STACK NZ 80 December

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covering the decades. I
had very little hand in the
selection of the tracks so
came to these fresh and
pleasantly surprised.
The series begins with
Johnny Cooper's Pie Cart
Rock'n'Roll from 1957
which was this country's
first original rock'n'roll
song and Sandy Tansley's
Resuscitation Rock (which
some claim beat Cooper by
a few weeks) and comes
right up to Six60's White Lines
and Marlon Williams' Dark Child .
There are big hits (She's a Mod,
Out in the Street, Computer Games,
I Got You, Poi E, E Tu, Not Many,
Brother, Royals and so on) but there
are many other gems too.
The Fair Sect's I Love How You
Love Me with bagpipes (!) gets me
every time, as does the Scavengers'
terrific True Love (“Met her outside
the IGA...”), Dead Flowers' catchy
Plastic, Dam Native's Behold My
Kool Style and Nesian Mystik's
Nesian 101.
There are tough truths – Riot
Squad, French Letter, In the
Neighbourhood – alongside pure pop
and rock like Push Push's Trippin', the Chills'
Heavenly Pop Hit, Emma Paki's still moving
System Virtue and True Bliss' Tonight.
And Darcy Clay's Jesus I Was Evil.
Can 195 songs sum up our musical history?
Of course not. But these sets, with liner notes
and images from the exhibition, make a damn
fine stab at it.
B ecause I was involved in the exhibition
Volume: Making Music in Aotearoa
currently running at the museum in
Auckland – 60 years of popular music from 50s
rock'n'roll to Lorde – people sometimes ask
what I'm most pleased about.
Well, I say, the fact that Volume exists at all
is very pleasing...
But aside from Chris Knox's famous TEAC
tape recorder, the huge dot-painting cover
for his album Croaker (which was languishing
dustily in a spare bedroom in his house)
and the three Split Enz costumes which
immediately come to mind, there are almost
too many things to mention.
I was brought on board early last year as the
museum's Content Advisor, which meant –
after meetings with museum staff, people from
Recorded Music NZ who were prime movers
behind it and some advisory panels – I wrote
the guiding document about what should be in
the exhibition.
Big ask, big task and it took a lot of enjoyable
research – who knew Deep Obsession
were the first local band to have three
consecutive number
one hits? I mapped
out timelines,
narratives and the
focus on individual
artists or bands.
Of course, not
everyone could be included
and you'd need as much space again
just to cover the whole Flying Nun
story or hip-hop culture.
But we did our best to be inclusive,
to have interactive areas and get
objects which told a story. What
the story behind Andrew (Mockers)
Fagan's pink bunny suit is we leave
to your imagination, but there it
is...alongside gold discs, hundreds
of photos, special guitars and
equipment, Dalvanius' famous hat
and the shoes Lorde wore to the
Grammys.
The shoes are really funny.
The exhibition is the result of
months of work by many people and
artists were extremely generous with their art
and artefacts, as you'll see when you go. And
you should go, because this is the soundtrack
to our lives in Aotearoa New Zealand.
I didn't see it all in place until opening night
and, frankly, I was delighted. When you have so
much emotional investment in something like
Volume you want it to be right and most often
you can only see shortcomings.
But the feedback has been very positive.
To coincide with the exhibition, there is
also a handsomely packaged collection of CDs
For more interviews, overviews and reviews
by Graham Reid see:
visit MUSIC FEATURE
26 DECEMBER 2016
MUSIC
Graham Reid offers an insider's view of the
exhibition of New Zealand music in Auckland.
PUMP UP
THE VOLUME
Volume:
Making Music
in Aotearoa
is at the
Auckland War
Memorial
Museum until
May 2016.
It is free.