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Unforgettable. In every way.

Tuesday, February 9th, 2016 | Anna Blackman | No Comments

Post researched and written by Amanda Mills, Liaison Librarian – Music and Audio Visual

In Hocken’s 78rpm disc collection there is an anomaly: over 100 American pop standards by US artists. For a collection of New Zealand material, this is a significant exception to our collection development policy, and more than just an example of a popular genre. There is little to explain why these discs are in the music collection, but our records state they were donated by Mr Grant Fleury in the late 1990s, and were (according to staff recollection) part of an estate collection.

So, why would a collection of New Zealand material include these items? One potential reason for keeping these discs, is that they are all NZ pressings of international labels, including Columbia Records, Decca Records, His Masters Voice, and Capitol Records. However, there are between 50 and 100 of these recordings, so this collection is more than just an example of local label pressings. Some of the titles are jazz, pop, and rock’n’roll classics that shaped popular music in the 20th Century, coming at the end of the 78rpm era. Titles include:

Ella Fitzgerald: Happy Talk. A track from the very popular musical “South Pacific”, Ella Fitzgerald recorded the song with Gordon Jenkins and his orchestra in 1950, and this led to them recording an album soon after.

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Fats Domino, Blueberry Hill

Fats Domino: Blueberry Hill and Ain’t That a Shame. Both are significant rock ‘n’ roll classics – Domino’s 1956 recording of Blueberry Hill became the standard version of the song, while his 1955 recording of Ain’t That a Shame gained US  fame after being re-recorded by Pat Boone. However, Domino’s version became more popular.

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Fats Domino, Ain’t That A Shame

Nat King Cole: Unforgettable b/w Mona Lisa. Unforgettable was recorded in 1951, with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, and with Riddle’s arrangement. Cole remade it in 1956, and it was remade again  in the 1990s as a beyond-the-grave duet with his daughter Natalie. It is backed with an equally popular song, Mona Lisa, which won the 1950 Academy Award for best original song from the film “Captain Carey.”

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Nat King Cole, Mona Lisa

Having these recordings in the collection presents a conundrum – are they a one off exception to the collection development policy of collecting material by New Zealand artists? Or, was there a valid reason for adding international music into the 78rpm disc collection, when there was no apparent local link in terms of composer, or performer?  They are an interesting addition to the collections of early popular music, and their influence is felt widely throughout local New Zealand music of the same time.

Recent purchases for the Ephemera Collection

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015 | Hocken Collections | No Comments

Post by Katherine Milburn, Liaison Librarian – Ephemera

Staff at the Hocken are constantly on the search for new material to add to the collections. We rely on the generosity of donors and greatly value the contributions they make. Some other avenues used to hunt down relevant items include searching second hand stores, bidding at local and national auction houses and via online auction sites such as Trade Me and eBay. We are grateful to all those who alert us to material that may be of possible interest.

Purposeful collecting of ephemera began in the mid-1960s and although there are some older items in the collection, there is much earlier material that we would love to be able to add. The ephemera collection includes a wide variety of printed items from programmes, tickets, menus, leaflets, to posters and packaging. The collection focuses particularly on Otago and Southland material but does include items with a national scope too.

 

Here are pictured some items for local businesses, some of which are now defunct, that were recently found and purchased via Trade Me. They include a Huia Cream cap (the Hocken Collections occupy the former Otago Co-operative Dairy Company Limited building where Huia products were manufactured); a Manda Ice cream sticker (a company that was founded in Invercargill); a box for F. Wilkinson’s Emulsion of Cod Liver Oil (a chemist in Caversham, Dunedin); a hat box for D.I.C. (the Drapery and General Importing Company of New Zealand Ltd was established in Dunedin in 1884); and a Coulls Somerville Wilkie Ltd packaging sample book that features wonderful examples of packaging for a variety of local firms such as Hudsons and D.W. Johnston & Sons Ltd and is dated from c.1950s. Other recent purchases include a small sheet of stickers featuring the iconic brand for the New Zealand Apple and Pear Marketing Board, and a striking poster for the 1975 Labour Party election campaign.

All of these items reflect aspects of New Zealand society and culture at the time they were manufactured and used; they are now valuable resource material that is available to all Hocken researchers.

