RocKwiz is Brian Nankervis’s baby. He co-created, co-wrote and co-hosted (alongside the wonderful Julia Zemiro) the beloved music quiz show for 14 seasons on SBS. While that show ended in 2016, RocKwiz lived on, revived by Foxtel for an eight-episode comeback in 2023.
For the past eight years, Nankervis and Zemiro have also kept RocKwiz alive on stage. Every Good Friday, the pair bring together a cast of high-profile musical guests for a live spectacular at Melbourne’s Hamer Hall, returning this Easter.
Nankervis is a lifelong music obsessive. He still has the first vinyl record he purchased and cherishes it just as much now as back then. Here, the TV and radio personality tells us about the significance of that precious piece of wax, and the story of two other important personal belongings – one his own, the other not so much.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited – the first record I ever bought. I’ve carried it with me since the winter of 1969 when I rode home from football practice to find a package on my chenille bedspread from the Australian Record Club. When the needle touched down on Like a Rolling Stone and an urgent voice declared, “Once upon a time you looked so fine,” my world changed.
In 1978, I saw Dylan three wet nights in a row at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. And in 1986, I talked my way into a room at Rockman’s hotel, where Dylan was being interviewed, then stood in the doorway so he would have to walk past me. Our exchange was brief – me saying “thank you” and Bob saying “Mmmmmm, yeaaaah” – but somehow momentous.
Dylan has been with me every step of the way. Aged 19 I hitchhiked to Queensland chasing adventure – I wanted to say: “I’ve been hittin’ some hard travellin’ too.” Stephen Cummings sang Never Say Goodbye at our wedding, Forever Young could have been written for my children and 2020’s I Contain Multitudes brings compassion to the deaths of parents and loved ones. Thank you, Bob.
My most useful object
I’m picking an object that represents core values and principles that have guided me through life: friendship, exercise, pleasure, competition and aesthetic beauty. It’s a red frisbee.
I’ve thrown frisbees since teacher’s college, but after Covid, my recreational frisbee activities intensified. Friends and I meet once or twice a week, catch up on news, views and gossip, then begin the day’s play, starting with end-to-end throwing and catching, observing a complicated set of rules. Points are recorded on a score sheet. We then play between 12 and 30 “holes” of frisbee golf, with each player taking turns to outline their design for a hole. For instance: “OK, we go around that gum tree to the right of the path, over the gate, keep to the left of the fountain, then finish with at least 50% of the frisbee resting on the bench near the low wall.”
All players, using individual discs, complete the designated course, with each throw representing a stroke. And repeat, all over the park, with different designs. My red frisbee has brought hours of joy in beautiful parklands with close friends. Grown men, blissfully lost in pure pleasure.
The item I most regret losing
So many possibilities: favourite jumpers, my signed copy of Boy Swallows Universe and our yellow Peugeot in a multi-storey car park. But I’ll avoid personal incidents and shift the narrative to a friend’s heartbreaking loss.
Mark was visiting from Tasmania on a hot afternoon in February. We fell comfortably into old habits: cuppas in the kitchen, stories, new songs that needed to be heard and an indoor mini-frisbee session. I suggested a bike ride to St Kilda Beach and Mark was keen. It was 30C and the foreshore was packed with a heaving mass of diverse, happy humanity. And we’re riding through it all, DMA’s blaring from a boombox in the bike basket.
I led us out along the pier, towards the setting sun, stopping to watch teenagers somersaulting into the deep water. Inspired by their abandon, I dived in and floated about. Excited, ecstatic, feeling the rise and fall of the rolling swells. I scrambled up an old ladder and encouraged Mark to jump in. He lept, surfaced, trod water and then yelled in anguish. His wedding ring had slipped from his finger and immediately, catastrophically, sunk. Gone. Forever.
One of my mottos is “never regret a swim”, but this is a painful exception. It was a solemn ride home.
RocKwiz’s Really Really Good Friday is on at Melbourne’s Hamer Hall on 29 March. Tickets are on sale now.
