TAPE ONLY

Rip It Up, Issue 72, 1 July 1983, Page 30

TAPE ONLY

Chris Knox

The Clean _ Oddities (Flying Nun) You, couldn't ask for a better start. 'Oddity' is purest garage pop it's maybe the best song the Clean never put on record. The rest of the tape consists mainly of likewise unreleased stuff along with early versions of songs like 'Getting Older'. There are some genuine oddities 'Mudchucker Blues', 'Neat Noize' and even a dub version of 'Point That Thing'! (Fascinating idea but it doesn't really work). This collection shows sides of the Clean that never made if to vinyl. The Clean as 60s poppers, as noisy feedbackers, as incisive comedians. Strengths and (quite definitely) weaknesses are hissingly, scratchedly, reverbedly, tremeloingly, echoingly, distortedly documented. This ties things up, there's no real need for any more. Sort of essential, really. Available for $6 from PO Box 3000, Christchul^hTMMMMMß Above Ground . , - Gone7Aiwa](C4s)B^P^BHM There's something neatly circular about dedicating a tape album to the machine it was made on. It tells the self-containment which has been essential to most projects involving Bill Quits or Max Direen or whoever he wishes to be. This is a vocal-based album in that the vocals do most of the work tripping, looping, rattling, crooning ... even at the expense of lyrics. Black Doors' is the most extreme example, only three intelligible words but it makes a sight more sense than most songs you'll hear. There's a twisted pop sensibility running through this, it's good. It's very good. Available for $6 from PO Box 2190, Christchurch.

Peking Man Animal Instincts (Last Laugh) Peking Man are good musicians and maybe that's the problem. This tape's good musical ideas (and there are plenty) tend to get swamped by overplaying. And it's not just the instrumentalists Pat Urlich has a pretty good voice, good diction and a gift for snappy phrasing and he wants everyone to know it. This isn't to say it's a bad tape, it just could be better. Not bad for a live-in-the-studio effort: Available for,s6’ from Last Laugh, PO Box 6884, Auckland.Fish School Present Pastimes (Ima Hitt)

Firstly if you want consistency, look elsewhere. This fishthing is quite spectacularly uneven. But the thing is, the good bits are really good (but then, the bad stuff's bilge). Most of the best stuff's on the first side and it's odd, a little unnerving. Self-possessed music, music of possession. Available from Ima Hitt, PO Box 407, New Plymouth'for SB. iThelWangsßßßjHMW^^H Seven Songs I've been hearing good things about Christchurch's Wangs. This tape doesn't quite bear them out but.it's worthy for all that. Bits of rhythm guitar a la the Velvets (who else?) and the odd bit - of hard bass playing. The main problem is the production. Often too much echo on the vocals and effects on the guitars. I'd really like to see the Wangs. live after hearing this. $5 from 9 Hastings St, Christchurch.

Russell Brown

Mice in the; Radiogram C6O (Ima Hitt) Coalition Broadcasting Corporation Untied Shoelaces are Dangerous (CBC C9O) From the same swamp that gave us the Picnic Boys, Pete and His Pigeons, the Skeptics and more, lurch these twin spectres of putrescent, rotting-on-the-bone, do-it-yourself, tapeworm horror. MITR drag their fetid, disgusted forms all the way from darkest New Plymouth where they, recorded this stuff in their practise room directly on to : a cassette

machine. And it doesn't sound like that! It sounds better than that! Mind you, there's a fair quotient of shit among these 60 minutes but that's an inevitable by-product of a bunch of semi-competent Taranakniks putting it all down on tape. Delightfully self-indulgent and any suspicions of pomposity are dispelled by the last tracks on either side. Part Two is promised by the legendary Brian Wafer. Can be got from Ima Hitt, PO Box 407, New Plymouth for $4.80. ;? Meanwhile, out of Mt Eden (remember Under the Mountain !) comes the sluglike Coalition, leaving a musical trail of purest silver. Well, mostly pure cent silver, 20 per cent base metals

pmij rf. ' |U HMBI and five per cent sludge, but folks' Forty-two songs! And only one cover version! Remarkable! Admirable! There's some, magic stuff on this and recording quality veers from 'Abysmal Plus' to 'Shimmering Hi Fi'. Slime! with* worms. Available for $6 from PO Box 8407?Symonds St, Auckland. Both these cassettes are worth more than you have to pay to own them. What more do you need to know? PS: If the skinny young many from Pete and His Pigeons would drop me a line c/- RIU, I'd be well pleased to hear what he's cooking up in his particular patch of demented mudflat these days-CK