Failsafe Records, originally from Christchurch — now based out of Japan — usually focusses on bands from the Garden City.  In a departure from this trend, however, their latest release comes from Auckland-based indie rock band ‘Haiku Redo’. The album came to me with a note saying it “would suit someone who appreciates a good turn of phrase and melodic hook”. And oh, I do!
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The album starts so strongly, with ‘Thinking of You’, perhaps my favourite song on the album. Melodic hook? Tick.  Good turn of phrase…? “Whenever I start drinking; It always starts me thinking … of you”. Yep, totally relatable, and that works for me. Tick. This is a lovely little pop song with lyrics about love lost, wrapped up in a lush production. And this follows through the entire album. Did you say “chiming pop”? Yes, I will steal that phrase from the press release (thankyou Rob), because that’s exactly what this is. 

​One of the things I like the most about this album is that every song is like a little story. One of the best for this is ‘Who You Really Are’, which starts out as a love song; “It’s been two days and I think I’m in love”. There are even trumpets and a single white dove, at this point of the song. But things progressively get worse with each successive stanza, culminating for me at: “It’s been a year and I see my mistake; She voted National for a silly tax break”. Magic.

So, why has Failsafe’s Rob Mayes been diverted from his usual focus on Christchurch bands?  Well, he used to hang out with members of Haiku Redo in the U.K. in the late 1990s, when his band-of-the-time Dolphin were based there. Haiku Redo’s main-guy, Craig Horne, was the drummer for Andrew Fagan’s (of Mockers-fame) UK band ‘Lig’ at the time.

Who will want to listen to this album? Quite simply, if you are into the output from Failsafe, you will love this. Where can you get it? All the usually online streaming places, probably, but if you love a physical copy, Failsafe also now has a national distribution deal through JB Hifi, with all of their new releases on CD for under $30! 

​Ian Duggan

Lo-fi instrumentalists ‘DEAN’ have been active since the mid-1990s, featuring (at least, initially) 24 strings, (and still) 4 tracks… and an attitude. Ahead of the Contact 50th anniversary gig and party, we spoke with Garry Dean and Andrew Dean about their rules for songwriting, career highlights, the importance of Contact, and more! 

HUP: DEAN have had a massive number of releases over the years, but your very first song released was ‘Unfortunate Flux’ on the 1995 compilation The Fridge, recorded at Contact’s recording studio of the same name. How important was Contact to DEAN?

Garry Dean: Contact FM was a huge thing to us. We could rock up with a demo tape, and they would play it on the air, ask us to do live-to-air performances, and the compilation as you said, it gave us self-esteem as group.

Andrew Dean: In 1994 there was some extremely home-made stuff getting lots of airplay on Contact. I think Spatula Death's recording of a toilet flush may have got in the Top 13. We were not cool kids who were down with your Jandeks or your Guided By Voiceses, so we were very much stuck in the orthodoxy of 'studio recording equals real recording'. For us, the things we made on our 4-track were 'demos'. Initially, the fact that Contact played home-made stuff seemed a bit of a joke — a low bar for getting our silly stuff on air — but soon enough there was that realisation that a proper recording is whatever you want it to be.
 
HUP: What have been the highlights for DEAN over the last 30 years?

Garry Dean: The live-to-air was a big thing for me personally. And we have played some cool gigs, but we just love making DEAN. The next album is always the highlight.
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Andrew Dean: There was that one time in 2003 or so we played a mafia karaoke bar in K Road with The Kiwi Animal. It was our first gig with Stefan Neville in the band and I guess word got out because suddenly all these COOL AUCKLAND PEOPLE wanted to see us. People who were far too cool to speak to us were crowded into this smokey fake Korean bar to hear us play. It was very Mulholland Drive. I sarcastically asked my Auckland-dwelling mate if Misery had showed up yet, and he un-sarcastically replied "that's her over there in the nurse outfit."

HUP: The basic recipe for the band has remained the same over the years, dominated by 24 strings. However, listening to your earlier releases, the drum machine sounds like various Casiotone presets. Your more recent releases, however, have a drum sound that go beyond the capability of my MT45. What do you use for your drums now? 

Garry Dean: Actually we have rules that we stick by; always the same rock preset from the MT35.

No more than 4 tracks to record and its always instrumental.

But that’s what makes it fun. We use pedals to mess with that drumbeat, to give it a new sound. We always start with that rock preset, go crazy messing it up, and then go where the song takes us.

There is one song called "from parts unknown" where we used an organ with built in drums (but we were cranking the speed up and down on the organ drums so it sounds more like an effect than a drum machine), but that was as well as the Casio. Casio T Dean is always first and its always there.

Andrew Dean: The thing with using the exact same drum beat on over 300 songs, you'd think it would be super obvious and people would write you off as a joke or a gimmick. Instead, people don't even seem to notice. Not even musicians. I'm not sure what that says about our collective relationship to drumbeats.
 
HUP: That is a massive number of songs under your belt. How do you decide what you might play live? Do you tend to play new songs, or should we expect to get a classic hit from back in the day?

