SEARCH! AND DESTROY!: NEW ZEALAND

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1. The Bats - "Daddy's Highway". Their only worthwhile album, but what a classic. Tunes, emotion, fun.

2. The Chills - the early singles ("Rolling Moon"/"Pink Frost"/"Doledrums" etc) collected on the "Kaleidoscope World" album. There's more imagination and talent on this album than the whole of the sorry late 80's anglo-indie scene put together. Tuneful gently psych-pop with killer tunes and great dynamics.

3. The Chills - "Rain"/"Night of Chill Blue"/"Wet Blanket" from "Brave Words" album. Not even the worst production ever (Mayo Thompson) could hide the genius of these three songs. Hope they eventually get around to re-mixing it as rumoured.

4. Straightjacket Fits - "Hail" - two great songwriters in one band (Shane Carter and Andrew Brough). "Dialling a Prayer" and "She Speeds" (Carter) and "Sparkle that Shines" (Brough) are more than great.

5. The Clean - "Vehicle" - forget the earlier noisy, kraut-influenced stuff. It's not a patch on this Rough Trade release from 1990. Why? They discovered melodies - haphazard, drunken melodies, and they sound great! Best tracks - "Dunes", "I Wait Around" "Drawing to a Whole".

6. Verlaines - "Juvenilia". Collects the best early/early-mid material ("Death and the Maiden", "Joed Out")together avoiding the useless chamber-pop of "Hallelujah All the Way Home" and the later grunge-lite Slash albums.

7. Dead Famous People - not very good except for one fantastic song "Girl With an Attitude Problem" on a mini-album which IIRC was called "Arriving Late in Torn and Filthy Jeans". The singer, Donna Savage, sang on a St. Etienne single, but I can't remember which one.

The following are all worthwhile, but patchy : 3-D's, Tall Dwarfs, Bailter Space, Sneaky Feelings and Look Blue Go Purple.

For a while in the late 80's I bought just about everything that came out on Flying Nun - so much better than C-86.

― Dr. C, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

The Dead C! Took me YEARS to get into them - remember almost going mad listening to the 'singing' on 'Trapdoor Fucking Exit' - then it all just clicked when I heard 'The White House', perhaps the best intro to their post-Fall/SY 'lo-fi' noise. The 'Monolake' alb by Dead C spin-off group Gate also 'samples' Faust and the Rolling Stones to brilliant effect.

― Andrew L, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Wot, no Garageland?! These indie-popsters lead the NZ pack, surely? Those who were beginning to think the band had peaked early (with the wonderous 'Beelines to Heaven') can get out the bunting to celebrate the arrival of new album 'Do What You Want' which is stuffed to the gills with Ash-meets-Jonathan Richman pearls...

― steveM, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

In addition to the indie bands and records mentioned above, I must submit the Gordons first album (from 1980) - one of my favorite albums from anywhere. They later became Bailter Space and weren't as good. Pop fans will like Look Blue Go Purple. I miss the Xpressway label. And I can't believe no one mentioned the Tall Dwarfs.

― Kerry Keane, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Chris Knox, people!! Chris Knox!!! I heard Meat is a good 'un; both Songs of Me & You and Beat (his newest album) are excellent as well. Four-track excellence, chock full of wit, whimsy, and melody.

I take offense @ the "grunge-lite" / "chamber pop" slander thrown @ the Verlaines - just because the man (Graeme Downes) is a classical music major and dresses his songs up in strings. It's not like the Bee Gees or Sgt. Pepper's, for the luvva. Granted, Way Out Where is more raucous that earlier output, but that's not a bad thing. I still haven't REALLY gotten into Juvenilia, but you can't go wrong with either Hallejuliah... or Some Disenchanted Evening. (The piano ballad @ the end of the latter album is the best Randy Newman song. Not that I know much Newman, but, still, it's good.)

Been listening to a lot of Peter Jefferies recently - singer/songwriter type with a penchant for dissonance & odd instrumentation. He & his brother (Graeme) had a band called This Kind of Punishment that's also worth checking out (assuming you like guys that sing like Leonard Cohen approximating Bela Lugosi - oddly enough, I do). Unfortunately, most of the TKOP / Jefferies stuff was released on the Ajax Label in the US, which has since let these releases go out of print.

