“G,A and E” Stephen Strike A Chord

Rip It Up, Issue 145, 1 August 1989, Page 10

“G,A and E” Stephen Strike A Chord

Stephen and Dumb; the band and their record. The words have an evocative directness to them, like it was all just meant to be the finest, simplest pop. Aw, Kylie should be so lucky... v

Stranded in the Octagon? It’s Saturday night and Robbie Burns peers east through the gathering Dunedin gloom. Local band Stephen are playing and giving away copies of their new record at the Empire; it'sa happenin’ town somewhere. But go north from Dunedin’s pub, and the string of pubs that once opened their doors to the bands and punters are no longer operating as venues. The - only places it seems you’re gonna find real live rock n’ roll are at the south end of town: midweek gigs at Sammys nightclub (events organised by the ever-enthusiastic Radio One, even though 95% of Dunedin students appear not to give aflying Reebok for original music and it’s only something as “important” as the Clean’s recent gig that'll drag them south of the Octagon), gigs at the Nerve Centre or weekends at the

Empire, the town’s last little (boy, is itever!) pub venue. And that’s the place we’re looking for. There are some contradictory pointers towards exactly where Dunedin’s music scene’s at right .

now. This lack of venues is a definite downer; and if you’re judging the place by the profile of itsrecorded - output, things might not look so hot either. Local label Xpressway have got a fair amount of hot Dunedin poop in their pipeline, but it’s taken - “till this month for a Dunedin band to have anew record out in ‘B9— Stephen’s six song EP, Dumb, a Flying Nunrelease. * The thing that seems to counter the malaise hinted at above is the fact that lack of bands ain’t a problem at all. The student newspaper, Critic, actually counted 32 active bands battling for space in Dunedin’s -~ handful of viable venues, and not all of them are bad. What’s more there must now be 33 ‘cos on the bill with Stephen at the record launch at the Empire this weekend are debutantes, Buster— maybe 2 name towatch ... _

Buster’s guitarists, Chris

Heazlewood and Sean O'Reilly, also play in the Sferic Experiment,, probably the wildest mindfuck band (Dunedin’s) ever seen. The Sferics have vox, guitars, bass, clarinet, violin, organ, two drummers, all 2 howlin’ and feedin’ back like crazy. The Dead C’s guitarist admitted that they made his band look like pussys, and they do the same thing to Spud. In the Buster band, Chris and Sean team up with a thythm section made up of ex-Look Blue Go Purples, Lesley Paris and Norma O'Malley. They play less tangentially with rock than the Sferics here, and it feels like seven songs from a young band

writing SJF style epics without the swoon and with a lot more tasty dirt under their fingernails and fretboards. Pretty fucking solid; the thing they ain’t quite done yet is write ashow stopper that’ll topple PA stacks over,but 'm sureit’s coming. And tonight the guitars are justloudenough.

Which is kinda unlike the overkill of David Kilgour’s drown-out guitar thrill, tipping Stephen’s guitar performance over into a realm where their pop songs seem to wanna blast straight through the low ceiling above the stage at the same time as Alf Danielson’s distorto-bass is pile-driving ‘em through the floor. On the EP, Dumb, no song goes over 2 mins 37. Tonight they blast by attwice the speed, half as long. Alf calls the weekend “punk rock” ... is it asign that the band are getting harderthan alisten to the EP, recorded almost a year ago, might suggest?

David Kilgour admits that overall it - probably is, perhaps due to the familiarity that the band have with their material, playing almost the same set of the songs they’ve had since they started out three years ago as Chums. Drummer Geoff Hoani disagrees about the “harder” bit — it depends what you mean by it, anyway —but concedes that things are getting louder, which is the by-product ofaddingasecond guitarist (“Another brick in the wall,” according to Alf). E Stephen Kilroy and his Rickenbacker 12-string joined Stephen earlier this year, making his first public appearance with the band after just one practice. “For me,” he says, “it’s a more disciplined thing to be playing in a band rather than alone. It's been okay because David - and I think in similar keys, and once you figure out what he’s doing and it clicks into a little mode, you can see the key structures. Those keys—G, Aand E—are amazing keys, especially for 12-string. Like Gisan amazingkey, it just rings.” Back at the Empire, the evidence

is there; the addition of Stephen’s guitar has fréed David up considerably. Previously, he’d seemed more pinned down— not exactly constricted by the three piece approach, but things would fall apart with kinda monotonous regularity when the band tried to loosenarrangementsup. : “We’re playing more forcefully now,” says David. “On old live tapes we sound really slow and sluggish.” At the pub, they’re trying to give away copies of the EP. Peopleare waltzingto thiswall of noisein rock-time to win a Dumb; the band are pleading for beer — “Next jug of beer brought up to the stage wins a record,” etc. One clever punter takes David’s jug off the stage and walks over to give it to Alf. Alf gives hima record and is unaware of the fact that he was conned. Someone tells him afterwards, “Too bad.” The afternoon’s interview is disintegrating in much the same way. I even forgot to ask them, y’know, “like are you guys touringsoonto promote your amazing new record?” but I'm pretty sure that they do have touring plans coming up—there’s a bit of talk about things being more serious in and about Stephen than they used to be. Organisation and stuff. : : : Alf says he’d like them to be a punk rock band, and Geoff's not sureif they are already or not. “Putit this way,” he says, “I always knew I'd end up playing music, but I didn’t think it would be this sort of music. I'd probably be in some fucking middle of the road covers band!” How’d he get a novice drummer roped in with the guitarist from the Clean and the bass player from Goblin Mix then? “Wine coolers!” they chorus. Geoff says something like “And it sounded like wine cooler ..”,which may have been true then, but these days, Stephen are about as high octane over-proof as you can getand still be apop band. Which® means they’re flying mighty high indeed. v '

Paul McKessar

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