November 25, 2024 • 9 mins
This week on Music Time, our music man James Irwin tells Nick that a certain Christchurch based record label might be New Zealand's most important ever.
Also, we check out a reissue of one of New Zealand's most rare and sought after records and the lads gets the gloves off over Bob Geldof and that Christmas song.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News talks at Biggs, new releases and keeping tabs
on local artists. Is music Time on Wellington Mornings.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Every couple of weeks I get the opportunity to bring
out maestro of music.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Maestro of music? Do you like that one?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
James James Irwin in from his studio which is right
next to my studio and talk about music because he
is missed the New Zealand music and he wants to
tell us.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Good morning, James morning.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
You want to tell us about two great Kiwi albums
you've picked up in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I'd love to see your album collection.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Yeah, yeah, Well, as you know, Nick, I'm always buying
new stuff and I'm always and some of them gets
hidden here at work so the wife doesn't realize how
much I'm buying some of the times, and I've picked
up a couple. I've brought about four albums actually in
the last week. I picked up the new Cure album,
which is spectacular if you love the Cure. Picked up
a Kiwi band called Faded Phased Day, who's a spectacular
(01:08):
sort of poppy album that's just come out. But I
wanted to focus on a band that I first heard
about and first saw play about thirty years ago. And
the band is called Springloader. They were a band from
christ Church. They came out in the nineties. They're kind of,
I throw around the word sort of indie alternative dream pop.
Now that's who knows what that means.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well, we know what indie pop is.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Yeah, so it's kind of poppy. It's really guitar driven.
There was a scene back then called kind of a
shoegaz scene. Some people would say it's that. It's a
band I first really saw and they came to my attention.
I saw them at the original Barbaradega, which is now
a motorway entrance. It's that you know, you remember Barbadego.
Fraser ran Barbadega, and I remember wandering in there one
(01:51):
night and seeing this band. Ah, yeah, he must be around.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Last time I saw him he was he was doing
wine tasting Regional Wines and Spirits. That was quite a
few years ago. So I saw this band, spring Loader,
and it was just a chance thing and I kind
of fun in love with the music that was coming
out of Christich at the time, and there seemed to
be this guy who was playing in most of the
bands that I really liked, and he owned a record
label called fail Safe Records. He's kind of a one
(02:16):
man operation. He ran a recording studio. He was the
kind of guy who turned up at gigs with a
recorder and recorded and archived lots of amazing music that
maybe we would never have heard of again. He just
recorded so much terrific stuff from that era. And he's
continued over the last probably thirty forty years. I think
he started in the mid eighties putting out really great
(02:39):
New Zealand music. A lot of us know Flying None,
but I would say fail Safe Records to me is
a better and marker. He's of record label than Flying None.
And someone might give me an upper cup for that,
but that's okay. Credible guitar based power pop. I would say,
let's have a listen to the first track off Spring
Loaders brand new album YEP off the same name, just
(03:00):
like Yesterday, fun nice Atitude. It's sad, say some very
(03:30):
big popping up yeah yeah, and it's got those lovely
guitar hooks now interestingly, and I don't want to get
hung up on this. This album was started in nineteen
ninety four and this is their debut album, so it
came out three weeks ago. It's taken them thirty years
to be finished, but I think it's been worth the wait.
So you know, like life happens, families jobs. I know
(03:52):
all of those guys were in various other bands. Some
of them went to London life took over, but they've
got back together. They've put out this new release. It's
making really big noises internationally and if you check around
the internet, they're getting a lot of really a big attempt.
Those guys are probably all my age and older. I'm
fifty two and they're they're they're probably around that era.
(04:13):
It's gone straight into the New Zealand top ten charts
for the last three weeks. I really love the guitar.
Work's got lovely hazy crunch to it. It's filled with
memorable hooks. There's a tight gips into it about eight
nine times. I've got the CD coming from the that
that's in the post at the moment. I've brought it
on CD. Like you can check out all of fail
(04:33):
Safe Records catalog on Failsaferecords dot com. They've got this guy.
Rob puts out amazing stuff and he like, you can
get the guitar chords on in this In this this
CD package, you can get all the guitar cords so
you can learn to play the songs. He puts out
a really great package. I would say this is you
know this to me is going to be in my
top ten albums of the year. Chick check them out.
(04:54):
Failsaferecords dot com. We've got a little bit to play
of another one and we'll move on.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
So, lovely harmonies, sweet beautiful melodies. Just a great band.