Travel back to the sixties and seventies with Autonews and Motorman magazines

Wednesday, May 6th, 2015 | Anna Blackman | 12 Comments

Post prepared by Emma Scott, Library Assistant – Periodicals

We are very lucky at the Hocken Collections to be supported by many individuals that kindly decide to donate their material to us. One such donation that caught our attention last year was a large collection of motoring magazines from the late sixties and seventies. The donation included issues of Motorman, New Zealand Motorman and Autonews. These issues not only filled some gaps in our periodicals collection, they are also delightful to look at.

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Motorman: v.16:no.2 (1971:February)

 

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 Autonews: v.4:no.6 (1970 October 12)

Autonews and Motorman contain detailed reports of races, rallies and drivers from all over New Zealand as well as overseas racing events which New Zealand drivers participated in.

Having been published in Dunedin, Autonews is an excellent resource for anyone looking at motoring in Otago and Southland from 1968 to 1974 as it covers local racing events as well as national ones.

Motoring enthusiasts will get a kick out of looking at the popular cars featured in both magazines. In 1970 Autonews  featured cars like the: Chevrolet Camaro, the Chrysler Valiant Hardtop Regal 770 V8, the Triumph 2000 Mark Two and the exciting “new” Holden Torana.

New Zealand Motorman’s 1974 issues feature cars like: Datsun 140J’GL’, the “new” Toyota Corona 1600, the Renault 17TL and the Aston Martin Lagonda

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Autonews V.3:no.23 (1970 June 22)

Tired of a car that just gets you from a to b? V.3:no.23 (1970 June 22) of Autonews solves that problem with an article titled “The Case for the Dune Buggy” with the subheading: “what was born as a gimmick in the sixties is the answer to driving boredom in seventies”. The article goes on to describe a gentleman called John Ormrod, a fibreglass specialist who constructed his own dune buggy prototype from a wrecked Volkswagen which the author was lucky enough to take out for a spin. “The buggy was complete with lights, horn, wipers and current Warrant of Fitness so there was no sweat about driving it through the busy Auckland streets”.  It was quite the sight when it was driven down Auckland’s Queen Street: “We rumbled up to the traffic lights and everyone stood and stared.”

The author of the article was quite taken with the experience: “Maybe I’m an egotist but I liked driving a vehicle that people looked at. I liked having my head out in the air. I like pretending that I was Steve McQueen. I’d like a Dune Buggy”. “

For the woman of 1975 looking for a new car, the Ford Escort would be an excellent choice judging from the cover of the 1975 March issue of New Zealand Motorman and the front page of the article about the new Ford Escort.

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New Zealand Motorman: 1975:March cover

 

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New Zealand Motorman: 1975:March p15

New Zealand had many legendary drivers in the sixties and seventies. A lot of the drivers written about in the issues of Autonews and Motorman are now members of the New Zealand MotorSport Wall of Fame for their achievements, including: Graeme Lawrence, Jim Richards, David McMillan, Robert Francevic, Graham McRae and of course Bruce McLaren. The 1974:April – May issue of Autonews feature some of these drivers in their top ten New Zealand drivers list, perhaps not realising the lasting impact that they would have on New Zealand motorsport today.

Not only do we hold the magazines mentioned here, we also have subscriptions and receive regular donations of current motoring publications including: NZ4WD, New Zealand Autocar, Alfa News, New Zealand Performance Car, NZV8 and CATalogue : the newsletter of the Otago Jaguar Drivers Club Inc. If you are interested in motoring come along to the Hocken Collections and check them out!

References

Anderson, D. (1975, March 1). Ford’s Upgraded Range of New Escorts. New Zealand Motorman, 15-18.

The Case for the Dune Buggy. (1970, June 22). Autonews : New Zealand’s Motoring Magazine., 10-14.

MotorSport New Zealand. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2015, from http://www.motorsport.org.nz/content/wall-fame

We Stick Our Necks Out and Grade the Men. (1974, April 1). Autonews : New Zealand’s Motoring Magazine., 7-12.

 

 

Picture/Poem – The Hocken Gallery 18 April – 25 July 2015

Monday, April 20th, 2015 | Anna Blackman | 1 Comment

Post prepared by Natalie Poland, Curator of Pictorial Collections

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Joanna Margaret Paul, Untitled [self-portrait], ink drawing, 299 x 229mm, acc.: L278. On deposit from the Estate of Joanna Margaret Paul. Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

The exhibition Picture/Poem: the imagery of Cilla McQueen and Joanna Margaret Paul that has just opened in the Hocken Library’s gallery brings together the creative works of award-winning poet Cilla McQueen and respected painter Joanna Margaret Paul. The pair met in Dunedin in the late 1970s and during the following decade their lives continued to intersect.

