Come On Feel The Foise

Rip It Up, Issue 240, 1 August 1997, Page 9

Come On Feel The Foise

’ll loisemaster, a loud and proud quartet from Palmerston North, made rare from Palmerston North, made a rare -JL trip to Auckland in mid June, to announce the arrival of their self-titled, split CD (with Palmy band, Brickshithouse), and to play a show at @Luna with locals, Chris Knox and Spacesuit. On the morning of the gig, Ross Harkness, Matt Sanko, Zane Hookman, and Stuart Hubbard, enjoyed an ale or two at the Queen’s Ferry in Vulcan Lane. Sanko is the first to exhibit signs of Foisemaster’s laidback sense of style; “We’re living our teenage fantasies. When you first notice rock ‘n’ roll as a teenager, you get into it, and you look at the record covers and ' there’s pictures of the band. And then you read articles in magazines, and they’re hanging out in bars talking to journalists — and now we’re doing it! But if we lived some of our dreams to our full potential we’d be in trouble — I mean, everyone wants multiple wives!” Harkness is Foisemaster’s mainstay. He formed the band in 1993, and also runs Lizard Mull, the label responsible for the new Foisemaster' album, plus their previous recordings, My Dad Goes to Work , Sometimes, Afterbirth Vol. 2, ‘Bad Offal Veganking’, and ‘More Sex, More Drugs, More Foise’. Running Lizard Mull is not easy, points out Harkness, as money is in short supply, but Foisemaster are committed to keeping up a regular flow of releases. “We fund the recordings by any means possible, some are even unmentionable... but we don’t sell our bodies. We just love making music, we’ve got the energy and we need to get rid of it. We’re serious about it too, to the extent that we want to make things happen, but we have a lot of fun. If it’s not fun, it’s not worth doing.” It helps that Palmerston musicians are a self-supporting bunch, adds Harkness. “You can’t play music in Palmerston North without relying on other bands, everyone scratches

each other’s back.”

In Auckland, at least, there’s a misguided belief that Palmy music parallels the introverted, arty, free-noise wank that works its way out of Port Chalmers. Sanko’s putdown of that theory is unquestionable; “What reason have we got to be pretentious in • Palmerston North?” On the new album, Foisemaster cover the Swell Maps’, ‘Midget Submarines’, and Sly Stone’s classic epic, ‘Thank You (Falettin Be Mice Elf Agin)’ forms the basis of ‘Thank You Muchly’. Elsewhere, ‘My First Piss On The New Library’ is self explanatory, and ‘Song For Kiri’ isn’t quite as touching as it sounds... “It’s about Kiri Te Kanawa and Howard Morrison having sex”, explains Harkness, “and then going down on each other. And the fact that Kiri’s too good for Howard.” Acknowledging that Foisemaster have a certain ‘fringe’ appeal, Harkness once stated that the band were particularly attractive to the “freaks” in their hometown. That’s still the case, he says, but adds Foisemaster are content to bide their time while musical cycles slowly evolve. . L.,?.'. : ~:. “Eventually outfield music becomes infield. If you look at what was outfield 10 years ago, now it’s mainstream.” “Yeah, we’re exercising some patience”, adds Sanko. Harkness continues: “I just figure if we can sell 300 CDs through word of mouth and playing gigs, which we do, then we could sell more if we had the means to do some real publicity. The band funds itself, what we do funds what we do, like gigs pay for our recording costs and travel. It’s every musicians dream to make a living out of what they do, but I don’t care if it takes 15 years, there’s no compromise in what we do.” No corporate sponsorship then? “Yeah, maybe”, says Sanko, “Coca Cola Foisemaster sounds good.”

JOHN RUSSELL