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Today, let’s talk music competitions...
Firstly, the AMA, the Aotearoa Music Awards 2025. I was outraged. Outraged I tell you. Not at the interruptions. No. Musicians get used to being heckled by whiny drunks. There’s always one idiot. And anyway, Don McGlashan was there to tell them to shut up.
No, I’m talking about the Blues category. In a country with blues bands everywhere you look, with monthly blues nights more popular than folk or jazz nights, the AMA have a Best Folk Album and Best Jazz Album, but blues? Nothing.
Mike Garner, The Flaming Mudcats, Midge Marsden, Marg Layton, Darren Watson, Karen Clarke, Kokomo, Hammond Gamble, and more are performers who will never win an award because, despite talk of “inclusiveness”, they don’t fit in. The Windy City Strugglers – R.I.P. - the greatest blues band New Zealand ever produced, won one year. Embarrassingly, for Best Folk Album.
This is How We Die.
Music competitions
Next weekend, the country’s two biggest music competitions come to Totara Street at The Mount: Thursday, June 12, it’s the Battle Of The Bands National Competition BOP Heat, Friday, June 13, it’s the Smokefreerockquest BOP Final.
This is the 30th anniversary of the Battle Of The Bands, which, since its inception in 1993 – there have been a couple of “off” years for obvious reasons – has continually grown. Past competitors include Opshop, Tadpole, Blindspott, Skinny Hobos, Strangely Arousing, Alien Weaponry, and more.
There are now heats all over, multiple ones in places like Wellington, before a grand final, usually held over two nights in Auckland. There are indubitably cool prizes, including this year, the costs of a single and video, a bunch of gear and a tour of Japan. Damn fine!
Over Sharin.
A range of Bay bands are entering: there’s accessible indie pop from Over Sharin, Crooked Finger, and Ben Lloyd, who released a recent album Leave No Stone Unturned. There’s also something more alternative from Stellavision, This Is How We Die, new trio Fairly Odd and Taupō ska band Skarpakazoo.
Crooked Finger.
Oldie but a goodie
Next night is an even older music competition. The Smokefreerockquest was established in 1988, originally for high school students, expanding in 2012 to include junior students with Rockshop Bandquest. It’s been invaluable, both for students and for New Zealand music in general. Past entrants include Kimbra, Ladyhawke, Die!Die!Die!, Tiny Ruins, Marlon Williams, Brooke Fraser, Anika Moa, Nadia Reid, Phoenix Foundation, Devilskin, The Black Seeds, Bic Runga, the list goes on and on...
There’ve already been heats, now 12 bands are performing at the regional final. And I think we should name them all. Hats off to them and their schools.
They are: Bath Salts, Sketch, and Spud from Mount Maunganui College, Sewerside Rats from Te Kura Pounamu, Katikati and Ōtūmoetai College, The B-Sides from Ōtūmoetai College, The Banddotcom from Mercury Bay Area School, Asylum and Indigo from Pāpāmoa College, Punktuation from Te Puke High School, Why The Face from Whakatāne High School, Go Getter from Bethlehem College and Upside Down Donut Hole from Whakatāne High School.
Good luck to y’all!
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