Garry Dean: We have a lot of albums. Usually we try to put a few songs off whatever new album’s just been, then songs that would go with it. This time we've put three songs together that are personal favourites, and we really hope you like them too.
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Andrew Dean: All our favourite DEAN albums happened after the Contact years, when we were pretty much just making music for ourselves. We really love doing covers live, and we're often sending each other links to top 40 songs if they have a 3-chord bit that might sound good played over and over. "White Iverson" was a great song to play live because those are three really cool chords. 

HUP: You have had a few lineup changes over the years. Who is in the band in 2025?

Garry Dean: Andrew Dean created the band, and the ‘formentioned rules (partly because none of us could sing, lolz), I think with Byron Dean and Scott Dean.

I was asked to join because Andrew and I had been mates for ages. I could barely play three chords, and more importantly I had a cassette 4 track.

Byron and Scott drifted away after a while and that just left Andrew and I doing the do. Playing live up until recently we had played with four guitarists so we would get mates to help out, but we are now a two piece to make things easier.
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Andrew Dean: We have had some fairly regular live bonus Deans over the years, especially Gordon Bassett, Stan Jagger, Stefan Neville and Indira Neville. Surreal because at one point I was a 15-year-old listening to those people on Contact. Sometimes we ask people to play with us and they say no because they'd rather be out front listening.  

Ian Duggan

HUP: Vicki, your style changed over the years with 5 Girls. Where does the vibe sit now for Vicki No Mates?

Vicki: I would say my vibe is slightly different playing solo. It's more about the songwriting and less about the party perhaps. I tend to write with a slightly sluggish feel. I am inspired by murderfolk and country rock bands such as Amigo the Devil, The Johnnys and Blaze Foley, so maybe that's where it comes from.
 
HUP: What challenges or advantages do you find in being a solo performer rather than part of a band?

Vicki: There's huge advantages in the way I can practice when I want, write the song exactly the way I imagine it, and play any gig I want to. The huge disadvantages are I am truly Vicki No Mates before and after the gig; I miss my hoons when I have pre-show nervous energy/after show buzz and nobody to share it with.
 
HUP: Have you written a whole set of new songs, or do you slip the odd 5 Girls song?

​Vicki: I have my own set, but I do bust out ‘Beach Babe Bogan’, which I can't resist. [continued below]

HUP: Tell us about some of your songs. Do you explore any particular lyrical themes? Are there any songs you are particularly proud of that we should listen out for? 
 
Vicki: I am definitely not one to write about my life problems...  Although I do admit my newest song is an honest and heartfelt song about how I like dogs better than people ;).  I do love playing my song 'Ram Raid', and another fave is 'A Good Keen Man'. I do love storytelling.
 
HUP: You are playing at the Contact 50th anniversary gig. What did Contact mean to you back in the day?
​
Vicki:  Contact was a home for so-called weirdos really. It gave us somewhere to belong I suppose, to totally embrace the kind of music and attitude we had, and to meet/listen to others who were also misfits of the mainstream. Contact gave us a platform to play, be heard on the air, and offered us great gigs. I think back fondly of those Wailing Bongo, Contact parties and Ward Lane days. Congrats to 50 years!  Look forward to seeing some old faces at the gig!

with Ian Duggan

HUP: What would you rate as Watershed’s greatest success, or what are your favourite memories, from the time you were together?
​
Marcus:  Aside from wangling our way on to a Flying Nun Vinyl compilation release [Freak the Sheep Vol. 1] we also managed to do an Orientation Tour - which I think involved Palmerston North, Motueka, Otago University, Wellington and New Plymouth.  We borrowed a van from Ross Holloway [Alchemist], loaded it with our music gear and my horrible, raw chunk-of-foam double mattress on top of the gear, picked up Steve Gray [Parkers and Frybrain guitarist] and David Sutcliffe [aka Captain Good-vibes] and ripped around the North and South Islands playing music at some fun venues.  We doubled up with an Auckland-based band called The Psycho Daisies [Full-on Garage Punk influenced band] who injected a huge amount of rock ’n roll to the tour.  In Dunedin we noticed their sound man stank like death, and found out that he rubbed himself down with garlic to ward off bad spirits??  Shit was disturbingly rank. After the Dunedin gig at the ‘let’s get as ripped as we can’ party, he was walking around naked - having frank discussions with everyone who would listen to him about his tiny penis - with graphic, up-close demonstrations.  It was rock ’n roll - but still very, very, very weird - especially when you’re loaded.  Lots of things happened on that tour.  I remember most of them with a smile.  I sang in Motueka with a fat lip - after Kym, our manager, punched me in the mouth - the blame for which is entirely on [drummer] Jonathan Armstrong for waking him up in the van - by screaming in his face - which made me laugh - which made Kym think I’d done it and BOOM fat lip.  We also did the touristy things and jumped into the river in the Buller Gorge - where the road goes under that cliff and then had to flee from a literal tornado of over-sized, ravenous mosquitos that basically attacked us and pursued us.

