The Portside Cowboy Goes Walking Through London Street

“…Romantic and Decadent obsession with the darker side of life - with the unholy, shadowy,  unknown, broken, grisly or decaying - lies at the heart of the gothic.” - J. Gallagher, Christchurch,  and the heart of The Antipodean Gothic, 2015.  

Photography by Naomi Haussman

Poster by @miiekes

At times, I’ve pondered Christchurch’s unique sense of unease. Perhaps it’s my intense attraction  to the alternative and furthermore, my deep cynicism that permeates most of my activities as an  artist and a musician.  

“Surely things can’t be that good?” 

At least in my opinion, living in the Garden City comes with a sort of deep trauma. Recent  memories of earthquakes, far-right extremist terrorism and living in a post-COVID world have  become a sort of social adhesive for conversation and connection. Significant dates, times have  become signposts for us. 

“Where were you on of the 22nd of February?” 

These events are of course not specific to Christchurch, many places around this world sadly  share these experiences. My point is that this morbid trauma bond between us may lead to a  desire for a release, an explosion of emotion that manifests in our artistic output, especially  musically.  

I argue that somehow this landscape of disaster ties itself to the run-down Gothic, at least in a  narrative and literary sense. For the sake of definition (and perhaps my innate powers of  generalisation), the Gothic in its literary form traces around strange unusual places mixed with  feelings of constraint and doubt and delicious topping of supernatural foreboding. Linked to  romanticism, the ecstatic and sublime feature strongly, along with awareness of one’s diminutive  stature compared to the forces of nature. 

Writer Jasmine Gallagher wrote an excellent piece on this very topic, named Christchurch, and  the heart of The Antipodean Gothic. I highly encourage you to read it because it forms the  academic basis of some of this ramble. It also prevents me from having to feel like I have to  regurgitate the ever-important information soup like a good mother bird. Gallagher also explains  the concept far better I ever could, both culturally and musically.  

As far as I can tell, life is a Venn diagram built upon precedents and constructs (that’s me  generalising again). Having thought deeply, I decided to make a connection to the ever present  country and folk music that crawls along the port town of Lyttelton and slithers down the tunnel  and into Woolston, Texas.  

What’s up with that s**t anyway? Anybody could perhaps argue with me on this but I simply can’t  refute the roots and folk origins of many of Aotearoa’s most popular and long-standing musical  acts. Marlon Williams, Aldous Harding, The Eastern, Delaney Davidson, Tami Neilson, Nadia  Reid are some of the more prominent examples; along with local acts Adam Hattaway, Ryan  Fisherman, Runaround Sue and the ever entrapping country-rock presence of Al Park filling out  the roster. Add to the ranks The Harbour Union, a music collective of both aforementioned  musicians and the likes of Lindon Puffin and Anita Clark. Exhaustive.  

I spent a long time in the last year of my Bachelor’s degree pondering this very idea and why this  was. My research come to no real academic conclusion other than mutual agreement with my  supervisor that the heady mix of craft beer, coffee shops, early-2010s hipster culture and folk  music created a womb for this phenomenon to grow. But despite a lack of evidence suggesting a 

watershed moment in which I could pinpoint where this all came from (other than perhaps a  grouping of strong personalities), I wanted to connect it to something.  

So why not make some sense out of it? How can we connect this “Lyttelton sound” to the  already detailed Antipodean Gothic?  

First, I believe it is worth mentioning that the home of American country music has its own dark  aesthetic, the Southern Gothic. The swampy, rundown machinations of a society that has its  own disasters and tragedies. For anyone living in Christchurch, it would perhaps sound familiar.  

The perverse, like in the Antipodean Gothic, lives here. The perverse elements of the Gothic are  deeply considered by Gallagher. To remind ourselves, the perverse is often defined as acting  contrary to an accepted standard or practice.  

