As 1984 slips into ’85, Split Enz play their last show, Hello Sailor reform and play their first (in five years), Herbs head off for Australia, The Chills for Britain. And Auckland’s live music venues come and go.
The All Stars are still playing the blues, while The Mockers and Dance Exponents are the pop stars du jour. But interesting new shapes are emerging from the shadows.
For one, the wildly alternative Fetus Productions, for another, a musical theatre concept starring musician Don McGlashan and actor Harry Sinclair called The Front Lawn – both local legends in the making.
Colin Hogg gets contemplative interviewing Iggy Pop for the Auckland Star, White Heron Hotel, Parnell, 11 July 1979. - Photo by Bruce Jarvis, Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 1704-2062A-15
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The Allstars Midwinter Madness Ball at Trillo’s, last night (and this morning); June 1984, Auckland Star
Eclectic would have to be the key word.
Well, any show that combines a string quartet zinging out a spot of low-key classicism, two Māori cultural groups, comedy, rock and a big helping of the blues certainly earns that label.
It also managed to earn itself a capacity crowd at Auckland’s home of business conventions and cabaret.
God only knows who won the weekend for two in Raglan for being best-dressed couple last night (and this morning), but the competition looked fierce with a fair percentage in ball-style drag entering into the spirit of the occasion.
But, occasion or no occasion, the music is the thing I must write about before my eyes seal over as the sun rises through the rain.
And, from string quartet, we sailed into ethnicity with the Taniwha Rau Culture Group, who managed to look and sound fairly ripping with their own form of eclecticism – from ABBA to Princess Te Puea.
And then Rick Bryant’s Jive Bombers and their brand of original and back-pages soul. Great singer, great band – especially the four-man brass section – though the back-up singers are still trying to catch up with things, albeit with a sense of choreography that looks straight from the Tepid Baths.
Peter Rowley, on comedy and motorbike impressions, is definitely a love-him or hate-him deal. The audience certainly reflected that, with as many “get offs” as there were applauders.
Personally, he’s the kind of act I’d expect to find given away in a packet of cornflakes: flaky, corny and sort of stale, especially the Falklands Islands routine.
The breakdancers spun and unravelled before the Allstars unwound onstage
The breakdancers, who spun and unravelled during the break before the Allstars unwound onstage, caught more appreciation – deserved too. And, as usual, the Allstars were a mixed and moving musical buffet, more than living up to their name.
Sonny Day, singer extraordinaire and guitarist unextraordinaire, led things off, as usual with a blues shuffle, ‘Talk Too Much’. Then Midge Marsden lifted the adrenalin factor, with harmonica, vocals and effusiveness on ‘Madison Blues’ and ‘Carry My Blues Away’.
Hammond Gamble and Beaver made Gamble’s ‘Should I Be Good’ sound even more like a hit single, before Gamble moved on to his favourite standby cover, ‘Further On Up the Road’.
And guitarist Willie Dayson turned a few heads with a bluesy reading of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Lodi’.
Josie Rika, too, won some more members to her cult following with a more-than-respectable version of ‘Respect’.
Somewhere in the middle of all the All-Starring, the Pātea Māori Club took the stage with backing tapes and an awful lot of presence for their version of the New Zealand hit parade – and a glance back to the real stuff.
And, finally, when everyone’s eyebrows were falling into their drinks, the “star” of the evening, Renée Geyer, took the stage. Though it was loose and pretty makeshift until ‘Say You Love Me’, with everyone, including the other three female voices on stage, getting a shot.
And then, into the tingles, with Geyer and Gamble tying vocal chords on Dylan’s ‘Knocking On Heaven’s Door’ and, later, ‘Dust My Broom’.
A night short on polish, certainly, but long on feel – and length. And, often as not, the real musical stars of the night weren’t the “stars” but the sidemen – like Geoff Castle on keyboards, Walter Bianco and Brian Smith on saxes and Neil Hannan on rock-solid bass.
