Golden Magnetic at Midnight
For Mama Kin Spender, aka ARIA-nominated Mama Kin and producer Tommy Spender, if they were going to be playing music it had to mean something. To start with, the pair were tired of lonely hours on the road so the two friends teaming up was the first step in the right direction. Next was a rather ambitious idea to engage local choirs in their tours. As they release their debut album Golden Magnetic, choirs around the country are getting ready to step into the spotlight to make the music of Mama Kin Spender a glorious community sharing. This isn’t the behaviour of rock stars. In fact Diva rating must be well below zero!
For Mama Kin, it’s about making what she does meaningful.
‘You have to be able to back yourself every day and convince yourself that what you are doing is worth it, that you aren’t engaged in some nihilistic narcissistic pursuit. When you perform with someone else you have a better chance of getting over those humps.’
It was a Rufus Wainwright concert that gave Mama Kin the idea, and since then this ‘slow food’-styled tour has been cooking up somer serious magic.
‘It’s ambitions but rewarding,’ says Mama Kin. ‘The centre of this project for us is this idea of touring and engaging with communities at a deeper level. It’s all well and good to roll into a town get a coffee, something to eat, then do a show and give each other a high five, but engaging with people who have been doing a performance for six weeks before you get there and then get onstage in front of their audience is an ambitious idea, yes, but when I think back to the faces of the audience who have come to see their choir, I know it’s worth it.’
Mama Kin Spender first experimented with a community choir at Bello Winter Music. ‘We were onstage with this choir. We got into town, did this workshop, and we thought, are we are really going to get onstage with these people playing to this packed awesome stage? I said stand up if you know someone in the choir; 75 per cent of the people of the audience stood up. Tommy and I receded into the distance and the community found a place to celebrate itself. I am past the stage of my life where I need people to please spend all your time to validate me; these days I actually feel really validated by the quality of connection.’
For Danielle, aka Mama Kin, making these powerful connections is key to the artists she wants to be.
‘I have a direct line to my audience. That’s the artist I want to be. It’s the reason I am fucking doing it,’ she says.
Danielle believes there’s a misinformed mythology that artists are puppets of their record company or management teams.
‘We watched the Lady Ga Ga documentary Five Foot Two. If you want to blow the myth wide open, it’s so good to see an artist in the centre of her whirlpool able to micro- and macro-manage the issues. Artists are creative, logistically minded people, and they’ve been strung up as these self-pandering puppets but they’re not.’
The vision for the tours for 2018 include calling out to choirs going out to halls.
‘If your town has a hall and a choir then we are interested in coming! We want families to be at the gigs. When did music become about being 18 and over and getting pissed at a bar? Halls are often the centrepiece of communities where people come to celebrate. It’s not about the artist. The artist is just the conduit to get the community together. Those gigs are always amazing. You are in their space. You stay behind and sweep up. It’s not a venue where you run off.’
It’s the townsfolk who Mama Kin is keen to connect with in her shows. ‘I am about getting the 30–80-year-olds who want to get together. I want them to be watching their choir, their uncles and artists, onstage. For me it’s the reason I make music because I can’t fucking do it otherwise. It has to be about friendship and connection. We aren’t isolated. We are on the same trip. The myth is that we are separated and that our experiences are different. You can’t break that down screaming at the bar. It’s subtle, but you are playing with a form and that requires a level of presence that festivals and halls and bespoke venues create.’
For their Mullum show Mama Kin Spender team up with Midnight Choir, the ensemble pulled together by much-loved choir maker Janet Swain. ‘It was one of those choirs,’ says Danielle, ‘that we just have to return to. The glue in that choir was very strong. Sometimes you have to work hard; we often have to work hard to get the feeling going. People’s hearts in Mullumbimby are already cracked open; in the city you have to work hard to get them to let their guard down! We are very very excited.’
Mama Kin Spender are joined by Midnight Choir at the Mullum Civic Hall on Wednesday 9 May at 8pm. For tickets and info go to redsquaremusic.com.au
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