Tuesday, June 30, 2009

I've left memories behind

While our hero Chris Knox recovers from his stroke, let's have a rare look at him and his peers at a very tender age in this incredible vintage documentary on New Zealand music. This video is the holy grail!

(Hat tip to New Zealand music blog The Doledrums.)

When the Flying Nun label first reached US ears around 1986, I flipped immediately. Suddenly Rough Trade was flooded with a small nation's worth of rough, scraggly, eerie, whimsical post-punk psychedelic bands, all distinct but all sharing a haunting, other-worldly feel, like multiple Syd Barretts and Velvet Undergrounds from a parallel universe. I remember Rolf at the Rough Trade shop on 6th St. proclaiming in his German accent, "THEY SOUND LIKE THEY HAVE MUSHROOMS GROWING OUT OF THE SIDEWALKS!" The underground music of New Zealand ruled my world for a good chunk of the late 80s, and its nice to see the scene in its infancy here.





Hmmm, this documentary seems sadly incomplete...

BUT WAIT...THERE'S MORE!















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