dance exponents

Rip It Up, Issue 60, 1 July 1982, Page 2

dance exponents

Michael Higgins

It used to be a favourite scenario with B-grade American movies in the fifties, the sort that are too bad to show on television. Big league impressario stops off in small town, the local band are in the school hall, a puff on the cigar and he's going to make stars of you, boys. Thirty years later not even the corniest story would take on a direction like that unless you're a Christchurch band called Dance Exponents.

Christchurch may not exactly be Hicksville USA and Mike Chunn may be short on Colonel Tom Parker manner, but on a recent trip south he came across Dance Exponents, then a band of less than six months standing, and now they're the second signing to NZ Mushroom. Second on board behind big leaguers D.D. Smash. The average Dance Exponents age is nineteen. Dizzy stuff for a band whose origins lie in small town New Zealand ... Nelson, Timaru, Oamaru and Geraldine. There is a more exotic side to the band, however. Vocalist Jordan Luck was born in Canada and drummer Michael Harallambi's parents were Albanian. The other three Exponents are David Gent (bass), Brian Jones (guitar) and Martin Morris who has recently replaced original guitarist Steve Cowan. Morris is the only band member with any sort of pedigree, coming from Sheer Fanatics and the short lived Dick Driver Dance Band. Dance Exponents, what's in a name? "At one stage, the music papers were calling every band an exponent of something," says Jordan, "pop or funk or whatever. We decided on Dance Exponents because now dance is wide enough to take in everything from pogos to polkas and also because the audience are the real dance exponents and we're a fun band, a dancing band." Luck is also the principal song writer. The usual story about the band is that he can sit down and write ten or fifteen songs without a break. He's not so sure but writing does come easily to him, and he is responsible for the bulk of a repertoire of fifty originals. He professes no knowledge of theory and can scarcely play

guitar. His songs are written around patterns and left to the band! to I interpret Harallambi describes them as "soppy love songs" and Luck eventually agrees, reluctantly; although he does claim that underneath things are not I quite! as straightforward as they might appear. Beyond | that, there is' no particular message. The band's preoccupation is with the feet? 'Poland' is about as heavy as they, get but even , then nuclear holocaust comes almost incidentally at the end of Coronation Street; almost another episode. That rags to riches story]isn't quite complete however. An upcoming nationwide tour with the album promoting Screaming Meemees f and |a | new manager, none [other, than Andrew Snoid ex 1 Pop Mechanics and Swingers vocalist, finishes that tale?^|^lß^pj Influences are harder to track down. New albums by older new wavers XTG and the Stranglers get the thumbs up but mainly it's the \ inspiration of everything that's happening in New Zealand music at the moment. And Mushroom Records? The contract was too long and too boring to read but they trust Mike Chunn. It runs five years and calls for an album and two or three singles a year. Dance Exponents are definitely enjoying life. Their first single is due on July 12, they're now professionals having left behind jobs like hay making and dart sharpening, .they're homeless having forsaken flats for motels and the houses of friends but they enjoy touring, and if the van could be better and Jordan could save some of his money from their fining system, well it doesn't really matter, they're in it for the fun.