After reforming in the late 80s, The Clean toured the US and UK for the first time, and found word had already spread among underground influencers, half a world away from Dunedin. An excerpt from Richard Langston’s oral history The Clean: In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul (Auckland University Press, 2026).
The Clean, reformed and about to play a gig at Sammy’s nightclub, Dunedin, 1989. From left: Hamish Kilgour, Robert Scott, David Kilgour. - Photo by Grant McDougall
In the summer of 1989 The Clean devised a plan to record an album and, equally significantly, to tour overseas for the first time. The prospect of playing to international audiences added a sense of urgency. Hamish Kilgour arrived in late summer in Dunedin from New York, where he was now living, and they started jamming and working in David Kilgour and Genevieve McCoy’s house, sitting up on the sunny side of North East Valley.
David Kilgour We wrote all this music in like a week, no kidding, ten days. It just came streaming out of us. We had ten new songs. The one thing we discovered was the old spark was still there; that was exciting. It was just great that we were going to have new songs to play, and not going out and doing the hits every night.
Robert Scott It was great to be back together writing songs again. That chemistry was there straight away.
Robert Scott rests on the side of the road, northern Germany, 1989. - Chris Knox
Hamish Kilgour The excitement of it being in Dunedin, practising a few songs and knowing that in a month you’ll be playing them in a club in New York. It puts pressure on, you start thinking, hell, we’re making these noises and sounds and writing these words. What relevance are they going to have in some other place? It helps give it a bit of edge …
Reunion work can be a bit sick. It’s only interesting if you can restart something and use it as a stepping-off point. That’s why we wanted to write new songs.
A crowd upward of a thousand packed into Sammy’s nightclub in early May for The Clean’s return gig in Dunedin, their first in the city for seven years. The band received a rapturous response in a city that ten years before had either ignored them or been baffled by their raw noise and left-field pop instincts. They then toured the country [before leaving for] a two-month tour playing gigs in Australia, the US, London, the Netherlands and Germany.
David Kilgour We bought tickets for Chris Knox and took him around the country and overseas as support and general tour buddy. Shit, we had fun.
Hamish Kilgour We had Chris on board with us solo. He was our tour cheerleader and denigrator.
Richard Langston's ticket to see The Clean at The Greyhound, Fulham, London - 31 May 1989.
Chris Knox I was surprised when I did my first gig with them before we went overseas. I couldn’t believe how much they were the same as the old Clean, with the addition of new songs. There’s more tension than there used to be in the old Clean, which is nice.
David Kilgour We were all excited to be in NYC and doing shows, even Chris, who for the first 24 hours kept saying NYC was pretty much a big Auckland. He soon crumbled.
There was an awareness of The Clean in the US due to airplay on college radio and reviews in the alternative music press. The influential magazine Forced Exposure was introducing the Flying Nun catalogue to North American fans by 1985. It reviewed the Live Dead Clean EP and the Odditties cassette in its winter issue of 1987. Gerard Cosloy of the zine Conflict, and later of Homestead and Matador Records, reviewed Tuatara and announced it “a near flawless sampler from New Zealand’s hotshit Flying Nun label”. Byron Coley was the leading writer for Forced Exposure.
From left: Phil Morrison, Robert Scott and Byron Coley of Forced Exposure, Boston 1989.
Byron Coley I first heard The Clean through Bruce Milne, who ran Au Go Go Records in Melbourne. He and I did massive swaps and he sent ‘Tally Ho!’, along with first singles by The Gordons, Verlaines, Chills. I really had no context for the records at that time. They were just more cool records from a part of the world I’d never visited. It wasn’t until ’84 that we started to get any real understanding of the New Zealand underground scene. Roger Shepherd started sending us stuff in ’85 or so, and we bought all of the available back catalogue we could get at that time. He would also send the odd copy of Garage, which was a big help in piecing things together. It was the only useful source of info in those difficult snail-mail years; without its guidance, the path would have been much more difficult to navigate.
In 1988 Homestead Records in the USA released The Clean’s Compilation album with Hamish Kilgour’s painting of three brightly coloured fish on the cover. Among those who heard it were members of the band Yo La Tengo – Ira Kaplan, James McNew and Georgia Hubley – who would feature in The Clean’s continued creativity in years to come.
Ira Kaplan The Clean’s Compilation cassette completely blew our minds when we got it in the late ’80s. They came over to the US in ’89 to do three shows, and we were booked to be in Europe and we weren’t going to get to see them. I just couldn’t believe the bad luck, and I remember telling Georgia, “Guess who we’re missing.” And she looked at my face and saw how upset I was and she thought it was the Velvet Underground, that was the level of my state.
James McNew I wasn’t in the band [Yo La Tengo] at that point, and I saw that Clean show with Chris Knox in New York. That was overwhelming. It was like seeing the Easter Bunny. Like, wow, you’re real, I can’t believe it.
Gerard Cosloy The Clean made a massive impression. Absolutely one of those rare “who the fuck are these guys” moments.
Byron Coley People like Jimmy Johnson and me, and Gerard Cosloy and Dan Vallor and Barbara Manning, were super interested in the stuff, and not just Flying Nun. I would order Every Secret Thing tapes from Bob Scott, and weird Onset/Offset things from Ritchie Venus, and Say Yes to Apes stuff from Kevin Smith. It was another world. In the pre-internet era, raw information was much harder to get than it is now.
