Chardon, Showbiz & Shaping Up. 83-84

Rip It Up, Issue 100, 1 November 1985, Page 26

Chardon, Showbiz & Shaping Up. 83-84

by Russell Brown %)

My first weekend living in Auckland, January 1983, the Editor took me to a Sunday garden party on the North Shore. The first thing I saw at this party was Dave Dobbyn slugging on a bottle of Chardon ... if you’ve still got your RIUs from

around that time, you’ll be able to look up the campaign of full-page colour ads showing Dave ’n’ the Smash plugging the same vino. Jesus, I thought, gazing at bottle, Dave, and the bronzed bodies beyond, maybe this is really how it works ...

It wasn't, of course, and it isn't. But the New Zealand musical circus, and Auckland, its piggy bank, have gone through some changes since then. For a start, playing live was a different affair three years ago. Auckland had more and bigger venues and these and an

established touring circuit were administered by the city's two big booking agencies, who also managed a roster of bands, all for a price. Now, one of the agencies doesn't exist and the other has curtailed its activities severely. There's less profit to be made in playing live these days. The enthusiasm for organising it comes from outfits like Looney Tours (aka Doug Hood) which are based on fandom more

than anything else. The constantly-touring lineup has all but

disappeared, and lives on only in the strange interior of the Waikato-based

circuit, a thing unto itself. Elsewhere, there aren’t bands willing to commit themselves to a regime which could leave them woefully in debt to all the people who make money from live performance. Costs are higher now, and

fewer people go to gigs. In Auckland anyway, that’s partially because the live gig isn’t the only vehicle for social intercourse any more. On the heels of the highly successful A Certain Bar, nightclubs took off in 1983 and they feature, mostly, recorded music. The music is ostensibly for dancing but the clubs function as well-dressed, well-ordered parties where it’s a lot nicer and easier to talk and drink than in front of a thunderous PA at a crowded Windsor Castle. The groups who do play at clubs are usually those who work on the basis of Event, probably have day jobs and don't play for too long. Clubs are fair enough, they fill the needs of a certain group of people who, after all, just want to have fun.

But it spells less people to go round for live bands. And in Auckland, and other centres at various times,

another problem is a lack of venues to go round.

Auckland faced the curious situation of having only one gigging venue proper for

much of this year, the Windsor Castle. And not a big one at that Mainstreet may have been quite horrifying at times but a band like the Chills could have used its capacity this year. The Windsor’s solitary beaconship has also served to highlight one of the features of the past three years the dominance of bands from the South Island.

Regardless of your personal opinion on their merits. Dance Exponents, Netherworld Dancing Toys, the Chills, the Verlaines, Sneaky Feelings and even the Narcs all hail from South of Cook Strait. But not all would fit the colloquial tag of a “South Island Band”. Or even “Dunedin Band” ... Far away from the machinations of money, Dunedin music runs at a very basic level, on personalities rather than positions. It’s insular and naive in a way, and

heartwarming and inspiring if you care about music for its own sake at all. There’s no mystique about the “sound" or anything, it’s just a rootsy way to approach music that is fairly unselfconsciously unaffected by fashion, it happens all over the world. If there’s any cultural factor leading to a “sound” it’s the city’s gaelic heritage

guitars are often used as drones, like bagpipes are. But, as Geraldinites the Dance Exponents

discovered, Auckland is still where to Achieve. As 1982 closed Propeller Records had already dealt itself a death blow by investing heavily on recording budgets for the Screaming Meemees and Blam Blam Blam albums, which, for various reasons, proved to be an unfortunate investment. But Australianbased (although a NZ branch was eventually made official) Mushroom Records put money into the

Exponents and DD Smash both hardworking live acts at the time, and was eventually rewarded with first albums that went platinum and double platinum respectively. Mandrill Studios' Reaction Records was next in, with the Mockers’ big-selling debut LP after a string of singles. All three acts do, significantly, hang their hats on the traditionally perceived NZ strength of song. And so it goes. A noble desire to advance the

cause of indigenous music is an advantage within the Industry but by no means essential. In the past year, talk of budgets has gone from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands or dollars. That kind of money can’t be recouped in this country of course the aim is to sell records in foreign markets. Talent doesn’t cost money, but presenting it in a marketable fashion can. Thus the half million dollar investment in Satellite Spies essentially bought their way onto the radio and into the finalists for the ’Most Promising Band’ category at the NZ Music Awards, via an expensive album with a top producer and a couple of goodlooking videos. The duo wouldn’t have had a chance of reaching such status so quickly if it had been a matter of playing Thursday nights at the Windsor and saving up to do demos. Everything That Flies, similarly, made it into the category on the basis of one single, one video and one half-hour performance for TV. But the Awards are an Industry celebration and if that’s the way It wants to

approach things, fair enough. All musical merit derived from what is basically a marketing structure is a bonus. To say the Music Awards reflects the all-round strengths of NZ music is ridiculous, but they do give wide exposure to anyone involved. Any

musician with any sense should try and remember that the structure is there to be used and not to use them. Whether the latter case can be totally avoided is doubtful. Dance

Exponents have recently been given another crack in the form of their very own big-dollar contract, bless their tuneful souls. By now they know about both ends of the Industry experience, this could be their stepping stone.

On the other hand, bands like the Chills and Verlaines with Flying Nun and Flesh D-Vice and the Spines with Jayrem sign no long-term contracts, have no huge

sums of money lent to them, and essentially make their music as they please. The Verlaines, for instance, have progressed from the relatively raucous ’n’ rough sounding ’Death and the Maiden’ three years ago to the sophisticated sound of their debut album

Hallelujah (although that sound is still not what the Industry would call “contemporary"). And they sell records ...

But we buy some weird shit here. Where else would the Fall go Top 20? Where else would a group like the Clean be able to put two EPs recorded in hallways and bedrooms into the Top Five? It’s a tribute to the NZ record buyer that s/he is capable of reaching beyond what is offered by radio stations and the like to acquire music that s/he likes. And now people overseas are buying the low-budget stuff, and the Chills are having a very

useful holiday in England, just for making the music they wanted to make and working hard getting it to people. Two approaches, (with the near-family affair approach of the Warrior Records and Maui Records people and their successes falling somewhere fairly comfortably between) based on two different philosophies. Looking through back issues in order to put together this 100th issue special brought home the fact that there’s nothing better for putting a perspective on things than a few years. So maybe well see how the current state of play looks from RIU No. 150, some time in 1989. Because, assuredly, Something Is Going To Happen, whether we try and change the world or do very well at pleasing it.

Russell Brown

PS: Personally I’d like to thank all the bands who, in their different ways and to differing extents have been inspiring and/or exhiliratmg in the past three years; like Children’s Hour, Tall Dwarfs, Herbs, Dance Exponents, Chills, Verlaines, Bird Nest Roys, Goblin Mix, Fishschool, Doublehappys, Stridulators, Spines, Sneaky Feelings, Stones, Say Yes To Apes, Axemen, Builders, Naked Spots Dance, Look Blue Go Purple, Bats, No Tag, Fetus Productions, DD Smash sometimes, Flak, Eight Living Legs, Gordons, Expendables, Alpaca Brothers, This Kind Of Punishment, Not Really Anything, Netherworld Dancing Toys live, Scorched Earth Policy, Able Tasmans, Pterodactyls, Kiwi Animal, Marie and the Atom and anyone else I’ve forgotten.