*rfi* new zealand *rfi*

We've done this before BUT yes, it's hard to find the records here int he UK. It's a fucking conspiracy I tell YA!!!

Anyway: GG (and NZ-ers) will elaborate on such matters, I'm sure.

Whatever it is, This Kind of Punishment "beard of bees" is one of my ALL TIME FAVOURITE RECORDS.

It should be one of everyone's all time etc.

Flying Nun = 4AD...decline in recent years hardly masked by the release of compilations by old stalwarts. Bands have cottoned on to the fact that there is more money in sounding like local versions of American bands than in forging a recognisably NZ sound. Petra Jane to thread!

heres my 2c, i only know so much about this still, but heres how i feel about nz music from a wellington perspective...

i don't know if theres really a scene... there's certainly scenesters. potential audience for y'r classic nz jangle-pop or experimental band is very small... but reasonably devoted. now, if only someone would get them to dance.

most people here equate new zealand music with neil finn and the-band- formerly-known-as-shihad. there is some nostalgic appreciation for some bands, like the chills, but mostly y'r classic flying nun artists from the clean onwards are like... "who?"

bands that rise to radio prominence are ones that play derivative material and try sign to warners. radio stations here have just agreed to a self imposed 20% nz music quota... this will mean every 5th song will be bic runga or stella or dave dobbyn or something just as awful

if theres a reason for bands moving toward an experimental or psychadelic aesthetic, it's for the same reasons such scenes exist overseas: an indie-ish anti-charp-pop movement, but a nice easy one to fit into that already exists.

i don't know if isolation affects us much, really, in such a digital age. distribution here is still pretty poor (so solid crew record was finally released here in march) so we're a long way off the trends... thats probably more relevant to electronic music anyway.

some records are easy to come by. others you may need to mail order or know someone. consider- it's probably as hard to find a notwist or dismemberment plan record here as a hdu record overseas. or whatever bands you want to suggest instead.

pot= v. accessable= most affordable "drug"

ok, now back to y'r regular schedule.

i spose there's a scene where i live. like theres a buncha people i know who make wierd, good, original music. they tend not to get audiences at their gigs. scenesters there are lots of but they tend to go see the big flying nun names. turn up at david kilgour gigs, but aren't innarested in anything else. i don't know if isolation contributes to the music but lack of dough certainly does - affects the music made and the distribution of it. marijuana is common as dirt. finding really good stuff is hard.

& don't forget 30 odd feet of grunt - he's yours, not ours.

Good lord. I just had a look at the FN website, and I'm quite horrified. the FN=4AD thing is utterly OTM. Is the scene really so bad that all they can release is Best Ofs, crap albums by long- standing artists, and Australian bands?

The Ghost Club are ace tho', as are the Subliminals.

The Subliminals actually split up last year - they reconvened for one last gig supporting Stereolab just the other week. Latest FN project is getting a bunch of current acts to contribute a new song and a cover of an old FN favourite for an album to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the label. The founder of Flying Nun is now a wine distributor in England. Petra, come and tell 'em it's not all bad, please! I am a merchant of doom.

. . . nobody's really mentioned any electronica/dance/whatever yet; but I'm not too qualified to comment . . . due to cultural/critical- mass/isolation issues, our electronic music tends to have a lot more dub/reggae/jazz/dark influence than the norm - we didn't really have giant urban clubspace stuff. Also, our hip-hop tends to be quite laid-back & mellow due to similar. Argh, I'm making horrible generalisations (& not doing anything about it). Drum'n'bass is fairly big (& interesting - Shapeshifter & Concord Dawn have made names for themselves) . . .
Dunedin feels quite isolated from the rest of NZ in terms of music/touring bands & stuff. A number of people seem to import stuff using the interweb miracle, it seems . . .

(. . . building on my previous comments, I shouldn't have to mention that we've got a surfeit of ambient which leads to bloody thoughts of genrecide upon "black turtleneck & double latte Aucklander" crowds, etc.)

"most people here equate new zealand music with neil finn and the- band- formerly-known-as-shihad. there is some nostalgic appreciation for some bands, like the chills, but mostly y'r classic flying nun artists from the clean onwards are like... "who?""
V.true - the problem with the reification of "Dunedin Sound" & other suchlikes & the whole "cult" thing is that most of quite a lot of bands of that ilk have a far greater audience overseas than domestically. I mean, even the Subliminals, despite awareness/promotion (hey, I picked up my copy at the cockfarming Warehouse, fr'instance) sold way more units overseas to Nunphiles. Truly sorry to see them break up.
(I wonder how this compares with the Japanoise/fuckedpop underground?)

I dunno nuthin about the music, but yeah there's good pot. hey has anyone in dunedin got any @ the moment? we just ran out.

arn't "violent turd" records from NZ?

you rang, Damian?

most people here equate new zealand music with neil finn and the-band-formerly-known-as-shihad

*sniff* it's...so...true...for the great unwashed [err, as in general populace, not the Clean side-project], NZ music begins and ends with Zedpoledupatrollar* [TM], the mighty major-label jugganaut of doom. They could be from anywhere, cept our sassy-front- chicks have better mullets. and thank goodness Breathe broke up.

I think the fringes of music - the experimental, independent, outright bizarre bands - will always thrive here. Basically, you have to suck a lot of cock to get where Zed are, and given how much their album cost to make, and how badly they flopped overseas, and what corporate bastards Universal have probably been to them since, chances are you wouldn't want to anyway. So there's no pressure to be The Next Strokes [though Cambridge rock city's own The Datsuns are heading for Next White Stripes status as we speak...SXSW fest and all] and shift millions of units. Better to make music you and your half- dozen best mates'll enjoy instead. Maybe cut a Peter King lathe 7" or a CD-R.

We get exposed to a weird cross-section of overseas music in NZ, too. Untill the last decade, UK and US albums would often be released here yeeeears after their domestic release [actually, this still happens sometimes. movies and TV serieses too]. We're the only country where Joy Division went number one [twice, plus a number two for 'Transmission', in '81]. Before the innernet, we also tended to get only a small proportion of overseas music - the toppermost of the poppermost and, therefore, the blandest and safest and dullest of the world's combined musical efforts. The extreme blandness of this dominant culture could perhaps explain the angularity and/or quirkiness of much local music output. One of our most sucessful '70s bands, after all, wore girly makeup and funny clown outfits, and featured a sprightly hornpipe solo.

And then there's the natural environment. All those early-mid 90s Christchurch spacerock bands with the wide-open-windswept-plains sounds, the violent dynamic shifts of HDU and their ilk, like the stormclouds that blow in out of nowhere to envelop Mt Cargill...even the widespread obsession with Dick Dale-esque surfmusic. We've got more coastline than the USA, yeknow.

I had more examples, but i forget and [oddly enuff] i have to go help mix my band's forthcoming lathe 7" now!

Is being on "vinyl" so important that it's necessary to keep releasing these godawful lathe cut records? I hate them so very much.

Not the songs on them, but the polycarbonate itself, of course

yeah yr right, they are a bummer thing. i'm gonna make one soon tho apparently.

yeah well i just sent away for one and peter king is late gettin it back to me. so duane i think your one might have to wait. petra - perhaps you should um hang fire on sending your one away, until the current status of Mr Polycarbonate has been confirmed.

i kinda like the crappiness of the lathe cuts.

They've improved over time, I will say. I've got one that was among the first Mr King did, and my god it's worse than a bent flexi

oh for sure, the quality's arse. but they're Ubiquitous! and American indie-completists will sell their mother's spleen to buy 'em! wahey!

aspen, signer, jet jaguar and anyone else on involve records is good. Check the site.