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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks at Me.

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Speaker 2: So I played the trombone in high school. I know

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Speaker 2: what you're thinking, squeaky voiced Jack, stumbling off the bus,

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Speaker 2: then running through a few scales on his big brass slide. Yep, yep,

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Speaker 2: you're right, hello, ladies. Honestly, though, I think the fact

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Speaker 2: that my instrument was seen as a little bit quirky

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Speaker 2: was probably a bit of the attraction for me at

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Speaker 2: the time. What the trombone wasn't, at least back then,

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Speaker 2: was very cool right to my mind. It was good

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Speaker 2: for jazz band, and good for a blast and orchestra,

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Speaker 2: good for being able to read music and both the

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Speaker 2: treble and the bass cliff. But I wasn't sort of

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Speaker 2: creative enough at the time to find or honestly even

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Speaker 2: to search out a different sound with my trombone. Brass

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Speaker 2: had its place and that was that. But the year

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Speaker 2: after I left high school, based on a true story,

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Speaker 2: hit record stores. I'd never heard of Fat Freddy's Drop,

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Speaker 2: but I was played a song by a friend and

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Speaker 2: I bought the album the day it was released. And

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Speaker 2: I know it was two thousand and five because I

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Speaker 2: can literally remember buying the CD from a Sounds record shop.

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Speaker 2: I can remember walking down Madras Street in christ in

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Speaker 2: christ Church with it kind of burning a hole in

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Speaker 2: my bag. I was so excited to play it. And

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Speaker 2: let me tell you, I don't think I've ever thrashed

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Speaker 2: an album so much in my life. You know, the

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Speaker 2: way it starts off like so sparse, those simple plunking

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Speaker 2: piano keys, dun dun dun da dun da, dun dun da,

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Speaker 2: dun dun dun dun d and then it builds and

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Speaker 2: it builds and it builds. The sound was just so exciting.

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Speaker 2: It was so different, it was so cool, and man,

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Speaker 2: I thought when I saw that a trombonist was part

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Speaker 2: of the lineup. If I had known that this kind

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Speaker 2: of music existed, this blend of dub and reggae and

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Speaker 2: jazz and soul with its brass component. I mean, as

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Speaker 2: much as I have enjoyed Glenn Miller arrangements, I might

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Speaker 2: have branched out just a bit further with my high

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Speaker 2: school music mates in the Old Bone.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: I am no, I don't claim to be any sort

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Speaker 2: of music officionado, right, but it occurs to me that

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Speaker 2: Fat Freddy's Drop are a prime example of muso's Muso's

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Speaker 2: So they are a band which loosely formed from a

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Speaker 2: crew who just liked jamming in their spare time. They

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Speaker 2: are a band that loves to play live, that still

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Speaker 2: just loves to improvise, and at least from the outside,

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Speaker 2: they've seemed utterly unconcerned with the trappings of rock and

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Speaker 2: roll stardom, you know, with glossy magazine covers, fame and riches.

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Speaker 2: Forget your three minute four cord tricks to sell into

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Speaker 2: the top forty radio stations. If you've been to a

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Speaker 2: Fat Freddie's concert, I've been to a few over the years,

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Speaker 2: you will know it can be hard sometimes to know

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Speaker 2: when a song begins and ends. I also think there's

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Speaker 2: a real kind of distinct New Zealand flavor to their music. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: there's something kind of I don't know, there's something like pacific,

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Speaker 2: something kind of relaxed, unshaven, unconcerned. The sound of the

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Speaker 2: Kiwi Summer road trip. For the years in which I

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Speaker 2: lived in the US, I would always crank it up

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Speaker 2: any time I had an American in my apartment, as

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Speaker 2: if it were a kind of statement of identity. I

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Speaker 2: think it probably says a lot about the band's aspirations

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Speaker 2: and kind of motivations and priorities, honestly, that they're kind

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Speaker 2: of artistic purity, that despite their incredible international success, that

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Speaker 2: individual members of Fat Fred's Drop aren't all household names

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Speaker 2: in this country. I was thinking about it. I reckon

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Speaker 2: I know next to nothing of their private lives, and

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Speaker 2: of all the members, I reckon I would have only

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Speaker 2: been able to name two off the top of my

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Speaker 2: head if you had asked me earlier this week. You

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Speaker 2: got Dallas, friend of the show of course, who is

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Speaker 2: the singer for Fat Freddy's Drop. And you got moo

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Speaker 2: Chris Fayoumu founded Fat Freddy's Drop, he produced their music

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Speaker 2: and as the DJ, has beats and blends and samples

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Speaker 2: with a kind of foundation of so much of their art.

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Speaker 2: And I just feel that my experience with his work

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Speaker 2: is going to be similar to that of so many

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Speaker 2: others in New Zealand and around the world, like tens

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Speaker 2: of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of fans. I

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Speaker 2: feel really saddened by news of his death and just

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Speaker 2: so grateful, like so so grateful for the music he made.

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Speaker 2: That has honestly enriched my life.

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Speaker 1: For more on Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live

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Speaker 1: to News Talks ed B from nine am Saturday, or

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Speaker 1: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio