Fall Guys

Rip It Up, Issue 123, 1 October 1987, Page 6

Fall Guys

For anyone who had All Fall Down numbered as just another Christchurch band, the release of their debut EP My Brand New Wallpaper Coat is going to come as rather a sharp shock.

While All Fall Down have been in existence for about four years, there had only been a wellreceived track on the patchy Weird Culture, Weird Custom compilation to serve as any indication of what the band were about. Now out on Flying Nun, My Brand New Wallpaper Coat contains six distinctive and intelligent pop songs which fill out the picture. All Fall Down’s apparent longevity is, however, misleading. They first emerged in 1983 as a high school band, but only Blair Parkes (guitar, vocals) and Campbell Taylor (bass) remain from those days. Esther McNaughton (violin) joined in 1984, and the present lineup gelled with the arrival of former Ballon D’Essai member Stephen Mclntyre (guitar, vocals) and drummer Brett Aldridge in 1986.

Wallpaper \n\W doubtless earn a place in train-spotter folklore as the first record to bear a generic Flying Nun label, but it was in fact self-financed. “There is a New Zealand tradition,” says Parkes, “of waiting for other people to do

things for you. But unless you make a move nothing ever gets done. Nobody does it for you." The 30 hours of recording at Christchurch’s eight-track Audio Access studios have been the catalyst for a maturing in the band’s musical outlook. Says Esther, “Before we just used to play, but now we really think about where we put things in our music, and that makes a hell of a difference!” Wallpaper is very much a studio record, but gaining in depth for that — and the band are very pleased with the results.

All Fall Down are unashamedly 60s influenced but the suggestion of revivalism draws a sharp response. “There is a strong sense of the 60s in the music," says Mclntyre, “But it’s not just a rehash of that. It’s a 60s sense of melody combined with an 80s pop sensibility.”

. Says Parkes, “Melody is the main thing, melody without tweeness." And they have no desire to be lumped in with other bands mining a 60s vein, particularly Australian outfits. There are dark

mutterings in particular about the Stems and Huxton Creepers.

In their evidence All Fall Down can cite their lyrics. There is certainly nothing throwaway about them. “We don’t write dumb trashy lyrics," says Mclntyre, “things are written because they mean something.” He and Blair Parkes are the principal writers and both write very personally and at times darkly. Alienation, despair, suicide and the passing of childhood are prominent themes, and the record’s more upbeat moments are more often musical rather than lyrical. Not that this necessarily amounts to gratuitous misery. “These are not world-view lyrics,” says Parkes, “they’re about the person who wrote them.” And this is a band whose darkest moments are firmly tongue-in-cheek. A song called ’Sickness,’ described as really over the top, was composed as an antidote to the Cure. In many ways My Brand New Wallpaper Coat is a temporary point of arrival rather than departure for All Fall Down. They are keen to re-work their other songs in the light of the lessons learnt, with another record in mind. In the immediate future however is a trip to Auckland for several live gigs in early October.

Michael Higgins