What's with the random NZ r0xx0r bands (D4/Datsuns) flouncing around Lodon for eh?

New answers, rock'n'roll motherfuckers.

. . . and since I can't think of anywhere else to put it, Splendid's interview with David Kilgour has the photo of him all Andrew WK'd on the frontpage. Hilarity plus!

i noticed that - the datsuns have played boston at least twice in the last two months, and are being hailed as the NZ band or something. i didn't like them very much when i saw them.

i liked the singer's shoes... there was a slight fuss here because they were chosen as the support act for the white stripes (i think they were personally chosen by jack w.) over local-er band and prominant candidate rocket science. i didn't mind them, but they're not great. waste of a good name and a great pair of alligator shoes. although they do have lots of rock moves and sweaty long hair... meh.

we went out to see shellac who were doing the cool thing of going to local pubs and letting fans get close to them and ask albini stupid questions and so on (intimate)

and this hdu (that's "the high dependency unit" i think, from a local soap opera set in a hospital [with an "h.d.u." plot]), they were supporting shellac

ok so i was talking to these 20 year olds who told me how cool hdu were while they were playing while i stuck fingers in my ears between shouting into theirs' that this was not v. interesting at all and _far_too_loud_ and when were shellac on and if this was _high_dependancy_ then these fans needed help

so hdu played for too long and had already fucked up my ears so i wouldn't be able to hear shellac properly (intimate venue and all), so despite what these 20 year olds told me i waited for that moment after the applause before the next song when a good band says something interesting -- well this band were still fucking with the equipment like it was the equipments fault, so i jumped up on a table in that noise-free opportunity and shouted so the whole pub could hear "you guys don't rock -- you suck -- get off the fucking stage -- you're old.., and boring..., and DEAF !!"

people who knew me turned around and gave me "polite" smiles, hdu were apparently too deaf or too fucked up with their equipment to think of a suitable response but didn't get off the stage, and the 20 year olds told me "you better get out of this pub man -- hdu are a very popular band -- half the people here are hdu fans -- you're gonna get your ass kicked" etc. etc. (needless to say i didn't get beaten up buy hdu types although looking at them it would not have surprised me)

anyway shellac came on and our group of people included an age range of 25-45 and everybody admitted they'd never seen such a good band as shellac on an nz stage in ten years -- consensus (well people who talk to me), and in between songs shellac had ace stage patter and there were all these dumb questions for albini, amoungst them "who's your favourite band ?" answer "hdu" -- ok i fugure he says that sort of thing every gig when he gets asked such thought provoking stuff, but two years later shellac goes and "curates" "atp uk" and invites fucking hdu

HDU? Who? D4 and the Datsuns? We used to have a Datsun. What are they like? Where are they playing? EH?

I like The Datsuns because when this young NZ female band that were hip at the time tried to tease them and make them look dumb and compared them to Silverchair they seemed unmoved, and then when the girls moved on to what they'd been tending towards and asked them to get drunk with them they said no thanks. I mean this wasn't because they were popular then, they weren't, they had no fans and everyone thought they were nerds. Maybe they just didn't understand who was cool. Which is kind of cool.

is that george's way of saying "so i guess i must be wrong this time"?

no i think it's george's way of saying steve albini's still got wack taste.

sarah - don't fuckin bother. go see the mean streaks instead, it'll be cheaper.

D4, Datsuns, hi tones, ho-dogs, fuck me, are all these fukkin bands the same or what??? its like, sometimes i go see the hi-tones when they play here, but i'd never buy their music. why the hell would i when i can listen to the REAL MC5 and not have to watch all that boring posing. help the irony is splitting my brain.

HDU suck too. they are so boring. and now they're having that same thing as those previous bands i mentioned, where everyone sounds just like them. "oh wow i love carriage h they sound just like hdu". you mean, boring? petra is gonna kill me for the second part of this outspoken rant. its real sad that the mediocre-to-crap bands in this country are the ones that get to stand for "new zealand music". this wasn't always the case, but it sure is now.

duane is right mark -- sometimes i just feel like standing up -- i'm so short that it would be cowardly to beat me up, but i have used tables -- i believe in tables, rock music and standing up, but i can do other stuff too

di - Good call first part of sentence - interesting to see live occasionally etc, why bother with them on record? But live the posing = the point - NZ-inflected/auspice which is(was?) a novelty.

