Mi-Sex

Rip It Up, Issue 31, 1 February 1980, Page 8

Mi-Sex

Duncan Campbell

Mi-Sex may be international property, but they're still proud to be New Zealanders. Their magnanamous gesture in returning to this country just to play Sweetwaters is proof. “We’re not going to make any money out of the deal,” says Steve Gilpin. “We came out here to play to the New Zealand people who bought the album, to play to the people that listened to it, to show them our new songs and show them what a Kiwi band is doing overseas. For them and for us. "But it’s still going to help us in the long run. “We’re going to touch 45 thousand people, and if we get off better than most of the other bands here, they going to say ‘Wow!’ This helps and they’re going to buy the album.” The band badly wants to come back and do a New Zealand tour, but when that will be possible is anybody’s guess. Things are just happening too fast elsewhere. Graffiti Crimes has sold over 150 thousand copies in Australia, and “Computer Games", after going to number one there, is now charting around the wo/ld. It’s especially popular in France and Germany, where the album is also making waves, and radio stations in Canada and the States have also picked up on it. One FM station in Buffalo, NY, is playing six tracks

from the album, and "Computer Games” is picking up good responses in American discos, of all places. Mi-Sex laugh that off. It’s success, and that’s what counts. , No small part of their upward rise has to be attributed to the care and attention taken with their stage act. They reckon to have the best, road crew in the . world, and having gone through 26 crews in six months, they ought to know. The fact that theirs was just about the only Sweetwaters set not . plagued with feedback is a testimony to the skill of their backup staff. "The show is governed by that totally,” says Kevin Stanton. “When you walk out on stage, your mike and your guitar amp have got to be in just the right position, and the guy who sets it up works 49 hours a day. Everything has to be right.” The new album is all but finished, and due for • release in March or April. The title isn’t definite yet, but it will probably be Space Race, after one of the new numbers which Sweetwaters had a taste of. "I think it’s three or four steps ahead of the last one," says Stanton. “If anything is going to do it for us, it’s | this one." The new album was recorded at the Music Farm studios, : which ’. are up . near the Queensland ‘ border of New ; South Wales.' They're something like Jim Guercio’s Caribou Ranch’ a space-age recording complex set out in the middle of howhere' <^gMßiMßHSpß( "It’s got beautiful’facilities for people. to relax, and the more relaxed you are, the better the album comes together,”' says Stanton. Peter'Dawkins is again producing, but-the final mix is being done in New York, under the .'guidance of Rod O’Brian, who engineered Talking Heads’ Fear of Music /iV; • Coming up are American and probably European tours. The band's manager, Bob Yates, is currently in the US negotiating dates. The band is going there with few illusions, knowing it’s going to be very hard work to advance just a short way. • “The point is,” says Stanton, “we're confident in our material, and we’re confident in our live act.”