The Vinyl Countdown

The History of Vinyl



“There is also another invention called the phonograph,” wrote singer Lillie Moulton. “I sung in one through a horn and they transposed this on a platina roll and wound it off. The intonation I could recognise as my own, but the voice - dear me!” Moulton is thought to have sung the first song ever recorded.


In the late 1980s the vinyl record was a doomed format. The advent of the compact disc in the middle of the decade was such a phenomenal success that the record sales were a tiny percentage of the market. This was not surprising, for the format had been around for over a century. While technology had changed around it, the fundamental idea of the record had stayed much the same. And now, after twenty years, the compact disc is being talked about as a defunct technology, yet vinyl has witnessed an amazing feat of survival, adopted by a new generation, charmed like many before them.

Part of that charm is that it is such an arcane technology; you can actually see the sound on the surface, as the needle cuts through the grooves. This argument would cut no ice with an anally retentive stereo-phile, but it is this very physicality that spawned the DJ. The ability to manipulate sound in real time has long been one of the DJ's greatest tools, and ironically it has taken the CDJ years to catch up.

But for those who think the story of vinyl begins and ends with the venerable Technics SL1200 deck, here is a very potted history of the format.

The first effort to record sound came in 1806, when Englishman Thomas Young recorded vibrations from a tuning fork onto a wax covered drum. While this was prescient of future developments, unfortunately Young failed to have the foresight to invent a device to play the vibrations back. So it was left to geniuses such as Frenchmen Leon Scott de Martinville and Charles Cros, and Americans Thomas Edison, Chicester Bell, Charles Tainter and to a lesser extent, some guy called Alexander Graham Bell. Martinville took the lead in 1857, developing the phonoautograph, which translated sound waves onto the sooty surface of a rotating cylinder, by way of a large horn, a diaphragm and a pig's hair. He too neglected the playback half of the equation. Twenty years later Cros solved this problem - on paper only.

The Americans resolved to get this recording business working - but not for music. They had business in mind, dictation machines, message services and the like. Edison and Bell, as pre-eminent inventor types, could see a world of possibilities, and the chase for the holy grail of recording became a somewhat acrimonious pursuit. Bell, inventor of the telephone, and Edison, who would later develop the light bulb, got wrapped up in patent disputes, and when Chicester Bell and Charles Tainter bought their idea to Edison, he co-opted it without giving them credit.

Edison takes credit for inventing the record player. In 1877 he accidentally ran tin foil under a stylus he was experimenting with, and found he could record his voice. He worked five days and nights straight, and soon had a device that could both record and play back sound - the phonograph. In 1885 Chicester Bell and Tainter of Volta Laboratories created the Graphophone, the first to employ vertical-cut grooves, on a wax coated cylinder. Taking this to Edison in the hope of collaborating, they were disappointed when he took their idea and improved upon it by adding an electric motor for more consistent speed.

The next decade saw the format refined in various ways, and tentative steps towards a consumer level product. It was during this period that the entertainment potential of recording was realised, over the mundane applications of business. In 1888 Emile Berliner invented the gramophone, utilising a 7-inch disc, with two minutes recording time at 30rpm. From a zinc master engraved with acid, it was possible to press many rubber records.

When it became clear that business was not interested, graphophone franchisee The Columbia Phonograph Company decided in 1889 to lease them to fairgrounds, with great success. The following year the first jukeboxes were produced, a boon for the nascent music industry. This along with better reproduction of recorded sound cemented the future of the record player and its place in people's homes.

Consequent years saw many improvements and developments, in terms of sound quality and materials (including shellac, which would become the standard). The first decade of the 20th century saw the first double-sided discs, the introduction of the popular Victrola player, and the first ‘album’. This was Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Nutcracker Suite’, released on four double-sided discs, and called an album as it resembled a photo album.

1917 saw the first jazz record, ‘Livery Stable Blues’ recorded, while in 1925 amplification is introduced by Bell Telephone Laboratories, increasing the frequency range of recordings immensely. This and further moves towards the vinyl format saw the record survive the advent of commercial radio. Alan Blumlein developed stereo in 1931, and installed this recording system at the BBC’s legendary Abbey Road studio.

World War Two saw two important developments. Vinyl is used as a cheap replacement for shellac (the first vinyl release is in 1946), and the first DJs appeared as entertainment for troops. Following the war the 7-inch 45rpm single was popularised, especially as rock’n’roll began its ascendancy in the middle fifties.

The first stereo LPs were released in 1958 by RCA, but home players take a while to catch up with this development. Pop music changes the face of contemporary music, and the 1960’s saw massive advances in recording technology and techniques. Albums such as The Beatles ‘Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’, Beach Boys ‘Pet Sounds’ embraced these developments.

Home stereo technology also developed, as did the requirements of commercial playback equipment. In 1972 Technics introduced the SL series of turntable, with direct drive instead of belt-drive, a far more consistent system. The flagship of these, the SL1200 was manufactured for radio, but DJs soon saw the manifest benefits of such a revolutionary machine. The rest, as they say, is history. The DJ became god, and vinyl has earned the right to exist in perpetuity. Amen.

Gavin Bertram.

Sly Dunbar

Slave to the Riddim



The riddim twins. So ubiquitous have their rhythm-driven adventures been on both sides of the desk that Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare have unquestionably earned their moniker. For the better part of thirty years now they have been the quintessential rhythm section.

Best known for their intimate involvement in the progression of Jamaican music since the late 1960’s, this is certainly not where their legacy ends. Sly and Robbie’s trademark rhythms have featured on releases from Grace Jones to Bob Dylan, Howie B to No Doubt. In fact, it would be fair to say the music charts of the 1980s and 90s would be fairly desolate without their multifarious contributions.

Both Dunbar and Shakespeare struggled their way through the ranks of late 60s Jamaican reggae session players. Both found themselves playing in Lee Scratch Perry’s in-house bands, and in 1973 joined forces as the rhythm section for Coxon Dodd’s Studio One band, The Revolutionaries. This was the golden age of reggae, and Sly and Robbie appear on a staggering amount of recordings from that era. As well as being integral to Black Uhuru, Dunbar’s resourceful drumming and Shakespeare’s supple bass-lines grace albums from Culture, The Mighty Diamonds and Gregory Isaacs.

Meanwhile they found time to run their Taxi label, record rhythms for Grace Jone’s Nightclubbing, Bob Dylan’s Infidels and No Doubt’s two recent number one hits, Underneath it All and Hey Baby. When we caught up with them recently, they were touring in Australasia for the first time, with Black Uhuru vocalist Michael Rose – a reunion of sorts that was essentially a run though of back-catalog classics. And even after a recording career of 35-odd years, Dunbar still seems genuinely excited by music technology and the increasing freedom it entails.

One of your most recent successes entailed recording two number one singles with No Doubt. How did those sessions come about?

Dunbar: "It came about through a friend of ours, Brian Dobson. He works at Satellite Radio in America. He called me and asked me if we would like to produce No Doubt, and I said ‘Yeah!’. They flew to Jamaica and recorded at Gee-Jam studio in Port Antonio, it took two weeks, and we went back to this little studio, Sonic Sounds in Kingston, and did a vocal there, with Bounty Killer. And I think they took it back to England where they mixed it. But No Doubt is a great band. They’re fantastic, and like two months ago I went to New York and played a benefit concert with Bono from U2 and there was two drummers and two bass men playing on a song called Sweet Thing, and No Doubt were singing and it was great. It was the first time I’ve done two drummers live you know, it was really wicked."

How developed were the tracks when No Doubt came to Gee Jam?

Dunbar: "On ‘Hey Baby ’ they had a demo as a Pro-Tools file and they took it to Jamaica. It was OK, all we needed to do was put the drums around what they had because what was there was great and we didn’t want to lose any of that. Sometimes on a session you might do something today and can’t get it back tomorrow. So we just put the drums around it and put the tabla in the break. And that was it, we told them it was fine, nothing was wrong with it. I think they were pleased when we told them that!"

In a situation like that, how involved in the song-writing process can you get?

Dunbar: "Sometime they come with their song and we just produce the rhythm for the song, and if there’s no song, we might make the rhythm track and have some little vocal ideas, and the points are split up and shared eventually."

You’ve worked with a vast array of artists from diverse backgrounds, creating different styles of music. Do you approach all sessions in the same way?

