The Star: November 22, 2018

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24 Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi Our People Thursday November 22 2018 The Star Lindon Puffin Ageing gracefully but still playing Next month, Lyttelton singer and songwriter Lindon Puffin will perform at a variety concert to raise money for a Christchurch YouthHub. His own experiences when he was younger have led him to want to give back and help youths. Sophie Cornish talks to him How did you benefit from a youth health centre when you were younger? I was in a glam-punk band and I was a pretty strange-looking fella at this point. I was young and in a heavy goth phase. That was all part of coming out of Rangiora High School and desperately trying to find my own identity. I didn’t fit into the expectations of normality and was trying to find my own path. We had this band called The Puffins, which was pretty androgynous. We were there to shock people and we got quite a good following. I didn’t really have the backing from my family. Everyone was hoping I would just get through this phase and become normal. I had done okay at school. It’s a pretty similar story to a lot of youths, those who fall outside of that curve. Someone mentioned the health centre, the original 198 Youth Health Centre on Hereford St. I went there just to see a doctor and we realised there was this place where we could go and be ourselves. It was the only place in town that was on our side, people didn’t judge you on how you looked. It was such a vital thing. It was genuinely a hub; it was where we ran into all the other artists, out-liars, the quirky youth. Whether they were alienated because of their sexual identify, mental health or just having an odd appearance. When did you first begin music and why? It was when I was 11 or 12-years-old. I was one of those kids who got really obsessed by music. I listened to tapes over and over again until I knew every word. When I was 12, I could recite the entire album of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. There was the usual suspects of Fleetwood Mac, Queen, the music that is ‘okay’ to listen to in Rangiora. In high school I met people who listened to music the way I did. By the time I was 14-years-old, my school books were filled with pictures of Bob Dylan and John Lennon. Then I started to teach myself the guitar and piano. By the time high school was finished, we had a crappy school rock band, which eventually turned in The Puffins. We were doing crazy things to our hair, making our own costumes. I would like to say I had a really supportive family and that they nurtured that, but I didn’t really have that. My mum was supportive, she believed in me, but they would’ve liked to see me do something different. My brother Ross somehow also escaped Rangiora. He became a very successful contemporary dancer and choreographer overseas. He is currently the New Zealand Art Laureate of Choreography and Dance. My sister Claire became a heavy diesel mechanic in the mines in Australia and now works as an advocate for women’s rights in the mining industry. We were raised to have a very strong sense of work ethic, which was ingrained in us from a young age. In that way we have just continued to do that sort of thing. For me, it became music. I worked that as hard as I could. I understand you are involved in quite a bit of charity work - what else do you do for charity? There are different things that come up. For example, this week on Thursday, the radiology department at Christchurch Hospital is having a quiz-night fundraiser for the Christchurch Battered Women’s Trust. I am co-hosting the quiz, playing some music and helping organise that. It is about raising money but also about raising awareness and morale. A few months ago at the Adventure Park there was a fundraiser for tree planting. There was a dinner there and was MC, I also played. So there is balance of doing those things and also doing my work, such as playing in bars. Just last weekend I played at OGB and Rowdy Kitchen. On Sunday, this week, I am playing at a charity Christmas picnic at the Little Big Tree Nursery. They saw me playing and wanted to put something on for the workers’ families. It is a variety of different things. It is definitely an around the clock effort. Some of it you get paid for, some of it you don’t. People like Dr Sue Bagshaw, who wants to organise this new YouthHub, is actively trying to make the world a better place every day. I look up to people like that and try to help out where I can. How long have you lived in Lyttelton and what drew you there? In the mid-1990s I came over here when The Puffins started playing regularly at the Wunderbar. It was the another place, along with the 198 Youth Health Centre, where we could be ourselves. It is a very eccentric place; we were encouraged by the owner to be as outrageous as we could. He was German guy called York. He would say to us, “anything that is like the ordinary rock ’n’ roll, I will just turn you guys away . . . at least half of them (the audience) have to leave upset and if they are not leaving, then you are doing something wrong.” We were very lucky to have that place, we developed our whole band aesthetic around it. I always had a connection to Lyttelton. Eventually I brought a little piece of land with my dad by the Timeball. We built a little cedar box house on the hill. Then my partner, Belinda Trott and I had a couple of kids in quick succession, they are 13 months apart. We focused on our house LYTTELTON SOUND: Lindon Puffin is a singer, songwriter and stay-at-home dad and still makes time for charity work. PHOTO: AIMEE CANE GREGG project and I stopped touring, I have really tried to stay local for the past five years or so with the family. But, I’m not quite wearing Crocs and a polo just yet. I stopped dying my hair and I’m trying to age gracefully. There is a lot of artists here and there is a real sense of team about the place, really positive, creative, competition. On your Facebook page you’ve listed covert yacht rock, pop, rock, folk, punk as your genre? What is covert yacht rock for the people who may not know and how best would you describe your genre or sound? It’s kind of subversive soft rock, when I wrote that, it was a bit of a joke. Once I moved past the glam-rock phase, in the 2000s, I started doing my solo music, which was probably closer to what I was listening too. I got through that phase of shocking people and just focused on the songs. I feel like the music I make, is similar to The Mutton Birds, Dave Dobyn, Split Enz, that New Zealand sound and voice. I think it’s a New Zealand folk-rock kind of sound. MAKING WAVES: The Puffins in 1996 featuring Clements The Bear (left), Lindon Puffin and Lake Vincent. Right – In 1997 with (left to right) Lake Vincent, Lindon Puffin, Mawls Allpress, and Clements The Bear. PHOTOS: FEA SALKELD
