Latest news with #Sassafras
Otago Daily Times
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Stalwarts of bluegrass to treat town
A band hailing from the Blue Ridge Mountains, where bluegrass is firmly rooted, is coming to give Gore an authentic taste of Americana. In his slow, southern drawl, Randy Gambill said three out of the four members of his band Sassafras come from the Blue Ridge Mountain area of North Carolina. The band have been to New Zealand two times before, but not to Gore and he was always in awe of the friendships and connections he made with people through music. He spoke of playing at the Niagara Falls Bluegrass & Roots Festival on one of his visits, saying that he felt he could relate to the "really neat" locals. "These are our people, you know, they're country people, and that's what we are, you know," he said. "So we fell right in there with them." On top of bluegrass, he said the band play a mix of old country classics, like Johnny Cash, a few originals and some Western swing mixed in too, just to keep it interesting. "We go to have fun and make sure we emanate that from the stage and let everybody else have a good experience." He said where he grew up, near the mountains, was a "hotbed" for country music, where the influential Carter Family originated in the 1920s. Earl Scruggs, who originated the three-fingered way of playing a banjo which bluegrass music is based on, also grew up in North Carolina. "I was steeped in it from the start, I didn't have much of a choice, that's what was around," he said. Gambill said in their live show, between songs, the four-piece try to give a bit of background to bluegrass, how it formed and its context. "We like to give a little background on the history of the music, so they feel more connected to it," he said. He found New Zealanders were an "attentive", music loving audience, that was very keen on live music, compared to the watching-TV-at-the-same-time types that they sometimes experienced in the United States. Mr Gambill plays guitar while Ken Dowell is on banjo, Billy Gee on bass, Wes Tuttle switches from mandolin to fiddle and the group all contribute vocals. They try to give bluegrass a little twist and the odd one out, Gee, who comes from Maryland, only got hooked on playing country and bluegrass when he attended Appalachian State University in North Carolina, Gambill said. Originally a rock and roll player, Mr Gee brings a different angle to Sassafras's music, Gambill said. "I guess you could say Americana is really what we do," he said. When the guitar player spoke to The Ensign , the group were in Kaikoura and about to visit a seal colony. Gambill said when he was playing a solo gig in New Zealand around 18 months ago, a local came up and started jamming with him. This jammer became a friend, who coincidentally owned a whale watching business in Kaikoura, which the group were going to enjoy during their stay. "So, again, if it hadn't been for music, you know, I would have never met my buddy," he said. "There's music again, connecting. "Isn't it awesome?" • The band will be playing at the Bayleys Tussock Country music festival this Saturday at The Little Theatre. Doors open at 7pm. Tickets are $25 on iTicket.
Scoop
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Country Music Festival Kicks Off This Weekend In Gore
Gore is tuning up for a high-energy, star-studded celebration as Bayleys Tussock Country – New Zealand's Country Music Festival opens for the fourth year this weekend. With a packed programme of 72 events over 10 days, near sold-out shows, and visitors arriving in droves, the Southland town is primed to host one of the nation's most exciting emerging events. The festival launches with the Country Music Honours, a glittering opening night showcasing national songwriters and headliners Tami Neilson, Mel Parsons, and Barry Saunders. The evening will also welcome key representatives from across the New Zealand music industry, including NZ On Air, Recorded Music NZ, APRA AMCOS, and the New Zealand Music Commission — making it one of the most significant nights on the kiwi country music calendar. The event is all but sold out, with just a handful of tickets remaining. By Saturday, the town will be alive with music, workshops and community activity. The daytime schedule offers a range of health, songwriting and industry information workshops tailored for musicians looking to grow their craft and careers, alongside line dancing and the community welcoming event Saturday Saloon Social. And when the sun goes down, Gore will light up with a triple-header Saturday night that showcases the festival's diversity and depth. MITCHELL at the St James Theatre is a one-time, full band concert featuring a Gore musical family, the Mitchells. Led by Ron Mitchell—a