From the Vaults

The Flys: Love and a Molotov Cocktail (1978)

29 May 2012 | <1 min read

1977 was a confusing year in Britain: pub-rockers Dr Feelgood were at an all-time peak, the Sex Pistols, the Clash and others advanced the punk agenda, and off on the margins were power-pop bands which hadn't quite seen the changes coming. The four-piece Flys out of Coventry -- a little distant from the London scene -- were in the latter category, they knew a power pop-cum-New Wave riff but... > Read more

Red Hot Peppers: Witchwood (1976)

28 May 2012 | <1 min read | 2

New Zealand's short-lived but impressive Red Hot Peppers in the Seventies revolved around multi-instrumentalist Robbie Laven (originally from Holland) and singer-guitarist Marion Arts. Laven was quite a musical threat, he could apparently play about 50 instruments and on their debut album Toujours Yours he plays guitars, sitar, fiddle, lyre, qin, sax, dobro, banjo, mandolin, flute . . .... > Read more

Leon Russell: Back to the Island (1975)

18 May 2012 | 1 min read

Leon Russell is like the Kevin Bacon of rock: there are six degrees of separation between him and anyone else. Actually, that's not true. There are about three. Leon to the Beatles? Well he was at Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh so that takes care of that one . . . and opens enormous doors to others. And Leon to Dylan? Same gig, more and different doors opening. To Elvis? He... > Read more

Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan: Jimmy Berman (1971)

17 May 2012 | <1 min read | 1

Given they had so much in common -- a love of words, counterculture cachet, Jewish upbringing and so on -- it is a surprise poet Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan didn't write and record together more often. There was a session with poet Anne Waldman in 1968 (which had Arthur Russell on cello), others in '71 with a similar group (and a sitar player) and another in '81. Oddly enough it seems... > Read more

Norman "Hurricane" Smith: Oh Babe, What Would You Say (1972)

15 May 2012 | 1 min read

Norman Smith was an unlikely chart-topper when he knocked Elton John off the top of the US charts with this, his second single: he was 49 at the time and prior to that his career had been firmly on the other side of the microphone as an engineer and a producer. But what a career he had enjoyed. In his late 30s he'd been taken on as a sound engineer at EMI's studios in Abbey Road and was... > Read more

The Saints: (I'm) Stranded (1976)

12 May 2012 | 1 min read

Bob Geldof once observed, "Rock music of the Seventies was changed by three bands -- the Sex Pistols, the Ramones and the Saints". That the Saints out of suburban Brisbane -- hardly the home of rock music, let alone an angry and intelligent version -- should be in that illustrious company comes as no surprise to anyone who followed their career from this exceptional debut single,... > Read more

The Music Convention: Bellyboard Beat (1968)

7 May 2012 | 1 min read

Some years ago while researching and writing the liner notes to a series of New Zealand psychedelic collections put together by Grant Gillanders, I came upon this track . . . and just kept playing it. In '68, the Music Convention seemed trapped between two eras, the surf-rock guitar of the early Sixties and the psychedelic movement with its sitars and mind-bending possibilities. Rather... > Read more

The Tigers: Red Dress (1980)

5 May 2012 | 2 min read

As the Warratahs embark on a 25th anniversary tour, it is timely to look back at this New Zealand band which brought country music into fashionable rock circles, and connected with that mysterious place known to city folk only as "the heartland". But why not look back further? Back to a band which had future Warratahs' singer-songwriter Barry Saunders and bassist-songwriter... > Read more

The J Geils Band: No Anchovies, Please (1980)

4 May 2012 | <1 min read | 2

The J Geils Band out of Massachusetts is best known for their terrific single Angel in a Centrefold (aw, c'mon, it's great, in a rock'n'roll Benny Hill way . . . see clip below) and Freeze Frame -- and in this country probably not a lot else. No one I know has ever had a J Geils Band album -- or has admitted to as much. I do. Just the one. It is Love Stinks (from the year before the... > Read more

The Flying Burrito Brothers: Wild Horses (1970)

3 May 2012 | 1 min read

Few Rolling Stones songs have had such an interesting history -- right up to Susan Boyle's recent interpretation -- as this one. Keith Richards has always claimed the title was his; Mick Jagger insists the song came from the first words Marianne Faithfull said when she came arround from a failed suicide attempt in '69: "Wild horses wouldn't drag me away from you". The Stones... > Read more

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore: The LS Bumble Bee (1967)