The Star Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi Thursday November 22 2018 25 Kiwi music You have opened for some international acts like Tenacious D and Billy Bragg – what’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to big fame? Any big names you’ve rubbed shoulders with? Billy Bragg is a real hero of mine, there is integrity personified. Paul Kelly also, I haven’t opened for him, but I’ve always dreamed of it. When you are putting out albums, you are always hustling for those support spots, because you are trying to promote what you have done. I have done a couple of tours with Billy and I just felt incredibly lucky to have been in that position. I toured with Chris Knox a bit, The Mutton Birds and The Exponents. Tenacious D is one I can put in my bio. I read online that you full name is actually Lindon McCormack, where did The Puffins and then Lindon Puffin originate from? Really, we were just trying to come up with a band name that was colourful and somehow we came up with The Puffins and it was the perfect name for a glam-rock band. We all had crazy names in the band, I was Lindon Puffin, the keyboard player was Lake Vincent, because he was Jeremy Lake. Everyone just mucked around with their names, it was part of making an identity. Jason Clements the bass player was Clements the Bear. There was an ever evolving seat of drummers and they were always known as Ramona. After I finished with the band, I got roped into doing breakfast show at RDU and the name stuck. You are a father of two, what does your typical day look like? I try and get up in morning and get my work done while Belinda keeps an eye on the kids, Rita, 3, and Elliott (also known as Lolzy) who is almost two. I try and do all my organising then, it’s a constant hustle being a freelance musician. Then I take over in the afternoons, when Belinda goes to work. She works for TVNZ as an editor for 1 News at 6 and Seven Sharp. Sometimes I will be lucky to get a single email done. I remember an interview with Jacinda Ardern and her partner Clarke, who said he was going to build a deck when he was a stay-at-home dad. All of us dads laughed in unison. He’s never going to build a deck for the foreseeable future. The key word I am still trying to learn is patience. You have to learn to put the tools down and focus on the kids, because that is what your job really is. It can be a challenge. •Listen to Lindon – A variety concert for the YouthHub will be held on December 5, 7.30pm, at St Margaret’s College Charles Luney Auditorium. Tickets can be purchased at www. eventfinda.co.nz FAMILY TIME: Lindon playing the guitar for his son Lolzy. • By Gordon Findlater TEENAGE years spent playing beer pong have paid off for brothers Regan and Todd Ramsay-Boyd. Regan, 22, and Todd, 24, pocketed $10,002 for winning the Kiwi Pong World Series at the Auckland town hall on Saturday. The tournament, promoted by Radio Hauraki, saw 320 teams from around the country battle for the winner-takes-all purse. It was the fourth time the pair had competed at the event after being introduced to the game as teenagers at a flat occupied by their two older brothers. Regan and Todd – who go by the team name Puzzles – take the drinking game, which you could call a sport (at a stretch), seriously. But enjoying the one night trip to Auckland to for the tournament was priority No 1. “It’s a big day of drinking. We flew in at 8.30 in the morning. We went straight to the pub for breakfast and a pint and then Todd did a suicide shot at about 10am,” said Regan. A suicide shot is when someone has a shot of tequila, snorts salt up their nose and squeezes lemon juice into their eye. “That probably wasn’t a smart way to start the day, but maybe it helped us win 10 grand,” said Regan. “I think I hit peak performance. There are other times you can get a slight bit dazy, especially if you mix drinks which can cause a bad effect,” said Todd. Fuelled up for the tournament, which kicked off at noon, Regan and Todd won all four of their pool-play matches to advance to the round of 64, where they won six straight knockout matches on their way to claiming the title. It’s understandable that recollecting the rest of the night – which is understood to have finished at 5am – proved rather difficult. BEER BROTHERS: Todd and Regan Ramsay- Boyd were crowned national beer pong champions on Saturday night. $10k and a gold coin for beer pong “I felt pretty dusty in the morning, but then we went to the pub with some of the boys and just reminisced with some good beers and a good feed,” said Todd. The brothers didn’t receive a trophy for their efforts, instead getting a giant novelty cheque that they were forced to carry with them for the remainder of the day after checking out of their hotel. “Every homeless person we walked past asked us for some cash. It was a bit awkward, we had to tell them we hadn’t cashed the cheque yet,” said Regan. The large $10,002 plastic novelty cheque almost caused them to miss their afternoon flight back to Christchurch. “We tried to check it on as baggage but then they changed their mind and said we could take it on board . . . we managed to bend it into an overhead locker, its actually quite flexible,” said Regan.
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The Star: November 22, 2018

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