S.P.U.D. ‎– Sour (1990)

This obscure New Zealand post-punk group were the young outsiders when they came to the legendary Flying Nun label in the late '80s. The previous decade has seen the label's identity bloom as the home of delicate and crafty songs, the Verlaines, Chills, and Chris Knox -- elegance was as far removed from the SPUD sound as guitars, bass, and drums can get. On their 1990 debut, a sound inspired by Black Sabbath and the Birthday Party saw the quintet thrashing feedback drenched dirges more akin to the Chicago post-punk sound of Touch and Go or Amphetamine Reptile. Scratch Acid, Jesus Lizard, or Halo of Flies may be good comparisons; fellow Kiwis Skeptics and the Dead C worked up a similar storm of guitar driven chaos as well. Ahead of its time, the group recorded a second stunning record "Gnaw" in the '90s and dissolved. Core member Mathew Heine later formed a similar ensemble, Solid Gold Hell.

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The Clean - Live at Fabrik, Hamburg (23-04-1990)

Another gem!!

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The Clean - Live in Dunedin (1982)

Super ultra rare -impossible to get nowadays- show by The Clean in Dunedin in 1982. One of the last shows before they broke up in the 80's. A forgotten not-of-this-world gem now rescued and shared for everyone!

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Fetus Productions ‎– Intensive Care Unit (1989)

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Fetus Productions ‎– Fetus Product (1981)

Fetus Productions were a pioneering post-punk industrial-music group in the early 1980s, whose activities intersected with the worlds of experimental film, art and fashion. The members were often dispersed, active in several countries simultaneously. Fetus Productions attacked the mass media’s promulgation of perfect images and perfect bodies by using horrific material, images of medical misadventure and mutation. Co-founder Jed Town wanted to “strip it all down to see the bare essentials, the internal organs and the skeletons, to expose the beauty of human frailty.” Underpinning their work was a philosophy: a concern for human rights, an organic respect for life, and a resistance to media-fed preconceptions. Fetus Productions evolved from the remnants of The Features, a band that briefly appeared at the tail end of the punk boom. In just six months The Features had became notorious for their fierce live shows and the visceral imagery adorning their two vinyl releases. The artwork for their single CITY SCENES (1980), created by guitarist Jed Town, was credited to Fetus Productions. The cover of their second release, EXPOSED (1980), depicted a skinless human machine. It was attributed to The Perfect Features, a name revealing an emerging interest in ideas of human engineering and perfection.

Not really sure where to start with this comment. I just feel I need to say SOMETHING. For a start the album is amazing. And I'm aware my idea of amazing may not be yours but I'll try and say what trips my trigger. What gets me, aside from the typically dark sound characteristic of Fetus Productions, the "sampled" voices from medical surgeries and horror films (before samplers existed), the synths, the effects, the beautifully twisted guitars is the technical and technological sophistication of the music in general. It blows me away that this was recorded in 1981. It sounds SOOOO advanced and very hi-tech. It came well, well, well ahead of the Aphex Twin and light-years ahead of similar, yet, less original music from the early '90s. I'm stunned by what I hear and can't help but listen to what has been created. This stuff is ground-breaking, unique and incredibly pure and original. I really don't think I can say I've heard anything like it.... except for other FP records. Anyway, this is what music is all about - a medium with incredible potential for artistic creativity, yet rarely explored except by a handful of open-minded people, and that certainly includes Fetus Productions. Bubblegum pop this is not!!! Beware!!

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Solid Gold Hell - The Blood & The Pity (1996)

Well it ain't pop music, and it was never was meant to be. The now defunct Solid Gold Hell were pure southern gothic. Like their live shows, their recorded output is a combination of travelling medicine and old-time bare-knuckle boxing show: a sound that threatens to take on all-comers and sell you something for your soul. In the years since this band crawled out of an unholy alliance between Flying Nun's Spud and JPS Experience, Solid Gold Hell have taken on a string of challengers to the mantle of most out-there and fully rocking live group Auckland has to offer. Their live shows were a mixture of skewed musical precision and pure pathos - for every moment of sheer rocking exhilaration as rhythm section Gary Sullivan and Colleen Brennan duel with guitar maestro Matthew Heine, there's the sight and sound of singer Glen Lorne Campbell growling out a lungful of death-rattle over the mic. And the show finale, with Glen on trombone and Gary drumming with one hand and holding his trumpet in the other, while Colleen and Matthew play heads-down string-torture, is the kind of showbiz that sells snake oil to indians. Their album 'The Blood And The Pity' hits the same way. Musically, Solid Gold Hell have never given us anything as good as 'The Country Sow', a song that swings out like the arm of a punchdrunk Joe Louis. There's never been anything as hard-out as 'Heavenly Badness' or riffery as dynamic as the mini-album's title track or 'My Father Before Me' from this lot before either. This is music to put a little fear in your soul. And as the lady said, it also rocks. Beware.

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Solid Gold Hell - Swingin' Hot Murder (1994)

Formed in the wake of New Zealand noise rockers SPUD, Solid Gold Hell was a continuation of that group's lurching Birthday Party/Jesus Lizard sound with more garage punk kitsch and less avant sonics in the mix. Turgid swing beats and atonal blues draw comparisons to Killdozer and Australian pub crawlers the Scientists. Similarly, they take a lot from Captain Beefheart's magic band and filter it through punk and sarcastic bar-room jazz, resulting in a drunken mix of low-tech noise and reluctantly startling musicianship.

