While it was easy to dismiss The Stones as rough and ready, they were a musical venture serious about developing their own style distinct from their Dunedin contemporaries. They had big musical ideas that didn't need too many details, they had the big personalities to make it work. And despite everything they had a strange kind of hypnotic star power.
"I first met Doug at an Enemy gig at the Old Beneficiaries Hall in Dunedin in 1978. Chris Knox abused me for wearing a skinny tie (I still have it, but that was the last time I wore it), but I felt his friend Doug, who was the singer in the support band, The Clean, was committing a far greater sartorially sin that evening by wearing a stripped, “Oxbridge” style blazer."
This Sporting Life were the necessary disrupting outsiders that helped mix and mess things up. They made Show Me to the Bellrope and helped to make Flying Nun a more interesting musical place.
The Able Tasmans debut release, The Tired Sun 12” was considered a bit of an oddity at the time with its keyboard led quirky full sound. And with the term “oddity” comes the unspoken implication that this is a one-off novelty.
The12” EP New is one of the best pure post-punk records to be released in New Zealand. Songs such as ‘South’, ‘New’, ‘Jungles’ and ‘Cha Cha’ are political, intellectual, nervy, rhythmic and brittle.
Of the bands to appear on the **** (Four Stars) album released in late 1980, Naked Spots Dance sound the best and lasted the longest.
There were comings and goings of band members in Pell Mell’s 17-year life span from their 1980 inception in pre hipster Portland, Oregon. The Pell Mell guys were regular unassuming but friendly types who just liked playing their music and occasionally making records and for whom any sort of audience was an astonishing bonus. A new breed.
I saw this band a few times back in pre 1981 times and the recollections are of being awestruck in a misty Old Testament way. The band didn’t so much rock as roll on primal rhythms and connect with the deeper notes. Singer and guitarist Steve Cogle had the presence of a prophet and a voice that predated religion.
The Bats have pedigree with three out of the four members coming from South Island rock aristocracy in the form of Robert Scott from The Clean (vocals and rhythm guitar), Malcolm Grant of The Builders (drums) and Paul Kean, ex of Toy Love (bass). Newbie fourth member Kaye Woodward brought understated and much needed style and has developed into a fine lead guitarist.