Too Many Chiefs celebrate songwriting and share stories from the many roads they've travelled, and bring a musical blend of influences and styles, ranging from blues and jazz to country and folk, all infused with an element of social commentary, personal reflection and occasional gentle satire.
Best known for his Hot Club Sandwich trio and now touring and recording under his own name, London's reputation stands mostly on his satirical and comedic songs, which lampoon many of New Zealand society's obsessions, foibles and taboos.
Songs like Let's Talk About Me, Country's Buggered and Speed Up at the Overtaking Lane have elicited chuckles of recognition from local and international audiences at festival performances from Norfolk Island to Saudi Arabia.
London's songwriting has contributed to a Correspondence School English syllabus, National Radio's Greatest Song Ever Written, several feature films, and more than a dozen recorded albums, two of which have received 4-star reviews from Downbeat USA, the world's longest-standing and most widely read jazz magazine.
Joass is well-known to many music fans throughout New Zealand through his work with Hobnail, The Shot Band, The Hard Core Troubadours and Too Many Chiefs.
He writes compulsively, tours incessantly, teaches guitar, produces albums, and can be found behind a mixing desk live and in the studio when time allows.
His songs have been covered by artists in NZ and abroad, and he is a three-time finalist at the NZ Music Awards.
Hobnail are working on their seventh album, and Joass has just released his latest solo album and a Hobnail album celebrating 25 years.
Mason, a long-time traveller in the NZ music scene, known and loved from his time with Rocking Horse, the Fourmyula, and the Warratahs to name but a few, currently works with five touring line-ups.
Honoured for having written the song of the millennium Nature, Mason is a prolific writer with 16 albums to his name.
He is working on a "best of" which will pull together his favourite tunes from the past 50 years, and will add a few that are new loves.
Mason's tunes embody the landscape of NZ and are rich with images from his journeys on road, cycle and rail - steam train that is.
Collins tours with her band, the Back Porch Blues Band. At the heart of her music is entertainment.
Collins likes to move between ballsy blues and beautiful ballads and hand out the banter in between.
She's got five albums to her name, the latest This Train, captures the joyous energy of her blues band and the combination of "old hands" who have been making music a long time.
The band revels in playing.
Too Many Chiefs play the Bent Horseshoe (Hokowhitu Bowling Club), 279 Albert St, December 5, $20 on the door, show starts 7.30pm.