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Sam Hunt at the Gluepot, last night; July 1984, Auckland Star
A packed Gluepot reluctantly had to turn away half a houseful from its doors last night. The reason was a chaotic tall streak of eccentricity, romance and poetry called Sam Hunt.
The Lone Swamp Hen (his words) had come to roost briefly in Auckland’s cultural heartland for a celebration of his words, delivered in that familiar, Capstan-coated rasp.
And the audience was as all-sorted as the man’s poetry – young and semi-punky, hippy, dippy, groupie, and middle-ager, some of the female members of the latter gasping at Hunt’s colourful grasp of the vernacular.
But then Hunt’s poetry is as full of vernacular as it is of New Zealand and the New Zealander he celebrates with every second breath.
And denigrates too – like the one about former SIS man Paul Molyneux (“the meanest man I ever saw”) and ‘What Price Progress’, his paean to a countryside raped and used.
There was rude wit in ‘The Ultimate Accountant’, a tribute to a groupie who finally “made it to the front benches” and melancholy in ‘Returned Serviceman’ and ‘Brother Lynch’, the latter a poem for an old schoolteacher.
There were poems about Australian beaches, poems to father dead and son born, a few flaccid, romantic ones (“the sort the literary critics like”) and, maybe because it was Hunt’s 38th birthday yesterday, some James K Baxter, sad – and rollicking on ‘Barney Flanagan’.
And Minstrel, Hunt’s ageing canine sidekick, even made it on stage to examine the leafy props someone had put there (“don’t pee on the tree for Godsakes,” said Hunt).
All in all, the Lone Swamp Hen was swamped in affection. Deservedly.
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This Is Heaven, Marie and the Atom and the Great Unwashed at the Gluepot, last night; August 1984, Auckland Star
“It’s alternative, innit?” the voluble chap slightly to the right of my right ear kept shouting.
He shouted it through most of This Is Heaven and on into Marie and the Atom.
He was right, I suppose.
“It’s alternative, innit?” the voluble chap to the right of me kept shouting
Well, certainly This Is Heaven was something other than straight down any particular line. Half poetry, half-slumbersome, semi-rhythmic grooves that led vaguely down a half-lit hall straight to where the back door should have been – but wasn’t.
Maybe that’s why the band took so long to get out. Anyway, it wasn’t.
Heaven, that is.
Marie and the Atom, who released an impressive EP in recent memory, is now a duo that alternates between violin, guitar, bass, steel drums, banjo and keyboard doodlings; they didn’t quite grasp any particular nettle either.
With so much dull foreplay, it was probably too naïve expect much in the way of climax.
And, unfortunately, The Great Unwashed didn’t provide it. Though the great unwashed out front didn’t seem to mind too much.
They just didn’t get excited. And they seemed to experience a spot of bother dancing a great deal. There were some wonderful songs in there, but either the wrong person was singing them or the wrong combination seemed to be playing them last night.
Those who claim they know about such things (no, not the band) say they’ll be much better at The Windsor Castle tonight.
I tend to believe them. They couldn’t be much worse.
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Herbs at the Windsor Castle, last night; October 1984, Auckland Star
If nothing else, Auckland reggae band Herbs were singing about a nuclear-free Pacific long before a certain Mr Lange grabbed the microphone for his ongoing aria on the theme.
But there is a great deal more to Herbs.
Now a six-piece – with only guitarist Dilworth Karaka and drummer Fred Faleauto remaining from the original line-up – Herbs seem determined to stick around. And, in front of a good audience of friends, supporters and fans, they demonstrated why they should.
The old songs like ‘French Letter’, ‘Jah Son’ and Fred the drummer’s always-punchy ‘Crazy Mon’, slipped in easily alongside the newer material like the latest single, ‘Long Ago’.
With six strong singers and some stunning harmonies, the band puts out a big warm sound – several steps away from the sparse traditional Jamaican reggae sound.
