Search and Nest Roy!

Rip It Up, Issue 98, 1 September 1985, Page 4

Search and Nest Roy!

Russell Brown

A Weekend Away With Bird Nest Roys

Now is this a typical scenario or what? The footpath is strewn with bags, bedding and musical paraphernalia and the poor working stiffs have to pick their way gingerly around the pieces as they go wherever they’re going at 9am on Friday. Camp mother/ soundman Terry King stands by the side door of the van coolly running an eye over the personal debris before him and wondering how he's going to fit it in the vehicle. Even more of a scenario is the fact that (count ’em) nine young people have to fit into the van along with all these amps, drums, guitars, mikestands and a 11...

This is the six-piece Bird Nest Roys; Big Ross, Little Ross, Deberly Roy, Warro Wakefield. Peter Moerenhout and the famous Dorn Fatty. The names might sound fairly unlikely, but both the band and the individuals exist. Honest. Just check the papers. With them are “TK", myself and Peel. And we're going to New Plymouth join a band and see the world! As a van packer, Terry proves to make a good sound engineer and his lounge has to be substantially remodelled before it’s even fit for human habitation.

“Don’t lean on my drums cautions Peter.

Naturally, something has been forgotten, so we have to go and get Warro’s tambourine. As a result the first place we stumble into allstrungoutfromtheroad is the corner dairy, an interminable 10 minutes into the journey. It’s Auckland’s admirable Ardmore

(ace assonance, eh?) dairy, an establishment which sees hungry bohemian types often, by virtue of its being open around the clock. Finally, we’re on the motorway, and after sinking into the only fit state for travelling, it's music time. R.E.M.’s Fables Of the Reconstruction bawls tinnily from the cassette player that Peel had found in a clump of grass one night in the city. Tremendous travelling music.

Backs begin to ache, legs to cramp up and bums to go numb. The half dozen occupants of the back compartment attempt to forget themselves, whilst the lucky trio in front get to look at Auckland’s morning motorway traffic.

Whilst there’s little of any moment happening, it’s appropriate to background these minstels. Bird Nest Roys have been together for more than two years,

playing small gigs and parties around Auckland and operating as much as a social club as a band. They were about to call it a day earlier this year when the Tall Dwarfs asked them to play support one night at the Windsor. A big Windsor crowd took to the Roys like flies to a blanket and they were glorious unknowns no longer. Since then they’ve been to Wellington, Dunedin, Christchurch, Timaru, and now, the big one ... New Plymouth. They’re touring on their own for the first time, but expectations are they’ll do rather well. Hur, hur, hur

The trip lopes by and everyone tries to go to sleep but no one’s really comfortable enough to get unconscious and everyone has to settle for restlessness instead. The true nature of the Roy beast begins to emerge the sense of community that's one of the best

things about them on stage has its roots in deeply-felt, ritualised intimate behaviour; i.e. they pummel shit out of each other. The situation develops into a classic dog-eat-dog. No food is safe unless held firmly in a clenched fist and cushions are the best of booty. Peel and I gaze as close to wide-eyed as we can manage at these people. Like eager archaeologists we trace the development of aside into injoke on a lineage that leads eventually to most of Bird Nest Roys' songs. Expect songs with the following words in the title: 'Loving' (there are two already actually), 'Beast', 'I got non’, ‘Presh’ ...

Royspeak is easy once you get used to it. Its theory works on the premises that (a) the shortest route to meaning is not always the best (hence a piece of chicken becomes "murdered sqawking beast”, and (b) the balance to the first rule; that

the language is best simplified down into a handful of utility phrases that can mean anything at any time. In extreme cases, such as "This is giving me presh,” the phrase can have totally opposite meanings. Presh can be good, presh can be bad; whichever it is must be deduced by an appraisal of the circumstances and of the individual using the phrase and a degree of naked intuition. Eventually we arrive in New Plymouth and head straight for Ima Hitt Records, erstwhile home of Taranaki Institution Brian Wafer. Brian isn’t there, so we proceed to the Ngamutu Tavern, where Peter discovers he has left all his cymbals back in Auckland. And there are no lights because no one told us we were bringing some down to the pub from Auckland. And a bass bin has to be found for Deberly. So it’s back into town and unflappable Brian (who knows 85 percent of the people in New Plymouth to talk to) is there and has some cymbals jacked up in 10 minutes. The support band’s drummer will have a bass bin, he says, and the lights... time to buy candles...

The candles look great. Shame there’s no one here to see them. Auckland’s newest sensation has yet to register an impact in this city and a total of 35 people pay at the door, joining those who didn’t pay (not many Peel is womanning the door). But the band has a jolly enough time and those present register their appreciation. More people will come next night when they hear the band’s good, say the locals. Hur, hur, hur....

