THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY PROTECTION OF AUTHOR ’S COPYRIGHT This copy has been supplied by the Library of the University of Otago on the understanding that the following conditions will be observed: 1. To comply with s56 of the Copyright Act 1994 [NZ], this thesis copy must only be used for the purposes of research or private study. 2. The author's permission must be obtained before any material in the thesis is reproduced, unless such reproduction falls within the fair dealing guidelines of the Copyright Act 1994. Due acknowledgement must be made to the author in any citation. 3. No further copies may be made without the permission of the Librarian of the University of Otago. August 2010 "IT'S OK, IT'S ALL RIGHT, OH YEAH" THE 'DUNEDIN SOUND' ? AN ASPECT OF ALTERNATIVE MUSIC IN NEW ZEALAND 1978-1985 by Craig Robertson A Long Essay presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in History at the University of Otago Dunedin New Zealand 1991 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As I lived in Dunedin during the period of this essay it is perhaps appropriate to acknowledge my links with this topic. I first became interested in the music of the so-called 'Dunedin Sound' bands in 1982 when as a twelve year old I bought a copy of The Clean's 'Great Sounds. Great', after having heard a track off it on Radio New Zealand's nation­ wide Top Ten. Over the next few years, going to Roy Colbert's second­ hand record shop every Friday after school, I began religiously buying every record by a Dunedin band that was released on Flying Nun. Living in South Dunedin and attending King's High School I had no contact with the people in these bands or their younger siblings. They remained as distant as overseas musicians. For me they were pop stars. By 1984, however, I began to realize that they were 'normal' people. I started seeing them around town and talking to them! That year, as a member of the Dunedin Junior Council, I began organizing under-age dances, involving the bands - this was the only opportunity I had to see them perform. In 1986 I started going·· to see these bands at pubs and venues like Chippendale House. Musically incompetent I began to write about the bands first for the Midweeker, and then from 1989 for Rip It Up. In writing this essay I have been assisted by numerous people, who deserve my thanks. First and foremost are those people who gave up their time to be interviewed. A special thank- you to Roger and Lesley at Flying Nun, Robert Scott, Martin Phillipps, Jeff Batts, David Kilgour, Jo and Graeme Downes, Shayne Carter, Denise Roughan, Richard Langston and Gerard O'Brien for photos, tapes, articles, and scrapbooks. I would also like to thank my supervisor, Professor Erik Olssen, for encouraging me to pursue this topic, and latterly for his help in 'fine­ tuning' the text. For their support during panic-stricken weeks of October I must also thank my parents and Sally. Finally I would like to 1 thank all the people involved in making the music that this essay looks at. Even after writing this it remains some of the best music I have ever heard! The title of this long essay is part of the chorus of The Clean song 'Oddity'. 2 CONTENTS Acknowledgements page1 Illustrations o o o page4 Introduction page7 Chapter One Beginnings page 13 Chapter Two An Aesthetic of Sorts page44 Chapter Three Playing and Recording page85 Chapter Four The Creation of the 'Dunedin Sound' page 121 Conclusion page 140 Appendices page145 Bibliography page 158 3 ILLUSTRATIONS Figure One The Enemy (Jeff Batts) p.16 Figure Two Audience (Jeff Batts) p.17 Figure Three The Same (Martin Phillipps) p.25 Figure Four Bored Games (Jeff Batts) p.25 Figure Five The Clean (Garage 6) p.31 Figure Six The Stones (Jeff Batts) p.34 Figure Seven The Verlaines (Graeme Downes) p.35 Figure Eight Poster (David Kilgour) p.37 Figure Nine Poster (Robert Scott) p.41 Figure Ten The Chills (Martin Phillipps) p.45 Figure Eleven Cartoon (Garage 2) p.51 Figure Twelve Double Happys (Garage 4) p.64 Figure Thirteen Sneaky Feelings (Dunedin Double 12") p.65 Figure Fourteen The Verlaines (Graeme Downes) p.67 Figure Fifteen The Chills ( Martin Phillipps) p.69 Figure Sixteen Look Blue Go Purple (D. Roughan) p.71 Figure Seventeen The Rip (Gerard O'Brien) p.73 Figure Eighteen The Stones (Jeff Batts) p.76 Figure Nineteen Rip It Up Cover (Rip It Up) p.80 Figure Twenty Toy Love (Otago Daily Times) p.87 Figure Twenty-one Poster (Robert Scott) p.89 Figure Twenty-Two Poster (Robert Scott) p.92 Figure Twenty-Three The Empire (Otago Daily Times) p.93 Figure Twenty-Four The Clean- Record Cover p.105 Figure Twenty-Five Chills' Artwork (Martin Phillipps) p.108 Figure Twenty-Six Bored Games- Record Cover p.110 Figure Twenty-Seven Flying Nun Adverts (Rip it Up) p.113 Figure Twenty-Eight The Chills- Record Cover p.126 Figure Twenty-Nine The Stones- Record Cover p.127 Figure Thirty The Verlaines (Graeme Downes) p.138 4 San Fransisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run .. but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and cilive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant ... Hunter S. Thompson. 