ROSS MULLINS PROFILED, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2018): The poet of the suburbs

 |   |  1 min read

ROSS MULLINS PROFILED, AT AUDIOCULTURE (2018): The poet of the suburbs

When pianist-singer Ross Mullins released his seventh album The Poet and the Fisherman in 2016 it was certainly long overdue but perhaps not long-awaited.

It had been 17 years since his previous album and for all of his long career which dates back to his debut in 1985, Mullins has been below most listeners’ radar.

In part that’s because his first three albums came under the band name Last Man Down but also because he performed so infrequently, aside from a regular gig in a Chinese restaurant in central Auckland. Mullins had work commitments as a teacher (he is officially Dr Ross and his degree is in French literature) and a young family.

More than that however is that he has always been very hard to pigeonhole: his critically acclaimed and literate songs rarely approached “rock” and he often used jazz musicians but his albums weren’t in that genre either.

However Mullins’s body of original work is worth close attention because he has always done something which most other songwriters just flirt with: he writes very specifically about New Zealand culture, people and places.

On the Last Man Down debut album State House Kid (1985) he adapted James K Baxter’s ‘The Bay’ (a decade and a half before the Baxter project album helmed by Charlotte Yates) and sang about the massacre of Japanese prisoners of war at Featherston, beneficiaries, those heading off to Australia, dealers and other specifically New Zealand references.

The cover image shows him leaning against a lamppost with the poster from DD Smash's notorious Thank God It's Over concert; behind him is a burnt-out state house ... 

To read the full article about Ross Mullins/Last Man Down go here at www.audioculture.co.nz

Audioculture is the self-described Noisy Library of New Zealand Music and is an ever-expanding archive of stories, scenes, artists, clips and music. Elsewhere is proud to have some small association with it. Check it out here.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Absolute Elsewhere articles index

IVAN NEVILLE INTERVIEWED (2005): The family that plays together . . .

IVAN NEVILLE INTERVIEWED (2005): The family that plays together . . .

More than four decades after one of the family first scored a hit, and 25 years from the first Neville Brothers album Fiyo on the Bayou, you could almost forgive the brothers Aaron, Art, Charles... > Read more

1968: SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION (2023): The world on a short fuse

1968: SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION (2023): The world on a short fuse

1968: THE YEAR THAT ROCKED THE WORLD? "Somehow Sgt Pepper did not stop the war in Vietnam. Somehow it didn't work. Somebody isn't listening" -- David Crosby of Crosby Stills and... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

Little Feat: Dixie Chicken (1973)

Little Feat: Dixie Chicken (1973)

The critics liked Little Feat -- and Dixie Chicken -- a whole lot better than the public. Today any number of greybeards will tell you how they were deeply into the band but (as with those who were... > Read more

The Sorrows: Take a Heart (1965)

The Sorrows: Take a Heart (1965)

Just as the Beatles '64 album With the Beatles defined the sound of Beatlemania, so too its album cover became iconic and an emblem of the era. Those half-lit faces on the cover were shot by... > Read more