Sweetman Podcast

An in-depth chat with Wellington writer and publicist Kirsten McDougall. She is the author of two books - The Invisible Rider (2012) and Tess (2017) and works as a publicist for VUP. We talk about her role as literary manager for Eleanor Catton during the height of interest around The Luminaries and Kirsten's role working in publishing. We talk about her aims and ambitions as a writer and her process. We talk too about her need to have a job outside of writing, how working as a writer full-time is never the goal.

An in-depth chat with Anika Moa - singer/songwriter, mother, TV show host, creator of music for kids (the successful "Songs For Bubbas" albums and shows) and one of New Zealand's best-known, most loved performers. Apparently this is her first ever podcast. She says the 'C'-word HEAPS and there's a bit more street-noise and background sounds than usual A really fun chat about reviews and reviewing, politics, parenting and music. Lots of music.

An in-depth chat with Luke Buda, singer, songwriter, film composer, member of The Phoenix Foundation and TEETH, solo artist also. We talk through his various roles - across solo and band works including film soundtrack composing and the 20-year journey of The Phoenix Foundation from a classroom in a Wellington High School to stages at Glastonbury and on Jools Holland via various other highs and lows...

An in-depth chat with Claire Mabey and Andrew Laking (Pirate & Queen), co-creators of Litcrawl. We detail the 2017 programme and discuss the history of the event. Claire and Andrew are also the creators of a mid-winter festival called Lōemis so we talk too about that and various other events (musical and literary) but the main focus is to plug the upcoming Litcrawl

An in-depth chat with Stu McKinlay - one of the creators of the Yeastie Boys craft-beer brand. We talk about his life and interest in food/drink and hospitality. We talk about the shaping of the brand and about his life across the last decade - moving from New Zealand to England to take his beer to the world. We talk too about music (one of the big influences in his life, and on his beer) and a bit of discussion around social responsibility and safe drinking, some diversions into politics too...

An in-depth chat with Kiwi blues legend Midge Marsden. We talk about his childhood in New Plymouth and early bands and then the escape to Wellington to join The Breakaways, to work across several bands and then to radio shows, to interviewing B.B. King for TV and the establishment of a solo career. To collaborations with Rodger Fox and a special friendship with Stevie Ray Vaughan and to many albums across the years. A great conversation about a life in music.

An in-depth conversation with one of NZ's great session drummers. Wayne Bell is also a producer, composer, multi-instrumentalist...so we talk about his work in the studio and on the road, a veteran of so many tours and records, of work with When The Cat's Away, Greg Johnson, The Bads, Tim Finn, Bic Runga, Bike, These Wilding Ways, Finn/Runga/Dobbyn and so many more. We talk about "the hang", and the ability to work with so many different people, provide what they want and fit in at just the right time. We talk about favourite drummers too...

An in-depth conversation with Taimi Allan, CEO, Changing Minds. We talk about mental health and follow Taimi's own journey from multiple diagnoses and medications and pursuit of creative arts to working in the industry, to sharing and using her lived experience to help facilitated conversations. We talk symptoms and cycles and experiences. We talk about how to support friends and family members and we talk a lot about trigger warnings and online life, about the good and bad aspects of social media...

An in-depth track-by-track conversation through the brand new Spines album Epidural with Hannah Fraser and Jon McLeary. Jon is the singer/songwriter and founding member of the Spines, a Wellington band of over 36 years - Hannah is the new girl in the band, she's been a member of the Spines across the last 2-3 years (backing vocals, keys, violin). We talk about the history of these songs and the band and discuss the aims and ambitions of the group with their first new (released) album in 30 years.

An in-depth chat with Kiwi-based, internationally renowned pianist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Crayford. We talk through his time in New Zealand and abroad as student and teacher, as player of solo piano and bandleader of small and large combos, as bassist and multi-instrumentalist, as acoustic and electric performer and writer. We talk too of music theory, of the nature of influence, of finding the music in everything and everywhere.

