Entertainment scene Swing high, swing low

Press, 27 December 1979, Page 10

Entertainment scene Swing high, swing low

By MURRAY OLDS Life on the road for an Inventive and talented New Zealand band is not all beer and skittles, according to Buster Stiggs, the drummer for the Auckland-based group, the Swingers. During a break in rehearsal at the Gladstone Hotel last week, Buster says that while people and the crowds in one New Zealand centre might “go crazy” over the Swingers, another town can just as easily write them off. “It really does depend on where you are," says Buster. "In Dunedin for example, the crowd was very good and they really seemed to enjoy us, but in Timaru, only eight people turned up on Saturday night to watch us.” Which doesn't worry the Swingers when they are in Christchurch be cause Buster rates the fans in this city as among the best. Palmerston North, too, receives the Swingers with open arms. "Part of the reason is that we do not play any covers,” says Stiggs. “All of our material is original, which must turn a certain number of people off because they aren’t familiar with the music.”

Still, the crowds get bored so the Swingers

sink into a punishing schedule of practice and rehearsal when on the road, writing new material at every stop. “We are constantly changing the repertoire,” says Buster, “to keep presenting new songs every time we come through a city.” The Swingers certainly take their presentation seriously, to the extent that they are hiring a P.A. system from an Auckland sound company for $2OO per week. All the bands are doing it, says Stiggs. “Let’s face it, you are only as good as your P.A. If someone stumbles into the pub and hears a band thrashing through a poor P.A. he’ll think the band is poor too. but if he was to hear a mediocre band through good gear, his impression would be completely different."

It has been a busy 12 months for the band since it was first formed in Auckland. Five months of rehearsal and it was on the road, and the Swingers have gone from strength to strength.

"We were a bit lucky when we started out, actually,” says Buster. “A new pub had just opened in Auckland with a younger manager, and we went in there for a fortnight.”

The first week went very well, according to Stiggs, but the second was even better. Capacity crowds at the Liberty Stage readily took to the Swingers and made it very difficult for the band booked into the pub the following week. So difficult, in fact, that the Swingers took up a semi-residency at the Liberty Stage for some time. “That helped us as well. The steady work made it so much easier to build up a solid following,” says Stiggs. The “solid following” is vital in Auckland. Down here in Christchurch, there are probably only about nine or 10 bands at the most who are working regularly. In Auckland, it is closer to 40 and the competition is, to put it mildly, cut-throat. The Swingers are working a punishing schedule to get their music out to as many young New Zealanders as possible, and when they finish at the Hillsborough this weekend it will be back to the van and drive back to Auckland for a New Year's Eve concert at Mainstreet, the Queen City’s top rock venue. More touring is planned for the New Year, and one of the more exciting

developments is the single, to be released in JanuaryFebruary. The Swingers recorded it at Auckland’s Mascot Studios, and if it goes well — apd Stiggs hopes it will, obviously — an album is in the pipeline. Both the single and the possible album are being financed through Hugh Lynn, the Paul Dainty representative in Auckland, and will be released on a new, independent label, Target Records. Stiggs is enthusiastic, too, about the response the Swingers’ demo tapes received in an airing on Dunedin’s 4XO radio station. “The radio people were very keen and interested, so hopefully we will get some more exposure," says -Stiggs. already looking towards 1980 and more television and media coverage. Further plans are a little confused at this stage, says Stiggs. but if things go according to schedule. . . One thing is for certain. The Swingers, if they can build on the large and favourable following they have garnered in 1979, should command a spot among the top New Zealand bands for a good while yet.