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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 06-02-12 14:39
Have I mentioned how excited I am that the Clean is playing Texas tonight for the first time ever? It's gonna be a hell of a crowded show, I bet.
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Author: breno
Date: 06-02-12 17:06
And here I thought this post was going to be about Saturday night being the traditional weekly bathing night in Texas.
SORRY, SORRY. That's Missouri.
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Author: rhettlawrence
Date: 06-03-12 02:34
Hope it was all you hoped for, MT. I recently picked up that Flying Nun 25th anniversary comp and of course the Clean kicks it off. I'd love for them to make a West Coast swing....
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 06-03-12 10:17
It's not a one-off show - they're touring the states right now. No West Coast dates?
David Kilgour obsessively tuned his guitar (and shook his fist at the heavens at one point), which meant there wasn't much momentum. But when they played, they were awesome.
The Royal Headache played as well - they were pretty great. It was weird seeing such a fervent moshpit for music that melodic, though.
Edit: here's my take on the show in the Big Takeover: http://www.bigtakeover.com/concerts/the-clean-club-deville-austin-tx-saturday-june-2-2012
Edit #2: above, with corrected song titles. What I get for writing without a proper night's sleep, I guess.
Post Edited (06-04-12 14:52)
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Author: Heff
Date: 06-06-12 17:42
Hey Michael,
thanks for the link. Getting primed for the show here tomorrow. My lame brother bailed on this and Webb Wilder on Sat - oh well, his loss.
Interesting about how the heat caused havoc with the tuning. Is that a big problem with shows down there in Austin? I've never heard of that.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 06-06-12 18:39
We start to hit triple-degree temps come June, and if his guitar hadn't been out of the case and in the Austin weather, yeah, it'll definitely wreck his tuning. He shook his fist at the sky at one point and cursed it off-mic.
Your brother bailed on the Clean AND Webb Wilder? Excommunicate him.
Post Edited (07-20-12 10:54)
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Author: zwirnm
Date: 06-07-12 17:43
Holy cow. Almost forgot the Clean are playing in DC tonight. #kiwipop @FlyingNun anyone want to come? Meet up?
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Author: Heff
Date: 06-08-12 12:40
I was there. I was the guy with glasses wearing a black t-shirt. Easy to spot. Hope you weren't the guy that apparently was undergoing a religious experience. At one point he had both arms in air, head bowed as if he was being healed by David Kilgour's playing.
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Author: wade
Date: 06-08-12 13:10
I don't actually find it hard to believe that someone could have something approaching a religious experience while hearing Kilgour play live.
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Author: nosepail
Date: 06-09-12 18:39
Just bought the clean anthology at amoeba records in San Francisco. Biggest music store I have ever been in in my life. The testosterone was pumping. I had to reel in my emotions and just buy a couple CDs. It was overwhelming.
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Author: MrFab
Date: 06-09-12 23:36
the L.A. Amoeba is even bigger. You'll wet yourself.
Actually, it was so overwhelming the first couple times I went, I just had to leave without getting anything. I learned you can't look at everything, just hit one or two departments at a time. Focus...FOCUS..!
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Author: zwirnm
Date: 07-16-12 15:17
I finally wrote up a brief blurb about seeing the Clean last month:
I completely forgot to write up thoughts on The Clean at DC's Black Cat on June 7th. The Clean are one of those bands that probably needn't exist at this stage. Back in 1978, brothers David and Hamish Kilgour formed the nucleus of the band in Dunedin, New Zealand, capitalizing on a sloppy, giddy rush of guitar noise and a production esthetic that was lo-fi by reasons of economics and technology more than any conscientious decision. The immediate result was "Tally-Ho!", the defining first single of the "Dunedin scene," which was recorded on a budget of $50NZ and was the 2nd single on the Flying Nun label. Robert Scott, the crucial third member of the band, has been an influential bandleader and songwriter in his own right, fronting the Bats and releasing a fat pile of records in the past thirty years as well.