Willie Hona slid in some neat guitar between Karaka’s lead and rhythm chops and, just for the sake of variety, the band bowed out with a lengthy variation on a blues theme.
Very enjoyable indeed. Catch them next time they come round. And there’s a new album on the way soon, too.
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The All Stars Play the Blues with special guest Wilko Johnson at the Gluepot, last night; November 1984, Auckland Star
Wilko Johnson arrived in Ponsonby direct from London last Saturday with his guitar and briefcase to join a package of Kiwi rock and blues musos who loosely describe themselves as the All Stars.
Johnson has never done anything quite like it before. He has never rehearsed quite so much before either.
“I feel a bit like Olivier,” he muttered, to no one in particular, on the second of three nights of rehearsal with his pick-up rhythm section.
And last night he performed like Olivier with a cast of over-seasoned old pros.
Johnson’s genius is his simplicity. Before a jammed Gluepot (forget even trying to buy a drink, it was out of the question), he burst through after 80 minutes of dull predictability from his supporting acts.
Hammond Gamble’s gutsy reading of ‘Leaving the Country’ supplied a burst of energy
Sonny Day, Midge Marsden, et alia played the same old songs the same old ways they’ve played them 100 times before. The only burst of energy in the first half – and which the audience recognised as such – was Hammond Gamble’s gutsy reading of his personal standard, ‘Leaving the Country’.
But, finally, the real stuff arrived at 9.20pm in the shape of Johnson and a tight rhythm section of Dennis Ryan (drums) and Neil Edwards (bass) – and a set of about a dozen tough, insistently punchy shots of rhythm and blues.
Johnson is one of rock’s true primitives. He never over-reaches himself – remaining content to slam out vicious machine-gun chords, singing and darting round the stage like a cheap waiter on hot coals.
The crowd loved it, from go to whoa, especially on a pair of old Dr Feelgood classics, ‘Back in the Night’ and ‘She Does It Right’.
Energy, economy and presence. Simple. Memorable.
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Split Enz, with the Topp Twins at the Logan Campbell Centre, last night; December 1984, Auckland Star
“Don’t think of it as the end of a band, but the start of several new careers. And who knows where they’ll lead,” a grey-haired chap said to me at a party the other night.
And he might know. After all, his name is Dick Finn, father of Tim and Neil.
So maybe last night’s final farewell concert by New Zealand’s beloved Split Enz didn’t just mark an end but a beginning.
And I know that rock music isn’t something we’re supposed to get all soft and sentimental about, but Split Enz are special. Unique in fact – the band has earned that rarely-bestowed word.
They were never just another rock band clutching their guitars and holding borrowed poses. Enz sprang from the fertile soil of their own imaginations, singing their strange and exciting songs while dressed and made up like the house band in Marat/Sade.
The band that took its final bow at the Logan Campbell Centre last night is a long way from that earlier eccentricity. But Split Enz remain special to New Zealand.
Last night was the end of a long love affair young New Zealanders have had with the band that some of us grew up with and some of us discovered only an album or two back.
Because, despite superstardom in Australia and brief tastes of success further afield, Split Enz never forgot their roots. They always came back.
So, it seems strange that the band won’t be coming back again with a new album and more memorable concerts. But last night’s epic performance left us with plenty of new memories.
In front of a packed and utterly rapturous house, the Enz gave their all for 140 magic minutes.
With as many songs as they have in their back pockets, it was impossible to touch every base, but they came close.
They’ve never sounded better, opening full force with ‘I Walk Away’ and ending in similar style with a stunning ‘Hard Act to Follow’.
In between was more magic than you could poke a wand at. Brand new, like drummer Paul Hester’s rousing ‘This is Massive’. Old, like the lovely ‘Charlie’, which the band stretched out, almost reluctant to let go of it.
Eddie Rayner’s magic keyboards were frighteningly good last night, Nigel Griggs’s bass held everything together as usual and Noel Crombie sang, played the inevitable spoons and even managed a tooth-wrenching Jimi Hendrix guitar solo impression. While the brothers in the spotlight sang their hearts out.
