Compressed Gas

Second Wind
Blink and you missed it but Christchurch veterans’ Gas – Gene Pool Belmondo, Ian Blenkinsop and Mick El Borraddo – had six songs released as a 7” EP on Siltbreeze Records in August in a run of 300 copies. As the press release states: “Recorded between 1996 to 1998 the six tracks that make up Compressed Gas are a heady mix of unspecified Nuggets era Garage/ Psych meets the miasmic, Post Industrial streetwaves of Hearthan era Pere Ubu.” Indeed.  I believe it is now sold out. You can hear three of the songs here.

Gianmarco Liguori on Talk Talk
There’s film of Marco’s stately performance (complete with Victoria Kelly’s strings) of Beat Instrumental on Finlay McDonald’s TVNZ7 New Zealand culture show, Talk Talk, here. Click the Chapter 2 button and you'll go straight to it. Marco is joined by Kiwi jazz greats’ Kim Paterson and Murray McNabb, and long-time citizen Miguel Fuentes.

Nuggets
Bil Direen continues to expose more of his productive past here including a raw Vacuum version of Accident from the Forrester’s Hall in Christchurch in 1978, and rare film of theatre production, The Bride On The Wheel. There’s also an essay on Ms Mansfield and Alfred Orage/ Russian Literature online here.

Post-punk writing
Julian Cope has an informed and only slightly rabid take on his favourite post-punk recordings up at Head Heritage, his fascinating music site.

Jon Savage reconsiders 1974 which was regarded as a rock and pop nadir (in punk eyes at least) in Three from 1974, the forgotten year: Cluster, Keith Hudson, The Residents.

Stars - Fifty Essential NZ Songs From This Decade

Spa – Neil of Diamonds (dir: Andy Welch) (2006)

The Renderers – Down River (2009)
Simon Comber – Jaws of Life (2009)
Gianmarco Liguori - Ascending Spirals (2009)
Dimmer – Degrees of Existence (2009)
David Kilgour and Sam Hunt – River Plateau Song (2009)
Enshrine – Simplicity Dream (2009)
The Puddle – Shivver (2009)
The Rocket Jocks – Why My Baby Won’t Go To The Movies With Me (2008)
Sora Shima - Hovercraft (2008)
Batrider – Drought (2007)
Robot Monkey Orchestra - Spire Cranes (2007)
Chris Thompson – Take Two (2007)
The Deadly Deaths - Half Time Double Team (2007)
Liam Finn – Second Chance (2007)
David Kilgour and The Heavy Eights – BBC World (2007)
The Checks – Hunting Whales (2007)
Pluto – Dance Stamina (2006)
Spa – Neil of Diamonds (2006)
The Ruby Suns – Maasai Mara (2006)
Luke Hurley - The Sound (2006)
The Demi Whores – Title is Untitled (2006)
The Tutts – K (2006)
The Ruby Suns – Trip To Mars (live) (2006)
Simon Comber – Sunday Horrors (2006)
The Reduction Agents – Waiting For Your Love (2006)
Slave Trader - Hot and Cold Running Women (2006)
Edmund Cake - Golden Man (2005)
Savage (featuring Akon) – Moonshine (2005)
Pluto – Long White Cross (2005)
Bic Runga – Something Good (2004)
Salon Kingsadore – Faces and Places (2004)
P Money/ Scribe – Stop The Music (2004)
Finn Brothers - Won't Give In (2004)
Martin Phillipps and The Chills – February (2004)
SJD – Superman, You’re Crying (2004)
Die! Die! Die! – Not Talking (2004)
The Fanatics – Buddy (2004)
The Phoenix Foundation – Coming Home (2004)
Bic Runga – Listening For The Weather (2003)
The Mint Chicks – Licking Letters (2003)
The D4 – Get Loose (2002)
David Kilgour and The Heavy Eights - Today is Gonna Be Mine (2002)
The D4 – Come On (2002)
Dimmer – Seed (2001)
Trinity Roots – Little Things (2001)
The Clean – Stars (2001)
Sommerset – Streets Don’t Close (2001)
The Datsuns – Supergyration (2000)
The Scholnicks – Comic Books (2000)
Jakob – Amasae (2000)

The True Lovers - Death Threat - 2009

The True Lovers - Death Threat - 2009

Dion from The D4's new group - the New York based True Lovers - who play the BDO in January.

