SEARCH! AND DESTROY!: NEW ZEALAND

Destroy: Crowded House. The bastards.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.)

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.

ummm /rant

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"...

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)

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.

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

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

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.

Currently I really enjoy thrashing Goodshirts power pop albulm "Good",

Oh, the Sferic Experiment are awesome too.

Who gets the obscure prize?

oh yeah, & the upcoming Clean Anthology looks to be the BEST THING EVER.

If anyone's interested, there's an entire concert by The Enemy available here. Not great sound quality, but "Iggy Told Me" at the very least is worth hearing.

I'd also like to stick up for the Bats' Couchmaster - excellent album, with some really nice use of textural feedback that doesn't appear in much else that they've done.

so from the sounds of it, a safe bet for someone getting into NZ music would be to get albums from the clean, the bats and birchville cat motel? any other necessities?

the chills are the best

The Terminals

EXPONENTS!

No love for The Shocking Pinks?

Messages From The Cakekitchen, This Kind of Punishment, Alaistar Galbraith are all pretty essential.

Verlaines first album "Juvenalia" is a favorite of mine.

No love for The Shocking Pinks?

― Treblekicker, Thursday, 9 October 2008 08:46 (1 hour ago) [IP: 86.151.0.227] Bookmark

no they are rubbish

Man, this post must be pretty confusing for someone new to the joys of NZ music who's trying to figure out what to buy in 2008. Just read the query above about the albums worth getting being those by the Clean, the Bats, and Birchville Cat. Birchville Cat? Also, it's no use going on about the likes of Dead Famous People, Shoes This High, No Tag, This is Heaven, and Ballon D'essai—amazing as they were, no person who hasn't been the sort of geek to get at that stuff already is likely to find those records quickly, or cheaply.

A quick survey of the immortal (well, for the first decade) Flying Nun could be had by going and downloading (for research purposes only, mind you) the four-CD box set from one of the blogs posting it. The early bands are well represented, and the first two cds are very strong; the third CD is about half good, and the fourth is weak. But overall, the set might give someone a sense for what they’re getting into. Keep in mind that you aren't getting any of NZ's punk sounds from labels like Ripper or Propeller, or the more experimental rock that the Xpressway label would deliver.

If I were new to the NZ game and wanted to go online and order a bunch of cds, I’d want someone to make sure I got something like these Flying Nun heroes:

Clean – either the old Compilation cd or the newer double cd on Merge. The Merge cd obviously has more, but leaves off some of the first cd’s stuff.

Chills – Kaleidoscope World CD

Verlaines – Juvenalia CD

Bats – Compiletely Bats CD. The early 12”s (except the amazing “Four-Song” 12”). Or Daddy’s Highway.

Able Tasmans – A Cuppa Tea and a Lie Down CD

Chris Knox –There’s a CD that compiles Seizure and Croaker.

Tall Dwarfs – Hello Cruel World CD or Fork Songs CD

And one of the early comps like Tuatara, In Love With These Times, or Getting Older. Or all of them.

From the less jangly side of NZ:

Gordons – The CD with First Album and Future Shock

Terminals – Cul-de-sac CD

This Kind of Punishment – the CD with In The Same Room + 5 By Four (This is the Jefferies brothers band after Nocturnal Projections)

Dead CD – Trap Door Fucking Exit

Peter Jefferies – The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World

And two Xpressway comps: Making Losers Happy, and Pile=Up

From the earlier wave of NZ punk and new wave, you might scare these up:

Bilders – “Max Quitz” CD of early vinyl micro releases. Post Velvets diy.
Nocturnal Projections – Nerve Ends in Power Lines CD. Jefferies brothers. My NZ fave. Ringing goth punk, experimental grinders, acoustic lullabies.
Toy Love – Cuts double cd of LP, 7”s, and unreleased. Chris Knox.
AK79 – Great NZ punk rock.
It's Bigger Than Both of Us is a nice survey of early punk, new wave, jangle, and commercial misses.

These bands were less important to me, but they’re loved by many and certainly worth knowing:

Jean Paul Sartre Experience – The Size of Food
Snapper – Shotgun Blossom
Cakekitchen – Messages from the…
Straitjacket Fits – Hail
Bailter Space – Bailterspace comp CD

And last, and least, a pitch for some lesser-known faves that still got cds out, if belatedly:

Scorched Earth Policy – Keep Away from the Wires. Pre-Terminals and amazing. "Green Cigar" defines the NZ sound for me. "Too Far Gone" also. "Maniacs"!
Double Happys – Nerves
Bird Nest Roys – CD that compiles the first LP and earlier stuff.

