Majik night for Smash

The meat, potato and two vege combo of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass and drums make up Majik Pixie Juice but from there the band leaves convention behind like it’s a dead planet.

Made up of former Gisborne blokes Jim Anderson, Murdoch Anderson, Jon Okeby and Ben Thompson the band doesn’t even do mic-gobbling, or lost-boys-in-dark-glasses publicity pictures. Just black-and-white caricatures.

Majik Pixie Juice’s (MPJ) musos, along with Okeby’s band Bluebirdz of Happiness, return to Gisborne next week as part of MPJ’s Mollymawk album release.

“MPJ is a collective, an idea, a dream, a concept, a band we started 20 years ago in the gloaming of a bright winter’s afternoon high up on a hill above Gisborne,” says Jim Anderson.

Basically the band was cobbled together for its first gig. Since then each of MPJ’s musicians performs with semi-professional bands. MPJ is an opportunity to cut loose a little.

“Someone asked what genre we are — bad rock,” says Anderson.

“But there is comedy there too, as well as chaos and experimentation.”

Do not be alarmed at the word experimentation. MPJ isn’t Bartok or Robert Fripp or anything.

“Our songs are tongue-in-cheek and have fun with convention,” says Anderson.

“I like to invent, dabble and mess around with everyday conventions. I’ve been a writer, a rigger, a pilot, a lecturer, a farmer and a musician but mostly I am lucky to have ended up with three of the greatest Gisborne musicians of their generation.”

Anderson also works in the film industry as props master and has experimented with filmmaking. A notable early film called Staunch the Bleak Flow he shot in Gisborne stars Mark Peters as Van Man, a returned Vietnam War veteran turned courier driver and hitman who is sent to eliminate a foe from the past but is thwarted by a supernatural presence mediated by the late Bill Pauly as Mr Death.

Anderson has purpose-built other footage that ties in with the MPJ’s playlist and, along with Staunch, it will be screened during the show.

A selection of Anderson’s other music videos, and Staunch the Bleak Flow, can be viewed at https://tinyurl.com/y5c4jbjv

“We make videos, short films and such,” says Anderson.

“They’re concept-based and something akin to performance art. They’re on the interweb but no one ever watches them. Mainly we exist to perform.”

MPJ’s new album Mollymawk is named after the great Southern Albatross.

“That’s where I think we are heading creatively. Out to sea. There is no rhyme or reason to our songs. We just make them up about people, places and time as they come to us.”

Majik Pixie Juice, God, Bluebirdz of Happiness, and Superfly Killa, Smash Palace, Saturday, September 28. Contact the venue for more details.