We played really well at each stop - doing ourselves proud and getting good responses.  We might’ve made some money if Kent [Ericksen; guitar] hadn’t backed the van into a pole - which meant we eventually broke even after getting the van fixed up.
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Kent: I didn't recall crashing the van. Well, backing into a pole... but I do remember crashing through a mudslide on the Kaikoura section as we hurtled through the night to make the ferry, and later, driving behind Alan's station-wagon, sleep deprived as fuck as ghosts flitted in my peripheral from trees in the forest.
​
 
HUP: How did Motueka end up on an Orientation tour?
 
Marcus: Strange place to play - but it was part and parcel of what the Psycho Daisies had organised. Two things about that gig:

We played to a somewhat confused crowd - consisting of pretty much regulars at the local pub.  So we arrogantly started playing ’Sweet Home Motueka’ to the tune of 'Sweet Home Alabama' - you know - with our high-fall-looting Hamilton superiority vibe on ten.  I think even we missed the irony of it all at that point.
​
We also saw some very rock ’n roll moments from the Psycho Daisies.  One of the locals was dancing in front of them with one of those full plastic jugs you used to be able to get and he handed it to John Baker - the lead singer of the Psycho Daisies - for him to take a drink from. But instead, John spilled the entire jug of beer over his own head while not missing a word from the lyrics.  The guy who owned the beer abused hm - but also paraded the empty jug like a thing of great rock ’n roll power to behold - which it now was.  It was one of those moments that leap out at you and stay with you.  The Psycho Daisies had great songs and really put on a show.  There was a weird low-down hostility between us and them - but after playing Dunedin with them and Death Ray Cafe, they had warmed to our more understated Velvets rock ethic and we really liked their balls-out, fuck the world, California garage punk, Stooges thing.  At that age, it really was a lesson in what rock ’n roll can be.  Personally, I can’t say it was influential - and we were a very different band to them - but the whole tour just worked.

HUP: You were a guitar band, but you had a huge amount of originality. Looking back at an interview you did with Garbage magazine in 1992, not long after you split, you talked about how much effort you put in to crafting songs that sounded like no one else has written before. How would you describe the band’s sound, how did the band evolve through your existence, and how proud are you of these songs now as you revisit them leading up to the gig?
 
Marcus:  I’m not so sure our sound was entirely that original.  We had our obvious influences.  I was very much into the Flying Nun thing - where the idea was that you picked up a guitar and started writing songs from what would’ve been almost a position of naivety - so we had that going for us.  We were very much opposed to being part of the more commercial end of the spectrum.  There was a major, paradigmatic shift when I sold my crappy Ibanez semi-acoustic and bought a Musician Stingray 2 guitar - with active hum-bucking pickups in it.  The high output smashed the front end [natural valve distortion] of the amp I had - a Musician RD110 - which had a drive channel that sounded phenomenal.  So that took us from the jingle-jangle pop-song thing into the volume/distortion end of the spectrum.  Kent joined the band and our rehearsals were loud - which meant he had to crank his Fender Twin amp - causing his normally very clean amp to naturally go into overdrive/distortion - in order to compete.  Chris [Barnett; bass] had a bass amp with a disturbingly large 18-inch speaker in it and was given a US Fender Precision for his 21st birthday.  He still has it.  And Jonathan had an awesome sounding drum kit and was literally the best drummer - who could also sing - that any band could hope for - so the big sound came from that mix.  We would then jam stuff out and I’d sing something over the top of it.  Being loud meant I usually had to ‘belt’ my vocals out to be heard - which affords the music an emotional intensity you probably wouldn’t get without all those aspects coming together.  Being inspired to write my own songs at the age of sixteen - primarily by The Verlaines - meant I almost had to curate the lyrics to match what I listened to.  The lyrics from almost all of those mid-eighties Flying Nun bands still astound me. Wayne Elsey’s lyrics [of Dunedin band The Stones] are just great and I felt they were actually relevant to me - unlike most of the more popular pub-rock ‘Blue Lady’ NZ bands at the time.  I think the common thread though all those Hamilton bands was that ‘this is our own music’ and we sing about things relevant to us.  So, taking English papers at varsity, I considered the lyrics very carefully and Chris would contribute lyrics for his parts - and they were always great - in my opinion. Chris had a way of getting into the songs with his bass lines and lyrical input which always added another dimension to the music.

To be honest, we haven’t had a copy of those songs until recently.  In talking with Kent we are literally surprised by the overall quality of those songs.  I guess, when you’re that subjective - i.e. actually writing and playing those songs - is it possible to somehow be unaware of what you’re doing at the time?  Again, I think it has more to do with a basic naivety, coupled with a musical ’teach-yourself-as-you-go’ ethos.  And with quite a few years distance, we get to appraise them as they actually are. For example, Christopher’s spoken vocal towards the end of ‘Two Inches Behind The Eyes’.  Using a fake American accent to sound like some kind of totalitarian Tannoy system is totally Christopher.  He was always questioning things like subculture and politics, etc.  And knowing Chris, I know exactly what his thinking was at the time.  We were constantly either talking about drums and drummers or being stupid and amusing ourselves by speaking in fake American or Eastern European accents.  So the music was inevitably relevant to us.
​
And, you know, we were angry young men.  So we were loud and sang about the less discussed aspects of life.