Dunbar: "Well, we approach projects differently. When you’re playing with, like Bob Dylan, you approach it not from a reggae point of view. You prepare yourself that Bob Dylan is like a pop, folk singer, and he sometimes take a different kind of rhythm. When you go into the session you approach it with open ears because maybe the musician around the session is not really reggae musician, so it might only be Robbie and myself who are reggae musician. So we can adapt to that kind of music, and sometimes we might keep it a little bit reggae inside of there. When we approach a Jamaica session, a reggae session, it’s different."

So for instance, how did you approach the Grace Jones sessions for Nightclubbing and Warm Leatherette, compared to the work you did with Howie B for Drum and Bass Strip to the Bone?

Dunbar: "Well, with Grace Jones, when we got to Nassau we didn’t know what we were going to do, so we went inside the studio and we said let us go into the studio and learn all of the songs, and then we’ll cut the songs right to tape. So what we do is we went and sat inside the studio and they would play the demo of the songs and then we would try and reconstruct the riddim in a more groovy type of thing, to suit her image. So we went in and did that, and most of those songs were done in one take. The Howie B sessions for Strip to the Bone, we laid down the track, and while we did that he was there moving all the knobs, putting on delays and effects as we go along, you know. That was a very creative session, just to see how he worked it."

Working as you do, as session musicians and producers, you work in many different studios. What is essential in a studio for the way you work?

Dunbar: "To me any good studio is a good studio, in any part of the world. For it to be good the monitor has to be almost perfect, just sounding great, and it must to be very true. I mean the console has to be good to, you know, and you could have some outboard effects in there. You don’t need a lot because if the music’s not right from the beginning the outboard effects can’t help it to be right. Once you have a good sounding room, the monitors sounding very true, I think that’s all one needs, if it sounds great that’s it."

Having come from a dub reggae background that is grounded in analog tape, what to you are the benefits of digital recording technology?

Dunbar: "The benefit of digital is it is very clean. Because of digital, the editing process, on Pro-Tools and the new end of programs, it works better for a lot of engineers who want to explore, go further with what they want to do. With analog you have to do a lot of editing with cutting the tape, you couldn’t move things around, like cut and paste. What digital has done is make the job easier for record engineers and musicians to work on a complete song and get done in seconds what would take hours with tape. And not every one can splice tape, so you’d have to get a good editor, to cut the multi-track or two track tape."

Dub depends on a hands-on, ride-the-controls method of working. How does this transfer into the digital domain?

Dunbar: "Well, it all depends how you make dub. You have to figure out the knobs. So if you have a digital board you can make it work and make that new sound inside of it. I think with dub it need to go to the next stage. It has been there a long time and I think it can be taken to the next stage digitally. In Jamaica now most studios use digital delays and everything like that. Not everyone uses tape echo you know."

Dub seems to have many meanings now, and gets applied to all sorts of music. What does it mean to you?

Dunbar: "To me dub is just like…in Jamaica it’s a way of life. We see dub as using the rhythm track that is there, and taking out things, using effects, having them running all the way through sometimes. Doing what you feel like, it hasn’t got any rules or regulations. You can do anything, and for once it’s the bass and drums up front."

You’ve managed to stay abreast of music technology innovation, and indeed have led the way in many cases. You began using MIDI Syndrums and drum machines early on. What inspired you to do that?

Dunbar: "I’m the kind of person who likes to go to the next level. Anything I see coming in new music technology I want to see how it works. Even if I don’t have it I want to know what is out there, right. And the first I saw of it was when we used to work with a synth player, Tyrone Jones. When it came to the drum section of it and it said Syndrums, I said ‘Woah, this is serious’. And then there was the drum machine and I started buying all these things. I can use it inside of reggae; with normal drum-kits they’re just there, but with Syndrums there’s work to do, you have to create that sound. I just grow to love it more and more everyday, it’s like it’s a part of me now!"

Was there resistance to drum machines and MIDI amongst the roots reggae community in Jamaica?

Dunbar: "Well, the drum machine has been inside of reggae for a long time because the original version of Bob Marley’s No Woman No Cry, that’s a drum machine, and Johnny Was a Good Man. When the drum machine became very popular I said to my friend, ‘It can play reggae’, and he said ‘No, no, no, it can’t play reggae’. So I booked some time and I played it, and he say ‘Woah, woah, woah’ and they start believing. A lot of people in Jamaica didn’t want to see me play the drum machine, because they think it was limited, that they couldn’t get the flair that they would like in a song. But eventually they have come around and lot of them are into it you know."

Both you and Robbie Shakespeare played sessions for Lee Scratch Perry. Was that what inspired you to get into production work?

Dunbar: "No I got into production work because of Ansell Collins, he’s the one who took me to the studio when I was like sixteen, and I played on (The Upsetters) Night Doctor, and then (Dave and Ansell Collins) Double Barrel. I wasn’t so interested in the production thing because I wanted to be a musician. But then in Jamaica you go to the studio everyday, and you’ve got an idea for making music and sometimes the producer wouldn’t go for the idea. But this producer by the name of Joe-Joe Hookim, he gave me the green light to play the drum part like the way that I was thinking of and it worked. So then I started getting involved in production, and I said to Robbie, ‘What we should start doing is owning ourselves on tape, have others playing and be in control’. But we still be playing our own music, and recording for everyone on Taxi, we still play for everyone, you know."

What do you remember of the sessions with Black Uhuru and Culture, which produced some of the greatest reggae albums of the Seventies.

Dunbar: "I remember those sessions because with the Black Uhuru session we cut all the tracks in one day. Culture we come in and do the same thing, and they were great songs, the singers were writing extremely good hooks. So once you have good hook you get a good riddim. Today music is good, but I don’t there’s enough good hooks, like there was in those days."

You’ve been involved in so many sessions on both sides of the desk. Have any meant more to you than others?

Dunbar: "As producer and player, every session’s meant a lot to me, because when you approach a session you don’t know if it’s going to be a hit song. And most of the sessions it’s turned out to be that these songs are popular. So I think all sessions and production work is important because you are competing with yourself, you say ‘I play this rhythm and it’s good, I can’t play the next two rhythms and it’s not good’, so you try hard to get that next rhythm sounding much better than this. You’re always in competition with yourself, and I think that is very good. I think to myself, I can do better, I can make a better rhythm than that, so that keeps you going."

In Jamaica are live drum sessions still the norm, or are samplers and drum machines predominantly used for rhythm tracks?

Dunbar: "Now in Jamaica there’s not much live drums. A couple of people sometimes, but the drum sound in Jamaica now is not as good as in those days of Joe-Joe Hookim and Joe Gibbs. Most of the guys now didn’t grow up on the sound of live drums. So there’s quite a few live sessions going on, but the drum machine is being used because you can’t…I won’t say you can’t, but it’s hard to get a good recorded drum sound in Jamaica."

Gavin Bertram.

MC Tali

Lyrical Trails



MC Tali is struggling for words. "I don't know. That's a question I can't answer, I honestly can't," the exhausted vocalist muses in an odd Kiwi via Bristol accent. Not the response you'd expect from someone who has made their name delivering hyper-confident word sprays to manic drum'n'bass crowds. But the problem is a universal one, and something she has to deal with everyday. While Tali, christened name Natalia Scott, doesn't have a handle on why drum'n'bass is such a male domain, she knows it shouldn't be. "If you're good at something it shouldn't matter what sex, race or religion you are, but it does. It’s pretty sad because drum'n'bass is supposed to be so progressive."

Scott has found out the hard way, breaking through the prejudice to become the premier female drum'n'bass MC internationally. Not bad for a girl who grew up on a sheep farm in Taranaki, insecure from being hassled at school about her diminutive frame. She always had that mouth and words that came quick and easy in the form of retorts to her chastened tormentors. And ambition.

"She was quite staunch about succeeding as a musician," says Matt Harvey, a member of New Zealand's other big drum'n'bass export, Concord Dawn. "There's a lot of girls who try and get into the scene as vocalists thinking if they get a superstar boyfriend that'll help them. They don't much respect. Whereas she got respect, as she never played the fact that all those guys wanted to pash her. "

This has been ignored by those crudest of critics - the male drum'n'bass fans who waste their lives in internet forums - she calls them 'haters'. "To begin with I was reading a lot of those things," says Scott. "I realised that those people don't add anything to my life, so why do I need to have that?" Most of what they say about Scott is unrepeatable, but a common thread is that she couldn't have achieved what she has without compromising her morals.

