Spivs: pretty vacant

Press, 28 February 1980, Page 16

Spivs: pretty vacant

By NEVIN TOPP Wot’s thick, got no ambition, a lead guitar section that threatens to mime, and employs “natives” who have returned from Australia. Give up? Wish I had after interviewing the Spivs, a new Christchurch rock band that is trying to get off the ground. Originally formed as a one-off band, the Spivs found they liked playing together, and the arrangement has become a semipermanent one. Three members of Spivs, Charles White, Luke Neary, and John Purvis, have already played together in Kippers, another local band, which folded

at the beginning of last year. The fourth member, Murray Olds, is the drummer for Vapour and the Trails. Charles White is a guitarist in the Spitfires, while both Neary and Purvis have returned from Australia. “We had all these emigrants coming back, so we had '.O employ them,” according to Charles White. Neary, White, and Purvis had some difficulty in describing the type of music' that the band plays, ending up defining the music as energetic rock — aimed to get people “off,” including us, John Purvis said. Charles White said: “There is a message in the

music — we’re thick,” *to which John Purvis added, “It’s head-banging music. If you like it you bang your head against the wall, and if you don’t like it you still bang your head ; against the wall.” John Purvis then suggested that the lead guitar section of the band was just going to mime its act, and leave the music up to the rhythm section. Alan Parks, rhythm guitarist for Vapour and the Trails, will also join the » band, and other hopefuls named to help ‘.he Spivs were Blair Allchurch, of Champagne Jam, Bob Ogilvie, a former drummer ' for Kippers, and John Lloyd, on keyboards for Cowboys. '

At present the band plays 50 per cent original material, which, John Purvis said, was more complex than the coyer versions that the Spivs perform. Charles White wanted it made known that ‘.he Spivs had no intention of going to the North Island, Australia, on television, or making a record, because he was tired of reading about all the bands passing through Christchurch -that had these goals. “The ambition of the band is low,” he said. The Spivs can be caught in the act at the Club de Grav this Sunday, and they hope to emerge at other local venues at later dates.