Posts by Grant McDougall
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Oops, sorry about that, it's not supposed to look like that.
I wrote it up, then went to post it, but twice some weird message came up saying that "after a year 'such and such server has closed...and to try one of the blogs on the left" . I was pretty puzzled by it.
So I cut-and-pasted it into a Notepad document to save it, then pasted it into the reply box and was succesful this time, but only for it to look all higgledy-piggledy.
Russell - any chance of you being able to tidy it up?
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The 3Ds - Swarthy Songs For Swabs ep (Flying Nun, 1991).
Out of the many, many NZ albums and eps I own, there is only one I've bought on the day it
was released - the 3Ds' Swarthy Songs For Swabs.
I walked into Echo Records in Dunedin, gazed admiringly at the typically surreal David Mitchell
cover art. The back featured a drawing from a gig poster. The actual bottom of the poster read
"Empire (either May / June) 12 & 13" and down the right-hand side it said "with Perfect
Garden" a nice bunch, but too inspired by fey British indie acts). I was at those gigs, too.
I then started quivering with excitement upon noticing that 'Sing-Song' was on it and snapped it
up. "That's the sixth copy we've sold today", the manager said, as I handed over my dosh. It
was only about 10.30 in the morning, too. On my way home, I bumped into a friend who was
on the way to Echo to buy her copy.
My favourite-ever 3Ds song, 'Sing-Song' opens Swarthy Songs... God it's a magnificent
song. It hadn't appeared on their debut ep Fish Tales despite being in their live set by then,
so I was over-joyed it was now on vinyl.
I also like to think that I had a small part in naming, or at least confirming, the song's title. Y'see,sometime in '89 my friend, the late Andrew Heal, and I attended a 3Ds gig at The Savoy, a
fancy hotel in down-town Dunedin.
We'd drunk far too much Speights and afterwards went backstage to have a yarn with them.We accosted David Saunders and told we really liked "the one that goes 'all the words are
coming out wrong' ".
"We're thinking of calling it 'Sing-Song' ", David said. "Yeah, call it 'Sing-Song' " either Andrewor I said (I've forgotten which) amid a fug of beer fumes.
'Sing-Song' starts with a truly compelling, ringing guitar riff, which last for about 20 seconds,
before Dominic Stones smacks the snare drum and all hell breaks loose. Live, they'd often open
with it, stretching the riff for 40-50 seconds, really, really building it up. Jesus, the tension.
Then the guitars crash off into a spiralling riff, as David Saunders sings out lines like "why can't Isee you any more?", before a frenetic instrumental section, propelled along by some intense,
metromonic drumming by Stones.
Back into the singing and Saunders lets us know that "all the words are coming out wrong" as
piercing melody is combined with some intense distortion, before a humungous sqeal of
feedback ends the song.
Next up is 'Bunny' sung by bassist Denise Roughan. Her vocals are really sweet, yet the lyrics
are sinister: "...wretched children...". The drums are snappy and there's blazing guitars and
zipping riffs all around.
'Ritual Tragick' ends side 1. "Just tape it" you can hear Saunders say, before it lets rip. The guitar
riffs are choppy and full-on, while the bass gets really throbbing in the choruses, especially.
David Mitchell hollers some wild vocals here, with a superb scream at the end of the final
chorus, before a burst of feedback concludes the song.
So, let's see where we are so far: one song each by the two guitarists, one by the bassist. There
are plenty of wonderful bands with two great guitarists and a sharp bassist, but in modern rock
only the great Sonic Youth can also pull of the same trick of having three fine songs by three
different members open a slab of music.
Side 2...'Meluzina Man' has David Mitchell doing some gentle, croaky vocals, plus there's some
languid backing vocals by Roughan. There's some insistent, nagging, burbling guitar lines here,
then the song builds up to some severe, strafing noise, before easing off and ending.
(Incidentally, a slightly-longer, slightly more-subdued version of this was released on the vinyl /
cd version of the excellent Xpressway Pile-Up comp around about the same time).
