STACK NZ Dec #80

MUSIC FEATURE

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Graham Reid offers an insider's view of the exhibition of New Zealand music in Auckland. PUMP UP THE VOLUME

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

consecutive number one hits? I mapped out timelines,

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

narratives and the focus on individual artists or bands. Of course, not everyone could be included

MUSIC

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

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

Volume: Making Music in Aotearoa is at the Auckland War Memorial Museum until May 2016. It is free.

research – who knew Deep Obsession were the first local band to have three

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

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.

For more interviews, overviews and reviews by Graham Reid see: www.elsewhere.co.nz

DECEMBER 2016

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