Producer’s Notes
Some time ago, I was discussing the Cavalcade concept with old friend and business partner, Stewart Macpherson. Stewart and wife Tricia have been have been producing and promoting for over forty years, so when they make a suggestion, it's worth listening.
At that time I was looking for a New Zealand act to complete the line-up, and he insisted that I have a look at Andrew London, a near neighbour of Stewart's on the Kapiti Coast. So I did, and booked him straight away. He and his group are excellent musicians (outstanding sax player Nils Olsen will be opening the Cavalcade season as lead saxophone in the RNZAF Jazz Orchestra) but their real point-of-difference is Andrew's gift as a composer and (especially) lyricist.
Let's Talk About Me, I Hugged My Mate, Country's Buggered… the titles say it all. London's whimsical songs reflect mainstream Kiwi culture with gentle irreverence, and playfully lampoon many of society's obsessions and taboos. Themes run the gamut from rugby fans, driving habits, youth culture and weddings, to male insecurities, technophobia, household appliances, pretentious socialites, and various other issues of concern to the average middle-aged, middle-class Antipodean baby-boomer.
Delivery is wrapped in an easy-going and accessible 1940s-era ‘Hot Club’-style swing package, with occasional sallies into folk, blues and western swing; London’s easy-going banter holds a two-hour show together with stories that draw the audience in and set up the songs.
According to Downbeat USA, his 2004 album Toasted “… lured listeners in with eccentric edges and devilishly clever wordplay”. A decade later the same publication reported that his album Ladies a Plate “…. reaches high levels of poise and affability while imparting witty lyrics that would draw quiet laughs of agreement from Mose Allison and Dave Frishberg”.
His songs have been included in a national Year 13 English syllabus, two feature films and European CD compilations. His trio has performed at festivals in Australia and Norfolk Island, and is the only Kiwi act in recent times to have performed in Saudi Arabia.
It's worth visiting his website, where you can explore the world of Andrew London in more depth.
Woodwind exponent and songwriter Nils Olsen contributes to the trio with swing-era influenced saxophone and clarinet, and more introspective original songs that provide a contrast to London's characteristic levity. The bass chair is occupied by Kirsten London, who also contributes occasional standards lifted from the Doris Day and Blossom Dearie songbook.
Wayne Mason (MNZM) needs little introduction. A founding member of 1960s pop group The Fourmyula, Rockinghorse and The Warratahs, he began his successful solo career in 1994.
Mason wrote a series of hit singles with Ali Richardson for The Fourmyula; his best known song was Nature, which in 2001 was voted #1 in a list of the Top 100 New Zealand Songs of All Time.
Robin Sutherland
Reviews
Ladies a Plate
Andrew London’s songwriting will appeal to the wordsmith gent, as he’s a bona fide old-fashioned humourist in lyricism, an accomplished and stylish guitar player, and good kiwi bloke. On top of this musical foundation, alongside wife and bassist Kirsten and sax and clarinet player Nils Olsen, who also add vocals, are some of the funniest songs ever written in New Zealand. The commentaries of everyday life in Aotearoa are pure genius and hilarious in their wordcraft, as Howickans can testify to, after seeing him with the trio at Uxbridge this year.
After tracking up and down this land with his varied bands over the years, including the acclaimed Hot Club Sandwich, London’s finally got all his brilliant songs down in recordings.
While the album Middle Class White Boy Blues has been out for a year, shining with Let’s Talk About Me, Welcome to Your Wedding and Olsen’s Dumb Me Down, the latest recorded collection is in a league of its own.
You don’t laugh at every track on Ladies a Plate, as the trio has delivered a couple of delicately tuneful covers of Lennon & McCartney’s You Won’t See Me and Mann & Evans’s No Moon at All, featuring Kirsten on vocals. But you will be chuckling when focusing in on the lyrics in I Think I’ll Buy a Yacht, Three Little Words, I Hugged My Mate, Like Me, Like Me (The facebook Song) and my favourite, Country’s Buggered - No Offence.
If father has a sense of humour, even deep down, and a greater sense of the good old days, this could just about cheer him up on Christmas Day.
Phil Taylor, East Auckland Times December 2014
‘Middle Class White Boy Blues’
- Downbeat USA, April 2014This New Zealand-based group – songwriter Andrew London on vocals and vintage archtop guitar, with his wife, Kirsten, on bass and Nils Olsen playing reeds and flute – knows how to turn on the charm.
Their sound sticks to the playful, breezy blues, pop, jazz and country of pre-1940 America. London's blithely nonchalant singing delivery reaches high levels of poise and affability while imparting witty lyrics that would draw quiet laughs of agreement from Mose Allison and Dave Frishberg.
With tongue firmly lodged in cheek, London fesses up to all sorts of things, delivering the engaging blues for which the album is named.
Frank John Hadley, Downbeat USA.