There's SO much out there in just the Flying Nun section. I'm sure there's plenty of non-Nun stuff worth checking out as well - I know Popwatch (a quite-good somewhat-yearly 'zine from the northeastern US) had a comprehensive article on the NZ "noise" scene a couple of years ago.

Do yourself a favor - click over to Flying Nun and do some shopping. The exchange rate between NZ & the rest of the world is abnormally generous to non-NZers, so take advantage!

― David Raposa, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

re: gordons great, bailter space not (as) - that's certainly true. a guy i told about the gordons said , oh i saw them too, they were shit. the guitarist broke 3 strings & the bass player broke 2 strings & the audience knocked the PA over but they just kept playing & it sounded exactly the same. yay! the dead c. by comparison = pussies, as pussy as sonic youth. nothing even gets stomped except as theatre. don't you wish more "noise" music actually *was* completely out of control?

― duane zarakov, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i'm really really struggling to thing of anything decent from new zealand. i guess there's Roy Montgomery who's done some wonderful stuff, but some pretty tedious stuff too. liverpool 82 is a wonderful single though...

― gareth, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Duane - don't think 'noise' music ever has to be 'completely out of control' to 'work' - sometimes it requires precision, concentration, refinement, instead. Don't think the Dead C and their ilk are necessarily aiming for psuedo-punk amp-smashing 'rebellion', more an overwhelming, total mind/body bliss out like Phil Niblock, who you wouldn't expect to conclude his set with some tired old destructive act (see also that old cliche about Merzbow equalling 'trance' music.)

― Andrew L, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Odd but common thread to all above answers from non-NZers is near complete absence of bands that were actually popular, on the radio, and sold records in NZ, vs. obscure knowledge of Dead C, Roy Montgomery etc, acts average NZer has NEVER HEARD OF, EVER. Testament o'course to Flying Nun's (and others') marketing chops in exporting their stuff to music geeks worldwide vs. popular bands here never amounting to shoop elsewhere. (Biggest NZ band in NZ over past two decades = Exponents, power-pop disguised as pub rock, fronted by legendary drunk.)

― AP, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

This is totally true. I had this golden image of NZ as a paradisical place where everyone sat around making free noise' and listening to A Handful Of Dust. Alas (tho; not alas for people who live there) this is not the case.

I did have the It's Bigger Than Both Of Us comp of NZ punk - I still do have it somewhere probably - which had "Tally Ho!" on it which I liked a lot but forget who it was by.

― Tom, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

tom wrote:This is totally true. I had this golden image of NZ as a paradisical place where everyone sat around making free noise'

Funny, here in Oz, we have this image of NZ as a parasidical place where veryone sits around trying to figure out how to get to Bondi. Though it's no worse than us oz'sters trying to figure out how to go anywhere but hree I guess.

― Geoff, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

AP - I did read somewhere that abt a year or so ago the Dead C appeared on a NZ tv show called 'Ground Zero' - did this do nothing to raise their profile?

― Andrew L, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

oz'sters trying to figure out how to go anywhere but hree I guess

but why does that anywhere else always seem to be clapham/wandsworth?

― gareth, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Tom: "Tally Ho" = the Clean. Yet another faboo Flying Nun alum. Strum-happy VU idolatry without the shades & attitude. Fun, fun, fun. Compilation is the place to start. Members of the Clean can be found in the Bats & 95 other Flying Nun bands.

See also: David Kilgour's solo work. His album (w/ the Heavy Eights, I believe) is wonderful. And he should have a new album coming soon (along w/ a new Clean album, both available via Merge Records in the US of A).

I was always under the impression that Garageland (radio-friendly & popular, in relation to other FN bands - supposedly Pixie-esque to a fault) was horribly blah. Am I wrong? (I've only heard one song of theirs off a - surprise! - Pixies tribute.)

― David Raposa, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

If I went into everything I liked from NZ (and thanks for the link, Richard!) I'd be here for a while. Suffice to say I have a lot of time for people like Alastair Galbraith, Robert Scott, Chris Knox, Kim Pieters, Roy Montgomery, Sandra Bell, Graeme Downes...

