By Charlette Hannah
Hannah Simpson a.k.a Cherry, inimitable leader of Wellington band Cherry's Gemstones, describes herself and her music as 'vibrant, vivacious, friendly, fun, outrageous, also with a dark kind of moody side as well'. She smiles constantly, even while talking in a voice that somehow manages to be husky and cutesy at the same time, and giggles into her soy chai latte when she pauses for breath. I met up with Cherry on a rainy day for a quick chat.
Charlette: So the first thing I wanted to ask you about was the crowd surf photo shoot you recently did. What was that all about?
Cherry: It's still under wraps, but for New Zealand Music Month we're going to be appearing in a publication - I'm not allowed to say - and I just wanted to do something a bit different, a bit crazy and unique for that. Jeremy Blinko, who took the photos, it was actually his idea, and I thought 'yeah that's great'. So we got together a group of people, shouted them some beers, and got to crowd surf on them!
Charlette: So it went well?
Cherry: Yeah, it went really well. We're also doing these 'pretending to be running away with aliens' shots as well, it's quite funny.
Charlette: It says on your myspace site you've got a new drummer. How did you find him?
Cherry: Well, Ben, or B Jammin, or Benjy as I like to call him, I found B Jammin at the music works shop. I was putting up posters looking for a drummer, and he just started talking to me randomly 'cause he likes to talk to his customers and he's just a really nice guy. So I went in there and he said 'I'd like to drum for you, I'd like to jam with you', something along those lines. So we gave him a go, and he's just a really great guy and a great musician and he works real well with me and Heleyni.
Charlette: What happened to your last drummer?
Cherry: Greta, yeah. It was going quite well for a little while there but then she decided it wasn't quite for her. So she left the band, unfortunately, but it's ok, we've got Ben now.
like most about playing live?
Charlette: What do you like best about playing live?
Cherry: Probably getting the feedback from the audience. Just giving something out, whatever you're expressing, your emotions and the frequency of the sound in a live venue. Say at San Francisco Bathhouse with the loud speakers and the PA is really good there. Just the crowd, and knowing people like your stuff, and you're sharing something of yourself, and they're sharing something with you by participating in the music and the event. I enjoy playing with the other bands as well, my fellow musician friends. Supporting each other and having a good time and expressing life!
Charlette: Do you prefer it to recording?
Cherry: No, no, I like them both probably quite equally. I really enjoyed recording our EP, Love in the Dreamscape Matrix Reality. Did it sort of slowly over a period of about ten months, with a guy called Justin Doyle who is the engineer at a studio called the Blue Room Studios here in Wellington on Abel Smith Street. We just really nutted it out, he worked really hard on it with me, we co-produced it. He had a break in the middle 'cause he also does guitar tech-ing for bands like Shihad and Goldenhorse, so during the summer months we had a bit of break. I really love recording. The idea of capturing something, it's a piece of history. You can build up the layers more.
Charlette: Any plans for an album soon?
Cherry: Definitely. We're talking about an album and working on new material, as I speak. So we've been writing some new songs. I want to write one song a week and then just have lots and lots of material so we can weed out the best and record that. So I want to, for the second piece of work, record a full length album and include several guitar driven tracks and several piano driven tracks. The juxtaposition or the difference between the sound is quite extreme. I used to write quite long drawn out songs, but we're writing some more punchy shorter songs, kinda like pop/punk.
Charlette: So what do you do when you're not playing music?
Cherry: I'm a singing teacher, so I've got a few students, I'm just building it up. I'm on the PACE scheme as well. I spend a lot of my time actually promoting music, singing lessons, meeting people, doing an interview, talking about a potential idea. Got a manager now, so that's good, he's got some good ideas. It's good to have a bit of extra help. Thinking about getting a promoter actually. It's just really hard work, keeping your name out there.
Charlette: Let's go back to the songs a little. What inspires you and what do you write them about?
Cherry: Everything ay, from friends, people, experiences, personal pain, pain of friends or others. Not in a bad way. Like I'd never want to comment on someone elses pain that would be offensive. Just life as well. We've got one song which is relatively new, its about six months old, called Diamonds in the Rough. That song is about several photographs in a photo exhibition that I saw last year, and it was the diamond mining. So it had the black people in Nigeria mining the diamonds, then the overlord kind of guy cutting the diamonds up, and then where they ended up in New York. It's just quite grotesque I thought, and sad. It was interesting actually, 'cause just after I wrote that song the movie Blood Diamond came out, which only just saw the other day. Sometimes I find some issues and things too painful to comment on them. It's quite hard to process things like the state of the environment, you just hear these crazy things. I quite like to talk to people and find out what they do. I talked to this one guy the other week and he works for the piping lines I think in Australia, and he said if there's one more summer of draught, people will be literally going down to buy their water. Sometimes I think, how do you comment on these things in a way that's apt.