I'm really enjoying. I'm really enjoying spring Loaders, just like yesterday,
new album to check it out?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
All right, give us a second album you bought.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Okay, So this one is. It's a nineteen seventy six
Kiwi jazz fusion rock band called Doctor Tree. And yeah,
and you probably think, what the heck is this? What's
iwin doing with us this week? Now? I've been really
into two of the key players on this album, Comparison
and keyboardist Murray McNabb. And you might go, oh, who
(05:44):
are these guys?
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I remember Murray McNabb's name because of all the ads
and stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah, yeah, he was into advertising. Made lots of jingles.
He made the great train robbery Crunchy bar jingle. He
did Red Sock Day songs, he did Commonwealth but Commonwealth
game songs. He did the Once We're Warrior's soundtrack. Let's
have a listen to Doctor Tree. I'm really loving this album.
It's funky, it's it's improvised, it's got trippy electronic textures,
(06:14):
it's got hypnotic kaleidoscopes of sounds. Oh, I've got the
album here. It's a beautiful double gate fold.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Can you buy it on CD?
Speaker 4 (06:22):
You can only buy the two thousand and seven reissue
on CD, and that's quite.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
A lot of money.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Not mic, this is going to be the original. This
is worth about six hundred New Zealand dollars, so this
reissue will be worth a lot of money. So check
out Doctor Tree and all your favorite record stores.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Kind of like a jazzy, funky version of eighting sixty band.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Yeah, it's just doing some great yeah, really great stuff there.
So hey, and then let's hit this next thing, Ethan,
this is controversial. Oh no, what are we doing? Christmas.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
You're not going to Christmas stuff already.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Oh there we go, Thank goodness. Ethan's hit the record,
stop on the record, play Ah, that's sad time. And
overnight it's the forty I'm not sure if you you know,
like it's the fortieth anniversary and they've released a new
version of that absolutely punisher song by Bob Geldoff, who
himself was a complete and us a banger on.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
This is a this is Here's the news.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Came out twelve hours ago touring Beyond Shot.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
He yes, John.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
So this fortieth anniversary number thirtieth, the under twenty. Then
it's a controversial and me and Ethan have been bullying
each other, having worked bullying with each other about it.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Because he's such an original man.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
And he loves Paul McCartney and McCartney's on it and
McCartney loves it.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I love Galdolf too.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Oh. I think he's he's such a punisher. He's had
so much mileage out of one song that he wrote, well,
you know, Boomtown Rats.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
And he saved a lot of lives and he saved
all life.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
See the young fellow in there. That's killing me.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I hope he goes to the concept or.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Here we should force him to go to a review
up there. So the fortieth came out overnight. I made
my own version. Let's have a listen to my version.
You made a version I made a version of It
wasn't out yesterday when I was cutting it up. Let's
have listened to my version.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
This is the original.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
And then we've got boy George where I isolated the
vocals and he's been out a tune in the second.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
Listen to this duoy George, give it number cut magic
and here anniversary you Ai because this bit of AI involved.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Listen to that terrible does he?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Rascal's graceful?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Phil it's the twentieth or is it the thirtieth? And
here's the thirtieth version?
Speaker 5 (08:59):
Fast.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
I did not know they did all these versions.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
I'm sorry, neck, I've probably just completely lost your whole
audience base there.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Well, it just we're all over the place. Didn't And
it's controversial.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
It's Shearon's angry because he's been put into the fortieth version.
He doesn't want to be anymore. Yeah, and it's got
lots of controversy saying that, you know, Africa doesn't need
this kind of stereotype this of.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
You know that, well, they didn't think that was the
right thing to do.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
You know, Africa is an emerging continent. It's not in
a country, you know. And yes they know it's they
know it's Christmas because Botswana, Rwanda, Zambia, Madagascar, Tanzy is
South today and has got majority Christian populations.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
James, that's your rent for the day. I gotta go.
I'm gonna take a break. I need a pillow and
a cup of tea. I need a cup of tea
and a pillow, James Irwin, our music man, god damn.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
to news talks It'd Be Wellington from nine am week days,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News talks at Biggs, new releases and keeping tabs
on local artists. Is music Time on Wellington Mornings.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Every couple of weeks I get the opportunity to bring
out maestro of music.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Maestro of music? Do you like that one?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
James James Irwin in from his studio which is right
next to my studio and talk about music because he
is missed the New Zealand music and he wants to
tell us.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Good morning, James morning.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
You want to tell us about two great Kiwi albums
you've picked up in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I'd love to see your album collection.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Yeah, yeah, Well, as you know, Nick, I'm always buying
new stuff and I'm always and some of them gets
hidden here at work so the wife doesn't realize how
much I'm buying some of the times, and I've picked
up a couple. I've brought about four albums actually in
the last week. I picked up the new Cure album,
which is spectacular if you love the Cure. Picked up
a Kiwi band called Faded Phased Day, who's a spectacular
(01:08):
sort of poppy album that's just come out. But I
wanted to focus on a band that I first heard
about and first saw play about thirty years ago. And
the band is called Springloader. They were a band from
christ Church. They came out in the nineties. They're kind of,
I throw around the word sort of indie alternative dream pop.