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Andrew L. - re: Gordons/the c./"noise" - maybe i should've put a little smiley guy lying on his side after "pussies....nothin even gets stomped".
but yeah maybe (MAYBE) "a guy beating a electric gtr 'til it goes out of tune = this music is about chaos & violence" is facile & reductive..."shit got smashed up so it *really rocked man*" isn't tho' surely, jeez. whatever i actually think of those ideas tho', would i still class the Dead C. as a lightweight act compared to the Gordons , of course, nobody who'd seen both wouldn't. ( Bailter Space - not saying they're not sometimes good - but don't think you can even imagine what the Gordons were like from that)
They (Gordons/Dead C friends & relations) probably weren't trying to do the same thing , anyway, yeah....altho' i've seen the C. doing a terrible "noise anarchy punk rock" set where they...well they stopped short of *stage diving* but y'know what i'm saying...they were supporting Sonic Youth & totally pandering to the teen grunge audience that would never come & see them at a art gallery in Pt. Chalmers...that's what i was thinking about when i made that cheap crack. the "noise" genre is a red herring anyway (not that this has anything to do with Gordon & his mates, only the pub owner or yr dad called it that then anyway) - as 1 NZ "noise" guy, actually it was that guy from the library with the beard, said, it's *noise* when you don't wanna hear it, when you do it's *music*.
Actual NZ chart music - didn't "How Bizarre" by OMC break internationally a few years ago? that was probably the only one tho' (that anyone anywhere else'd know)....the follow-up "ON the Run" was great & i got to read Chuck Eddy, y'know a *American* talking about it before i ever heard it on the radio here myself. which was funny.
Garageland - yeah they're the *WORST*, can someone else trash late era Flying Nun tho', i'm burned on the subj.

― duane zarakov, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

'Coalminers Song' by the Gordons. 'Big Fat Elvis' by, I think, Bored Games (Shane Carter, who went on to form Straightjacket Fits early band). Both fantastic old NZ tunes.

AK79 is a patchy, but sometimes brilliant compilation of Auckland punk. And that reminds me - Toy Love by Toy Love.

Recently an Auckland label Kog Transmissions have been putting out some impressive dance stuff, Pitch Black, Concord Dawn.

― david in NZ, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

the best thing about ak 79 is brendan perry/ronnie recent doing an impression of green day, 15 years before green day. garageland are dull dull dull, they sound american. graeme downes would have to be at the top of the list of guys who have everything one needs to be worshipped but toil in obscurity. i normally hate guys who sing until their spleen bursts but his explosions were always so elegant. the new dimmer album is horrid! shayne carter does prince or something. daddy's highway isn't the only good bats record, all of them are fine records, sure they are very nearly all the same but robert scott has a way with a tune. roy montgomery is absolutely untouchable since resurfacing. alastair galbraith is beautiful except when he is wanking with bruce russel. cloudboy is the only current nz band i like, flying nun's foray into metal with hdu and d4 is laughable. but the ghost club, david mitchell and denise roughan(they have a lovely single from years ago), record might be interesting.

― keith, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Andrew L -- Ground Zero was yer basic yoof TV w/ zany hosts, Friday night live, showing music clips, plus live bands and interviews in studio. Lasted about six months. Far as I could guess, Dead C's appearance raised their profile less than one iota. (And I did actually see it.)

― AP, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Ground Zero has migrated and can now be found on OZ TV, friday nights, around 13.30, 12 pm on Channel 10 - you guys have this vortex hole that sucks straight through to ur free-to-air TV, don't you?

― Geoff, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

re:" graeme downes would have to be at the top of the list of guys who have everything one needs to be worshipped" ... including a BMW.

― di, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

re grame downes: and don't even get me started on the Otago University "rock" course.

― lady die, Thursday, 7 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

hey don't hassle our Universe City, they let me use these computers.

― guy pretending to be a student in the law library, Friday, 8 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

davey mog - "Big Fat E." was the Double Happies.