Chris: I hadn't listened to this music for 35? years. I particularly enjoyed Moonbuggy [which ended up appearing on the cassette 'Crazy Janet' by post-Watershed band Anaganasnagamal, comprised of Marcus, Chris and Jon]. I'm struck by how good Johnny was at dealing with all sorts of rhythms. When I wrote bass lines I was influenced by jazz, blues, funk and hip hop as well as noise rock. I'd like to think those influences made Watershed more than a jingle jangle classic Flying Nun band. That wouldn't have worked without the excellent musicians in the band who could blend that into songs. Marcus was amazing in that he always appreciated rhythm sections and would allow space for a bass player like me rather than insisting I just play follow bass, plus he is an awesome rhythm guitarist. I was always balancing complexity with serving the song, so most songs have a simple supporting linear bass line and one that is not that.

HUP: Watershed had few early lineup changes, but settled for the last couple of years into the core four of yourself (guitars and lead vocals), Chris, Kent and Jonathan. Who is coming together at the Contact gig, and when was the last time you all played together? 
​
Marcus: The line-up is Marcus, Kent Ericksen, Jonathan Armstrong and Alan Deare [replacing Chris on bass], another late '80s/early '90s stalwart who started Book of Martyrs with Jonothan Armstong [and currently plays in ORBJKS], with an appearance from Gillian Eva Boyd from Hand of Glory, Emersons, and many other bands, on keys - which we are stoked about.  It’s a different band playing some songs that haven’t been played for a very long time.
​
Alan: From my end Watershed and Book of Martyrs were quite entwined as we shared a drummer and went to each other's gigs, which were quite plentiful in those days. We used my Holden HD wagon to get the fellas and their gear up to a recording session in Auckland. We even swapped the New Plymouth Ampitheatre gig dates to suit Watershed's tour schedule. We were originally supporting Straitjacket Fits but swapped dates and ironically ended up supporting Bailter Space – a much better slot for Watershed. Chris and I, as bass players, often talked shop about our respective band's strengths and shortcomings. Heady days with a burgeoning music and arts scene, essentially enabled buy Contact.

 
HUP: Also in the Garbage interview, you noted how the time and effort you put into songwriting in the later months began to cause tension within the band. How long did these tensions linger and, being in the same room again, do these tensions come back to the surface, or have they all been lost in the mists of time?
​
Marcus:  If you play music with anyone for long enough, you’re going to get to know those people very well.  It’s different to joining a group of motorcycle enthusiasts.  It’s a creative endeavour - and there are egos involved.  So navigating your way around your own psychology and then the psychology of others in that environment can obviously be tricky.  I was certainly very strong-willed about the musical direction at the time and would disregard songs others thought were good - which caused a fair amount of friction.  Luckily both Chris and Kent are strong willed and could get that particular oil tanker to change direction - if required. But, in general, things were fairly harmonious within that band. We had Kent - who was older, very considered and expressed his thoughts very clearly - he was very calm and anchored the band in lots of ways.  Jonny could also stop a song mid-rehearsal and say, “what about this idea”, and we’d try it.  He was also a classic Ringo drummer - out for a good time and very funny with it.  So it was a classic Beatles band.  Marcus - Paul.  Chris - John.  Kent - George.  Jonny - Ringo.  I’m not comparing us to the Beatles - but it’s quite a thing that there will *always* be some Beatlesque elements in any band.   And what resulted from that mix of personalities was some great gigs [some appallingly bad, too] and a handful of songs that we like and will be excited to play again.  We’re even working on a couple of new ones.
​ 
Be there, or forever never get to hear them!

HUP: You are coming together to play at the Contact 50th anniversary gig. What did Contact mean to the band during your existence?

Marcus:  Without any of those elements, it would probably never have happened.  Contact 89FM played our recordings. We also announced on that station. A few doors down we had Nasrudin [Ukrainec] in charge of social events and paid by the university to do so.  We had venues at the university.  We had bigger bands to support coming to the university through Contact 89FM.  It was a good time to be in a band.  I mean, we were supposedly at university studying for our degrees - but really, we were pretty much playing in bands, going to parties and, in between those times, hopefully getting a degree along the way.

Watershed recorded their first ever two songs at the Contact 89FM studio.  We recorded part of our only release there, too. They let us use their photocopier for gig posters - free of charge.  Nexus newspaper was down the hall and would advertise gigs - again for no charge.

Those kinds of things were essential to most bands in Hamilton having a voice and they provided impossibly valuable resources for any band with the courage to play their music on a stage.


