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The Pterodactyls

Clangy Auckland post-punk / indie-pop from the mid 1980’s. Released a brash, tuneful and fun LP-sized EP on Meltdown Records in 1987 before going their separate ways.

The Cartilage Family

The Cartilage Family were a short-lived Dunedin group featuring Peter Gutteridge (and a bunch of his best early songs), Shayne Carter, Lesley Paris and Francisca Griffin. No official recordings exist and they only performed live twice; but the Cartilage Family were an important stepping stone for New Zealand Music.

Trash

Noisy Dunedin rock group formed by Ex-Alpaca Brothers Bruce Blucher and Paul Cahill. Robbie Yeats was their primary drummer, but their recordings feature contributions from a number of well-known underground performers. Released 3 albums and a couple 7″ singles.

Cyclops

Excellent Dunedin 4-piece with a stellar line-up. Dark, noisy guitar and driving rhythm, but sadly only a single hard-to-find album (plus a couple 7″ singles) to their name. Closely tied to Bruce Blucher concurrent band Trash.

Bang! Bang! Eche!

Christchurch eletro-pop troop that burst onto the All-Ages scene with the super-fun home-recorded MySpace single (‘Nikee’) and then a flurry of live shows, including achieving success as a wildcard entry in the Smoke-Free Rock-Quest regional finals. An exciting mix of electronics, guitar and pulsating rhythm, Bang! Bang! Eche! are Charlie Ryder (guitar), James Sullivan (Drums), T’Nealle Worsley (Bass) and Zach Doney (Vocals / Effects).

Salad Boys

Indie pop-rock out of Christchurch based around Joe Sampson (guitar / vocals / keys / bass etc) with James Sullivan (drums) and Ben Ordering (bass) on most of their recordings.

Strong on melody with big chiming guitar and unfussy rhythmic backing, their songs have a timeless quality to them – sometimes jangling, sometimes driving, and with Sampson’s powerful guitar playing always ready to attack.

The Dance Asthmatics

Christchurch-based 4-piece mixing up a bit of Dunedin-jangle, punk vocal attitude and Krautrock or post-punk groovy rhythms. A superb band of musically gifted individuals producing catchy and at times challenging music.

Fronted by Stephen Nouwens with the very handy Brian Feary on the drums, Joe Sampson on guitar and Ben Odering on bass. Feary and Sampson created the Melted Ice Cream label to release the bands recordings, and subsequently the label has become a big part of Christchurch’s underground music community.

Piha Rescue

Sadly defunct fun surf-guitar trio from Christchurch who released a handful of live recordings on BandCamp before moving on.

BnP

Brash, noisy, post-Earthquake Christchurch group who made a bit of a splash with the ‘Welcome to Mediocrity’ release on local label Melted Ice Cream in 2012.

Merzbow

Live: Merzbow

Flashback to Japanese experimental noise legend Merzbow playing Dux Live in Noverember 2013, alongside Rotorua’s Acclimate and Christchurch’s own Stanier-Black Five.

Pop Mechanix

Christchurch power-pop Pop Mechanix began their life as ‘Splash Alley’. They built up a strong reputation locally and around the country with Dick Driver (and later, Peter McLennan) as front-man; but never quite made it to the next level in Australia.

Electric Blood

Electric Blood was the formative group of Robert Scott; forming the group with his brother in 1978, and featuring any number of local friends and family members on extremely lo-fi DIY recordings.

1/3 Octave Band

A Bill Wood and Jules Desmond ambient/noise/drone duo from Wellington, sometimes with contributions from Ben Spiers. Quite a pleasant listen as far as drone recordings go – their recordings often posses a haunting quality.

Fleur De Lis

Front-Woman for long-running Christchurch group The Dialtones. De Lis put out a very rare lathe cut 10″ EP on the late-great Mikey Hex’s Noseflute label in 1997; but it’s impossibly hard to come by these days (it wasn’t even listed on Discogs).

Half of the songs released here resurfaced on The Dialtones album, though with full band backing.

Fleur has also been a fixture in the Christchurch music scene since the 1990’s and has contributed guitar to Coal’s live performances, plus several other local groups. De Lis (who’s real last name is Walden) is the daughter of 1950’s/60’s vocalist Paul Walden.