― duane zarakov, Friday, 8 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Sticky Filth, Fuck Off Cuntface, that band with Dane in and the guy wearing the Slayer T-shirt headbanging and the girl with the belt of bullets and the Pink Floyd samples, The Rainy Days, Celia Patel attempting to be a torch singer in the Frisbee practise room when she brought her own lamp to shine on herself, Snapper, The Jewl of Bessamoochu the first time they played but not the second time when they repeated the exact same spontaneous chatter between songs, Lil Stevie McCabe, all doomed to Eternal Recurrence.

― Maryann, Friday, 8 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Re: Garageland -- they're fun. You mock without cause. ;-) Though like eighteen million other bands perhaps they need to rip out the IV injecting _Surfer Rosa_ into their veins.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 8 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

--*not split enz* or *crowded house* puking dont dream its over over dental waiting room subconscious volume everytime im trying to avoid that kind of thing by supermarket shopping in the early hours... nor split enz who still (i just worked out that maybe shark attack was an ego player jam about the almighty streetness of the FINN bros)... bug me.. even while rehearsing in the middle of hollywood... cos some cover bands practising their set and their set is only split enz covers... i wanted to ask them why?... and is it for love (pathetic), money (funny)or selfloathing (mirror)... and didnt they know they were americans (why not styx ?).. but i was already listening to six months in a leaky boat... (leaking bile in to our $US15-hour practice room).. and sitting in a corner feeling sad.. (not homesick).. but stalked.

― dan, Friday, 8 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

God, I just love the fact that some of my favourite music in the world is so un-hip. I had no idea. Seems as if I've always had blinders on when it came to the Finns - primarily Neil, who I think has a "hardworking" genius for melody and evocative image, a genius visibly marred by human flaws, but genius nonetheless, and Tim was deemed to have a certain melodrama based entertainment value that kept him interesting from time to time. It changes nothing though - it was primarily evaluated in isolation, no one talks to me about 'my kind of music' *ever*, and damn it if I don't just like what I like.

ummm /rant

― Kim, Saturday, 9 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

so much NZ music is so horrible but no band has such wondorous rock imbedded in every pore as The Datsuns, they are wonderful...and what about all the great wildside bands, early Head like a Hole, pumpkinhead etc etc?

― gracie C Russlyn, Tuesday, 12 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

one month passes...

My five fav bands are: Riot III - The First Fifteen - Fishschool - Axlegrinders - Stepford Five - Snort - The Quakers - Flesh De-Vice - Vas Deferens. Musician's who really inspired me, Jessica Walker - Chris Plumer - Samantha Swan,Punk Diva. Eugend from Flesh De-Vice - Dragon and Steve from Vas Deferens. Celia Patel - All the gurls in Stepford Five and Snort and Red-Rag and Barbaric Bunnies.

― dottee doeswell, Thursday, 9 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Search: Aspen "Are you that retail snob?" and "Music from passing Cars" Gordons First Album (the best record ever made in this country)...all the Bailter Space stuff from Tanker thru to Vortura...then they started to sound like lame USA indie, the first two Dimmer singles, some of the early FN stuff still sounds good, the 4 track era Tall Dwarfs still sounds odd but Knox has been increasingly pandering to his audience for some time now, King Loser were a great live band but the records are patchy, Rainy Days were good and then I lost interest....

Destroy: pretty much all FN stuff post 1990, all the KOG stuff ( wow we can make dance music just as crappy as the rest of the world can)NZ music in general has become increasingly influenced by overseas trends and very little seems to be interesting. Their seems to be more interest in copying genres (rap-metal bands popular, lame Californian punk etc) than developing an original voice. Garageland/Zed/Stellar*/HDU/etc anyone.And as David Cohen said "Neil Finn is about as exciting as porridge"...

― David, Friday, 10 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Surprised at no mention of the Skeptics...if you can get past the singers' mannerisms the music is great (Skeptics 3 and Amalgum), ditto for the first Headless chickens mini LP. As a general rule in NZ music any band from Auckland is shit (in this country bands move to AK to "make it"), any band from Palmerston North is stuck in the 80s, any band from Wellington is kidding themselves, any band from Christchurch thinks they are better than any other band in NZ and any band from Dunedin is too busy masturbating to notice anyone else. Hope this clears things up.

― David, Friday, 10 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

five months pass...