We end up at the maison de la Des, Di and Bruce, who are only supposed to be putting up two or three people for the night, but within an hour or two at least four Roys are lying face down on the carpet and there seems little option but to bed down en masse. Some of us brought sleeping bags; we were warm and snug ... The next morning dawns early for this loungeful of people, and Big Ross earns a high level of "Non” from Dorn when he playfully

wakes him up by pouring stale beer on his face. Rock ‘n’ roll!

Di soon guides us to the local women’s bowling club, where the ladies are having a garage sale. Things are unexceptional until an event which ranks roughly alongside blue moons, fire in the skies and godly visitations the acquisition of an original British pressing of 'Surfin’ Bird’ by the Trashmen for the absurd sum of five cents! This may mean something to some of you it turned Brian a delightful shade of green. Other scores include ‘My Boy Lollipop’ and the Swinging Blue Jeans’ ’Hippy Hippy Shake’. Thank the Lord for ladies’ bowls...

It’s still absurdly early by the time we complete our pilgrimage to Stratford, the town where Little Ross grew up: (‘‘lt hasn’t changed!”) The band spends money it doesn’t really have on cooked breakfasts at the local greasy spoon, where they let us watch Saturday morning TV. Tell my parlour story about how the guy who played Jed Clampett was a socialist and Granny was a rabid right-winger and member of the John Birch Society and they passionately hated each other right through all the series of The Beverly Hillbillies. True! Next stop is Mt Taranaki ("It’s not Mt Egmont!”) for a walk to the top and a frolic in the snow. This bunch of ragged op-shop stylists looks oddly out of place alongside all the people in bright, holeless ski clobber...

A hairy drive back to the Ngamutu where there’s an afternoon special featuring four local bands. Pick of the bunch is Ecnalg (Glance Backwards), a one, two and three piece (at various times) who fairly obviously like the first two Velvet Underground LPs. They are also the night-time support band, but this is their best set, with the guitar drone actually clicking into place as it should. The expert musos with me express admiration but emphasise the need for the purchase of a guitar tuner.

Across the pub, NP boot boys

engage in rough and tumble rituals that make the BNR’s little word routines look like tree-form jazz. They’re here for the three week old band Sticky Filth. Little Ross goes and makes friends.

Out the back, in the sun, in the van, in the carpark, a bunch of Aucklanders roll up, bursting with good cheer. Among them are Alf and Dave from Goblin Mix, who gleefully agree to playing a couple of songs that night...

Oh dear, Oh shit. Alf has suddenly gone from holding up a wall with his eyes closed to strapping on the bass geetar on stage, Which would be okay, 'cept the singer from Ecnalg is still on stage, finishing up with a quiet little song on a quiet little keyboard. Alf

is unfortunately too drunk to notice. Naughty Alf. Dave eventually joins him on stage and there ensues a classic Goblin Mix "gimme feedback till my ears bleed” sesh. Terry has a non attack and has to go outside for a while. Brian loves it and wants pictures. The pub is rather fuller than last night, but still short of a break-even crowd. The locals offer a rainbow of reasons: the video boom, all the young people on the projects now living in Australia, end of the mushroom season...

The Roys playservicably well, able to rest back a little on the fact that the sheer sound of the lineup, with its warm harmonics and insistent bottom bit, is probably enough to get them through in almost any situation. Tonight Little

Ross sports an awesome paisley Nehru jacket, whilst Deberly has gone for an even more Hindu look, with flowing dress, towel on head and stamp between the eyes. The candles have been replaced by a slide projector, courtesy Paul exLoving Homes.

Little Ross clutches his shoulder occasionally. He has just had his skull tattoo recoloured in the kitchen of the party separating the two pub sessions the friendly tattooist is one of the boot boys who make up one sector of the variegated rabble in the house. In the end, the highlight is a gloriously indelicate impromptu version of ‘Venus’, keyboards courtesy Trish. Great! Afterwards, we retire to the Wafer residence for coffee,

sandwiches and video. Lurvvvvely. I slept very comfortably thankyou. The next morning it begins to piss with rain as we wait for someone to open up the pub so we can get our gear out. The loss of several hundred dollars on the weekend hasn’t reduced anyone to tears, but everyone wants to go home.

Home is six hours and a good deal of flatulence away. Tour Belly has begun to manifest itself already a gastric condition precipitated by excess drinking and the consumption of junk food, TB can result in a rather "coloured” atmosphere in the van, especially when the van is carrying nine people. Among the tapes on the way back is the rough mix of the band's

most recent recordings a rather more raw style of thin than the soon-to-be-released EP, Whack It All Down, coming to you on Flying Nun.

Bird Nest Roys are subdued but essentially as lunatic as ever on the way back long may they remain so. I have begun to doubt my own sanity after toppling out of the van into the Auckland dusk, legs all creased up, and popping up to RIU for an all-night shift to get the magazine to you complacent sods who think it’s as easy as picking one up off the counter of your local record shop. Ah, rock ’n’ r 011...