Flying Nun 25th Anniversary box set

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I got myself the Flying Nun 4 CD box set for Hanukah and I am so re-in-love with Flying Nun! I was completely obsessive about their output from 86-96 or so but bailed after D4, Garageland, etc showed up. But even disc 4 is full of gems, and at this point I'm happy to get one wonderful track from the Mint Chicks or Loves Ugly Children. What does ILX think?

Mitchell Dickerman (Mr. Odd), Friday, 5 January 2007 02:37 (eighteen years ago)

I think I want that. But the cheapest way would be...what?

Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 5 January 2007 02:42 (eighteen years ago)

i think it's highly overpriced, and i'm pretty disappointed with the amount of readily available stuff on there. a box of true FN rarities would be sublime - a box with 'pink frost' and the shocking pinks is veering way towards the mundane.

electric sound of jim [and why not] (electricsound), Friday, 5 January 2007 02:45 (eighteen years ago)

having said that, taking the music alone on face value, well that's a pretty sweet bunch of tunes

electric sound of jim [and why not] (electricsound), Friday, 5 January 2007 02:45 (eighteen years ago)

the first loves ugly children ep and 7" were actually pretty great, it was all fuzzed out shoegazey sorta then they went more punk pop and lost me. 96 was my departure as well. bressa creeting cake, the last hurrah?

keyth (keyth), Friday, 5 January 2007 02:47 (eighteen years ago)

no it was before that.

i think there are only 2 real gems on disc 4 - the ghost club and that king loser track

electric sound of jim [and why not] (electricsound), Friday, 5 January 2007 02:49 (eighteen years ago)

disc 2 and the first half of 3 is the sweet spot

electric sound of jim [and why not] (electricsound), Friday, 5 January 2007 02:50 (eighteen years ago)

But that Shocking Pinks track is wonderful. I got mine from SmokeCDs, I don't think there are 'cheap' options and seeing as how it's 'limited' to 2000 copies I figured I'd jump now. Last year's "Where In The World Is Wendy Broccoli" had a mess of rarities but I agree the best has still yet to see a digital release. Bring on the full Sombretones, Queen Meanie Puss and Marie & The Atom EPs!

Mitchell Dickerman (Mr. Odd), Friday, 5 January 2007 02:52 (eighteen years ago)

i was really stoked when i tripped over that wendy broccoli disc. great stuff.

electric sound of jim [and why not] (electricsound), Friday, 5 January 2007 03:02 (eighteen years ago)

sombretones ep wasn't much. ranks up there with phantom forth and the letter 5 which isn't all that high. i think the able tasmans are the least appreciated fnun band.

keyth (keyth), Friday, 5 January 2007 03:57 (eighteen years ago)

The Sombretones track on the box set was very impressive, but sometimes it's just the one great song, isn't it?

Lurv the Able Tasmans! Y'all should know about the 'new' album under the Humphreys & Keen moniker, available at CDBaby. Now if I could just track down the 3 tracks from their debut EP that were left off the _Cuppa Tea_ CD.

Mitchell Dickerman (Mr. Odd), Friday, 5 January 2007 04:12 (eighteen years ago)

The best way to get this is from your relative who thinks $100 US is nothing to spend on a gift. Content wise-the 1st 3 discs are great, the good stuff on the last one are from the elders and while I didn't expect anything from "Roger Sings The Hits", where's The Puddle?!?! The packaging looks good but the cardboard box isn't made for long distance mailing. The front seams on the top of mine where a little split. A dab glue took care of the problem.

Anyone know where I can get the Goblin Mix/Exploding Budgies CD ??

brg30 (brg30), Friday, 5 January 2007 05:38 (eighteen years ago)

The Humphreys/Keen Cd is really, REALLY good. Just sayin.

808 the Bassking (Andrew Thames), Friday, 5 January 2007 10:10 (eighteen years ago)

This box does indeed look boring (I've had to field two phonecalls from annoyed friends, OH SUCH A BURNING ISSUE!) but tbh I thought it was designed for people after a onestop FN thing, y'know. Dunno that there's many rarities to be had, really.