Just what has she achieved? The MC Tali debut album Lyric On My Lip has just been released on Roni Size's Full Cycle label. Produced in collaboration with Size and fellow Full Cycle artists, it’s a diverse collection of dance floor drum’n’bass and futuristic torch songs. Now Scott is touring the UK in support of Size, the sell out crowds singing her songs back to her. The magnitude of this comes into focus when Size's achievements are examined.

The Bristol based producer won the prestigious Mercury music prize in 1997 for the Reprazent album New Forms. That album was the first drum'n'bass foray into chart territory, its combination of live performance and precision programming spawning such cafe favourites as 'Brown Paper Bag'. In the closed world of drum'n'bass, Size and friends are royalty, yet Scott managed to woo them with one life-changing performance.

This story of how she manufactured her big break has been rendered as legend in drum'n'bass circles, and Scott is thoroughly sick of recounting it. "God, do I have to?" she laughs. Well, no. Lyric On My Lip effectively chronicles this and the other events that contributed to her ascension through the drum'n'bass ranks.

"I've been heavily into music since I was ten years old," says Scott. At that age she turned her piano and vocal training towards song writing, a talent that permeates Lyric. "I wasn't too sure if it would become my major career, but it turned out to be a good decision." The introduction to drum'n'bass came at the wrong end of an all night rave in Christchurch, where she had moved to study Performing Arts in 1996. "I fell in love with the music totally. I started going out with a DJ who introduced me to lots of drum'n'bass and educated me about the music."

As a hip-hop fan, Scott was aware of the puppeteer’s role of the MC, and used her vocal prowess to infiltrate the Christchurch drum'n'bass clique. Soon she was fronting shows with Salmonella Dub and Shapeshifter, and the name MC Tali was being hyped as someone to watch. Performing with these acts at Dunedin's Odeon cinema in late 2000 her vocal gymnastics - part sassy hip-hop MC, part soulful R&B chanteuse - eclipsed the headliners. "People in Christchurch have been saying 'we knew she was going to be a star' for years," says Harvey.

Having outgrown the opportunities at home, Scott jetted to Melbourne in 2001. Established within months, the vital connection with Size was made in 2002 at the after party for a Reprazent show. Cornering him backstage, Scott's impromptu performance so impressed Size that he immediately put her on stage with DJ Die. It was an academic decision to move to England in the hope that this relationship would pay dividends. "Everything has always been a bit of a gamble - I'm a Sagittarius and we like to gamble because it always pays off."

It didn't take long. After MCing for Full Cycle DJ/producers Die and Krust at London club Fabric, she was brought into the studio to lay down vocal tracks for various producers, including Size – a rare occurrence. "They're one of those labels it's really hard to become a part of,” says Harvey. “They're all Bristol dudes who went to school together. It's a big deal and those guys are going to look after her."

Scott agrees that she is lucky to have these wise heads around her, always ready to offer advice to their protégé. “I surround myself with people who are positive and like-minded, who are passionate and have creative sides to them.” And the reason Full Cycle has invested so much in this antipodean outsider is because they know she’ll do the job. "I’m given opportunities because I'm so willing to take them. I've always given Full Cycle one hundred and ten percent, to the point of exhaustion. But that works for me because I like to live life on the edge."



Gavin Bertram.

Shapeshifter

Shifting Riddims



Cracking Australia has been the Holy Grail for many New Zealand bands. For decades now it's been almost a rite of passage to buy a one way ticket to the West Island in the hope of making it in the notoriously difficult Australian music scene. Some have succeeded beyond all expectations - Ray Columbus, Dragon, Split Enz, Mi Sex, and more recently Pacifier. But many more have smacked their collective heads against the huge edifice of that industry, and returned home broken, dragging their shattered egos limply between their legs.

Although they've made the move early in their career, the latter of these fates is unlikely to befall Shapeshifter. The Christchurch drum'n'bass act relocated in mid 2002, following the release of the 2000 EP DNA, and the 2001 album Realtime. In the short period of their existence - they only formed in 1999 - Shapeshifter had probably achieved as much as they were likely to at home. In 2002 Realtime was awarded 'Best Electronica Release' at the b.net music awards, and nominated in the same category at the RIANZ awards. For an act of Shapeshifter's nature, staying in New Zealand could realistically only result in diminishing returns from that point.

A drum'n'bass band that actually perform their music 'live' is a confounding proposition for the rather conservative masses of local music buyers/gig goers. While they had great responses at the mid-sized shows they did, Shapeshifter were not likely to claim a much larger slice of the punter pie than they already enjoyed. Instead they've made Melbourne their home, and toured the great continent while also finding time to record a second album. This hasn't stopped them coming home frequently, most recently to perform at many of the summer festivals, including the Big Day Out and Rippon.

It's a Sunday afternoon when Real Groove catches up with Shapeshifter's Sam Trevethick, who is responsible for guitars, keys and percussion. From the background ambience captured by his cellphone, it sounds like he's chilling in a park somewhere - a wise move, considering the pressure cooker of a year he's just experienced. "The whole year was a bit higgledy piggledy," he reflects. "We did a lot, we recorded the album, then we got it finished and we were just going through contract negotiations with various people for how to release it."

Riddim Wise LP was scheduled for a late 2003 release, however this never eventuated. So while the first single ' Been Missing' was all over the b.net radio network last year, those awaiting the album were left hanging. "It just came up too fast," explains Sam. "We realised if we wanted to release it at our intended date then we weren't going to have a proper build up, so we thought let's not be silly. We did that with Realtime, we just rushed into it and released it because we thought we had to. So we thought there's nothing wrong with sitting on it and releasing it in a relaxed fashion and having everything in place to give it a decent profile."

The new album has certainly been worth the wait. It's more polished and assured than its predecessor, with a similar quotient of tearing dancefloor drum'n'bass to the more restrained vocal numbers. Featured on Riddim Wise are Fat Freddy's Drop vocalist Dallas Tamaira, and P Digsss (Paora Apera), who is now a fulltime member of Shapeshifter. Even better is the fact that Lady 6 (Karoline Tamati), ex-member of Christchurch female hip-hoppers Sheelahroc) again voices a track- 'When I Return. Her contribution to Realtime, 'Move With Me' was a standout. "She's just great," enthuses Trevethick. "The first track we did we were really pleased with and so was she. So when we asked her again she was more than happy, and we flew her over to Melbourne. There's something about her, something about her voice, and something about the way she carries herself and her attitude is so nice and so beautiful."

The hook-up with P Digsss has been in the pipeline for quite some time, as the idea was first floated on the Outdoor Styles tour in 2000. This featured Pitch Black, King Kapisi, Salmonella Dub and Sunshine Soundsystem, the Queenstown based crew which included Digsss along with Downtown Brown and KP.
"His first gig with us was actually at the Gathering (2000/2001) and that was an experience for us," says Trevethick. "We jammed with him for a while, then he went off to Europe and we came to Melbourne. We were doing our own thing for a while but when we writing the album we thought it would be great to bring him back and do a track and see what happens."

Digsss reunited with the Shapeshifter boys as they toured Australia in mid-2003 with Salmonella Dub. By all accounts this musical union was an inspired move, which forced the two parties to make it a more permanent arrangement."The process we went through on that tour was just one of the most amazing musical experiences that we've all had. He just sort of melted in, and everything changed once he came on board, which was great. It's another really powerful element to use in our live set up."

Trevethick is even more excited about the next stage of this new phase for Shapeshifter - having Digsss aboard in the studio as the music is written. "He came on board after the studio work was finished for Riddim Wise. So he did his vocals on the track that was already finished, 'Been Missing'. We're really excited about the next phase of getting him into the studio while the tracks are in that formative phase and letting his vocals lead some of the tracks rather than him coming in at the end and singing over the top. We're really looking forward to that."