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The Henchmen - Lust For Glory (2000)

Underappreciated but never underproductive, West Auckland punks The Henchmen had grit and belief. They played and recorded when and where they could, releasing We’ve Come To Play, one of the great New Zealand punk rock albums, in 1983. There are some things you don’t do without expecting some kind of menace. Like invoke the spirit of Iggy Pop. But invoke Iggy’s spirit they did and whatever pact The Henchmen signed with punk’s dark prince, it ensured the West Auckland Detroit-punk outfit were never forgotten.

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Pop Art Toasters - Pop Art Toasters (1994)

With neither of their bands touring, or in the recording studio, New Zealand music scene veterans Martin Phillipps (guitar/vocals) of The Chills and David Kilgour (guitar/vocals) of The Clean,  bassist Noel Ward, keyboardist Alan Starrett and drummer Noel Ward joined forces to create perhaps the closest thing to a “super group” that New Zealand ever had, the one off group, Pop Art Toasters. Released in 1994 the group’s sole release, the self-titled Pop Art Toasters, proffer five fluffy covers of obscure and semi-obscure vintage pop gems.

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Ghost Club - Suicide Train (2006)

Suicide Train is the second album of New Zealand band, Ghost Club released in 2005. It was recorded in a single day in the basement of a squatted Hackney pub in 2005. It was released in 2005 on Flying Nun Records in Australasia and in Europe on Hellsquad in 2006.

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Ghost Club - Ghost Clubbing (2001)

Amidst the millennial guitar rawk revival, when Detroit was the new Detroit, and groups like The White Stripes and The Datsuns were shooting up the charts and shuffling on your iPod, a cadre of New Zealanders settled in London and wielded a Ghost Club, and the hard rock sound got roundly clocked. For most dedicated New Zealand music fans, these fellows need no introduction. David Mitchell has been melting down guitar amps since the 80s in many seminal New Zealand bands from Plagal Grind to The Exploding Budgies, Goblin Mix and Chug to The 3Ds. Denise Roughan is also no stranger to live audiences, serving us wonderments in Look Blue Go Purple and The 3Ds. Flying Nun newcomer Jim Abbott has been grounded in local NZ bands joining the now-london based Ghost Club full time. The band first caught our attention when David and Denise recorded two quiet, acoustic songs in January 1996 that were released by Flying Nun as a 7" single. The band have played sporadic live shows in London, as well as a couple of stunning solo efforts by David Mitchell (playing Ghost Club tunes) at the 2000 Dunedin Sound Festival & in Auckland with The Clean.

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Betchadupa - Aiming For Your Head (2004)

This article was written back in the days when Liam Finn (son of Crowded House's Neil Finn) hadn't yet gone solo. And it was written in the days when Wayne Rooney was just a young whippersnapper, learning his trade at Everton. This is what journos call 'setting the scene'. Now that I've done that, you can read on... Betchadupa were a revelation at Auckland’s Big Day Out this year, where they outshone every other homegrown act (and on a bill that included The Datsuns and The D4 that was no mean feat). When you have a live show as good as theirs it's a logical step to go analogue and record an album "as live" - so that's exactly what they've done. Aiming For Your Head is a definite progression from Alphabetchadupa (their quiet-bit-loud-bit Nirvanalike debut). This time they're bolder and tougher, able to take a few chances and surprise you a bit. The lolloping pyschedelia of 'My Army Of Birds And Gulls' is a fantastic way to start, laced with conspiracy theories and paranoia. Elsewhere, unexpected tempo changes make songs zip about like flies, with ‘Running Out Of Time’ and the title track being particular highlights. They're less convincing when they play safe, as on former single 'Move Over' and it's B'side 'The Bats of Darkwell Lane'. Perhaps they sense themselves that they can do better than that now. All in all though there's enough to suggest that one day Betchadupa are gonna record a five star, solid gold record. This isn't quite it but it's a step in the right direction.

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Betchadupa - The Alphabetchadupa (2002)

Coming after three increasingly well-received EPs and released just after the youngest member of this New Zealand quartet, Betchadupa, turned 18, Alphabetchadupa is the first full-length release by a band that's unfortunately always known as "the band led by Neil Finn's son." Liam Finn is no Frank Sinatra Jr., however. Despite a superficial vocal resemblance to his father's mellifluous pipes, Liam is very much his own man throughout Alphabetchadupa. Considerably mellower and more melodic than their sometimes noisy EPs, many of the songs on Alphabetchadupa recall the mellow vibe of UK bands like Coldplay and Travis, yet even on ballads like the deeply emotional "Lucy's Song" or "Easy As It Seems," Liam avoids the prevalent trap of sentimental mopiness that ruins so many similar albums. More important, he's got a real knack for writing extremely catchy guitar pop tunes like the sublime first single, "Supa Day," and the sassy riff-rocker "Filthy McNasty." Neil Finn was the same age as Liam when he joined his older brother's band, Split Enz, and remade it in his own pure-pop image; Alphabetchadupa shows that precocious pop smarts run in the family.

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