Lifting The Lid on Hubb Kapp and The Wheels

TONIGHT    TONIGHT    TONIGHT
FAREWELL PERFORMANCE
BEFORE LEAVING FOR AUSTRALIA.

THE DEFENDERS
On Stage For The Last Time

THE OUTER LIMITS
THE TRENDSETTERS
GARY’S RAIDERS
IN THE

DEFENDERS’ FAREWELL
CONCERT CHAMBER
TONIGHT    TONIGHT    TONIGHT

For over four decades Hubb Kapp and The Wheels have been  deemed one of New Zealand rock n roll’s ‘mystery groups’ as their only recorded original, I’m Happy Too, graced Kiwi 1960s compilations such as the groundbreaking How Was the Air Up There? and Get The Picture. 

The band who recorded I’m Happy Too for Viking Records, have been written into 1960s rock lore as an Invercargill band who somehow picked up ejected Pleazers vocalist Bob London, moved to Dunedin and changed their name to The Defenders, then disappeared.
   
Social End Product tracked Kerry Wright, the composer of I’m Happy Too to his Cambooya, Queensland home. Together they tell the true story of Hubb Kapp and the Wheels for the first time.

When The Defenders, a Toowoornba, Queensland beat/ R & B band first landed in Auckland in June, 1965, they had no idea they’d be scripted into New Zealand music history as Hubb Kapp and the Wheels. They were simply a band looking for gigs and more professional experience.
   
They’d played extensively around their Toowoomba and Brisbane backyard, but even as one of the area’s top bands, they couldn’t get enough work to turn professional. A move was needed: the band decided on three possible locations - Sydney, Melbourne or Auckland - finally choosing the latter.
   
The Defenders - Kerry Wright (guitar/vocals), Ron Smith (guitar/vocals), Ray Moore (bass/ vocals) - had to shed their Australian drummer when he refused to move to New Zealand, but shortly after landing, picked Aucklander Rick Phillips to pound the tubs. They then cut a track down to promoter James Haddleton’s to score a support slot on The Pretty Things/ Sandy Shaw Auckland Town Hall concert of August that year.
      
The band’s audition at the Top Twenty club in Durham Lane didn’t gain them the prestigious support but it did turn the ears of the club owner who began to regularly book the band.
   
It also prompted A & R man Ron Dalton to ask the band to demo two songs at Viking Records Studios. where The Defenders coupled a band original, I’m Happy Too, with a cover of Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs’ 1960 number one U.S hit Stay.
     
Good enough to be a record, Dalton decided, but not as The Defenders, so he re-christened the band Hubb Kapp and The Wheels, a name inspired by the recent convictions of Dion and The Belmonts for stealing hub caps.
      
The Defenders, doing quite well under their own name, thank you, refused to do like wise. Instead they added recently sacked Pleazers’ singer Bob London to their ranks freeing the band from vocal duties and adding crowd/ sex appeal.
   
The limping, acne scarred London (real name Bob Cooper) was a genuine Kiwi rock wildman who’d recently raised the hackles of middle New Zealand with an August 1965 television performance which prompted one Northland rock correspondent to describe it as the most disgusting performance he’d seen,and a letdown for all the country’s beat groups. London had apparently rolled around on the stage during a performance of Shel Talmy’s Bald Headed Woman on an AKTV music show.
   
Soon after Cooper (as he was now calling himself) joined, the Defenders were offered full-time work in Dunedin at Eddie Chin’s Sunset Strip teen venue in Rattray Street. Time for a change of drummers as Rick Phillips wasn’t keen on leaving the Queen City. Mike Conway was drafted on drums.

Hello Dunedin. Where the band soon left Sunset Strip, setting up their own dance club, The Nightspot, in George Street and playing Shindig dances at a number of halls around Dunedin.
   
