In Love With These Times: My Life With Flying Nun Records

Finally a book on Flying Nun written by the guy who started the label. Haven't read it yet. Here's a podcast from the other day with the author and a bunch of old film clips. Can't help but think this might be quite boring though, like that podcast. How sycophantic is that interviewer as well? Bruce Russell once hinted that Flying Nun's signings weren't necessarily based on aesthetics or great judgement but just whatever bands existed on the south island and other parts of NZ at the time. They were lucky there were so many good ones. This was further demonstrated in the late 80s when, after Flying Nun did some major label deal, a lot of the better acts started getting their work rejected. Anyway I hope it's good or do I?.........I wonder if the Axemen will get a mention?

I kind of liked it when you knew very little about underground music from NZ or Flying Nun. In the 80s I reckon there were only like 5 videos that ever got played on Rage. You'd see a small news article on The Clean or Verlaines in RAM back then plus the occasional review or bit on The Clean or The Chills in NME and Melody Maker. In Clinton Walker's 1983 (published in 84) book The Next Thing, which was about the current state of Australian rock, there was one paragraph at the end of the book mentioning The Clean, Victor Dimisich Band, The Chills and The Gordons. Walker speculated that perhaps there was something cool going on over there in the land of the long white cloud. He wasn't even sure if The Clean were still together! That's how little information there was at the time. Finding a Flying Nun record was like discovering treasure. Now all that fabulous mystique has gone and we're way too over informed more and more each day. I miss the mystery. I don't wanna know how much a Bats LP cost or how many copies they manufactured. It was all about these peculiarly beautiful tunes that seemed to come out of nowhere or maybe from a parallel time and universe. New Zealand seemed so mysterious and so far away then, even though it's just a short flight from East Coast Australia.

Antipodean Urban Space

Three fucking great mental tripped out driving tunes. Psychedelic post-kraut/punk urban intensity that could have only come from one place and one time, New Zealand in the 80s.
*More on Scorched Earth Policy here.

Antipodean Space Debris III

Strange and haunted. When I first heard this I thought this was a sound that could only come out of New Zealand like Pink Frost....er....and I think I was right.

Lovely

Strangely lovely

Nice

Strange and beautiful soundz from NZ once again. Peter was previously in the Great NZ band This Kind Of Punishment with his bro Graeme who released at least two masterpieces This Kind Of Punishment (1983) and Beard Of Bees (1984). I can't comment on their 3rd LP as it's never crossed my path. This tune is from his terrific debut solo album The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World (1990). This Xpressway tape features NZ underground rock royalty ie. David Mitchell (Goblin Mix/Exploding Budgies/3Ds), Bruce Russell (Dead C), Kathy Bull (Look Blue, Go Purple), Robbie Yeats (The Verlaines), Alastair Galbraith (The Rip/Plagal Grind/Solo etc.) and a few others. Quite a line-up eh?

Weird Antipodean space. These two were both in the fabulous rock band The 3Ds.

More beautifully askew soundz from the ends of the earth. This time Jefferies collaborates with Robbie Muir of The Rip and Plagal Grind.

Chris Knox - Not Given Lightly....Again

Finally the original clip of Chris Knox's classic Not Given Lightly from 1989. This was unavailable on youtube a few years back. See this old post. As I've said before this is one of the best songs ever, in my book. It doesn't get any better than this for a love song!

Books That Should Be Written

After reading David Stubbs Future Days I was left with a feeling of "Is that it then?" Perhaps it wasn't a book for me, I mean I knew all the records mentioned and the bands. I'd read most of what was in the bibliography. I didn't find out much new. This is not to say it's not a worthwhile book but maybe it's for new comers. Why didn't he write it in the 90s when Krautrock was Tres Hot? Perhaps he saw a gap had opened up in the market due to the never to be reprinted Krautrocksampler by Julian Cope. What it did make me wish for was a comprehensive book on German Post-Punk aka Neue Deutsche Welle like what Simon Reynolds did for British and American Post-Punk in his great Rip It Up And Start Again book. Stubbs covered a little bit of the NDW scene in a slight chapter towards the end of Future Days. Come to think of it there may be a German book on this topic from maybe 15 years ago (I have a vague recollection of this, maybe) but obviously it hasn't been translated into English, unless I missed it.

It got me thinking of some other books on music that are yet to be written. A definitive book on Australian Post-Punk would be a prime example of this. I'd also love to see a book on the mid 90s Memphis Rap scene. Information on that topic seems thin on the ground and somewhat confusing. There was an incredible amount of excellent music made in Memphis at this time, so shedding some light on it would be great. Is there even a book on 80s underground New Zealand music? Surely there'd be a market for that. I mean there's been like 3 books on the No Wave scene. A book covering Japanese music post Julian Cope's Japrocksampler would be great ie. Noise, Merzbow, the P.S.F milieu, Otomo Yoshihide, The Boredoms and whatever else happened. I could go on - Italian Soundtracks and composers, Belgian electronic dance music, a guide to Library Music or like a top 100, Gabber, Sweden's 1960s experimentalists Parson Sound and their following web of groups into the 70s etc. I always thought Simon Reynolds could expand his chapter from Rip It Up & Start again on San Fransisco's proto-post-punk scene and turn it into a whole book

Remember they used to do books on current cultural activities? Someone could probably do something on the topic of Atlanta Rap or the current state of music in general. Anyway just a thought......

