Andrew Tolley at Mighty Mighty, Wellington, November 2008 - Photo by Petra Jane
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Fazerdaze – Shoulders (live)
Blazing pop shoegaze slacker hooks of a very high standard from Flying Nun artiste Amelia Murray, who trades her ethereal power pop hooks under the handle Fazerdaze. Breeders car-crashing with My Bloody Valentine, seasoned with a lil Angel Olsen. Probably my favourite out of the explosion of Aotearoan female singer/songwriters in recent years. Here’s a lonesome live take of a single from a lotta years back. The stark contrast to her usual lushly produced album tracks works an absolute treat here. The organic live touch that’s elusive in the studio environment. Hope there’s a whole album of this kind of stuff in the can somewhere. Some equivalent of PJ Harvey’s 4-track demos maybe. The simple hook of four chords, aching melody, gentle floating, quietly yearning vocals. Sparse and understated, the space here lets the song soar. It’s an earworm, high contagion levels, snatches you while you’re not looking.
Magic Factory – Lonely Traveller
The good-time laid-back country boogie trucker circus and twang jam Auckland roadhouse gang that is Magic Factory. An articulating roll call of six (the “nub” as they call it) and up to nine critters, a close-knit gang of broken-hearted fools, putting the trad hooks, the swagger and emotional turmoil out there in get down, sway and shimmy styles. This their second “hit”, the video filmed on a haze of good times through a tour of the US, culminating in a fun-filled afternoon set at GonerFest Memphis in 2017. I know, I was there, dancing my ass off. Yacht rock, southern rock, CCR trad crunch rock. These guys have leaned hard into that FM 1970s southern boogie, seasoned with some Laurel Canyon Californian country soul and an overly but healthy obsession with all parts of the ZZ Top back catalogue. What 1970s/1980s parents would have been totally immersed in; classic fare that has stood the test of time.
Solid Gold Hell – The Blood & The Pity (Live)
Birthed outta the demise of S.P.U.D., their band name possibly grabbed from the Scientists’ tune of a residency in the darkest place. The dark swamp end of the archival Flying Nun roster. Mega-overlooked tight locked crew of the evil jive, primal and punchy, drum riffin’ offbeat righteousness, swingin’ hot pendulum pulse murderin’ bass, economic and exact guitar spurts, spazz and wiry hooks, and appropriate madman vox, gargled, spat, hiccupped and hissed. Touches of beaten and dirty brass honks and skronks too. A rhythm section to die for, a vocalist who’s exorcising personal demons, and a guitar-man who knows when to let the scuzz fly and flail, but when to rein it in, wiry and tense. It’s a hit team, with a wardrobe of skills across the table. They’re all heavy hitters. And what ya got roarin’ out of you on record, you got live, an act that always delivered – and occasionally, when the mood and time suit them, still do. This take is one of them live bFM scenarios.
Tape Wolves – Mysterio
A long-running part of the twisted twang sonics of the Manawatu celluloid-wrapped schizophrenic man and his similarly attired running buds. A scuzzy surf opera that has spanned double decades of this century, embracing the wild primal rockabillied blurred fuzz of Link Wray with the snappy, upbeat rhythm moves and focused swift string picking of the Ventures. Stutter static sizzle. Hiccupping warpath drums. Theatrical and enigmatic histrionics to up any performance with tension, crescendo and ongoing drama. By the sheer quality of the music, and if karmic justice existed in a fair world, Tapeman’s tunes should be reverberating around a host of media platforms and channels. Soundtracks to parched westerns, evil crime noir, stylish action adventure with scintillating dialogue flicks, psych damaged sci-fi and hammed up Hammer horror movies. He’s got the goods, the panache, the punch and the pounds worth trading for.
Gordons – Quality Control
Yeah, everyone dives in on the obvious three hit 12"s – ‘Adults & Children’, ‘Machine Song’ and ‘Future Shock’. Sure, I dig all of them, but I also dig this here minimal word-age shout chant by the original mechanic riff noisenik loudness freaks of New Zealand. The live version that you can find online is exceptional too, and justifies the much-heralded status amongst the 10 people who claim to have been there at the very first show. The Gordons’ back catalogue is a well that runs pretty goddamn deep. People may disagree on the production on the second LP, the different line-ups, but to be honest, if you dig the Gordons, every one of their tracks is a winner. It’s kraut rock, a bit no-wave, English art-punk, post punk. Flavours of sonics to tempt anyone who likes their rhythms raw and busy, their volume loud & noisy.
