Red Mole makes Vinyl

Rip It Up, Issue 17, 1 November 1978, Page 3

Red Mole makes Vinyl

Ken Williams

Red Mole on record! And at the bargain basement price of five dollars. The metropolis stands agog.

In a Mohammed-to-the-mountain manoeuvre, an album of Red Mole music has been financed by the musicians involved. Crossing the Tracks is on the Mascot label and sells for $5. To keep the price down, the album is being distributed by the participating musicians and their friends. The guiding force behind the project is Neil Hannan, bassist for the defunct Country Flyers.

Hannan says some SISOO was raised among the musicians and their associates and through the sale of the Flyers’ PA. This needs to be recouped before those taking part see a bean.

Placing the album with a record distributor would have been too costly, says Hannan. As a result, he's delivering by hand to sympathetic record stores and outlets such as Auckland's Cook Street Market and the Island of Real. Mole country. The music represents highlights of Red Mole's musical side and of the later Jan Preston-led Red Alert band. Included are Neville Purvis’ shamelessly avaricious “It Takes Money*” the Country Flyers’ mock-reggae “Rangitoto’’ and Beaver's "Slaughter on Cockroach Avenue.” Copies of Crossing the Tracks are being dispatched to the Red Alert/Red Mole troupe, which is now in California. For North America, it’s a good introduction; for us back home, it's a fond reminder. Well recorded, too.