July 13, 2026 • 9 mins
Coast to Coast founder Robin Judkins joined Canterbury Mornings ahead of his new album, I'm a Slut for a Beat, that recently released.
The album is composed of a collection of poems transformed into songs and brought to life by a heavyweight cast of local musicians and songwriters.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talks B.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning, John, I've got a question for you. How
do you go from running the Coast to Coast to
making a record?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
You go, it's a learning care, very rapid learning care
of Octavia. Yeah, but what you do, it's the same
thing about the Coast to Ghost and the record is
that you put your trust in other people. So you
choose really good people. So for example the album, the
Ryan Fisherman is the engineer and he is Marlon William's
(00:42):
favorite engineer as well, and with also my faith and
Adam Hadaway as the as the musical director. Man. Once,
once you put your faith in someone else, it's great.
You just relax and say I'll be at the time
on the spot.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yes, So just I mean, just to explain the album,
but basically it's a it's a bunch of songs based
on poems that you've written over the years. So what's
it like having other people take your words and turn
them into songs.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
It's absolutely fantastic. First time that it occurred was two
years ago when I did a musical called wrote a
musical called Free Bus to God. And showed it at
the town hall. It was fantastic when I first heard
the singers reproducing the lyrics. Man and then this time
(01:33):
around where I gave I wrote a book called on
a Flat for a Beat with forty new songs in it.
It's a bit of a dag and I gave it
with I gave it to ten singers in the music
scene to the sea they could make up these. I
(01:56):
gave them a night to look at it, one evening
to look at it, and to call me the next
morning with their top three. Everybody got their first choice
and then their second and third choices. We're pretty much
the songs that other people had picked as their first choices,
so only had to do four more and we had
covered a lot. We recorded sixteen songs sixteen of my
(02:20):
songs in January this year and then produced the album
which I's got thirteen of the songs on it.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Wow. So once they've chosen the song and allocated them,
how long did they have to write it?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Well, in some cases they wrote it that night and
London above them was a classic example. I asked him
to come round of my house. I gave him the
list of songs and said they have a look at
these and come back to me tomorrow and pick your first,
you know. And he came back that night and said,
look I've done mine.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Wow, wow hear it.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Well, they to me the next morning and played it
even more beautifully to me.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, I've said I've seen I've seen him describe as
one of the hardest Wigan guys in music in New
Zealand and that just shows it.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Oh, I don't. Oh, he constantly is working. He's brilliant
actually very nice to be around. Talk one hundred to one,
but he's talks a lot of things as well.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Well, your big good company together, wouldn't you're talking one
hundred to one.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
You've got to fight to get a word it.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, you need a referee. You've also written, You've written
four books as well. Do you think that despite all
that people most people still think of you as the
coast to coast guy?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Oh? Absolutely, still. I mean it's amazing that how I
still get recognized for that, even though it's over twelve
years now, it since I stopped. It's yeah, it's good.
I mean it's very pleasing. And then I'm able to
talk to them and they always ask me, so what
are you doing now? And then I tell them, well,
you know, I put his album out, We've got a
few books out, and try to do something else with something,
(03:55):
and they're very interested, and they always don't want to
know NFA are super interested. I'll make a note of it.
I'll keep their name and their email address, and I'll
send them out something on the when the next one
comes in, next something or other comes up and they
turn up to watch it.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I mean, as well as turn your own stuff, you're
also you're a big supporter of the arts as well,
aren't you.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah. That goes way back to nineteen eighty eighty two
when I started to support the arts here, art being
at that time just music, and then more recently I've
added the other arts, writing the stage arts, and also
(04:39):
carving and painting and sculpting and all sorts of stuff.
Actually it's just about everything really, I mean covers poetry
as well. But it has to be something that I
only support things that I think have a real chance
of success. So I'm quite not everyone who looks for
support get them. Yeah. I really like helping those who
(05:02):
are prepared to help themselves a bit help themselves. I
don't give any further support from me.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
That's fair enough to I mean, I was I was
reading that. I didn't quite realize this, that you've you've
had fifteen heart attacks in pretty much the past twenty years.
But it seems to me that you have the energy
of someone much younger than seventy seven. What what keeps
you going?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Oh? I think it's my mother realier. She lived to
one hundred and eight, and she had She was fully
accomplishmentus right the way through, and you know, those sort
of genes are carrying on with me. Unfortunately, I also
got my bad of the jeans. He tried at fifty
four of hard of these, so you know heard of
these complicateds.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Well, hold on, hold on, you've passed the halfway mark
between the two of them, haven't you.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
I think you find out No, no, no, no, my locativity,
I've worked it out. I think I have to. Well,
Mama lived to hundred and eighty, got he lived to
fifty four, She got twice the life of him.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I'm hoping that if I can get to eighty two
or eighty three, I'll be about that way back between
those two.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
All right, okay then, but just on the coast to coast.
