Hamish, former member of The Clean and Bailter Space, and Lisa, a New York native, found a like-minded comrade in Danny, whose previous musical credits included that amazing cello noise at the start of "She Speeds" on the Straitjacket Fits' Life In One Chord EP and playing in Robert Scott's part-time Dunedin outfit, Electric Blood.

The three shared a musical attitude in Monsterland that transcended normal, straitjacketing instrumental assignments. On the group's one major live outing -- supporting The Clean on their last NZ tour -- bass, guitar and drumsticks were passed from member to member from song to song.

The same principle applied to their Auckland recording sessions with engineer Gordon Rutherford which make up the bulk of A Trip Thru Monsterland. Their pastoral, sometimes Fall-ish sound leaps from quiet naivety to a messy celebration kind of picnic pop. Hamish pioneered this musical attitude of do-it-yourself and no-instrumental-hierarchy in The Clean and Great Unwashed but, among the three songwriters, it's perhaps Lisa's songs which especially benefit from the charm of this approach.

The story of the rest of the material on A Trip Thru Monsterland -- and of the group's change in name and the absurd wait there's been for this release -- has to do with Hamish and Lisa heading back to New York in 1991. In America, they kept the band and songs going but had to change the name cos there was already a band in NYC called Monsterland. So they became The Mad Scene and developed a reputation in New York's indie-alternative scene, releasing a 7" EP on Homestead Records and recording the rest of what is here at Toxic Shock studio in 1991.

Hamish and Lisa returned to New Zealand in 1993 to complete the mixing and artwork for this 14 track CD with Danny, who has since been playing in Auckland bands Shaft and Steam. The Mad Scene's on again off again career continues Stateside, except now we hear they're called Top Cat...