This new component will no doubt aid Shapeshifter's continued assault on the more discerning eardrums of Australia. The better part of two years that the band has been there has been spent working just to survive and establish a base from which to launch onto bigger things. But has the move turned out the way that they'd expected? "It's motivated us more to make this our fulltime profession and try and succeed.
It's a challenge for sure," considers Trevethick. "But it's a motivating aspect, that there's a whole lot more people and there's a big scene to get into if you can. And it's worth trying, because if you can do it the opportunities are a lot greater than they are in New Zealand. Christchurch isn't that big a place, and I think we did what we needed to do there in as far as gelling together musically and building up our reputation in New Zealand. Then it came time when it was like, well what do we do now? Instead of moving to Auckland like we felt a lot of bands had done, we just thought we'd take the next step, which was Australia. We decided to give it a go and take the leap really. And it's worked out the way we'd thought, which is good."

One of the first things Shapeshifter did upon disembarking in Melbourne was to set off on their first Australian tour with Salmonella Dub, who had already made major inroads into the great monolith of the Australian music hinterland. This resulted in not only exposing the antipodean upstarts to a wider Ocker audience than they were likely to attract, but also introducing them to that most sought after of rock currencies - industry contacts. "Salmonella Dub are really well known, and that first tour we did with them was good. We met a few promoters out of that one. They have more of a mainstream audience than we would attract to our shows, and that's something we like to capitalise on. But it's also a lot more of an international country, there's a lot more international opportunities, people that are based here, people that you meet have international connections, as opposed to NZ where there's not too many."

Is it a move that Trevethick would recommend to other New Zealand acts looking for fresh aural cavities to introduce themselves to then? "Yeah I would," he says, choosing his words carefully, knowing the harsh realities of the situation. "It's a tough one really. Rock music I think is a lot harder scene 'cos there's so many rock bands. But just generally I think it's really inspiring just changing the place that you live, changing countries and all that. Although it's not that much different it's still like, "Shit! Right, I'm not at home on the dole anymore, I have to make it work."

Riddim Wise LP is out in New Zealand on the band's own Shapeshifter Music label, distributed through Rhythmethod, who have previously distributed Fat Freddy's Drop releases. Now it's a matter of sorting out a deal for Australia, before thinking about the rest of the world. "We're still sussing the Australian release out, we're definitely going to release it in June, but we don't think independent really is the way to go here, so we're talking to a few people, and it's all looking really promising. As far as Europe, we're not sure about that. We're just taking things step by step, get the album out in New Zealand, then Australia, and build up our profile over here a bit more. Then once that is underway and rolling, we will shift our focus to overseas. We don't want to take too big a bite quite at the moment."

A trip to Europe to play showcase gigs is on the cards later in the year though, following a promotional trip home in March. The European excursion follows in the footsteps of Fat Freddy's Drop and Salmonella Dub, both of who seem to be spiritual and industry advisers to Shapeshifter. "We've got a few contacts that they've have given us," explains Trevethick. "As far as expectations go it's not always good to go somewhere new and have high expectations. I'd be expecting to play to not that many people, but I'd be stoked if it went the other way. But if only 40 people show up it could be bummer, so I'm not going to be hoping for too much."

There's no doubt that if the audiences do show up, they'll be blown away, as live is where Shapeshifter are truly in their element. However, while the nature of their act is their biggest asset, it's also a concept they have trouble communicating to promoters used to easily digested ideas like 'DJ' or 'four piece rock band'.
"It's definitely a hurdle that we're having to overcome. People who are into promoting electronic acts don't understand why it costs so much to get us there, and people who promote bands don't really understand. It is hard to explain to someone exactly what we do, cos it sounds a bit weird. And when people see us play they think that there's some sort of click-track or sequence going on. They're really surprised when we tell them it's all live, they're like, 'Oh shit!'"

Gavin Bertram

Graham Brazier

The Peter Pan of Ponsonby



Sooner or later in life you come to the conclusion that some people are destined to live interesting lives, while others are bound for mediocrity. Graham Brazier falls squarely into the former category, his fifty-odd years liberally interwoven with a legend that has made him an iconic figure in New Zealand music. And while many who have lived lives as full as Brazier's are
deservedly arrogant, he is anything but. Gregarious and honest in conversation - even with a complete stranger - Brazier is an engaging personality, one of the nicest bonafide legends you could hope to meet.

Brazier lives these days in Grey Lynn, a relatively ungentrified part of the now-bourgeois central Auckland fringe suburbs. He says it reminds him of what Ponsonby used to be like when he lived there in the mid-seventies. Those days, he lived in a large house named the 'Mandrax Mansion', a residence that spawned both Hello Sailor and Dragon, two essential entries in any telling of New Zealand rock history. That period and the years that followed cemented Brazier's reputation as a decadent rock'n'roll animal, as his lifestyle came to mimic that of one of his heroes, Lou Reed. While this story doesn't need retelling, it's heartening to note that he has come through his wilderness years in good shape, belying both his past excesses and his age.

When I catch up with Brazier in his local Grey Lynn bar to discuss his third solo album East of Eden, he's busy in conversation with his fellow patrons. It's obvious he's well liked in these parts, and from what I can ascertain he's explaining what a 'Liverpool Kiss' is - a Merseyside euphemism for a headbutt. Not surprising as Brazier's father Philip was from Liverpool, a colourful seafarer who eventually arrived in New Zealand as a socialist agitator in the 1930's. He and Brazier's mother, Christina, travelled around a fair bit, settling in Auckland where she has now run bookshops for an incredible 71 years. With folks like that, it's unsurprising that Brazier's childhood was not the classic image of New Zealand suburban mundanity. He grew up above his mother's shop, immersed in literature, gaining an invaluable informal education that has benefited him throughout his life, not to mention the fact it rendered his formal education obsolete when he was fifteen.

Literature has long informed Brazier's songwriting, his turn of phrase and somewhat mannered delivery being anything but cliche. His reading takes in modern American writers of the gritty persuasion of Miller, Kerouac, Steinbeck and Bukowski, while also encompassing local poetry and his vast collection of Landfall anthologies. Lyrically his songs have dwelt on similarly gritty themes, somewhat autobiographical in nature while exhibiting a sage-like wisdom that only comes from experience. This is further borne out in conversation with Brazier, as he doesn't hold back on any subject, from offering marital advice to this soon-to-be-wed to lamenting the loss of his good friend Marc Hunter, the Dragon vocalist who passed away in 1998.

"'Long Gone for Good' is about the first song I've done which has been making up a tale about fictional people," explains Brazier of the opening track on East of Eden. "My songs are usually slices of life or emotional things that have happened to me. I either colour them up or dress them down, but don't actually come out and say what's happened. But I try and see the mood around it - I love songs that create an atmosphere, and if I can do that I'm winning."

Like all great songwriters, Brazier acknowledges the unexplainable, spiritual element of the process, which has been described by some as 'channelling'. "It's not just the song, it has another side to it, an atmosphere that takes you somewhere else. There's so many elements have to go into it, the chemistry, the recording, the way it's sung, the mood of the artist who's playing on it. If everything is right you get that magic atmosphere, and those are the songs that last I think. With this album I've purposely tryed to go for that sort of thing. Like the song 'East of Eden' which is just piano and vocal, I think that has got a lot of atmosphere. And it's kind of ambiguous but it does tell a story. When my girlfriend's mother first heard it she burst into tears, and she's a hard Dutch lady, you know! So I think I succeeded a few times. But I wish I could do it all the time."

East of Eden has been at least ten years in the pipeline, says Brazier. One track ('Desert of Love') even dates back to the mid-seventies, while 'Long Gone For Good' was produced by OMC impresario Alan Jansson about four years ago. The remainder of the album was recorded at Ricki Morris' Devonport studio, The Bus, while it is being released on Murray Cammick's Wildside label. A veritable catalogue of New Zealand music characters, whom Brazier confirms he has had long associations with. "I'd known Murray for years. I just like the way Murray's supported New Zealand music and had the balls to do a free magazine for 25 years or something, and basically by himself. And when I had my own band the Legionnaires, Ricki was soundman-slash-roadie for us."

The Bus is located behind an art gallery in Devonport, a place Brazier says was conducive to the creative process, with new exhibitions hung in the entrance everytime he went there. He's thankful to Morris for the amount of work he put into East of Eden, which it seems may have been a cathartic exercise for the producer. "He'd been going through a tough time, and he really threw himself into the album. There's a lot of heart gone into it, and the production job I think is fantastic. It's done with a lot of love and care, and that is art... when something is done for the buck it's...you know. I'm really jazzed at the way he produced it and at a time that must have been tricky for him he just threw himself at it. Some people drink their way out, some people throw themselves off bridges, but he did the smart thing and immersed himself in work. He's very proud of the album too."