Both artists have strong ties with the University being past University of Otago Arts Fellows. Paul was a recipient of the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship in 1983 and McQueen was Burns Fellow 1985 and 1986. McQueen’s first poetry collection Homing In (John McIndoe Ltd: 1982), included a poem Paul titled “Joanna”. She penned a second poem dedicated to her friend after Paul’s untimely death in 2003. McQueen credits Paul, who was also an accomplished poet, with showing her that McQueen herself was a visual artist.

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Cilla McQueen, Self Portrait, 1991, ink drawing, acc 92/1462, pen & ink on paper, 298 x 210mm. Gifted by Cilla McQueen, Dunedin, 1992. Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

 

 

 

 

 

The Hocken is home to hundreds of artworks by both Paul and McQueen, many of which have been gifted by them or in the case of Paul, her estate, who generously donated nearly 200 of her sketchbooks in 2008.

The exhibition focuses on works from the 1970s and 1980s, created while these artists were living in Dunedin. It includes twenty-eight artworks (predominantly works on paper), published work, musical scores, artist’s books and ephemera relating to the life and work of these two creative women.

Many of Paul’s works in this show have not been exhibited before. Most of the works are drawn from the Hocken’s extensive art collection but a small group of works have been borrowed from her Estate.

A double portrait by Paul (c.1970) recently gifted to the Hocken came from the collection of the late Michael Hitchings. The painting features Michael and his former wife, Maureen Hitchings. This couple, like Paul and McQueen, contributed to the shaping of Dunedin’s cultural outlook during this period. Michael was Hocken Librarian from 1965 to 1984 and Maureen ran the Dawsons Gallery where Paul exhibited in the 1970s.

The Hocken has a wealth of other material relating to both Paul and McQueen. The archives collection houses the literary papers of Cilla McQueen and the business records of Dunedin’s John McIndoe Ltd, the publisher of McQueen’s early poetry collections. There are letters from Joanna Paul to Deidre Airey, Ruth Dallas, Charles Brasch, Hone Tuwhare, Heather Murray and others, including to Cilla McQueen.

Despite working predominantly in different artistic fields their approaches have common features including an interest in juxtaposing pictures and poems and the visual arrangement of words on the page. In the 1980s it was not as common as it is now to create interdisciplinary work. In correspondence with the exhibition’s curator Natalie Poland, McQueen writes: “The works on display date primarily from the 1980s and show that both women were informed by experimental approaches that blurred the conventional boundaries between art, literature and music. Their pictures and poems celebrate the richness of the everyday experience and the local environment. The freshness of their drawings, use of collage and surprising combinations of images and text enliven ordinary language and convey a sense of living intensely in the present moment.” [Source: Unpublished memoirs, email to Natalie Poland May 2011, now in Hocken’s artist’s files.]

An artwork by McQueen called Sequestered (2009) was purchased by the Hocken in 2010. McQueen made it by scratching text onto a series of six outmoded computer floppy discs that contained a late twentieth century manuscript by McQueen. The texts, etched into the surface of the black circles, are partly occluded with red seal wax, an evocation of other modes of communication that are facing obsolescence – the tradition of handwritten letters.

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Joanna Margaret Paul, Untitled [The Stillness of the Rose] (detail), 1974, watercolour and pencil on paper, Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago. Dunedin

One series by Paul makes its debut in Picture/Poem – Untitled (The Stillness of the Rose . . .), 1974-1980, comprises seven water-colour and pencil works conceived to be viewed as a single creative work. Curiously each separate piece of this work was created on the same day over a period of seven years. Each part contains a fragment from the poem ‘The Rose’ by American writer William Carlos Williams. This work was purchased by the Hocken just this year.

Gigatown’s First Wireless Mast

Wednesday, April 8th, 2015 | Anna Blackman | No Comments

Blog post prepared by Assistant Curator (Photographs), Dr Anna Petersen.

With all the talk about Dunedin winning the fast broadband competition to become New Zealand’s first gigatown, my unplugged brain had to search back to remember how ‘wireless’ used to be what people called the radio.

Almost 80 years ago now, the city got its first wireless mast and a recent donation of photographs (ref.code P2015-004/1) documents its instalment by Hillside Workshops staff on the hill at Highcliff in 1936.

