Hereditary, and Karen Waaka Tibble discusses her work at Film Commission; Scott Hamilton talks about his book about the Great South Road; on this month's Screen Gems, Irene Gardiner looks back on dance movies and TV, long before Dancing with the Stars; Shakespearean leading light Michael Hurst, on the Laugh Track, has a surprising affection for Les Dawson; Victorian Periodicals in Dunedin; the poetry of Dan Davin; Sonia Sly's regular podcast My Heels are Killing Me - this week, fashion's often contradictory attitude to ageing; and in the Drama at 3, two final episodes - of highly divisive satirical series Dexter Guff is smarter than you, and our historical reading Te Wherowhero.
12:15 Things Change - The Chills The Exhibition
The Chills are one of the great New Zealand bands, releasing music for almost 40 years. They've been a leading light of the Flying Nun label, but also slightly apart. Spearheaded by the songs of chief Chill Martin Phillipps, and despite an often alarming turnover of members in the 1980s and 90s, the Chills' output, right up until 2016 album Silver Bullets, could be summed up by one of their own songs: "Heavenly Pop Hits". Now Martin Phillips and curator Michael Findlay have put together an exhibition of Chills memorabilia, Things Change, at the H D Skinner Annex at the Otago Museum in Dunedin. Also helping has been ex-bandmate Martin Kean who's brought in the assistance of Polytechnic students he teaches. As Martin Phillipps tells Simon Morris, we can expect a new album from The Chills later this year, and a long-awaited documentary film about his life and times next year.
We catch up with Martin, and Michael Findlay, and The Chills also provide our music for Standing Room Only this week, with songs from across their career sprinkled throughout the show.
12:30 Creating New Worlds - Jess Johnson and Simon Ward
Artist Jess Johnson is in New York - and Simon Ward is in Wellington - but they communicate through virtual reality, creating animation and virtual reality environments that are pretty indescribable. But for you, we'll try: intense, cybernetic psychedelic sci-fi worlds.
Jess and Simon are the second in our series of interviews with the people behind the four shortlisted exhibitions for NZ's preeminent art prize the Walters. Their latest work is a commission for the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, and it's that gallery's first virtual reality work. Their Walters exhibition Whol Wide World opens at Auckland Art Gallery in August.
Here's an excerpt from the work.
12:45 Paddling for Matariki
Matariki has become a special time around the country for art galleries to work with local iwi. In Waikanae, the Kāpiti Coast's Mahara Gallery sits close to the local marae Whakarongotai and has developed a strong Matariki programme with local Maori artists.
This year their Matariki programme even features a 20 metre long river waka carved recently. Mark Amery visited Waikanae this week and spoke to artist Hariata Ropata Tangahoe (who carved the waka with Len Taylor), and to gallery director Janet Bayly. Mahinga Kai is on at the Mahara Gallery Waikanae until the 29th of July.
1:10 At The Movies
With Simon Morris. This week: Oceans 8, Hereditary and an interview with Karen Waaka-Tibble of the NZ Film Commission about Maori film development.
1:33 Our Silk Road? Scott Hamilton on Ghost South Road
Could it be our old Silk Road or indeed our equivalent of a Roman Road?
The Great South Road. It's almost three years ago since we talked to writer Scott Hamilton and filmmaker Paul Janman about their 200 kilometre journey down the Great South Road, which extends from Auckland down into the Waikato. A film is in development about the stories they encountered, and now a book has been published by Atuanui Press. Mark Amery caught up with Scott Hamilton about how past and present come together for the future in his book Ghost South Road. You can preview the book online here.
1:50 Screen Gems - Dancing with the Stars
Time for another Screen Gems - our regular, nostalgic flick back through the hits of the big and small screens.