808 the Bassking (Andrew Thames), Friday, 5 January 2007 10:11 (eighteen years ago)

Are the Axemen on it?

dlp9001 (dlp9001), Friday, 5 January 2007 13:16 (eighteen years ago)

apparently the puddle have done another album but then the last one was pretty dull aside from that first song about terminators or something. i never saw the appeal of them, a few nice singles later on but the record everyone else raves over 'pop lib'/into the moon is a dud. they get points for borrowing the theme music for doogie howser.

is graeme humphreys still a sports broadcaster?

keyth (keyth), Saturday, 6 January 2007 01:35 (eighteen years ago)

a little thing like a TRACK-LISTING seem to be too much trouble for you people. happy to oblige:


Disc 1
01 The Clean - Point That Thing Somewhere Else
02 The Gordons - Coalminers Song
03 25 Cents - The Witch
04 Pin Group - Ambivalence
05 Bilders – Alien
06 Bored Games - Joe 90
07 The Stones - Something New
08 Mainly Spaniards - That's What Friends Are For
09 Naked Spots Dance - Governed By You
10 The Victor Dimisch Band - Native Waiter
11 Marie & the Atom – Isol
12 Childrens Hour – Caroline's Dream
13 Fetus Productions – What's Going On
14 The Chills - Pink Frost
15 The Rip - The Holy Room
16 The Great Unwashed - Neck of the Woods
17 The Verlaines - Pyromaniac
18 Expendables - The Man With No Desire
19 Doublehappys - Needles & Plastic
20 Shayne Carter & Peter Jefferies - Randolph's Going Home

Disc 2
01 Tall Dwarfs - Crush
02 The Exploding Budgies - Kenneth Anger
03 Alpaca Brothers – Hey Man
04 Axemen – The Wharf With No Name
05 The Weeds - Wheatfields
06 Dead Famous People - Barlows House
07 The Orange – What's In A Name
08 Goblin Mix - Travelling Grave
09 This Kind Of Punishment - Immigration Song
10 Sneaky Feelings - Trouble With Kay
11 Bird Nest Roys - Jaffa Boy
12 The Bats - North By North
13 Peter Jefferies & Jono Lonie - Thief With The Silver
14 Jay Clarkson - The Boy With The Sad Hands
15 The Cakekitchen - Dave The Pimp
16 Straitjacket Fits - Dialling A Prayer
17 The Terminals - Batwing
18 Look Blue Go Purple - I Don't Want You Anyway
19 Snapper - Buddy
20 Stephen - Don't Know Why
21 The Dead C - Scarey Nest
22 S.P.U.D. - Breakdown Town

Disc 3
01 Sombretones - Good Evening Listeners
02 Chris Knox - Meat
03 Headless Chickens – Gaskrankinstation
04 Queen Meanie Puss - Contracts
05 Olla – Skeptic Hagfish
06 N.R.A. - Glitch
07 Chug - Flowers
08 Skeptics – Sheen Of Gold
09 The Magick Heads – The Back Of Her Hand
10 Dribbling Darts – Hey Judith
11 The Renderers – Touch Of Evil
12 JPS Experience – Bleeding Star
13 Pop Art Toasters - What Am I Doing
14 3Ds - Philadelphia Rising
15 Dimmer - Crystalator
16 Alec Bathgate - Pet Hates
17 Rik Starr - A Sort Of Holiday
18 Garageland - What Will You Do?
19 Bailter Space - Splat
20 Able Tasmans - Klingon National Anthem

