I know that I just need you like, I've never done before (The Fabs)

1. The Exponents – Like She Said (1994)/ Nameless Girl (1992)
2. Blerta - Dance All Around The World (1972)/ Joy Joy (1972)
3. Dragon – Young Years (1989)/ Rain (1984)
   
   
   
   
   

Third in the Wozza countdown of the 10 best Nu Zild bands and their two best songs is the best from the reconstituted Dragon. Actually I think it was maybe just the Hunter brothers on Young Years but I could be wrong. They are certainly the only members to grace the video.

The album they did in 1989 (Bondi Road) is a great album pure and simple, even though its faux aussie title is annoying. In fact the way Australia tries to claim our NZ bands as their own when they get some aussie exposure is also damned annoying.

The Hunter brothers (bass player Todd and the great singer/frontman Marc) are definitely kiwis so for my money they are a Nu Zild band!

Unfortunately Dragon's manager and members developed a reckless reputation for drugs and debauchery (just check out the emaciated and heroin addicted Paul Hewson on the Rain video) - resulting in a number of drug related deaths and Marc Hunter's death from a smoking related cancer in 1998.

How they managed to make such outstanding music is something of a mystery. But make it they did.

They were true love written in stone (James Taylor)

1. The Exponents – Like She Said (1994)/ Nameless Girl (1992)
2. Blerta - Dance All Around The World (1972)/ Joy Joy (1972)

Second in the Wozza countdown of the 10 best Nu Zild bands and their two best songs is the weird co-op that was Blerta. Best group may be a stretch I admit but their influence and these two songs alone that had a huge impact.

Bruno of Blerta

Hugh Romney, a.k.a. Wavy Gravy

The band was Nu Zild's own version of the Hog farm. A loose congregation of talented and individual artists who grouped themselves into an alternative kind of commune.

Bruno Lawrence (drummer, actor and the B.L. of Blerta) was our own Wavy Gravy character (even with the same look).

Blerta toured around NZ in a big red communal bus like Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and were experimental in their approach to their art (and life I guess). Blerta alumni included names like Corben Simpson, Beaver, Geoff Murphy and Bruno; all became big names in NZ film and music.

My introduction to the song Dance All Around The World was via the Loxene Golden Disc for 1972. A brilliant album of NZ music that in itself had a huge impact on NZ music in general and me in particular. Dance... stood out with its hippy consciousness, phased drums and dramatic spoken section. Joy Joy was more of a straight rock number but was played with skill and the risque lyric was an added bonus for a schoolboy such as myself.

Sidebar: I would have included a clip of the mighty Blerta doing Dance..except the pathetic EMI have not released the clip for viewers in my part of the world. What do they think will happen? Blerta are a tiny little obscure NZ outfit from 40 years ago; surely their video presents no financial risk to a huge company like EMI.

Truely pathetic - no wonder the dinosaur record companies are undergoing a slow death!

Aotearoa, rugged individual, glisten like a pearl, at the bottom of the world (Split Enz)

Time for another top five selection.

As I recently headed back to New Zealand for the Christmas break it seems appropriate that I come up with my top five kiwi songs and it’s going to be a very idiosyncratic list. For a start I can’t limit it to five so I considered a top 10, but then for every song that I included I knew that that group had done equally brilliant stuff on other tracks so it’s ballooned out to a top 10 and an alternative top 10.

Phew – complicated cos I’m going with 1A and 1B for each group! HA!!

I'm also going to reveal my ten top NZ acts and their two songs slowly over the course of the next ten postings so that we can savour each one. First up...

1.  The Exponents – Like She Said (1994)/ Nameless Girl (1992)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCtUX14ZgHI&feature=related

I've chosen a few other Exponents (aka Dance Exponents) songs to fill in for the absence of Nameless Girl. And don't forget to check out two of their excellent albums Grassy Knoll and Something Beginning With C. Each is great - Grassy Knoll for it's grungy guitar sound and Something... for it's sloppy at home feel and for the rampant Beatles inspired vocal harmony work (think Yes It Is and Beatles For Sale era stuff).

We're faithful, we all believe, we all believe it (Pearl Jam)

Adam gave me a copy of Pearl Jam's Twenty DVD while I was back in NZ recently. My children know my tastes well!

I've been a pretty loyal fan since day one when the unbelievably great Ten came along. It seemed they arrived fully formed (I love it when bands appear this way - like The Doors - with a different sound/attitude/style right off the bat).

I also love it when, as a fan, I can get in on a good thing right from the start. Maybe that's why I have continued to buy every studio album released by the band over the last twenty years (even when the quality control was a tad wayward).

