Concert Review: A Dog With No Hat – Audio Foundation June 13, 2020

The folks at Audio Foundation brought their intimate venue in Central Auckland back to life last night with a trio known as A Dog With No Hat.

I must admit, after spending the past few months listening to the likes of Neil, Patti, Bob, Marianne and Leonard, I felt like listening to something a bit off the beaten track.The folks at Audio Foundation and their basement venue on Poynton Terrace in the CBD have been presenting alternative, challenging music and performances for quite a while, and it had been some time since I attended one of their shows.

On offer was a trio calling themselves A Dog With No Hat, comprised of Hermoine Johnson on prepared piano, Ro Rushton-Green on sax and violin and “Drummy” on…drums and percussion.

The performance space at Audio Foundation is small…holding maybe 40 or 50 people…but comfortable and funky. It a different crowd than you would meet at say, Whammy or Ding Dong, but its another community of music lovers and I felt right at home.

Self-described as making improvised music, A Dog With No Hat performed two sets, each about 30-40 minutes in duration. The first set was the more challenging of the two, lots of noise…a cacophony of sound.

I must say I have never seen a pianist play like Hermoine Johnson played. Both hands were a blur as she ran up and down the keyboard. There were times when she literally threw herself against the front of the piano to make the desired noise.

Ro Rushton-Green really shone during the second set, beginning with a solo piece on violin before being joined by her bandmates. Later in the piece she took up her baritone sax and then the soprano sax. “Drummy” filled out the sound with his percussive interjections from his kit and the metal strips that hung down around the set, waiting to be whacked.

The second set seemed a bit less noisy and a bit more traditional in structure than set one.

At the end of the two sets, the audience…the show was well attended…remained seated, as if they needed some time to absorb what they heard and saw. It was loud, it was visceral and it was different, just what I needed.

Marty Duda