farmer, Tui nominee and three-time MLT NZ Songwriting Award finalist—joined by daughters Jenny, Maegan and Nicola Mitchell. Jenny, who first caught national attention at age 14 on NZ's Got Talent, has gone on to win an Aotearoa Music Award for Best Country Artist and earn two Australian Golden Guitar nominations. She returns home from a 30-date tour with Australian country music icon Kasey Chambers to perform in this heartfelt family show. The Mitchell Twins, an award-winning duo known for their tight harmonies and connection to te ao Māori, round out the lineup. This multi-generational showcase of story and song promises to be one of the standout events of the 2025 festival. Hailing from the foothills of North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, Sassafras is bringing their infectious blend of traditional bluegrass and progressive Newgrass to Gore's Little Theatre. With deep roots in the Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs tradition and a love for pushing boundaries, Sassafras infuses their set with country, folk, western swing, and fresh originals. Their soulful musicianship and Southern charm make them a must-see act for bluegrass lovers and curious newcomers alike. Rounding out the night's entertainment, Tussock Country Late Night at the Croydon Lodge is the party event of the weekend, serving up a powerhouse lineup of southern talent with Brad Staley, Jaydin Shingleton, and The Dollys. Patrons can expect a rollicking night of foot-stomping originals and all the classic and chart-topping covers they know and love. With the amps turned up and the energy sky-high, this is the ultimate chance to dance, sing, and celebrate everything that makes Tussock Country unforgettable. Seated and early bird tickets have sold out, but general admission passes are still available online. With no vacancy signs up across the region, selected local cafés and eateries extending their hours, and Gore's streets humming with anticipation, the town is ready to welcome thousands of visitors from around the country – culminating in the MLT NZ Gold Guitar Awards 50th anniversary celebrations, set to round out the festival over Kings Birthday Weekend. 'We're witnessing this festival evolve from a local celebration to a national destination,' said Jeff Rea, Chairperson of Bayleys Tussock Country. 'This first weekend really captures what the festival is about—extraordinary talent, grassroots pride, and a whole lot of fun. Gore is ready to shine.' Bayleys Tussock Country runs from 23 May to 1 June 2025. For full programme details and ticket info, visit
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
America rejected MDMA, but Australia didn't. Here's why psychedelics have been embraced Down Under
In Sydney, Australia, Rebecca Huntley had been seeking psychiatric care on-and-off for thirty years when she heard from an otherwise straight-edged friend about her experience going through MDMA-assisted therapy. At the time, MDMA, also known as the party drug ecstasy, had been outlawed in Australia since 1987, despite research suggesting the drug can treat mental illness. But Rebecca's friend connected her with an underground therapist providing this service to a select clientele. After a rigorous vetting process, their first session took place at Rebecca's house, a quiet place surrounded by trees. 'I felt like I needed something other than what I was doing,' she told Salon. 'I was grinding my gears in terms of my mental health; I was pretty angry all the time. So I thought I'd give it a go.' 'It's like you've jumped forward in light-speed to an accelerated point in your mental health journey,' Rebecca added. 'For me, particularly the first session released an enormous amount of pain and grief and sadness that I had been spending years trying to push to the periphery of my consciousness. And the next day, after the drug was pretty much out of my system, I woke up feeling like I'd woken up in a different kind of body, a calmer body, a body that was more grounded.' After that it was a six month process, including two more trips with MDMA and follow-up integration sessions to make sense of the experience. Rebecca wrote a book, 'Sassafras,' about her journey. 