For those new to the game, just understand that every NZ band is connected to another. Just start pulling on the threads....

The Bats are far beyond awful

S: Fat Mannequin

I guess that's a common opinion on The Bats because i can recall seeing their records in used bins everywhere for a while, but I think they're pretty good if not with much of a sense of humour and regret not picking those cd's up while I had the chance.

Search also the Flying Nun documentary on youtube, newcomers and everyone else

The Bats are far beyond awful

I strongly disagree.

What do you like about them?

mostly the bass sound, the focus on the low end as instrument/integral part of their sound. the physical presence.

this may have a lot to do with seeing them live.

i like their tunes and lyrics and sound

Well that's a little hard to argue about... how do you rate them comp to the Chills, the Clean, etc? Or the Gordons for that matter

I defer to electricsound as far as comparisons but I will say that as far as relatively upbeat and poppy NZ stuff goes it is totally unfair to characterize The Bats as "far beyond awful". to me, that would suggest, like, Miley Cyrus or something.

You mean something that actually sells? Oh, the horror. I'll take MC over the Bats ta

I just really hate the Bats, it isn't all that rational

chills have higher highs but less consistent i think. i'd probably say the same for the clean. gordons ok but they don't excite me all that much. miley cyrus has too many crying teenagers in her videos

Yeah, Gordons don't really seem yr thing. If one likes the Bats, yr pretty much exactly right. The Clean esp have some fucking LOW lows.

I don't see how anyone could listen to "Get Fat," "Neighbours," "Passed By," or "Some Peace Tonight" and not think Robert Scott and the Bats capable of surpassing beauty, or at least something better than awfulness. The Chills (well, maybe not on "Rolling Moon") have always sounded slight to me by comparison--too smooth by half. Of course, the Clean are the best of the three; also, of course, they've all got enough material that you could fill entire cds with duds.

Live, the Bats were burly and blistering. Muscular on the low end as any post-punk outfit, and strumming nearly as frenetically as the Wedding Present at their most deft. Seeing them rock out might have convinced a few of the doubters here.

Would that I had seen the early Clean live...I did see the Chills, but only in the early '90s, by which point they were satin smooth and a bit punchless--though I can hear my pop friends saying that was the point....

niles is leading you astray, don't listen. in fact most of this thread is rubbish. listen to esoj. but yeah 'get fat' is marvelous! i think being slight is part of the chills thing isn't it? it's what makes 'this is the way', 'i soar', 'night of chill blue', 'water wolves', etc.. so wonderful, the barely thereness. i think the able tasmans are my fave fnun band of all time from now on.

new love is all has a song that lifts the keyboad riff from 'tally ho!'.

Terminals - Uncoffined
Axemen
Venus Trail
and as they said before - Sticky Filth
Matt Middleton/Crude
Xanadu
Gladeyes from Akl
those guys who did 'Pastor of Muppets'.
That Sisters Underground song.
The Puddle.

All good.

Man, I loved Daddy's Highway by the Bats, I liked the taut and sinewy way they play those songs.

Also, another big cheer here for the Bird Nest Roys.

Ya na na na na na na na na na na na naaaaah!

thanks, michael. this is a good start.

one that's gone unmentioned - Plagal Grind was a supergroup, except they didn't get individually big til afterwards. really great.

also, 'oddity' by the Clean is a great song, and Snapper is pretty good. Also, the Gordons.

"Wave Watching" will always be my favorite Chills song.

loved the Chills so so much. "Pink Frost" one of the great tracks.

Jean Paul Sartre Experience - "Walking Wild In Your Firetime", if you liked Galaxie 500...

Proud Scum's "Suicide 2" is the best song ever from New Zealand.

O YEZ I DiD

a wealth of material can be heard here: http://thedoledrums.blogspot.com/

That is to say:

Terminals- Touch

like Elvis having a very very very very very very bad dream.

of being crap

another website of note:

http://kiwitapes.blogspot.com/

Just realized I had this archive sitting around of 40 NZ songs that I sent to a younger, curious cousin. If anyone's interested, I'll leave it here for a week:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/5y9g0y

Sort of on the punchier, catchier side to get his White Stripes–loving attention. Light on the real punk and noise/drone angle.

