Various Artists - Tuatara: A Flying Nun Compilation

After their early wave of success producing and distributing the first records by The Clean, The Chills and Sneaky Feelings, New Zealand's Flying Nun Records released a couple of compilation albums in the early 1980s. These collections showcased the burgeoning underground/alternative sound emerging in various locations around the country, especially in the South Island cities of Dunedin and Christchurch.  These early comp releases (which included the seminal Dunedin Double EP in 1982 and the live recording The Last Rumba in 1983) had fairly limited distribution - essentially only within New Zealand, where they both were popular and influential albums. But it was the 1985 release of the label's Tuatara compilation that gave the rest of the world the first real indication that there was something special happening musically in Aotearoa.

During 1984-85, Flying Nun entered into limited distribution deals with a number of small international labels, including Normal Records in Germany and Strange Weekend Records in North America.  They also established their own overseas subsidiary, Flying Nun Europe, for distribution on that continent. Tuatara was their first test of that international network, and for all intents and purposes it was a resounding success. By 'success', I don't mean that it was a huge seller. It was successful in that here in America, it was pushed along via college radio and word-of-mouth, and the 'right' people got exposed to it. I found a quote from Nils Bernstein, current Director of Publicity at Matador Records (and former owner/operator of the legendary Seattle music store Rebellious Records in the '80s) which sums up the impact of Tuatara here in the States:

“People were really floored by songs like "Death and the Maiden" and "Pink Frost". It was an album that new-wave girls, brainy pop geeks and noise rock fans all loved. You know how they say about the first Velvet Underground album: it sold terribly, but everyone who bought a copy started a band. It’s kind of like that with the Tuatara comp.”

High praise indeed.

As mentioned above, this album contains "Pink Frost", probably The Chills' most famous song, along with cuts by Tall Dwarfs, The Clean and The Verlaines. But there is also gold here in the tracks by the more obscure, less heralded Kiwi bands, including Look Blue Go Purple and Marie & The Atom. Pretty much every song on here is a winner, and in total they provide a superb overview as to what sort of cool stuff was happening in the New Zealand music world of the early '80s.

This thing is hard as heck to find online, so here's a copy burned off of my meticulously maintained CD. For your throwback listening pleasure, here's Tuatara: A Flying Nun Compilation, released by said label on 1985. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Various Artists - Flying Nun 25th Anniversary Box Set (4 Discs)

Yeah, yeah . . . OK.  I know . . . mea culpa.

Yes, folks - believe it or now, I'm still here, and so is Pee-Pee Soaked Heckhole.  Don't let the dearth of new posts here lead you to believe that the demise of this blog is nigh . . . far from it.  I have yet to run out of ideas or stories.  By last check, I've got at least a dozen posts in various stages of development. 

The tragedy of it all is that, for the past three months, I just haven't been able to complete any of them to my satisfaction.  Despite this being a silly little music site of no major consequence to anything else going on in the world, it is mine own, and as such I try to put a little care, work and editing into my screeds.  With that in mind, I'm constantly in search of the perfect phrasing and narrative flow to make these tales at least somewhat interesting, in the hope that when visitors come here to grab the links for my latest album posting, they just possibly might linger a bit and actually read what I've penned in relation to the music.

Unfortunately for me, that quest for the "right" line has led to stagnation and writer's block.  I visit this site with a sense of shame now, looking back guiltily over the vast number of unfinished postings stretching back for months and wondering when the fog will lift, and when I'll be able to add them to the others.  It's annoying, to say the least.

But there is a bright side - this has happened before, and no doubt will occur again; sometimes I just get locked up.  But in the end, I always end up completing the stragglers and clearing out the backlog.  So keep watching this site; I will undoubtedly be backdating quite a few postings in the next few weeks.  But they will get done.

Until then, here's a stopgap to tide you over, the Flying Nun 25th Anniversary Box Set, four discs jam-packed with pure Kiwi punk/alternative goodness by New Zealand's premier independent music label.  These limited-edition discs contain a semi-chronological overview of nearly all of that country's (and label's) great non-mainstream artists - some of whom you may have heard of (The Chills, Toy Love, The Clean) and many others which may be new to you (The Pin Group, Straitjacket Fits, Love's Ugly Children, Chug, The Dead C).  Many of the tunes in this set have long been out of print, making it a must-have for anyone with any interest in the New Zealand scene.

The reason I'm posting this (other than as an apology for being so idle over the past couple of months) is because not only is this a great set, an outstanding overview of the evolution of New Zealand alternative music since 1980 - it's also annoying difficult to track down online.  And I know that if I have trouble finding it, many, many more of you are having a hard time as well.

So here - let me make it easy for you all:  Here's the Flying Nun 25th Anniversary Box Set, eighty-three tracks of Aotearoa brilliance, released on Flying Nun Records (duh) in December 2006.  Enjoy these while I get my act together, and let me know what you think. 

And one more thing - thanks for hanging in there with me and this blog.  More to come.

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The Chills - Heavenly Pop Hits: The Best of The Chills (and Ice Picks EP)

I'm disgusted with myself that I didn't get into this band when I first went to New Zealand.

I didn't know anything about The Chills until I returned to the U.S. from Christchurch and entered grad school in Virginia. One of my classmates there, Stuart, was a native New Zealand who was born and bred in Christchurch, but who had spent several years living and working in the U.S. Word had gotten around the school that there were "two Kiwis" enrolled (one real, one adopted), and after being introduced, Stuart and I discovered that we had several mutual friends in and around Canterbury. We became fast friends.