Were you a sporty guy or was it just an
event that you that you started and organized.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
No, it's into sport from the age of fifteen, although
much earlier than that was rugby of course, but now
I got away from the team sports and into skiing
and then ski racing when I was fifteen and carried
on doing that ski racing until I was fifty seven.
I skied my last competitive downhill when I was fifty
seven at current at peak. And yes, skiing was my
(06:42):
sport and then and I took it to the end
three D because I became a ski racer and then
a ski patroller, and then ski patrol leader and then
ski instructor and then ski area general manager and bought
bought the area O House ski Field with Mike and
(07:04):
Wilson way back in the eighties and then brought in
a whole bunch of mates and developed that ski area Again. Yes,
I stayed in the skiing all my life, and then
I got into kayaking in nineteen seventy nine when I
returned from Europe and Australia. I've been living overseas for
eight years working for multinationals and marketing, and so I
(07:27):
came back to New Zealand settler and Wyka and got
straight back into skiing and then picked up kayaking. Wow,
what a buzz water buzz. It was exactly exactly the
same buzz at ski racing. And so I started the
kayaking business down there, Moto Tapu Canoes from the outset
in nineteen eighty since I got the start of that
(07:49):
pretty much by Christmas. And then we sold that in
nineteen eighty three and moved to christ Church and then
carried on with coast to coast really and that became
my life. I'm thirty four two years to present, to
make it work, to get it off the ground, and
in thirty four years at the Helm, and that was
(08:09):
about me. Wowney contributed them to the attacks for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Hey, another person listened to us and want to note,
are you doing any gigs?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Oh, are you doing any gigs? Yeah? Well I love it, yes, yes, yes, right,
we've got one coming up. And he talks to end
of the year, a big one in the town, all right,
and hopefully the town halls, the theater, world town hall
or something of that size.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Brilliant.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
The good that we had two weeks ago at the
Loons was far too small, and we sold out a
week and a half before the show itself, and so
we need to you know, Yeah, we did big.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
It was a stadium down the right.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
The stadium down the road. I wonder what that think
of he's sitting in this dady out there for a beat.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Anyway, Well we'll we'll sort something out. Brilliant, brilliant to
talk to you and all the very best with the album.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, thanks very much.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Good For more from Category Mornings with John McDonald, listen
live to news talks at be Christchurch from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talks B.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good morning, John, I've got a question for you. How
do you go from running the Coast to Coast to
making a record?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
You go, it's a learning care, very rapid learning care
of Octavia. Yeah, but what you do, it's the same
thing about the Coast to Ghost and the record is
that you put your trust in other people. So you
choose really good people. So for example the album, the
Ryan Fisherman is the engineer and he is Marlon William's
(00:42):
favorite engineer as well, and with also my faith and
Adam Hadaway as the as the musical director. Man. Once,
once you put your faith in someone else, it's great.
You just relax and say I'll be at the time
on the spot.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yes, So just I mean, just to explain the album,
but basically it's a it's a bunch of songs based
on poems that you've written over the years. So what's
it like having other people take your words and turn
them into songs.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
It's absolutely fantastic. First time that it occurred was two
years ago when I did a musical called wrote a
musical called Free Bus to God. And showed it at
the town hall. It was fantastic when I first heard
the singers reproducing the lyrics. Man and then this time
(01:33):
around where I gave I wrote a book called on
a Flat for a Beat with forty new songs in it.
It's a bit of a dag and I gave it
with I gave it to ten singers in the music
scene to the sea they could make up these. I
(01:56):
gave them a night to look at it, one evening
to look at it, and to call me the next
morning with their top three. Everybody got their first choice
and then their second and third choices. We're pretty much
the songs that other people had picked as their first choices,
so only had to do four more and we had
covered a lot. We recorded sixteen songs sixteen of my
(02:20):
songs in January this year and then produced the album
which I's got thirteen of the songs on it.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Wow. So once they've chosen the song and allocated them,
how long did they have to write it?
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Well, in some cases they wrote it that night and
London above them was a classic example. I asked him
to come round of my house. I gave him the
list of songs and said they have a look at
these and come back to me tomorrow and pick your first,
you know. And he came back that night and said,
look I've done mine.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Wow, wow hear it.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Well, they to me the next morning and played it
even more beautifully to me.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, I've said I've seen I've seen him describe as
one of the hardest Wigan guys in music in New
Zealand and that just shows it.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Oh, I don't. Oh, he constantly is working. He's brilliant
actually very nice to be around. Talk one hundred to one,
but he's talks a lot of things as well.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Well, your big good company together, wouldn't you're talking one
hundred to one.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
You've got to fight to get a word it.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, you need a referee. You've also written, You've written
four books as well. Do you think that despite all
that people most people still think of you as the
coast to coast guy?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Oh? Absolutely, still. I mean it's amazing that how I
still get recognized for that, even though it's over twelve
years now, it since I stopped. It's yeah, it's good.
