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Feature: Lindon Puffin

Author: Vicki Anderson (photography by Duke Mule )

New Zealand's answer to Billy Bragg, Christchurch-based Lindon Puffin, has not long finished his latest tour of New Zealand's nooks and crannies. He's been cruising our highways and byways to flog his new album 'Show Pony' - named after a drunk punter at a gig in Arrowtown who heckled that Puffin was "a f...ing show pony''. The last gig of the tour was at Wunderbar in his home town of Lyttelton, and he was expecting it to be a blast.

It's hard not to like Puffin, former frontman for glam rock band The Puffins. To say he's a bit of a character is an understatement. The morning of our first interview, for example, Puffin is almost two hours late. Why? He says he called into his local café and got into "a bit of a discussion" about a James Brown song with a fellow coffee guzzler and "lost track of time''as he scribbled his point across on napkins. Shame, I say, we only have time for a quick chat now. He lifts his shades briefly, apologises and then disarmingly wonders aloud how to approach our interview.

There follows a stream of consciousness-type conversation that lasts two hours. Puffin's most endearing quality, besides his ability to create lyrical stories that are simultaneously a comedic riot and nothing short of mad musical genius, is his no bullshit approach to life. When he gets fired up on a topic his sunnies are popped off and on and the beaded doo-hickeys on his western-style shirt fly about madly.

If you want to see this, all you have to do is describe Puffin as a singer/songwriter. He argues, correctly, that he is so much more and much prefers to be considered an entertainer.

If you haven't already done so you should see his road movie, Figure 8000, a documentary of his 2003, 108 night non-stop small town Really Real Tour. It features beautiful footage of the country mixed with interviews, live footage and: "icons and idiots, poetry and porn. Two guys, four islands, 8000km, one dodgy motorhome." Sky watchers will be able to see it on the Discovery channel in June.

Lindon Puffin is not afraid to say what he thinks. Ahead of his 20-date national tour he was more than a little worried about how he was going to cope financially.

"It's a huge job trying to organise a tour completely by yourself. Those useless *&^#s at NZ On Air just turned down my single Beyond the Breakers for both video funding and the May Hit Disc. They led me to believe it would be on there, and that's the only way to get to commercial radio - to go via the gatekeepers. To me it's bizarre that 10 of the 15 acts on that Hit Disc are major label artists like Brooke Fraser, Evermore, the Feelers. It's just double dipping, their singles are already on the radio.

"I think those Hit Discs should be for people like myself, the relative unknowns. To me it means everything to have something on there, I'm sure Brooke Fraser's not sitting at home thinking 'fingers crossed, hope I get my single on the Hit Disc."
He says he wrote NZ On Air "quite a nice email about how heartbroken I was" only to receive a rather puzzling response. Apparently they didn't select the song because he lacked a marketing strategy.

"I thought it just mattered whether the song was any good. The best bit was that they said I needed a video or a tour. I'm on a 20-date national tour. Then the problem was that I didn't have a profile in Auckland. The insinuation was that if I'm going to take this seriously I'll have to move to Auckland. I mean you're talking to someone in Auckland who's probably never even been to the South Island".

"I'm on tour and it would have been handy for me to be able to go to radio stations with the Hit Disc and say "Hey, my single's on there'. I could just send them all a copy of my album but I might as well just bury it in my front lawn and hope they find it there."
Unsurprisingly, given his recent round of bad news, Puffin is typically blunt about his thoughts on the NZ Music Month.

"I think it's pretty much past its used by date. The frightening thing is that Hayley Westenra is one of New Zealand's biggest artists. New Zealand needs to take the power back - is this what truly represents New Zealand's musical taste? Is the ultimate really 'Pure' by Hayley Westenra? If so

these are truly dark days for New Zealand and I should give up music now and take up indoor hockey."

He's right that the folk at NZ On Air don't know what they're missing - 'Show Pony' is an aural delight. Puffin's strength lies in his ability to creatively utilise a variety of instruments - including ones as unhip as banjos, ukeleles, an electric wurlitzer and various oddball keyboards - to make songs that are simultaneously raw, vital and memorable. Puffin says it is "like the Smiths meet the Waratahs or Chris Knox fronting an Eagles tribute band" and that seems fairly apt to me.

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