HUP: “Watershed” or “The Watershed”? The on cover of ‘Jeanna – an Aeroplane’ and on the photo inside it has a “the”, but generally I have head you referred to simply as Watershed, which is how you appear as this on the cover of Freak the Sheep and on Discordia Concors.

Marcus:  All I know the favourite slag-off name for the band was Watery Shit.  That still makes me laugh.  I overheard a private conversation to find that one out. They don’t know I know - but I know.  And they will pay.  Wankers.
​
 
HUP: Various band members continued to leave their mark on the Hamilton music scene for a while after the bands demise, but inevitably, members of Hamilton bands tend to go off in various directions over time. Have you remained active with writing music or in other ways?

Marcus:  Here’s what I know.  Chris and I were in a band called Muldoon, in London.
 
Chris joined a full-on punk band in Wellington for a while. The Flash Harrys.  Lyrically dubious band - with songs like ‘My First Hooker’.  They supported The Exploited in Auckland. 

Chris: I played in a few other bands and have been lucky to play most of my favourite genres. I never wrote songs after Watershed though. I played in a reggae/funk/ska band called Banana Republic in 1992? Lots of bar gigs. Possibly my big shot at making it was in a grunge band in Taiwan with Subpop alumni Chris Pugh. His previous band, Swallow, had multiple releases on Subpop and they had played gigs with L7 and Hole. It was 1993/4?, so grunge was still big. We were starting to get a following in Taiwan, doing lots of media then he got imprisoned. Opps.  After that I did a year at the conservatorium of music at Massey studying jazz and trying to learn double bass. Marcus kindly invited me to play in an amateur jazz band in London. We even (mostly Marcus) did some jazz/electronica stuff. Then we went back to indie. Then I had to study and have kids. A late entry was joining the Flash Harrys on bass playing '80s inspired hard core punk about seven years ago. A couple of international supports at Whammy Bar and San Fran were highlights, then I chucked it in to surf. Got to 100 gigs so I thought I'd retire. I still love music and have learnt basic drums and very basic guitar along the way. Play some form of music most weeks. 

Marcus:  Kent has been in several bands since Watershed.  Hand of Glory, Scooter, etc.  To my knowledge, he is probably the most prolific of any of the Watershed members.

I took up trumpet, did my classical grades 1 to 8, completed an A-Level in music, then completed a B.Mus/Jazz in London.  I bought a Pro Tools recording set up way back in 2005 - so have been writing songs the whole time.

Chris: P.S., Marcus is a hot drummer now. 

I am currently part of a studio band called Window. Search ‘Understand Your Alien’ on Spotify to find it.  And a three piece in Tauranga called The False Waltons.  It’s fun.  Up for a gig in Hamilton if anyone needs a band.  Plug city.
​
Jonny Beat famously joined The Chills - which everyone knows - and currently plays in a band called Hoon in Rotorua.

with Ian Duggan

​Back in 1993, New Zealand had a population of a little over 3.5 million. The music charts were dire, but for me, New Zealand music was pretty much at its zenith. It was in front of this backdrop that Christchurch’s Springloader sprung into existence. 

​Central to the Springloader story is its songwriter, Rob Mayes. Mayes has obsessively documented the best bits of the Christchurch music scene from the ‘80s and ‘90s, and more beyond that, via his label Failsafe Records. Is there a New Zealand scene that is better chronicled than Christchurch’s during this period? I doubt it. The guy should seriously be the recipient of a Royal Honour for his services to that city’s music, or at the very least be given a Key to the City. The journey has been long and convoluted, but the release of Springloader’s album ‘Just Like Yesterday’ is a continuation of this documentation, filling in even more of the gaps in the city's musical nooks and crannies. Springloader were short-lived as a live act, but locally important, and their songs are finally getting a proper airing to a wider audience.

I never got to experience Springloader in the flesh, being only aware of them through the song ‘Now I Know’ on the wonderful 1994 Failsafe compilation ‘Good Things’ - that had been the sum total of the bands’ releases to date, but far from the entirety of their efforts. This release has all the sounds and the smells of the New Zealand scene of the ‘90s. But it is certainly not an old and musky smell, or mould infused from sitting at the back of a cupboard for 30-odd years, and neither does it have the scent of the cigarette and beer infused pub carpets of the time. No, sitting here in 2024, this all smells pretty damn nice, thank you very much.

​‘Just Like Yesterday’ is a superbly coherent album. The band started working on these songs 30 years ago, but three of the members reconvened in 2018, and they finally get to be released on the first of November. A lot of the album could be described as shoegaze adjacent. Or, in the words of the band, proto-shoegaze, dreampop, indierock or postrock... Regardless, there are waves and walls and chimes of guitars. The guitars flow and surge, and you can become immersed in the incoming and outgoing of the tides. Or, to use some spring-based analogies, the guitars coil, twist and curl. The sound, according to the press release, is the result of using “non-standard chords and tuning tweaks”. 