They packed out the Dunedin Town Hall for a series of concerts including the Shindig Jamboree in April 1966 where they topped a bill featuring local crazies The Outer Limits and The Countdowns. Attendance was helped no doubt by The Defenders’ prominence on a local TV show, Clickety Click ‘66, which ran for thirteen weeks, heralded by a theme song penned by Kerry Wright. The bands on-screen duties included playing a handful of numbers (some original) each show and fooling around in crazy stunts with host Pat Wells. Back on the live front they supported Millie Small, Herman’s Hermits and Tom Jones. In their adopted patch, the band and their Beatles, Hollies, Stones, Animals, Who and Zombies stocked sets weren’t easily topped.
   
Time for another challenge...Sydney to be exact. Goodbye Defenders with local keyboard player John Sayers in tow. It was mid 1966.
   
The band, re-named Chapter III (not to be confused with the Dunedin R & B group, The Third Chapter), played around Sydney, then cut a single for Festival Records - Fool/ Odd Man Out - two originals. The record went nowhere chartwise and the band, tiring of the showbiz treadmill, split up, with Wright, Moore and Smith returning home to Queensland.
   
They soon re-formed as Chapter III with original Defenders’ drummer Col Zeller and represented Queensland twice in the national finals of Hoadley’s Battle of the Sounds. They also released a number of records and appeared often on local concert bills and TV shows until early 1970 when Wright and Moore moved on and formed the Peter Wright Revival backing Kerry’s brother, Peter.
   
Kerry Wright sums up: “As you can see, Hubb Kapp and the Wheels never really existed, except on record. Bob London married a Brisbane woman and moved to Canada. John Sayers went into record production in Sydney and Mike Conway is alive and well in NZ. The Toowoomba members still live in that area.”

Batrider - Drought - 2007

Batrider - Drought (shot by Sam NoPromo) - 2007

Sonically youthful Hamilton-descended London based group. Footage from the Pitz in Marrickville, Sydney. Drought is from Batrider's debut album, Tara.

Kiwi Soul Survivor

One quiet weekend Ruth and I escaped to Auckland to catch some music with David Fisher who was then working at the Waihi Gazette. I saw a lot of non-indie sounds in those months. This show being a highpoint (for Rick’s performance) together with a quite stunning Shona Laing and Gary Verberne performance in the Dog and Trumpet on Newton Road. I was editing The Thames Star Entertainment section from which this review is taken. The Windy City Strugglers are still with us by the way.

Rick Bryant and the Skills featuring Bill Lake - Gluepot, Auckland - 1992
Up the psychedelic lit stairs, down past the pinball machines, beyond the disinterested bouncers, Kiwi soul survivor Rick Bryant is singing his guts out.
   
Strutting like a rooster, feeling every song as it emerges from deep within he’s the achetypal soulman now.
   
Years of hangiñg around the edges of the New Zealand music scene have held Rick in good stead.
   
He’s now approaching the level of experience and longevity of the black blues and soul singers, who’ve been his mentors for nearly 30 years.
   
It’s sad to see that the handful of spectators aren’t dancing to what is, after all, dance music They’re just sitting there staring.
   
“Okay here’s a slower one,” mutters Rick looking out beyond the lights to the gathered audience.
   
It’s a slow prowling blues, all that’s missing is the half empty bottle of whisky to cry into. The Skills finally click, shake their 1970s survivor hair out of their eyes and move.
   
Then it’s soul standard Mustang Sally. Strange, a few hours earlier I’d been standing uncomfortably in a Queen Street pick-up joint, watching a covers band murder the same song to the sight of what looked like an alcoholic school social.
   
But not Rick, he can sing it with his eyes closed.., and is....
   
Out to his right, fellow blues/soul freak and former late 1960s/early 1970s Wellington scenester Bill Lake flicks spastically at a miced up acoustic.
   
I wonder what they’re thinking, those two old pals. Twenty years on from their first tentative steps on to Wellington stages at the old University Blues Club dances. On from Mammal, the Windy City Strugglers and a dozen other lost to time outfits.
   
The band grind to the close of their set then wander distracted to the dressing room only to be removed by a half-hearted audience call for an encore.
   