The amount of time and sweat that has gone into East of Eden certainly shows, both in terms of song-writing and production. Songs such as 'Ennui' and 'Fairweather Friend' hark back to the late seventies, classic rock songs with a lyrical bite. Conversely, 'Greylands' and 'East of Eden' are sparse and melancholic, showing off Brazier's long-practiced song craft. Morris' production is sympathetic throughout, always doing justice to the songs, which he also helped to arrange. In addition he assembled the band for Brazier - drummer John Scott, bassist Paul Woolright, guitarist Brett Adams, Hammond organist Ian Morris, and keyboardists Stephen Small, Stuart Pearce and Mathew Brown. Brazier was happy taking a fairly simple approach to the studio, having learnt his lessons in the past about over-complicating things. "I approached it with acoustic guitar, bass and drums, so everything was set on quite a solid platform, and then we built up from there. So I did it the old fashioned way and it worked."

One of the biggest problems concerning East of Eden, says Brazier, was deciding on the final track sequencing for release. "We had a hell of a job getting a running order. It took about six weeks writing lists and playing it to people, and in the end Trevor Reekie (from Antenna Records) came up with the running order. Without sounding like an old hippy, it's a bit spiritual, and you can't really be totally objective about your own stuff. I think putting Alan's song ('Long Gone For Good') on first was quite good because it opens it with a good groove."

Brazier's last solo album, Brazier was released in 1988, preceded only by 1981's Inside Out. What else has he been up to in the intervening period? "Sailor still gets together and does the odd corporate gig," he explains. "But most of those guys have got families and day jobs and stuff. I've been doing a lot of the troubador sort of thing, in the corner with the guitar and the harmonica, just doing solo gigs like that. They're really challenging and if they work you feel like you've achieved something, and if they don't it's scary."

This is surprising, as you'd expect a performer as weathered as Brazier to be more than confident on stage. However, he confesses to having been severely affected by nerves in the past, something he says contributed to his sometime over indulgence pre-performance. "A few times I've let my nerves get to me and had a few too many drinks before a show and blown it a bit. But I've grown out of that now, finally. It takes a long time though. I probably don't appear like a nervy guy, but I do get nervous before a show, and put my partners through hell. My darling old mother calls it pre-minstrel tension, which I think is really hilarious!"

The revelation comes in the context of a discussion about Brazier's regrets about the past, and whether, under different circumstances, he would have liked to have achieved more. He's not the type to rue the past though, preferring to view the future with optimism rather than waste time and energy looking backwards. "I'd like to now," he reflects, referring to the prospects for his new album. "I think I'm the kind of guy that if I had of got fame or world recognition when I was younger I probably would have killed myself. But, if I get the opportunity now, and I think I've got a few years left in me. If I get the chance... but I have a little saying that in America they have adult contemporary, and in New Zealand we have adult contempt!"

Having said that, Brazier denies any bitterness towards the music industry and the fact that despite the fact he is one of the more renowned figures in New Zealand music he doesn't make a living from it. "In this country you can't live on royalties, unless you're Dave Dobbyn or Neil Finn. No, my royalty cheques are pretty meagre. I do a bit of work in my mum's shop, and get a few rare books for her. Because there's only her and I left we kind of look after each other. So if she's broke I look after her, and it seems to work out. But I'm by no means wealthy, and someone said to me not so long back "You must be rich, eh?" and I laughed and said "Man, you wouldn't know". I'm certainly not in the music industry for money. I'd be doing it anyway, I'd be sitting in my bedroom playing guitar anyway. My attitude to it is if I can go somewhere like a bar, and play solo and get a bit of pocket money and a few drinks, I'm happy. And if I get another shot at it I'll be a lot more sensible than I was in the past. But I think for a lot of people it takes them a long time to grow up. It's taken me a long time... I'm the Peter Pan of Ponsonby!"

Gavin Bertram.

Concord Dawn

New Day Rising



It's the Saturday of the Bledisloe Cup match in Auckland and the weather is changable at best. The city is humming though, and Ponsonby Road is swollen with crowds of people doing lunch - including the All Black management team. A few blocks down one of the more relaxed residential Ponsonby streets, drum'n'bass duo Concord Dawn are feverishly polishing the remaining tracks of what will be their third album. This villa doubles as Matt Harvey's home, and he and Evan Short have been sequestered here for the better part of two months, kept company only by incessant breakbeats and the heightening scream of cabin fever.

The studio itself is a relatively humble affair, a hefty PC, an effects rack, a brand new but still unused mixer, and heavy carpets on the wall to deaden the sound and keep from driving the neighbours bezerk. A modest set-up that belies the fact that Harvey and Short have been one of the major success stories of New Zealand music in recent times. They've sold, at last count, somewhere in the vicinity of fifty thousand records internationally, and scraped the nether regions of the UK charts with their breakthrough single Morning Light. This track has opened doors for Concord Dawn, granting them access to the closed ranks of the international drum'n'bass scene, where the DJ is the ultimate arbiter of taste, and those on the dancefloor vote with their feet and their wallets.

It's been a whirlwind experience for the still relatively young Auckland duo. Since Morning Light was picked up by UK DJ Digital for release on Goldie's Timeless label, they've toured individually through large parts of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, headlining shows to over a thousand people in territories as far flung as Estonia, Hungary, and erm, Hawera. On the back of Morning Light and a steady stream of 12" vinyl releases on revered drum'n'bass labels such as Renegade Hardware, Commercial Suicide and Moving Shadow, Concord Dawn's international profile now means they are in high demand on foreign shores. So once the album release is out of the way in September, they'll be off overseas again.

Concord Dawn first appeared about five years, gaining prominence through their unprecedented popularity on student radio. Their second album, Disturbance, was released in early 2001, and rising interest in the duo's unique hard melodic angle on drum'n'bass began to cause ripples internationally. Many of the tracks on Disturbance have now been released as 12" singles to the vinyl hungry masses, and it's this format that accounts for the majority of Concord Dawn's contribution to the export market. These sales were spurred by Morning Light's success, even though it appeared much later.

"We kind of knew we'd written a good tune, we could tell it was gonna be big," says Harvey of the track. "It was the first tune we'd done with vocals, except for a Sticky Filth remix we did. It was the first time we'd written a vocal tune. People like words and stuff, and the fact that it had that trancey thing and a male vocal. There's not too many tunes like that, or there wasn't then."

Morning Light was a breath of fresh air, a really unique moment, especially the first few times it was heard on the dancefloor, where it was absolutely the highlight of many a set. But the ad-hoc manner in which it came about deserves to go down in New Zealand music folklore.

"We didn't figure that we were writing something different, we just followed our gut instinct in a way" elaborates Short. "It was like 'Let's use these drums like this, now let's put this bassline in'. Then that sat there for a couple of hours, and we had a couple of beers, and Matt was like 'You should do some singing'. We got a mic and plugged it straight into the computer's soundcard, and just recorded a really rough take. After that I spent probably an hour auto-tuning it and time-stretching stuff and making it fit into the tune. Then we said, 'OK, tommorrow we'll borrow a nice mic, get a good mic preamp, and go into the studio next door and we'll get it sounding really classy. And we spent all day trying to get it, and it just sounded rubbish, nothing sounded as good as the original. Sometimes you just have to run with it..."

The way the track made its way into Digital's hands is a similarly fateful fable. The visiting DJ came around to watch the cricket, as he was an acquaintance of one of the boys flatmates, where he was presented a CD containing the track by Short. But if it had been up to Harvey things could have been much different.
"I was like, 'Don't even give him the CD! Don't even bother, he won't like it...it's not even his sound, man!' But Evan persisted..."

"That was our lucky break really...he's basically the A&R guy for Timeless Records," explains Short. "We put some contact details on there, but didn't figure he'd be into it. About three weeks later I got a text from him saying he wanted to put it out on their label for smaller producers, called L-Plates. He took the tunes to Brillo who runs the whole Timeless family, and said he wanted to put it on L-Plates. And Brillo was like 'No no no, that tunes too good, we'll put it on Timeless.' And then DJ's like Bailey and Klute got hold of it and loved it, and were slamming it. They were touring around the world, and next thing you know on all the chat boards, people are going 'We heard this track called Morning Light'. Or like 'Klute just played this track with vocals, what was it?' So people in the States started hitting us up about it. It kind of spread and spread from there."

