Never give up (Marc Hunter) (LP 2791 - 2793)

Marc Hunter  Fiji Bitter (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1979) ***  

Marc Hunter  Big City Talk (Vinyl, Mercury Records, 1981) ***

Marc Hunter  Talk To Strangers (CD, Roadshow Music, 1994) ****    

Genre: Pop/ rock, NZ music 

Places I remember: Slow Boat Records (vinyl copies), Real Groovy Records (CD)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Southern Cross

Gear costume: One Of The Good Guys

Active compensatory factors: You can take Marc (and Todd) Hunter out of Dragon, but you can't take Dragon out of the Hunters.

These are three of Marc's five solo albums and given Marc and Todd appear on all three, it's natural it sounds like various stages of Dragon at times.

His first solo album, Fiji Bitter, set the template - a good looking, fashion conscious, good time party boy (the inner photo of him popping the cork on a bottle of champers sums him up well). He was also deeply involved in hard drugs, so it's a miracle he could actually sound this good. His vocals are always terrific throughout these three albums.

Second solo album, Big City Talk, was his first album of the eighties and so the sound veers towards a more sophisticated sound and even synth-pop at times, but Marc's vocals remain distinctive and superb. NZ guitar legend Kevin Borich appears on a few tracks.

The pick of the bunch is the 1994 album, and his last (he'd pass away 4 years later from throat cancer) - Talk To Strangers. I picked it up from a sale bin in Real Groovy many years ago and played it endlessly.

I have no idea why it's not on Spotify. It's a great collection of songs, and, for me, easily his best solo album.

Where do they all belong? I've never seen Communication or Night and Day (yes - he takes on the standards) but I'll grab them if I see them. His vocal ability never diminished, it's just such a waste that his punishing lifestyle of heavy smoking, heroin and hard drinking meant he died so young. He was 44.

Young years (Dragon) (LP 615)

Dragon Bondi Road (Vinyl, RCA Victor Records, 1989) ****

Genre: NZ pop/rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Young Years

Gear costume: Family Man, Ice In This Town

Active compensatory factors: This was the last Dragon album of new material released during Marc Hunter's lifetime and it serves as a fitting ending for him and Dragon.

By 1989, thanks to a variety if drug fuelled deaths, Dragon was down to Marc and his brother Todd, plus Alan Mansfield. 

Even though there is a faint whiff of eighties big production about it, this album just gets better as the years go by - so many great performances on a worthy set of songs for once. Marc's voice is incredible and the band lock in some great performances.

Where do they all belong? Marc Hunter - what a voice (what a tragedy that smoking gave him throat cancer and a very premature death).

I'm gonna pack my bag, head out of town (Dragon) #103

Dragon Education/ Swell Foot Sue (Vertigo, 6036 909, 1975)

Okay - this is an odd one. You know that expression - fall between the cracks? Well this is one of...um...Dragon's cracks, if you will.

Education does not appear on the album Dragon released on Vertigo in 1975 (Scented Gardens For The Blind) nor is it in that album's progressive style.

Instead it's a guitar led poppy song, with great Todd Hunter bass lines, that points toward the direction this great Nu Zild band would go in once they moved across the ditch to Aussie. Which they did just after this single was released. I lost interest in them around that time btw - mainly because they didn't release anything here for a couple of years and by 1977 my tastes had shifted a little.

It's a transitional single that did pretty good business in 1975 as I recall - I certainly bought the single after hearing it on Radio Hauraki and tried to buy the album but I got distracted by other sounds before I could get around to it.

What's kind of unusual is it doesn't actually sound like Dragon. Marc Hunter developed a really distinctive vocal style in time but this doesn't sound like him. Maybe it's guitarist Robert Taylor, writer of the song, who's singing? I don't know.

Hidden gem: The B side is written by fellow guitarist Ray Goodwin and is a rocky little number that also points towards the good time Dragon sound we came to know and love. Just not quite there yet.