'It's up there with giving birth to my three children in terms of genuinely life-changing experiences,' she said. In 2023, Australia became the first country in the world to legalize both MDMA and psilocybin-assisted psychiatric therapy, strictly under very specific conditions: MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and psilocybin (the drug in 'magic' mushrooms) for treatment-resistant depression. In the United States, the psychedelic renaissance was led by the charismatic Rick Doblin and his Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), whose groundbreaking clinical studies appeared to show astounding results in treating PTSD with MDMA. The drug can spur patients away from inhibition and anxiety, which can be useful for therapists trying to get someone to open up. Doblin believed psychedelics could change the world, and openly admitted that just like medical marijuana, psychedelic therapy was a backdoor to legalization. Over a decade ago, MAPS spun their pharmaceutical development arm into a subsidiary known as MAPS Public Benefit Corporation, later renaming it Lykos Therapeutics. But last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rejected MDMA as a prescription medication, taking issue with Lykos' scientific rigor, dashing the hopes of patients and psychonauts alike. 'I was quite frustrated at some of the questions that were being asked [at the FDA hearing] that indicated the folks asking the questions clearly didn't have a real understanding of MDMA,' Dr. Stephen Bright, a drugs expert at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia, told Salon. 'There were concerns that people might develop problems with other substances after being administered MDMA, and within the course I teach, we're teaching the students not to frame things within that disease model. So it's a bit frustrating to see a prestigious U.S. government department promoting that model.'As medicinal MDMA's future in America looks uncertain, are there any lessons to be learned from Australia? If America had Rick Doblin, then Australia has Peter Hunt and his wife, opera singer Tania de Jong, the power couple behind Mind Medicine Australia (MMA) — essentially MAPS Down Under. Hunt, a multimillionaire investment banker, was haunted by losing his father to suicide when he was thirteen. The pair were inspired to launch MMA after a shroom trip in Amsterdam. 'The experience was so powerful that we felt compelled to help support the legal development of psychedelic-assisted therapies in Australia and start a charity to ensure safe and equitable access to these transformational treatments,' Tania told Salon. Like the FDA, Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) refused to clear MDMA and psilocybin at first, turning down MMA's initial application in October 2022 on the grounds there wasn't enough evidence, potential health risks, and clandestine diversion of drugs to the black market. But just a few months later, in February, the TGA abruptly reversed course, moving MDMA from Schedule 9, for prohibited substances like heroin, to Schedule 8, a category for controlled medicines. To get this to happen, MMA mobilized an immense letter-writing campaign, flooding the TGA with over 3,000 submissions from individuals describing how the substances helped them or why they should be legal. These mainly consisted of personal, not professional, viewpoints, but apparently this was enough to sway the decision. Citing new research into psychedelic medicine, the TGA finally allowed MDMA and psilocybin in a therapeutic context. Prominent researchers like Prof. David Nutt, a renowned neuroscientist from Imperial College London, flew in to show his support. The decision was still controversial to some experts, who cautioned against rushing ahead since psychedelics aren't for everyone and some vulnerable patients might actually wind up worse after a trip. Meanwhile, skeptics accused the TGA of caving in to peer pressure ('C'mon TGA, be cool'). The TGA replied that the benefits outweighed the risks. Tania dismissed these criticisms as 'nonsense.' 'There is a lot of clinical trial evidence to support the safe and effective use of these therapies in clinical environments,' she said. 'We have an increasing mental health epidemic in Australia with an estimated 1 in 4 people suffering with mental illness. There have been no substantive innovations in mental health treatments for over 50 years. Whilst further research is important – we are financially supporting a number of innovative trials – the argument that we don't have enough data to support limited accessibility in highly supervised clinical environments is not valid given the amount of supportive evidence and the high levels of suffering.' So why has the TGA proven more flexible than the FDA? 'Our advocacy efforts focussed on a limited rescheduling of MDMA and psilocybin as unregistered medicines, whereas MAPS was pursuing registration of MDMA,' Tania explained. 'With registration in the U.S., MDMA is likely to be more widely accessible for PTSD and able to be used off label for other relevant mental illnesses where there is research support for this, whereas in Australia MDMA, as an unregistered medicine, is available only for PTSD patients and psychiatrists must apply for a permit to become an 'authorized prescriber.' By pursuing a limited rescheduling, we were able to support limited access for those most in need, while the evidence base continues to grow to support wider scale accessibility.' This model, according to Tania, is more restrictive than what was proposed in the States, but allowing each clinician to prescribe at their discretion. But only those blessed by an ethics committee may become authorized prescribers. 