June 15, 2011

I'm ashamed to admit that I don't know much about the food of New Zealand, I'll have to get on that. One thing I can tell you about the country though, is that there are a lot of sheep. A lot. Thirteen to every one person, I believe. And there was one in particular that the New Zealanders loved. Behold! Shrek, the world's woolliest sheep:

Or, at least, he was the world's woolliest sheep. He was shorn live on television. Live. On. Television. Seriously.

Unfortunately, poor old Shrek passed away last week. New Zealand is in mourning. They've lost an icon. Scotland had William Wallace. Canada Wayne Gretzky. New Zealand had Shrek the sheep.

I must now - like I did on Sunday's Strombo Show - apologise if I've offended any New Zealanders, I honestly do feel baaa'd.

Enough! On to the music.

It's becoming a theme to say that I didn't know much about the country of choice's music scene - but I thought I did this week with New Zealand. I had expected an alt/rock, indie scene from the few bands I already know. Well, there is one, but it's nowhere near as popular as the soulful side of music in New Zealand. Inspired by the Caribbean and Island music there is a lot of reggae in this country. And most of it is pretty darn cool.

Asked to find the 'Tragically Hip of New Zealand', I chose Fat Freddy's Drop. They're not necessarily the biggest band in New Zealand, but they're a "supergroup" made up of a lot of big bands from the country. Bands like TrinityRoots, Bongmaster, the Black Seeds (we'll talk more about them later) have members in Fat Freddy's Drop. And the choice went down well, too. We played 'Wandering Eye'.

I had considered having TrinityRoots as the Hip of New Zealand, you can check them out here.

Also huge in New Zealand is a band called Salmonella Dub, below is one of their biggest tracks - 'For the Love of it'.

It's not just reggae music that's big in New Zealand though. Some hip hop, anyone? This is Ladi6 - and she is loved in New Zealand. Big time.

To the up and comer. I mentioned the Black Seeds earlier as a few of their members are also in Fat Freddy's Drop. So, they've been around for a while, you ask? Well, yes. But - things are finally starting to take off for the band, finally getting recognition throughout the world and not just in their native land. We played 'The Answer' on Sunday night, and below you can watch the video for 'So True':

And who's that driving the car? Is that? Why, yes, I think it is! It's Bret McKenzie, a former member of the band, now with Flight of the Conchords.

Now I talked about that alt/rock/indie scene that I already knew a little bit about earlier. I thought it would be much bigger. There's an Australian band called Art of Fighting that I had in my head as a wildcard choice... but then I was doing more research and realised I was a bit silly. You'll have noticed that word up there, yeah, Australian. Duh.

Okay, so I then remembered about the Brunettes. They're great. Their song B.A.B.Y. was my wildcard, and it's just so good I want you to hear it again. Check it out below:

If you didn't hear my story about the Brunettes on the show, you can listen again.

Alright, that's it for another week. Or, actually, three weeks. We have some grunge specials coming up on the Strombo Show over the next two weeks, but I'll be back for our dock rock specials, looking at some holiday destinations...

Let me know what you think of New Zealand's music scene, if you think I missed anything, or if you think I should be punished for my remarks about New Zealand's love of a sheep.

Twitter: @calumshanlin

Previously: Mexico // Japan // France // Scotland