The Clean always had a reputation larger than their record sales, spurred by American and English indie rock fandom. In the 1990s, Pavement were loud and vocal fans (they toured Dunedin in 1994 when I lived there). Yo La Tengo and Pitchfork continued the fanboy appreciation in the 2000s. I first heard The Clean on a pair of the Flying Nun compilations, Pink Flying Saucers Over the Southern Alps and Getting Older (the latter named for a Clean song). The band was on hiatus for much of the period I followed kiwipop, but in 2002 Merge Records released The Clean – Anthology (available on Spotify). It is an essential introduction to not only the band, but the entire esthetic - psychedelic guitar freakouts, cool Germanic minimalism, enthusiastically amateur keyboards, loopy jokes, and ebullient pop-punk. The band has toured and recorded regularly since then, but June was their first appearance in DC in ten years.
Spurred by positive local press, the crowd at the Black Cat was a substantial one, and not just there to see the buzzed-about Times New Viking, who were opening. And they were fans, too. People sang along lustily to "Tally-Ho" and "Drawing to a (W)Hole," the first song I'd ever heard by the Clean on the Pink Flying Saucers comp. Robert Scott did a somber and lovely "Secret Place," which I'd always assumed was a Bats song. David and Hamish Kilgour traded lead guitar solos that were spiky, messy, and dreamy by turns. Thoughtful, measured instrumentals like "Wipe Me, I'm Lucky" alternated with droney shoegazy pop like "Getting Older" (although the live version lacks a hilariously unhinged trombone solo on the record).
It was an exhilarating evening. The 50+ year old members - who've played with one another since their teens - showed both a genuine rapport as well as a sense of humor. The band has enjoyed an enviable lifespan, partly because it exists as such a low-pressure entity - Scott can duck out anytime to lead the Bats; David Kilgour has his own solo career; even Hamish has lived in New York and run his own band there. And when they want to get together every three or eight years or so, there is an audience of patient listeners in London, Auckland, Sydney or Washington who are eager to see them.
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Author: STEVE
Date: 07-16-12 22:11
because of this thread, i looked up the bands tour dates. but trouserpress (tm) ensemble entries never come to florida anway. so this was enjoyable to read michael. thanks for that.
and i thought kiwi pop was all jean paul sartre Xp...
Post Edited (07-16-12 22:13)
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Author: zwirnm
Date: 07-17-12 12:13
Love JPSE too. My own kiwipop rankings:
1. Chills
2. Bats
3. Clean
4. Jean Paul Sartre Experience
5. Verlaines
6. Straitjacket Fits
And there are a lot of bands that had good, or at least interesting stuff - Look Blue Go Purple, Able Tasmans, etc. I never heard a lot of Tall Dwarves (or is it Tall Dwarfs?) stuff
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 07-18-12 09:23
I've tried and tried and tried to get into Straightjacket Fits and have never quite been able to appreciate them. I was immediately attracted to them upon first hearing, but subsequent listens (and I'm talking about the LP Melt) made me lose interest. The same thing happened to me with Carter's other band the Doublehappys. Not sure why.
Otherwise it's a great list. I'd put either the Subliminals or the Gordons in place of the Fits and probably move the Clean and the Verlaines to #1 and #2, respectively.
I love Bailter Space the most, actually, but I kind of think of them as a New York band, since that was where they were based for most of their career.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 07-18-12 10:01
And speaking of Bailter Space (or Bailterspace, as they'd now have it), I'm shocked to learn that they have a new record coming out next month.
Details.
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Author: wade
Date: 07-18-12 15:10
I don't know if anyone's mentioned it, but Hamish's band The Mad Scene have their first new album in over 15 years. I still remember buying the last one, SEALIGHT. I would've never dreamed how long I'd wait 'til the next one. That said, it seems like yesterday. The new album is titled BLIP.
This is recorded from 2009, but the song is on the new release.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPCjNcIk4bM
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Author: jim green
Date: 07-19-12 18:44
Knox solo and Tall Dwarfs records should not be undervalued. Somewhat erratic, but gems amongst them.