'Nimmo's Dream' is another Mitchell number and I laugh even now at how brilliantly rediculous it
is musically and lyrically. It's one of David Mitchell's greatest musical achievements, which is
saying something given his formidable catalogue. The song's dominated by Stones' bouncing
tom-tom beats, as Mitchell tells us that Derek Nimmo's "grinning...from ear-to-ear".
This song is what glam rock sounds like when it's been perverted by people that drink far toomuch homebrew. I drunk some of the homebrew Mitchell was making in those days and it blew
your eye-balls out. No wonder it sounds like this. The song stomps along and there's the ecstatic
line "Derek Nimmo's naked dreams have came true!". Genius!
'Grimace', another David Saunders song, ends the ep. The guitars are rapid and snaking all over
the show, it's formidable warped punk-blues that speeds along mightily, before the song ends
with some feedback and a snare thump.
The final line is "I couldn't ask for anything more" - and having loved Swarthy Song For
Swabs then and now, neither can I.
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The Lemonheads: my flatmates and I scored the job of writing the gig date /time in all the Orientation posters, then pasting them up around the varsity.
Oh, were those the green and purple posters with the band members' faces in circles? Cos I had one of those (with the Waikato Uni gig information) up on my bedroom wall for years.
The very ones. Except your probably beared something like "Gurus, Feb 28, 8pm" and not "featuring Grant McDougall". ;)
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Munky Kramp you're right in that they weren't "cool", given that they played, for want of a better description, "funk-pop" which was part of the then-prevalent indie-rock orthodoxy.
Everyone seemed to have an opinion on them though. Typically they were either great, or absolute crap, and not much of the in between.
I never got the labelling that people seem to get into with music. "Oh I don't like them because they're XXXX". I've watched grown adults standing around for hours arguing whether Green Day are punk or not. I didn't get why it mattered, if you like the music you listen to them, if you don't, you listen to something else.
Sorry, I should've put "**wasn't** part of the then-prevalent indie rock othodoxy." My bad, etc.
I'm fine with people labeling a band's sound, it's something people get too hung up on. But yeah, I agree, if you don't like it, don't listen to it.
Munky Kramp were pretty popular though, they always drew big crowds. They weren't my cup of tea, but were a nice bunch to have a yarn with.
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...Like every other spotty first year I got my orientation ticket (the Lemonheads played that year...
And Munky Kramp. Munky Kramp seemed to be the defining line in the music scene at the time. You either liked them or you didn't, and I suspect if I'd been more 'in', liking them would have pushed me back out with a heap of people...
To try and get into my new student life in my new city, I tuned my radio to Radio One, and took to recording music that I liked off the radio, in lieu of actually being able to afford it...Radio One were great then, they opened my eyes to music I'd never heard before (you couldn't get bfm where I grew up, so student radio was something I'd never encountered before)....(I also saw Faith No More there around the same time)...
I remember all this. :)
The Lemonheads: my flatmates and I scored the job of writing the gig date /time in all the Orientation posters, then pasting them up around the varsity.
The Sunday before Orientation began we duly went down to the Union Hall and began writing "Union Hall, Feb 29, 8pm" or whatever the relevant date was, in the white bits at the bottom of the posters.
I did a few local bands' posters, then went of, stuck them up, then went back to the flat.About five days later, my flatmates and a I went down to see The Lemanheads. As we got to the Union Hall, people started saying all this really, really weird stuff to me.
Stuff like "Hey, have a really good gig!" and "Wow, playing with the Lemonheads, that's so cool!" and all manner of baffling stuff.Walking into the Union Hall, it became a bit clearer; instead of writing the gig info, my flatmates had written "featuring Grant McDougall" in every poster. It was just weird. If there were 50 of them around the campus that said that , there were 100.
I couldn't go to a flat-warming for the next three months without seeing a Lemonheads' poster with my name on it. Of course, I ended up b/s-ing people about, saying crap like "Oh yeah, I was playing, but just standing behind the drummer...", etc.
Munky Kramp you're right in that they weren't "cool", given that they played, for want of a better description, "funk-pop" which was part of the then-prevalent indie-rock orthodoxy.