Poet and founding Landfall editor, Charles Brasch noted the advance in his memoirs. He returned to Dunedin in 1938 to find ‘The view had changed, in six years.  The harbour waterfront, before you reached the wharves, was now decorated with groups of huge light-silver oil drums announcing in giant letters EUROPA, PLUME, SHELL.  At first sight I thought : Hideous! but then began to like them, although they gave the waterfront the air of a Near Eastern port.  Two tall wireless masts had been set up on the highest near point of the Peninsula, beyond Highcliff….’ (Indirections, p.296)

The following sequence of photographs shows the setting up of the first wireless mast.

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Fantastic Film posters from the Forties

Monday, February 16th, 2015 | Anna Blackman | 4 Comments

Blog post prepared by Katherine Milburn, Liaison Librarian – Ephemera

MonkeyBusinessRecently, whilst moving the posters collection from the upstairs pictorial collections stack to new cabinets downstairs, a fantastic assortment of old Hollywood film posters was rediscovered. There are just over 60 posters ranging in date from the 1931 Marx Brothers’ film “Monkey Business” to the 1954 film “Saskatchewan”. They were all donated to the Hocken Library in 1976 and had belonged to William Strong of Naseby.

 

The Hocken Archives collection includes a collection of OurHeartsWilliam Strong papers [MS-1078], and these incorporate another set of Hollywood film posters from the 1940s and 1950s. William Strong was a watchmaker and jeweller who took over the watchmakers shop in Naseby opened by his father Robert in 1868.William was involved in a variety of local organisations, including the Naseby Cinema whose audience was likely drawn in by these enticing and colourful posters.

RunawayThe Hocken Posters collection included a fairly limited range of New Zealand related film posters until last year when a concerted effort to improve our holdings was made. Many posters have been sourced via online auction sites. Coverage includes the 1947 film “Green Dolphin Street”, which features a destructive New Zealand earthquake, and the 1964 film “Runaway”, that starred Colin Broadley along with Barry Crump, Kiri Te Kanawa and Ray Columbus.GreenDolphin

We continue efforts to improve our holdings of New Zealand film posters and ephemera and make them available to researchers of the New Zealand film industry.

Please ask at the downstairs reference desk or email Katherine.Milburn@otago.ac.nz if you have any inquiries relating to the posters and ephemera collection.

Jolly rollicking fun: a boy’s birthday party in 1892

Tuesday, October 14th, 2014 | Anna Blackman | 2 Comments

Post prepared by David Murray, Arrangement and Description Archivist

What were children’s birthday parties like in 1890s New Zealand? A sweet little account of one from Gore, Southland, has turned up in one of Hocken’s latest acquisitions: further papers of the historian James Herries Beattie (1881-1972). Among these papers is a notebook of verse and prose that Herries presented to his mother when he was eleven years old.

Herries wrote about his eleventh birthday, and tells of the games, the food, the gifts, and those who  were there. The original version of the story is shown in the image below, together with a transcription of a ‘Revised Edition’ Herries made at the age of fourteen as part of an expanded series of four notebooks he titled ‘A Reading Book for spare moments’.

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My Birthday Party.

Monday. June 6th 1892.

