Mousey shares her perfect weekend playlist.

Pop CultureOctober 19, 2024

‘I cried the first time I heard this song’: Mousey’s perfect weekend playlist

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Mousey shares her perfect weekend playlist.

Ōtautahi singer-songwriter Mousey shares her perfect weekend playlist.

Christchurch’s Mousey, born Sarena Close, remembers the steps that led to her to the creation of her latest album, The Dreams of Our Mother’s Mothers. “I had just given birth and in my sleep deprived hormonal insanity I thought ‘this seems like a great time to record a single,'” she says. It actually wasn’t, but she did it anyway.

Alongside producer Will McGillivray, Mousey says she made the record with “my heart and guts on a silver platter paired with some crafty moody and broodiness.” She wrote and composed the entire album herself, and says inspiration for a song can begin anywhere, from a feeling or concept to a guitar riff or baseline. “I just follow my nose and intuition.”

For Mousey, a perfect weekend in Ōtautahi isn’t complete without a “trip to our favourite café (Noki), and the Riccarton Markets, then home for a long nap, and get a babysitter in the evening so I can play board games with my friends or go out to dinner and see a stand-up comedy show.” If you’re looking for the perfect weekend scenario to enjoy Mousey’s music, it’s more of a “alone in bed while dual screening a video game” vibe.

“All of these songs below are some of my favourites from Ōtautahi artists,” she says. “There is so much amazing music here and it could fill a hundred playlists! I have my own ‘Ōtautahi Aroha’ playlist on Spotify with a much larger list, but here are some that are the most special to me.”

Goodwill – ‘Plans’

Will is a producer in Ōtautahi, but his own music and his voice are unreal. He’s working with heaps of local Ōtautahi artists at the moment but he also released his own album recently which is incredible. I chose this track cause I love the drums, they sit so nicely and I love how the song just chugs along.

Adam Hattaway – ‘Good Times’

This song has a real wild feeling to it to me. The combination of the song, the video, and how refined the production is on the track makes it really stand out. He does a great job of translating the energy of his live sets to this song too, it’s like Arctic Monkeys meets The Mighty Boosh and it’s fantastic.

Holly Arrowsmith – ‘Blue Dreams’

I like how honest this song is about being a new mum which is super relatable content to me right now. The whole album has a very Canterbury country sound to it which I love, and her voice always sounds phenomenal.

Laura Lee Lovely – ‘Allandale’

This song just has such a cool feel to it. It feels quite different to the rest of Laura’s music, and I really hope to see more in this vein cause I love it so much.

Casper Thomson – ‘II’

I was living and studying music with Casper when this EP was recorded. It was a massive flat with 12 people, holes in the walls and never ending dampness in winter, but I have really fond memories of that time and this song is really nostalgic for me. I love the rawness of the recording, the harmonies and the self-made percussion with cutlery.

Mini Miller – ‘Tangerine Days’

Mini Miller was a student of mine way back, and we decided to record an EP together with local producer Ryan Fisherman. Again it brings back those really fond memories of that time, and I’m so proud of what we achieved together in those few days.

Mim Jensen – ‘Pause Button’

Mim studied the year below me at Jazz School and that’s where we met. She’s an incredibly talented singer and songwriter and this song is my favourite of hers. I love the catchy chorus line that flips between her head and chest voice like a game of ping pong.

Mitch Zachry – ‘julia you’re home’

Mitch has opened for me in Wellington before but is originally from Christchurch. He is incredibly creative and a really impressive guitar player, and was a finalist for the APRA Best Jazz Composition this year which was really exciting to see him be recognised. His music under Mitch Zachry is more acoustic modern folk with what sounds like a quadrupled (or more) vocal. Beautiful stuff.

Pickle Darling – ‘Rinse Spin Cycle/Nicolas Cage’

I play in the Pickle Darling band sometimes and this is my favourite song to play live. I play the main arpeggiated riff at the start manually and I feel like a hero. I think I cried the first time I heard this song, so it’s been amazing be actually be apart of re-arranging it and playing it live.

Doprah – ‘Stranger People’

Doprah ceases to exist in 2024 but back in 2015 when I saw them live for the first time it changed my life! They were such an amazing band and I still listen to their album and EP. Stranger People is haunting angular percussive piece with a very memorable video to boot.

