Speaker: Singing g against the E chord
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Its very much a fanzine and I admire the passion but have to make em down big time on the personal slant aspect of their retelling of history.
See that what I love about it. They were VERY opinionated times. You loved or hated everything, no nice middle ground. It reflects that. They do miss swathes but for every thing they miss they also toss up something that makes me go I forgot that.
Then again they get lots wrong. There are facts in various issues that are just plain incorrect. And The Features story could've done with a James Pinker interview as he was a powerful force in the band, instead it became just a Jed story (not that I'm belittling Jed, he deserves his own story, but The Features was more than than just him).
And the Chch story would have benefited from a scalpel excising 70% of it. But at least people are getting it down and I'd rather see the snarl of the era down as well as the cold facts.
There are a couple of quite reasonable toy love gigs availabel, and I've got a pretty decent screaming mee mees gig with a bunch of unreleased tracks (did I send you a copy of that yet simon?)
No, and I'd love to hear it. I've 20 minutes of good quality live video of the Meemees at Brown Trout Festival, Jan 83. It's mostly unrecorded tracks and is going well until a bottle hits Tony and he walks off. The milling mob members at the front are pretty threatening.
I've got a reel of the Meemees and Newmatics at Mainstreet early 1981 (Class of 81 gig) too, recorded by Radio B for broadcast. I guess it should get a release some day, it's good enough
I've also got a few Toy Love gigs, but none of them convey what it was really like..simple audio never can.
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My nomination for dodgiest: the original name of Fetus Productions was Scraping Fetus Off The Wheel.
Different band, Rob, caused some confusion at the time though.
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Different band, Rob, caused some confusion at the time though.
Hmm. Embarrassment.
Might have known it was an Aussie who came up with something that tasteless though...
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Whoo, a dodgy band name thread could be fascinating.
Nuns Fart always impressed me as off the cuff offensive. They were a sub goth CHCH band with members of Lurch and other forgotten bands circa 1991 I think, or maybe 94.
Bressa creting cake's original name of "breast secreting cake" is just plain creepy though. Makes you wonder how innocently pop some of their stuff is.
Might have known it was an Aussie who came up with something that tasteless though...
lubricated goat has to be up there with dodgy aussie band names.
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Hamilton in the late 80s boasted a punk band called Hitler's Cock.
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New Plymouth & Palmerston North - always wonderful places with bands that had charming names.
PN - Clare's Un Natural Twin (the posters just used the initials)
NP - Dick Fux & the Goatfucking Nunrapers -
Schopenhauer…. And I’ve always wanted to start a comment on the Internet with ‘Schopenhauer’…. OK, now, in the remote possibility that anyone is still reading… Arthur Schopenhaur used to reckon music has a special place among the arts because it zaps straight past the intellect and hooks into the emotions.
He was a Raging, Keg-spearing Party Animal Supreme, Ol’ Artie S. Back people into the corner at someone’s 21st and bend their ear about how music is the most abstract of all art forms. He bunged in a lot of gloomy philosophical stuff, not to mention some really dense jargon, and also a lot of stuff about how artistic types are bound to have a miserable time of it. I’m jazzing it up a bit but that was the guts of it. (Back in the mid 80s a Philosophy tutor at Auckland Uni had a sign on the door of his office reading Schopenhaur is alive and well and writing lyrics for The Smiths).
My point – and I’m getting to it, I’m just taking a scenic route – is music’s ability to bypass where you are and what you are doing at the moment and wrench you mentally and emotionally somewhere else, evoked by either the music itself or memories associated with it. Of the arts, it is the equivalent of the sense of smell.
I posted at length last year during the general Flying Nun celebrations and I’m only slightly sheepish about linking to that lengthy, self-indulgent post here…
This one proved a challenge. I came up with a shortlist of personal golden New Zealand albums and EPs which very quickly grew to about 20. And that was leaving out some great compilation albums like Ak79, which some have already talked about, Goats Milk Soap, the Hits and Myths series…’Songs from the Banana Dominion’ was another favourite from early ’84. It captures the mood of that time pretty well, especially songs like Dangerous Game from Diatribe and Sonya Waters’ No Pain. Oh, and there’s a few CDs put out which are later compilations of an artists’ earlier work: The Chills Kaleidoscope World, and Tall Dwarfs Hello Cruel World being two. They’re great albums, and they do hang together as pieces of work (esp. the Chills) but they’re not the original thing. So they’re out.I’ve also monitored myself quite carefully: the power and the subjectivity of music is such that the experiences associated with it can overwhelm you. I’m not a huge Crowded House fan, for example (got their greatest hits but that’s it) but three of their songs have incredibly powerful associations for me.