I am eleven years old now. I was going to have a party on Saturday but it rained so that it had to be put off till Monday afternoon. I got leave to get away from school at 2 o’clock. A little while after this the children that were invited rolled up so that games were started. The first thing was swinging & after all had had their turn we went for the games. We had for these: Ninepence, Rounders, Twopenny catches, Red Rover, Tig, Hiding-go-Seek, and hats or as this game is variously called, egg cap, Fools cap or rotten eggs etc. There were also lots of games with balls which I do not know the names of. After all these games we went into the house where mother had spread a glorious feed. Then we seated ourselves & had a splendid tea (at least I did) for some short bread & nice cakes were near me & somehow or other they managed to disappear which looks suspicious to me but there might have been a mysterious invisible juggler etc present who could account for them but I would not be to[o] sure if I were you because there was a voracious little boy sitting at the table. After tea was over we adjourned to the lawn or green behind the house where we played the games before tea & started to play again. We had a good game of “Red Rover” as this game is called about here although it goes under different names elsewhere. Then we had “I Spy”, which is just a sort of “Hide-&-go-seek” game. After this game as it was fairly dark (the sun had set awhile before) the girls started to take the boys hats & run away with them. This last item was the means of another nice little game which was the boys began to kiss the girls. This soon put an end to their hat-taking nonsense. There was some fun on that lawn that night for the next half-hour. Everyone seemed to be running about and there was some confusion because in the very indistinct light there were some collisions between various parties. The boys were chasing the girls bent on getting a kiss while the girls snatched the boys hats whenever a chance presented itself. After some real jolly rollicking fun everybody did proceed inside where some more games were played suitable for the house. When it was getting late the guests departed having as far as I know enjoyed themselves. The presents I got from the family were; a saddle & bridle from father, all the eatables from mother, a bible from Bessie, a pocket-knife from Jessie and two handkerchiefs from Oswald. I also received some presents from the children who were invited & as they had all been told especially not to bring presents I considered it real handsome of them. I got an ornamental inkstand from Dick, Lily, & Isabella Smaill, a ball from Hettie Lewis & a set of school instruments (rulers, pencils etc) from Herb Lewis, a Birthday card from Tom & George Brown, and also a very pretty card from Mary Nichol. I will now tell you who came;

Girls

Gerty & Maud Coutts

Annie & – Graham

Lily & Isabella Smaill

Brenda & Mabel Low

Bessie & Mary McKenzie (my cousins)

Mary Nichol

Hettie Lewis

Annie Coutts

Boys

Dick Smaill

Herbert Lewis

Alick Graham

Tom Brown

George Brown

Bessie, Jessie

Herries. Oswald Beattie

 

The reason why there is more girls than boys is that my 2 sisters know more girls than I do boys.

*     *     *     *     *

Beattie’s other childhood writings included verse, history, notes on New Zealand birds, short accounts of activities, and a longer story titled ‘The Boys of Kaikatoto School’. Other material recently acquired by Hocken dates from the 1940s to 1970s, and includes a ledger containing details of book publications and other accounts, reading notes, diary notes, and other papers. There is also the complete manuscript for an unpublished historical novel titled ‘Morry: A Son of the Backblocks’. These papers have been added to our existing collection of Beattie’s papers under the reference number MS-4237.

 

 

Llewellyn Henry Norman Beaumont (1892-1963)

Thursday, April 24th, 2014 | Anna Blackman | 3 Comments

Llewellyn Beaumont was raised in Dunedin and served in both WW1 (in artillery units at Gallipoli and the Western Front in France) and WW2 (commanding coastal artillery at Taiaroa Heads). As a civilian Llewellyn worked in the wool industry, starting out as a wool classer and eventually working for David Reid and Co. as head of the wool department.

In 2002 Llewellyn’s son Matheson Beaumont donated several items relating to his father to the Hocken Collections.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with Matheson at a community day recently held at Otago Boys High School. The day was organised as part of the filming of a television documentary series called “Tony Robinson’s Tour of Duty” about the experiences of New Zealanders and Australians during war time. My role was simply to safely transport two items from the Hocken Collections and back again.

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Tony Robinson interviewing Matheson Beaumont about Llewllyn Beaumont.

At the community day Matheson was interviewed by NZ historian Damien Fenton, and by Tony Robinson himself about the items – a postcard written on a piece of wood from Gallipoli and a piece of “trench art” – a tobacco jar made from brass bullets and shell cases in France and dedicated to Llewellyn’s father, Captain Norman Beaumont back home in NZ.

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Tobacco jar and wooden “post card”. Hocken Collections Misc-MS-1787.

Both items are evocative of the wartime – the postcard on wood sent from Gallipoli because they couldn’t get paper to write on. The tobacco jar is more decorative and includes bullets representing several nationalities, including German, and a NZ artillery badge.

The postcard is addressed to Llewellyn’s sister, Con[stance] and has a positive tone although obviously he was making do with whatever he could find. Given that we know life for NZ soldiers at Gallipoli was hard perhaps he was being positive to save his family worry.

The post card reads

May 8th 1915

My Dear Con

Paper scarcer than ever.

Received news-papers but no letters lately. Paper appreciated very much.

Receiving very little news of what is going on.

Keeping in splendid health & enjoying life thoroughly.

Fondest love to all. Your afect[affecionate] brother

L Beaumont

 

Some advertising magic is released by a recent acquisition at the Hocken

Wednesday, March 5th, 2014 | Anna Blackman | 3 Comments

 

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A glass lantern slide advertising a New Zealand Railways Mystery Tramp from Invercargill, c. 1930, 80mm x 80mm, Photographs Collection, Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago.

