1996 The Year in Review.

Rip It Up, Issue 233, 1 January 1997, Page 2

1996 The Year in Review.

• The Velvet Underground are inaugurated into the Rock ’N’ Roll Hall Of Fame. • Shihad and Head Like A Hole manager Gerald Dwyer dies in Auckland on the night of the Big Day Out. • A plane carrying Bono, Jimmy Buffet, and Island Records boss Chris Blackwell are fired on by Jamaican Police after being mistaken for drug smugglers. Tours: Big Day Out (Porno For Pyros, RATM, Tricky, Elastica, Jesus Lizard, etc.), Sonic Youth and Foo Fighters, Cruel Sea, Vanessa Mae, Mountain Rock (Joe Satriani, Stranglers, Cruel Sea, Mental As Anything).

• Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker appears on stage during Michael Jackson’s performance at the Brit Awards in London. • Snoop Doggy Dogg is acquitted of first degree murder charges by an LA jury. • Oasis’ second album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? enters the USA Top 10. NZ albums: Snapper, ADM- Mechanism, Morning Star, Cinematic, Musicland-, Desert Road, Banana Foot, Love Consort, Enter Ariel-, Various, Trees Jazz Sampler. Tours: Bjork, Amazing Rhythm Aces, Boney M, Primus, Jeff Buckley, Green Day, Ottmar Liebert, Dead Moon, Hunters and Collectors, Shirley Bassey, SNFU.

• Flying Nun celebrate 15 years of business with the Nunfest roadshow, which travels from Dunedin to Wellington in three weeks. • The Sound of Dunedin Exhibition opens at trie Otago Early Settlers Museum. • UK magazine Q picks the Finn brothers record Finn as one of Top 50 albums of 1995. • Mark Tierney leaves Strawpeople to pursue a solo career. • The Able Tasmans call it a day following the release of their fourth album Store in a Cool Place.

NZ albums: Martin Phillipps & the Chills, Sunburnt, Able Tasmans, Store in a Cool Place-, Cake Kitchen, The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea; Drill, Drill-, Knightshade, Knightshade-, Terminals, Little Things', Nerve, Goby, Static Black, Static Black, Various, On The Beat ‘N’ Track. Tours: Orientation (Supersuckers, Renegade Soundwave), Buffalo Tom, Unsane, Lisa Loeb, Charlie Musselwhite, Ashok Roy, Jimmy Barnes. • OMC and Shihad walk away with the bulk of the trophies at the New Zealand Music Awards. • Jeffery Lee Pierce of the Gun Club dies in Utah of a blood clot on the brain. • Death Row co-founder Dr Dre leaves the label empty-handed, leaving Marion ‘Suge’ Knight with 100 percent ownership. • The Clean’s Boodle Boodle Boodle EP reaches gold status 15 years after its release. • New local label Felix is set up, its first signings are Muckhole and Future Stupid. • Kiwi Rock written by Horst Puschmann is published, and comes with an eight-track CD. • Bernard Edwards, founding member of Chic, dies of pneumonia while on tour in Asia. NZ albums: Chants R&B, Stage Door Witchdoctors; La De Das, La De Das 1965-1967; Unitone HiFi, Rewound & Rerubbed; Gardening Angels, Inflorescence; Ape Management, Simply The Beast, Claire’s Unnatural Twin, Crackpot, Nocturnal Projections, Nerve Ends in Power Lines; Various, Wild Things Vol. 2. Tours: Melissa Etheridge, Fear Factory, Fairport Convention, Santana and George Thorogood, Simply Red, Neil Diamond, Celine Dion, Paul Kelly, Ben Harper, Morbid Angel, Anthrax and Cyco Miko. • A 17-year-old concert goer is crushed to death at a Smashing Pumpkins show in Ireland. • Green Day announce the end of their touring career citing Mike Dirnt’s “panic attacks” as the primary reason. • Blur beat Oasis 2-0 in charity soccer match in the UK. • Sublime lead singer Brad Nowell is found dead of a heroin overdose in San Francisco. • Columbia Records sign Offspring to multi-million-dollar deal, after the band have parted ways with indie label Epitaph. • Stone Temple Pilots cancel USA tour after singer Scott Weiland is sent to drug rehab by an LA judge. NZ albums: Atomic Blossom, Atomic Blossom; Formica, Shark Songs; Various, “...but I can write songs okay’’; Various, Chicken Motion Picture Soundtrack. Tours: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alanis Morissette, Horace Pinker, Smashing Pumpkins, Cranberries, Heather Nova.

• Neil Finn announces Crowded House are to split. • Kiss open their Alive/Worldwide tour in Detroit, their first show in 17 years.

