Food for thought

Press, 2 April 1987, Page 22

Food for thought

Ry

NEVIN TOPP

“Mnunmmppphhb

Martyn Barker here ... mmmmppppbhhh cheese and tomato sandwich ... mmmmppppbbh

Your reporter proceeded to tap the telephone receiver on the desk, before being informed that in fact Barker, Shriekback’s drummer, was- eating a cheese and tomato sandwich while on. the end of the line a few thousand km away in Sydney.

Barker tells tall tales of the group living on cheese and tomato, or even cheese and mannite, sandwiches. His favourite, he declares, is tunafish sandwiches, but that is when the band are in the United States. Shriekback are back for their second New Zealand tour, including a show in the Christchurch Town Hall on Tuesday, with the city’s Bats also on the bill.

Barker confessed to being surprised by the popularity of the band in New Zealand when they toured last year, but after that reception they were keen to come back. The band held New Zealand in high regard. It was a beautiful place, he said.

But, what comes across is not so much wierdness, but some quite sane thinking. One of the reasons for the group’s lack of success in Britain was that the band had been labelled as “weird,” Barker said. The band’s image did not fit into the mainstream of radio and television in Britain and therefore the music did not get much of an airing. New Zealand had shown it was more open -to original music, and for Shriekback it was a matter of working on that in Britain. “We do want to be big in Britain,” Barker said. After the New Zealand tour, Shriekback was going to spend some time touring the United States and Canada. Barker said that the band also had 'a lot of fans in Canada, but in the United States the group’s popularity was confined mainly to the college areas. However, they were working on that too, and would be doing a television .show while in New York. Then it was back to Britain to write more songs for the new album...