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Christchurch Music-
A personal history
Selected Discography Paintings Writing Magazines (play + books): Links |
My lifelong love of rock music was really turned up to a level where
I felt it was impossible not to get directly involved in 1979 when I met
and became friends with people like Bill Direen , later of the Builders
and Mary Heney , later of 25 Cents and Scorched Earth Policy , as well
as seeing the likes of the Androidss , Stanley Wrench and the Monkey Brothers
, The Vauxhalls and others, all seminal Christchurch punk bands many of
whose members became key figures in the post-punk alternative scene as
recorded in the earlier and darker releases on the Flying Nun label, as
well as my own label Passage. Examples being Scorched Earth Policy , The
Terminals , The Pin Group , The Templars ,The Love Horror Web and so on.
By the mid-eighties when I moved back to Christchurch , the initial
creative surge that lead to the founding of Flying Nun , had passed,
and worldwide recognition of alternative New Zealand bands like the Clean
and the Chills meant that the focus of media attention and publicity had
shifted to Dunedin . When the last New Zealand record pressing plant in
Porirua closed in 1986 the crisis seemed especially acute in Christchurch
, and when Flying Nun relocated to Auckland later that year , the feeling
of doom and gloom translated into an impulse to document the music that
was still happening around me starting with my own.
This lead me to kickstart Passage as a tape label, and slightly later
Sunburn ,which became de facto , THE Christchurch alternative music
magazine freom 1985 till 1993. In over 20 tape releases including The Indians
, South American Question , Scorched Earth Policy and the Cute Robots,
as well as nine densely packed issues I and others caught what another
writer described like this; " I think Sunburn is the only magazine that
I've seen that's ever captured that gritty, rootsy Christchurch feel" (Edward
Dewe). Soon after this I was hired as a columnist for the Christchurch
Star and then the Christchurch Mail as a columnist for four more years
before becoming disillusioned with the music industry generally, the totally
commercial aspirations of the next wave of young Christchurch bands, as
well as feeling out of touch with the rise of Dance music which seemed
to be supplanting the Rock which I had grown up with and felt at home with
so I shifted my attention and activity to other areas in the mid-90's though
still recording and occasionally appearing live as the Cute Robots (who
others have compared to Skinny Puppy).
Those nine issues are currently unavailable, though with the current
revival of garage rock bands like the Hives and the Datsuns it seems likely
that there might be a place for selected highlights to be rereleased on
CD as soon as money, equipment, and skill levels allow. In the meantime
I can be reached at the e-mail address below.
Grant Mc Donagh
August 2002
(Updated March 2003)
Passage Tapes;
Sharp Tongue - A Passage compilation 1986-90
Burning Chrome
The Scuzzbuckets
Cute Robots - Violent Wallpaper
The Cartesian
R.U.R.
To Those Born Later (poems by Bertholt Brecht)
Gallery
Indians
South American Question
Random Walk
the Riptoids- Send it out
Paul Sutherland and The Phantoms
Demolition
The Gaps
The Templars
Love Horror Web
Scorched Earth policy
Black Swans - A Christchurch Women's compilation
Rainy Taxi
others
Beauty Pageant - Silicon
& Virginibus Puerisque
also tracks on compilations on the Sonic Lobotomy , Onset offset , Krkrkrk and Flat City labels
e-mail address grantmcdonagh@clear.net.nz
I will work on commmission , Prices by negotiation .
Grant Mc Donagh
August 2002
e-mail address grantmcdonagh@clear.net.nz
-151 (1977) from Auckland, a situationist dialectical primmer . Reprinted twice.
-Kat (1978) 7 issues Wellington 1978
-In The City(1979-81) Christchurch & Nelson)
-Sunburn (1985-93)
Play
-Exile (1983)
Books:
Image War : (1991) An anti-authoritarian critique of Post Modernism
including comments on the Gulf War
Beautiful, Dangerous, Strange (2001) a reading guide to anarchist and anti-authoritarian works in print including some brief commernts on anarchist-punk
I am now working on the second draft of a long autobiographical novel with the working title " Savage Circle"
Of the above only Beautiful Dangerous Strange, Image War & a few copies of selected issues of Sunburn are currently available. Enquiries to this E- mail address: grantmcdonagh@clear.net.nz
Grant Mc Donagh
August 2002
(Updated March 2003)
e-mail address grantmcdonagh@clear.net.nz
