GO Live: AhoriBuzz spreads simple truth


AhoriBuzz is the jam-band project of ex-Cairo Knife Fight and ex-Weta frontman Aaron Tokona.

Tokona wrote a song called Into the Sunshine for last year’s Global Citizen concert, striving to make it as powerful, beautiful and uplifting as possible.

The Global Citizen concert aimed to be a soundtrack to a worldwide social movement to end extreme poverty within a generation.

Christchurch-based Tokona says that everyone, from Mexico to Taihape, ”lives under the same sun”.

It’s a change of pace for AhoriBuzz stylistically, but for Tokona the song resonates due to this simple truth within its chorus.

”It doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter where you live, we all share the same sun,” he says.

Into the Sunshine was recorded at Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studios in Auckland. Joining AhoriBuzz on the track are Anika Moa, Anna Coddington, Laughton Kora, Jol Mulholland, Nick Gaffaney and 10 members of the Auckland Gospel Choir.

It will be released to radio in a few weeks.

Today Tokona performs an acoustic version of Into the Sunshine and explains the inspiration behind it, with a few laughs along the way.

You never know how things are going to roll when Tokona is in the studio, and that’s part of AhoriBuzz’s charm.

See more at facebook.com/ahoribuzz.

GO Live! at Angels Gate is a weekly video series which aims to showcase both new and established musicians in Christchurch. Like what you hear today Email

Share

Lion King cast serenades NY travellers


If you’ve always wanted to watch the Lion King, you may not even have to book tickets. You just need to be in the right place at the right time.

Travellers on a New York subway were given an impromptu, a cappella performance of The Circle of Life by the Broadway cast of The Lion King.

Finally, someone managed to bring a smile to the faces of cranky New Yorkers on the subway. (Well, some of them.)

The serenade on July 28 resulted in cheers from the majority of the subway car, who inevitably reverted to avoiding all eye contact and playing Candy Crush shortly after the singing stopped.

Earlier this year, passengers on a flight from Sydney to Brisbane were treated to a surprise from the cast of the hit Broadway production The Lion King.

This story originally appeared on Mashable.

Stuff/Mashable

Ad Feedback

Share

1800 shots in the dark

Share

Live chat: Shihad


Shihad’s Jon Toogood and Karl Kippenberger are in the Stuff office to answer your questions.

Share

Home and Away actress’ son stillborn


Home and Away

Share

Why Kristen Stewart doesn’t smile


Kristen Stewart knows she’d be slated if she started smiling for the paparazzi.

The Twilight star is one of the most in demand actresses on the planet, and often finds waiting photographers when she steps out the house.

Far from embracing it Stewart has perfected her look, which is generally quite sullen.

When quizzed on her pose, the 24-year-old star admits she’ll never change the way she looks.

“Now I feel like if I smiled for a paparazzi photo-not that I ever would-that’s exactly what people would be desecrating me for. They’d be like, ‘Now you’re going to give it up, now you’re a sellout.’ like, okay. What do you want What would you like” she sighed to the American edition of Elle magazine.

Stewart graces the cover in a stunning photo shoot which sees her neck adorned with large chains and Chanel padlocks.

With five new film projects currently in production, the Snow White and the Huntsman actress’ career shows no sign of slowing down.

While she may always find work, Stewart admits she never actually had a plan in place when it came to her movie success.

“Never at any point have I sat down and plotted how I should proceed from here on. As soon as you start thinking about your career as a trajectory-like, as if you’re going to miss out on some wave or momentum-then you’re never doing anything for yourself anyway.

“Then you’re truly, actually, specifically working for the public. You’re turning yourself into a bag of chips,” she expressed. It was her role as Bella Swan in the popular vampire franchise that brought her to the attention of the masses, and also gave her the first taste of celebrity culture.

“The day the movie came out there was a picture of me-in the

Share

Martin’s ‘beautiful pain’ over Paltrow split


Chris Martin has opened up about his split from Gwyneth Paltrow.

The Coldplay frontman made veiled references to his marriage breakdown in a new interview.