27 Apr 2012 | <1 min read

From Stan Freberg and Peter Sellers through National Lampoon, the Rutles, Weird Al Yankovich and Spinal Tap, there has been a long tradition of skewering the foibles and excesses of pop culture. This piece appeared during the Summer of Love and took a poke at hippie culture, drugs and the infatuation with all things Indian. A rather obvious target and while this isn't up there with... > Read more

The Herd: From the Underworld (1967)

25 Apr 2012 | 1 min read | 1

It's not often Greek mythology cracks the top 10, but the Herd managed to do it with song from the autumn of love (September '67) which is based on the Orpheus and Eurydice story. After the death of Eurydice, Orpheus travels to the underworld and by using music he melts the hearts of the gods down there who agree to let the missus come back into life. The deal however is that she must walk... > Read more

Roy Milton: The Hucklebuck (1949)

23 Apr 2012 | 1 min read

The career of band leader, jump jive and rhythm and blues singer Roy Milton (1907-83) is long and convoluted, and full of crossover chart hits in the Forties and Fifties. His story is best told here, so let's just focus on this song -- which New Zealanders will recognise because it was given an upbeat overhaul in 1965 and became a chart hit for the hugely popular sister duo The Chicks out... > Read more

Broadcast: Chord Simple (2006)

20 Apr 2012 | <1 min read

The British electronica band Broadcast were very big, in a quiet and inconspicuous way. And regrettably dogged by misfortune, if not tragedy. They formed in the mid 2000s, had a track on the first Austin Powers soundtrack (the somewhat forgettable Book Lovers), changed line-up a bit, and Simpsons' creator Matt Groenig had them on the bill for the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in... > Read more

Romeo Void: Never Say Never (1982)

18 Apr 2012 | 1 min read | 1

The British label Stiff Records (which gave the world Jona Lewie, Lena Lovich and Wreckless Eric alongside Elvis Costello and Ian Dury, among others) said everybody had one good single in them. Romeo Void out of San Francisco had Never Say Never, a smart sliver of New Wave pop which rode a relentless beat and was elevated not just by the ennui and indifference of singer Debora Iyall but by... > Read more

Le Roi Jones: Our Nation is Like Ourselves (1970)

17 Apr 2012 | <1 min read

Recorded at Buffalo State University, Le Roi Jones -- aka Amiri Baraka -- wasn't taking any prisoners in this powerful reading where he was among the first to reclaim and redefine the "N" word and throw "motherfugga" into the public domain. It was also -- like the earlier work by The Last Poets and Gil Scott Heron -- a call to arms, or at the very least a cry against... > Read more

Bill Elliot and the Elastic Oz Band: God Save Us (1971)

12 Apr 2012 | 1 min read

The problem with political songs is that so often they are merely sloganeering and headlines. Fine print and nuance can't make it into a three minute song. Still, there's nothing quite like a chant such as "power to the people" -- even if we are never quite sure which people should have the power. For a few years from the late Sixties, John Lennon's "political"... > Read more

Karen Dalton: God Bless the Child (1966)

10 Apr 2012 | 1 min read

The new wave of folk artists have belately come to Karen Dalton, who palled around in Greenwich Village in the early Sixties with the likes of the young Bob Dylan (who was hugely impressed with her singing and guitar playing) and Fred Neil. It's said that she is the subject of Robbie Robertson-Richard Manuel song Katie's Been Gone on the Basement Tapes with Dylan. She was also admired by... > Read more

Eddie Hinton: I Want a Woman (1986)

9 Apr 2012 | 1 min read

Alabama-born Eddie Hinton (1944-95) is hardly a household name but was one of the great Southern soul songwriters and sessionmen. As a Muscle Shoals musician he played guitar on scores of sessions (for everyone from Aretha Franklin to Boz Scaggs, Elvis to Solomon Burke) and was a prolific, if under-recorded, songwriter. His most notable hit was Breakfast in Bed, a co-write with Donnie... > Read more

Tintern Abbey: Vacuum Cleaner (1967)

3 Apr 2012 | <1 min read | 1

Without a doubt one of the least promising song titles ever (were they announcing this sucked?) and the band's name similarly tapped into the obvious Anglo-fashionability of the period when the Beatles' Sgt Peppers album and shops like Granny Takes a Trip were London's cultural reference points. But, with lines like "fix me up with your sweet dose", the bent and careering... > Read more