STICKY FILTH, THE WARNERS, TOY LOVE,SPELLING MISTAKES- NO ONE ELSE MATTERS-FLYING NUN IS BOOOORING

― Stacey Winteringham, Tuesday, 15 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

It's been nearly ten years since Flying Nun put out anything remotely classic. But the stuff I still listen to from that early period:

Bats - any of their recordings up to and including The Law of Things.

Chills - Heavenly Pop Hits and most of Brave Words

3Ds - Hellzapoppin'

Pretty much the entire of the Getting Older and Tuatara compilations.

Look Blue Go Purple - everything

Chug - Sassafras

Straitjacket Fits - Melt

The Verlaines - Bird Dog (my fave NZ LP ever)

The Clean - evereeeething. especially At The Bottom (that guitar sound!!!!!)

I'm sure there are heaps more but I'm sleepy..

Destroy: Garageland, most FN releases post Garageland (exception: The Subliminals first EP, released a couple of years ago)

― electric sound of jim, Tuesday, 15 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Forgot: Double Happy's Other's Way, BailterSpace's Vortura, a lot of the early Tall Dwarfs stuff.

As for non-FN, Roy Montgomery is my fave. I adore it when he sings, too. Dead C have their moments, but I'd be hard pressed to say I actually like them all that much.

― electric sound of jim, Tuesday, 15 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

No one has mentioned the band Jean Paul Sartre Experience. Phantastic psychedelia. Another band missing are the Able Tasmans. Their music is something like naive (almost all NZ bands sound young and fresh) art rock.

― alex in mainhattan, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

the puddle. rik starrr

― Alasdair, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I had a Puddle record (single? album? can't remember) and I remember it being really shithouse..

― electric sound of jim, Monday, 21 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

the Puddle were choice, George H . is one of the greatest unsung heroes of NZ rock'n'roll - man i wish he would come out of retirement. I saw him walking down the NE Valley the other day with his dog & he had shaved his head, he looked all freaky & satanic.

― DUANE, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

i dont like eating lamb so dont know fuck all about new zelend. suppose to be i love music not i love cuntrys.

― XStatic Peace, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

he's definitely a sung hero round my way. Acetone records of France were going to release more stuff by them, but I believe they lost touch.

― Alasdair, Tuesday, 22 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

give em his phone # then.
it's (NZ country code whatever that is)(03)473 8750.

― duane, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Which Able Tasmans CD do you like, Alex? I'd never heard of them before yesterday, when I borrowed "Store in a Cool Place". It isn't even listed on AMG. It's dated 1996. Is that past their prime? AMG shows nothing after '93, except for a comp from 2000. I haven't had a chance to give it a good listen yet. (The sucker's LONG.) What I've heard is noisier and looser than I expected.

As long as this thread's being revived.....Search: Renderers "A Dream of the Sea" from 1999.

― Curt, Thursday, 24 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Curt, the only Able Tasmans CD I happen to own is actually "Store in a Cool Place". Nevertheless it is not my favourite. I have a tape from 1988(?) with "A Cuppa Tea and Lie Down" which was one of their first albums. It sounds more natural and I prefer it a lot. Quite melodic with a little folk rock touch. collating bones, a kind of mini-review site, writes on four of their albums.

― alex in mainhattan, Friday, 25 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Duane - that's fantastic - I will.

― Alasdair, Friday, 25 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Y'all realize that when I get over there in September I'm going to be making note of these various recommendations...so MAKE MORE! :-) I actually hadn't realized about that newer Renderers album, which means that I Must Acquire It.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 25 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

three weeks pass...

hdu - metal? hahaha. I suppose they are.

how about:

the clean - getaway weta - geographica blair parkes - the end range - all the way to lunch the wrong records dollar mixture compilation letterbox lambs - not a private joke poultice - three beefmeisters and a french movie cloudboy - down at the end of the garden

can't find 'em? try noizyland.com

― James Guthrie, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Ned,

Good luck finding much worth buying in New Zealand. I certainly didn't have much luck when I was there.

