Crowe and I bid farewell to each other in Christchurch, having spent months previous busking our way down the east coast. I bought him a Zippo with the words HEYMOONSHAKER engraved on the face, the same as mine, which Jammy had given me on my departure from England. He gifted me a microphone so I could begin beatboxing, which I did. We had spent three months in Christchurch and I’d lived outside Crowe and Amanda’s apartment in my van for this period. We’d given up busking in the last month and got jobs flyering around the city for an outdoor cinema.
My journey to Queenstown was a two-day trip, and I’d exhausted my CD collection of Creedence and ZZ Top way before this leg of my journey. Each corner of the road pulled back the curtain on a new bold panoramic, be it distant plains haunted by towering mountains or snake-like passages down backroads past rows and rows of vineyards and orchards. My trip seemed somewhat lonesome, having spent a substantial amount of time with two couples. I longed to meet someone, and my imagination fed me the idea of a romance being found somewhere on this new leg of the journey.
It wasn’t long after passing Arrowtown, as I was approaching a bend in the road, that I saw a figure in the distance with their thumb out. I quickly clicked my indicator on and pulled in to meet the traveller. It was a bearded ginger bloke named Sam from Doncaster who was a chef and had been fishing earlier that day. He hummed of fresh fish and spoke with a common tongue which I knew well from back home. This was not quite the road companion I was looking for, and fortunate for me there was less than an hour left on the road before arriving. Sam noticed a box of Speight’s beers in the footwell and asked if he could take one. “Of course,” I replied, as he palmed one from between his feet.
Sam went on to explain he was going to be staying with a friend for his first few nights and said I should come in and meet his mates. We drove slowly into Queenstown and took a left at the top of the hill leading into the centre, down towards a frisbee park. We then pulled up at the house. We entered a run-down lower-floor flat with little light coming in through the yellow windows past the pile of unwashed pots. I was met by John, the longest resident of the house, who told me he also went by the name Wurzel, and Dan, who was subletting a room and friends with Sam.
I told John I played guitar as I spotted one leant up in the corner, and we spent the afternoon playing each other riffs and licks we had learnt over the years. I was very happy to learn the introduction to Crazy on You by the band Heart, or at least a poor man’s version of it, which I would later incorporate into one of my own songs.
John and I kicked it off, and he explained the plot of land for sale next to his place was where he parked his car to avoid getting a parking ticket, and said I was welcome to use it as a camp spot for my van. It was there that I stayed for the autumn months before moving on to Wanaka for the winter.
The spot was perfect, a two-minute walk to the skate park and within walking distance to the town centre. That evening I took a stroll through the town and saw a busker drinking beers and collecting quite a crowd of drunken backpackers. He had a great pitch just outside one of the clubs, entertaining those who smoked. He was a bearded fella from Canada and looked something of a failed Devendra Banhart. He was improvising his lyrics to match the scene on the street, something I then took on myself when finally setting myself up a few stores down opposite Fergburger.
I played that spot nearly every night while I was in Queenstown. One evening I bumped into Nico, Briece, and Jazzy, whom I had met at the beginning of the year in Nelson. Nico and Briece were beatboxers and told me about a talent show at a bar around the corner. We went down and I jammed with the guys, hoping to make it to the next round, which I did, and attended the following week. I took part in the competition for three weeks straight, and on the last evening I met a harmonica player called Jeff Seigul from the States. He was dressed in a blue plaid shirt and recorded Little Walter riffs from his iPod into a small dictaphone and recited them until they were perfect. He was a treasure chest of harp licks, and I thought he would be the perfect accompaniment for the final of the contest. His timing was always a little slow and not the tightest, but he could really play. The performance was fantastic and we really got the crowd moving.
The show was a success and we came in second place to a local lad who took first place with covers of floor-fillers like I Need a Dollar and the likes. Not my cup of tea, but I didn’t feel hard done by. As I was packing up my equipment, I noticed a crowd at the bar with Jeff in the middle. He had bought everyone in the bar a drink, which was coming out of the prize money we had won. The applause was loud, Jeff was a star, our pockets were empty.