DAVID & OTIS

Rip It Up, Issue 165, 1 April 1991, Page 6

DAVID & OTIS

David Eggleton, satirical stand-up poet, and Otis Mace, singer-songster, are off on a national tour this month. The pair intend to take the low roads, zeroing in on hicksville New Zealand, performing hayseed drinking holes alongside art galleries and flaying a few of those sacred cows along the way.

What sort of cows? David: “There are so many things which are up for demolition now in this country, all kinds of vested inferest groups and points of view. I'm the spoken part of the show and Ofis sort of sings, he’s the heartfelt, emotional part - I'm kind of a realist poet commenting on things people would rather not hear about.” Like? “Monetarism,” suggests Otis, “the idea of the trickle down factor.” A tricky subject to tackle in a song, he concedes. “You have to skirt round the edges. If you make a song that's too much of a direct political comment it often won't work, and you're preaching to the converted. It's easier to satirise certain ideas than go at them direct.” Oftis Mace is well known in Auckland to a small but

ever-expanding group of admirers who have seen his solo show at the Globe or grooved to one of his idiosyncratic cassette releases, featuring songs with titles like ‘Revenge of the 500,000 Tonne Baby’, ‘Horror Show Blues', or ‘Psychic Pet Healers'. David Eggleton (who last year held the prestigious Burns Fellow seat at Otago University) comes equipped with a CV as long as your arm listing all the books he's published, the anthologies and magazines he'’s appeared in and the films and videos he's materialised in. He traces his roots back to the alternative cabaret scene of the early 'Bos which spawned groups like the Plague and individuals like Don McGlashan who, he says, “actually had something to say”, while he describes his populist

approach to poetry as “trying to talk to anyone who's prepared to listen.” Is his writing method equally spontaneous? “A lot of my work is spontaneous, alot of it's worked out. Poetry for me is something | approach quite seriously. I've always got different points I'm trying to make, some of them work and some of them don't, like having read poetry in public for ten years or so you start fo realise some things will never get across but you keep on persevering anyway. Most abstract subjects don't really go down well with some audiences but | enjoy talking about them. “My poetry is quite interested in the human side of things. | was reading the other day about pre-menopausal male lactation. That’s potentially the starting point for a poem. Things like that, just something you see out of the corner of youreye.” Like when you're reading the Heralde ' “Well, the Heraldis one of these monster publications which goes from strength to sirength. There are actually very few of them left because most things in New Zealand which are institutions have all been turned upside down in the 'Bos, everything’s been destabilised - and kind of whirling around in this great big blender and coming out in some other bizarre form, whereas the Herald'is still quite staunch in its conservative patch. There are very few things like that, things have kind of been subverted from within, so what are satirists left withe Ifs as if the satirising’s going on within these institutions themselves so the satirist ends up satirising himself.” David and Ofis are taking their separate acts and complementary senses of humour to a town near you so check out this spontaenous eruption of indigenous vocal talent for yourselves. Then its overseas again for David as he hitches a ride on the international poetry circuit. Ofis, keep penning those winsomely macabre tunes.

DONNA YUZWALK