And while Martin, who has two children with actress Paltrow, did not refer to the break-up directly, he did appear to hint at the emotional turmoil he went through at the time.

“There’s a phrase, which was written by a singer Leonard Cohen, which is ‘The crack is where the light comes in,'” Martin told America’s Z100 radio host Elvis Duran.

“So, sometimes you have to go through something painful or breakage to see the beauty of things.”

Martin and Paltrow announced their split in March after ten years of marriage.

However, the pair sparked rumours of a reconciliation when they were seen at various public events over the summer months.

Martin later insisted that he and Paltrow have not decided to give their relationship another go, but instead are remaining friends for the sake of their children Apple, ten, and Moses, eight.

“We are very close. We are not together. But we’re, you know, that’s the truth and that’s it,” Chris said during an interview on radio show Valentine in the Morning. “There’s a lot of love. No scandal, I’m afraid. I wish I could give you scandal.”

Paltrow announced the split on her lifestyle website Goop in a post entitled “Conscious Uncoupling”.

“It is with hearts full of sadness that we have decided to separate,” she wrote. “We have been working hard for well over a year, some of it together, some of it separated, to see what might have been possible between us, and we have come to the conclusion that while we love each other very much we will remain separate. We are, however, and always will be a family, and in many ways we are closer than we have ever been.”

Ad Feedback

– Cover Media

Share

George Ezra’s amazing voyages to Budapest


All he was doing was singing and playing guitar. But what made people stare – blinking to attention – was the way he did it.

With the solemn intensity of a chess player, his eyes focused straight ahead, head slightly on an angle, fingers nimbly flicking the strings.

British musician George Ezra, 20, spent one day in New Zealand this week.

In that 24 hours he did interviews and played at an invite-only Auckland showcase sponsored by Huffer.

When he arrived at his hotel room, laid out in a row were shirts.

“Huffer left them for me, they are really nice,” he says, sounding genuinely chuffed.

The humble, talented and charming British newcomer from Hertford has created a sensation with his single Budapest.

It hit No. 1 in Britain and 10 countries in Europe. It is No. 3 on the New Zealand charts this week.

He posted the song online six months ago as a free download.

It has since been streamed more than 10 million times on Spotify and

Share

An extraordinary tale


In New Zealand, writer Jean Watson is an anonymous elderly woman living in a modest Wellington flat. In southern India she is revered as the famous “Jean Aunty”. Christchurch-based film-maker Gerard Smyth tells Vicki Anderson about the documentary which explores Watson’s fascinating double life.

Share

Wake up, speak up!


When Shihad frontman Jon Toogood received the first cut of new song Think You’re So Free, which references the Government spy agency the GCSB, he jumped straight into his car.

He drove onto the motorway and sang along freely to it.

“It just felt, yeah, that’s exactly what I wanted to say and that’s exactly the music I wanted to hear,” Toogood says.

Shihad’s 10th album FVEY (pronounced Five Eyes) is released today.

It’s a political statement against the widening gap between the rich and the poor, injustice and the “soulless” conclusion of free market capitalism.

Injustice is the album’s main lyrical motif but Toogood doesn’t want to be the poster boy for any cause. It’s a personal record for him.

“I’ve been dreading doing interviews for this album. I’m not really that politically minded but I hate being lied to. There’s an attitude of ‘let’s just stick it to the poor, it’s their fault they’re poor anyway’. It’s wrong. We need to wake up and speak up.”

Full of momentum, juggernaut riffs and epic melodies, FVEY is one of Shihad’s best albums to date. It is the Killjoy for 2014.

In many ways FVEY’s title also represents the five minds who crafted it.

“Out of a 25-year career we make one of the best albums we’ve ever made,” Toogood says. “I didn’t expect that at this point in our career. I think it was lots of things coming together at the right time.”

It was recorded in December last year at Auckland’s York Street Studio with Killing Joke frontman Jaz Coleman as their “personal trainer of rock”.

Last year Coleman told GO that he would take the band to Egypt to record so they could “see poverty and what a revolution looks like” but this plan fell through.