Young Thug

Axemen Mania!

More pop heaven!

Totally out there Axemen!

I think I'm runnin' out of Axemen clips!

This predates the interest in Information Films
by 20 years. Pre-Hauntological etc.
They are the true pioneers!

Axemen

More Axemen for the holidays! Yay!

More Axemen!

This is from 1985.

Axemen Gold from the telly in 92!
Boys dressed as girls!

Axemen

Axemen

Axemen

4 song medley video clip, like it was for a television ad.

It could only be

The one and only Axemen!

The Axemen

Speaking of The Axemen I found this last night. It's 2 of the main 3 Axemen doing a fantastic sort of concept album from 1987 and it's more Axemen magic. I didn't even know this existed. How excitement! Ariel Pink must be a fan and Royal Trux too. The Axemen's (dis)organised chaos is truly fabulous. Many lo-fi/non musicians have tried to do this in the past and totally failed. The genius of The Axemen is that it sounds awesome and effortless at the same time. They are truly talented pioneers and funny too. Legends!

Axemen side projects, solo records, Sleek Bott Gang stuff available here

Haezlewood - Hellmouth 66

Hellmouth66

Heazlewood

(XWAY 23)

This I think was the last release on Xpressway and may even be the reason the label was halted.  I was never able to track down X/Way 14 which was Sferic Experiment's Bunny Liver tape. Chris Heazlewood was a member of said band and later went on to form King Loser who I sometimes liked and sometimes didn't. This tape however is the shit! I've been avoiding writing a big piece on possibly my favourite NZ act of all time The Axemen because I can't think of how to describe them and the effect they have on me. Heazlewood is possibly influenced by them, well a lot of this tape is in similar spiritual territory anyway. The chaotic squalling psychedelic noise makes perfect sense to my brain. The guitars are mental and well the whole thing is a bit of fuzzed out dementia. If that sounds like your tea of cup track it down on the interweb. This is one of my favourite Xpressway releases ever!

The Max Block

This was a band Brian Crook was in after Scorched Earth Policy and fuck me they are just as brilliant! They recorded just the one Self titled EP for Flying Nun in 1986. Slow burning dark post punk psychedelia. 15 minutes of  jolly urban intensity gone haywire. More girl/boy vocals and good guitaring. Also includes insidious organ (played by Maryrose Crook, Brian's wife) and crackin' rhythm section to help push things right over the edge. More Christchurch gold.  A mini masterpiece!

The Max Block - The Max Block EP (1986)

The Max Block

Psychic Discharge

The Max Block

Burn David Burn

*Mr and Mrs Crook went on to form The Renderers who are quite possibly still around.  Mr Crook also plays guitar/vox in the fabulous Terminals.

**I was over at Mess+Noise and Slazza alerted me to this compilation coming out on the reactivated Flying Nun label. It contains The Max Block, Scorched Earth Policy, The Victor Dimisich Band as well as other arcane legends like The Gordons and The Bilders. Plus the usual suspects The Chills, The Clean, Tall Dwarves etc. The Axemen however are absent once again. This would be a good guide to this sort of gear as it is compiled by an authority of the subject Mr Bruce Russell (of the band The Dead C and the head honcho of the Xpressway/Corpus Heremeticum record labels)  There is even a couple of tunes I've not heard. Bruce's track record for compilations is an exemplary one so despite being familiar with most of the material it will probably be a (un)cohesive record like the two pictured below. Lookin' forward to the vinyl.

Masterpiece Compilation!
compiled by Bruce Russell.

One of the greatest compilations ever
compiled.  Onya Bruce!

***Speaking of Flying Nun there is a 6 part documentary on Radio New Zealand which you can download on the interweb.  Just finished the third part today.  There is a little too much focus on the business side of things but otherwise some good interviews and insight into the milieu. I might even give Look Blue, Go Purple another chance.

****There was a dude in Melbourne whose name I've forgotten but he had a fanzine of his own and also wrote for Woozy in the early to mid nineties. Woozy was a load of crap really except for this guys knowledge on the NZ underground. Anyway he had me trackin down stuff like This Kind of Punishment, The Axemen, The Dead C, The Puddle, The Cake Kitchen and even non NZ stuff like This Heat. I used to wonder why there was hardly any NZ bands touring at that time. There would have been an audience for it, I guess there were no cluey promoter types around at the time. By the sounds of it from that doco, Mushroom seemed pretty clueless about the acts they got from signing a deal with Flying Nun. Even the well known Flying Nun bands rarely toured, it was weird. Xpressway stuff was all over 3PBS when I moved to Melbourne in early 91. It was the most exciting label to my ears at the time, I still love it. It lasted just 5 or 6 years then it shut up shop, perfect. There were even more underground labels I think. I have a vague recollection of a band called Muttongun who were maybe pretty good, never found their record though. 

*****I don't know if I could bring myself to listen to anything Shane Carter was involved with ever again though.

Living Legends A Guide Part 1 - The Clean

All you need!

Or most of it is on the first disc of this.

er.....almost forgot.....this was bloody good too.