Sweetman Podcast

An in-depth conversation with Jon Toogood - frontman for Shihad and creative mind behind The Adults. We talk through his life and career, also on his mind was the Christchurch terrorist attack and we talked a lot about that and about Jon's conversion to Islam.

An in-depth conversation with Hawke's Bay based art critic, collector, commentator and former high school art teacher Roy Dunningham. Roy taught Phil Judd - also among his four top students are Matthew Couper, Freeman White and Regan Gentry. I was at school with all of them, they're friends, two of them are previous podcast guests. So I wanted to talk to Roy about his philosophy, his teaching secrets, his memories of teaching Phil and Buster Stiggs (also of the Swingers) and a conversation around what he looks for and how he teaches art.

An in-depth conversation with Marnie Karmelita, the new head of programming at the NZ Festival and Wellington Jazz Festival. We discuss Marnie's background in arts administration and preview the upcoming Wellington Jazz Festival (June 5-9, 2019)

An in-depth conversation with musician, audio engineer, record label owner, curator and archivist Rob Mayes. From Christchurch to Japan, via a stint in the UK, Rob has dedicated his life to music - playing, recording, capturing. He has an archive of important recordings from New Zealand bands and he curates collections via his label, Failsafe. He's also a musician in his own right, playing bass in the reformations of The Children's Hour and Beat Rhythm Fashion, a former member of Throw and many other bands beside. First and foremost Rob reckons he's a music fan. We talk about the bands he loves, the sounds he's searching for and many of his varied musical projects.

An in-depth conversation with New Zealand-born musician Graeme Jefferies (aka The CakeKitchen). We talk through his life with The CakeKitchen as band and solo entity (and duo). We talk about the work he created with his brother Peter (Nocturnal Projections, This Kind of Punishment) and his recently published memoir, "Time Flowing Backwards". We talk touring and living abroad for many years - opening for the likes of The Fall and having Cat Power and The Mountain Goats as opening acts for The CakeKitchen.

An in-depth conversation with Wellington actor Heather O'Carroll. We talk all things acting - and we talk too about her time working behind the scenes, in arts admin and event management, running BATS Theatre for a time, working with the NZ Festival. We talk about her return to the stage for the upcoming Moodporn and we talk about processes and other behind-the-curtain things from learning lines to intimacy coaches and so many of the things that the audience members are never privy to.

An in-depth chat with radio host Yadana Saw. We talk about her time on student radio and ahead of that the fun days of growing up being a music fan, working in a record store, joining fan clubs...We talk too of RNZ and to hosting the flagship show, "Music 101" as well as contributing to the "Songcrush" podcast. We talk, as well, about the recent Christchurch shooting and the RNZ decision for Music 101 to broadcast as normal the day after, discussing the way the show was produced in those harrowing hours immediately after that shocking incident.

An in-depth conversation with Paul Crowther. As "Emlyn Crowther" he was the drummer in Split Enz in the mid-70s, playing on the classic debut album, "Mental Notes". When he was kicked out of the band he took his tinkering electronics hobby a bit more seriously and created the "Hot Cake" guitar pedal. We talk through his life from the drums to guitar pedals and back, to live sound engineering for The Mutton Birds and many other acts and having The Datsuns write their most famous song ('Harmonic Generator') about one of his pedals.

An in-depth conversation with Auckland-based writer Graham Reid. We talk about his days at the NZ Herald, being flown to gigs and interviewing famous people. And the establishment of his own website "Elsewhere". His commitment to writing - his interest in travel and music and arts and politics. We talk about changes in music and journalism and about a life dedicated to the love and pursuit of both.

An in-depth conversation with writer and performance poet Hadassah Grace. We talk about the upcoming release of her debut collection, "How To Take Off Your Clothes". We talk poetry and writing and how she found her way to it; we talk depression, travel, growing up in America, moving to New Zealand, being the child of "minor Christian celebrities". And we talk about her time as a sex worker. Throughout you'll hear some poems from the book - and given this was recorded at a very raw time in New Zealand there is some discussion of Christchurch.