Disagree with people re:HDU - I find their recent stuff interesting, and if they've got somebody good behind the sound (i.e. good mix, and not SHEER WALL OF INDISTINGUISHABLE SONIC DEATH, which I suspect mogwai really suffer from live), they're really good live (show@Arc this year = one of my favourite gigs). Middle part of Fire Works in particular all sonic tectonic straining suspended girder stylee. Etc. And Memento Mori is like bastard pop in an alternate universe where we actually live on a swirling gas giant, or if shoegazers stared down the sun instead.

(& I like carriage h because they don't sound like hdu anymore - it's a lazy thoughtless reference point, just like "Dunedin Sound" is. They're more like noise-punk-pop (in the early-Buzzcocks sense), except without lyrics and a vague early-Mogwai filter. Evan's Critic comparison to the Cure's Seventeen Seconds played by Snapper is probably a better description, though.)

its real sad that the mediocre-to-crap bands in this country are the ones that get to stand for "new zealand music". this wasn't always the case, but it sure is now.

curious - I'd be interested to listen to what you consider the non- shite NZ bands (if nobobdy tells the proles, it gets awfully indiecestuous/elitist) - who/what/where?

I don't think The Datsuns and The D4 are really embarrassing examples of New Zealand music. The New Zealand music I listen to the most would be Steve McCabe, The Rainy Days and Matt Middleton - they cross over genres and are funny about each - but bands like The Axel Grinders, King Loser, and the above mentioned may be genre-bound, but they do a good job. The servile dogmatism of these bands - they could be described as conservative, prurient and sonically moralising - doesn't bother me.

the Cure's Seventeen Seconds played by Snapper

! Meaning it is genius, you're saying.

(previous post - "first part of sentence" should read "first paragraph" or "first part of post")

I don't think that they are embarassing - I'm just uneasy about (the possibility of) perception that they could be construed to be what NZ music is all about/a new movement/etc overseas. Or something - hey, I'm a paranoid New Zealander. Anyone want some poppies cut? (& nice last sentence . . .)

Ned : a) Yes.
          b) Want a copy? International exposure ahoy!

Sure, what the hell. Drop me a line privately.

the one time i saw only one member from HDU2 playing, and i'm sure i was there incidentally, or waiting for some other band (possibly Heka which = Stephen Kilroy and Heath Te Au and are so so so great and their cd has meant to be coming out almost forever), it was so loud, just this one member i had to leave to avoid further hearing system pain/damage. But yeah i can't stand them. And so many times i have heard one of their songs start like in a cafe or radio or some unfortunate situation, and i'm like "is this U2"? oooh, they are so atmospheric.

maryann writ: The Axel Grinders, King Loser, and the above mentioned may be genre-bound, but they do a good job. The servile dogmatism of these bands - they could be described as conservative, prurient and sonically moralising - doesn't bother me.

firstly, i think there is a big difference or distinction or whatever* between bands like the D4 and the datsuns and all those bands that limping nun** are now so in love with (or banking on - though i strongly suspect alot of the staff there actually really are into the stuff, if that means anything) and the axelgrinders and king loser. the historical context being a big part of what i mean. Mary-ann what do you mean King Loser do (did?) a good job of? that dogmatic predictable genre-boundness? and why doesn't it bother you? in particular with these bands i am very curious, since you are closer to them or like the effects of them as people (i'm mainly thinking KL here) - do you separate this from their music? I will stop making vague, assumption-incorporating guesses now. I am puzzled though but oh MS you do that to me; you could make me go around and around in a circle, talking inside my head for hours. Excuse me. (not meant as insults anywhere here, except to the king losers, f nuns, the d4 north shore "ladies men", and the (insert "rockin' car brand band name here).

*i'm sorry, i find it very hard to write without dribbling out with "or whatever" or "and stuff". perhaps someone could give me some writing tips or lessons, or brain exercises.

**well i guess actually flying nun are even worse now than "limping", as they were described by MH (don't worry people who don't know what i'm on about here) in Rip It Up years ago, and also um i'm sure some peole limp really well uhh i find it hard the issues of like ableist/disabled stuff in my language use slash metaphori-city...

hey sk i saw the fire works cd release, and it was still boring. and perhaps i haven't heard that much of carriage h to really say, but they played on space last week and they sure sounded like hdu then. the guitarist even copied hdu guitarists moves.

I didn't like the Fire Works release show either (apart from getting to stand rilly rilly close to sweating rockgod Shayne Carter doing interesting things with the guitar/finger interface, which made it all worthwhile. Plus Avotor were a good headsquirm). I didn't like the CD at first, either. I can't really defend my tastes though.

