Kiwi Music

Crumble Froo

Have to say, one of my favourite things about moving to New Zealand has been discovering all the amazing music on offer here. From Flying Nun, to the crusty punk scene to the weird experimental stuff, to the dub and all the singers and songwriters in between, their geographical isolation has caused some pretty awesome music to happen.

Thought I'd start this thread as a place to share kiwi music, gigs, scenes and all the fun stuff that goes with it. So much stuff you'd never hear about even from island to island.

I don't want to just start the thread and start immediately pimping all the bands that I'm into, so I'll wait for a little discussion and go from there

pclancy

Yeah same for me, i wasnt expecting such a great music scene at all!

I've seen such a variety of stuff, go to metal gigs and see the likes of Beastwars and then on another night go see stuff like the 30's ragtime stuff like the Rosneanth Centinnial Ragtime Band, bluegrass Thomas Oliver band, funky Harbour City Electric or crazy Ska like The Offbeats. Theres just so much local talent in every genre and plenty of great venues that focus on original music.

In Welly there seems to be a great culture of musicians playing across several genres and people dipping in and out of bands. I live with 5 other musicians and any night they could be playing trumpet with the opera, guitar with a prog rock band or sax in a blues group, its a really cool scene to be in.

Crumble Froo

Awesome! Gutted I still haven't seen Beastwars yet, I've heard so many good things about them. Another Wellington band I really rate are Gaywyre/Razorwyre (how do you make your name gayer by taking the word 'gay' out of it?! I don't know, but they did it...), was really ****ed off, was in Wellington recently, and about an hour after booking my ferry ticket home I saw posters saying they were playing with DisasterRadio just a couple of days after I left! Agh!

I recommend ya check out the xFrankGrimesx and... is it boltcutter or Death Throes are touring with them... but a couple of crusty hardcore Christchurch bands doing a North Island tour this January... worth going to for the tshirt alone, I reckon.

Before the September quakes, I lived in a a warehouse venue and got the opportunity to see all the best of Christchurch as well as lots of out of town (and a couple of overseas) bands in the comfort of my own 'living room'.

Ooh! You like ska? Have you heard the magnificent Skaface Claw yet? I reckon their Goblin Church of Seacliff cd is the best album put out by any kiwi band, ever, my absolute favourite, easy. I think a bunch of those dudes live in Welly now, but they're of Dunedin(ish) origins, I think. Vanya, duno if you know him, but he seems to be involved in everything involving good music, is the singer/bassist. Got to see them in Waitati last New Year's with the full line up (someone's living in Perth now). They came to my old house too, with the awesome Blistering Tongues, which was a particularly sweet gig.

kiwipower

Am so out of touch with music theses days it aint funny!
But your right I recon there is much more diversity in music back home.
I always thought a lot of it had to do with the diverse ethnic cultures, and young peoples need to create an individual identity for themselves, and the old Kiwi number 8 wire attitude. (And possibly the lack of a pub culture)

seachto7

I notice the obvious well known kiwi bands haven't been mentioned yet. There was one song on there a lot last year when I was there, early 90s song, "classic kiwiana" as a local put it to me.........
kind of jangly pop.....

Crumble Froo

kiwipower wrote: »

Am so out of touch with music theses days it aint funny!
But your right I recon there is much more diversity in music back home.
I always thought a lot of it had to do with the diverse ethnic cultures, and young peoples need to create an individual identity for themselves, and the old Kiwi number 8 wire attitude. (And possibly the lack of a pub culture)

Yep, I think that has a lot to do with it. Just struck me the other day that the Christchurch sound at the moment is getting increasingly black-metal-apocalyptic..... wonder where the influence for that comes from...

Meanwhile, towards Dunedin next week... this selection of bands shall be playing if anyone's keen...
Black Yoghurt
The Blueness
The Doyleys
The Futurians
Glasgow
Opposite Sex
Squirm
T54

Bands I'm most keen to see are Opposite Sex - who are my current favourite thing - male/female drum/bass dual vocals with quirky lyrics, kinda dark fantasy fairytale sorta sound... ish :pac:

Squirm, early 90s Christchurch classic stuff, cool offbeat kinda creative strange harmonies and songs, good lyrics.

T54, I know a couple of members from other bands and heard a lot of good things about... seen the Doyleys before and know I enjoyed em, but can't really remember their sound - was a full on 4 day festival then... and heard alot about black yoghurt, don't really know what to expect, probably something in the psychedelic Dunedin sound, but I'm sure I'll be pleasantly surprised regardless.

pclancy

Has anyone heard of this cool upcoming festival called Camp A Low Hum? Looks to be epic!

