Traversing 25 albums Mark Amery and Andrew Armitage exchange tracks from over a 50 year career by a American singer songwriter and humorist whose humour cuts close to the personal and political bone, sometimes with skeamish at other times touching beautiful results. If you don’t know Loudon here’s an introduction, if you do we promise surprises.
With Mark Amery. The band that defined my adolescence before The Beatles got hold of it. Following our adage of No Hits No Misses we miss out the dozen songs anyone between the ages of 30 and 60 know and provide one hour digging deep into all 10 albums of a restless adventurous band with impeccable songwriting and inventive musicality.
Here for your on demand listening pleasure from Paekākāriki’s community radio show Te Pae with Mark Amery and Sam McLaughlan June 2020: Matty Johnson’s family have run the service station at the bottom of Paekakariki Hill Road for 28 years (his father is the late Ian Johnston). Matty worked the pumps from a young age and has now taken over the coffee business that started before his dad passed.
He’s also worked at Fly by Wire a long time – he was there when the 2003 flood ripped though the valley and destroyed the business, and created a fair few new waterfalls. Last year he got Fly by Wire back up and running, up the remarkable valley Waikakariki, which is a beautiful walk all in its self. Covid hit just as Matty says Fly By Wire was chocka, and they’ve now lost their international trade – but there’s half price rides for locals with this extraordinary flying machine.
With Aotearoa in lockdown Anzac Day in Paekākāriki has begun with a dawn service at letterboxes. We would usually gather to march to Memorial Hall for the roll of honour to be called, addresses and the Last Post to be played. This year we present our Anzac Day ceremony online through services past, remembering both the fallen and members of our community we have lost.
Here in a special Paekakariki 88.2FM broadcast online is a collection of recordings from past services and Anzac Day interviews with John Porter, Sydney Budge, Murray Hill, Kate Hill, Ian Johnstone and Colleen Kelly, presented by Mark Amery.
in a bit of a special we got on air locally and talked coronavirus emergency preparedness with Kerren Hedlund, got a wakeup call from Europe care of returning Fat Freddy’s Drop member Iain Gordon (who only got one gig of their tour) before going into isolation, and now in self-isolation with family Justin Corbett who is back from Sudan and missing having a pint at the local bowler. Plus some special coronovirus music! With Sylvia Bagnall and Mark Amery