I've never heard U2 so um. To me HDU can sound akin to, say, Shellac; and from all the discourse I've read about U2, I wouldn't imagine that they'd sound like that. Um. Although the Memento Mori EP is produced quite Enoesque, which could mean something. I'm very gullible w/regards to FX pedals or "atmosphere" though, so.

(Heka have been working on a CD? I hope they get it out. Um and does anybody know what's happened to Urban Serpent?)
(And while things are tangentially related to dronerock or whatever, am I a pariah of taste also for liking Suka?)

urban serpent are still in existence. we share the same po box. i haven't heard anything about future gig/festivals or another compilation though - probbly they are busy working on elixir in flux stuff.

hmmm elizabeth, maryanne isis kinda celia now that you mention it (or maybe more pavlova ?)

I've never heard U2 so um. To me HDU can sound akin to, say, Shellac; and from all the discourse I've read about U2, I wouldn't imagine you've read discourse about U2 but never heard them????? how extremely odd (note to SK - don't go into defensive mode! i'm not attacking you - i think it's quite...well, something, not to have heard U2 - though i suspect you might have without knowing it. I guess the hdu comparisons to u2 are mainly based on an epic kind of guitaring type thing...though i must say the guitaring has at times been in my opinion the only "good" thing about U2)...to me HDU seem too forced, and too unoriginal/banal (can't decide which i actual think is more accurate out of those two terms, because i actually don't know enough, and i doubt i'll ever want to/ be able to subject myself to enough hdu to find out) - especially irksome when they seem to think they're so onto it or pushing things.

>produced quite Enoesque, which could mean something. one thing it means at least is that it's probably more worthwhile to listen to eno records (well, a lot of them anyway) instead of hdu.

ess kay writ: getting to stand rilly rilly close to sweating rockgod Shayne Carter doing interesting things with the guitar/finger interface hey, i know you read the notorious shayne thread ... have you actually contributed to it? that "finger interface" stuff sounds appropriately libel-inducingly pervy.

dang dang dang! sorry, first bit-a my previous post all fukked up.
more like this, ie. ess kay's stuff has been strike-through-ified:

I've never heard U2 so um. To me HDU can sound akin to, say, Shellac; and from all the discourse I've read about U2, I wouldn't imagine you've read discourse about U2 but never heard them????? how extremely odd

I tend to have read a lot more about bands than having heard them (I almost enjoy reading/writing about music more than listening at time - or, rather, actually getting hold of music is really hard). Um . . . I was brought up without music fairlymuch and I've probably listened to about six hours of radio one in my two-and-a-bit years in Dunedin; and I don't know anybody with a U2 CD (and I haven't really been to any "big" movies with the chance of U2 on their soundtracks, either. And I don't consume much TV at all at all). There's a chance I've heard U2 without realising it - I mean, I often realise I've known a piece of music for ages without realising that it was something I'd read about/known about for ages. Um, like discovering that that piece of music was Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in 6th form, or just the other day in ReFuel I put 2&2 together with Lou Reed's "Perfect Day".
Epic guitars as the link could make sense. I'll see if I can listen to some U2 on headphones at Echo or something.

re : Shayne; that thread existed/etc long before I knew about it. Contributing now would be sort of churlish/toadlike of me. (& I prefer to perve at that early 80s photo of the Clean with David Kilgour perched in the middle alarmingly abruptly close to the camera (it was near the start of Matthew Bannister's book, and used to be on the FN website but they've just had their website relaunched and it's no longer there sucks. There's a really small version of it on their noizyland bio though.))

Wow, HDU are getting quite a bad rap here eh... I hope its not all because of one song from Momento Mori that has a big delay effect and sounds like the edge.

I really like the band, I've seen them quite a few times now, got their records, blah blah... someone mentioned in another thread how their subject matter seems influenced by NZ landscapes (like many NZ artists) and I'd have to concur with that... makes me think of travelling in a cortina stationwagon on a sunny sunny day with my walkman turned up LOUD and staring out the window.

I'm too stupid to give any better reasons why I like them.

1 of those guys from HDU2 (ha ha that's a good one!) lives next door...owes me 10 bucks! since, fuck, i dunno, long time tho. & now i hear they're in LOndon???? damn f'n right they suck!!

hey so SK are HDU "representative"? like Neil Finn or something you mean?

I'd just like to point out that I was ahead of my time.