I did, however, get a very funny Dead C story. I wound up dropping off a hitchhiker at a friend's house and began talking with a person there. (In Christchurch, as I recall.) Anyway, I mentioned that I felt like I'd do okay meeting people if I moved there or something, because I have specific interests, like New Zealand music ... like the Dead C. ...

her eyes lit up, and she took me next door. Next door was a musician and recording engineer. He was not in the Dead C. Nor was he related to the Dead C. in any way. However, he had a Dead C. record that he couldn't get rid of, and both of them were absolutely delighted that an American had come all the way from Texas to take the Dead C. CD in question off their hands.

They were so delighted I couldn't bear to tell them that the CD, TRAPDOOR FUCKING EXIT, was one of the only Dead C. CDs I had at the time. I wound up giving it to the radio station when I got home. I think they also gave me a copy of Pieters/Russell/Stapleton's LAST GLASS, which I also already had.

On the other hand, I got to see Fence and Sandoz Lab Technicians at a club Alastair Galbraith runs in Dunedin (the Arc), and I went to the museum Michael Morley works at there as well.

Search: Omit, instrumental Roy Montgomery, Alastair Galbraith, Dead C., Doramaar, Surface of the Earth, Chris Knox, Tall Dwarfs, some Peter Jefferies.

Destroy: Flies Inside The Sun, and the Bilders records don't do much for me.

forgetting a bunch.

― doug, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Alastair Galbraith never ran the arc. He did run Everything Inc which was over the road. Lots of the Builders records are great but perhaps you heard the dodgy Wellington ones.

― hamish, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Sorry, info@noizyland.com, but the Clean Getaway belongs in the DESTROY column. David Kilgour's new album, however, after initially disappointing me, is growing better with each listen.

― Curt, Thursday, 21 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Skipping 74 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

This is great advice and direction. Thank you so much!

― neilasimpson, Friday, 23 August 2019 13:47 (four years ago) link

two weeks pass...

This is an extremely useful thread. Many thanks sbahnhof for your diligence.

― neilasimpson, Saturday, August 24, 2019 1:49 AM

Cheers, Neil...

I'm not from here either.

When you first arrive, you hope life is all gonna be like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evx3J-bzNRQ

But then it turns out it's mostly like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxm-wutKi7k

― sbahnhof, Wednesday, 11 September 2019 08:47 (four years ago) link

HHAHAHAHAHAHAH

― clouds (peanutbuttereverysingleday), Wednesday, 11 September 2019 10:50 (four years ago) link

seven months pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS5fN9bo1Vc

"Blue Smoke" was the first ever single from New Zealand, here's the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMBBttcTVwo

If Pixie Williams had done nothing else, she would still be in the history books for what happened on October 3, 1948 when she turned up at a makeshift recording studio in Wellington, New Zealand, still wearing her hockey uniform. ... It was a huge hit (and was covered by the likes of Dean Martin) and it would have seemed Williams -- then living in a hostel and working in a battery factory -- would have a wonderful career. It was, however, brief.

Pixie Williams: "Maori Land" (1949)
https://www.elsewhere.co.nz/fromthevaults/4306/pixie-williams-maori-land-1949

https://www.audioculture.co.nz/content/images/857/hero_thumb_Blue_Smoke_Songsheet.jpg

― sbahnhof, Wednesday, 22 April 2020 22:53 (three years ago) link

That's pretty cool.

― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 24 April 2020 23:53 (three years ago) link

That RSA thing is great. And kinda topical today. I can see myself foisting it on others now.

― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Saturday, 25 April 2020 00:01 (three years ago) link

I've long been puzzled by the relative lack of chatter about Blam Blam Blam. Including here, apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HVogejKx_c

― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Saturday, 25 April 2020 00:08 (three years ago) link

They would've achieved Nunnesque popularity, if only they'd had a sensible name like The Blams

Good band tho – this is their last live gig, on Radio with Pictures

- https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/rwp-live-at-mainstreet-blam-blam-blam-1984
-

― sbahnhof, Tuesday, 5 May 2020 00:40 (three years ago) link

That RSA thing is great. And kinda topical today. I can see myself foisting it on others now.
― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Saturday, April 25, 2020 12:01

OK, but

You must sign in

― sbahnhof, Tuesday, 5 May 2020 00:41 (three years ago) link

eight months pass...

This may not be the right place to ask but an RFI question about NZ music scene...

