RUMOURS

Rip It Up, Issue 35, 1 June 1980, Page 4

RUMOURS

UNEDIN Clean have reformed with original members avid Kilgour (guitar), Hamish Kilgour (drums) nd newcomer Robert Scott on bass. New trio Axis have an original Dickielenderson song taped for airplay on 4XO and lere is another in the pipeline. Mother loose’s drummer Marcel Rodeka played with ocis for a week at the Cook. Steve Larkins leaving Back to Back at the

end of the year. After Dark are splitting up at the end of the month as drummer Neville Anderson is leaving for Wellington to record a single at Marmalade with Lee Harrison (ex-4XO now Radio Avon) on vocals and guitar and Gary Taylor (ex-Short Story) on bass. The remains of After Dark may put a blues band together. Local news TV programme, 7.30 South featured local bands Heavenly Bodies, Axis and Julian Finnerty and Co. A good policy. GEORGE KAY CHRISTCHURCH Th« Hoovers come out again in mid-June ... what well-known, long-haired, bespectacled

guitarist will join the Comice? ... Cowboys will take up a residency, at the Carlton ■in mid-July. The band is in the ' process: of 'giving up day jobs. Honest Dick Driver was in town for two days recent ’(and tells us that the Meehan lx will return next month ... Gordons leave town soon ... the Jets are new, as are Road Angel ....will the NuTones fgol public? ... Vauxhalla and Vapour and the Trails have both -split. Alan Park is possibly forming something new ... it is almost impossible to buy." One Good Reason” Jn]th^Garden^t^|HHPVPVHßVß3P Coming t to town soon are the Features, Red Mole, , Street Talk, Swingers and there is yet another Toy Love rumour August?. ... there is a possibility of changes in the line-up of Trooper. JW

WELLINGTON Billy the Club (formerly Rock Theatre) opened for a week to host the Newz tour. Opening night was something of a disaster, with the hired PA collapsing on opening act Shoes This High and the show being cancelled ... Billy the C. continues to operate part-time until completion of alterations and decoration. The Steroids are back in town, chuffed with their stint on the Boomtown Rats tour... Reel to Real are leaving the Capital for Auckland, the South Island, and Auckland again ... Marmalade Studios are finishing work on a Denis O’Brien LP ... New bands emerging include Hot Spoons, Backstreet, and Puppittz. The lastnamed look like potential high-flyers after an impressive debut at Willy’s. Gossip from Palmerston North suggests that changes in management and policy in several pubs could leave the city without a regular venue for touring bands. Capital bookings in June include: the Tigers, the Gen, Digits, Midge Marsden and Black Moon at Willy’s; and the Crocodiles, Midge Marsden, the Tigers and Pop Mechanix at the Last Resort. Graffiti and posters on unguarded city walls call for the firing of Phil O’Brien from Radio With Pictures and the reinstatement of Dr Rock. Whatever happened to good old Wellington parochialism? R. SOLEZ

AUCKLAND Street Talk have commenced a national tour taking the band to 12 pubs, three Universities and three Town Halls. They are touring just as their second album, Battleground Of Fun hits the stores. Gary Havoc has left the Valentinos. The lineup now is Joe Gill (bass), Paul Robinson (vocals, keyboards), Dene McLeod (drums) and Dave Spillane (sax/vocals). The band are recording four Paul Robinson songs at Harlequin, with a stand-in guitarist. While Toy Love are currently in EMI Studios, Sydney, the Marching Girls are back on Melbourne stages with three new songs. The single “True Love" and “First In Line" should be out by now. The pic sleeve is amazing. Johnny’s polaroids of people, spell the bands name in 15 pics. No news yet of release in NZ. Auckland band the Gordon Bennetts have split leaving Christchurch bands the Gordons and the Bennetts sharing the name ... a not so simple matter is who gets to use that popular name for one side of a swinging door, Push. Auckland band Push have filed an injunction stopping Stunn Records releasing UK band the Push (featuring local lad Bruce Lynch) in NZ with any name featuring the word ‘push’. Even ‘UK Push' is not possible. The RIU Legal Dept says, what's wrong with Pull, Puck, Posh, Pish and Puse. The Modes are recording three originals at Mascot. Lead singer, Peter Nebbling is away for two weeks in June looking for work in Australia. Speaking of Oz, ace rockers Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons are doing shows in several countries in July and August to promote Screaming Targets. Expect them in Auckland first week in August. By the way, next Frankie Miller single is Joe's “So Young”, the tune EC did at Sweetwaters. Look out for Clashbox, I mean Clash City Rocker mag, an eight page publication by RIU for CBS Records. It's free through record stores and features a Clash history and doodles by the band themselves, reprinted from their UK mag, Armagideon Times... latest Cure graffiti is CURE WANKS ... Liberty Stage is closed ... the Swingers single went to 19 on the sales chart. Their birthday party was a ripper, but, who started the popcorn fight? By the way, Swingers are opening for the Sports Oz tour, cos leading Sportsman Steve Cummings liked the demos they sent to Mushroom Records.

