45S

Rip It Up, Issue 45, 1 April 1981, Page 16

45S

George Kay

Split Enz, 'History Never Repeats ' (Polydor) From single from Waiata: Written and sung by Neil Finn, it's far meatier than 'One Step Ahead'. The sixties’ feel is again predominant obvious hit single material. The other side is 'Holy Smoke’, again by Neil, but sung by Tim, it isn’t on the album. Herco Pilots, * Wonder Book ' (Rem) From the resourceful Herco Pilots comes a four-song EP: ‘Wonder; Book!, ‘Extinguisher’, ‘Essential Services’, and ‘NZ Rec'. Frantic and fuzzy, all the songs have a. certain charm that increases with additional playing. Selling at two bucks, it’s a bargain. Garage Crawlers, ‘Only You Tonite' (Propeller) Debut single from the much-hyped, but little exposed, Auckland combo. Tight, catchy pop, a must for . radio playlists. . The B side has two tunes, ‘VB Song’ and ‘Normal Dunediner’. They are parallel-tracked, so what you hear depends on how the needle falls., Stray Cats,Rock This Town'(Artists) Far more traditional. than ‘Runaway Boys’, ‘Rock This Town’ is bopping rockabilly purism, that deserves to be on jukeboxes all over the • country. The flip is the old Supremes’ number ‘Can’t Hurry Love'. Zolo and the Bantams, Deep Crisp and Even' (MCP) Put together 27 kids, 3 Blams and a manager. Get Don McGlashan to write a theme tune. Mix them together and this is the result. Harmless,. . and more fun than smashing up schools. ‘The Harder They Come’ gets . tackled on the reverse. ' The Associates, 'The Affectionate Punch' (Stunn) This is the title cut from the album. A powerful song that is the Associates at their very best. The B side is a new song, ‘You Were Young’. That and the superb picture sleeve alone make it worth buying. Puppetz, 'ldentity Crisis' (Bunk) First time out for this Wellington band. ‘ldentity Crisis' is a song without an idea: The flip is ‘Confused Again', which is better, but only slightly. Shy Imposters, ‘At The Barrier'(Phantom) ■ Shy Imposters hail from Sydney. They no - longer exist, and bassist Peter Oxley is now : guitarist in the Sunnyboys. Strong vocals fromPenny Ward turn ‘At The Barrier’ into a worthwhile.release. .‘Seeing Double’, on the flip is a reasonable Pretenders' impression. Mark Phillips To avoid further accusations of “regional bias”, ‘RIU’ will send eligible singles to our man-on-the-spot in Dunedin, George Kay. (Roy Colbert lives there too!) Puppetz, 'ldentity Crisis' (Bunk) .Another. plural ‘z’ on Bunk and another song, that treads the uneasy road between credibility and commerciality and so ends up being a mite’ too twee'and lightweight. Flip side ‘ConfusedAgain’ is the usual concerned social comment, too preaching to be acceptable. ~ ■ • ’