Aug/092
Want to Meet Some New People?
This weeks programme tossed up a couple of great ideas on how to get more social in the City- so stop complaining you find it hard to make new friends. Instead try carpooling or improv classes. Or talk to the person sitting next to you in the theatre.
Carpooling is being made easy by Ping’s crew at Greater Wellington. Let's Carpool is a government initiative to encourage people to try a more sustainable kind of transport. Cheap, social and a great way to show off your environmental awareness, carpooling is due for a revival- so jump on and make it more than a trend. The website makes it easy to match up with people in your area who keep a similar schedule. According to Ping it’s not exactly like a dating service but it is a great way to meet someone perfectly matched to your transport needs! And nice work Wellington- first region to get a carpool scheme up and running.
All the World’s a Stage is back by popular demand. Twinkle eyed Ray Henwood joined us in the studio for a truly fascinating chat about the never waning appeal of Shakespeare. A Round-the-Bard trip in 90 minutes, Ray’s solo performance promises to showcase the many facets of Shakespeare’s genius. I’m constantly in awe of the way people can recreate these scripts which have been played over and over for 400 years. Ray is setting it Elizabethan style, as it would have been played in the Globe Theatre- so be prepared to have him look straight in your eyes while he talks! We have a double pass to All the World’s a Stage- drop us a comment below and it’s all yours.
Derek Flores, Wellington’s comedy darling, popped in to help us up the WIT. Wellington Improvisation Troupe is a grass roots theatre class for comedy newbies. There seems to be a comedy explosion in Wellington and this is a chance for every Joe Average to get on board. What’s the draw of standing up in front of strangers and risking total humiliation? Improvisation scares the pants off me but Derek convinced us it’s a confidence booster. I imagine mucking up over and over again with a group of new classmates is one way to ensure a close bond. Want to try something new and meet new people? As Derek says, the Greek class at Wellington High is full- so maybe try improv!
If you’re keen to learn a little radio history jump to the end of the podcast- Yen’s been on Wikipedia! And advance warning- you might be seeing a little more of our faces here soon. Perhaps time to set up a firewall?
Ray Henwood- All the World's a Stage
1:15 Ping on Carpool Day
9.25 Derek from WIT
16.50 Ray about All the World's a Stage
Jul/091
Free tickets to Nighttime Madness for adventure buffs
We played some beautiful songs by Maori artistes this week, to fit with the theme of Maori Language Week. Discussing issues of culture made me wonder what else the rest of Wellington is doing for Maori Language Week. It certainly led to an extended conversation about wider cultural issues for Laura and myself after the show. So, how many of you out there - we wonder - are currently committed to learning Maori? In what ways are you using Maori in your day-to-day life?
Luke Paardekooper spoke to us earlier in the day about a very exciting fundraising event that's set to happen on 8th August at the popular Butterfly Creek in Eastbourne. If you're into tramping, we have free tickets for two pairs of participants to the Butterfly Creek Nighttime Madness (entry fees ranging from $30-$95 per pair). Write in to us or leave a comment here to get your hands on these vouchers soon!
If you are late to find out about these free tickets however and are still keen to take part, just print "Access Radio" at the top of your application form and the late fees will be waived for you.
The Film Festival is obviously taking very well with Wellington, so look out for next week's show, when we'll have Hannah on with us to chat more about that.
8:53 Luke Paardekooper, Butterfly Creek Nighttime Madness
19:52 Huhana Rokx, CE for Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Maori
Jul/090
Mixed Bag
A wonderful mixed bag on the programme this week! Consider it an education; I sure enjoyed learning about sharing stories and saving them for future generations to enjoy. That’s the field of Community Archivist Kylie Ngaropo. She and the team at Archives New Zealand have just launched The Community Archive - an interactive, user generated archive to replace the piles of paper they used to have lying around their offices in Thorndon. Hugely interesting and user friendly, the site is set to become a veritable trove of taonga from the past. It’s worth perusing- I jumped on and learnt a little about the first European to settle my home town.
Baden interviews Clayton Curnow from Starlight Express and we sample a little music from Wellington locals The Great Hoax - bluesy and funky, these songs prove the power of sound to ignite your imagination. Cheers to Nick for letting us podcast them.
Do we have a thing for brothers? Perhaps! We’ve stumbled across a couple of talented siblings again this week. Joel and Jake from Binge Culture popped into the studio to introduce us to reality theatre. Described as a live experiment, Animal Hour promises to solve what ever Darwin couldn’t. Joel directs and Jake performs and with sax in tow they attempted to explain how a game show involving animals might work on stage. For the highlight of my week scroll along to 42.10 in the podcast. Binge Culture is another fabulous example of the best thing about Wellington Theatre- if people in this city don’t find theatre that works for them, they just get off the couch and start devising their own. The results are often spectacular. So cancel what ever you have planned this weekend, take our give away tickets and head along to Animal Hour for “lots of laughter, lots of awkwardness, a bit of fear”. It’s a little ludicrous, but Joel promises they take it all very seriously.
And with a poster like that you can’t say you’re not curious!... The animal on the poster is also the symbol of the worlds largest and most experienced independent conservation organisation. Click comment, tell me what (that) WWF stands for and two tickets to opening night of Animal Hour are all yours. You’ll probably get bonus Peoples Coffee too…
Jul/098
NZ podcasters making their voices heard
Hi. My name is Yenping, and I am crazy with passion for New Zealand music.
For those of you in the know, there is a whole world of podcasts out there about virtually any topic under the sun. One way to segment the world of podcasts is to divide it into two groups: podcasters who want to make other people's voices heard, and podcasters who want to make their own voices heard.
This week, we spoke with two very regular guys, who each fall into one of these two groups.
Guy 1: Ki Mansell, creator of nzbeats.com
I tend to be a little sceptical about anyone or anything that claims to be the #1 of whatever it may be, but nzbeats.com lives up to this self-proclaimed name (tell me if you disagree). I was immediately pulled by the clever, yet unpretentious design of the website upon entering. As it turns out, about half of the visitors to the site think so too. Although Ki's first degree is in computer science, he nonchalantly remarks, "It's just another Wordpress theme."
To be specific, everything on this podcast site works, and there's nothing there that you would not need. The songs even play right til the very end - just like radio. What a pleasant surprise. But the clincher is, all the songs actually rock. And they are all New Zealand music. No, wait. I think the real clincher is this - it's all free.
I could not help noticing, when skyping with Ki to discuss music and similar things, that the design of his bedroom was just as unpretentious. It made me feel comfortable enough to tell him that his podcasts have converted me to New Zealand music.
Guy 2: Tom G (of Brothers G), Like a Mad Dog Running through a Puddle of Gravy
In the age of the Internet, any man and his dog can opt to have their innermost thoughts heard if they had an Internet connection and a strong desire to speak. This podcast series tries to embody and stretch the potential for this very sense of vociferous freedom afforded by the Internet.
Listening to Episode 10 of this series, I was initially befuddled. It felt like I was in a very small coffeeshop with tiny tables that are arranged about an arm's length from each other - what is usually described as an "intimate" setting. It felt like there were two regular guys at the table beside me, sharing an unusually boisterous conversation that is more than within earshot. The topics of conversation were variously astounding, amusing and incomprehensible.
I understood my befuddlement slightly later. These guys are really the world's most average guys, expressing their innermost average thoughts in an unbridled fashion. A celebration of the male voice. Hence, the "explicit" rating in iTunes, I reasoned to myself. But Tom has a better way of explaining this. . .