APPEARING: Nick Bollinger will appear at this year's Whanganui Literary Festival.
APPEARING: Nick Bollinger will appear at this year's Whanganui Literary Festival.
There is a curious connection between Lorde, President Trump, Randy Newman and the "melodic mathematics" of hit songwriting. The man who knows the answer to this conundrum, and many others relating to music, is Nick Bollinger. He will appear in this year's Whanganui Literary Festival on Saturday, October 7 inthe Concert Chamber at the War Memorial Centre.
Nick is a writer, critic, broadcaster, record producer and musician who you may know from his popular segment "The Sampler" on RNZ National and his many years of writing columns for the Listener. He is the author of How to Listen to Pop Music, 100 Essential New Zealand Albums, and Goneville - a memoir with musings from the inside of New Zealand's music scene, and general mayhem, in the 1970s and 80s. Goneville was awarded the Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing in 2015.
Music has been an important part of Nick's life from his beginning in 1958; a passion which led him, via the Beatles, to the bass guitar as a teenager. He played and toured with Rick Bryant in Rough Justice for two years and is still a member of the Windy City Strugglers, a gig that stretches back several decades.
Nick has been writing reviews of music since he was a mere stripling of 10, and he will discuss the process he goes through when listening to music and subsequently writing about it. What is the context of a song and how can you relate it to something familiar? How to have a viewpoint without letting that become too toxic or unnecessarily enthusiastic. Having an appreciation of your audience - who are you writing for and also, who are you NOT writing for: the performer or their management conglomeration? As Nick says, "The challenge is to twist the terms in some original way; to write something you have never read before."
For details about this event you can go to www.writersfest.co.nz or pick up one of the brochures which are now available around town. Nick has an excellent website - nickbollinger.co.nz - if you'd like to check out some of his work.
