ANDREW TIDBALL.

"... BASICALLY I GET TO MAKE A LIVING FROM LISTENING TO MUSIC"

ANDREW TIDBALL RUNS AUCKLAND BASED MUSIC WEBSITE CHEESEONTOAST.CO.NZ, HE ALSO DJS, PRESENTS RADIO SHOWS(FLEET FM AND GEORGE FM) AND CO HOSTS "EAVESDROP" ON ALTERNATE WEDNESDAY NIGHTS AT THE WINE CELLAR, ON K ROAD.

ME: WHAT DID YOU DO BEFORE YOU WERE "CHEESE ON TOAST HEAD HONCHO GUY?

ANDREW TIDBALL:I was a team manager of 12 staff at a government department working my way to an early grave doing a job I hated, actually.

ME:WHY THE NAME "CHEESE ON TOAST"?

ANDREW TIDBALL:It actually comes from a line in Witness by Roots Manuva "I sit here more contented then most eating my cheese on toast" but also just simply, I wanted a name that didn't really mean anything but was something easy for people to remember and everyone loves some cheese on toast after they get home from a late night at a gig don't they?

ME: HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE WHAT "CHEESE ON TOAST" IS?

ANDREW TIDBALL:I dunno, fundamentally it *is* just a website. But I get jokingly stroppy when people mistakenly call it a blog. No disrespect to blogs;(ME: GLAD YOU ADDED THAT!) there are some really good ones. But Cheese on Toast is not a blog. Somehow I seem to have become almost synonymous with the website, so things that I do now, seem to be branded Cheese on Toast as well - which is great. I'm really proud of the site and being able to use it as a vehicle to do some really awesome stuff, like recently putting on that gig for Amnesty International and raising $6300 for them! That was pretty cool.

ME: YOU DJ AS WELL...

ANDREW TIDBALL: I do a residency at Cassette which is kinda targeted at the 'travelers community' - which I'd say some people might think is not very 'cool' or whatever, but I really enjoy it - its' good fun.For me club DJing and, say radio DJing are quite different kettle of fish. DJing at a club or a party, for me, is all about getting people to dance. It's perhaps a cliche, but truly, watching someone dance to their favorite song is one of the best things in the world - and when DJing a club and party and you bust out a track and you can hear an audible whoop of approval - that's freaking awesome. Also, obviously, there is a great satisfaction when someone comes up and asks you the name of a track you were playing that they hadn't heard before - like you're managing to spread the love of new music with people.I co-run QUAY STREET SOCIAL CLUB with my dear friend Bex and we both have a DJ ethos of "bringing the mofo'ing party" - music, when DJed at a club should, I think, be principally about having fun - so yeah, in that environment it's about playing fun party tunes - one's you love, or didn't know you loved till just then!I like to mix up styles and genres in a DJ set - like little journeys, taking you from old-school rave a la The Prodigy to the latest track from, oh I dunno, La Roux, to some hip hop, to The Strokes to James Brown and back again. I'll even drop Lady Gaga if the mood is right! I co-run a 'sit-down and appreciate new music club night' called The Eavesdrop too - which is really awesome for sharing new music. My favorite story from Eavesdrop is the time when this couple came along quite randomly and had no idea what they had come to, and perhaps seemed a little skeptical of us - let's just say that they seemed fairly conservative, but they gave it a shot. Anyway, they won a prize (we give prizes away of what you're listening to) of a copy of a Sigur Ros album. They came back the following fortnight with the widest smiles and thanked my friend and I for the prize and introducing them to Sigur Ros - they said that they had spent all week tracking down everything they could by Sigur Ros and that the music 'had changed their lives'. That was incredible. I'll never forget that and how happy that made me.

ME: BEST THING ABOUT RUNNING CHEESE ON TOAST?

ANDREW TIDBALL:It's an absolute honor to be doing it every day and to be making a living from it (albeit, perhaps to some people, a modest one). I can say that, basically, I get to make a living from listening to music. Everyone says you should make a career doing something you love, but really, how many people are that fortunate. I consider myself very fortunate to be doing this. The best thing is the amazing, wonderfully talented people that I get to meet and hang out with. Also, I love the commute to work, my front room is my office.

ME: MOST TEDIOUS THING ABOUT RUNNING CHEESE ON TOAST?

ANDREW TIDBALL: Hahah... umm probably the paperwork.

ME: MUSICAL STUFF YOU ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO, IN THE NEXT SIX MONTHS?

ANDREW TIDBALL:That's actually a hard question to answer, I like the surprises mostly. I like discovering a new band right on my doorstep who are totally incredibly and I would have never predicted would exist. Or clicking a link and jumping to another and the suddenly before you know it, you're listening to something amazing. I look forward to the next six days more than the next six months, in that regard! But that said, I have some exciting things planned for the following six months - including releasing a new 7" record with two local bands on each one (one side each) - one a month for the next six months. Oh, and there's some exciting rumors of upcoming tours and maybe even festivals heading our way. In that regard I think Auckland's incredible - we get some really amazing and interesting acts playing here more and more these days - and because of our relatively small size, we get to see them in pretty intimate venues - we're very lucky like that.