6 INTRODUCTION: The idea that the audience for rock/pop music is an active, heterogeneous community utilizing the music as an inspiration for action lies at the heart of the sociology of rock. To the extent it is the sociology of musical life that is being discussed, not the sociology of music as such. Lawrence Grossberg states the case succinctly: Different fans seem to use the music for very different purposes and in very different ways; they have different boundaries defining not only what they listen to but what is included within the category of rock and roll.l The heterogeneous nature of the rock/pop audience, highlighted by Grossberg, results in listeners bringing different perspectives to the music ; an important point when discussing the concept of the 'Dunedin Sound'. This is a label which was initially coined by the New Zealand music media in response to the music of Dunedin bands released on the Flying Nun record label in the first half of the 1980s. Differing perspectives mean that for some people there will be a ' Dunedin Sound', while for others, with more empathy towards the varied style of the bands, there will not be. Overseas listeners with empathy for the music, hear the idiosyncracies of each band while acknowledging that collectively the bands involved constitute a different approach to rock/pop music. Writing on popular culture in New Zealand, Geoff Lealand argues that: Those who claim that 'alternative' New Zealand bands such as The Chills or Aotearoa are producing something new - sounds unique to New Zealand ears - ignore the reality that they are merely producing competent, sometimes excellent, replications of music traditions born elsewhere in the world. 2 1 Quoted in P.Wicke, Rock Music, Cambridge, 1990, p.75 2 G Lealand, A Foreign Egg in Our Nest?, Wellington, 1988, p.76. 7 Lealand's view can be juxtaposed with American reviews of The Chills and their Dunedin contemporaries which praise the music's originality. Lealand's claim for unoriginality is couched within a framework of the history of music traditions of which rock/pop music per se is one western musical tradition. In comparison American reviewers listen to the music as an example of a new departure within pop music. Dunedin had contributed little to New Zealand music in the decades prior to the 1980s. In 1981, however, a three-piece band from the city, The Clean, with two low-budget recordings, achieved considerable national success. As New Zealand was to discover, they were but one band from a community of young musicians which had developed in Dunedin from 1978. There were four distinct waves of bands in this community. The first consisted of The Clean, The Same and Bored Games. The following wave, beginning in the winter of 1980, comprised The Stones, The Chills, The Verlaines and Sneaky Feelings. A third wave, which came to prominence by 1984, included The Rip, Look Blue Go Purple, Double Happys and The Orange. A fourth wave began in 1986 with the formation of Straitjacket Fits, Stephen and Snapper. After The Clean broke-up in 1982, The Chills became the band whose success was to gradually push the music of these Dunedin bands to the forefront of the New Zealand music scene, and by the end of the decade make a rapidly growing international audience aware of their existence. Based around the song-writing talent of Martin Phillipps, The Chills showed even more than The Clean that a band from Dunedin could succeed. This went against the somewhat colonial relationship that existed between Auckland and New Zealand's other musical centres. Auckland is home to what constitutes the New Zealand's music industry. In terms of promoting local music it is a largely inactive music 8 industry. Multi-national record companies have offices here that do little else other than release music by foreign artists. The small size of the New Zealand market makes promoting indigenous music solely for profit a risky business. Although professional musicians playing original music do exist, original music in New Zealand is largely the concern of independent record labels, and musicians who support themselves through other employment or the unemployment benefit.