A phoner with the great singer/songwriter Alejandro Escovedo, ahead of his first ever NZ tour. We talk Trump, "The Crossing", touring, his background in punk and country and how fitting in with any one genre was never his thing. We talk film and family and health and many things besides.

An in-depth conversation with drummer, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist in fact, Caroline Easther. She played drums in seminal NZ bands throughout the 1980s and 90s - including The Chills, Verlaines, Spines, Beat Rhythm Fashion, Let's Planet as well as working with Barry Saunders, Hobnail Boots and many others. She has a brand new solo album out, "Lucky"; her first in nearly a decade. We chat all things music - from being in a bunch of seminal Kiwi bands at various times to writing and singing her own material.

An in-depth conversation with Wellington-based, internationally-published journalist and author David Cohen. We talk music writing, his history in journalism and pay particular focus to his near-lifelong love of Leonard Cohen and how his latest book, Cohen on Cohen, is part-memoir, part-music-bio, part-travel-story, a set of separate essays that talk to one another, that aim to explain or understand the connecting points and the lost connections in David Cohen's life, often as experienced through the music of Leonard Cohen.

An in-depth conversation with multi-disciplinary artist, musician, manager and producer Mike Weston. He is one half of the artist entity Weston Frizzell (with Otis Frizzell) and he runs a studio space (The Area) where he enables graphic design, art, music and many other projects out into the world. We talk through his history as, variously, a DJ and music producer, live sound engineer, artist, conceptualist and enabler. We talk through the genesis of some of his artistic ideas and the focus on getting the work to do the work, on creating content and wondering how to pay the bills.

An in-depth conversation with former TV host and Tall Black Brendon Pongia. We talk through his time playing basketball and on to sports broadcasting and then to where we first met, on the Good Morning TV show. (Brendon was the co-host I worked with most frequently). He's now working for Cure Kids, a charity he supported when he was a finalist on Dancing With The Stars. We talk through his various jobs and his life, from his childhood through to now being a parent.

An in-depth conversation with Kiwi writer and filmmaker Peter Wells. We talk about the creation and upcoming publication of his latest book, "Hello Darkness". Peter has terminal cancer - the book started life as a series of Facebook posts. In announcing his cancer to friends online Peter created a safe-space for discussion. He used Facebook for good, fostered a community, told people of his life and how he was feeling even as he faces death. We spoke from his bed in his home in Auckland.

An in-depth conversation with Auckland-based freelance writer, reviewer, interviewer and DJ Kiran Dass. She's also the book-buyer for Time Out book store and has a long history of retailing - so we talk shop. And books. And music. Reviewing, interviewing. We share 'war stories' of time in the trenches hammering out reviews. And we talk through the development of Dass as interviewer and reviewer across print, online and broadcast platforms.

An in-depth chat with Martin Phillipps, leader of the Chills. We talk about the the seminal moments for the Dunedin band - and the ups and downs of a 40 year career and catalogue as The Chills. We talk, too, of some of Martin's favourite musicians and his many stories of meeting heroes or opening the show for them...

An in-depth conversation with American-born, NZ-residing "Kiwi" Marc Taddei. He's a conductor and the musical director and program organiser for both Orchestra Wellington and the Vallejo Symphony in America. He holds these posts concurrently. As a trombonist he was a member of the NZSO and worked on the ENZSO recordings among many other milestone moments. He has worked with many of classical music's biggest names and played on stages around the world. We talk through his passion and commitment to the art, from being in on the ground floor trying to raise funds and create innovative shows to his time at Julliard as a musician and through his focus as both a listener and an educator.

An in-depth conversation with Delia Shanly. She's a drummer and percussionist who has earned a living in covers bands. She's also worked extensively in arts-admin from helping to put on events and booking bands to staging public art installations. So we got behind the scenes as well as on stage.