​Springloader features Michael Oakley (vocals, guitar), Rob Mayes (guitars, ebow bass), David Toland (drums) and Che Rogers (bass). While Mayes wrote the music, Oakley contributed the words. Something that struck me while listening is that the entire album - every single song - is riddled with first person singular pronouns. This is clearly for the purpose of conveying emotion, and it makes me wonder whether an older and wiser Oakley still sees the world the same inward looking way today as when he wrote these songs back then?

The songs aren’t all loaded up yet, but there are some sneak peeks on Bandcamp already, and a listening party to look forward to on Friday:

Find the album on Bandcamp, here: http://springloader.bandcamp.com

And keep up to date with the album release dates and listening party via their Facebook.
​
Ian Duggan

The guy you know from Shihad has taken a cathartic turn to the quiet side with Last of the Lonely Gods. Before his ongoing album release tour hits Hamilton in early November, Jon Toogood found time to explain the "personal carnage" that album grew from, and the "joyful" shows he's playing now.

By Max Johns

Jon Toogood is best known for fronting the most unstoppable force in New Zealand rock. Shihad's industrial metal beginnings gave way to hugely popular heavy rock, then electronic-infused softer stuff, before they made an angry and political return to the metallic side. In every decade from the 1990s to the 2020s you'll find an album that's arguably their best.  

That would be enough for a lot of people. But in 2012 the first edition of The Adults, featuring Bic Runga, Shayne Carter and other legends, was a kiwi supergroup that got together only because Toogood could make it happen. Fast-forward to 2018 and the same name stuck to a very different collaboration between kiwi hip hop figures and singers of Aghani al-banat (literally "women's music") from Sudan. Again, Toogood was the central figure. That's a whole other story, though (and it's such a good one that it earned him a Masters degree in Fine Arts).

Now for his next act: A debut. Thirty-something years after he arrived on the scene, we have a Jon Toogood solo album. Last of the Lonely Gods is unplugged, personal and emotional. It's "comforting, healing, consoling, musical, organic music for the soul," he says.

​"At least that’s what it is for me, anyway."

The words "for me" resonate. Toogood wrote the ten songs on Last of the Lonely Gods without being sure he'd ever release them, let alone tour them about New Zealand, Australia and the UK.

"I was making music that I needed to hear but couldn’t find anywhere," he says.

"It’s music born out of personal circumstances. During the Covid lockdowns, I lost my Mum and I couldn’t be there as I was in Oz and she passed away in Wellington. Following that I got separated from my wife and kids while on tour in Aotearoa, due to the Omicron lockdown here. That went on for three months, during which I was staying with my sister Zoe and my brother in-law Campbell. A week into the lockdown Campbell was diagnosed with terminal cancer and it was incredibly difficult watching someone I loved fade away in front of me.

"My wife and I decided to move back to Aotearoa so as not to risk being separated again. I then caught Covid and suffered a complication that turned my pre-existing tinnitus up extremely loud, which was very distressing and led to a series of full blown panic attacks."

Last of the Lonely Gods was a treatment for all of those things, starting with the tinnitus. 

"I saw ENT specialists and visited the Auckland University Tinnitus clinic but I wasn't getting any relief. Then someone suggested trying CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), which ended up working for me. My therapist suggested that I play my guitar as a form of mindfulness and I just lost myself in that process as I found it very beneficial," Toogood says.

Suggesting that Jon Toogood play guitar is, I would venture, always going to be good advice. But it was particularly timely on this occasion.

"The first song I wrote was 'Love Is Forever', which dealt with my Mum’s death but also the realisation that my six-year-old daughter had my Mum’s legs and eyes, and I found that incredibly comforting. After that, new songs just came thick and fast all dealing with what we’d been through after two years of personal carnage. The music was gentle and intimate because that’s what I was writing about. Extremely personal things."

Luckily for the rest of us he took the recordings to his record label and discovered that, yes, other people will definitely want to hear this stuff. This is an album with tunes so attractive that my kids hummed along on our first listen. It's also an absolute grower which, like all high quality music of a quieter variety, takes time to fully reveal itself.

No doubt there'll be new dimensions to discover when Toogood brings the album release tour to Hamilton on November 7. He's already on the road for a genuinely national tour from Kerikeri to Invercargill. Aussie and the United Kingdom will get four dates each as well.

Asked how it's going so far, Toogood focuses on human connection.

"It’s been amazing. I’ve met so many people with similar stories of loss and separation. If you live long enough you’re gonna lose people you love, so I suppose it’s a pretty universal thing. The shows reflect that and I find them really profound and beautiful experiences. Joyful."

Now that he has music out under his own name and a few gigs under his belt, is the life of a solo musician different to that of a band member?

"It is, in that this music is so personal and specific to my own experience. In Shihad we write together and make a big sound that lends itself to bigger, grander themes lyrically. Playing live is different too in the fact that it’s just me onstage with a guitar. There's just as much passion for sure, but I don’t have the luxury of three other amazing musicians with me. I have to really be present and give it everything I have. Which I love!

"I'm really loving playing all the new stuff to be honest, but if I had to choose favourites it’d be 'Gravity' and 'Lost in my Hometown'."

