* Have to say I'm excited about playing Sat 12th @ Aotea Theatre with the Auckland Philharmonia (APO) and my band. We are covering a lot of ground with current tunes and rocking all the way back to my first Dudes song.
Ross Burge who dances as he plays drums is with us, as is Mareea Paterson and her amazing bass. Mark Vanilau dazzles on grand piano, guitar and vox. Guesting with the band is guitarist Harry Harrison who I worked with under super-conductor Marc Taddei and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra twice. Marc is a great conductor and vibrant talent. He engenders respect with an orchestra and aspires to excellence - plus he's one funny guy. Rehearsals are great fun - it feels a bit naked just being on the mic - you gotta move differently without the security of a guitar and heck, you have to do something with your hands. Light up your zippo and wave mumma. Slow dancing in snazzy suit. A few laughs, some tears and a rocking good time guaranteed. Thank God.
The show was nearly sold out, as of last weekend, so book'em Danno. See you all there!
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* Speaking of mothers, Mollie Eileen Dobbyn turned 80 years young yesterday and we celebrated with lashings of cake & tea. Reminiscences and song and good vibes. Well done Mum. Eighty is the new sixty you know.
* Thanks for all your letters and regards. Luv DD

One I missed 4 yz. Reposted from 27/11/2005
There is a quietness between us. That thing of the unsaid. It's a very NZ thing that at once a party may be dancing in your head and very little is spoken but we are moved - we are witness under the layers of insecurity to something we instinctively know is bigger and deserves a loud response but gets an understated acknowledgement - that subtle lifting of a man's head that says everything - respect, hello, I agree, you're welcome. I know it well and I love it about us. It deserves celebration and tonight listening side-of-stage to Little Bushman I thought how apt it is to be touring with such a team as ours. I am so proud of my band! I'm so proud of our crew! There is a quietness between us. That thing of the unsaid.
Tonight in Wanganui at the Opera House (built in 1899, the first theatre in the southern hemisphere to be electrically DC powered) the music came together in just such a celebration.
The great NZ reticence is countered by a belly of joy we all share. To witness the belly-laugh in the provinces is special and messy. I have met people on this tour that would otherwise be the ones you don't meet in the cue at a gas station. That fate would have us not meeting like we do in these generic spaces always puzzles and intrigues me - the great unsaid again.
But to confront the joy and frustration of life and herd a community into a building and catch them at their best is a big ask at the very least and ultimately, if you get it right, an event. This is rock and roll - shake it up and be present in one room together. 'If the walls could talk!' I exclaim to Fred the theatre manager. Don't mention the Scottish play his eyebrows tell me.
There are levels of intimacy that songs evoke and when it comes to the crunch I am happy to glimpse a face that says 'I just broke up with her' or 'I just lost my brother' and know that through thick and thin the songs connect us somehow.

Thanks beautiful people! Love the vibes everybody. Glad to make the music. Great to rock you with the band. Great team of travelers. Thanks for the photos and best wishes.
Will blog deeply shortly. In short:
Working on new songs - gigging with Ross Burge, Mareea Paterson, Mark Vanilau, guitartech, Lorraine Barry and Neil Patton ; Auckland Philharmonia w Marc Taddie and my band.
More UK & worldwide travel before year's end. Looks like the music is moving. I promise to get serious with the replies. Thanks for the prayers.
Also, that's not my myspace out of Oz - an enthusiast has myspaced on my behalf so between JPH, guitartech and my ears we'll find a solution and consolidate sites.
watch out for new stuff. Love and Peace and God Bless dd

Hi. This was for City Mix, an Auckland magazine.