I mean it's very pleasing. And then I'm able to
talk to them and they always ask me, so what
are you doing now? And then I tell them, well,
you know, I put his album out, We've got a
few books out, and try to do something else with something,
(03:55):
and they're very interested, and they always don't want to
know NFA are super interested. I'll make a note of it.
I'll keep their name and their email address, and I'll
send them out something on the when the next one
comes in, next something or other comes up and they
turn up to watch it.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I mean, as well as turn your own stuff, you're
also you're a big supporter of the arts as well,
aren't you.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Yeah. That goes way back to nineteen eighty eighty two
when I started to support the arts here, art being
at that time just music, and then more recently I've
added the other arts, writing the stage arts, and also
(04:39):
carving and painting and sculpting and all sorts of stuff.
Actually it's just about everything really, I mean covers poetry
as well. But it has to be something that I
only support things that I think have a real chance
of success. So I'm quite not everyone who looks for
support get them. Yeah. I really like helping those who
(05:02):
are prepared to help themselves a bit help themselves. I
don't give any further support from me.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
That's fair enough to I mean, I was I was
reading that. I didn't quite realize this, that you've you've
had fifteen heart attacks in pretty much the past twenty years.
But it seems to me that you have the energy
of someone much younger than seventy seven. What what keeps
you going?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Oh? I think it's my mother realier. She lived to
one hundred and eight, and she had She was fully
accomplishmentus right the way through, and you know, those sort
of genes are carrying on with me. Unfortunately, I also
got my bad of the jeans. He tried at fifty
four of hard of these, so you know heard of
these complicateds.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Well, hold on, hold on, you've passed the halfway mark
between the two of them, haven't you.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
I think you find out No, no, no, no, my locativity,
I've worked it out. I think I have to. Well,
Mama lived to hundred and eighty, got he lived to
fifty four, She got twice the life of him.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I'm hoping that if I can get to eighty two
or eighty three, I'll be about that way back between
those two.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
All right, okay then, but just on the coast to coast.
Were you a sporty guy or was it just an
event that you that you started and organized.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
No, it's into sport from the age of fifteen, although
much earlier than that was rugby of course, but now
I got away from the team sports and into skiing
and then ski racing when I was fifteen and carried
on doing that ski racing until I was fifty seven.
I skied my last competitive downhill when I was fifty
seven at current at peak. And yes, skiing was my
(06:42):
sport and then and I took it to the end
three D because I became a ski racer and then
a ski patroller, and then ski patrol leader and then
ski instructor and then ski area general manager and bought
bought the area O House ski Field with Mike and
(07:04):
Wilson way back in the eighties and then brought in
a whole bunch of mates and developed that ski area Again. Yes,
I stayed in the skiing all my life, and then
I got into kayaking in nineteen seventy nine when I
returned from Europe and Australia. I've been living overseas for
eight years working for multinationals and marketing, and so I
(07:27):
came back to New Zealand settler and Wyka and got
straight back into skiing and then picked up kayaking. Wow,
what a buzz water buzz. It was exactly exactly the
same buzz at ski racing. And so I started the
kayaking business down there, Moto Tapu Canoes from the outset
in nineteen eighty since I got the start of that
(07:49):
pretty much by Christmas. And then we sold that in
nineteen eighty three and moved to christ Church and then
carried on with coast to coast really and that became
my life. I'm thirty four two years to present, to
make it work, to get it off the ground, and
in thirty four years at the Helm, and that was
(08:09):
about me. Wowney contributed them to the attacks for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Hey, another person listened to us and want to note,
are you doing any gigs?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Oh, are you doing any gigs? Yeah? Well I love it, yes, yes, yes, right,
we've got one coming up. And he talks to end
of the year, a big one in the town, all right,
and hopefully the town halls, the theater, world town hall
or something of that size.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Brilliant.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
The good that we had two weeks ago at the
Loons was far too small, and we sold out a
week and a half before the show itself, and so
we need to you know, Yeah, we did big.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
It was a stadium down the right.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
The stadium down the road. I wonder what that think
of he's sitting in this dady out there for a beat.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Anyway, Well we'll we'll sort something out. Brilliant, brilliant to
talk to you and all the very best with the album.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, thanks very much.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Good For more from Category Mornings with John McDonald, listen
live to news talks at be Christchurch from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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