Able Tasmans What Was That Thing
Bats Get Fat
Bats Passed By
Bilders America
Bird Nest Roys Bided
Bored Games I Don't Get It
The Cakekitchen Dave the Pimp
Children's Hour Looking For the Sun
The Chills Rolling Moon
The Clean Thumbs Off
The Dead C Mighty
Double Happys I Don't Wanna See You Again
Gordons Adults and Children
Henderson, George & A. Galbraith Macquarie Island
Jean Paul Sartre Experience Elemental
Jefferies, Peter On an Unknown Beach
Knox, Chris The Face of Fashion
The Max Block Burn David Burn
Nocturnal Projections Isn't That Strange?
Nocturnal Projections Nerve Ends in Power Lines
The Orange Fruit salad lives
Plagal Grind Midnight Blue Vision
Proud Scum Suicide 2
Scavengers True Love
Scorched Earth Policy Green Cigar
Screaming Meemees Can't Take It
Shoes This High The Nose One
Snapper Emmanuelle
Spelling Mistakes Feels so Good
Strange Loves She Said Let's Kiss
Suburban Reptiles Saturday Night, Stay at Home
Tall Dwarfs Think Small
Tall Dwarfs I've Left Memories Behind
The Terminals Uncoffined
This Is Heaven Deep Blue Sea
This Kind of Punishment Immigration Song
Toy Love Fingernail on Blackboard Grin
Toy Love Squeeze
Verlaines Death And The Maiden
The Victor Dimisch Band Native Waiter

FFS, only rolling out Flying Nun/Xpressway stuff is like having a Search & Destroy: Scotland thread and only talking about Postcard. Someone take a fire extinguisher to the keepers of the flame, please.

Between them, Flying Nun and Xpressway (and all the interconnected bands) are a vastly larger percentage of worthwhile NZ music than Postcard was for Scotland. Postcard's had what, less than 20 releases (in a "nation" of 5-ish million), while the two NZ labels have had hundreds in country with about a million less people, right? I mean, you could do an 80s Scotland compilation (and I know what I'm talking about since I did one, and assisted on others) that avoids Aztec Camera, Orange Juice, and Josef K, but it'd be hard to cover NZ without touching on Flying Nun and Xpressway. I mean, you'd have to almost be as willful as the people who write novels without the letter "e" to pull that off.

I take it you're a big Hello Sailor and Split Enz fan?

There is, of course, that nifty little single ("True Love") by the Marching Girls (formerly the Scavengers, from Auckland), that came out on the Scottish Pop:Aural label....And pre-Dead Can Dance, by the way....

I heard a load of work by The Verlaines and The Clean earlier this year. It was weak and evidently very overrated.

it's impossible to overrate The Clean, though you might've heard some of the newer stuff, which is a bit less compelling than the older, classic stuff.

I've never heard the good Verlaines stuff. I've only heard Way Out Where which to me just sounded like bland alt-rock, apparently their early albums are good. But I love the Clean.

'true love' is awesome, but the b-side 'first in line' is 10x better

the good verlaines stuff is bird dog and juvenilia

For something to be impossible to overrate, if that is possible at all, it would have to be staggeringly, world-dazzlingly good?

I think maybe one cannot overrate the Beatles, or the Magnetic Fields, or even MBV at their best. But the Clean don't really live on the same planet as them, in this regard.

I actually liked one or later Clean songs better than the early ones, though can't remember the names. Maybe I should find that CD again. I think that Dr C upthread also liked this later work.

Logically, it's of course correct to point out that something would have to be ideal in order to avoid the chance of being overrated, but in the real world we have only real bands, some of them closer to perfection than others....

There's a pretty large territory between the ground claimed by the Beatles and that by the Magnetic Fields and My Bloody Valentine, respectively, at least when it comes to the question of being so close to world-dazzingly good as to beggar overrating. And I'm not even a big Beatles guy. Take the ten best songs by each band and the Beatles are well ahead, but the others are at about the same distance behind, allowing for personal taste. Your perhaps a case of the Clean undoing their own legend by going on too long while MBV had the grace (well, until this past year) to shut down at their peak. As for the MF comparison, I don't know how you'd even start, given how different the bands are, the one being essentially a one-man pop songwriting project and the other a post-VU guitar-rock band. Put the 1983 Clean on a stage just after the 2008 Magnetic Fields finish up a chamber pop set and you might feel differently. Which would be fine—the two groups are after different things, and there's room for both in the (demi-god) pantheon.

Logically, it's of course correct to point out that something would have to be ideal in order to avoid the chance of being overrated, but in the real world we have only real bands, some of them closer to perfection than others....