Hamilton's show is at Last Place a couple of Thursdays from now. Plenty of time to put Last of the Lonely Gods on repeat and hear what healing sounds like, then come along and see it too. 

by Kathryn Thompson

I don't usually notice the Mercury Music Prize. I heard a brief clip of the 2024 winner, English Teacher, on a UK news podcast, though, and something made me look for more. (Somebody mentioned that they were from Leeds and I'm from the north of England myself, so maybe that helped.) I found the album, 'This Could Be Texas', on Spotify and dug in at random, expecting to be disappointed, the next big thing in the emperor's new clothes. Still, start with track three because that's usually a strong one, right?
 
I find 'Broken Biscuits', an off-kilter waltz about hard times and managing the unmanageable. It has rumbles and angles, complex rhythms and the sort of piano that sounds tinny and unnerving; the sections of spoken word are in an accent that I could have heard on the bus as a kid in Greater Manchester. It comes to a wailing end in brass and this is, somehow, not at all what I was expecting. 

I skip back to the track before, because who calls a song 'The World's Biggest Paving Slab'? That turns out to have a classic post-punk lead bassline, metronomic drums, and a woman talking to the world, about the world and her place in it, in her own voice - and then it blossoms into the open, sparkling sound of the chorus and I know I've been hooked.
 
'I'm Not Crying, You're Crying' is built of more familiar things - kind of Sleater-Kinney meets Bloc Party with a side of Manic Street Preachers - but still does something new with it. 'Mastermind Specialism' is another unnerving waltz, a lullaby sung over the discord of the mechanical, material world, and what even is 'Not Everyone Gets To Go To Space'? A rumination about the fundamental inequality of things (if everyone had the same, would we value it) or a critique of privilege and people's strange ideas about what they've earned, or, well, just making something out of all of that, that has me abstractedly singing "who built the ships" at strange moments?
 
I can see why people have heard (the song called) 'R&B' and thought of Wet Leg, what with the flat affect and general limber electro-ish post-punk-ness, though sometimes I wonder if that just means 'detectably British female voice'. The lyrics are about expectations and what might happen if we refuse to pander to them, though, which seems like a different approach, less guarded with irony. "If I have stuff to write, then why don't I just write it for me?" 

Perhaps that's the key question of the album. I suspect 'Albatross' wasn't written for her, see, and it's one of the most mundane, plodding songs on the whole album; even the singing is in the pop-approved, arch-vowel, vocal-fry style, although there is a bit of art-rock promise in the clicky, ascending end. I’m glad I didn't start at the first song of this album or I'd have bounced right off. 'The Best Tears Of Your Life' is the other clunker, to my ears, and interviews I've seen suggest it happened under studio pressure. You have to try things out, sure, but some things just don't fire.
 
The real measure, to my mind, is that there's some music here that I wouldn't have thought I would like to listen to, and yet I do. 'Sideboob' sounds like a daydream in a deckchair in the fleeting British sun, and it's about missing home in the shape of a local landmark. 'You Blister My Paint' is both sparser and darker, the sort of audio hallucination that reaches out from the edge of uncomfortable, unsatisfying sleep. 'Albert Road' is heart-breaking, really, a lament for missed opportunities, and it’s far too close to home for me to ignore, even if I have travelled far away. 

'Nearly Daffodils' was a single, and is it a pop song? About a relationship? While also having the most driving, energetic, busy rhythm of the whole thing and a distinct art-rock carelessness about whether any of it fits with expected structure? And I think that's what this album does best; questions and conversations and propositions, often up-close and personal. (The band name is because they all liked their English teachers at school.) The sounds shimmer or ring or wail or whisper or squeak or rattle, here, because we don't know whether that works but it's worth a try, because there isn't an easy answer or a single right answer. Pop's confidence that it knows what you like can be reassuring, but maybe behind that front, this is the nuance there could always be. 

​Jonathan Oglivie’s Head South evokes 1970s Christchurch in a low-budget, low-lit, snappy and video-driven homage to punk rock’s untimely Antipodean afterbirth. Oglivie was in Christchurch post-punk act YFC (originally Youth For Christ) so he knows the territory, plus he directed iconic Flying Nun videos including “She Speeds” for Straitjacket Fits and “Cruise Control” for the Headless Chickens.

Ed Oxenbould is the twitchy teen protagonist who has to fight fear to start a band in a scene where monosyllabic minimalism is de rigeur, accompanied by sneers and withering glances. Oglivie keeps the camera tight on the protagonists, evoking adolescence’s claustrophobia and self-obsession, while covering over the 2011 earthquake’s destruction of most of the original locations. The design evokes Kiwi suburban slumber, a restless sleep haunted by distant disasters (Erebus) and the unquiet spirits of the city of the plain’s Gothic past. Yesterday’s technologies – Italian sports cars, Flymos, stereograms, Pong (the computer game), Ace Tone organs, and battered pushbikes, hum with local (Toy Love, the Gordons, The Scavengers) and imported sounds (Wire, Public Image, Magazine). Benee is authentic as a shop assistant turned songwriter who Oxenbould tries to cajole into his group. Marton Csokas as Oxenbould’s Dad nicely mixes Man Alone and superannuated lounge lizard. True, the film has a lot of loose ends, sidesteps the bootboys, and stops too abruptly, but it is cool, knowing and funny enough to be worth the time of any NZ music fan.