An in-depth chat with Roy Phillips of The Peddlers. We talk Swinging Sixties London and the trajectory of the band across a decade of international touring - with stories of meeting and hanging out with the likes of Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Donny Hathaway, Rod Steiger and so many more. And then to New Zealand, where Roy's been based since 1981, to the evolution of his solo show as one-man-band peddling the hits of his old group and new arrangements of standards. We talk all about a life in music, 56 years in the industry and counting...

An in-depth chat with Steve Rattle - record producer, engineer, musician, and label owner. Steve is the man behind Rattle Records - an imprint of quality 'art' music from New Zealand - featuring jazz, classical and the bits in-between, home to movie soundtracks and ambitious pieces. Steve is also a drummer who has worked with Sharon O'Neill, the earliest version of The Mutton Birds and many more acts across a diverse range of genres. We sat down to chat through his life in music, the aims and ambitions of the Rattle label and had a good ol' chinwag about jazz too.

An in-depth chat with Tamzin Beazley, wife of Head Like A Hole frontman, Booga Beazley. We talk about the documentary film, "Swagger of Thieves", currently doing the NZ Film Festival circuit. We talk too of the impacts on her and family as key parts of the film and filming process; we talk band and rock'n'roll, drug addiction, break-ups, reunions and rock'n'roll...

An in-depth chat with filmmaker Gaylene Preston. We talk, mostly, about Helen Clark and Gaylene's current film festival-touring doco, My Year With Helen. We talk United Nations, feminism, women, the "glass ceiling", the making of the film - but we also talk about Preston's other movies, her docos in particular - films about Kiwi icons like Rita Angus and the movie 'Utu', the power "War Stories Our Mothers Never Told Us" and about a creative life making sense of the world through a lens...

An in-depth chat with broadcaster, freelance writer and now podcaster Melody Thomas. We preview her upcoming RNZ podcast, "Bang!" and talk through her life and career as a freelancer for RNZ, her time at radio school, her broadcast training, her love of podcasts - and music - and we reminisce about the time/s we were going to do a radio show (or podcast) together as co-hosts...

An in-depth chat with Janna Lapidus Leblanc. She was Stevie Ray Vaughan's fiancee at the time of his death; they met four years earlier in Wellington - she's a Kiwi, now based in America. She has recently written and published a book of photos that tells the story of their love affair. Janna and I talk about Stevie, his music, their relationship, her book. We talk too about her life, her upbringing, her career (professional model), her grieving of Stevie.

An in-depth chat with Holly Walker, mother, former Greens MP, author of "The Whole Intimate Mess" a brief, candid memoir that addresses her struggles with depression and self-harm, with working in politics as a mother; we talk also of the work she had done ahead of politics and after as student newspaper editor and freelance writer, radio commentator, podcast guest and host and as book reviewer. We talk through her book and the process of writing and her world around all of that.

An in-depth chat with musician, critic and educator Norman Meehan. We talk through his involvement with music as a writer of biographies and dialogues around music, as a player and composer, as a critic and a teacher. And we pay special attention to the winning collaboration/s with poet Bill Manhire and singer Hannah Griffin across a half-dozen or more recording projects and performance pieces over the last decade.

An in-depth chat with Rodger Fox - very much the face of jazz and big band music for New Zealand; ex member of The Quincy Conserve and now leader, for over 40+ years of The Rodger Fox Big Band and various other smaller ensembles, including his Funkbone Experience, also a promoter, arranger, educator and tireless supporter of music and musicians. We talked through his career, his highlights and his passion for music.

An in-depth chat with Jeremy Taylor of Slow Boat Records. He's a singer/songwriter, former food blogger, rugby writer, music reviewer, singer and voice for hire...and he and I have been having versions of this conversation for about a decade now, trapped in discussion around music, TV, comedy, films, and in this instance...even a bit of rugby. Buckle up for a huge conversation to celebrate two years of the podcast.