Mike's Minute: Music and Revelation

If you are a person who has walked onto a stage at a young age with intentions, they probably draw from a number of indicators in this list. We are talking of a musical angle, as such. Rock ‘n’ roll. Not Shakespearean drama or the Tolstoy Ballet! Let me continue.

• Play an instrument and set your sights on owning one
• Do some singing
• Share your musicality with others; in particular the arrangements
• Come up with a name for your ensemble
• Formulate plans for the ‘design’ of the band: costumes, stage placement, stage rapport and so on
• Write and play with people who move in your social circle
• Play songs that you believe in
• Dress creatively in a match for the aesthetics of your repertoire
• Plan the dynamics of the total performance
• Secure a sound system (hired, purchased, or borrowed)

That list of, shall-we-say, acquisitions is one that takes some time and a considerable explorative effort. But the young-at-heart have a willpower and urgency which is fuel for making things happen. I can’t deny that I grabbed each stage mapped out in that list and set my ambitions in motion with them all falling into place one by one. And I had friends chipping in. But the impulsive moment of truth was hearing a song being played by this one particular band in the Ōtāhuhu hall. There was a collective drive that drew on a rich, sweetly distorted volume coming from the stage along with a steady purpose that was invisible but real. I had never heard anything like it. A wheel turning such that these young musicians bore a neat, collective spirit. Yes… I had to be one of them. How could that first step be taken?

‘Tell us how you mapped it out, Chunny.’

‘Okay.’

One’s first choice of instrument usually falls into place from a moment in time when you are enticed, excited, drawn in, and enlivened by a musical performance. For me, I was walking away from a day at primary school. A sunny, bright afternoon on the corner of Atkinson Ave and High St in central Ōtāhuhu. Suddenly that wall of electric music and drums rang out. I was outside the Ōtāhuhu Borough Council Hall, and inside I saw a four-piece band with three guitars and a drum kit. There was a simplicity to that combination. It didn’t look too difficult. I started to take notice and absorb the detail. Who was doing what? What was evolving before me? It was a reflection of what was happening in society.

Where?

Everywhere.

Truly?

Yes!

The year was 1964. I was 12 years old, and everything about those four lads on the Ōtāhuhu stage shouted out to me—they may as well have been the Beatles and everything that Liverpudlian band had proffered on the world. Yes, it couldn’t be ignored. A global focus on a particular style of music, with all it brings, is a perfect magnet to have. Particularly if it’s engineered as something to emulate. I continued to stare at that band. I noticed one of them played a guitar with four strings. He plucked one string at a time. That couldn’t be too difficult. I decided to gather my forces and seek out a bass guitar.

And here is the rub. Here is what I think today: It’s pointless researching instruments such that you seek to buy one that is the same as that played by some glorious professional musician of stage and screen. Yes, Paul McCartney played a Höfner violin bass. If I’d managed to find one in a flash retail store (unlikely but; well… !!!!) it wouldn’t mean bass playing would suddenly fall at my feet. No. I perused music shops until I came across a second-hand bass made by Teisco. Teisco? It was $30. Cheap! A price my lawn-mowing bob-a-jobs could handle. In time, with lawns prim and proper around the Chunn half-acre property, I owned one.

And I put the strap around my neck and stood in front of the mirror in the bedroom and thought long and hard. I imagined. I closed my eyes. Imagination in its myriad guises came to play a major part in my life. But more than that.

All the people—the young friends, musicians, vocalists, the stage personalities, and the eccentric characters in my life—brought their unique selves into my life. The tumbling togetherness that they, we, brought to the fore. My singular first steps became a merging glorious adventure. There was magic here, there, and everywhere. And I never abandoned the vision.

 
Left to Right: Geoff Chunn on electric guitar, myself wielding a Tiesco bass guitar. Paul Fitzgerald on drums.