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Toy Love

The Snares

Dunedin based avant-indie trio featuring Mike Dooley (Toy Love and Snapper – Drums) his step-daughter Maxine Funke (Guitar) and Brett Moodie (Guitar), that formed out of the Dooley / Funke duo The Beaters.

Their debut EP was a meditative production guided by Arc Life engineer (and member of David Kilgour’s Heavy Eights) Tom Bell, whilst their follow-up Dance The Dervish is closer to a live recording, though still capturing their eclectic strengths – both released on the bands own Horrible Records (the name, not the quality) label.

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The Superettes

Auckland punk group that marked the arrival of Jed Town. When The Superettes broke up Town formed famed post-punk group The Features; who would eventually morph into Fetus Productions.

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Snapper

The key group of New Zealand underground legend Peter Gutteridge (despite being a founding member of BOTH the Clean and the Chills). Snapper made driving, droning guitars-infused with synths post-punk throughout the 1980s and 1990s before Gutteridge disappeared from the public eye.

Bored Games

Before Dimmer, before Straitjacket Fits, before even the Doublehappys, Shayne Carter was in a Flying Nun Records-type punk band called Bored Games, who opened for the likes of the Clean and Toy Love before the lads had even left high school.

The Jessels

One off x-mas theme side-project (joke release?) from Toy Love’s Chris Knox and his soundman cohort Doug Hood (who both lived in Jessel Street in Grey Lynn, Auckland) featuring their partners Barbara Ward and Carol Hood. Sometimes credited to David Kilgour and Martin Phillips too.

Toy Love

Though lasting just 18 months, Toy Love were one of New Zealand’s most influential groups. Chris Knox, Alec Bathgate and Mike Dooley had come from The Enemy were joined by the Christchurch duo of Paul Kean and Kate Walker to form the most brilliantly dynamic new wave group.

Alec Bathgate

Alec Bathgate’s always kept a couple steps back in his fellow Enemy, Toy Love and Tall Dwarfs shadow, but released a lovely little Byrds-jangle-pop album (with heavy Beatles and Beach Boy flourishes) in 1996.

More technically competent than Knox, and somewhat reserved (in comparison at least), Bathgate is a reflective, precarious song-writer of great talent.

The Clean

The Clean have left a giant stamp on New Zealand Independent Music. The group that came to define ‘The Dunedin Sound’ had a terrific topsy-turvy career that spanned 5 albums and a number of EPs, singles, compilations and live releases over a 31 year time-span.

The Clean – Compilation

My review of ‘Compilation’, the original retrospective of The Clean’s first phase releases. 2 singles and 2 EPs crammed into a brilliant album.

Tall Dwarfs

Biography After Toy Love (the bastard son of The Enemy) disintegrated in 1980, Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate were so fed up with the ‘band’ approach to making music, that they formed The Tall Dwarfs as a performing collective absolutely… Read More »Tall Dwarfs

The Enemy

Biography Young Dunedin guitarist Alec Bathgate and drummer Mike Dooley lined up Invercargill-born record store employee Chris Knox as a bassist in mid 1977, unaware he couldn’t actually play. Eventually the group would secure a gig at the Old Beneficiaries Hall,… Read More »The Enemy

Chris Knox

Biography I’ve had a hard time starting this profile. A man who’s done so much for New Zealand (underground) music that it wouldn’t really be the same without him – Knox was responsible for so many changes in the way… Read More »Chris Knox