RUMOURS

Rip It Up, Issue 32, 1 March 1980, Page 4

RUMOURS

WELLINGTON About to happen big, it seems, are the Tigers who took the EMI Records conference by storm. A single entitled “Red Dress", due for release shortly, was recorded at Marmalade with the Robinson/Smith team. The Tigers remain an enigma in Wellington. Although based in the city the band have yet to perform here and are still without a regular guitarist. Currently using Kevin Bayley. The Capital now has its own rock.press, with the first In Touch on the streets. The mag is initially only being distributed in Wellington monthly and plans to cover movies and other areas in addition to music. It is being produced by Mike Ashton and former RIU correspondent Gary Steel. Somebody done somebody wrong dept Ambitious Vegetables have been complaining long and loud about the scratching of themselves and the Steroids from the Radio Windy Oriental Bay extravaganza. It seems they were replaced by the Kevin O’Brien Band and are accusing Windy’s Phil O’Brien of nepotism. (Mr O'Brien was out of town-and thus unable to comment on the accusations.) The Veges stocks are rising. Negotiations are in progress for out of town gigs at Mainstreet, Hillcrest and Hillsborough and tapes of four songs are being hawked around radio stations. New band due to appear soon Dirt Cheap and reported to be disbanding are the Ducks ... this time a bouquet to the management of Willies for giving the bog walls a coat of blackboard paint and supplying chalk. Admirable support for local artists ... Steroids hit the South Island in March, and have plans for a stint in Auckland after that ... in March at the Last Resort, lookout for Dirt Cheap (March 13), Reel to Real (March 14,15,16) and Crocodiles (March 20, 21 22, 23). R. Solez

CHRISTCHURCH Newz are recording an album for a nonmajor record company. Possible titles are Heard The Newz? or Bon Marche Are The Newz. New Newz members are Tony Rabbett and Brad Coates. The group has delayed its N.l. tour until late April ... a mix-up in bookings has delayed the Vapour and the Trails N.l. venture. Rocky (“Message In A Bottle”) Lox opened for Split Enz, cooking it up in white shirts complete with medalions ... support for PoJice in Christchurch is the Vauxhalls. Pop Mechanix are back and sounding good ... Midge Marsden and band failed to make it across the Strait and missed his week at the Gladstone ... coming to town soon are Heavenly Bodies, Street Talk, Steroids and Swingers. Cowboys are doing well at regular gig, The Star and Garter ... Sunday night at the Brevet club were Toy Love, Comics (new and good), those infectious Androidss, and most of the Basket Cases. Harry Sparkle sang “Rebel" with Toy Love. Luke Neary has returned from Aussie and is forming a new band to be called Spivs ... Vacuum have a new bassist, Alastair Parker, ex-Basket Cases and Dizzy Blonde ... Steamshack is looking for a guitarist ... Breathless may split ... new bunch of reactionaries round town, Niteshift. JW DUNEDIN David Kilgour, who was playing bass with the Stains, has left possibly to join his brother Hamish in the Sobs. He will be replaced by Terry Moore. Incidentally Stains lead vocalist is David Lockray. Martin Phillips (guitar) ex-Same and Peter Gutteridge (bass) ex-Clean areforming a band but they still need a drummer. Heavenly Bodies have recorded four of their original songs in the Dowling Street studios for radio promotion. Steve Larkins, keyboards player for Back to Back, has decided to stay with the band. They

lost guitarist/vocalist Kipa Hiakita a few weeks ago. Andy Coombe, ex-Growing Pains, has been writing a lot of material for his new band who are to make an appearance in a few weeks. As openers at the recent Split Enz concert Rockylox provided a robust bracket of originals. The Enz had the capacity 2,800 fans on their feet before they even got on stage. From there they danced through what was announced as their best concert of the tour. George Kay AUCKLAND Congrats to Split Enz for achieving the number one spot on the NZ album sales chart. Is it the first time for an NZ group? The 45 off True Colours, “I Got You" is at number two on the singles chart. Enz hope to be back this way in November. They’re now in Oz doing eight weeks on the east coast then two in Perth. By late March a specially priced Citizen Band live album will be out. Entitled CB Bootleg, it in Mike Chunn’s opinion features their best ever recordings of both “City Slitz" and “Another Night”. Other tracks are “Ladder Song", "I Feel Good", “Rust In My Car”, “Julia", “5.0.5.", Office Come Alive", “Acrobat" and "Protection”. First single on Ripper Records is a double A side Terrorways reformed to record “Shorthaired Rock'n’Roll” and Proud Scum recorded the flip, “Suicide II” prior to their split. Expect it late March ... Ripperish enterprise, Propeller Records (Griggs and Co) is making waves, threatening to release a Features single, “City Scenes” c/w “Victim” and Lennon-McCartney tune, "Do You Wanna Know A Secret". More new little vinyls. Street Talk have their new single out "She’s Done It Again" c/w "Long Night Blues". Also from WEA the new Toy Love 45, “Don't Ask Me" c/w “Sheep”. Street Talk tracks were produced by Bruce Lynch and Toy Love were produced by Todd Hunter.