This lantern slide promotes an excursion to an unknown southern destination for a mystery tramp, and was used for advertising to a cinema audience. Recently acquired for the Hocken’s Photographs collection, this New Zealand Railways promotion would have been projected onto the screen of an Invercargill movie house either prior or during a film showing.

Introduced in the 1600’s the magic lantern was the earliest form of slide projector. With the aid of a concave mirror the lantern, illuminated at first by candlelight, projected light through a small sheet of glass known as a lantern slide. By the turn of the twentieth century lantern shows were a popular source of entertainment. They were also integral to commercial advertising in cinema. By the 1930’s many lantern slides were produced by a black and white photographic process and hand-coloured with transparent dyes. As well as being readily used in advertising, theatres also used magic lanterns to project  ‘illustrated songs’, which were community sing-alongs with lyrics and illustrations, and to communicate short messages such as “Ladies, kindly remove your hats”, to their patrons.

At first the burgeoning reputation of motion pictures did not impact on the popularity of lantern shows and they continued to be used for entertainment and educational purposes. However, after the introduction of 35mm Kodachrome colour transparency film in 1936 the use of the magic lantern for cinema advertising was quickly superseded by slide projectors as a result of cinemas being eager to embrace new technologies.

The success of rail tourism during the interwar years, an era when private car ownership was on the rise, may be attributed to the advertising prowess of the Railways Department. Train travel and the popularity of day excursions was also boosted by the shorter working week which gave large sectors of the population more time to enjoy leisure activities. In response to increased competition from the motor car New Zealand Railways established a Publicity Branch and in July 1920 the Railways Advertising Studio was formed. It is likely that they produced the art work for this lantern slide which advertises a Mystery Tramp day excursion. The health benefits of train travel, often overstated in New Zealand Railway’s promotional material for urban rail-services, is merited on this occasion as the day-trip is encouraging participation in an outdoor physical pursuit.

In an age when we are bombarded with advertising images through a plethora of digital channels, researching the history of this glass slide has brought me closer to appreciating the lantern’s ‘magic’.

Blog post prepared by Natalie Poland, Curator of Pictorial Collections

The Chills and Shane Cotton – Somewhere Beautiful

Monday, June 3rd, 2013 | Anna Blackman | No Comments

Post prepared by Amanda Mills – Music/AV Liaison Librarian, Hocken Collections

Somewhere Beautiful by The Chills and Shane Cotton

New Zealand Music Month has finished yet again! While overall Hocken Collections had a quiet month, music wise, this year we played a significant part in the launch of The Chills new live album Somewhere Beautiful, held on May 31st. The recording is not your typical album release. A triple LP set in a double gatefold cover (45rpm speed, on heavy 200gram vinyl); the live album is housed in a 24” portfolio box, with original diptych prints by renowned artist Shane Cotton. Cotton’s artwork for the package is called Rolling Moon (after The Chills’ song), and the prints are mixed media, with metal foil and additional materials. Each print is unique, with different lyrics from Somewhere Beautiful silk screened onto the images. These will be collectors’ items – only 150 have been produced, and are a wonderful example of how art and music interweave, especially as Martin Phillipps’ (The Chills lead singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter) lyrics’ are vivid with imagery, and ripe for interpretation.

 

Rolling Moon by Shane Cotton

The launch for Somewhere Beautiful was a gathering to celebrate both the work of Martin Phillipps and The Chills, and Shane Cotton, and this extraordinary collaboration.  All were in attendance (including Chills members Erica Stichbury, Oli Wilson, James Dickson, and Todd Knudson), and both Phillipps and Cotton spoke about the work. Phillipps also played a solo four song set where he performed ‘Pink Frost’, ‘Male Monster From the Id’, ‘House with A Hundred Rooms’, and new song ‘Molten Gold’ to an appreciative crowd.

Display of Chills material in the Hocken Foyer

Hocken Librarian Sharon Dell and I also collaborated with Phillipps and his manager Scott Muir to produce a postcard to commemorate the event, using an iconic piece from Phillipps’ collection. We were lucky to be able to use the leather jacket, immortalised in The Chills’ song ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’ for the postcard image. We felt very fortunate to be included in such a wonderful event!