Although Morning Light reached 109 in the UK charts it went much higher in dance and DJ charts, fuelling a demand for new Concord Dawn material, and paving the way for their burgeoning DJ careers. It also spurred the duo's enthusiasm for introducing different sounds into the sometimes monochromatic sound palette of drum'n'bass. The most extreme example of this to date is Raining Blood, a kind of tribute to the Slayer track of the same name. Although they've been accused of sampling the riff, it is actually courtesy of Short, an accomplished guitarist who has previously bloodied his fingers with Auckland hardcore act Day One. When the riff kicks in you know you're witnessing something a little different, but when the noodley 80's guitar hero solo hits it's bound to leave you with your jaw hanging somewhere in the vicinity of your ankles.

"When we did that track, I was doing it on my laptop on tour in the States," says Short. "And the first time I played it over there, in San Diego, it went bananas. And everywhere I went it was the highlight. Then you get these posts on the net saying 'Drum'n'bass should not be crossed with metal, this is a blasphemy, blah blah blah.' But we've been copping flak for most tracks. Even for Morning Light we got loads of shit. And at first you're really hurt, you think it's a failure. But then you realise that the people who like it aren't going to post. And if they don't like it they will. It's just humanity's need to be negative. If you get twenty people bitching about it there will be one hundred and twenty who love it."

"We definitely opened up to what you can do in the context of a drum'n'bass tune," continues Harvey. "We were like 'Oh fuck it, we can do what we want'. And that definitely helped. A bit more confident, and especially on this album that's meant we've done a whole lot of different tunes and not really been scared about whether people are going to like it."

"At the end of the day if we do something and we like it, then if we get some negative feedback we're a lot more sure of ourselves. But I never expected that tune to be big, so I thought we'd put it out ourselves, and play it occasionally at gigs and some people might be into it. Next thing you've got these labels going, 'We've got to have that tune'. It was almost another Morning Light for us," finishes Short.

Another thing Short and Harvey have been slammed for in the hyper-critical domain of online drum'n'bass forums is for their use of Fruity Loops software. This music software is perceived by some to be inferior, and the fact that Concord Dawn use it exclusively these days and have created their best moments using it apparently doesn't count for much amongst the detractors.

"I think we're the only people in the world at our level who use it exclusively," explains Short, who works as a mastering engineer and knows what he's talking about. "You get some people, like BT, who audition samples and write beats with it, but then take it into another program. But we've learnt how to do full automation of everything, and structuring tracks, and are pretty much doing everything you can do with other stuff in Fruity Loops. The only thing we're going to change is we've bought a nice big Mackie console, and we're going to mix it down with that, record it onto DAT, back into the computer and then master it."

They started using the software independently of each other while Short was living in the UK for a half-year period following the release of Disturbance. The realisation that he couldn't live without his creative partnership with Harvey spurred his return, and within weeks Morning Light had been laid down. At that time the Concord Dawn studio was at the Kog Transmissions record label headquarters in Kingsland, Auckland. The new album, entitled Up Rising, is being released by the duo on their own label of the same name, following their departure from the Kog stable.

"Basically things changed up at Kog," reflects Short. "We'd been there for a while and we'd seen quite a lot of people come and go. A few office managers had come and they'd leave after six months. We stayed there through a lot of people coming and going, but then it went through a big change where there was a difference of direction. It made us question what we were doing, and what we wanted from a label. When we first aligned ourselves with Kog, we were very young and we didn't know how the industry worked and they were very helpful. We learnt how things were done. We realised we knew enough to go and do it ourselves now."

In order to release the album, Short and Harvey have set up a company, and are paying themselves a meagre living wage. However, they are looking to the future, intending to invest in property if the album sells in quantity overseas.
"We're trying to be a bit more sensible about it," says Harvey. "If the album does well we're looking at buying a house. That's our superannuation scheme, 'cos there isn't one for DJ's. Since we've started the business we've been a little more sensible and started looking at the bigger picture."

And the picture's looking pretty good, as they both relate their highlights from tours abroad, such as hour-long signing sessions in Eastern Europe that included women's stomachs. And Harvey says a grandparent is rapt that Concord Dawn are mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide in relation to New Zealand music. You know you've made it when...

Gavin Bertram

Bailter Space

Alister Parker raw transcript



Hey, how you doing.

You'll have to describe this terminology. Oh the swan, you mean like death.

This is a Bailter Space gig on a CD, made from a selection, like a setlist, and taken into a mastering studio with some equipment. We went around the city looking for certain bits of gear, then we plugged it in and went wild. So that's what this is, it's like a performance of those pieces.

We had a couple of different studios that we rigged up with gears, and we've recorded like a swag of material, and we're still actually working on getting a space to collaborate and go through what we've recorded. But that's like an ongoing thing, and for the moment what we have is this CD with remastered songs that we've lifted off other CDs. And some of them have been mastered extensively, like we really put the equipment to test in the mastering studio, and treated it sort of like a mixing environment. Others, we just did little tweaks, and I remember loving that tone or frequency when we actually did the mix for the album, and now it's back! You know, that kind of stuff.

(so you're still getting together from time to time?)
I imagine, that's been the case for a long time and it was fun doing some edits for this recording together, and just sitting in front of our console and messing with these tunes. Even at that point we were listening to some of our new material as well. For the moment this is what we've decided to do.

We started off a few years ago making this sort of re-shuffle of songs on different records. We ended up with like 5 albums with versions and things. We have this list, and then we thought we'd aim at making it like a setlist, a long set and we'll flow one song to the next, and create a mood and run with a thing. We worked a long time on this record actually, we were working on it pretty intensely for a number of weeks.

I believe he's over visiting at the moment, I haven't seen him in a few months. And I saw Brent like a little while ago.

The high points (laughs). Just the immersion into this sonic world, you know, with our instruments and our banding together, and our meeting together. There were so many high points it was almost perpetual at one point. Something that was so exciting.

I really like our new one, the one with the songs on it. That's what I've been listening to over and over, I'm really happy with it. It's enchanting and really interesting. It has some good sonic things happening on it that have like a billion layers. So I've been kind of immersed in that at the moment, and it touches on most of our records, and ones that were never released, and interesting pieces.

There's Glimmerdot which not a lot of people would have heard, and no one would have heard it this way cos we remastered it extensively. That was an Amphetamine Reptile release, a very raw version, which we started with. We started to plug things in and bring out what was there, and worked on that for quite some time. I'm kind of pleased with that. There's the alternative mix of Robot World, a special mix. Then there's a demo of At Five We Drive, like a formative version when we were writing it.

We've lived in a lot... I guess they impact on it. If we lived in NZ we were full of imagination, full of images of what urban society is like, I mean metropolis. And then when you're in Metropolis you dream of wide open space. So the affect is not totally about the place you're in, it's about the places you're not.

We were working together like artist, working with our instruments, and a knowledge of some things, and an experimentation of others. Taking things that exist and breaking them down and rebuilding them. So that's how it comes about I guess. We have an affinity, John and Brent and I to sort of be in a room and plug in this electrical equipment and seem to go straight to the zone together. That was something we experienced first in the Gordons, when we hadn't known each other a week then. It was very exciting feeling actually. You can imagine you've got certain things worked out, and they suddenly disappear and are replaced with something that you're not even familiar with, but it's very strong.

I rememebr we pressed our own records in the Gordons, and then we sold some units to Flying Nun. So we had our own label, it had the diver guy on it, Gordon 1. We would sell the record to stores, and then hand deliver them. We were touring around NZ quite a lot then, so it worked out we could be our own distribution company, shipping compant, contact whatever. We would go to the cutting room and test the cuts. It was an exciting experience, we didn't even consider looking for a record company. We just thought e have to make a record, we have to distribute and sell it you know.

I think it was, it came naturally. We were doing our own artwork and advertising, and putting our own shows on. It was without much forethought really, it was what we were into.

Not sure really. Something was just different. We didn't have to release through Flying Nun, and I think we just wanted to release through a whole lot of record companies at that point. We were trying different things. We met Murray and he seemed keen to do one, so we said we'll make you one then.