Who will produce the next Street Talk album is still undecided. Their manager, Brian Jones is in LA talking with producers and engineers, including Kim Fowley. The band has considered producing the album, as they’re very happy with tracks they did themselves for the film, Good-Bye Pork Pie. Studio time is booked for mid-March. Hammond is producing three demos for the Rich ... Th’Dudes have recorded several tracks, including “Piss", “On the Rocks” and “All My Lovers". Flight X-7 will record mid-March at Mandrill. Glyn Tucker will produce and likely tunes for their first Polygram single are “Red Light” and “Loose Control”. The band recorded “Numbers” late Feb for Ready to Roll. The Toy Love invasion force leaves for Oz on March 9 and arrive in Sydney the same day (they’re flying). Two or three days later they open at the Civic. Travelling with the band are road manager Doug Hood, WEA man/personal manager Terence Hogan and heavies, Chris Moody and lan Dalziel ... talk about Sydney, we’re told John Batchelor of Hookers fame was a new band. Th’Dudes got a rave review in Aussie RAM mag, written by editor Anthony O'Grady. More than one Oz booking agency wants to tour Th’Dudes there this year. Th’Dudes guests at March 7 Mt Eden WM Hall gig were Sailors Harry Lyon and Dave McArtney and Brent Eccles of CB ... Sarah Snoid has left Whizz Kids. As a four-piece they impressed many as opening act for three Split Enz shows. By the way, Enz played Christchurch without ill Eddie and generously refunded to patrons fifty percent of the ticket price ... Primmers played their last gig at Toy Love’s farewell at Mainstreet. Skeats, guitarist/vocalist is quitting Primmers to start something more mod-ern. He's looking for a bass player and drummer (if interested phone 374-447) ... new singer for Ariel is exSirens man, Alan Bremner. The band will be back on the circuit late April ... new bandjn pubs is Katz featuring ex-Picture This vocalist Lisa Schouw and bassist Paul Wilson. The drummer is Andrew Schoshkoff and the guitarist is Peter Wist. The new Sheerlux are still looking for a name. Not under consideration is Modulux. They’ve got some great new songs take a listen to “It’s You” or “Say You Love Me”. The band has recorded eight demos at Mascot ... demoing lately at Mandrill were Trooper. Four tracks were recorded. The band has a new keyboard player, lan Fussel, ex-Easy street. In Mandrill March 4, were Mike Chunn, Greg Clark, ex-Enz Rob Gillies, Schtunger David Bowater and Eddie Raynor and Malcolm Green of Enz. They recorded a Finn/Judd composition, “The Instrumental" for release on Ripper Records. Flip may be a live Hello Sailor track. The same company has shown interest in recording Spelling Mistakes’ crowd pleaser, "Rachel’s Piss Flaps". Though, Mistakes booking agent Charley Gray would like to see the tune out on a Muchmore label.

Back in the country, and resident at Jazz Alley (below Mainstreet) are bassist Bruce Lynch and drummer Frank Gibson Jnr. On keyboards is Murray McNabb. They are called Space Case and currently Kim Patterson is guesting on trumpet ... new bands around are Extras and Electric Food. THE CORPORATION

Big tour this summer is the two outdoor concerts by Fleetwood Mac, Thursday March 20 at Athletic Park Wellington and Saturday March 22 at Western Springs Auckland. Support acts are Street Talk in Auckland and Crocodiles in Wellington. Also on the road in March are Sharon O’Neill and Jon Stevens. Their go New Zealand tour will cover 16 centres between March 4 and March 25. (See ad page 3 for dates). Racey are touring too and support act is exGolden Harvest frontman, Karl Gordon. CITIZEN BAND IN AUSSIE Having found a new bassist, ex-Sheerlux man Roland Kileen, CB announced guitarist Greg Clark’s intention to quit. The band returns to Aussie March 8 and will work as a threepiece. Final gigs for the old line-up included one thousand bodies at the Titirangi Dance and a big Uni gig and Mainstreet on their final night, March 1. The band will return to NZ in July.

ERRATA Apologies, firstly to the writers of “Never Been to Borstal” John NoOne and Peter mesmer, secondly to our writer Dominic Free (the error was added to his AK'79 review by the RIU editor) and thirdly to Scene writer Colin Hogg who assumed we were our normal reliable selves, and thus also credited the tune to Sham’69. Of course, none of this would have happened if the Ripper people had credited the writers on the record label.