NZ Blues legends; Billy TK Snr and Katy Soljak team up again for another Hendrix/ Joplin tribute Show. January 31st 2009 at the Woolshed, Rocky Bay on Waiheke Island, the pair and their rockin' bands will pay tribute to the greatest rock stars ever.

'The pair never performed together €” though they did appear on the same bill at giant US music festivals. But this weekend they will €” or, at least, their doppelgangers will.NZ Blues legends; Billy TK Snr and Katy Soljak team up again for another Hendrix/ Joplin tribute Show. January 31st 2009 at the Woolshed, Rocky Bay on Waiheke Island, the pair and their rockin' bands will pay tribute to the greatest rock stars ever.

'The pair never performed together €” though they did appear on the same bill at giant US music festivals. But this weekend they will €” or, at least, their doppelgangers will.New Zealand guitarist Billy "TK" Te Kahika Snr and blues vocalist Katy
Soljak have teamed up for the Are You Experienced tour, during which they
will pay tribute to both Hendrix and Joplin.

For Soljak, it will be the first time she has performed an entire show devoted to her blues heroine.

Te Kahika, however, has long laboured under the title "the Pacific Jimi
Hendrix", having developed his own distinctive guitar style at about the same time as the US artist.

It is, he says, a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it is nice to be recognised as a guitar virtuoso. On the other, Te Kahika would not like to see his own extensive back catalogue of original music buried under Hendrix comparisons.

"I try to accommodate audiences when they ask for
Hendrix songs," he told The Guide, "I really don't have a problem with that. But at the end of the day, I am me."

Te Kahika won't disclose his age €” "that's confidential information". But in 1967 he was already a young man with his own band, The Sinners, when Hendrix's innovative, distorted guitar sound hit New Zealand airwaves.

The young Maori boy from Palmerston North had heard releases from London blues/ rock band The Pretty Things and was fascinated by the distortion and guitar effects they were using.

It was around that time that he formed a friendship with the Mete family, who lived at Ratana Pa, where Te Kahika often used to visit. And it proved to be fortuitous. Ana
Mete (who later formed Wellington band The Reasons) gifted to the young guitarist a fuzz box and treble booster. The noise was about to begin.

Even before Stone Free (the flipside to Hendrix's groundbreaking single Hey
Joe) was being played in New Zealand, Te Kahika had mastered his new tools. And it was that experimentation with feedback, he says, that took him onto his four-year stint with Kiwi band Human Instinct, which released three well-received albums before
1972 when Te Kahika left the band and moved to Australia.

He has had a varied career since then, when he was hailed as "technically and melodically one of the best and most innovative guitarists of the 1970s".
His next band, Powerhouse, supported the likes of Black Sabbath, John
Mayall, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, UB40, Joe Satriani and the Neville
Brothers. In the 1980s he went on a spiritual journey that saw him working in the US. And by the 1990s he was back living in Auckland, playing gigs from a slot with Carlos Santana to recording with artists from hip hop outfit DLT to Flying Nun band King Loser.

Always, though, there have been the Hendrix covers.
Te Kahika has done Hendrix tribute shows with a full three sets of covers but, though he has played guitar for Soljak before, this is the first time he has performed with the singer in her Joplin incarnation.

When they perform in Gisborne this week he will bring his own trio of musicians while Waiheke Island-based Soljak will bring her four-piece band. Both, he says, will do a couple of sets each.

It was an idea Soljak suggested earlier this year and, though Gisborne hosts the concept's debut, Te Kahika says the response has been encouraging.

"We have had venues asking for us from all over the country so we are just going to go with it and see how it turns out," he said. "If people like it, then we may keep doing it for a while."

And the musician was pretty confident "doing it for a while" would be a pleasure.

"I played guitar for Katy when she was in Gisborne last year and we worked well together," he said. "She has a wonderful, gravelly voice that really suits the
Joplin songs."

As for himself, he says that though it has been more than 40 years since he first heard Stone Free, he never tires of the sound both he and Hendrix were experimenting with at the same time.

"There are all those really good arrangements, strong riffs, lots of wah wah and a whole lot of feedback," he said. "I've always thought that sound was beautiful and
I still do."(from Gisborne News '08)

The Jimi 'n Jan January 31st 2009

The Woolshed is transformed into a 60's nightclub with go go dancers, psychedelic light shows shots of Southern Comfort (Janis' fav drink) for the early punters.
Doors open @ 8pm.
For more info
Gala Records 09 372 3175

13/01/09