Disc 4
01 Superette - Saskatchewan
02 Loves Ugly Children - Suck
03 David Mitchell & Denise Roughan - Crying Room
04 Solid Gold Hell - Country Sow
05 King Loser – '76 Comeback
06 Bike - Save My Life
07 David Kilgour - Chop Me In 1/2
08 Bressa Creeting Cake - Rocky Mountain
09 Chris Heazlewood - Surf's Up In Malibu
10 Martin Phillipps - Evermore
11 The Hasselhoff Experiment - Brown Paper Bag
12 Ghost Club - Ghost Club Theme Song
13 Betchadupa - Spill The Light
14 Robert Scott - Harmonic Deluxe
15 The Subliminals - Uh-Oh
16 High Dependency Unit - Schallblüte
17 Graeme Downes - Cattle, Cars & Chainsaws
18 The Shocking Pinks - Emily
19 The D4 – Sake Bomb!
20 The Mint Chicks - Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!
21 Toy Love - Rebel

scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 6 January 2007 01:58 (eighteen years ago)

i would totally buy it if i had the money. i am no blase kiwi, i am a nebbish from the nutmeg state, i haven't heard most of that stuff. i AM the only headless chickens fan that i know. i used to love that one label comp, um, tua something, tua loo ra loo?, something. my room mate jennifer had it. she was cool. she turned me on to clean and chills. miracle legion played at her wedding. appropos of nothing.

scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 6 January 2007 02:03 (eighteen years ago)

getting 'the back of her hand' and 'the crying room' on cd makes it worthwhile, almost, and 'the holy room' too!

sometimes they went with the obvious choice and sometimes not. this is like the 5th comp the 'randolph's going home' has been on, sure it's amazing but maybe denise roughan's 'to sleep, to dream' instead. i've always wanted that orange ep.

the humphreys/keen record sounds just like an able tasmans record! i suppose that's about right since all of them had a hand in it.

keyth (keyth), Saturday, 6 January 2007 02:04 (eighteen years ago)

if anyone wants to send me a BETTER cdr box-set of stuff, i could make it worth your while. actually, i have no idea how i would do that. never mind.

scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 6 January 2007 02:16 (eighteen years ago)

Here's how you'd make this a better box set: (IMHO)

1. Flesh it out with some more great tracks by the Clean (easy to do), Verlaines, Bird Nest Roys, Chills, "Future Shock" by the Gordons, etc. etc.
2. Now, we stray off topic with regards to it being Flying Nun exclusively,but we're talking CD-R's, so let's say the Shallows single and some of Roy Montgomery'stellar solo work, and Trash's "On and On With Lou Reed"
3. Throw in some of the great punk stuff featured on "AK 79" (which FN DID reissue, so fair game, right?) like Proud Scum's "Suicide", the Terrorways and the Scavengers. Also add some other tracks by the Spelling Mistakes and the Nocutrnal Projections. If someone is really an insider. then throw in some unrelased tracks by the Enemy.
4. Finally, add some of the Xpressway releases from 1988-92 like the Plagal Grind EP , Dead C's "Sun Stabbed" 7, and the Carter-Jefferies 7"".

But again, this would not be a celebration of Flying Nun, per se, but it would be a great overview of the NZ scene at that time.

Max Hechter (Max), Saturday, 6 January 2007 11:13 (eighteen years ago)

This could be a good sampler for me actually, I know most of the well-known FN bands like Clean, Bats, Straitjacket Fits, Chills, Tall Dwarfs etc and a few of the lesser known bands (I love that Look Blue Go Purple song) but there's a whole ton of stuff on there I've never heard of! I doubt I'll buy it but I'll probably download it and use it to find bands to delve further into.

Garageland sucks though :P

Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Saturday, 6 January 2007 11:19 (eighteen years ago)

That comp Scott's asking about is called Tuatara and it's great.
Looks to me like the whole thing can be pared down to three discs. Someone should re-issue the Dunedin Double LP.