My Auckland by DD

I live in Grey Lynn and have a habit of pointing out to my family that from the top of Williamson Ave the Waitakeres look magnificent and they never look the same twice. My wife finds this quaintly annoying and fair enough, though she would miss it if I didn’t repeat it. I love the bowl of Grey Lynn – it’s full of life and diversity. As a boy I was intrigued by the villas and the streets and my Dad’s stories of boyhood here. Back then the wilds of the Waitakeres seemed far off and rural. Not so now and comfortingly so.
Should the marvellously unpredictable Auckland weather compel us to wear one layer less in any season I’m delighted to ride to my Albert Street studio office on a 90cc scooter. The wind on Hopetoun bridge lifting my mighty steed over the interchange and swooping downtown through easily negotiable traffic – the nose pickers and cell phoners blissfully unaware of lanes and light changes, rear-view mirrors and two wheeled traffic. I have learnt and accept that we are shocking drivers and I’m resolved to waging road peace which simply involves expecting others to be rude and impatient and countering with over-politeness which has the effect of irritating the already prickly and diluting the general rage.
From my office I look across the roof of the Mexican Cafe to the tower at Sky City from which people voluntarily plummet towards a small platform on Federal Street corner. The bloodcurdling screams of jumpers soon become soothing background urban music and I do get a kick when my guests gulp and point and gasp as another body spirits past the window mid-meeting. I’ve decided it’s a great metaphor for life in such apocalyptic times that tourists rehearse their deaths from the tower of Babel. So I have an odd affection for the tower and even aim binoculars skyward to catch that last look of terror and abandon as the daring topple toward the pavement.
Much has changed over recent decades and I’m apt to think that our diversity is informative of a new culture of peace despite what the media try to panic us with. Unfortunately our architecture doesn’t reflect the worlds within us and it doesn’t speak of generations to come, but of impermanence and fabrication, cost cutting and the bottom line. Surely there are other ways and perhaps that’s why I’m an artist and not a town planner. I do believe we are on the cusp of a revolution in transport that will transform our environment for the better and allow us healthy access to the countryside for years to come without the horrors of congestion. Coupled with that, the internet revolution will manifest its community advantages in quite unexpected and very local ways. It’s already happening with people choosing to work from home, cabin or chariot to be with their loved ones longer – this can only improve and feed a culture of nurturing and the familial. I’m in love with the possibilities and yes I have a dream for Auckland and NZ and the Pacific that we might live up to the ‘pacific’ and show the world how it’s done.
My earliest memories in Glen Innes are filled with pacific island choirs and Latin masses merging across the field of St. Pius 10th Catholic school, echoing in a small boy’s ears as delicious natural harmony and easy melody. Fuel for dreams in sound that distracted and moved me and eventually preoccupied me. In Grey Lynn now I hear the same sweet sounds – like fires of hope the rituals of generations speak life into this town and I see the young moving and struggling with their own identities and cultures in the same way I did though with a different soundtrack and way more movies. The Civic Theatre was my temple of dreams and the rattling Daimler ARA bus from G.I. to town was a ship of delivery, escape and rescue from the savagery of suburbia into the delirious exotica of this theatre where my imagination was set free.
And so I have found a rich culture and a continuing education beneath the mundane and everyday and I see Auckland as an exotic place full of possibilities and adventure.
By the way, the view west from the top of Williamson Ave is a beauty. Those Waitaks never look the same twice. Amazing! Ah, Auckland! As your clouds tumble with silver linings and your waters shine with hope and belonging I’m still discovering you and when I often travel it is the returning to Auckland that gets bigger and more heartfelt………10/11/05 Dave Dobbyn

Ah the road! The road is so clear and yet it hides a multitude of sins. That there be a great grey ribbon of gravelly steel connecting us is testament to our naivety as people and security for a homesick Dad and probably the start of a great new song, poem or painting. But none of us has time and how dare my life not be dull. I love the road. I love the road in New Zealand.
The Americans developed a groovy ballpoint that could write upside down at zero gravity in space - the Russians used a pencil.
Oh good Lord I am in a state of such longing. The countryside sings, and with no mourning in her light. You are constant when all else is roadkill. I am at home moving between towns with a new song in my heart and a spring in my step.