Skip to content

Graeme Downes

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.

Nick Smith

One of the lesser-known Flying Nun Records releases, young singer-songwriter Nick Smith put out a largely unremembered EP on the label in 1987 after appearing on the ‘Outnumbered by Sheep’ compilation.

He also recorded a preceding EP (with the help of Chris Knox), released on record store Real Groovy Records own imprint back in 1986.
Smith would go on to have a successful career as a journalist.

Graeme Downes

a truely whimsical song-writer, with a douer, charasmatic voice and a penchant for creating lush, beautiful arrangements (thanks to heavy study’s in music composition and production. downes is one of new zealand’s truely great song-writer, though it took him some… Read More »Graeme Downes

The Verlaines

Graeme Downes’ long-standing song-writing vehicle, and one-hell of a brilliant, literate band at that. With the classic line-up of Downes on guitar and vocals, Alan Haig on drums and Jane Dodd on bass, the Verlaines released excellent singles such as… Read More »The Verlaines