Formed in late 1980, initially a trio of Roy Montgomery (gtr/vcl), Peter Stapleton (drms) and Desmond Brice (bass). All were veterans of various Christchurch pre-punk and punk bands. Stapleton had the longest pedigree, and was then on hiatus from the Victor Dimisich Band – as well as being recently ex-Vacuum. These were the Christchurch outfits that inspired the formation of Flying Nun in the first place, so the Pin Group was well-placed to fulfill their intention to do what few local bands had done since the 60s, and make some vinyl. The addition of Ross Humphries on bass and vocals proved to be the missing link, his muscular yet minimally melodic playing was to mesh perfectly with Montgomery’s determined droning raga-rock guitar and Stapleton’s white-knuckled martial hammering. Brice retained a prominent place as the bands’ lyricist of choice, though all members contributed words as well as music to their relatively Spartan repertoire of songs.

At the time Joy Division emerged as a lazy-minded reference point for what little rock criticism New Zealand could boast of, yet in fact almost all the key reference points for the band were pre-punk: Texas psychedelia, Krautrock, the Velvet Underground, War, and the Doors. Single-minded and focused rehearsing saw them enter Nightshift studios and record both the Ambivalence and Coat singles by April 1981, followed by a dozen gigs at Christchurch’s venue of choice, the Gladstone. The very idea that a band would record before having played a single gig was pretty outlandish at the time, and speaks volumes about the extent to which the Pin Group had their entire approach worked out in advance.

Towards the end of 1981 the group ambitiously broadened their sonic palette with the addition of Mary Heney (25 Cents) on second guitar and vocals; and ‘the Body’ (another Vacuum alumni) on viola. This line-up made the bold decision to ‘go to town’ (the name of their EP) and decamped to the 24-track EMI Studios in Wellington to record their swansong. The payoff in terms of clarity of audio production was remarkable, yet it was without any of the unfortunate trademarks of the signature ‘80s production’ sound. By the time that last record emerged in February 1982, the Pin Group had played a couple of shows as a five-piece, and then broken up. Roy Montgomery went straight to England to look up sometime pen-pal Mark E Smith, while several of the others went on to record the Victor Dimisich Band EP, before eventually most re-emerged in Scorched Earth Policy as 1983 rolled around.

Pin Group documentation is fabulously scarce, the first record being packaged entirely in black without a single word being printed anywhere on it. No photographs showing the whole of even the three-piece band have ever been published, though a black and white film of a band rehearsal does exist. The visual style of the group, which was redolent of the classic Warhol ‘Factory vibe’, was entirely in the hands of a film student called Ronnie van Hout, now something of a contemporary art behemoth and all round big-noter. In a very real way, their entire image, career trajectory and recorded oeuvre were ‘of a piece’: or what in the trade is called a ‘total art-work’. This in itself marks them out as the perfect reflection of a glorious moment in rock history, not only in New Zealand, but across the globe. In the UK only the likes of the Fire Engines or Josef K came close to achieving such a perfect combination of pose, poise and pure power of expression. We shall not see their like again.

Bruce Russell