Ice Cream Electric (Ice Cream Electric), Saturday, 6 January 2007 12:50 (eighteen years ago)

I decided to try to create a better box. Except in my OCD/completist way I decided the best (read: easiest) solution was to gather up all released, promo and DVD Flying Nun compilations that I had or could find, dedupe them and chuck them on my Sansa for use during my exercise and whatnot. I wound up with about 300 tracks of Kiwi goodness. There's been some interseting side effects, such as I now have a concise 13 track best-of the 3Ds, who I just hadn't appreciated before but now think are terrific. And I don't think Garageland, Loves Ugly Children, High Dependency Unit and Solid Gold Hell suck like I used to, I just think they only had a few outstanding tracks and I'm happy to have them.

Other interesting notes:
The Puddle don't show up on a single Flying Nun compilation. Draw your own conclusions.
"Randolph's Going Home" actually is on just 3 comps.
"Not Given Lightly" is on 5. And it deserves it.
"Suck" by Loves Ugly Children is also on 5. I think it's a top tune, but c'mon...
The Bats lead the way with 14 unique tracks represented.

The only comp I couldn't find that I really wanted was _Outnumbered By Sheep_. If anyone has a vinyl rip to trade, lemme know.

And I passed on the two _Freak The Sheep_ comps, those look clearly second-tier. Anyone have an opinion of them?

Mitchell Dickerman (Mr. Odd), Saturday, 6 January 2007 14:49 (eighteen years ago)

but randolph was also on 'xpressway pile up' which makes 4. although i guess not four flying nun comps. so i was wrong either way, sorry. cloudboy 'pet' would have been better than anything by the puddle.

keyth (keyth), Saturday, 6 January 2007 15:34 (eighteen years ago)

Mmm, Cloudboy. I went to New Zealand on my honeymoon and asked every waiter and waitress for cool band recommendations. Cloudboy was the one that kept coming up and I ordered their debut album when I got back. Still love it, can't wait for another.

Mitchell Dickerman (Mr. Odd), Saturday, 6 January 2007 15:46 (eighteen years ago)

Best thing about the boxset = Pan Am, definitively written out of history! Would've been nice that the Mainly Spaniards track is more readily available (only time I saw the 7", it was going for $90, wtf), except it turned up on CD already w/05's Christchurch: The Music comp (also includes the Androidss' "Getting Jumpy", woo!) . . .

Scott, box set isn't really that bad, & there's interesting/"interesting" stuff that people wouldn't put on their own box sets for you (NRA! Rik Starr! Naked Spots Dance!) on there.

etc (esskay), Monday, 8 January 2007 01:39 (eighteen years ago)

Ah, Cloudboy. :-) Great stuff. Heya S.!

Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 January 2007 02:00 (eighteen years ago)

awesome:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F72kHYya5mk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp054fTJNKw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDSb9UeDINY
(via the flying nun site)

willem -- (willem), Monday, 8 January 2007 07:08 (eighteen years ago)

Have White Boys ever released their music? That live-excerpt at the start of the first youtube footage sounds fantastic!

willem -- (willem), Monday, 8 January 2007 07:19 (eighteen years ago)

five months pass...

Flying Nun Heavenly Pop Hits Documentary in 9 parts:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sjUDemQFznA

will, Monday, 25 June 2007 16:32 (seventeen years ago)

thanks for that.

really drives home how great the fits were before Andrew Brough left and how rubbish they were after that. squandered your opportunities there, shane.

good dog, Monday, 25 June 2007 18:18 (seventeen years ago)

I'm still loving this box set. I need to step up my defense of disc 4 - where's the weak tracks here? Both Superette (with sort of a poppy Sonic Youth vibe) and Bike's (the good part of Straitjacket Fits, all soaring melodies and guitar wash) only albums are absolute classics. There are a few tracks that are far and away the best thing done by the band ("Suck" by Loves Ugly Children is a model for quiet/loud/quiet songs and The Subliminals "Uh-Oh" is a totally addictive early Stereolab-like groove with a hiccuping vocal that sticks in your head) and the King Loser track is perfect Kiwi surf-rock. The Mint Chicks track, with it's driving, martial drumming just begs for repeat plays, even the D4 track is a short burst of pure punk that does it's job and leaves. The experimental soundscape from Robert Scott isn't killer but it fits well. Even the stuff from otherwise uninteresting Betchadupa and Hasselhoff Experiment are solid. Too bad Flying Nun is just a barely animated corpse these days.

