Biography
The Eric Glandy Memorial Big Band were an Auckland satirical country and western outfit whose sole 1986 release on Flying Nun Records stands as one of the label’s stranger artefacts. The band was conceived by Sally Hollis-McLeod and her partner Derek Ward, who were working at Burnham House, an Auckland arts organisation, alongside Lindsay Marks. The three formed the nucleus of what grew to a ten-member ensemble, all performing under invented country-and-western pseudonyms in keeping with the project’s deadpan comic conceit. “Eric Glandy” was not a real person — the name is a pun on “adrenal gland,” which gives the album its title Adrenal Glandy. Ward played the character. The joke, as the band’s own description had it, was that a fictional artist could be memorialised.
Among the members was a young Don McGlashan, performing under a pseudonym in what would prove a passing detour from his rising career. McGlashan would go on to prominence with The Front Lawn and The Mutton Birds, and was inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame in 2023. At the time of the Glandy project, he later described it — in deadpan — as “the most important artist of his era.” The album was recorded live at The Lab Recording Studio in Auckland, engineered by Steve Garden. To generate an audience for what was staged as a live-to-tape recording, the band placed a large pot of baked beans on the footpath outside and offered them free to passing strangers.
The genre — satirical country and western — was not a natural fit for Flying Nun. The label’s own newsletter reviewer Tony Green wrote: “How a satirical country and western band got on the label, Shepherd only knows.” The album reportedly sold approximately 40 copies, making it one of Flying Nun’s worst-selling releases. Original vinyl copies now command premium prices from collectors. Holloway researcher Matthew Goody catalogued the record in Needles & Plastic: Flying Nun Records, 1981–1988 (Auckland University Press, 2022). Heavenly Pop Hits: The Flying Nun Story describes its inclusion on the label as having “something of the ‘spite signing’ about it.”
Eric Glandy was the most important artist of his era, although you wouldn’t know that from the band’s live shows, recordings, or rehearsals. We hit our peak before our first practice, actually. Before we even thought about having a first practice, in fact — and from then on it was a sickening spiral downhill into recording industry hell and substance abuse.
Don McGlashan, Words Shift Minds, cited in Hard News / Public Address, November 2011
Members
- Helen Fuller
- Sally Hollis-McLeod
- Lindsay Marks
- Don McGlashan (Blam Blam Blam, The Front Lawn, The Mutton Birds)
- Rob O’Neill
- John Schmidt
- Derek Ward
- Ivan Zagni
Discography
- Adrenal Glandy: Songs of Love, Hate and Revenge LP (1986, Flying Nun Records, FN048)