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A Surviving Bush Dance Band? The Kokatahi Band NZ


Dirge

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We have a local version of Ebay, 'Trade Me' here in NZ. It does the same job but nicely, ie without generating the venom Ebay does. I have a search running for concertina as you'd probably expect and this came up. I noticed that it is 'formerly of the Kokatahi band' and that was a new one on me, so over to Google and here they are It's a jolly site. They're mostly accordion players nowadays but there has been the odd concertina in the past, (and lots of other things). The site has lots of great 'pioneer' pictures worked into it.

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We have a local version of Ebay, 'Trade Me' here in NZ. It does the same job but nicely, ie without generating the venom Ebay does. I have a search running for concertina as you'd probably expect and this came up. I noticed that it is 'formerly of the Kokatahi band' and that was a new one on me, so over to Google and here they are It's a jolly site. They're mostly accordion players nowadays but there has been the odd concertina in the past, (and lots of other things). The site has lots of great 'pioneer' pictures worked into it.

Thanks for posting this! It's amazing that they've lasted so long.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Wow! No I had no idea there was such a group.

 

It is a wonderful website, and I love their repertoire. As you say, it is accordions today. I note from their history that they formed in 1910 to emulate the miners of half a century earlier, in the 1860s. Those miners would have been more likely to play concertinas than accordions, but by 1910 the button accordion had won out.

 

Thanks so much for posting this! Nice to know there is still some old time free reed music in NZ....so much of their contemporary 'folk' music seems to be modern songs made up about the good old days.

 

Dan

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Wow! No I had no idea there was such a group.

 

It is a wonderful website, and I love their repertoire. As you say, it is accordions today. I note from their history that they formed in 1910 to emulate the miners of half a century earlier, in the 1860s. Those miners would have been more likely to play concertinas than accordions, but by 1910 the button accordion had won out.

 

Thanks so much for posting this! Nice to know there is still some old time free reed music in NZ....so much of their contemporary 'folk' music seems to be modern songs made up about the good old days.

 

Dan

I thought you'd appreciate them; it did seem to be a remarkable hangover. My impression from the site was that they formed in 1910 more as a continuation than anything; that they'd always had the band, they just formalised it in 1910. If I got that right then lineally it is a direct descendant from mid Victorian times.

 

Would you like to have a little side bet that the "contemporary 'folk' music" types you mention look down their noses at them?

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