“I don’t know what to feel,” Tim said at one stage.
Neither do I. But, like a lot of other people, I’m glad I was there at the end of the Enz.
And full marks to the marvellous Topp Twins, who came out to a half-interested crowd and went off having won them lock, stock and whistle with their own brand of unique music.
Yeah, they deserve that word too.
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The Go-Betweens, with the Chills and Able Tasmans at the Gluepot, last night and tonight; February 1985, Auckland Star
One average and two near-excellents seems pretty good for another night’s battle at the dear old and soon-to-close-for-a-facelift Gluepot.
Average were Able Tasmans. The man of the same name may have “discovered” New Zealand for the white invaders, but New Zealand is still a long way from discovering this band.
After 20 minutes of sounding promising, their variations on a Doors-inspired organ, bass and drums approach started to sound distinctly cyclical.
Not so for the quite magnificent Chills. With the likes of this band around, Dunedin obviously has a lot more to offer the country than overpaid doctors.
The Chills neatly balance their melodic melancholy with enough upthrust to more than justify their growing reputation
They neatly balance their melodic melancholy with enough upthrust to more than justify their growing reputation as the country’s best-selling (in the singles stakes) band.
Punters don’t normally applaud support bands at the very choosy Gluepot.
And then there were the Go-Betweens, who seemed to baffle as many people as they excited last night.
The problem for the baffled was that they hadn’t heard the records – especially the extremely good new album, Spring Hill Fair and its flag-flying single, ‘Bachelor Kisses’.
But that’s entirely their problem.
Cooking gently in the heat of a packed bar, this Australian band played their gently perverse, occasionally aggressive version of the new rock with a simple effectiveness.
Lead men, guitarist/singers Robert Forster and Grant McLennan traded song, verse, lead and rhythm guitar lines with convincing intensity, probably most powerfully on ‘Five Words’, from the new album.
And underneath, the rhythm section of Lindy Morrison (drums) and Robert Vickers (bass) built a simple, sturdy foundation.
Not the sort of music to touch your feet, but there are other, more important parts.
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Hunters and Collectors, with Car Crash Set and the Chills at Mainstreet, last night; March 1985, Auckland Star
There’s an eerie feeling about Mainstreet these days.
Maybe it’s the half-demolished shops on either side. Maybe it’s just the feeling that a wrecker’s ball could come through the ceiling at any moment …
Or maybe it’s just that the only beer available comes from somewhere European and costs $3.50 a can …
Nothing unsettling about the music last night, though.
Well, Hunters and Collectors have always and – God willing – will always be a little unsettling. But that’s the way this rare Australian export is designed. And it is a rare foreign export that could hold its head up between the two local support bands last night.
First, the highly exportable, smoothly funky Car Crash Set. And, last, the shadowy, hypnotic aptly named Chills.
But Hunters and Collectors, taking all sorts of well-calculated risks, soared through a 90-minute set of often-unfamiliar songs and won hearts, arms, legs and other parts along the way.
There might be seven of them, including their brilliant, ringing horn section, but this is a stripped-down version of the old Hunters and Collectors.
After a split and reformation the album before last, the band is determined not to look back. And good on them for that.
They start the set with the new single, the open-hearted ‘Throw Your Arms Around Me’, toss in the new natural encore, Ray Charles’ ‘I Believe to My Soul’ two-thirds of the way through. And play it brilliantly by ear the rest of the way.
Stunning stuff. The best bass sound this side of Jamaica and the most intensely soulful singer Australia is ever likely to throw out of its sullen mass.
It sounded like a memorable night.
And I’m sure it wasn’t just the influence of that expensive European beer.
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Hello Sailor at the Windsor Park, last night; April 1985, Auckland Star
Talk about trial by fire…
Any Aucklander with an ongoing rock and roll habit has long since come to terms with Sweaty Body Syndrome.