Initially we relocated here because we were touring in Europe, and we had a record deal with Matador in New York City, and they invitied us here. We had some touring work in the States to do, so we thought New York would be a good place to base ourselves. At that point in our career we could appropraite that and enjoy it, so we did it.

I'm fairly content with it still. I still find the city fascinating, very multi-leveled, like a point of civilisation that I'm observing before my eyes every day. It's a harsh environement, so I had to harden up a bit (laughs).

We're workign on some stuff musically, and I'm working with technology. Just using my knowledge of technical things to consult with people on. The idea there is that I have plenty of room in my life, so I don't have to fight to have the space to work on creative things, like music and photography.

Gravenhurst

Bleak Seasons



The English indie record labels have long been the parent of unique entities. The Smiths, Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine are just a few acts who been granted the space they need to follow a singular vision by the non constrictive conditions offered by labels such as Creation, Rough Trade and 4AD. This philosophy has bled over into the electronic domain, where labels such as Skam, Rephlex and Warp have offered the best home to the best and most eccentric acts. But while they nurture their musician's creative urges, each of these labels does tend to have a stylistic straitjacket that they adhere to.
Warp have managed to burst out of these preconceptions numerous times over their lengthy existence, always keeping a few steps ahead of trite musical trends. Having been the home to electronic mavericks such as Autechre, Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, it was a little odd when they recently released an album from an act called Gravenhurst. His sound was described as being somewhere between The Smiths and Nick Drake. Upon further investigation the album Flashlight Seasons was certainly atypical Warp fare. It was, however, one of their most inspired signings in recent memory.
Flashlight Seasons is a sparse, melancholic journey through the bleak nether regions of Nick Talbot's consciousness. While the minor key finger picking and fragile voice is certainly redolent of Drake’s pastoral meditations at times, there's a lot more going on. "All the bands I'm interested like the Smiths and My Bloody Valentine and Husker Du have one thing in common, which is that they're all fucking great pop song writers," says Talbot. "They might seem disparate on a sonic level but the songs are so memorable, and they're also very emotionally honest."
Before going solo, Talbot was in a band called Assembly Communications. They called it quits following the tragic death of their bassist, an event that contributes to the introspective nature of the Gravenhurst material. Prior to Flashlight Seasons Talbot released Internal Travels on his own label, distributing it through other small companies. "If you record on your own you can get a good sound with really basic equipment," he explains of the ethos behind Gravenhurst. "For Flashlight I was in a very morbid frame of mind, it was a desperate attempt to get down a bunch of music before I was convinced I was going to die. I spent two months in a room, just getting all the parts down. It was really exhilarating but really stressful. When it comes to recording I can't think about anything else."
It's clear that the result of this self-imposed solitude is the heartbreaking honesty of the music. While Flashlight's simplicity is one of its most rewarding elements, Talbot's take on it is different. "I dunno, I think it's really strange, I thought I'd made a full sounding pop record!" he laughs. "I'm probably quite deluded about what my stuff actually sounds like. I think as soon as someone hears an acoustic guitar they decide it's a minimal folk record. I think it's quite a full sounding record, some tracks have got like 16 parts."
Lyrically, Flashlight contains some dark gems, such as ‘The ghosts of autumn murders walk me home,’ or ‘I caress where my lover once lay by my side/Before I turned inwards and forced her to fly’. There's a real menace, a malevolent intent to some of the lyrics, which belies Talbot's intimate delivery.
"I try and convey anger in a different way," he explains. "There's a kind of tension between wanting to be understood and wanting to be really esoteric. If you make it too specific it becomes quite difficult. I'm really into evoking a sense of mystery in lyrics and in music in general."
As for the melancholic nature of his lyrics, Talbot says it has been a common theme since the romantic poets wallowed in it. "It's quite a privileged thing to have. I try and tap into things that are part of the collective consciousness. It seems to me once you've peeled back all the banal everyday shit what you get is an immense sense of sadness that is mixed with a really life affirming force. The human condition seems to be intrinsically melancholy."

Gavin Bertram.

Degrees K

As we well know, Australians are adept at claiming our successes as their own. In some cases (Russell Crowe) they're even welcome to them. But if we're not careful they'll be claiming one of our best new bands too, one that is virtually unknown at home. Ex-pat Cantabrians Degrees K relocated to Sydney at the beginning of 2003, and have caused ripples since. They've been named by The Melbourne Age as the next buzz band, and have had tracks on the prestigious Triple J radio network.

Degrees K emerged from Christchurch in 2001, releasing two EPs (Jay Tee Four Pee, Click) on Failsafe Records, following up in 2002 with the Lifelike album. These releases exhibited the four piece's eclectic sound, a dynamic amalgam of emo, heavy rock and power pop. Before moving, the band built a solid reputation for their electrifying live shows. In Australia their headline shows and supports for the Icarus Line and Pacifier have garnered them enthusiastic reviews from superlative spouting journos. Their new seven-track mini-album Children of the Night Sky looks like raising their profile, and with ex-Pacifier management company Aloha behind them, it surely won't be long before those ripples become waves heading back across the Tasman.

Back in New Zealand in July to tour in support of Children of the Night Sky, Degrees K played to large audiences, perhaps because the excellent 'Worth It' had been picked up by local radio. Drinking beer in the Ponsonby sun in the midst of a hectic day, vocalist/guitarist Gene Vincent and guitarist Charlie Underwood are relaxed and animated in the absence of bassist Dean Cameron and drummer Chris Spark. They act as a comedy duo, checking out girls walking past. See what life could be like if you'd moved to Auckland instead of Sydney, boys...

"We wouldn't have met the people we've met, or had the chances we've had," says Underwood of the move. "Auckland was never a serious option. Some would say what's the point. The important thing was to get out of New Zealand."
"Sydney’s a big dirty city," continues Vincent. "That's the motivation for me to work hard, to get out of there. It's good for the band. We wanted to travel together. We'd been planning it for a couple of years, and we thought now was the time."

While Degrees K hadn't reached the heights domestically that Shihad had before casting their net wider, it could be argued that they'd gone as far as they could. They admit they are unlikely to work with a major label, and although New Zealand's music scene is more multi-tiered than it was, Degrees K would have trouble finding an audience big enough to sustain them here. The main reason for this is that their sound is hard to pin down, straddling several stylistic divides, a wilful eclecticism that takes a while to warm to. In a larger country this is likely to be an asset.

"You can really impress, you can make people go 'holy shit, what the fuck was that?'" explains Underwood "I think we attract similar people to us, maybe similar humoured people. Hopefully our personality comes across, so that makes it easier for people to like the band."

Certainly Degrees K live show is their primary weapon. They're a band that likes to interact with the audience, make something special happen, and more than anything play loud.
"We're trying to tone down our volume a little," suggests Vincent. "Not too much, ‘cos if you haven't got sheer volume thumping into someone’s guts then it's not as effective. It's all about frequency. If you've got a clashing frequency it fucking hurts your ears. You can work on that but still have power"

This philosophy was transferred to the recording of Children of the Night Sky, their most accomplished release to date. Certainly Gravina (Jet, Living End, Magic Dirt) has stamped his mark on the mini-album, although it seems the boys were initially reluctant to relinquish control of their tunes. "There were times we were just like 'Fuck, this guy doesn't know what he's doing...'" remembers Vincent. "And not just with Lindsay, with each other too. But we all said at the start we were going to take a step off, and have a bit more space in the middle for the song to spring up."
"It was a case of trust me, I'll make you sound fat,” says Underwood, before continuing in a Spinal Tap-like tirade "So while he says that we're toning down, we're still a loud band. And I like that. And if you don't like it you can fuck off!"

Gavin Bertram.

Rod Dixon

1983 New York Marathon Victory Remembered



I remember having lunch in Rome before the 1982 World Cross Country. (New York City Marathon director) Fred Lebow said that I was clearly the best road racer in the world. "But Rod, most Americans relate road running to marathons. The marathon is the measure of a man." So I said, "What does that mean, I've got to run a marathon to prove myself?" I thought I'll show you bastards…

After all I was an Olympic 1500 metre medallist (bronze, Munich 1972), I'd run cross country, indoor track, 5000 and 10 000 metre, and set the world record for the half marathon. That was reflected when Runner's World voted me the most versatile runner of the last 25 years.

