‘DON’T GO’ – STOP 15

Rip It Up, Issue 92, 1 March 1985, Page 4

‘DON’T GO’ - STOP 15

The catalogue number of Virgin Records' latest NZ-made record is STOP 15. Hopes are that it’ll go to number one in the singles charts if it does, it’ll be a very special record. Left Right and Centre’s 'Don’t Go’

is a plea to the New Zealand Rugby Union to reconsider the planned All Black tour of South Africa. The idea of the musical protest was spawned in the middle of last year by multiinstrumentalist Don McGlashan and journalist/musician Frank Stark. They'd both been active against the 1981 Springbok tour, but as McGlashan puts it: “We both had mixed feelings about how worthwhile our contribution had been, just a feeling of not really using our skills.” So the pair and later film-maker Geoff Chappie got together and thrashed out a lyric and melody that they invited a host of local musicians to help perform. McGlashan, Chris Knox and Rick Bryant are the three main vocalists and they're aided by producer Steve Garden and Mark Bell, David Colvern, Anne Crummer, Chris Green, Chuck Morgan, Chris Neilson, Mike Russell, Kim Willoughby and Ivan Zagni and a "throng" of backing vocalists. All services, including studio time at Progressive, were donated.

McGlashan explains that the intent was to go for “an AM approach"; the song is deliberately catchy and the lyric has been refined from pages of initial

thoughts to something clear, persuasive and jargon-free. As a contrast, Chappie’s 'You’ve Got To Move, Cecil’ deals with some of the "touchstones" of the established anti-tour movement. Most of the artists involved haven’t been noted for public activism before: ‘That's one of the reasons I was very pleased to be able to do it,” explains Knox. "Because I tend to feel very dubious about marches and so forth, when the mass thing tends to swamp any issue that is going on. I’m glad that people do them, because they bring a lot of attention, but I don't like going on them myself. Not through any lack of desire to be hit over the head with a baton, but to be hit over the head with a slogan, I suppose. The last one I went on there were people chanting ‘hell no, we won’t go!’ and I couldn’t quite figure out what relevance that had to the nuclear issue the march was about." McGlashan sees the record as an opportunity to use their talents to create an additional, but different, focus for public dissent against any tour. The more focal points the better, the more chance of changer Even those behind it accept it probably won’t be possible to change the hard set minds of some rugby people, but the words of the song will be constantly putting the issue before everyone who listens to it on the radio. ‘Don’t Go’ has been a story of cooperation; from musicians who wouldn’t expect to be found in the same studio, from the studio, from the record company... and, hopefully, from the public. If it sells well money will go towards legal fees for those arrested (and there will probably be many) in forthcoming protests against the tour. A video has been made and packed full of well-known faces and a live performance is a possibility, but in the centre of it all is the record. A very important record. Russell Brown ZZ Top Winners Winners of the WEA ZZ Top competition (December Rip It Up) are I. Sowden (Tawa), Martin Evans (Palmerston North), Steve Boland (Ohiro Bay), B. Ritchie (Wellington), John Andrews (Devonport), David Holt (Te Aroha), Paul Johnson (Pakuranga), Brett Maley (Ngaruawahia), T.K. Leggett (Auckland), Andrew Wilson (Manurewa).