There used to be a place called Mainstreet that put our pores and stamina to the test on numerous occasions. But Mairangi Bay’s Windsor Park was, as the hippies used to say, something else last night.
And, if it was V hot and even more sweaty out front last night, it was even worse for the poor devils on stage.
And they were trying to make a point.
They were trying to make the point that, five years after breaking up one of the best rock bands this country has ever produced, you can reform and reassemble what was, what is, and what might still be with a modicum of credibility.
And, despite the conditions last night, Hello Sailor managed all three.
In the back-biting, bitchy world of rock, reformation is a dirty word
In the back-biting, bitchy world of rock, reformation is a dirty word. Getting back together under an old and famous name is the sort of thing too many people have done for reasons of economics.
But, a couple of months back, the original Hello Sailor did it for a one-off appearance at a farewell-to-the-Gluepot gig. They played 20 minutes. They sounded great.
And, when they came off, eyes met eyes – and got serious.
They got so serious, in fact, they decided to do what they’d never had the courage to do before and reform a band that had earned the local equivalent of that very serious word, “legendary”.
Graham Brazier, Dave McArtney, Harry Lyon, Lisle Kinney and Ricky Ball made a special sort of band – up until they fell apart in a state of exhaustion and decay.
Since then, the talent didn’t exactly dissipate. Brazier (eventually) went on to make a terrific solo album, McArtney formed his Pink Flamingos and made three increasingly excellent albums, Lyon made some fine music with Coup D’Etat, Kinney was a member of the original DD Smash, and Ball went into business with the occasional foray back to live appearances in temporary outfits like the All Stars.
The question was whether they could turn 20 minutes of nostalgic magic into 90 minutes of new life. And, even more importantly, whether they’d pull not just the old crowd (now bogged down in babysitting problems), but a new audience.
Last night they did. Hundreds of them.
Many of the hundreds at the sweating, packed Windsor Park last night were far too young to have even gotten past the pub doors five years ago.
The band had problems last night. The heat was incredible. Things went wrong. Microphones didn’t work, rough edges surfaced like sharks. But, from the first chords of ‘Latin Lover’, the big crowd was with them. And we’re not just talking old favourites here.
Sure, we got ‘Disco’s Dead’, ‘Gutter Black’, ‘Blue Lady’, ‘Son of Sam’, ‘Boys from Brazil’ – even ‘Lyin’ in the Sand’ and the oldest and prettiest of them all, ‘Good Morning Mr Jazz’.
But we also got a near-album’s full of new songs. Like the jaunty reggae of ‘Winning Ticket’, ‘Love is a Doctor’, ‘Once Upon a Time’, and a raw-edged piece of autobiography called ‘Suicide in Hollywood’.
And the mystique was intact. Brazier – cooking like an Uncles’ chicken – sang true and strong, and McArtney and Lyon’s guitars entwined like old lovers.
Encores and more sweat and more songs later, it still made sense.
Welcome back Hello Sailor. There is life after 30 – but some of us knew that anyway.
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Dance Exponents, with Grey Parade at the Town Hall, last night; May 1985, Auckland Star
New Zealand’s resident pop kings remain as frustratingly inconsistent in concert as ever.
They can veer, in the space of two songs, from totally together to stumblingly loose. One minute, they’re all tearing down the same path on a song like ‘Only I Could Die (and Love You Still)’ and the next they’re falling apart, hanging to a drip from singer Jordan Luck’s romantic tap called ‘Skies of Sunset’.
the DANCE Exponents launched into a mix of old, semi-old, new and very new
But the two-thirds-full Town Hall loved them still.
After a badly mixed but definitely promising opening from Auckland’s Grey Parade, Luck and the lads came on stage to open their 90-minute show with ‘Greater Hopes, Greater Expectations’, the track that says it all from their excellent new album.
And, with Luck’s blond mop stage-centre, guitarists to his right, rhythm section to his left, the band launched itself into a mix of old, semi-old, new and very new indeed.
