Radio Active 89FM NZ Music Show : 16 March, 2004 Got a call about tea-time from one of the Active crew informing me that there was to be a live-to-air from local act the Inkling on the show tonight, and then an interview afterwards, and would I (and Jules) be cool with handling all that? Well, my one experience with handling a live-to-air involved hitting one button at the appropriate moment, and then the same button again when the band had finished, so that seemed well within my realms of ability. I'd never done an interview before, but, well, I've been in bands, been interviewed myself, so how hard could it be? "No worries," I said.

We arrived nice and early, so as to make sure we were on top of the technical side of things, which, as I'd surmised, was as simple as fading in the feed from the studio downstairs, and then cutting them out again when they announced the end of their set. The only real problem was letting them know when to start. There is no intercom or suchlike between RadioActive and Marmalade Studios, so the plan was to ring them up about a minute before they were due to start, and give them a countdown. All very sophisticated.

The live-to-air was due to start at about 9:15, so we kicked into the show as per usual. The previous host wrapped up his set and told us that he'd done a 'technically perfect' show, a rare thing for him. Jules and I vowed we would try to follow suit, and then instantly proceeded to forget to turn off our mics on our first voice break, rambling inanely over our first track of the night. We queued up some ads to give us some breathing space before calling the studio, and then, typical, just as Ju went to pick up the phone to call the studio, we got a call. Minor panic as our countdown was but a minute or so away, and I had visions of another 'hippy van' discussion, but, thankfully, it was just someone wanting to be buzzed in downstairs so they could get to the studio ("Probably their singer," I jested), so, with them through the door, we rang the studio, gave them a few vague time-to-go indicators, and, when we got to 10 seconds, realised that it was actually more like 20, but heard them start after 10 anyway, leading to a very subtle fade-in of the performance...

...which was fantastic. The Inkling do a nice turn on post-rock instrumental jazz noodlings, a la Tortoise, maybe a touch of Sigur Ros or Mogwai - all dynamics and clever playing. Luke from indie rockers Paseload plays keys, Phil of the now defunct garage-rock outfit Two Lane Black Top is on the drum stool, and the rest of them all seem to be self-taught musical legends.

After that, we had my (and perhaps their) first ever interview. Chaos ensued.
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