Today, TV3's Dancing with the Stars has been drawing good viewing numbers and a big social media response - if by that you mean torrents of abuse mostly aimed at David Seymour. But dancing on the screen has clearly struck a chord with Irene Gardiner - it's our theme today
2:06 The Laugh Track - Michael Hurst
Michael Hurst is no stranger to listeners as a director and an actor, and he has a big funny bone. But his latest production couldn't be darker - is of Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s Jacobean shocker The Changeling, appearing at Auckland University’s Drama Studio, Pumphouse Theatre, Uxbridge Theatre and Vault, Q Theatre from June 29. Michael's comedy picks are Spike Milligan, Les Dawson, Monty Python, Police Story and an all-star version of the classic "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch.
2:25 Dan Davin - Discovering a War Poet
20th century New Zealand writer Dan Davin is best known for his fiction, a book on New Zealand's second world war Crete campaign and his work for Clarendon and Oxford University Press after the war but, as Mark Amery discovers, he was also a poet. Wairarapa poet and New Zealand Defence Force publisher Robert McLean has brought Davin's poetry together in one volume. A Field Officer's Notebook has been published by Cold Hub Press.
2:40 Victorian Popular Press - Dr Tom McLean and Dr Grace Moore
Before there was Netflix, before there was television, movies or radio, popular culture came between the covers of the popular periodical. Magazines like The Strand, Punch and the Boy's and Girl's Own Papers dominated the scene, and launched the careers of Dickens, Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte and Sherlock Holmes.
Dr Tom McLean and Dr Grace Moore, curators of the exhibition All the year round - the periodicals of the Victorian era speak to Simon Morris. The exhibition is currently on at the De Beer Gallery in the University of Otago Library.
2:49 Dictating the terms of ageing
The beauty and fashion industries have long dictated what’s deemed acceptable or desirable. Beauty products are marketed at women and the need for a more youthful appearance, and it’s rare to see older women in fashion campaigns wearing the same clothes you might see on a model who is half, or even a third her age. The same goes for the runway. So are older women invisible? And if so, who decides the terms of their visibility? Evelyn Ebrey - Editor in Chief for FashionNZ - and model Mercy Brewer share their perspectives in this episode of My Heels Are Killing Me
3:06 Drama at 3 - Dexter Guff and Te Wherowhero
The final episode of our satirical series Dexter Guff is Smarter Than You (And You Can Be Too) and the final episode in our series Te Wherowhero, on the life of the man who became the first Maori king.
Music this Sunday
Artist: The Chills
Song: "I Love My leather Jacket"
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: Kaleidoscope World
Label: Flying Nun
Played at: 12.05pm
Artist: The Chills
Song: Heavenly Pop Hit
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: Submarine Bells
Label: Flying Nun
Played at: 12.08pm
Artist: The Chills
Song: Doledrums
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: Kaleidoscope World
Label: Flying Nun
Played at: 12.20pm
Artist: The Chills
Song: When the Poor Can reach the Moon
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: Silver Bullets
Label: Fire Records
Played at: 12.35pm
Artist: The Chills
Song: The Great Escape
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: Kaleidoscope World
Label: Flying Nun
Played at: 12.58pm
Artist: The Chills
Song: Push
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: Brave Words
Label: Flying Nun
Played at: 1.10pm
Artist: Martin Phillipps and The Chills
Song: Dreams Are free
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: Sunburnt
Label: Flying Nun
Played at: 12.43pm
Artist: The Chills
Song: Singing in my sleep
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: Submarine Bells
Label: Flying Nun
Played at: 1.58pm
Artist: The Chills
Song: Lost in Space
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: Single B-Side
Label: Fire Records
Played at: 2.04pm
Artist: The Chills
Song: Song for Randy Newman, etc.
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: Soft Bomb
Label: Slash
Played at: 2.30pm
Artist: The Chills
Song: Kaleidoscope World
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: Kaleidoscope World
Label: Flying Nun
Played at: 2.55pm
Artist: The Chills
Song: Party in My Heart
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: House with a 100 Rooms
Label: Flying Nun UK
Played at: 3.04pm
Artist: The Chills
Song: Pink Frost
Composer: Martin Phillipps
Album: Kaleidoscope World
Label: Flying Nun
Played at: 3.57pm