Naturally, old shots like the undying ‘Victoria’ brought shrieks of delight, while tracks from the new album were greeted less excitedly. But that sort of thing’s par for the pop course.
It was most definitely patchy. But, on the occasions it wasn’t, like the final run through ‘Only I Could Die’, the action-packed ‘Christchurch’ and into a big, evil-sounding ‘Sex and Agriculture’, the Exponents kicked sparks.
Guitarists Chris Sheehan and Brian Jones seem to have a nice thing going, though the bass player and drummer would be well advised to hang onto each other a little more tightly.
But Dance Exponents’ audience doesn’t show much sign of letting go of something they obviously regard as a very good thing indeed.
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Songs and Stories from the Front Lawn with Don McGlashan and Harry Sinclair at the Auckland University Student Union Coffee Lounge, last night and until Sunday; July 1985, Auckland Star
God didn’t create New Zealanders so that they’d take risks. But they do. Which is to say, some of them do.
Unfortunately, when they do, they have to go somewhere like the coffee lounge in the Student Union Building on the university campus to take them. And, believe me, if you’re not a student, that’s a hard place to find.
But it was well worth the search.
Don McGlashan is a musician and composer, Harry Sinclair is an actor and musician. And, between them, they have created something very special here. A show that is part theatre of the ever-so-domestic and part slightly bizarre song and dance.
Just the two of them, playing guitar, occasional euphonium and squeezebox, plus some slight electronic help with rhythms.
And they’re singing, dancing and talking, all about us and ours. They affectionately send up everything, from Kiwi tradesmen (with ‘Hammer Dance’) to the dear old Department of Ag and Fish and its obsession with spraying people in aeroplanes.
They even make a coordinated dance out of feeling awkward in the midst of a piece called ‘Won’t Lie Down’ and then turn brilliantly satirical dressed as talking TVs spewing out a welter of media and advertising cliches.
And there are songs – some, like ‘I’ll Never Have Anything More’ and ‘Telephone Song’, delicate, beautiful things. And some, like the acapella ‘The Petition’, biting social comment.
And the audience? Small enough to share the birthday cake McGlashan was presented with last night – but very enthusiastic.
Catch the show – minus the cake – before it ends. It’s a risk worth taking.
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“Three at the Keys” featuring Last Man Down, Sustenance and Alan Broadbent at the Cotton Club (Mandalay), last night; August 1985, Auckland Star
Jazz is alive and fully wined and dined in central Auckland, according to the Cotton Club’s version of what it’s all about.
Last Man Down encompass perceptive social comment and fine playing
It gets close, thanks to the standard of the musicians fighting the conversation, the announcements and other superfluity at last night’s concert. But some fine jazz was being aired.
First up, in and around the pervasive interruptions from a hyperactive compere, came Last Man Down. Led by pianist/singer/composer Ross Mullins, they tread a fine and impressive line that encompasses perceptive social comment and fine, fine playing.
Sustenance, led by pianist/composer Phil Broadhurst, played warm, likeable original jazz, highlighted by an impossibly delicate (in the face of the talkative audience) duet with saxophonist Colin Hemmingson, ‘Romance for Bill Evans’.
Best – sublime really – was Alan Broadbent, the prettiest piano player this side of the moon, teamed up with an empathetic rhythm section. In the making love to your piano department, this chap is X-rated. Wondrous.
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The Mockers at the Windsor Park, last night; August 1985, Auckland Star
Whatever happened to that well-known nasal problem and his shaky pop band?
Truth is that Andrew Fagan and The Mockers just hung in there until they blended the old sloppy eccentricity with a new confidence that is now very hard to argue with.
Shame there weren’t more people there to be swept up by the new broom in deepest Mairangi Bay last night, but those who didn’t bother missed a good show.
Fagan still resembles a psychedelic scarecrow – and he’s certainly the only local pop singer who sips hot water from a thermos on stage – but both he and the band have a firm grip on what they’re doing these days.