3 Days. 4 Nights.
12 Acts from USA, UK, Canada, Germany, Argentina
21 Acts from Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Canberra, Newcastle and Sydney
35 Acts from New Zealand
30 Pre-booked Renegade bands
30 Renegade band bookings taken during Camp.
1 Fresh water lagoon
240 Hectares of native bush
7 stages/environments + whatever other spaces I fit a PA into
Art
Chaos
BYO
Passouts
Respect

I cant wait. My favourite part of music festivals is actually the madness that goes on around them at the campsites and stuff, this is gonna be epic. I love the way its bring your own booze and you can come and go as you wish! Will be able to come home to Welly during the day for a shower and offlicence mission if needs be!

http://alowhum.com/camp-a-low-hum/faq/

Crumble Froo

Yep, definitely heard of Camp - that's when most people I know discovered Gaywyre, but never been myself, always just too much of a financial commitment...
Can't wait to see the lineup for this year, people always come home with sweet merch and new music. Camp are good for letting you pay your ticket off in chunks from winter time, which I think is a really good feature too.

I'm excited about a punkfest being put on in Dunedin in March, looks like Mr. Sterile Assembly (Wellington) is coming back down south (after playing Invercargill on Dec 29th) and a pretty sweet gig's being put on around that. If anyone's near the south island at the time, I highly recommend checking this out, a pretty eclectic lineup, but really good bands.

Description
Swamp your human head to the septic symphony of:

Mr Sterile Assembly (Wellington)
Mince On Toast (Queenstown)
Infinite Justice (Dunedin)
Whiskey And The Wench (Dunedin)
Bazooka (Milton)
Bolshy McBard (Twizel)

and more to be confirmed!

MysticalRain

Don't forget Ladyhawke.

Crumble Froo

**** yeah! I LOVE Dunedin!

Just spent the weekend down there at Feastock. Basically, some local musos have a sweet back garden in the hills and have been puttin this on for a few years now. For $30, there were 12 bands, BYO, a cd with a track from each band, and a ****in great festival, great vibes, great music, great people. So ****in stoked on it.

Ink Mathematics, The great Jali, Alazarrin Lizard, Left or Right... and... that first band... somethin black hussle... or somethin... different styles, but great bands. Plus, finally gotten to put a sound to the name of Beastwars (good, but not quite my kinda metal, was more into Osmium).

I highly highly recommend makin it here next year if anyone is able... and there was one fella there wearin an offaly shirt, but from what I could make out, he's of irish ancestry, not actually irish (twould be nice to see a few others at gigs, I know there's heaps of us in the country).

Crumble Froo

On the offchance anyone is actually reading this, the dudes mentioned above (who put on Feastock) from Left or Right are doing an album release tour next month, and putting out a pretty sweet looking vinyl (which they shall tell us more about pre-ordering via facebook on Monday), and hitting most of the places with people in them around NZ, I reckon it'll definitely be worth catching. Pretty good write up here about em. http://events.stuff.co.nz/2012/left-or-right/raglan

Meanwhile, Wednesday is finally coming, and Squirm are treking home to Christchurch for their dvd release for Gone with the Weird. Squirm were part of the Chch scene in the early 90s, and the place they lived and put on shows at - Hex Central - is where I ended up living until the Sept quakes, also putting shows on. Really looking forward to seeing heaps of the older crowd come out of the woodwork for this gig. Seen squirm in Dunedin (wehre they live now) a few times, but it's nothing like seeing them play to the home crowd.

Just saw that Malevolence are playing in teh Thirsty Dog in Auckland soon too, seen them play once or twice now, ended up staying with one of them a few months ago, real good *****, and some sweet powerviolencemetal if you're into that kinda thing.

So what's happening where you are? Who's worth checking out? (echo echo echo... ) :pac:

Mrs OBumble

Crumble Froo wrote: »

So what's happening where you are? Who's worth checking out? (echo echo echo... ) :pac:

Hey, I'm reading

But I'm in Galway, not a lot of Kiwi music here.

pclancy

Might be abit too mainstream for you but I'm working my way through Shihad's back catalogue at the moment. Good simple stadium rock.

Crumble Froo

Haha, I like the earlier Shihad I've heard, it's not quite as polished as what theyre doin now, but I love the energy and sound of it.

I just rediscovered Liam Finn the other day, keep meanin to get my hands on his new album, bloody talented writer, I think.