Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 949, 18 October 1957, Page 20

Open Microphone

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS ON AND OFF THE RECORD

PAEKAKARIKI AND BEYOND

"VVOU’RE walking down the street when suddenly you're’ almost bowled over by a taxi. You begin to think: nobody has written a song about a taxi; then you can’t find enough

words to rhyme with taxi, so you drop the whole idea." That,

says Ken Avery (a song writér whose work is represented in New Zealanders Wrote These) is how the inspiration comes-and goes. Ken began composing in 1948, the year that he came to Wellington and joined the NZBS. His first effort, "Paekakariki" (in the Land of the Tiki) won him a measure of success; it was the second all-New Zealand disc (after "Blue Smoke") to be released commercially, and sold 5000 copies. With

"Paekakariki’" Ken composed the music first, and then spent a Saturday afternoon writing the lyrics. Generally it’s the other way around, and music is added to the lyrics. On the whole, Ken sticks to novelty numbers. "I feel songs should be light and entertaining," he says, "so I don’t write ‘Why Don’t You Come Back to Me?’ numbers." Ken has also composed a few singing commercials and considers them a lot easier to write than songs. Ken’s interest in music began at High Street School, Dunedin, where he was fascinated by a schoolmate who could play the harmonica and change from one tune to another without stopping. Ken learned the ukulele and guitar; later when he was 18 and living in Christchurch he heard a Coleman Hawkin’s recording of "Honeysuckle

Rose," and decided that the tenor saxophone was the instrument for him. His lessons terminated abruptly after six months when he was drafted into Army service, but overseas in Italy Ken bought a cheap clarinet and began practising furiously. In Christchurch in 1947 he formed the River Club Jazz Group, playing in a hall about a nautical mile down the River Avon from Martin Winiata and his band. Ken has a great respect for Martin and gratefully recalls the help and encouragement he has always given the beginners. Today Ken lives in Karori with his wife and two children. He loves tinkering with old cars-he would buy himself a vintage model if he could afford it-and renovating old houses (he owns one). Musically, Ken considers his best song to date is "I Owe You," but the number to be heard in New Zealanders Wrote These is "Advertise in the Personal Column," sung by Pat McMinn. A WELLINGTON housewife writes of her novel use for the radio. At the start of a recording she pops an egg in the pot to boil, and when the record is ended the egg is softly boiled. One re- cording and one commercial-the egg is firmly set. For a hard-boiled ,egg-two recordings and ie, Someone ie!

AUSTRALIAN CORRESPONDENT

"T GET quite a swag of mail from , tother side of the Tasman," says Marien Dreyer, who is the new Australian correspondent for the National Women’s Sessions. She has already become quite well known in New Zealand

for a column she, writes in the New Idea, but she has done a fair amount

of radio work as well, both scripts for ABC and commercial stations, and talks for the ABC Women’s Session. She has been a speaker in discussion groups, usually talking about juvenile delinquency or care of the handicapped. Last

year, when the BBC asked the ABC for a special programme to mark the 10th anniversary session of the BBC Women’s Hour, Marien Dreyer was one of the speakers, and was ‘delighted to receive half a dozen letters airmail from London within a week.

"Someday," she promises, "I shall ‘| say a few-words about being a career woman and mother at the one time. My elder son has the train fever, shared by the little one, and the weekend is train time, when yards of track clutter up the floors. At the moment of writing I have electric train lines set. all around me, and an electric loco (whizzing around me." Marien in private life is Mrs M. D. Cooper, has two sons, Lou and Joe, and lives in ‘a flat in King’s Cross, which she adores because of its endless charm. Last year she described the Cross for the BBC, recording her talk on tape. "It took me a whole day to do," she recalls, "as everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I think I recorded the thing eight times in all, and the mishaps rangéd from a blank spool of tape to somebody cutting in

a mad rock ’n’ roll in the last minute of what was otherwise a perfect cut. The last time I did it, everybody was standing by, including a plumber with an electric soldering iron, and I had to do it with at least 16 people around me in a dour circle. The wonder was that I got it done at all, as I had to fight down a passionate’ desire to giggle." *

JUNIOR ART CLUB

PABLO PICASSO has had blue and pink periods in his painting-even, some would say, a mauve one-but in this respect if in no other he has been outdone by many children in Otago. Their paintings have been dominated in turn by red, green, blue, yellow, and black and white. The initiator of this

"period" approach to painting is Thomas Esplin, who conducts the Junior Art Club

on 4YA’s Children’s Session. Britishborn, Mr Esplin trained for five years at the Edinburgh College of Art and won a travelling scholarship to study in Europe before war put paid to all such civilian plans. Then began six years in the atmy, including fighting in France and Germany, during which he rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Artillery. His first contact with New Zealand was in 1952, when he ® taught f for a

time at Otago Boys’ High School. He had returned to England and was principal art teacher at the Buckie High School, when he was offered a post at King Edward Technical College, Dunedin. Nowadays he is Senior Lecturer in Design at Otago University’s School of Home Science, and is President of the Otago Art Society. The Junior Art Club had a shaky start in 1952, but since then dt has thrived till this year it can claim 700 ‘members. The weekly ‘competitions usually draw up to 350 entries. Mr Esplin feels that the club’s value has been in the encouragement it gives, rather than in any attempt to set standards. It helps children to express themselves, especially country children, many of whom are Correspondence School pupils and rarely if ever meet an art teacher. Sometimes whole families will take part, and one week Mr Esplin had an entry from a lady of 80 whose work came in along with the children’s. Each broadcast consists of a brief talk touching any of the vast number of topics which interest artists, followed by the results of the current week’s competition and announcement of plans for the next.