And they’re gripping a strong set of songs.
The old favourites are still there – ‘Woke Up Today’, ‘My Girl Thinks She’s Cleopatra’ and a nicely hard and nasty version of ‘Murder on Manners Street’. But they’re just a side-serving to the new material much of it from the new Mockers album, Culprit and the King, which is released on Monday.
Songs like ‘Seven Years Not Wasted’ and the punchy ‘Another Casualty’ boast broader horizons than some of the older material. Most impressive was ‘Winter’s Tale’, a heroic tale about yet another of Fagan’s newly discovered heroes, delivered as a grand rock ballad.
Fagan may never be a great singer and the Mockers may never be slick enough for everyone to swallow, but they do have character, originality, and a certain style.
And what sounds like a fine album coming out next week.
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Fetus Productions, with Texas Rangers, at the Windsor Castle, last night and tonight; August 1985, Auckland Star
Ten minutes to struggle from the door to the bar. Twenty from the bar to the loo. The Windsor Castle – if you haven’t caught my unsubtle drift – was ultra-crowded last night.
And it was ultra-crowded, as venues so often are now, for music so far left-field that it was bouncing off the barbed wire.
It was ultra-crowded, for music so far left-field it was bouncing off the barbed wire
But interesting, as the person with the open mind said.
Fetus Productions – which is singer and (mostly) guitarist Jed Town and bassist, keyboardist, and occasional chanteuse Serem Fort – pulled in three additional players last night for a 90-minute show that totally dispensed with their usual film show and concentrated totally on the music.
And it was music in two distinct halves.
First came Town, fronting a rhythm section for a set of thrash punk rock. Those who recall the days when Town was doing something similar with a band called The Features five years ago nodded nostalgically. Those who weren’t, seemed impressed anyway.
And just for the sake of total contrast, Fetus Prods prodded further during the second half of their set with what they called the Perfect Product – an often-imperfect stab at high-tech rock that veered from infernal to inspired with not much in-between.
But when it was good, with Town’s crashing guitar chords leading the simple keyboards and rhythm patterns, it was wild and unsettling.
And we all need a touch of that sometimes.
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Herbs, with Shot in the Dark, at the Four Month Club, last night; September 1985, Auckland Star
I’ve never been to one before, but if I ever go to another diplomatic reception, it couldn’t touch last night’s one.
Herbs, five-year survivors of the too-white New Zealand rock system and purveyors of the most cunning blend of rhythm and melody since that guy pulled the North Island from the depths, spent two hours last night (and this morning) saying farewell.
Farewell before they headed off earlier today for Australia to tour, to play and to act as honorary (unpaid) ambassadors for New Zealand.
The talented seven-piece band spread themselves across their whole musical history – from the early politics-with-bass-guitar of ‘Azania (Soon Come)’ and their touching tribute to Bob Marley, ‘Reggae’s Doing Fine’, right through to ‘Long Ago’ and ‘In the Ghetto’.
With seven singers, seven great players and a feel for melody and message like this band has, it’s hard to believe they won’t go off and conquer the world.
The sad thing, as they leave, is that they are still making new converts with every (rare) show they play.
And a warm pat on the back for Shot in the Dark, the young, sharp and exceptionally together support band last night. Their music is hardish rock with a funky edge, the delivery impressive and the songs good but, no doubt, with better to come. Catch them if you get the chance.
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Seven Deadly Sins, with the Tongs, at the Rising Sun, last night and until Saturday; September 1985, Auckland Star
“One more time,” the dreadlocked and the short-cropped down at stage front were yelling. And Seven Deadly Sins obliged with yet another chorus of the last song of the night, ‘Be Good to Me’.
But then, everyone was very obliging up at what seems to be a dusty funky new live rock venue slap bang in the middle of big bad K Road, just along from the 24-hour café and the Fantasy Rap parlour advertising intimate chats with “wanton nurses” and “school girls”.
