Don McGlashan will be touring New Zealand across August, September and October. Photo: Supplied
New Zealand music legend Don McGlashan has written a lot of music for dance, but says the "best piece of dance music that's ever been made" never saw the light of day.
Talking to Music 101 ahead of his upcoming 18-date tour of Aotearoa, he revealed he and a choreographer friend had collaborated on a piece of music when he was living in New York in his early 20s.
McGlashan had joined a dance company as a musician and - knowing he would not have anywhere to stay when the company returned to the United States following a tour of Europe - had convinced the group's manager to let him stay at the studio for a few weeks on their return.
"I completely spoiled it by, that night, drinking a bottle of whisky with my friend who was a choreographer," he said.
"We made a piece together ... he was doing some music and I was choreographing and I think it's probably the best piece of dance and music that's ever been made, but we couldn't remember it afterwards."
And while McGlashan admitted he would dance around a room when he wrote something he really loved, he preferred to keep his moves private.
"I would hate anybody to watch."
The two-time APRA Silver Scroll award winner and much-loved solo artist will be joined on his Take It To The Bridge Tour by Anita Clark, who he performed a series of shows with in Australia last year.
"We really enjoyed that so we thought it would be great to put something together for New Zealand."
Multi-instrumentalist Clark plays violin, mandolin and keyboard and will provide backing vocals, while McGlashan said he would be on "the horn and the acoustic and I'm still using the loops, so we'll be able to make a pretty robust noise at times".
The duo will showcase McGlashan's extensive songbook in hand-picked intimate venues from Whangārei to Dunedin across August, September and October.
He said he was looking forward to playing in some places he had never before visited - such as Glenorchy - and performing in "windswept halls" like the one in Barrytown on the West Coast.
"You can imagine everything important in the town's history has happened there and it's just up from the sea ... you can sort of smell the Tasman Sea, get the wild oxygen coming up from the sea when you play there."
The tour's name was influenced by two things, he said - a James Brown concert he attended during his days living in New York, and a genuine "soft spot" he has for bridges.
McGlashan said when he saw Brown play, he witnessed him become "so emotionally overwrought" in the middle of a song that he had to be wrapped in a blanket and led off stage by a tour manager.
As the audience went crazy, Brown would "get a second wind and push the tour manager away and shrug off the blanket and rush back and grab the mic and start singing again", he said.
This sequence was repeated multiple times, and McGlashan said he had "never quite worked out" whether what he saw was Brown "leaving everything on the stage, giving everything to the audience", or whether it was "a piece of well-polished schtick".
"Although I was told that it happened quite often, it wasn't just that night."
Brown also spent a lot of time during the show telling his band to "take it to the bridge", which McGlashan said he had recalled as he was putting the tour together.
His love of bridges more generally was long-standing - "I think that they're wonderful things - my dad was an engineer" - though a visit to his favourite New Zealand example, The Bridge to Nowhere in Whanganui National Park, was not on the cards.
"We're not going anywhere near that because it doesn't get you anywhere."
The Auckland Harbour Bridge was another favourite, and he hoped to take a look at "a bunch of swingbridges" around the country while he was on the road too, he said.
Fans should also keep an eye out for another of McGlashan's favourite things, "the instructional tea towel".
During a previous tour, which was loosely themed around flight, he put out a tea towel of ducks of New Zealand.
"I love the instructional tea towel - I have a collection of instructional tea towels - so I'd like to expand on that by having a tea towel of bridges and culverts of New Zealand."
Tickets for the Take It To The Bridge Tour can be found here.
- 26.08.23 Waiheke Island - Artworks Theatre
- 31.08.23 Whangārei - OneOneSix
- 01.09.23 Matakana - Memorial Hall
- 02.09.23 Auckland - Q Theatre
- 08.09.23 Tairua - Tairua Community Hall
- 09.09.23 Hamilton - Meteor
- 14.09.23 Mt Maunganui - Totara St
- 15.09.23 Gisborne - Dome Cinema
- 16.09.23 Napier - Paisley Stage
- 21.09.23 New Plymouth - 4th Wall Theatre
- 22.09.23 Palmerston North - Globe Theatre
- 23.09.23 Whanganui - The Gonville Town Hall
- 28.09.23 Lyttleton - Loons
- 29.09.23 Karamea - Karamea Pulse Energy Centre
- 30.09.23 Barrytown - Hall
- 01.10.23 Golden Bay - Mussel Inn
- 06.10.23 Dunedin - Hanover Hall
- 07.10.23 Glenorchy - The Headwaters Eco Lodge