'Most psychiatrists don't have the sort of experience with research to be able to write a protocol that's going to be approved by an ethics committee, which is why it's really limited how many authorized prescribers there are in Australia,' Bright explained. As a result, rollout has been slow — with the first-ever non-research medical prescription for 180mg of MDMA only written by a Melbourne doctor in January last year — and it came with an expensive price tag. Clarion Clinics, Australia's first private psychedelic therapy centre that opened in February last year, charges an eye-popping 27,000 Australian dollars (approx. $16,500 USD) for a full nine-month course, well out-of-reach for most Aussies. Medical marijuana too is legal in Australia, but so prohibitively priced that 78% of patients still score from dealers. 'I worry that people who are unwell aren't going to be able to access it — and desperate people will do desperate things,' said Bright. 'My worry is that people will access these treatments either in an underground setting or try a DIY approach, and that could potentially result in harm. We've actually seen a significant increase in calls to the poisons hotline related to MDMA and other psychedelics.' Recreational molly is still illegal in Australia, manufactured or imported by crime syndicates like the 'Ndrangheta, mafia clans from southern Italy who made their riches in Australia's drug game by growing weed in the Outback. In 2016, Pasquale Barbaro, the scion of a mob family behind a plot to smuggle a whopping 15 million ecstasy pills weighing 4.4 tonnes hidden in tins of peeled tomatoes, was gunned down by a biker gang while leaving a friends' house in Sydney. And since the drugs are prohibited, there's no telling what's inside and they often mixed with other substances: recently, partygoers at festivals have been victims of nitazene poisoning, a synthetic opioid. 'I think the early evidence is that it can be, again, life changing, so I'm very excited,' said Rebecca. 'But I've got to say there's some trepidation about how it's going to go and who's going to have access to it. And of course, there's a massive underground … My therapist who I worked with is just top-notch; so good, so diligent, so professional … But there are people who aren't. There are people who aren't really doing the due diligence, aren't really working out whether the person that they're treating is ready for the therapy.' There are also efforts to bring down the cost. 'MMA has set up a patient support fund to help those in need who can't otherwise afford the treatment with up to 50% of upfront costs for the therapy program being covered by the Fund,' Tania said. 'Additionally, we're seeing funders begin to support the therapies. Work Cover and the NDIS have subsidised treatment for some patients, the Department of Veterans' Affairs has announced that they will begin assessing applications for funding by the end of March 2025, and multiple private health insurers are preparing pilot programs for their members.' Another company, Emyria, is offering free MDMA-assisted therapy trials to first responders grappling with PTSD. Another danger that could arise is a moral panic. The media certainly has the incentive to sensationalize drug use, followed by calls to ban this 'sick filth,' but prohibition certainly offers no solutions to the mental health crisis or actually stops drug use. In 2001, a supervised injection facility run by Australia's Uniting Church opened in King's Cross, Sydney — a district at the epicentre of the overdose crisis, claiming 10% of all deaths nationwide. This was a place where narcotic consumers could safely inject under the supervision of trained medical staff. Anyone overdosing can be instantly attended to. A few years later, a newspaper splashed images of dozens of syringes littering the street over its front page. It turned out that the used needles actually belonged to the owners of a diabetic cat named Trotsky, who'd momentarily left their rubbish unattended only for it to spill over and be photographed by reporters. 'I'm largely very positive, but of course as we know with these things, there's so much stigma around the drug and so much bullshit around mental health, that it could all unravel,' Rebecca reflected. 'I feel like the world is looking at us and saying, you know, how might Australia do it? And so I really don't want us to f**k it up!'