Mr. Odd, Wednesday, 27 June 2007 03:06 (seventeen years ago)

why so much time on the headless chickens? sure they were the biggest selling band but that doesn't mean they were not wretched. martin phillipps new job is to cry all the time. some of the guys seem pretty bitter. of the top ten straitjacket fits songs andrew brough probably wrote five or six of them. that atmospheric melodic noise he made in the background left with him and it's why 'blow' blew.

keythkeyth, Sunday, 1 July 2007 01:57 (seventeen years ago)

two years pass...

Just to re-bump this: Flying Nun Heavenly Pop Hits Documentary also available here now (in 6 parts - quality may be better than the youtube version):

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/heavenly-pop-hits-the-flying-nun-story-2002

This documentary tells the story of the legendary Flying Nun music label up to its 21st birthday. The label became associated with the 'Dunedin Sound': a catch-all term for a sprawl of DIY, post-punk, warped, jangly guitar-pop. The Guardian: "[it's] as if being on the other side of the world meant the music was played upside down". Features interviews with key players, the spats and the dark-but-breezy glory. The label's influence on the US indie scene is noted and Pavement's Stephen Malkmus covers The Verlaines' 'Death and the Maiden'.

Bill E, Friday, 11 September 2009 01:37 (fifteen years ago)

i dug that doc

one of the things i really love about FN is that there never seemed to be a cult of personality around the people who ran it, unlike many/most highly influential labels.

surfin on my face (electricsound), Friday, 11 September 2009 01:52 (fifteen years ago)

That documentary rules.

The cheapest way to the box is to check it out from the Auckland library for two dollars.

(note to self: always be in New Zealand)

CharlieS, Friday, 11 September 2009 02:27 (fifteen years ago)

Yeah Roger is a thoroughly down to earth bloke, apparently looking to get FN back from the clutches of Mushroom, so rumour has it, so a relaunch may be possible in the near future. xpost

Bill E, Friday, 11 September 2009 02:31 (fifteen years ago)

one year passes...

This Flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/greeneyedowl/ is amazing -- tons of awesome FN-related posters and news clippings.

Falkor Johnson (askance johnson), Thursday, 14 October 2010 01:57 (fourteen years ago)

Ha, I just noticed that as well!

Ned Raggett, Thursday, 14 October 2010 02:00 (fourteen years ago)

There's a Verlaines review where the writer calls the FN guitar sound dated -- and this is from 1983!

Falkor Johnson (askance johnson), Thursday, 14 October 2010 02:05 (fourteen years ago)

That comp really should have something off Scorched Earth Policy's first 12" EP. Maybe "Green Cigar" or "Too Far Gone." Near the top of the (very high) early 80s NZ heap.

Michael Train, Thursday, 14 October 2010 02:08 (fourteen years ago)

Just release a box set of the first 60 singles like Cherry Red did.

Gerald McBoing-Boing, Thursday, 14 October 2010 03:13 (fourteen years ago)

Yeah, and I've long thought there should be a box in which was found cd-5 repros of the first ten to 15 12" EPs. in minimal cardboard sleeves if that's what it took. But who wouldn't want the Clean, Gordons, Scorched Earth Policy, Orange, Max Block, Bored Games, Alpaca Brothers, Children's Hour, Plagal Grind, Pin Group, and Stones? Yeah, I know, that's eleven, and probably not the first eleven at that, but you get the point...Through in Ballon d'essai, Marie and the Atom, the Rip, and the Bird Nest Roys and you'd have fifteen.

Probably too elaborate a concept. Maybe just go your Cherry Red route and fill up four cds that way.

Michael Train, Thursday, 14 October 2010 03:38 (fourteen years ago)

man, it's too late for copy-editing. "Throw in"

Michael Train, Thursday, 14 October 2010 03:38 (fourteen years ago)


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