There's a pretty large territory between the ground claimed by the Beatles and that by the Magnetic Fields and My Bloody Valentine, respectively, at least when it comes to the question of being so close to world-dazzingly good as to beggar overrating. And I'm not even a big Beatles guy. Take the ten best songs by each band and the Beatles are well ahead, but the others are at about the same distance behind, allowing for personal taste. Your judgement is perhaps a result of the Clean undoing their own legend by going on too long while MBV had the grace (well, until this past year) to shut down at their peak. As for the MF comparison, I don't know how you'd even start, given how different the bands are, the one being essentially a one-man pop songwriting project and the other a post-VU guitar-rock band. Put the 1983 Clean on a stage just after the 2008 Magnetic Fields finish up a chamber pop set and you might feel differently. Which would be fine—the two groups are after different things, and there's room for both in the (demi-god) pantheon.

OK, I love a lot of this stuff too, but you're debating as if Clean/MBV/MF have something in common. They have their common decline in common, I guess.

MF and Clean fans alike know that their best days are behind 'em. Pete & the Pirates have filled the gap for a lot of Clean fans, not sure what MF fans do. Zombie Boy sure was bad.

On the mbv note:

MBV have responded to their obsolescence with a gimmick: we're the loudest. didn't sound all that great though. combined lack of onstage charisma with pre-sets. loveless as rote-noise-routine. and somehow managed to convince people that new material would be good. mbv were 4 years. 17 years have passed since.

Some of these Beat Rhythm Fashion songs are really good.
and holy shit this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1MfeLx6Uds

duh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSwvQsMY2Bs

No mention of Bachelorette on here? Surprising!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWViyhzLCPw
title song of this album is amazing. boo youtube

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

Flying Nun's got some new and old material brewing. A compilation tribute to The Clean's "Tally Ho" and a new retrospective comp due out in Nov.

Dearest ILMers. Incredibly, I'm going on tour to Auckland and Wellington in November. I'm doing what I can to find out about what might be happening there, and in NZ more generally, in terms of interesting and unusual musics but would welcome any thoughts you might have. Specifically in terms of bands/artists, venues, record shops and related things. Currently, my knowledge extends as far as a microscopic amount of the Flying Nun back catalogue and The D4, but I'm curious about anything that you are aware of and think is worthwhile. Any thoughts you have would be very greatly appreciated.

Oh, and Look Blue Go Purple, whom I absolutely love to bits.

My sister is a big fan of Aldous Harding, though I don't know if Harding identifies with any particular NZ scene or sound. I just read a comment describing her as "like if Feist was a sleep paralysis demon."

There is a What’s New in New Zealand Music thread that’s regularly updated, but I can’t find it in Search somehow.

That'd be What's New in New Zealand Music? , which I've been a bit slack about posting in.

Just moved to Auckland from Wellington, so I can probably help out a little. If you're into marquee Flying Nun stuff, there's a David Kilgour show in early Nov and the Beths are playing a homecoming show mid November (though the first date has sold out). For record stores, Flying Out and Real Groovy in Auckland and Slow Boat in Wellington will probably have what you're after. For indie-ish stuff, there are venues like Whammy Bar/Wine Cellar in Auckland, and Caroline/Meow/SFBH in Wellington; for more experimental/noise stuff, the Audio Foundation in Auckland and Pyramid Club in Wellington are havens.

Aldous Harding I'd lump in with both the Christchurch/Lyttleton folk/country scene (Marlon Williams, Delaney Davidson etc) plus a more NZ-wide wave of stuff like Nadia Reid/Tiny Ruins.

There is a What’s New in New Zealand Music thread that’s regularly updated, but I can’t find it in Search somehow.

― breastcrawl, maandag 19 augustus 2019 15:16 bookmarkflaglink

That'd be What's New in New Zealand Music? , which I've been a bit slack about posting in.

― etc, dinsdag 20 augustus 2019 5:32 bookmarkflaglink

lol, it's literally called that? I should have looked harder, I guess, but I assumed it was a recent-ish thread.

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

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

HHAHAHAHAHAHAH

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

That's pretty cool.

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

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

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
-

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

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.

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

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

OUT FRONT WITH THE KNOBZ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

takes all sorts i guess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bu3wHKERS4

been on the frog power train for the last couple of monthst too. all the best songs don't seem to have videos... last half of this one in particular:

https://frogpower.bandcamp.com/album/south-dunedin-astral-projection-seminar

yea frog power is a brilliant & prolific artist previous band Coyote with his brother who is now sadly departed also excellent

i'm intrigued about where all the comments are coming from, presuming these aren't also just dunedin/NZ people... has he got caught on with the RYM or something similar?

nah i'm from nz. the other person who commented i dunno tho

but assume anyone who'd heard of coyote is probably from dunedin

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