Join Otis Mace and his amazing band at The Wine Cellar for an evening of melodramatic reptilian lounge folk and and alt. country and experimental and astonishing musical delights.
Special Guests Kingsley Spargo and Kirsten Warner top off a warmly rewarding and seasoned line up of some of Tāmaki Makaurau's best loved musicians.
The Otis Mace Combo delivers works infused with sly humour and beguiling trickery and includes collaborations with wordsmiths Richard Von Sturmer and John Cooper Clarke.
John Segovia plays bass guitar and provides backing vocals and on Drums Rick McShane relentlessly drives the beat. Plus some numbers feature the wailing blues harp of Andrew
' The Reverend ' Campbell.
Kingsley Spargo is renowned for leaving audiences mesmerised with music that pulls at
the heart. His experience as a jazz musician enables him to transcend genres in ways
few musicians can. The soulful trumpeter has wowed audiences alongside luminaries
such as Don McGlashan, Tim Finn, Violent Femmes, SJD, and more recently with the
inimitable Witi Ihimaera. But the multi-instrumentalist is also known for working across
theatre and free improvised music in his collaborations with poet Courtney Sina Meredith,
Katie Wolfe’s The Haka Party Incident, composer Eve de Castro Robinson, and his
performances can even be heard on the Dalai Lama’s album Inner World.
RNZ reviewer William Dart describes his 2019 album Chasing Spirits as ‘a bit like a trip to
an all-star cocktail lounge’. Recent compositions include narratives around yearning and
the geometry of life, and these beautifully crafted songs draw on his life in Aotearoa New
Zealand and abroad.
Kirsten Warner’s baptism into music came when her partner Bernie Griffen said if they were going to travel she needed to learn to play. Over the past 10 years or so, she joined Bernie Griffen on musical adventures, recording and touring two albums with him. She sang with Bernie, sang his songs and wrote songs with him. She found a voice for more than singing to their children and enjoyed playing with Bernie and numerous musicians in different lineups of Bernie Griffen and The Thin Men. She continues to step out on her own to perform their songs. Kirsten is one of two hosts of radio station 95 bFM’s popular American roots music show Border Radio.
Bass player Rob Scott started playing music at high school with his mates doing what was then called country rock. He’s come a full musical circle. Most lately he played bass in Kendall Elise’s band The Belgraves and with Bernie Griffen and The Thin Men. Along the way he’s played in pub cover bands, explored noise-bands as a side man to singer-songwriter types, working as an engineer in heavy industry while raising a family. He picked up bass again playing in an Irish band which lead back to playing country music for the last 20 or so years.
