do they have McDonald's down there?

Rip It Up, Issue 57, 1 April 1982, Page 10

do they have McDonald's down there?

> ' "Th'efeV virtually nothing Ka|>-y* pening in Auckland at the moment. I think even the people up north would admit to that. Auckland is very quiet. There are one or two interesting younger bands but, it seems to be pretty stagnant. Whereas it seems to; be the opposite’in"the South Island. It seems to be thriving, it's great." DOUG HOOD While music in Wellington and Auckland flowered over the last couple of years, the South Island was distressingly quiet. Toy Love shone and died; Pop Mechanix became an Australian band, the Gordons and the Androidss went to Auckland and there were a handful of singles from Broken Models, the Newtones, the Playthings, the Pin Group, the Clean, the Solatudes and a couple of others. But that was about it. Now, while the North has its problems, the South appears to have found its feet. That new strength has been brought into sharp focus by events in Christchurch over the past month, as Flying Nun undertook one of the most ambitious projects 1 , that music has seen in New Zealand for some time. Doug Hood and Chris Knox came down from Auckland and in a couple of bedrooms and . a few living rooms Sneaky Feelings, . the Chills, the Stones and the Verlaines from Dunedin and Christchurch-based bands the Builders, Clean and Mainly Spaniards 'were recorded H for upcoming Flying Nun releases. In addition there have been, or soon will be, records by the Pin Group, Ritchie Venus and the Blue Beatles, Solomon's Ball, Playthings, 25cents as well as a curious • album under the title of 20 Krypton Hits. It is difficult to

remember orimaglrieu parallel for such" frenzied activity.

The Dunedin contingent will appear on a double twelve-inch single package, one side per band, three songs per band. Those bands are part of a distinctive and thriving Dunedin scene, the heritage of the Enemy through the Clean. For the most part they are the result of an endless series of mutating garage bands that grew out of the Enemy's audiences. They are fiercely chauvinistic and removed from the rest of the country in outlook and style. Auckland, for so long the dominant centre in the local music industry, is a city that holds no charm for them. It is seen by these bands as too susceptible to the whims of fashion and trends and too self important. From a Clean: "Most of the Dunedin people despise what's going on in Auckland because the Auckland bands come down acting like rockstars. They talk a load of rubbish and their music's a load of old rubbish."

The most commonly held perception that emerged of Auckland was a of a city with a ska band around every corner. In Dunedin they don’t want to know about ska or the new romantics. The isolation of that city has produced a very insular and suspicious group of people with an over-riding attachment to sixties' music.

"The Velvet Underground are the cornerstone of Dunedin Music," (anon) British pop and West Coast American psychedelia also figure prominently. The result of years of cross breeding and interbreeding amongst bands and onlookers, Dunedin is still more an attitude than a sound. Any

musicians that do acknowledge the existence of a set "sound" are quick to remove and discount their own bands from consideration.

Of those bands the Stones are the roughest in sound, taking slices of the Enemy, Velvets and ‘ the Clean. The latter have left a huge impression on them. "They're the best band in the world. Our ambition is to have them support us." Sneaky Feelings are West Coast of America circa late sixties. The Byrds, Flamin' Groovies and Love, figure prominently. "When we first heard 'Forever Changes we went away and wrote twenty songs." The Chills are experimenters but a pop band none the less, more adventurous and $ more f complex. They'll be in Auckland in May with the Clean. Bh

The Verlaines, complete with changed line-up and much improved on past performances, are the most conventional of the four in "rock" terms. Their continuing development will be interesting with a drummer who picked up drum sticks for the first time a month ago and a songwriter/ vocalist/guitarist who admits to knowing very little about rock music as the result of a background that lies mainly in classical music.

To redress the inter-island balance somewhat, the Tall Dwarfs have recorded five tracks for a second twelve inch, Louie Likes His Daily Dip. It's a departure from the previous effort in that it's more straightforward, according to Alec Bathgate. "People will probably be quite surprised hearing it after the first one. It's quite different really." As promised on the insert in their last single, the new Pin Group record is a "genuine studio affair." In an effort to shake off the production problems that have plagued their previous recordings the band travelled to Wellington to record and produce The Pin Group Go To Town. And was it worth it?