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The Gore high school students navigating the highs and lows of teen life in n00b (Photo: Three)

Pop CultureOctober 18, 2024

Random: This new teen comedy is set in Gore

Tara Ward

Staff writer

The Gore high school students navigating the highs and lows of teen life in n00b (Photo: Three)

Tara Ward watches Three’s coming-of-age comedy set in her old home town, and recognises… not much.

This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here.

Most probably think of it as a small country town, but when I moved there from an even smaller country town at age 15, Gore was a metropolis. It had a Warehouse. It had a movie theatre next to a hairdressers that was open on a Wednesday (a Wednesday!) night. It had two supermarkets and a roundabout. It had lots of bogans and lots of centre parks. There were opportunities in Gore, especially if (like me) you enjoyed staring at the shiny ball gowns in Farry’s and then strutting next door to Deka for a big bag of pick’n’mix and dreams of golden days to come.

So it was with an optimistic heart and a brain full of repressed memories that I dived like an old brown trout into Three’s new coming-of-age comedy series n00b, which makes the rare move of setting its story in Gore. The year is 2005 and Nikau (Max Crean), captain of the first XV and most popular student at the fictional Gore College, is in the midst of a social downfall. In a time when the internet offered new ways to escape and connect, Nikau has a secret passion for writing fanfiction shipping Ashton Kutcher and Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance. When his secret is exposed, his social stocks plummet.

Outed as gay, Nikau is ostracised by friends and family. He has to navigate the unpredictable social hurricane of high school – as well as the exciting world of the internet – so he can learn to embrace his true identity.

N00b began as a popular TikTok series created by Victoria Boult (who wrote and directed the TV series) and Rachel Fawcett (who produced). The expanded six-part series aims for a Sex Education vibe, a show that pours teenage angst and raging hormones into a rocket fuel of real world issues like sexuality, family tensions and unplanned pregnancy. The result is a hectic comedy cocktail, and a show that’s anything but subtle.

In n00b’s world, you know you’re not cool when the rugby lads refuse to do “soggy biscuit” with you any more. The first few episodes feature circle jerking, a beer bong up someone’s arse, projectile vomiting, electrocution and senior citizens dialling up cowboy porn in front of high school students. The team of young actors do a solid job of bringing the show’s archetypal characters to life. Some moments feel more genuine than others, like the all-encompassing rugby culture and the school trip to the freezing works (my fifth form school camp also included a tour of the Dunedin hospital laundry facilities, as well as the Ravensdown fertiliser factory).

There’s a lot going on in n00b, and it comes at you at a fierce, big energy pace. The tone is set in the opening moments, with a reenactment of Havoc and Newsboy’s infamous “greedy old gay man’s Gore” 1999 satirical rant. It was a moment that triggered a shameful over-reaction from some locals, but n00b is a useful new lens on this pop culture moment to explore how a teenager would come to terms with his own sexuality in such an environment.

But if you were hoping to see Nikau’s girlfriend Lauren Conrad (no, not the Lauren Conrad) walk the hallowed halls of H&J Smith’s or watch Nikau talk to the deer at Bannerman Park, think again. Apart from a few stock shots, n00b wasn’t filmed on location in Gore, and it’s missing some recognisably Gore-y details that would add authenticity to the story. It’s weird that nobody in this Gore rolls their r’s (this really was “thirty purple work shirts” time to shine). That might seem like a small, irrelevant point, but putting five thousand r’s in “curly-wurly” is an unavoidable part of growing up in Southland, which is the story that n00b purports to tell.

N00b reminds us that sometimes you can’t help where you live. Maybe it’s using Gore just for the punchline, or perhaps as the story unfolds, n00b will have something new to say about “gay old Gore”. But even if it is using Gore’s negative reputation to springboard into comedy, this series could be set in any New Zealand town where prejudice and ignorance simmer on the surface. The chaos and cliches in this teen dramedy won’t be for everyone, but if you’re nostalgic for the era when the internet was full of hope and escape – and you don’t mind watching numerous circle jerks – you’ll appreciate what n00b has to offer.

N00b streams on ThreeNow.