Straightjacket Fits were a good idea with not enough songwriting ability.
It's unfortunate that while Flying Nun is getting some kudos, Propellor Records has been totally ignored. Some nifty sides were generated by bands like the Screaming Meemees & Blam Blam Blam. And then there was the Mutton Birds (with Don McGlashan of Blam Blam Blam) -- three pretty strong albums plus some other good stuff . . .
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Author: Aitch
Date: 07-19-12 20:53
Two others who I really dig and are not mentioned here are Bailter Space and High Dependency Unit. (In both cases you DO need to be in the mood).
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 07-20-12 10:53
The Mutton Birds were (are?) great. Funny, I never think of them in terms of New Zealand rock, but you're right, they definitely count. As do the Finn brothers and their various projects, no?
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Author: zwirnm
Date: 07-20-12 13:46
I think the Mutton Birds were/are great. I saw them in London in 1997, and they had been big - and getting bigger - when I had been in NZ in 1994. McGlashan is an excellent songwriter, and Envy of Angels is one very solid record. I don't have their compilation, which I think is called Flock, but it's got their cover of "Don't Fear the Reaper" that I've heard periodically on podcasts.
Interestingly, the first time I saw the Decemberists - I lived in Portland when they were just getting underway - Colin Meloy reminded me a lot of McGlashan's work.
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Author: Michael Toland
Date: 07-20-12 14:02
Envy of Angels is unfortunately the only one of their records I have. Their stuff ain't easy to find in the US, as you might imagine. I think the title track is fantastic.
I haven't heard McGlashan's solo stuff yet.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I can definitely see a little Mutton Birds in the Decemberists.
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Author: zwirnm
Date: 07-20-12 20:49
Toland - give me an FTP site or something and I can send you the mp3s from Nature and Mutton Birds. Which have, well, a lot of the same songs. One is BG Records/EMI Australasia 1992, and one is Virgin Holland 1995.
Mutton Birds:
1. Dominion Road (fabulous, wonderful)
2. Your Window
3. A Thing Well Made (riveting)
4. She's Like a City
5. Before the Breakthrough
6. White Valiant
7. Giant Friend
8. Big Fish
9. No Plans for Later
10. Nature
Nature: (Ha! Hilarious. The CD says, "Made in the Holland." Uh, what??)
1. Nature
2. Dominion Road
3. Anchor Me (unbelievable song)
4. The Heater (their first NZ hit)
5. Giant Friend
6. Your Window
7. White Valiant
8. In My Room
9. A Thing Well Made
10. Queen's English
11. There's a Limit
12. Too Close to the Sun
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Author: STEVE
Date: 07-20-12 21:44
great great thread. although switzerland is a neutral country as well, its quite clear that she could never return our love (bunch of nazi fucking bankers that they are) the way new zealand has.
ps-that TANKER album by BAILTER SPACE was yet another example of pre my bloody valentine - loveless - gauze(shoe?) gaze.
all balcks footy note:Flying Nun records has recently, for the first time ever, released a remastered compilation (FN CD 078) the JPSE classic first ep (1986) along w/Love Songs ('87) and the 'Transcontinental' 12" ('88) -all on one disc, of this essential minimal pop psychedelic band.
the reason i like it so much? behind the bands cold war anti-USA nuke refrains and david johasen/dolls facade was just really a few blokes having a musical discovery blast. what remains, of the actual band (and their videos) is fun and funky.
Post Edited (07-20-12 23:37)
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Author: zwirnm
Date: 07-24-12 09:27
I should look for that JPSE compilation. https://www.flyingnun.co.nz/shop/126
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Author: STEVE
Date: 07-27-12 14:50
yeah, then you might note to yourself how much that bassline in 'crap rap' sounds like the one Gene Rayburn on Match Game used to boogie to, while the celebs wrote down their crappy answers.
heck fire, 'Crap rap' (1986) should be considered a pre-influential Stone Roses track.
Post Edited (07-27-12 16:10)
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