The next edition of The Bridge, the entertaining charity-minded showcase for musicians and performance artists, has its most diverse line-up to date.
Featuring on the show-bill for the third The Bridge concert at Uxbridge Arts and Culture in Howick on Sunday, November 24, is accomplished musician and blue-roots champion Solomon Cole, indie-pop singer-songwriter Raging Flowers (aka Amy Wang, of Pakuranga), and beat-verse wordsmith Ravi the Poet.
Maddy South, of organisers Brightside Productions, of Howick, says: “The next offering of the increasingly infamous songwriters showcase has three artists who have leant on the power of music to help and heal, and to raising funds for Music Helps, which assists people in the New Zealand music community who have mental health issues or fallen on hard times.
“It will again be an evening of pure delight as we immerse ourselves in the stories of the songs from three special artists.
“Our November cohort will bring a colourful montage of poetry and blues with a comedic air of melancholy,” South says.
Solomon Cole, who resides and inspires in the creative environment of Waiheke Island, has carved out a highly-respected career since starting out in the indie-punk “underground” rock scene in Auckland in the early 1990s.
He says his record label Hoop-La was formed to increase the profile and capture the artistic talents of Waiheke Islanders.
He’s played many a different gig over the past three decades, from opening and touring with international acts such as Martha Davis and the Motels, My Baby, The Animals, and The Supersuckers; being a musician-on-call for other groups and players; and forging a successful career as the leader of The Solomon Cole Band.
Their 2016 album, Bruises, “erupted on the local scene”, Cole says, receiving “rave reviews” and ranking on both the New Zealand album and Independent New Zealand Music album charts, at 19 and 11 respectively.
The exciting period also included a nomination for the coveted Taite Music Prize for best debut album, and the track Ring Your Bell was featured by NASCAR motorsport TV coverage in the United States.
He’s got his first solo album, Ain’t Got Time To Die, planned for release next year, and early sneak-peek snippets reveal a seriously powerful traditional blues-roots feel.
Cole says he’s been creating it over the past year with New Zealand music legend Eddie Rayner, famously of Split Enz and countless other music projects as player, producer and arranger.
The two started “a lasting friendship”, Cole says, last year when they both worked together for the reformation project of iconic 1970s Kiwi rock band Space Waltz.
Cole’s guitar playing is heard on Space Waltz’s sophomore album Victory that reached number 13 in the New Zealand album charts last year, alongside a consecutive number one for the re-release of the 1974 self-titled classic.
It represented an almost 50 years between album releases for Space Waltz, led by another legend, Alistair Riddell.
Cole says Rayner has mixed and produced four tracks on Ain’t Got Time To Die, with leading Kiwi engineer Nick Abbott on recording duties as well.
“This forthcoming album marks a breaking of the dirt,” Cole says.
“It showcases some songs performed and captured onsite in Waiheke’s World War Two installation Stony Batter.”
Cole and Abbott, “embraced the eerie reverberation of the tunnels on tracks such as the haunting Call My Maker and countrified Apocryphal Flood Blues”, he says.
“The immense silence and cavernous sound was tracked live using no software or computers due to power constraints onsite, instead opting for battery-operated ADAT type approach that included singular takes.
“Ain’t Got Time To Die means too toil until the grave, and any musician, who are lifers like me, knows that nothing stops until you’re dead.
“There’s always an album lurking deep within you to be exorcised, because life is an ever-changing landscape that constantly throws up inspiration.
“These songs represent love, loss, woe, joy and everything in between,” Cole says.