Radio One thanks for the compliment - I was doing loads of shows on R1 and it was a heap of fun.
Faith No More They played Dunedin in '93. The night before the Sammy's gig, Kid Eternity played at the Crown, so my flatmates and I toodled down to see them, as we lived around the corner from them, and were sorta mates with them. (Kid Eternity featured Matt Heath - they were like an indie Deja Voodoo).
We walked in there - and lo and behold, all of Faith No More (except for Mike Patton, who was up Signal Hill taking acid with local promoter Doug Nuttal) were there. Us four just decided to go and talk to them and they were great fun. Personally, their music's never been my cup-of-tea, but they were great fun to have a yarn with.
After the gig, they was a keg-party back at Kid Eternity's flat in Park St, just behind the 24-hour dairy. It was a pretty good piss-up and FNM keyboardist Roddy Bottum got so wasted he crashed on couch there.
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Regarding Split Enz, there's a huge difference between Phil Judd-era Enz and Neil Finn-era Enz. It's as if they're two different bands.
With Phil Judd, on Mental Notes and Second Thoughts, they're way, way more out-there and far, far more original; like a sinister marriage between Eno-era Roxy Music, Eno's early solo albums and the (English) Canterbury scene (Soft Machine, Henry Cow, etc). The Beginning Of The Enz comp of early singles is also excellent, too. Overall, it's some of the most warped, truly unique music you'll ever hear.
With Neil Finn they then became far more contrived and tended towards the more radio-friendly pop / new wave stuff they're mainly known for.
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I "bags" the 3Ds Fish Tales and / or Swarthy Songs For Swabs eps.
I saw the 3Ds in at least 11 different venues, lets alone how many times at the Empire or Sammy's and saw them from their second gig until their last. I've got loads of great memories related to that band and their music, so will prattle on at large about it later this week.
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I saw Sonic Youth at the Wellington Town Hall years ago and was bored nearly to tears. But each to their own :)
Quite. I was at that Jan '96 gig and Sonic Youth were outstanding, far better than those chronic dullards the Foo Fighters who were the main support act (local skronk act White-Winged Moth were on first). Sonic Youth rocked, then finished with a full-on, 20-min version of 'Diamond Sea' with the most intense strobe lights through-out.
The interesting thing about that gig was the demographic divide. Just as we were walking in, my mates and I who were there to see Sonic Youth, overhead one kid turn to his mate and say in an awestruck tone "I can't believe we're going to see a member of Nirvana!". We refrained from openly sneering at them.
Nonetheless, that sums up the audience - everyone between 15 - 25 was there for the Foo Fighters, whereas everyone older than that were there for Sonic Youth, there was no cross-over at all.
I next saw Sonic Youth in London in mid-'98 and they were again really good. Then Spiritualized came on and a good night became even better.
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My opinion of Winston went up quite a lot with his public admission that the police were failed by the pol's, and that he has apologised to them for his part in the whole fiasco. Getting a politician to admit fault in public is almost impossible, as we all know, so it's nice to see one say that he fucked up. If only the rest of them had the same degree of integrity and capacity of introspection.
Agreed. I'm generally not a fan of Peters, but I was pleasantly surprised when he said that this morning.
I wish Howard Broad would hurry up and do the same. Merely saying he'll say sorry isn't good enough - he needs to actually do so, ASAP. If he did so, it'd go a little way to restoring a smidgen of respect for the police.
Also, he must say sorry "for" not "if" they went OTT in Ruatoki, Abel-Smith St, etc. "If" is a, no pun intended, a cop-out lacking true sincerity.
Also, Jed Town from Fetus Productions supporting John Cale? I am about to explode with jealousy.
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Just a slight aside, but I was a bit surprised to see Chris Knox pop up doing Labour's new theme song. Obviously he's always been more sympathetic to the left than the right, but I thought it wouldn't be his cup-of-tea having such direct involvement with Labour.
As for who'll sing National's theme song, my money's on...Hayley Westenra.