Sooo…. whittled the long short list down to a medium shortie and then to a two runners up and a winner.
Runner Up One is The Chills Lost EP. There’s the fantastic opening song ‘¬__This is the Way__' a mournful anthem of wasted (in both senses) youth if there ever was one:Fill your head with alcohol
Comic books and drugs
This is the way…..Tell the world your problems
You’ve forsaken all your lies
Surely someone cares for you
Someone you won’t despise…And the urgent, gleefully hormonal, Don’t Even Know Her Name - a perfect burst of idealised lust. Never Never Go was similar in tone: Be Ba Be Ba Be Boe was more introspective with some lovely lyrics, words which slotted together like cobblestones… The more, umm, what I call “orbiting a personal planet’ stuff on side two didn’t do much for me a the time. I like it more now though. That goes for the whole EP.
First-Equal runner up: Yeah I cheated. It was too hard. Straitjacket Fits Life in One Chord. ‘Dialling a Prayer’ the music, the overall sound of the track reflects the lyrics in all its angst and turmoil. ‘She Speeds’…well, who hasn’t at some point fallen for someone ‘elusive as a thief in the night, stealing away?’ ‘Sparkle that Shines’ and ‘All that that Brings’…the first is a bit too earnest, but it’s a lovely shimmering piece. The latter is I suppose the runt of this particular litter, but it’s a pretty sturdy one.
Second runner up:Front Lawn: Songs from the Front Lawn. I saw the Front Lawn do their ‘One that Got Away’ show at the Maidment sometime in ’89: it was the first time I’ve been in an audience that just erupted into a standing ovation at the end. Also because a couple of years later, when a bunch of us set up a new flat together, we found we all had the ‘Songs from the Front Lawn’ tape. Except one guy who never quite fitted in. There is a huge saga with that but, some other time.
(Craig M, who posted a damn fine piece earlier about Brave Words knew that flat well and can perhaps vouch for some of this stuff, as his partner was then one of the flatmates.)And, besides, there's that great line in Tomorrow Night about 'Talking Loud in a Kiwi Accent' which I've always thought should be a title of a book about NZmusic...
OK, my top Kiwi album is Able Tasmans’ Hey Spinner.
The Able Tassies had a kind of left-field melodicism which is very like the early Split Enz. Very keyboard-led, with silly and often a bit dorky lyrics which nevertheless sort of work. There’s ‘Dileen’, which sounds like the name of someone but apparently it was untitled and one of the band described it at as “that one that goes ‘dileen dileen dileen dileen…’ and the name stuck. And they made it the opening track.
‘Angry Martyr’ doesn’t sound angry at all: I’d love to know what the words are but its busy, fast, and cheerful.Hold Me 1 and Michael Fay are probably the two best -known numbers…they got flogged on BfM in 1990, I remember that much. The first doesn’t have great lyrics but its exuberant cascading joyousness that puts me in a great mood whenever I hear it. The latter is a great performance – fantastic harmonies on the chorus; and that great line ‘Shared visions of heaven are so hard to come by”.
Other tracks …__Grey Lynn__ is pure summer, Sunday arvo picnic in the park… it always seems to me to be an Antipodean cousin of the Small Faces Itchycoo Park, this song.
There’s the more sombre tracks: Wednesday She’s Coming Round - full of pensive longing - and Theory of Continual Disappointment which sounds like it was produced by someone in a depression and determined to write themselves out of it…. The title track, Hey Spinner sums up the album in tone: it starts like one of the more sombre numbers and then zaps into good cheer.
The overall playing is great, not just the aforesaid keyboards but also bass and some particularly sharp drumming. A bit less experimental than their earlier and later works, but only a bit: and no weaker for that.