Three more songs - and we’re gone - back down the fluoro lit stairs leaving a vital piece of New Zealand’s music past to battle indifference and a fading star.

Tommy Adderley - I Just Don't Understand - 1965

Tommy Adderley - I Just Don't Understand - 1965

Adderley's big hit from 1965 which charted in New Zealand, Canada, Australia and The USA. It was originally a smash for Ann Margaret although Tommy's version could have come from The Beatles who can be heard covering it on BBC live recordings. Backing group is Max Merritt and The Meteors.

Magic Words

The Puddle's George Henderson on Mysterex and Have You Checked The Children Lately?

"Mysterex magazine had some articles on the period of music when I was first playing punk music in Wellington in 1979 and 1980 and it's written by Dave McLennan. He was in one of those bands and went to all the gigs and kept a diary. So he knows when I played. I don't know how many gigs I've done. I don't know whether we'd played one night or two at a venue. I didn't realise we'd played three nights at one place. I thought we'd played one night and got fired or something. But there's all this stuff we had done and he knows exactly, and he was there, and reasonably sober, and he remembers it all. And he's written a really detailed, in that way, really true to the facts article about that scene.”

"The best book I've read that I'm in is Have You Checked the Children? by Wade Churton and that has whole chapter on The And Band. It's a really detailed analysis of the music. But that's a very good book; it's kind of academic, an attempt to be academic about it, to write in academic terms, but he's still a fan. Usually that makes books unreadable, but it's not too bad."

"He was going to do one on The Puddle, he did some interviews and that, but if he does write something about The Puddle I think it would be really arcane because I think he's been doing sociology and philosophy and things at university all this time so if he writes about us now, it's going to be … interesting."

Baxter's Testament

Baxter's Testament - Bill Direen

"Many years ago, at the Blue Ladder theatre in Christchurch NZ, I directed a production of James K. Baxter's Three Mimes (with mime artist Andrew Bancroft and music by Greig Bainbridge and Richard Anderton). I use these lines drawn from his spoken work and "waiata" with grateful acknowledgment and respect to his whanau. They are drawn from one of the few books that I have managed not to lose by loan or fire over the years. It is dated Wellington, 1976. Baxter was a central figure for my generation and in particular for two of my friends who have followed him to the grave. (Please excuse the lo-fi quality.) James K. Baxter, 1926 - 1972. Hei maumaharatanga." - Bill Direen.

Songs From The Lowland – South Island groups (Every Secret Thing tape) – 1984

I picked this tape up from Robert Scott. He advertised it in his graphic heavy fanzine Every Secret Thing. I rarely missed a New Zealand release then and this had more than most to tempt.

SFTL contains the first released recordings of Look Blue Go Purple in Labour Pains and Hiawatha, two witchy tom tom and organ driven tracks, some prime early Bats (By Night), and doomy Christchurch guitar rock with Scorched Earth Policy’s Arson and the sublime Victor Dimisich Band who chip in Shade and Pipeline.

You don’t hear much about Christchurch’s The World (Charles Heyward/ Allen Meek/ Malcolm Grant/ Andrea Cocks/ Bridgit Mulcahy) these days but it seems John Campbell in his haste to big up the Scottish originals has overlooked a Kiwi Orange Juice. Wrap those ears around the first track here, John, Mystery, it’s an upbeat funky joy with scratchy VU guitaring. The World released a tape in their own right in 1983 from which their tracks were sourced.

My favourites back then (and now) are Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos’ Waiting For An Answer and Cell For Me, two upbeat organ, bass, and drum machine driven live tracks from Mike Morley and Richard Ram which still sound fresh twenty five years on. In these two tracks you can hear the kraut rock influences Morley brought to The Dead C, especially early tracks such as Max Harris.

Note also Electric Blood’s organ and drum machine version of Bats classic Claudine let down by an unconfident Robert Scott vocal. The Double Happys chip in early songs, Wrapped Up (In Myself Again), which has since been reissued, and a live Barbie Bites You To Bits.

There was an intriguing follow-up tape called Whistle Up A Wind which contained In A Circle’s Pink Room.