Dunedin Drone- Non Event?

As for Flying Nun's 21st anniversary, the birthday is celebrated after the body has already died and been sold to Rupert Murdoch, the roster become moribund with duff signings like Garageland and the complete loss of a sense of adventure. As for your nonchalant discount of the bands that made Flying Nun great (and exported something infinitely better than previous products like the Split Enz and Neil Finn), beyond their abilities, they are also pioneers who struggled to create a NZ scene outside the mainstream, their influence extending worldwide. As for the lion's share of attention going to the older bands, well that's about all Flying Nun has going for it is it's back catalog -- it's not like the label even pushed the great Ghost Club lp in the slighest. I'm simply amazed that at last the Clean, the Tall Dwarfs and their various and sundry parts have continued to make interesting and beautiful pop music. (As for Martin Phillips, well the drugs did get in the way after the major label signing -- and as for Graeme Downes, it's been a long time since he recorded a really good album, his latest being terrible). As for anyone would gasp at the poor singing and timekeeping, the appalling sound quality, and wonder what all the fuss is about, I suppose that person would probably prefer spinning their Pearl Jam and Sheryl Crow records anyway.

Er, the Gary Steel excerpt is taken from an article in the most recent edition of the Listener . . . not too sure what the equiv in UK/US is. Read by a staggering amount of NZ households, though; so I'm vaguely disquieted by the savaging of Flying Nun (although the Betchadupa & Chills comments were frighteningly on the mark . . . disagree vehemently with the championing of Propeller/etc bands, though. No mention of Xpressway either). I really hope it wasn't karma for Roy Colbert's hatchet job on Richard Reeve's first book . . .
True, the whole reification of the "Dunedin Sound" meant that attention wasn't focused on a number of worthy bands that fell outside the Flying Nun/Dunedin sphere of influence; but the bands warranting that attention weren't the ones Steel mentioned.
Fuck, library's closing, will finish this up in another computer lab.

I'll agree that the back catalogue is the only interesting thing FN has going for it (with a few short-lived exceptions - I'm a Subliminals fan, & I prefer new HDU to the old) - most of their releases . . . let's see, the D4? Garageland? Betchadupa? GERLING?!?!? Bloody hell, Kylie Minogue & house stylings do not fit the mythology, nosirree . . .
That being said, there's interesting stuff in Dunedin which is completely unrelated to FN. & the whole FN mythos introduced me to some fascinating music, regardless of current irrelevance. A label much better for singles/EPs than albums, methinks . . . < br>
FN :
Search : Clean Compilation, Chills Kaleidescope World, Verlaines Juvenilia, Snapper, Skeptics, Subliminals, HDU Fire Works, Memento Mori (haven't heard Higher++, but it's supposed to be worthwhile), Bats "North By North", early 3Ds, Dead C (in moderation), Straitjacket Fits (in moderation), Doublehappys, Bored Games, later Jean-Paul Sartre Experience (Christchurch rather than Dunedin, though).

Destroy : everything other than "North By North" that the Bats recorded, post-ego Martin Phillips, D4, Gerling, Garageland, Betchadupa

Non-FN Dunedin :
Search : Carriage H, Cloudboy (in moderation), Mestar Porcupine, Operation Rolling Thunder, Suka

Destroy : Er . . . lots of rather dire punk/metal. Not too thrilled with a lot of Mink's back catalogue, either . . .

Liz/Hamish/Di know a lot more about the more underground droney Galbraith/Renderers/Terminals stuff, & I'm not too familiar with stuff like the Murdering Monsters, LD50, Crude, Strange Girls & past-five-years stuff.

― Ess Kay, Wednesday, 27 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

. . . man on the verge of a nervous breakdown . . .

Ran out of things to rehash from his article- sure to get a response- but talking of low fi NZ is there anything better than Cassette out there.

Are Cassette good? They play in Melbourne all the time but I've never got around to seeing them..

When did Gerling sign to FN? They've gotta be the first Australian band on a NZ label EVER if this is the case

I was born in Dunedin.

Search: The mock tudor mansion my father built in Warrington, the peacocks in Glen Falloch gardens and the beautiful beaches.

Destroy: Scots-descended Kiwis with a chip on their shoulder about the English. I mean, get a national identity guys.

I moved from Dunedin to Oxford, England in 1986.

You'll have to tell me more about this mansion thingy since I'll be visiting Dunedin in September...

Gerling are an Australian band who started out as very Xpressway-ish noise/pop and are getting progressively more electronic and poppy as they go along. Plus they wear backpacks.

i wear a backpack. Backpacks are very practical.

cloudboy in small doses? pah! demarnia will be the name of my first born.

feedback on the listener article here .

The (double)CD is out. Listened to it on headphones . . . rather ambivalent about the whole affair.
The Tall Dwarfs cover of SF's "If I Were You" is ridiculously good, though. Malkmus does an interesting cover of "Death & The Maiden" (I prefer the punchier, twitchier original); & the Graeme Downes "Same Old New World" mashup of various famous FN songs is pulled off with remarkable aplomb.

The 3Ds!!!!

Jean-Paul Sartre Experience!

shh, i'm concentrating on farting.

aah.

i saw them play at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel in Providence RI in support of somebody or other and their guitar player just kind of shocked the fucking room with what he was willing to do. i remember their songs wailed with a distorted chug and ridiculously heavy fuzzed-out tubey guitar doing all manner of unidentifiable solo theatrics but then it would get really haunting all of a sudden. i keep hearing yall saying how Flying Nun's not selective any more, that the sound is different. was there a Flying Nun attitude and what was it?

sorry about that. wait. -- okay. alright. i was talking about the 3Ds right there. I LOVE the JPS Experience too. they seem really different though.

So I'm back with the incense and I've opened the windows! Where did everybody go?