Country’s own f**ked-up black sheep, the murder ballad is a perfect example. It is the contrary to  the normal don’t-kill-and-you-should-be-fine convention that we all (mostly) follow. The release of  Eddie Noack’s 1968 murder ballad Psycho exemplifies this all too well.  

“Don't hand the george to me, Mama  

I might squeeze him too tight  

And I'm as nervous as can be, Mama  

So let me tell you 'bout last night  

I woke up in Johnny's room, Mama  

Standing right by the bed  

With my hands near his throat, Mama  

Wishing both of us were dead  

You think I'm psycho don't you, Mama  

I just killed Johnny's pup  

You think I'm psycho don't you, Mama  

You'd better let 'em lock me up”  

All too poetic.  

The thing I had discovered during my research was the incredibly important folk music curation  made by experimental film maker and all out nerd Harry. E Smith in 1952, The Anthology of  American Folk Music. As rock n’ roll culture writer Greil Marcus laid out, Smith created an  imagined landscape through his inclusion of describing narrative origins of each of the songs  included on the compilation. It’s called Smithville, where people’s doings get elevated to mythic  proportions. I sincerely believe that this has become a narrative thread that pieces together most,  if not all of the genre’s important narrative tales. This includes the ones about death. 

The criminal in Johnny Cash’s Cocaine Blues to the forlorn all-love-is-lost tale in Marty  Robbins’ El Paso serve as examples of the perverse and the morbid, possibly to serve as a sort  of cathartic release.  

Additionally for country, folk or otherwise “Americana” music, there can be a wide array of  conventions instrumentally. Perhaps the foremost would be that eternal semiotic, the twang. From  the earliest 18th century incarnation of the banjo to Hank William’s sharp vocal intonation; from  the warbles of a Hawaiian lap steel to Leo Fender’s quacky Telecaster design, the twang itself  manifests as a symbol that constantly evolves through time. It is a mantle that many take upon  themselves to pay a sort of musical authenticity tax. It simply can’t be country without the twang.

The symbolic twang and Smithville very quickly get turned on their head when applied to Marlon  William’s antipodean balladry on songs like Arahura or The Ballad of Minnie Dean. Here, we still  think of them, but we travel into the heart of a uniquely New Zealand experience that still  references their American precedents.  

“…Hundreds in the room when Minnie stood trial  

Many more outside  

Minnie you're accused of a serious crime:  

Infanticide  

The crowd all cheered as the gavel rang  

But have mercy on the soul on the women who hangs  

Then they carried her away and the crowd all followed her down  

The crowd all followed her down, 3 found  

Everybody gathered round  

To see a woman hang in Winton town  

Oh, see a woman hang in Winton town."  

Delaney Davidson’s Little Heart paints a morbid picture of death and an ever evolving landscape: 

“A dirty meddling hand  

WiIl drive the value down and buy up all the land  

See the head the head is floating  

The body sits there all alone  

Grandpa, see the world is changing  

Your little boy has left the home”  

Then we move the self inflicted waxing of Adam Hattway’s Cuarenta Y Cinco Formas in which  he goes into an absurdist fury detailing 45 methods of killing oneself, in Spanish no less. These  examples all feel so singular, Lyttelton artists all manifesting a dark release of emotion and  isolation. 

My argument is that this brand of roots-y dark folk and country is unique because of the  landscape we find ourselves in, the flat city where things have been torn down and made new  again. The “brand” seems to have a forward push with artists like Candice Millner and Ben  Woods seeming to innovate new sounds on a framework that we are all so familiar with as music  lovers. It’s not exactly country now, the aforementioned musicians continue to follow their own  artistic pulse in whatever direction they choose. The Gothic is here to stay, and live on in the  brooding hearts of Christchurch artists. 

Sam Bambery is a Ōtautahi/Christchurch-based musician consistently overthinking his  local scene. He released his debut album Songs About Sailors in March this year and is  continuing work in the studio for a new album.  

@sam.bambery