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NZMM: Favourite Wellington Music Moment – Jack Hooker

For New Zealand Month last year we asked a bunch of people what they thought made Wellington music unique as well as what their favourite albums by Wellington artists were.

This year we thought we would do something similar, but slightly different. This time we’re asking people for a favourite memory of making music in Wellington. It could involve a favourite gig, a funny story from the recording studio, a moment that led to the inspiration for a song, the fond recollection of a defunct venue, or the piece of music or lyric that they are most proud of creating.

Today we caught up with Jack Hooker. Jack Hooker is a musician/composer with a diverse range of musical interests and outputs. As a composer, he has an interest primarily in writing fixed-media electronic works, and has had compositions performed in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Indonesia and Europe. As a performer his work includes a solo instrumental guitar act, drone/trance band ‘The Shocking and Stunning’, Gamelan groups ‘Padhang Moncar’ and ‘Taniwha Jaya’, among others. With these projects, Jack has toured throughout New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia and has performed at festivals including Homegrown, WOMAD, Rhythm and Alps, Camp a Low Hum and the Yogyakarta International Gamelan Festival.

My favourite recent memory of music-making in Wellington is writing a piece for guitar and the Javanese gamelan. I bought a cheap guitar off Trademe, ripped the frets out so it could play in tune with the gamelan, and then started composing with the ensemble. I feel lucky to live in a city that enables these types of collaboration and experimentation.

You can buy some of Jack’s solo work on Bandcamp here, and with The Shocking & Stunning here.

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Covers used with permission.


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