I even have a sizeable collection of the live albums and Stone Gossard's fantastic solo album, Bayleaf  (although I'm not that enamoured by Eddie's solo stuff away from the band for some reason).



The Twenty film is an excellent primer on both the band and the Seattle music scene that spawned them. It's also a pretty good insight into Cameron Crowe who was a Rolling Stone journalist before becoming a film maker of some renown (Jerry Maguire is one of my favourite films and its also gave Tom Cruise AND Renee Zellwiger their best roles ever).

I liked Eddie Vedder before I watched the film. Now I like him a lot more! What a guy - a fantastic voice I knew about, but a sensitive soul with a brain is pretty rare in rock circles.

The other revelation is Stone Gossard. The cool name, the cool music - yes, but who knew he was so funny, so personable, so anchored, so nerdy (the glasses and goofy grin? It could be me!!!). I loved the tour of his house where he finds his Grammy award in a dark corner of his basement!

The film has some great moments but the version of Better Man when the crowd takes over the singing is especially affecting.

I went down on 31st street to pick up a jug of alcohol (Rory Gallagher)

First thing I did when I returned to the apartment in Al Ain after being in NZ for a few weeks was pop on a Rory Gallagher live DVD.

It's always good to meet up with old friends and as readers of this blog know, Rory is definitely that.

The DVD is a compilation of his appearances at the Montreaux Jazz festival.

The best stuff comes from 1985, by the 1990s he starts to show signs of wear and tear (noticably bloated I'm afraid, a year before he died in 1995 from an infection he picked up in hospital after getting a liver transplant).

Everybody loves Rory.

I love him for his loyalty - the great Gerry McAvoy on bass played with him from 1970 to 1991; Rory stuck by his battered Stratocaster throughout his career; he also stuck by his haircut AND the sidies even during the eighties.

I love him for his selfless dedication to his art - he never married and there were no children.

I love him for the stories - Brian May (of Queen) relates: "so these couple of kids come up, who's me and my mate, and say 'How do you get your sound Mr. Gallagher?' and he sits and tells us. So I owe Rory Gallagher my sound."

Jimi Hendrix was asked in an interview shortly after Woodstock, "So Jimi, what's it like to be the best guitarist in the world?" Jimi: "I don't know, ask Rory Gallagher".

But of course I love him best for the music. His version of Too Much Alcohol always (ALWAYS) brings a smile to my face.

When I look into your eyes (Santana)

Wahoo - some major finds while on my Christmas break in Nu Zild.

For the moment my concentration is on two wonderful Santana albums from the early seventies - Borboletta (1974) and Welcome (1973).

I kinda lost track of Santana at the time after the first four albums and Borboletta was a major discovery when I found it among Keegan's vinyl collection. I've been looking for a CD version since and found it in JB Hi-Fi (currently the best reason in NZ to still go browsing through CD bins).

When I Look Into Your Eyes sounds like a song you've known all your life. It's a Santana group original though and combines all their best elements into a jazzy latin rock feel.

It feels like nothing matters in our private universe (Crowded House)

Being a kiwi and being back in the Land Of The Long White Cloud (a.k.a God's own, a.k.a. Aotearoa, a.k.a. Nu Zild) makes me very nostalgic for kiwi music of my youth.

NZ is a long, long way from anything significant. Yes I know it's three hours flight time to Australia - I said 'significant'.

We are isolated and we have had to develop our own culture of films, TV and music. In short we've created our own private universe.

Some outrageously great bands and music have emerged in NZ and gone over the years. The biggies the world knows about - Split Enz and Crowded House in days gone by; Lawrence Arabia and The Phoenix Foundation are current critic faves in the UK.

A band of my youth that I love is Citizen Band. I recently found their song, My Pohutukawa, on a radio broadcast and linked it to my Facebook page. Old friends Kevy and GK wrote comments.

I reflected on this - namely that the song would mean something to only a very very few people in the world. It was an obscure B side to one of their songs and released, I think, only in NZ. Actually CB were an Auckland band and so even the rest of NZ wouldn't know about them much.

It's a great feeling knowing that KS GK and I share that experience and knowledge. It bonds us and I love that.

Citizen Band tried and failed to make it in Aussie and flamed out when original members started leaving.

My love for the band endures though and I hope Brent, Mike, Greg and Geoff dig that tex over Christmas.

Try the link and watch the boys do a note for note version of the old Larry's Rebels hit, I Feel Good.

http://www.filmarchive.org.nz/readytoroll/view.php?id=24