Charlette: What's in the future for yourself as a musician and as a band?
Cherry: More touring definitely. On the 27th of April we're going to play Auckland at the Schooner Tavern. On the 19th of May at 1pm we'll be at the Auckland City Art Gallery debuting some more demure, stripped back, movie soundtrack-styled Julie Cruise tunes. But also doing some of the more wild and surreal crazy stuff off the EP. Yeah, I get to play a baby grand at the art gallery!
Charlette: Are you playing in Wellington soon?
Cherry: I don't know yet. Probably sometime in New Zealand Music Month, I haven't booked anything yet. Just giving it a bit of a break. It's such a small town that you can't do too many shows otherwise people get bored.
Charlette: Do you consider yourself a professional?
Cherry: Yeah, definitely. I work extremely hard at what I do, there's no doubt about it. It's crazy, how hard I work. And the hours are crazy as well. You have to be promoting yourself 24/7 in a way. The culture of it can be quite tiring. Like I said, I do all the singing teaching as well, I'm gonna be a School of Rock mentor as well. It's gonna be really fun.
Charlette: What advice would you have for other bands who are trying to 'make it'.
Cherry: Well if you're just starting up, get an email list, get a myspace page, get a friend to help you with the promotion side of things. Get a manager whether it's someone from the industry or not, even if its just someone to help you manage your time, managing accounts, things like joining APRA. Just write write write, write lots of songs, play play play, tour tour tour, record demos. Even if that means just recording yourself in your practice room so you can hear what you sound like and you can go away and listen to it. If you can get hold of a four track, start recording a demo and handing it round so people know who you are. Flyers. You can never hand out enough flyers for your shows. Don't annoy people. I've annoyed people in my time. I once went to an acoustic night and played my acoustic through a distortion pedal, which some people might like, but the venue owners didn't and they wouldn't let me play there for a while. Work hard. Treat it like fun, 'cause rock and roll should be fun, but you need to have a standard, set yourself goals. Just muppet at people about your band. Create a bio, work out what your sound is, who you are. Logo's, t'shirts, stickers, anything just to get your name out there, get it into people's consciousness. But really work on your sound. At the end of the day if you don't have a great sound and you do all that work getting your name out there...
Charlette: We'll just finish with a more superficial question – do you have a funny story?
Cherry: Oh yeah, I wanted to say we want to tour the world and go on a cruise ship tour in about two years time, so thats something I'm working on at the moment. A funny story. I just thought of one but that's probably not appropriate. Five metre's more, that's a good story. My old drummer Ollie, we played together in a few different bands since I was about 16, then we formed Cherry's Gemstones when I was about 21, he was with Cherry's Gemstones for 3 or 4 years. One night we had two shows in a row, we had one on a Wednesday night for a girls birthday party at the San Francisco Bathhouse and then the next night we had one at Bodega. We were all tired from the night before and we were pulling up to the venue, and I wanted him to pull up right outside the door 'cause we had all this gear, and he said 'no, this is fine' and we had a bit of a hootenanny over that. We were a two piece for ages, me and Ollie, so we ended up a bit like an old married couple. So after that we just kept joking about, anytime we had to get gear out we'd say 'just five metres more'.
Saturday, 21 April 2007
Monday, 16 April 2007
REVIEW: Samuel Flynn-Scott and Lawrence Arabia
SAMUEL FLYNN-SCOTT AND
THE HAAST EAGLE TOUR
FRIDAY 13 APRIL
By Charlette Hannah
I bought a new dress for this gig. It was little and cute. Not that anyone noticed, as these guys have enough stage presence to make you choke.
Sam Flynn-Scott and Lawrence Arabia aren’t just doing a tour together – they actually play together! Luckily for us, it works, as it would be far worse to see a bad band when there was no relief in sight (i.e. when the next band took over). Both of them manage to command the stage, and hold back to let the other take over, which I think is praiseworthy given the unfortunate tendency of performers to either be egotistical or boring.
Aside from the music, which was always going to be good, a mixture of slinky blues, country/pop ditties and rock, they were particularly funny. In fact, the drummer stepped out from the usual strong silent role, and cracked many a line.
Backed by the Duo Orchestra of Craig Terris and Tom Callwood (I like the idea of a two person orchestra) they jived around the stage, miraculously avoiding all instruments and cables.
At times it did get a little messy, however Samuel kindly explained to us that they had learnt 26 songs that week. I don’t know what to believe anymore now that I’ve found out about the DOC conspiracy to breed extinct Haast Eagles.