David Kilgour on the road to Boston, 1989. - Chris Knox
David Kilgour Gerard Cosloy oversaw our NYC visit and Bob Lawton booked the shows. We did CBGB with the Happy Flowers, that was one of our favourite fun gigs ever. Those guys were hilarious. Mike McGonigal [then Chemical Imbalance editor] showed us the ropes and good places to eat. Phil Morrison became our driver and road manager, especially for the Boston trip. Phil went to film school at NYU [New York University] and made a great movie called Junebug. We learned Phil was friends with Ira [Kaplan] and Georgia [Hubley], who were in Europe touring. We played The Rat in Boston.
Gerard Cosloy David, Hamish and Bob were a joy to hang out with and couldn’t have been more pleasant through the entire experience. Not very rock’n’roll (for the era, anyway) – polite, responsible, articulate, funny. Okay, maybe the funny part wasn’t so rare, but I only have fond memories of that time.
Byron Coley It was great. I was not going to go to The Rat because I was boycotting any “reunion” shows at that time, but Jimmy Johnson [Forced Exposure editor] talked me into it and I was blown away. I’m pretty sure we drove down to NYC to see them again the next night at CBGB, thus making a jape of my “no reunion” policy. I rationalised that I’d never had a chance to see them in the day, so it didn’t count. And we both wished we’d made it to the Maxwell’s show. It was shocking how good they were.
The Clean and Chris Knox gig poster – and set list for The Clean – Maxwell's, Hoboken, New Jersey, 26 May 1989; and CBGB, New York City, 28 May 1989. - Richard Langston Collection
David Kilgour I’m still in touch with a lot of these people we met on that trip, and I can say these days pretty much set me up on the music road for life.
Byron Coley Boston had some good university radio going in those days, so all the local DJs were chuffed as hell to see The Clean live. I’m sure some of them wanted to have an all-night jaw-fest about New Zealand minutiae.
Another college DJ had also discovered The Clean, Stephen Malkmus, who was at the University of Virginia and playing records on WTJU. He also played them to a friend and fellow founding member of Pavement, Scott Kannberg, when he returned to their home town of Stockton, California.
Scott Kannberg I heard them for the first time in ’88 or so. Steve was probably back from college and had the Boodle EP or maybe the Great Sounds EP. I worked at a record shop so I ordered the Compilation record and couldn’t stop playing it. I heard ‘Beatnik’ and ‘Anything Could Happen’ and was taken aback. It was like the best of Nuggets, but new! And weird because it was from New Zealand. The only thing we ever heard from there was Split Enz, whose records I still have from way back. It definitely made Steve and I want to make music like that. Raw and live and simple and melodic. It just made sense for some reason. Everything we heard was from the UK or the US independent scene, but this was life-changing. Most of the stuff on Flying Nun was, but The Clean just resonated with us. And they were a power trio like Pavement was early on.
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The Clean, Berlin, 1989 - Chris Knox
Robert Scott and David Kilgour at the Berlin Wall, 1989. - Chris Knox
David Kilgour We blasted around Germany for about a month. It was great, small clubs but good crowds, and sold out in some places. We were excited to be back and playing to audiences overseas, like, wow that’s a different trip, especially in places like Germany where they come to listen. It was almost unsettling; between songs after clapping there is silence, they’re standing there waiting. We were used to the party scene in New Zealand – it was still, we’ll go along and see a band but we’re going to party. In the US as well, they don’t go to party, they go to check out the music.
The Clean at The Melkweg, Amsterdam, 1989. - Chris Knox
In early June 1989, The Clean played The Melkweg in Amsterdam. Yo La Tengo had missed The Clean’s show in New York at the beginning of the tour, but now they were touring in Europe and were in northern Germany.
Ira Kaplan Georgia and I took the train to Amsterdam to go see The Clean with Chris Knox opening. The Feelies were playing that same night, which struck me as competing for the same audience, with The Feelies being better known. The Clean/Chris Knox show wasn’t that well attended, which was bad for them but great for the shy people like me and Georgia; it became that much easier to approach them after because it isn’t such a mad house.
Breakdown in northern Germany: David Kilgour and driver / sound man Gordon Rutherford consult the manual, 1989. - Chris Knox
David Kilgour I remember meeting Yo La Tengo in Amsterdam; the promoter of The Feelies show and The Clean show said he couldn’t avoid the clash, for whatever reason. We all knew we were gonna suffer, Bill Million from The Feelies rushed down after his show and caught like one song. He came and said hello with Ira and Georgia. I think our set had finished and we went and did an encore ‘Billy Two’ for him.
European tour poster, The Clean and Chris Knox, 1989
Chris Knox We had a good time. It ran four-and-a-half weeks. It was nice to play with The Clean that much. And I was able to keep Hamish and David from ripping each other’s throats out. It’s difficult when brothers are in bands.
Robert Scott It was a new lease of life for us playing overseas, new crowds who were very enthusiastic. The feeling was good, the gigs were good and everyone was getting along.
David Kilgour I could see there was a musical life for me, especially outside of New Zealand. People knew about our music all over the world. I really had no idea apart from the odd trickle back of gossip.
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The Clean: In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul by Richard Langston, Auckland University Press, 2026
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