​Matthew Bannister

​The musical ‘Hamilton’ – full title, “Hamilton: An American Musical” – covers the life of one of America’s founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, and his involvement in the American Revolution. While this musical has become world famous over the last few years, there exists another story set to music about a totally different Hamilton, half a world away. Our Hamilton. Kirikiriroa.

​After watching ‘When the Cows Come Home’ last week, I was reminded of another Hamilton related music film that I hadn’t yet managed to see, 2019s ‘Daffodils’. Luckily, it turns out it is also currently freely available in New Zealand, on Māori+.
​
Set in Hamilton, the movie is a love story of sorts that features a mix of mostly classic kiwi songs from different eras, re-imagined and sung by the characters in the film. Adding to the local connection, former Hamiltonian Kimbra plays Maisey, the daughter of the two primary characters.

Throughout the movie we also see nods to classic Hamilton locations, albeit appearing to be from an alternative universe. In the first couple of minutes we see Maisey’s father Eric (George Mason), in 1966, driving a 1963 Ford Zephyr away from the Riverina – a pub that once stood on the corner of Grey St and Clyde St, where I personally saw many bands play back in the early ‘90s. The Riverina of the movie world has a superficial similarity to the curves of the real thing, but isn’t nearly as grand. He drives off to the tune of Bliss by Th’ Dudes’, a song that matches the sentiment of some of the boozy nights I remember there. Travelling from there across the river, he drives under an arch featuring a large sign for “Hamilton Domain, Lake Rotoroa”. This arch is only barely reminiscent of the Swarbrick Memorial gates that would have been driven through to enter the domain at this time, but it does work to set the scene. It is here Eric meets Maisey’s mother, Rose (Rose McIver), by the lake’s still seasonally blooming daffodils. The lake, though, appears here to be more of a pond than the more expansive Lake Rotoroa. And then there is the movie attended at the Embassy Theatre, which clearly isn’t situated on the main thoroughfare of Victoria St. Despite all this, I have to say it is fantastic to see a movie that is set in Hamilton… these are merely the troubles of watching a movie as a local who has spent far too long in the same city. We have a further scene soon after in a hall representing the Starlight Ballroom, formerly of Anglesea Street, but as this one is from well before my time, it doesn’t pull me out of the movie world in the same as the other locations.

We have plenty of re-imaginings of classic New Zealand songs within the film. While being driven from the lake, Rose sings a rendition of Bic Runga’s Drive, not as far from the original as many of the other songs in the film. ‘She’s a Mod’ follows up – this is actually a song by British band The Senators, which featured drummer John Bonham, later of Led Zeppelin, but it was certainly made most famous here through the cover by Ray Columbus and the Invaders. We also get fun versions of Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No! by The Mint Chicks, and Anchor Me by The Muttonbirds. However, I don’t feel all the songs work as well. The Swingers Counting the Beat, for example, doesn’t do it for me at all. Maybe it is a song that I have been too close to in the past to hear in this modified way. Further, the song plays with Eric, at the start of a trip to Britain, thinking about Rose who is left behind in New Zealand, and the focus is heavily on the “thinking about you” lyric – sometimes the links between the songs and the scenes all just seem a bit too obvious. Chris Knox’s Not Given Lightly playing through the engagement and wedding scenes I view similarly. Tally Ho! by The Clean, There is No Depression in New Zealand by Blam! Blam! Blam!, I’ll Say Goodbye, Even though I’m Blue by Dance Exponents and Jesus I was Evil by Darcy Clay are also songs that vary in my appreciation of them, with the latter, in particular, just downright annoying. Nevertheless, the best covers in my opinion are always those where songs are reimagined, rather than faithful re-enactments of the original, and I commend the filmmakers for not taking the easy road on these. Maybe because of the familiarity of the originals, they will just need a few more listens, but that isn't a luxury I have as a viewer when they are embedded within a movie. And despite the feeling of being a little too obvious, they do serve their purpose in the film. None of the songs in the film have any real Hamiton connection, unfortunately, but I can’t use that as a criticism. Go find Greg Pages’ film The Locals if you want some good Hamilton music content (The Datsuns, Rumpus Room, Inspector Moog and Mobile Stud Unit).

What about the film itself? Well, as mentioned, it is a love story, inspired by real events. The story fills in the bits between the songs, but it is the music that dominates. As such the story is fairly simple, and overall it is difficult to feel like much actually happens. I can't help but feel that something more significant needed to happen. For me, it is certainly the reimagining of the songs and the nods to Hamilton that I will remember it for, rather than the story. 

Ian Duggan