The local original bands seemed to be able to connect with the bush, the mist and mud pools and lack of anything much to do on cold winter nights except drink flagons of beer.
Despite being only a few hours from Auckland, Rotorua was musically isolated with covers bands dominating the local scene and only a handful of original acts touring through.
You can hear musical influences from The Wedding Present through to the ubiquitous ‘New Zild alternative sound’ but what makes these songs different is the vibe that Rotorua bands seem to capture at the time. Olsen’s sublime guitar work (in the same league as the Straitjacket Fits’ Mark Petersen) and his wry, roll-off-the-tongue vocal delivery, combined with Taylor’s melodic bass and Anema’s machine-gun drumming created a bunch of unique and catchy songs. The band looked into clearing the samples but the price was allegedly going to be in tens of thousands so they decided to just wing it and release it anyway. complete with uncleared dialogue lifted from Kubrick’s 2001 used to great effect. Working primarily as a three-piece with Jeremy Taylor (bass, vocals), Mike Olsen (guitar, vocals) and Anthony Anema (drums) with BVs from Lisa Yerex and cello from Sarah Knight (Book of Martyrs) the songs range from the bent but catchy indie-pop of Bushsong to the tension-filled instrumental H.A.L. The five tracks on The Ghosts of Things I’ve Killed were recorded in a matter of days and captured the Bushmen at the peak of their game. Having recorded numerous tracks at Zed Brookes’ Tandy’s studio just outside of Hamilton (the go-to studio for bands in the area) and releasing several cassettes of material, 1991 found the Bushmen keen to try Phil Rudd’s new studio (who was not playing with AC/DC at the time). The Bushmen were part of Rotorua’s small but prolific late 1980s indie scene that included original bands The Boogadaggas and Book of Martyrs. Rotorua’s Calamari Bushmen recorded this EP, The Ghosts of Things I’ve Killed, at the Tauranga studio of AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd. Here are five albums he’s loving right now…ġ – Calamari Bushmen, The Ghosts of Things I’ve Killed: It’s not often you hear of New Zealand bands that have a connection to AC/DC.
He also has a small record label LucaDiscs with a wide range of music. Recent projects include contributions to Australian artist David Bridie’s new album Wake, a music video for Canadian performance artist Lascaux Proxy and album art for Jan Hellriegel and Nathan Haines. White works in a number of creative mediums from graphic design, photography and visual art to music production and performance. If you work at it some, you don't even have to use your imagination.Andrew B. In the meantime, all you really need to do is ride the moon and planets, the stars and the sun. I’ll be back again next week with notes for the fourth week of middle spring. This is Bill Felker with Poor Will’s Almanack. The floral and faunal fragments of the season multiply, literally filling in the space of the earth with tangible, visible clockwork. The meager inventories of change that characterize equinox now quickly fill with new details each day. By April 1, the sun reaches a declination of four degrees, 52 minutes, almost 60 percent of the way to summer. Saturn, in Capricorn, is the earliest of the morning stars this month, preceding Venus and Mars, which have both moved retrograde into Aquarius, and which remain the two prominent morning stars before dawn. And if you are too lazy or indifferent to get up to see the Lyrid meteors, you can imagine them lighting up the sky as you lie in bed.Įarly in the morning you can watch for planets or pretend to watch for them. The night brings up to 20 shooting stars an hour from the Lyrid meteor shower starting April 16, overhead in the eastern sky after midnight.
MIAMI NIGHTS 1984 EARLY SUMMER SONGS FULL
This week, in spite of all the stress from war and taxes, one still may ride the Gilded Goldfinch Moon as it rises in the evening and waxes through the night, sets in the morning and becomes full on April 16 and then ebbs slowly toward May.