That's it. I know I've gone on a bit, but, well, you get that with the big jobs.
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OK, my top Kiwi album is Able Tasmans’ Hey Spinner.
Great post, Rob. Are you familiar with the more recent Humphreys and Kean album? It's delightful.
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Songs from the Front Lawn.
Yes, yes, yes.
I think I will try and find a copy this afternoon. -
Are you familiar with the more recent Humphreys and Kean album? It's delightful.
Not yet, Russell. Had it strongly recommended to me recently though (funnily enough, by another ex-denizen of the Front-Lawn-owning flat mentioned above).
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Hamilton in the late 80s boasted a punk band called Hitler's Cock.
May I hilariously point out that it was actually spelt Hitler's Kock?
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what, and you are surprised??? Who in gods name would put up $3 bucks for that.................
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May I hilariously point out that it was actually spelt Hitler's Kock?
Thank you, I was hoping I wasn't gonna have to.
ObLink: Ongoing memoirs of a crate-digger, Or, how the Datsuns saved my life in Hamilton.
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Don't cha hate it when this happens.
One of those sold to some crazy Dutch guy for US$200 in Australia. I get these people emailing me from all over the world after all sorts of things..if only I'd kept a box or 5.
S'funny how it all went around the world. A year or two ago Sylvio Soprano (the Brooce Springsteen one) went into Real Groovy to find Kerry Buchanan..he was a fan of The Terrorways and AK79
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Don't cha hate it when happens
yes.. good reminder to use [Preview].
One of those sold to some crazy Dutch guy for US$200 in Australia.
At the risk of sounding smug, I'm SO glad i didn't pay anything like that for mine.
S'funny how it all went around the world.
Hmm... maybe the time is right for a vinyl reissue? he says thoughtfully.
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One of those sold to some crazy Dutch guy for US$200 in Australia
Just out of interest, one of what? For those of us whose work connections have Trademe blocked...
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Just out of interest, one of what? For those of us whose work connections have Trademe blocked...
newmatics broadcast o.r. double 7 inch furtive records
Closed without bid, no reserve. -
courtesy of the edit by the, ahh, editor, the line
Don't cha hate it when this happens.
no longer makes sense.
Hmm... maybe the time is right for a vinyl reissue? he says thoughtfully.
Or perhaps not, the sleeve made every one of those a financial trainwreck
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Rob, Songs from the front lawn is definitely in my top ten. "Andy" is probably my favourite, beautiful in every way. I think ABle Tasmans win for favourite live act, just like a big happy family gathering playing all your favourite songs. I remember at their final show they played Sour Queen sung in Spanish. I prefer the earlier comp, "Cuppa Tea and a Lie Down" to Hey Spinner, although Hey Spinner does have some standout tracks, Hold Me 1, being one of them. Humphreys and Keen is well worth buying, I have it and really like it. It's kinda able tasmans stripped bare. As a slight tangent, there's a great little LowPowerFM radio station in Taupo called BitterFM (88.7). I heard sour queen on it the other day while driving and had to pull over to listen to it. I think it's the first time i've ever heard it on the radio! Made my day. :). Yes I think musical taste should be the deciding factor for any cohabitation arrangements!
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Taupo called BitterFM (88.7). I heard sour queen on it the other day while driving and had to pull over to listen to it. I think it's the first time i've ever heard it on the radio! Made my day. :)
You heard 'Sour' on Bitter. That's funny.
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In my occasional bogan moments I crank up Shihad's "fish" album.
I was in a particularly dark space in my UK exile and Home Again evokes all the panic of the failing long-distance relationship for me.
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In my occasional bogan moments I crank up Shihad's "fish" album.
I was in a particularly dark space in my UK exile and Home Again evokes all the panic of the failing long-distance relationship for me.
Oh noes!
To me, it says "doing the dishes with Shihad on so loud no one can hear me singing along".
Well, that and the crowd going wild at the BDO ...
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the sleeve made every one of those a financial trainwreck
Never seen an LP copy of AK79, what was it... B/W? Standard 12" jacket? A printed inner sleeve? A bound/stapled booklet? Tell me more...
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