Word: zealanders
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...Mssrs. Stipe, Buck, Berry and Mills have produced in years. The excellent opener, "Silence Kid," a message to a shy little boy who shouldn't listen to his grandmother's advice, seems to reference almost every sub-genre of rock (classic oldies, weird early '80s experimental music from New Zealand, and more) while still maintaining its own integrity. People have always accused Pavement of being derivative, and it's true that they often should like other great bands. But that's rock'n roll, pal, take it or leave it! The final song on the album, "Fillmore Jive...
...delivery of sometimes profound lyrics, dominated about half the songs; the others swooned under the heroic weight of Graeme's archer, slower (and even lower) voice, and against his haunting acoustic guitar patterns. Yet their records label, Flying Nun, pressed only 300 copies, most of which never left New Zealand; a record that could have inspired a worldwide movement of introverted, intelligent, grimy basement rock instead had its influence limited to NZ, where it inspired most of the bands associated with a label called Xpressway, When Xpressway stopped putting out records, overseas friends and admirers picked up the slack...
...review of this reissue for last week's magazine, the one copy of my review was mysteriously lost--just like the album I was trying to review. So what you're reading now is a "reissue," in a sense, of my original review. (Maybe the original is in New Zealand.) And now that that's off my chest, I can get back to describing the album(s): reference points for Peter's style are very stripped-down John Cale records and Wire circa 1980--there are no better-known reference points-- and, for Graeme's some combination of Richard Thompson...
Guitarist Graeme is now in London, leading his intent-on-stardom band the Cakekitchen; Peter remains in New Zealand (though he toured the US last year), producing records and playing piano and drums and singing on his own releases, which continue the TKP sound more effectively (Any record Peter plays on is good.) Besides being superb minimalist musicians, and haunting lyricists, and (both) capable of acoustic solo outings so emotionally honest that your ears may burn, the Jefferies brothers were also able to fly off no noisy "experimental" larks. It's a measure of how intense the rest...
When the California quake hit, Dziewonski was at a conference of seismologists in New Zealand. He immediately put together a presentation for the scientists there, using information retrieved from a computer network...