Photographer Max Oettli's first show

My first show was in 1970 at the Wynyard Tavern, and as so often happens with first-time shows I put in everything, something like 70 photographs. A big and quite messy show. When I first met John Turner a little later, and we got to be friends, he said to me cheerfully, and quite rightly, that I was all over the place. He was doing systematic, careful documentary stuff, setting up shots on a large-format 4 x 5 camera. Me, one evening I'd be out photographing the moon, the next day walking along the street, or in the bush, and the next in the middle of a pub.

The title of the exhibition, Visible Evidence, was what held it together in my mind. I had this idea there was a sacred thing out there called reality. It was our job to record it: we were tributaries to it, rather than being able to modify it. This came from Cartier-Bresson, from Walker Evans, the whole puritanical tradition. For my generation this was tied up with the personal. We are at once out there documenting but we are not in any way disinterested. We are actually engaged. Engagement means it does involve things like relationships and love and art and various other of the big words. But I didn't like it when Cornell Capa and company came up with the International Fund for Concerned Photography. Of course we're bloody concerned, why else do it? I could see the need for it. I could see the need for someone like Don McCullin to photograph the horrors of war. But I can't look at McCullin without becoming very uneasy. Which is what I'm meant to be experiencing, but I feel manipulated after a while, as well.

I've always had a more distanced relationship to reality. I remember visiting some people who were in a commune or whatever the hell they called them in those days. All these earnest hairy people wandering about. Going into the kitchen, there were two drawers in the kitchen. One was marked 'wooden beings' and the other was marked 'metal beings'. I suddenly said to myself, 'Oh shit, I can't do this'. I just couldn't any more. The whole New Age thing. New Zealand gets incredibly earnest about things, which is an endearing quality. Occasionally I think we end up losing it in the fluff and I couldn't do that.

- Max Oettli, in Athol McCredie's The New Photography: New Zealand's first-generation contemporary photographers, Wellington, 2019, p.97 

Now my mind is rearranged

Thursday music corner: The Beat is an English ska-punk group formed in Birmingham in 1978 that released three studio albums during its initial heyday from 1978 until its members split in 1983. Their first two albums, I Just Can't Stop It (1980) and Wha'ppen? (1981) both reached number 3 in the UK albums chart. Their third, Special Beat Service (1982) reached only 21 in the UK, but cracked the top 40 in the US albums chart, reaching number 39. The Beat had eight UK top 40 singles, with their 1983 single, the Doc Pomus-written Can't Get Used to Losing You, being the most successful, reaching number 3. Their second single, 1980's Hands Off... She's Mine topped the singles charts in Ireland. The Beat reformed temporarily in 2003, and permanently since 2006.

Twist and Crawl was a double A-side single with Hands Off... She's Mine, and also appeared on The Beat's first album. 

The Beat - Twist & Crawl (1980)

See also:

Music: The Beat - Save It For Later (1982)

Music: The Clash feat. Ranking Roger - Rock the Casbah (1981)

Music: Fun Boy Three - The Telephone Always Rings (1982)

Since that moment of bliss, that thrilling kiss

Thursday music corner: Jazz vocalist Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones in Alabama in 1924, moved to Chicago as a child and won talent shows in her teenage years. Playing the same regular Chicago club gig as Billie Holiday, she took on a more distinctive stage name suggested by the club owner, and was headhunted by Lionel Hampton for his band. Recording from the mid-1940s, Washington had chart hits from 1944 and her public acclaim grew through the 1950s. She released dozens of solo albums, and five of her singles topped the US R&B charts: Am I Asking Too Much (1948), Baby Get Lost (1949), Baby (You've Got What It Takes) and A Rockin' Good Way (To Mess Around And Fall In Love) (both with Brook Benton, 1960), and This Bitter Earth (1960). She died in in Detroit in 1963, aged 39.

What a Diff'rence a Day Makes was written in 1934 by Mexican songwriter María Grever, and an English version was released in the same year by both Harry Roy & his Orchestra, and the Dorsey Brothers featuring Bob Crosby (younger brother of Bing). Washington's 1959 version appeared as the title track on her tenth studio album. The single won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.     

Dinah Washington - What a Diff'rence a Day Makes (1959)

See also:

Music: Dinah Washington - Baby Get Lost (1949)

Music: Brook Benton - So Many Ways (1959)

Music: Billie Holiday - Trav'lin' Light (1942)

Don't need a stranger to tell me that my baby's let me down

Thursday music corner: Storied American country singer-songwriter Emmylou Harris (b. Alabama, 1947) has released 22 studio albums since her 1970 debut Gliding Bird, with her most recent solo album being 2011's Hard Bargain. Fourteen of her albums have reached the top 10 of the US Country album chart, and she has five US Country chart-topping singles: Together Again and Sweet Dreams (both 1976), Two More Bottles of Wine (1978), Beneath Still Waters (1980) and (Lost His Love) On Our Last Date (1982). She has won 14 Grammy awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

The hard-driving country boogie Luxury Liner is the title and opening track of Harris' fourth album, released in December 1976. The track, an ode to the long-distance tour bus, features Harris' Hot Band in its prime, and was written by Gram Parsons. The album is best remembered for including the first cover version of Townes Van Zandt's Pancho & Lefty, and it featured Harris' cover of Chuck Berry's (You Never Can Tell) C'est la Vie as its first single.

Emmylou Harris - Luxury Liner (1976) 

See also:

Music: Emmylou Harris - (You Never Can Tell) C'est la Vie (live, 1977)

Music: Gram Parsons w/ Emmylou Harris - Ooh Las Vegas (1974)

Music: Townes Van Zandt - Pancho & Lefty (1972)

Here she comes like a child with a gun

Thursday music corner: Irish alternative singer-songwriter Gavin Friday, whose 67th birthday it is today, performed with Dublin punk outfit the Virgin Prunes from 1977 until 1986. The Prunes released two studio albums and seven singles before disbanding. Friday, now solo, went on to release six solo albums and 10 singles. He has worked extensively in film, appearing on nine soundtracks including Short Cuts, In the Name of the Father, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, Mission: Impossible, and Moulin Rouge. He has also contributed to four film scores including working with Quincy Jones on Get Rich or Die Tryin'.

Little Black Dress appeared on Friday's third solo album, Shag Tobacco, released in 1995. It includes guest backing vocals from U2's Bono and The Edge; Friday had met Bono at a north Dublin teenage house party circa 1973 and remained close friends. 

Gavin Friday - Little Black Dress (1995)

See also:

Music: Virgin Prunes - Pagan Lovesong (1982) 

Music: Bono & Gavin Friday - In the Name of the Father (1994)

Music: Gavin Friday - Angel (1995)

Sing in the darkness, dance to dawn

Thursday music corner: British singer-songwriter Anna Calvi was born in London in 1980. She has released three albums, four EPs and 11 singles since 2010, with all her albums reaching the top 40 of the UK albums chart. Her first self-titled album, released in 2011, received nominations for a Mercury Prize and a Brit Award, while her second and third albums, One Breath (2013) and Hunter (2018) were also nominated for Mercurys. 

The Joy Division-esque Is This All There Is appeared on an EP of the same name released by Calvi in March 2026. It also appeared as the closing theme to Joanna Hogg's 2021 drama, The Souvenir Part II, featuring Honor Swinton Byrne, daughter of Tilda Swinton.

Anna Calvi - Is This All There Is? (2026)

See also:

Music: Anna Calvi - Eliza (live, 2013)

Music: Anna Calvi - Fire (Bruce Springsteen cover, 2013)

Music: Anna Calvi & David Byrne - Strange Weather (2014)