Celebrating NZ music throughout May: 1 - Don McGlashan / The Mutton Birds

You may remember how well I did on the 25 days of music challenge – not very! I think I got as far as Day 11, and the rest are still to come. Can I do better with this challenge to myself?

Throughout May, which is NZ music month, I’m aiming to share some of my favourite kiwi artists / songs, along with featured artists from the NZ Music month website.

What is NZ Music Month?

From the official music month website

Put simply, the purpose of NZ Music Month is to celebrate music from New Zealand, and the people who make it.

Firmly entrenched as part of our cultural landscape, the month of May has gone from a period of encouraging radio to play more local tunes, to a 31 day celebration of homegrown talent across the length and breadth of the country.

NZ Music Month is a promotion run by the NZ Music Commission that takes place each May, in association with other organisations including NZ On Air, Recorded Music New Zealand, APRA, The Music Managers Forum, and the Radio Broadcasters Association. And obviously NZ Music Month could not succeed without the support of the country's labels, media, the general public, and, most importantly, the artists themselves.

My pick for the day

I’m going to start with The Mutton Birds, as they did what is possibly my favourite ever NZ song – Anchor Me, from 1994

Last year, around this time, our choir did a concert of NZ music which featured Anchor Me and another song of theirs, In My Room, also from 1994. Our choir leader, Julian, who knows way more than me about such things, waxed lyrical about the quality of McGlashan’s skills as a composer.

Another of their well known songs was Dominion Road (a street in Auckland) from 1992

This next song, I remember from a NZ band called Fourmyula back in 1969, but this version was new to me

About them

The Mutton Birds were active from 1991 to 2002, and the founding members were Don McGlashan, Ross Burge, and David Long.

McGlashan was previously known from a 1980’s group The Front Lawn, with Harry Sinclair and Jennifer Ward-Leland. They were known for pop, musical theatre, performance art and comedy. This is one of their songs, written by Don about his brother Andy, and performed by him more recently.

Going back even further, in 1981 he recorded There Is No Depression in NZ, with alt rock group Blam Blam Blam.

Featured on the NZ Music Month website today

The Right Mistake by rock band Decades.

Formerly known as Ashei, there are a myriad of ways to describe NZ rock outfit, Decades, but one word that really summarises their so-far 5 year journey in sharing their music is simply: determination. Bursting on to the scene in 2009 led by a unique female voice that reaches both the gritty angst and delicate reservedness of the vocal spectrum, Decades have shown they are an independent Kiwi rock band to really watch with their shared passion for intense live performance and honest song writing.

Read the rest of this article here.

I didn’t care for this song very much, but listened to a couple of others which I liked better, including this one, I Was With Him.

I wonder who’ll be featured tomorrow?

Thanks for listening

Videos from Youtube. Top image is the official logo and appears everywhere. This copy came from Eventfinda.

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