Toogood describes York Street Studio as the perfect alternate venue for the reunion.

Last year Shihad celebrated 20 years since the release of their debut album, Churn. It was recorded with Coleman in February 1993 at York Street Studio.

They parted ways afterwards and Shihad’s 1995 album Killjoy included a nod to the rift on a song about Coleman – Silvercup.

“To be back there again, making an album with Jaz after 20 years, it felt right. With the studio to close for good it had to be there. Jaz is still gnarly but without alcohol or drugs now. He is straight and so powerful because of it.”

Several things happened in Toogood’s life which led him on his righteous lyrical path.

“I watched my father pass away, a 77-year-old man. I realised there is no time for mucking around here at all. There is no time to sort of do something. Each time I’d circle the water rather than dive straight in. It was time to dive in.”

Watching the selfless nurses tend to and care for his dying father proved inspirational and infuriating: “What they are paid is criminal.”

He also began doing mentoring work at high schools and found himself spending a lot of time with teachers just as their new pay system, Novopay, was introduced.

“This is another profession which is so selfless and giving and which is so extremely important to society. These people kept turning up for work week after week even though they weren’t being paid because of Novopay.”

Ad Feedback

But when he began encountering ridiculously wealthy people who spent their time “playing with shares” something sparked inside him.

“I say nothing on this record that all of my friends aren’t saying. Everyone’s talking about it, but instead of just putting it on Facebook and grumbling, I’m lucky enough to be able to scream it over this loud rock. It’s time to speak up.”

A visit to Sudan with his new bride was also motivational and he says he returned with a different perspective.

Lyrically honest, these heavy-hitting songs with big themes boast titles such as The Big Lie, Grey Area, Song For No-One, The Living Dead, The Great Divide, Model Citizen, Cheap As and Wasted In the West.

“I never enjoyed writing words so much. I wrote pages and pages and we fit the music to that.”

Toogood, drummer Tom Larkin, bass payer Karl Kippenberger and guitarist Phil Knight regrouped in Melbourne last winter for a writing session.

They worked on the music every day for two months from 10am-1pm.

“Less time, more focused,” Toogood says. “Jaz drilled and drilled us. He had the volume so loud you could weld steel with it.”

They got together 60 “cool ideas”, nothing over a minute long and nothing which was laboured over. Then they went into a “crappy” rehearsal space.

“Jaz had us doing the songs again and again and again. He’d say, ‘up the tempo’ until he started to dance. That moment where you’ve got nothing to hide is where genius lies.”

After getting 20 songs together that way the band went straight into York St with Evan Short of Concord Dawn engineering.

“We recorded it all live. Rock and roll needs to sound urgent, do it right, do it quick, do it hard and with everything you’ve got. Spit it out.”

Befitting a democracy, each band member gave each song a rating out of five. The scores were collated in order of preference and that’s the order they were recorded in: “Popular to least popular.”

When his dad passed away Toogood had a moment of clarity. Life is not a financial race to the finish line.

“Without sounding like a hippy, a bit of love, care and respect would go down so well right now in this age of aspirational meanness.”

Shihad chose to hold a one-off concert in Christchurch next month.

On September 12 they’ll make New Zealand music history with the live show which fans around the country will be able to see via SKY Arena pay-per-view.

They will perform the new album FVEY in its entirety as well as hits from their stellar back catalogue which spans several decades and notable albums.

To contribute to the Christchurch rebuild, the band will donate their share of pay-per-view proceeds to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.

“The last time I was in Christchurch I felt as if there was a real sense of community, of people looking after each other because they had to. Let’s turn some eyes towards Christchurch.”

More than 20 years since making first album Churn with Coleman, all five of them have changed yet many things remain the same.

“There is an adult way to be angry.

“We are losing our freedom and there’s an erosion of care of people in the most need. People need to care.

“This is an angry record without a doubt, because everyone who made this record cares.”

THE DETAILS:

Shihad’s album FVEY is released today. Shihad perform a one-off concert at Horncastle Arena on September 12.

They will be in the Stuff office for a live chat at midday!

Share