The Rising Sun is a dusty funky new live rock venue slap bang in the middle of big bad K Road
A bit like a mini-Gluepot, the upstairs bar at the Rising Sun offers a panoramic view of downtown Auckland at one end and a hastily built stage at the other – with a healthy crowd in-between last night.
The word has obviously gotten around about Seven Deadly Sins, a funky new conglomeration of former members of bands as diverse as Coconut Rough, Diatribe, and the Jive Bombers.
And, despite some hitches with the sound, you could hear why. In between the somewhat predictable soul covers were impressive original songs – some big bright and soulful, some shyer, more melodic.
And this band packs punch – saxes, trumpet, percussion and guitar kicked along by the considerable rhythm section of drummer Jon Scott and super-bassist Choc [Dennis Tuwhare]. While, out front, a pair of singers in the shape of Manu McCarthy in his Italian suit and Fiona McDonald, short on height but big on voice. The only major mistake they made all night was a pretty dreadful version of Herbs’ ‘Azania’, but the attempt was a nice gesture.
And they did manage to do justice to the Tempations’ ‘Papa Was a Rolling Stone’.
Up first was a comedic misadventure called the Tongs. The stuff of which cults are made, but only in someone else’s lounge.
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The Chills at the Four Month Club, last night; September 1985, Auckland Star
A pretty good combination: Auckland’s best rock venue and New Zealand’s best band.
And, while it isn’t very hard to earn the title Auckland’s best rock venue – let’s face it, there aren’t many these days – it’s tough to win the other.
You might disagree, but then you can’t have been at the Four Month Club last night for 90 minutes of the chillingly good Chills.
Last night, the band concentrated on the quieter end of their repertoire – ‘Lost in Space’, the tingling ‘Christmas Chimes’, the two-guitar frontline for ‘Brave Words’ and the inevitable – thank God – ‘Pink Frost’.
They’ve always had Martin Phillipps’s songs – Phillipps himself strangely calm even in the midst of his sometimes-ferocious guitar playing. But these days the band is playing them with a total conviction that sweeps the audience in.
They balanced that quiet end with the rawer edges of songs like ‘Whole Weird World’, ‘I Love My Leather Jacket’ and the wordless, titleless “new one”, but even in the midst of that primal thrash there was a sad, melodic heart.
If they never got any better and never go any further, the Chills will have been memorable.
But in three weeks, they’re off to Britain and it’s impossible to believe they can’t sweep that lot over there into the magic of their music.
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Ladies Sing the Blues, at the Four Month Club, last night; September 1985, Auckland Star
In the value-for-money department, this show should carry a health warning.
When I fell out the door at one o’clock this morning, a singer called Mahia [Blackmore] was busy doing great things with a song called ‘Hallelujah I Love Her So’ – and she was the last in a series of ladies singing blues and variations of the same that had kicked things off several hours earlier.
In the value-for-money department, this show should carry a health warning
The Ladies Sing the Blues show used to hide its monthly light in the tiny Performance Café until things got so crowded they either had to give up or move up.
The decision to grasp the latter nettle certainly paid off last night at a Four Month Club so crowded a lot of people decided even getting a drink was totally out of the question (the prices there present a similar problem anyway).
With the very adaptable Blue Rhythm Hounds in back-up position, we got no fewer than five ladies singing their various versions of the aforementioned blues: Maria Monet, in cling sheath dress, with the smoky, torchy version, Katie Soljak with more frenzy, Hattie St John with flair and power, Truda [Chadwick] with style and confidence, and Mahia with jazzy seductiveness.
There was some great playing too from the band and especially from the guest brass section of Jim Langabeer on saxophone and most especially Edwina Thorne, who threw in some marvellously eloquent trumpet soloing.
After last night’s success, the ladies will no doubt be happily singing the blues on an ongoing basis.
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From a safe distance, Colin Hogg toasts Auckland’s music scene of the 1980s.
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