One day, Stuart (knowing what a Kiwi music fan I was) brought a couple of CDs to school for me to sample and evaluate. One was by the Bats, which really didn't do anything for me, I must say. But one of the others was Heavenly Pop Hits, a greatest hits compilation by The Chills. That was the one that really hit home for me.

The Chills were formed in Dunedin, New Zealand (home of the aforementioned Chug and The Clean) in 1980 by Martin Phillips, a talented musician and songwriter who formed his first band, The Same, in 1978 (his other claim to pre-Chills fame was that he played the organ on The Clean's 1981 debut single "Tally Ho", Flying Nun Records' first New Zealand hit song). The Chills cranked out several memorable singles in the early 1980s, including "Pink Frost" and "Rolling Moon" (both included here), but the band didn't release a proper album until 1986.

The band's long delay in putting out an LP can be attributed to two things: lack of money (Flying Nun wasn't exactly rolling in dough in the early '80s) and, more significantly, the failure to maintain a consistent lineup. Dunedin bands are notorious for this (see my earlier entry for Chug), but The Chills were the poster child for this type of band turnover. Since its inception, the band has gone through (at last count) nineteen different lineup changes, with Martin Phillips being the only constant member (sounds a lot like The Fall, eh? Although I understand that Phillips isn't nearly the tyrant and band dictator that Mark E. Smith is reputed to be . . .). Former Chills members have pollenated several other bands throughout New Zealand (including Straitjacket Fits, The Clean and The Verlaines) and the rest of the world (Justin Harewood ended up in Luna, and Martin Kean resettled in England and became an early member of Stereolab).

Such band turmoil, of course, led to sporadic releases, which is why Heavenly Pop Hits is so great, and so important. It collects all of the band's best songs in one place, a one-stop shop for a concentrated dose of what makes The Chills so superb.

Like I said, after listening to this album, I was kicking myself for not getting into them sooner. I could go through and tell you, song for song, why every tune is so outstanding. I'll let you find that out for yourself.

However, the thing I want to convey to you about these songs, and The Chills in general, is that they SOUND like New Zealand . . . It's hard to explain, really, unless you've lived there or spent any significant time in the country. But to me, every song brings back a time, or a place, or a feeling I had when I lived there. Listening to "Double Summer" reminds me of summers I enjoyed there; in "Doledrums", I can relate to some of the lethargic Sunday afternoons I spent in town.

I know I'm not explaining this well . . . But it seems that the essence of the country is contained in the words and music of this album. I consider The Chills to be the definitive New Zealand band.

But I'll let you listen for yourself and decide. Also posted here is the Ice Picks EP that was included with select editions of Heavenly Pop Hits - good songs here as well.

Cheers.

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And here's the one for the Ice Picks EP:

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Chug - Kisser EP

One hot and sunny summer afternoon in January 1994, I was driving past the Dux De Lux (near the Arts Centre in Christchurch) and listening to RDU, the student-run University of Canterbury station (and in my opinion, one of the best radio stations in the Southern Hemisphere). Suddenly, the station played this buzzy, frenetic guitar-and-drum-driven track that made me sit straight up in my seat. I remembered that it was the "Local Music" time slot at the station, so I waited anxiously to the end of the song to find out who the band was (RDU was and is good about IDing every note played, unlike a lot of other stations). Sure enough, the announcer said the song was "Flowers", by a band called Chug.

That was all I needed to hear. I immediately turned the car east, towards the center of town and most importantly, towards the two main music stores in the City, Echo Records and Galaxy Records, located just down the way from one another in the Cashel Mall area. Galaxy didn't have anything by Chug, but Echo had an EP, Kisser, with exactly the song I was looking for. Within ten minutes of hearing that tune, the CD was in my hand.

Chug was formed in 1991 in Dunedin, the birthplace of such well-known and acclaimed (well, in certain quarters) bands as the Chills and the Clean. They quickly signed to Flying Nun Records, and the Kisser EP was their first release on the label in 1993. They recorded an album for Flying Nun, Sassafras, in 1994, and another EP, Little Things, in 1996, before leaving the label for Alias Records in late 1996. Alias roped them into a seven(!)-album deal, which included a rerelease of Sassafras on the label and a new album, Metalon, in 1997. Both of the band's albums and both EPs went exactly nowhere.

Chug's major problem was that they could never keep a consistant lineup going, apparently a familiar problem for Dunedin bands (see "Chills, The"). No less that three different lead guitarists and three drummers passed through the band in its first four years of existence. That's what murdered them in 1995-96, just after Sassafras was released - they spent all of that time rehearsing with another new member, and by the time they were ready, their moment had passed.

The stresses of constant lineup changes, relentless touring, and that humongous record deal hanging over their heads caught up quickly with Chug, and by the end of 1998, the band was history. It's too bad that the band could never again put out anything as strong as "Flowers".

Epilogue: I moved back to the U.S. in mid-1995, and a year or so later, I was watching Nickelodeon on cable, for some ungodly reason. The network's "Coming Up Next" promo came on at one point, and I instantly recognized the background music - it was an instrumental snippet of "Flowers"! It was stunning to see that at least one person in the U.S. was hip enough to find that one cool song by an obscure band from New Zealand, and put it on TV (although I used to laugh to myself, considering what would have happened if Nickelodeon accidently played the vocal part, which prominently features the "F"-word - don't think the parents of the kiddies watching at that time would be too pleased . . . )

Here you go:

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