As a track runner, when the gun goes if you're not within ten metres of the lead you may as well step off the track. What I saw with the great marathons was that you don't need to be. I looked up 'patience' in the dictionary. I wrote the definition out on a little card which was nailed to the wall. Training for the marathon called for almost isolation. It was about putting money in the bank so you could draw it out later.

Leaving Pennsylvania where I'd trained I realised I was at peace with myself, which hadn't happened before. I'd trained the best I ever had in my life. I felt in control.

On my fingers I put the five, ten, thirteen, eighteen, and twenty three mile splits. That was what I calculated to be my running pace, and I was going to stay with that pace no matter what.
When I looked up after the first mile I knew I was in a rhythm that I was comfortable with, but when I looked ahead the leaders were way up. That was a huge thing, because my instinct told me to be up with them, but common sense told me to be where I was. You've got to have a plan.

When you hit First Avenue there are an estimated one million people down that stretch. It's like being at a rock concert. Looking down the street, which is incredibly long, the runners didn't look that far ahead. So I was comfortable enough to say I'm on target. As we started to get towards the end of First Avenue I thought, hold on, I'm catching (Gidamis) Shahanga, but (Geoff) Smith is getting away. I wasn't concerned, because I knew I had to get to twenty miles as the race effectively doesn't start until then. Then I've got 6.2 miles to go, which is ten kilometres, this is what it's about. All those ten kilometre runs I've done, this is what it comes down to, let's go.

At five miles the road had been very slick. I hit a yellow line divider, slipped, and felt my right hamstring twinge a little. I settled back down again. At 22 miles when I started to pick the pace up I put extra pressure on my body. A couple of times it twinged, so I put pressure on it and broke down the pain.

I started to do the math on how far I was behind Smith. When I went through one of the half mile marks I realised I wasn't going to catch him, so I thought what if he slows down? I decided to see what the next mile produces. Smithy gave me four seconds, and I made up four. I decided to run the tangents, the shortest possible route, and that gave me my three to five seconds per mile. I was thinking in terms of pluses and minuses. Smithy was getting a little wobbly, starting to look back. I knew he was worried about me.

That was good enough for me to say I am the hunter and he is the hunted. As I went through Columbus Circle, there was a grass verge you had to run over. He gingerly stepped over it. I came at full speed and took it low and got off the other side at good speed, and picked up ten or fifteen yards on him just like that. The only way to hit him was to go up to him and try and out kick him, or hit him as hard as I could on the inside. I choose the latter. When he saw me going through at speed, it just destroyed him. I couldn't run any faster and had to back off, but the damage had been done and he had to let go of me. But by just eight seconds.

It was pretty amazing. My predicted time was 2 hours nine minutes. I ran 2 hours 8 minutes and 59 seconds. When I realised I had won the New York City Marathon, something I had dreamed of and trained for, I realised I had done something I should have done in 1976 at the Olympics (when Dixon finished fourth in the 5000 metres), and it just flooded into me. I came across the finish line and I looked to the heavens and said thank you, and kneeled down and kissed the earth. It was total euphoria.

Roone Arledge, of ABC's Worldwide of Sports, said it was the most dramatic finish in ABC Sports history for the last twenty five years. He said it epitomised the ecstacy of the win and the agony of defeat.

(As told to Gavin Bertram)

McLaren Motor Racing

The McLaren story is an incredible one, all the more so given that it involves a bunch of New Zealanders from humble backgrounds. These Kiwis led the way during the late 1960s and early 1970s, racing on various continents simultaneously, leaving a legacy that lives on. The key figures are the great New Zealand drivers Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme, but others who have driven for McLaren over the years include Emerson Fittipaldi, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, James Hunt, Niki Lauda and Mika Hakkinen.

Bruce McLaren was born in Auckland in 1937, son of a garage owner, obsessed with engines and racing from a young age. He started racing after his father bought him an Austin 7 when he was 16. At the same time he studied engineering, and the two activities consumed his life until he tragically died in 1970. McLaren experienced such success racing at home
that he was able to go to England in 1958 by virtue of the 'Driver to Europe' initiative offered to New Zealand drivers. An established relationship with Aussie legend Jack Brabham meant an opportunity to work and race for Brabham's Cooper team. Formula One wins in the United States and Argentina in 1959 and 1960 respectively cemented McLaren's place amongst the greatest drivers in the world.

Fellow New Zealanders Denny Hulme and Phil Kerr followed McLaren to the Northern Hemisphere, Hulme as a fellow driver, and Kerr as manager of Brabham's racing activities. Brabham set out on his own in 1962, to create his own racing empire, a move mirrored by the three Kiwis a few years later. Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd saw plenty of victories in Formula One and Indy racing, while also slaughtering the opposition in the high-profile CanAm series. Such success in fact, that McLaren and Hulme became known as 'The Bruce and Denny Show.' By this stage the McLaren juggernaut included operations in both England and the United States, building and testing cars for racing throughout America and Europe.

"Denny Hulme had won the World Championship in 1967," remembers Phil Kerr. "We had a long chat with Bruce and at the end of that year joined the fledgling McLaren team. I was one of the owners along with Bruce after that. Denny stayed with the McLaren team until he retired."

The McLaren team was dominated by talented Kiwis, who had brought a good dose of pragmatism with them. "At one stage more than half the staff were New Zealanders. By the 1970s the biggest percentage of race engineers, mechanics and personnel in all Formula One were Kiwis. They had a reputation for being dedicated and working hard, and they'd been
trained in the school where practicality was important. The philosophy in NZ was if something went wrong you had to fix it - almost the old number eight fencing wire syndrome but a step above that."



McLaren experienced such incredible success that their Northern Hemisphere competition couldn't understand the secret behind these Antipodean upstarts.

"It was brilliant," reminisces Kerr. "The CanAm racing in North America had a huge effect, Denny and Bruce were heroes over there, much better known in Europe and North America than they were in New Zealand. We decided to do Indy, because there were Americans who couldn't understand why Mclaren's kept winning the CanAm races. They'd make comments that if
we tried to do anything like the real form of motor racing at Indy we would come unglued. That's like issuing a challenge. In 1968 we made a conscious decision to have a serious look at Indy. We decided that we'd have a go and build a car for Indy, as well as Can Am and as well as Formula One, and then we embarked on Formula Two. It wasn't long before Mclaren's were the biggest race team of its type, and undertaking more racing than any other race team in the world."

Kerr speaks of Bruce McLaren with reverence, comparing his leadership style to that of Sir Peter Blake. "He was an incredible leader without actually having to issue orders. Everyone would work their butts off because they had total confidence in the guy at the top, and he had this unbelievable charisma that everybody wanted us to win for Bruce. He had an enormous capability for leading people. That really is one of the fundamental points in the way the team was formed, the way it grew and the way it developed."

McLaren died during an accident in a routine test of a CanAm car at Goodwood in England on June 2nd, 1970. It was a tragic and untimely loss, yet the team fortified themselves and continued on in memory of their late leader. Hulme led by example with a superhuman effort against all odds to compete in the CanAm race at Mossport. His hands badly burnt from an accident a few weeks before, Hulme defied doctors orders to qualify in pole position, before leading the race until a minor mechanical fault ended his chances ten laps from the end.

"It was an incredible display of courage," says Kerr. "He could use his right hand to change gear, but his left hand, which was the most badly burnt stayed on the steering wheel. Absolutely unreal. When Bruce had his accident that almost closed us down, but Denny stepped forward. And he was a huge help in enabling the team to continue just by sheer courage and determination."

With Hulme at the helm, McLaren achieved some of the greatest feats ever in motor racing, permanently engraving the McLaren name on history, with drivers such as Hunt and Fittipaldi.

"Our goal was to win Indy," says Kerr. "We did eventually do it, but it took a few years. We won it in 1974 and again in 1976. The same years that we won the World Championship. No other team in history has ever won Indy and the World Championship in two years - and in the same year."

McLaren was sold to a Ron Dennis headed organisation in 1980, whose partnership with TAG has forged further success for the team. Denny Hulme died from a heart attack during racing at Bathurst in 1992, while Phil Kerr resides in Auckland where he upholds the McLaren legacy through McLaren Cars Ltd, restoring classic cars and building high performance engines.

Gavin Bertram.