Are You Experienced

Rip It Up, Issue 112, 1 November 1986, Page 8

Are You Experienced

Jean-Paul Sartre Made Easy

Choosing a name like the Jean Paul Sartre Experience is a quick way to gain recognition, and indeed, that’s what has happened for the young band from Christchurch. Currently vying with Murder Inc for the title of local heroes, the Jean Paul Sartre Experience have also been attracting attention from further afield.

A track on this year’s national student radio compilation has been followed by an EP of their own on Flying Nun which has received good sales and reviews. An overseas release of the EP is a possibility through Nun’s new English arm, an album is half recorded, and a short nationwide tour takes place this month. That’s a very productive year for a band with no real musical pedigree, who’ve only been playing live since the middle of last year, and who can count two weekend trips to Dunedin as the sum total of their wider travels to date.

The first sunny and dry weekend that Christchurch has seen in months still finds the band locked in their practice rooms. Amidst the usual practice room rubbish is an oil

paint splattered floor, testimony to the artistic as well as musical interests of the band — drummer Gary Sullivan is responsible for their very striking record cover. JPSE number four. Sullivan and David Yetton do most of the talking. Sullivan is the more serious of the two and talks in deliberate but proud terms about the band’s progress to date. Yetton is less serious but more prone to saying things purely for effect. Dave Mulcahy seems content to look on and punctuate proceedings with the occasional joke while Jim Laing, the most recent addition to the group’s ranks, must at times wonder what he's got himself into. Laing, Mulcahy and Yetton share guitar, bass and vocals, though Yetton takes the bulk

of the singing. The band formed in mid : B4 and the name, not surprisingly, featured prominently from the beginning. “We liked the name so much that we thought it didn’t matter what we did, as long as we got on stage and presented the name,’’ says David Yetton. And the origins of it? Dave Mulcahy explains: “It came from a friend of ours who was going through a really bad time, getting really depressed and reading Jean Paul Sartre. He used to say that he was having these amazing experiences with Jean Paul Sartre... He’s got a kid now.” Dave and David had been playing together since school, in frontroom bands with names like the Marmite Seagulls. They progressed to a seven-piece that played free form rock, based in Woolston — not exactly renowned as a nursery for Christchurch musicians. When that project folded the Daves and Gary Sullivan stayed together and launched the Experience. By mid-1985, with Mulcahy in Australia, the band went into recess, so Yetton and Sullivan teamed up with Jim Laing. He was fresh out of Invercargill and a band called the End, who had some business cards printed and then promptly folded when two members left to join the army. The JPSE was back in action when Mulcahy returned, and a chance opportunity to play at the Flying Nun Christmas party gave them a new audience and introduced them to Sneaky Feeling David Pine. "He heard us and was really supportive. He said come down to Dunedin and play, and well give you all the equipment you need. It was the first real encouragement that we’d got from an established band." The next big break was the EP the band recorded for Flying Nun at Nightshift studio in May this year. “We went in with a whole lot of ideas for effects and things, and tried for a while but in the end it didn’t work,” says Yetton." So we went back and just did it the way it came out — pretty straight with a few extra noises dubbed on."

As a first recording, the band were well pleased, although they note that the record didn’t completely sum up the band. Yetton: “It was good putting out something at the start that was different from what people expected, because it was quieter. Songs that we really enjoy but which you can’t do in the pubs because they’re not uptempo enough.” The EP has been justifiably praised, and while not capturing the more raucous side of the band, presents five songs that slowly but effectively worm their way into your affections. While some may criticise Flying Nun for insularity, JPSE have only praise for the label’s approach. "They’ve been so good to us,” says Gary Sullivan. "They're willing to go in different directions. You don’t necessarily have to stick with the pop/rock’n’roll thing. They’re quite open to change, which is what we want to do.” The band are quick to acknowledge the support of others, and also a fair degree of good fortune along the way. Sullivan:“We’ve had a lot of luck and support — people lending us gear for instance. If we’d had to pay for it ourselves, we could never have got off the ground." Engineer Rob Pinder is also cited as a major source of assistance in their early experiences of playing live and in the studio. They have been fortunate also to emerge at a time when the international side of the Flying Nun operation is getting underway. Their EP is intended for release in the UK next year; it’s an opportunity that wouldn’t have been available before to a New Zealand band with so little experience. In the meantime, seven songs for an album have been recorded at Nightshift with Pinder and Paul Kean. The rough mixes of those songs reveal a more representative cross-section of the band’s abilities. In comparison to the more uniform EP, the new songs range from the gentle pop of ‘I Like Rain' to the mutant funk attack of ‘Do the Dirty Dog’ and the R&B of ‘Bo Diddley.’ It’s a variety that relects the input of three writers all starting to find their

feet. A further three songs will be recorded in Auckland at Progressive during their first major tour this month. The album should be out in the New Year, but at present, the Jean Paul Sartre Experience would seem to have enough to do just consolidating the gains of this year. Should they come your way, the television commercial exhortation to “Experience the experience today” makes for very sound advice. It could almost have been written for them. Michael Higgins