Kids Of 88 – The Drug
Heavy-hitting pop earworm from Kids Of 88. Simple three-chord infectious synth pop new wave weirdness from these sugar-coated catchy-hook obsessed oddballs. Better known for the bigger ‘My House’ hit, I dig this one from 2012 a whole heap more. Kinda stunned that it wasn’t one that successfully worked its way on to the charts. Dig the awkward, fashion trainwreck pastel-coloured overdose of the accompanying video. Dig the op shop glory with snappy syncopated choreographed visuals. Polar necks, suede, mullets, cool restrained personal-space dance moves, second-hand shoes, dayglo visors. It’s got it all. New Zealand vid leaning into the odd and awkward of the NZ psyche, that peculiar self-consciousness this country possesses. Shifty odd sizzling synth riff, awesomely simple but great stuttering guitar riff, slow descending great melodic ramble, hi-end chorus yearn, rhythmically-on vocals. What is not to like?
Coco Solid – 2 Face
Jessica Hansell aka Coco Solid had a solid underground run pumping out street savvy lyrics and cool Casio beats through the latter half of the 2000s. Mining a Euro cold wave DAF beat on this tune from the Denim & Leather album, Jess, partner-in-crime at the time Erik Ultimate, and secret weapon Emma Jean, play out the scam charm exploitation story in this here tune. Stylish, sassy, spitting sarcasm don’t come no better. Patented “Rap & Roll” styles, the solid base Jess laid down in that first decade of the 21st century has led on to a whole wide fertile world of opportunities for Ms. Hansell, a truckload more writing gigs, always jammin’ new music and a host of engineering/mixing opportunities worldwide. Books published and TV presence. She’s a multi-media Pasifika weapon, laser eyed, gut-level real and them wheels of hers are always spinning.
Dion Lunadon – Goodbye Satan
Dion Palmer has been chipping away at the big garage rock candy mountain for a lifetime. He’s more often than not spat out glorious hook-ridden nuggets, urgent rhythms, gutsy guitar breaks, emotional howlin’ vocals. The bedrock of the garage punk, no? From Nothing at All! to The D4 to A Place to Bury Strangers, Dion is now hitting his most fertile period solo, with some of the best songs he’s ever written. Holed up in NYC for the last 10-12 years, he’s sponged up the local music history. If you know him this town is his musical Mecca. He’s a New York Dolls fan, a Johnny Thunders fan, a Dead Boys fan, that’s clear. But this tune digs more into that downer, dark side of NYC maudlin pop. Think Suicide, the Shangri-Las, doo-wop tearjerkers, the Velvet Underground, old rockabilly torch ballads. Chintzy Farfisa, drum-machine samba/fox trot, slow yearn and burn vocals.
YFC – Son of a Gun
Whole lotta art punk goodness. Christchurch peers to The Gordons and Nocturnal Projections. Duelling basses, tribal rhythms, brings to mind a mess of all that 1980s UK post punk angular, atonal Fall, Mekons, Joy Division, Tina Weymouth bass-heavy era Talking Heads and Gang of Four chunk, clunk, and clang. Them Burundi glam rock drums put into a driving rolling loop. Skipping dancing basses, weaving in and out of each other’s company. Reminds me of a much more agile, darting and diving take on early Hunters & Collectors, that ‘Talking to a Stranger’ era. No surprise these guys supported both the Birthday Party and Hunters & Collectors when they crossed the ditch in the 1980s. Much of what this lot laid to tape has been released on the fantastic Christchurch label Failsafe Records, an archival keeper of the peripheral weird, wonderful and ugly sounds emanating from the Garden City from the 1980s through to now.
Matt Alien – We Suffer For Our Music, Now It’s Your Turn
The always percolating, marinating, festering and ruminating raw rock beast that be Matt Alien. From 1990s Christchurch to 2000s Auckland to Melbourne to current Australian rural digs, the man is constantly jammin’, honing the jiving guitar riffage, the lead breaks, the wise-ass lyrical sneer and soul. Matt’s work has always felt to me like a space drenched in bootleg Stooges and Roky Erickson solo tapes. Always luvved the veritable flood of 4-track ramblings Mr Alien unloaded on a never-ending stream of cassettes from his 1990s Christchurch flats. The album fans of Mr Alien rate is the solo album Blood on Satan’s Claw. This here is the track I dig the most off the album, it’s almost Matt’s mantra. He surges ahead no matter what. That’s a work ethic I’ve always admired. The track is raw, lo-fi, off and whack but wicked and wonderfully blunt and delightfully noodly.
Bandcamp link: Matt Alien – We Suffer For Our Music , Now It’s Your Turn
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Mr Tolley is probably most well-known for a six year stint in the late 1990s/early 2000s with his garage-noise-rock two-piece The Hasselhoff Experiment, and three albums on Flying Nun. But the rock rot has never stopped for Mr T., from a number of three pieces across this century, all ekeing out an existence on a grass roots level. The raw surf of the Don Kings, the slug & swing of the Bloody Souls to current punch & pound with Warm Leather, Bloodbags, Smokin’ Daggers & Hot Grease. He also ran Kato Records.