Saturday 20 September 2014

Seclusion Data - Media Release

Performance poet emerges from seclusion

Poet Alex Staines, a veteran of hundreds of live performances both as a solo act and with other performers, including Luke Hurley, Dave Murphy, Sam Hunt, Chris Knox and Paul Ubana Jones, and who has not been seen on stage for 15 years, emerges again at Happy Bar in Wellington on Thursday, August 19th. 

Seclusion Data is the title of the performance, and of Staines' new, third volume of poems. For the first time in his career, Staines will have musical accompaniment in the form of backing tracks composed and arranged by Steve Wolf, who played saxophone with Sam Manzanza, Bill Direen and Head Like a Hole. The music is performed by Steve, with Guy MacGibbon of the Flanneltones.

Staines says he has always dreamed of incorporating music into performance poetry somehow, and has finally found in Wolf, someone with the right 'poison': "Both of us have Dirt by The Stooges as our favourite song," says Staines.

Staines developed an 'energetic' performance style in the eighties, based on his love for all things punk. His first published volume, a double act with fellow poet Mike Eager, was described by Tony Beyer in the Evening Post as "aspiring to and achieving some almost ecstatic moments of bad taste".  

Eager and Staines met in 1988 at the founding of the group Poetrycorp, a sort of attack-dog perfomance poetry troupe. Other Poetrycorp personnel included Apirana Taylor, the late Andrew Kovacevich, the late Simon Williamson, Fa'afetai Ta'ase, Nikolien Van Wijk, and Paul Dagarin. Poetrycorp toured widely, mainly as part of university orientation tours, and attained what these days would be called a "cult following" - one reviewer described a show of theirs as "funny and scary".

Staines published his second verse collection, The Slow Road to Gore in 2003 on the heels of his video short The Voice of Foxton, which screened at Antimatter underground film festival in Canada in 2002, as well as film festivals locally. Sam Gaskin reviewed The Slow Road to Gore in Salient and said: "...unlike the 'Pure' campaign - which is unsatisfying for Kiwis because it promotes an absence, Staines' New Zealand is dynamic, gritty, abundant and culturally diverse. Gore's detailed representations, vibrancy and strangeness offer enjoyment from plenty of readings."

Staines began performing original material in 1984 at the famous Globe Hotel live poetry nights in Auckland, pioneered by David Mitchell, where he met and was influenced by performers like John Pule, Piet Nieuwland, Sandra Bell and Kim Blackburn.

Staines says he has not lost his edge, and Seclusion Data is "a great book", full of strangeness and lyricism.

Poetry lovers and appreciators of unusual performers will not want to miss this. The guest performer is songwriter Adam James Ring, who will be familiar to many lovers of local folk music.

alex staines
Alex Staines in a publicity photo for the 1993 Fun & Frets tour with Luke Hurley and Dave Murphy. This picture was used on the cover of Seclusion Data. Photo by Robert Axford, reproduced with permission.


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