I'm fairly familiar with the popular (and some fringe) releases of the Flying Nun/Xpressway catalogs, but something I've also been curious about: are/were there any indigenous/maori/polynesian members of any of the bands/scenes?

Living ~1/3 of the world away, my only exposure to crossover (non-traditional) NZ artists are like OMC or Jemaine Clement (or maybe Te Vaka counts?) which seems fairly scant, but maybe there could be other factors other than the obvious.

I should note that I'm fairly unfamiliar with the Urban Pasifika genre.

So there it is: RFI nontraditional NZ artists with indigenous/maori/polynesian roots.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 29 January 2021 19:08 (three years ago) link

(working through this thread backwards, that Pateo Maori Club - "Poi E" embed upthread is a jam)

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 29 January 2021 19:13 (three years ago) link

one year passes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8frPD7DgqI

OUT FRONT WITH THE KNOBZ

― lambert simnel (doo rag), Saturday, 1 October 2022 09:54 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKColaFHHg0

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Tuesday, 11 October 2022 08:46 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tDBjJGnfrY

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Tuesday, 11 October 2022 08:47 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiddntlexkY

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Tuesday, 11 October 2022 08:50 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQFI2yqyYO4

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Tuesday, 11 October 2022 08:56 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXxalI6Mg6w

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Tuesday, 11 October 2022 08:58 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tdOCYQo_qQ

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Tuesday, 11 October 2022 09:01 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdoNzewx3ko

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Tuesday, 11 October 2022 09:06 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB4zTSG7k1M

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Tuesday, 11 October 2022 19:35 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SGy4e_UZ9Y

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Saturday, 15 October 2022 00:50 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNoCuTMfJa8

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Saturday, 15 October 2022 01:08 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYAa09jIn0o

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Saturday, 15 October 2022 01:12 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erE7NYEZLYY

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Wednesday, 19 October 2022 03:00 (one year ago) link

These guys! From my 2008 Voice review, when they were coming to NYC:

..."Blue Skies" is the last stop on Die! Die! Die!'s second album, Promises, Promises. The Steve Albini–recorded, self-titled 2006 debut's flying shards of impulsive/compulsive encounters were caught by walls thrown up, tracks tightened till they imploded: 10 songs, in just over 20 minutes. But now, all through this Shayne (of Straitjacket Fits) Carter–produced set, walls are pushed out as inner space-junk expands; shards reappear as pieces of Andrew Wilson's personal blue skies, of old hopes and dreams. Breathing room is found, yes, though his shattered, scattered voice and guitar can't help planting some bizarre memory garden of l-o-v-e and more, despite it all. The eloquent guts of Lachlan Anderson's bass will never digest such seeds very easily, and drummer Michael Prain's Keith Moon-schooled soloing-as-accompaniment dents craters in today's glazed maze, where Wilson and "You!" grapple in reflective gear.
Die! Die! Die! play the Music Hall of Williamsburg March 29 and Highline Ballroom March 30.

― dow, Wednesday, 19 October 2022 03:24 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhfU8YfzOi4

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Friday, 21 October 2022 02:02 (one year ago) link

https://soundcloud.com/ladi6/ladi6-guru-mp3?ref=clipboard&p=a&c=0&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Sunday, 23 October 2022 02:09 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20C19KmI03g

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Sunday, 23 October 2022 02:20 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWGoqsAoKvI

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Sunday, 23 October 2022 09:37 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siBurrXFJ3g

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Sunday, 23 October 2022 09:44 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGIbSdnbgOE

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Sunday, 23 October 2022 09:53 (one year ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9uru4LJkps

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Friday, 28 October 2022 08:11 (one year ago) link

eleven months pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjJY95_Kj9E

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Thursday, 12 October 2023 18:33 (six months ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayV0dlQNMMA

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Thursday, 12 October 2023 18:35 (six months ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyObGLciBRA

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Thursday, 12 October 2023 18:38 (six months ago) link

Hey do rag I was thinking of you - and George Gossett - when xyzzzz and I saw the Dead C in London this summer - good times

― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 12 October 2023 19:49 (six months ago) link

takes all sorts i guess

― donald wears yer troosers (doo rag), Wednesday, 25 October 2023 06:54 (five months ago) link

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