"Yes," according to bass player and vocalist Ross Humphries. "We're very pleased with it at the

moment. We haven't heard the record because they haven't pressed it yet but we're exceedingly pleased wkh the tape." The five song twelve-inch EP will be the band's last, with founder member Roy Montgomery having left the country and the others deciding to go their own separate ways. And the Joy Division connection that northern critics have been so quick to pick up on?

" "There are Joy Division' influences but not overly so, only in so much as you can’t help being influenced by the music around you."

For 25cents also a swansong. The debut single from them is issued posthumously. The band, a rarity for their all female line-up, may play one last set at the Star and Garter but after that no more. The choice of 'Don't Deceive Me' and The Witch' is representative of- the band as they were, the former an original and the latter, a cover of the old Sonics' number (enshrined on one of the Pebbles' volumes of sixties' punk curiosities), showing the heavy

sixties' influence that 25cents had. Ritchie Venus had become a Christchurch institution, having spent seemingly interminable years doing Elvis impersonations and fronting a succession of fifties' style bands. The last eighteen months however, have seen him backed more often than not by garage bands with more of a debt to the late seventies than the fifties. The Volkswagons, masquerading as the Blue Beetles, now play with him regularly; and ■ Bleeding Heart'/'Josephine' is the first single together, providing as it does an intriguing result of a marriage of seemingly disparate styles.

Mainly Spaniards are Richard James, David Swift, Nick Strong and Michael Jefferies. Their impending three track single is the band's second attempt at recording, the first being shelved because of inferior sound quality. Although they would like to be known as a pop band they shun the term because they consider it too much abused and devalued.

Their predominantly quiet, melodic and catchy songs make them yet another distinctive component in the South Island

music scene. In approach they rival some of the Scottish Postcard bands, particularly Aztec Camera, although it's a connection which should not be made too much of, and they acknowledge debts to the Flamin' Groovies, Dylan, the Velvet Underground and Tamla Motown.

What has gone before is by no means an exhaustive survey but it does highlight some of the strengths in South Island music at the present time. No mention has yet been made of the Playthings, who may or may not have broken up again. Their second single has just appeared.

There's the Builders, descended from the Vacuum, Six Impossible Things and numerous other aggregations. Builders are also responsible for the recently released Solomon's Ball EP and have had a hand in the imminent 20 Krypton Hits album. They've got a Flying Nun single on the way.

There are new bands emerging in Dunedin like the Blue Meanies and in Christchurch like the War Poets and so it goes on ... Michael Higgins

At a time when the barriers that New Zealand musicians face before public acceptance of their music are growing fewer and weaker, the success of the Clean's Boodle Boodle Boodle still comesas a surprise. Fourteen weeks on the charts at the time of writing, that tenure has occurred despite a lack of major label publicity or distribution. And the Clean are now the name to drop, it would seem. The band themselves haven't allowed any of it to go to their heads, and if the success of Boodle has brought pleasure rather than pride, then their reaction to the growing critical acclaim is more one of disbelief and disinterest. Their only fear is that it will warp peoples' views of them. For the rest, "It's just words on a piece of paper." The Clean are the Kilgour brothers, drummer Hamish and guitarist David, and Robert Scott on bass, Dunedin born and now Christchurch based. Their history began at the second Enemy appearance, when the Kilgours and Peter Gutteridge went through a repertoire of two songs for the first time in public. Shortly afterwards Doug Hood, Enemy and later Toy Love soundman, joined them as a vocalist until the Enemy left town. When he departed, Hamish took over vocals and Lindsay Hook became their drummer. Hamish Kilgour takes up the story: "After the Enemy left town, there was a complete vacuum for a long time. We played and played and wrote lots of good songs, 'Point That Thing' was one, but no-one was interested. We were considered musically shocking at that point." They were musically shocking, according to David, "but it was interestingly musically shocking. There were one or two things that were really neat, but people couldn't accept it because