News from Newz (the puns are week, this month) is that their debut album Heard The Newz is out in late June. The first single off the LP, “Accident Prone’’ is already getting through to Auckland audiences. The album was produced by Eric Johns at Tandem Studios, Christchurch. It's all original, though “Feel Like Making Scones” is somehow derivative of something ... another non-Auckland band hitting the big smoke soon, is Reel to Real from Wellington. They play the Windsor (June 30-July 2), Mainstreet (July 3-5), Gluepot (July 8 &9).

Crocodiles will remain in NZ to record their 1 second LP at new Mandrill Studio in August.' The band is looking for a drummer ... Pop Mechanix will record two tunes with Mike Chunn producing, for Ripper Records. The second Crocodiles single from the hit album Tears, is "Whatcha Gonna Do" ... when RIU asked Kim Fowley "when will you return to NZ?" He replied, "whenever there’s something to come back for ... my passport works!" Send your tapes now, details page 15 ... the Features and Spelling Mistakes 45s (Propellor) are in stores now. What went wrong? The Avalon produced video for Swingers single,"One Good Reason" was excellent ... Ripper with Doug Rogers of Harlequin Studios, will record a live Swingers EP, prior to their July departure for Australia ... due to Simon Darke throat hassles (everything but cancer), Newz will soon be off the road for several weeks. BUT some Newz, will gig under

a different name until their vocalist recovers. Wellington venue, Billy The Club featured 11 new bands on Queen's Birthday weekend. Pronrftsing bands to emerge were Rodents, Hoi Spoons, Backstreet and Westown Quintent .. doing early weeks at Windsor Castle are Top Scientists (June 23-25, 30-2 and July 7-9). Vocalist is Rick Bryant, they play John Malloy songs and they play Squeeze June 27 & 28 ... as "Bliss” sells well, Peter Urllch leaves these shores. New member for Whizzkids is ex-From Scratch man, Don McGlashen, who plays sax, percussion and organ ... Snipes played final gigs late May at XS ... Jo:in Dix writes from Sydney that, Colin Bayley (ex-Short Story) "is in an amazing little unit called the Dukes. They have an EP out soon. The 1981 Nambassa Festival will be a five day event, on a new site two miles north of the '79 site, a 1,700 acre farm, with a river and a private beach. The Cure will commence tour July 27 and before leaving NZ on August 6, play Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

DO IT YOURSELF PETTY Those of you out there who raced home from the truly excellent Tom Petty concerts, bought a second-hand Diplomat Stratocaster copy (Petty's model is 1965 incidentally) and are now bent over the radio trying to learn "Refugee” and the equally fine “Here Comes My Girl", can save themselves a lot of work. The man from Matthews Music has advised Rip It Up that the songbooks for the last two Petty albums are now available. There isn’t too much extra here, like the B sides to the two recent singles or maybe even an interview (like the good one you got in Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here book), but there are plenty of photos. Plus of course the usual sparse charts. Frank Zappa, of course, would maintain sparse songs deserve sparse charts, but what Petty does with three chords is just fine with me. You can buy both books for two-thirds what it will cost you for The Metal Box.