• Depeche Mode’s lead singer Dave Gahan is hospitalised following a drug overdose, and is subsequently charged with possession of a controlled substance. • Sex Pistols play their first UK gig in 17 years at Finsbury Park in London. • Jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald dies in California. • The Who reunite to perform the rock opera Tommy at London’s Hyde Park. NZ albums: Crowded House, Recurring Dream; Garageland, Last Exit to Garageland; Bilge Festival, The Shrimp Boats-, Inchworm, Shiny, Axel Grinders, Kill Them Twice; Mother Goose, Stuffed. Tours: kd lang, TISM, Spring Heel Jack, Spinanes, Citizen Fish. • DLT releases his debut single ‘Chains’, with ex-Supergroove member Che Fu on guest vocals. The song spends five weeks at Number 1 on the New Zealand charts • Wellington student station Radio Active celebrates 20 years of broadcasting. • Smashing Pumpkins touring keyboard player Jonathan Melvoin is found dead of a heroin overdose in New York. • Funk man Rick James is released from Folsom Prison in California after serving two and a half years on a sexual battery charge. • Charlatans keyboard player Rob Collins dies in car accident while the band are recording an album in Wales. • David Lee Roth reunites with Van Halen to record tracks for a greatest hits package. • J Mascis announces the demise of Dinosaur Jr.. NZ albums: Superette, Tiger, Second Child, Slinky, Livids, Oroua Downs; Cui De Sac, China Gate. Tours: Napalm Death, Mental as Anything, Presidents of the USA, Starbelly. • A programme directors summit is held in Auckland to address the topic ‘NZ Music — It’s Place On Commercial Radio’. • Eye TV begin their second USA tour. •The Mutton Birds commence recording their third album, Envy Of Angels, at Rockfield Studios in Wales. • Rumours of an Oasis split surface when Liam Gallagher fails to join the band for the first gigs of their second USA tour. NZ albums: DLT, The Trueschool; 3Ds, Strange News From The Angels, Solid Gold Hell, The Blood and the Pity, Daemon, Daemon; Peter Jefferies, A Chorus of Interludes; Crude, Inner City Guitar Perspectives; Brother Love, My Own Worst Enemy. Tours: Sweet Honey in the Rock, Insurge.

• Rapper Tupac Shakur is fatally shot in Las Vegas. • Oasis cancel USA tour and return to UK. • Wellington band Mary Staple take the top spot at the Smokefree Rockquest Awards in Wellington. • Dead Flowers travel to Sydney to record their third album. • Grok win the Contact 89FM (Hamilton) Battle of the Bands. NZ albums: Head Like A Hole, Double Your Strength...; Supergroove, Backspacer, Emma Paki, Oxygen of Love; Clean, Unknown Country, Alec Bathgate, Gold Lame; Strawpeople, Vicarious. Tours: No Doubt, Dionne Warwick,

Ron Sexsmith, Meatloaf, Pantera and Biohazard, Ronny Jordan, Pursuit of Happiness.

• Nirvana release the posthumous live album, From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah. • Sex Pistols play Auckland’s Supertop. • Rumours of a Supergroove split surface after the band cancel an Oz/Asia tour and return home. NZ albums: Shihad, Shihad; HDU, Sum of the Few, Annie Crummer, Seventh Wave; Nares, Push the Boat Out, Nihil, Nit, Squirm, Spastic Sarcastic, Thela, Thela; White Winged Moth, White Winged Moth; Various, Crank Hog Cluck. Tours: Sex Pistols and Goldfinger, Luka Bloom, Garbage and Ash, Everclear, Jesus Lizard, Weezer, Peter Andre, Clannad, Tracy Chapman, Angels, Bush. • Crowded House play their final concert on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. • Garageland depart on their first UK and European tour, including a Paris festival with Tricky, Mazzy Star, Sparklehorse and Neneh Cherry. • Oasis begin recording their third album at Abbey Road in London, then quit the studio weeks later after reported media “leaks”. • Slash, guitarist and founding member of Guns N’ Roses, announces his split from the band. • Pushkin win the annual Hatching Battle Of The Banr/Competition held in Auckland. NZ albums: OMC, How Bizarre; Mink, For My Mink, Hello Sailor, The Sailor Story 1975-1996; Mutton Birds, Envy of Angels; Various, Tribal Stomp Vol. 2; Various, Popeyed. Tours: Michael Jackson, Sting and Vika & Linda, Dudley Moore, Blind Boys of Alabama, Super Chunk, AC/DC, Bread.

• Former Chill Justin Harwood (now in Luna) forms a band with REM’s Peter Buck, Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, and members of the Screaming Trees, Critters Buggin, and Devilhead, called Tuatara. • Death Row Records boss Suge Knight is sent to jail following a probation violation for an assault conviction. Knight will be sentenced in Feb 97, and faces up to nine years in prison. NZ albums: Ardijah, Influence; Peter Jefferies, Elevator Madness. Tours: Alanis Morissette and Frente, Fugees, John Hammond and Duke Robillard, Toni Childs, Jimmy Barnes.