it was what was considered by musicians to be bad playing. I thought it was good, but it was just organised noise." Peter Gutteridge left, and the Clean went to Auckland, played a couple of times and fragmented. Hamish stayed in Auckland and joined another band, while David returned to Dunedin and began experimenting with Robert Scott. Hamish, in Dunedin for a holiday, was suitably impressed and the Clean began again. Trips to Auckland and Christchurch, a meeting with Roger Shepherd and Flying Nun, Tally Ho', and Boodle complete the story. The Clean philosophy has been shaped by Dunedin, and its Enemy/Toy Love. It's a city they regard very fondly, remote from the rest of the New Zealand music scene and consequently unaffected by trends.

For David, "There are absolutely no pressures on starting a band in Dunedin. It's up to you what you want to do." "In Dunedin you can start and be terrible", adds Hamish. "You can be absolutely shocking and get away with it and get better. The biggest problem in Auckland is that it's such a trendy place. They get a bit lost jumping from one trend to the next without thinking about what they're actually doing." For them the Enemy are the past in Dunedin. They got things moving. Other exports, Mother Goose and the Knobz, are embarrassments and best left unmentioned. But the Enemy: "They were so outrageous for music at that time. They really were New Zealand's true punk band." The subsequent demise of Toy Love has distinctly affected the Clean. 'You can only learn from Toy Love," says Hamish, "they tried to be as idealistic as possible and they tried to be honest. They did their best and they got chewed up by the business, and that's

an example to any band The business?

"Van Morrison said in a recent interview that the music business is a business and it's dollars and cents, charts, units and product, which is totally divorced from what I believe in. Music inspires you. It makes life more enjoyable," says Hamish. And if there is a Clean philosophy, then that's it. The primacy of the music above and before all else. We came back to it time and time again. They aren't a fashionable band and wouldn't want it any other way. After Toy Love, they want no part of the Australian circuit. Perhaps Europe or parts of America. "But we'd probably be regarded as passe," according to David, "because we're not futuristic and imagewise it wouldn't help because we probably look like we're just off the farm." They have no time for rock’s ephemeral and inescapable trends, and mention of such brings scorn for ska bands and Joy Division clones. Are Clean a conventional band?

"Yeah, well we use conventional instruments and a lot of the songs are conventional in an unconventional way.' Is rock dead?

"Only to a moron. They said that in 1958 when Buddy Holly died, and they've been saying it ever since. Rock is dead only in the sense that cliches keep getting thrashed. You have to keep experimenting and remain open to things." At a time when the precepts of punk are slipping further and further out of fashion, the Clean remain true to many of them. "Music is trying to talk to people on a human basis. We hate the concept of pop stars

In Hamish's words, "When we started playing it was against

that whole thing, and I'm still just as angry about the whole thing now as I was then. The person standing watching us play is no better or different than I am, and we want to keep it that way. I hate drum rostrums because it's like elevating yourself above people." The hotel syndrome of too many people just having a night out and getting drunk regardless of the band is equally loathsome.

"It would be good to break down the whole ritualised behaviour pattern of the audience facing bands and getting pissed. The best thing would be to move away from hotels, but that's difficult."

Another problem with playing live is noise. "The use of large PA's and volume to hammer people into submission is really bad. PA's should get smaller as a band progresses. Volume is OK, but it shouldn't be used to attack the audience. It's up to the audience to say that it's too loud and it's awful to listen to, and for them to leave, because you get to the point where you're hurting people's ears and they can't listen to what you're doing. The band gets louder and louder and the mixer gets deafer and deafer. Most of the people behind mixing desks are as deaf as piles." Big PA's and lighting rigs are another pet hate. "You don't need it. The aim is to play music. If you believe in your music, you don’t need any of that. The Beatles and Stones used to get up on stage with Vox amps and white lights and the music was alive. Now it's more business-oriented towards light shows and large stadiums. Too many bands fall down because they're built on image and not music.' Michael Higgins