G’DAY FROM OUR ANZAC CORRESPONDENT : DOOZIES FROM DOWN UNDER (2)

First up, thanks for the positive response to my previous post (cheers to JC for encouraging you all to do so).

The idea for this series came about when JC asked people to send in contributions for his ‘cult classics’. Many of the tracks I thought of were from this part of the world, I came up with a title I liked… and now here we are.

Around that sort of time JC was having doubts as to whether he would/could continue this blog, so I was hoping to be able to help keep it going if possible (the SWC was going strong at that point, but I thought if JC had 2 (or more) regular guest contributors that might be a good thing… luckily as things transpired it wasn’t required, and T(new)VV is still going strong!)

As my family & friends would attest to, I’ve never been too good at putting pen-to-paper (or in this case, fingers (just the 2!)-to-keyboard), and many things crossed my mind when deciding to go ahead with ‘Doozies’, in fact sometimes that can be the problem – so many possible avenues, can’t decide which to go down, next thing months have passed and nothing has been written!

One thing that did cross my mind is that I don’t actually know how well-known these songs are outside of Australia/NZ, and am  going to be ‘preaching to the converted’ so to speak …which brings me (finally!) to the topic for this week.

Given the title of this series it would be remiss of me not to (somewhat belatedly by the time this goes-to-blog) mention the sad news that Peter Gutteridge died recently. Peter was involved with many great NZ bands such as The Clean (who I could dedicate a years-worth of ‘doozies’ to), The Chills, Snapper, and more. He was a real pioneer of that Dunedin Sound (cited by the likes of Pavement, R.E.M. and Mudhoney as an influence – click here for more) – and he should be a household name in NZ… but when reading about him, I found it suggested that people from Europe & the States are probably more likely to know of him.

I know when I was growing up in NZ it seemed that material from overseas was always deemed to be superior, and kiwi bands would often have to prove themselves elsewhere before being acknowledged locally (if at all). Things have changed somewhat since then I think, and sometimes it’s hard to guess where a band is from. all sorts of music comes out of the ‘shaky isles’ these days, a lot still with a certain ‘kiwi’ sound to them, but here’s to a man who was so instrumental (literally!) in helping define ‘that’ sound, which I for one love so much.

These 2 tracks both appeared on the soundtrack to a NZ film ‘Topless Women Talk About Their Lives‘, a great compilation of kiwi bands.

enjoy
cheers, Craig

mp3 : The Clean – Point That Thing Somewhere Else
mp3 : Snapper – Buddy

Note from JC

As I’ve said on countless occasions, I’m always very happy to feature guest postings as I want everyone who reads the blog to be as big a part of it as they like. So thanks again Craig….I certainly have no knowledge at all of the Dunedin sound and hugely appreciate the info.

And talking of guest contributions, there’s one with a difference coming tomorrow.