The only complaint I would have is the butchered Beatles song at the end. However when they stick to originals, its good music, and great entertainment.
By Charlette Hannah
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
REVIEW: Jonathan McArthur
THURSDAY 5 APRIL
HAPPY BAR
JONATHAN MCARTHUR ‘
By Hans Weston
Walking down the stairs to the basement Happy Bar, I could hear
someone playing guitar and singing but no chattering or people sounds.
I thought we might be the first to arrive at this evening of acoustic
balladry. After paying the polite $5, I could see there were a good
number of quiet patrons sitting at candle-lit tables paying guitarist
Brad Taylor every bit of attention. You could've heard a pin drop in
between chords. In fact, a pin was heard to drop. The bar-maid mutely
handed me a drinks list and I half whispered "speights old dark"
managing to catch the last three songs of Brad Taylor's set. Brad has a
really great voice, and I enjoyed his folk style covers and originals
which were perfect in this setting.
It was then Jonathan McArthur's turn to take the stage with an eight
song set of originals. Jonathan's songs are of a very high standard
with melodies and hooks that grow on you after only a few listenings.
However, the songs "Once" and "Risk" which I hadn't heard before were
immediately captivating. It's hard not to liken Jonathan's approach to
the likes of Thom Yorke with his measured and melodic voice, but yet
there is a strong streak of originality and individuality shining
through all of his material. The highlight of his set was "Building
Boats in the Basement", a song which conjures up a yearning for the
peacefulness obtained from a Sunday afternoon hobby that is all yours
and is locked away from all distractions....or perhaps that's just my
sentimentality. Jonathan effortlessly deploys a number of unusual
chords, arrangements and practiced finger work into his songs, which
to this wanna-be guitarist were great to hear and see. I'll look
forward to his next live performance.
Unfortunately, I couldn't stay to hear Emma Boniface, but as she began
the crowd were just as attentive as they had been for the previous two
musicians. It was a delight to be somewhere where people actually
listen to the music, rather than swilling beer and mindlessly
heckling. (Which can be fun too.)
http://www.myspace.com/sleepyde
http://www.myspace.com/emjaybon
http://www.myspace.com/redwoodnz - Brad Taylor
Wednesday, 4 April 2007
Selling out
I sold out. I put google ads on my website. However, 40 cents later, I realised it's just not worth it so this website is now ad free. I don't know what the opposite of selling out is, but I've done it. The way I see it, if you're making money off advertising, it's worth it. If you're not, it's not. I wasn't. So I'm not.
Monday, 2 April 2007
REVIEW: The Aviators
THE AVIATORS
SOUTHERN CROSS
SATURDAY 31 MARCH
In the way we humans have an irrestible urge to box and categorise things, I decided first of all to insert The Aviators in a lounge jazz/dub container. How wrong I turned out to be! Their first song at the Southern Cross on Saturday night was the cruisiest of the lot, and I mistakenly put it in a box I don't particularly like. I decided they were good, but not my sort of thing. As the set progressed they got funkier and funkier, until people just couldn't contain themselves and funked it up on the dance floor, whooping and grooving. Yes, grooving. I thought that was out of fashion, but I have since learned the error of my un-groovy ways.
A seven piece band, The Aviators have the standard bass, guitar, drums and vocals, but they also add in a percussionist, trombonist, and sax player. You can tell they're going to be different just looking at the line up.
I have to admit it took me a few songs to figure out what was going on. They are such good musicians it's hard to tell if a song is rehearsed, a jam, or a combination of the two. In the end though, it doesn't matter. These guys are tight, creative, rhythmic and great fun. Their songs are dynamic, unpredictable, and interesting. They're also good solid tunes with fine instrumentation.
It's satisfying to see a band who are so good live. Some bands appear to be just trying to get through playing their recording live, or getting through the live show so someone will make a recording of them. The Aviators on the other hand are lively, full of stage presence, and great to watch as well as listen to. With seven members, it would be boring if they all played all the time, and yet you barely seem to notice if one isn't playing, because they're dancing up there on the stage. Singer Ned Worboys has one of the best voices I've heard in a while – smooth and yet full of character, and he plays around with his vocal delivery too. The only complaint I would have is that the vocal mix at times wasn’t quite loud enough – when the band went into overdrive the vocals were drowned out.
I visited their website http://www.theaviators.co.nz and http://myspace.com/aviatorsnz and found this, which amused me, so I decided they could have a say in their own review. “...we play funk, crunk and grime. Not because we know what those genres are, but because they sound cool.”
Check them out if you get the chance. I believe they've got an album coming out soon.
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