Now that's who knows what that means.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Well, we know what indie pop is.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Yeah, so it's kind of poppy. It's really guitar driven.
There was a scene back then called kind of a
shoegaz scene. Some people would say it's that. It's a
band I first really saw and they came to my attention.
I saw them at the original Barbaradega, which is now
a motorway entrance. It's that you know, you remember Barbadego.
Fraser ran Barbadega, and I remember wandering in there one
(01:51):
night and seeing this band. Ah, yeah, he must be around.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Last time I saw him he was he was doing
wine tasting Regional Wines and Spirits. That was quite a
few years ago. So I saw this band, spring Loader,
and it was just a chance thing and I kind
of fun in love with the music that was coming
out of Christich at the time, and there seemed to
be this guy who was playing in most of the
bands that I really liked, and he owned a record
label called fail Safe Records. He's kind of a one
(02:16):
man operation. He ran a recording studio. He was the
kind of guy who turned up at gigs with a
recorder and recorded and archived lots of amazing music that
maybe we would never have heard of again. He just
recorded so much terrific stuff from that era. And he's
continued over the last probably thirty forty years. I think
he started in the mid eighties putting out really great
(02:39):
New Zealand music. A lot of us know Flying None,
but I would say fail Safe Records to me is
a better and marker. He's of record label than Flying None.
And someone might give me an upper cup for that,
but that's okay. Credible guitar based power pop. I would say,
let's have a listen to the first track off Spring
Loaders brand new album YEP off the same name, just
(03:00):
like Yesterday, fun nice Atitude. It's sad, say some very
(03:30):
big popping up yeah yeah, and it's got those lovely
guitar hooks now interestingly, and I don't want to get
hung up on this. This album was started in nineteen
ninety four and this is their debut album, so it
came out three weeks ago. It's taken them thirty years
to be finished, but I think it's been worth the wait.
So you know, like life happens, families jobs. I know
(03:52):
all of those guys were in various other bands. Some
of them went to London life took over, but they've
got back together. They've put out this new release. It's
making really big noises internationally and if you check around
the internet, they're getting a lot of really a big attempt.
Those guys are probably all my age and older. I'm
fifty two and they're they're they're probably around that era.
(04:13):
It's gone straight into the New Zealand top ten charts
for the last three weeks. I really love the guitar.
Work's got lovely hazy crunch to it. It's filled with
memorable hooks. There's a tight gips into it about eight
nine times. I've got the CD coming from the that
that's in the post at the moment. I've brought it
on CD. Like you can check out all of fail
(04:33):
Safe Records catalog on Failsaferecords dot com. They've got this guy.
Rob puts out amazing stuff and he like, you can
get the guitar chords on in this In this this
CD package, you can get all the guitar cords so
you can learn to play the songs. He puts out
a really great package. I would say this is you
know this to me is going to be in my
top ten albums of the year. Chick check them out.
(04:54):
Failsaferecords dot com. We've got a little bit to play
of another one and we'll move on.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
So, lovely harmonies, sweet beautiful melodies. Just a great band.
I'm really enjoying. I'm really enjoying spring Loaders, just like yesterday,
new album to check it out?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
All right, give us a second album you bought.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Okay, So this one is. It's a nineteen seventy six
Kiwi jazz fusion rock band called Doctor Tree. And yeah,
and you probably think, what the heck is this? What's
iwin doing with us this week? Now? I've been really
into two of the key players on this album, Comparison
and keyboardist Murray McNabb. And you might go, oh, who
(05:44):
are these guys?
Speaker 3 (05:45):
I remember Murray McNabb's name because of all the ads
and stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah, yeah, he was into advertising. Made lots of jingles.
He made the great train robbery Crunchy bar jingle. He
did Red Sock Day songs, he did Commonwealth but Commonwealth
game songs. He did the Once We're Warrior's soundtrack. Let's
have a listen to Doctor Tree. I'm really loving this album.
It's funky, it's it's improvised, it's got trippy electronic textures,
(06:14):
it's got hypnotic kaleidoscopes of sounds. Oh, I've got the
album here. It's a beautiful double gate fold.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Can you buy it on CD?
Speaker 4 (06:22):
You can only buy the two thousand and seven reissue
on CD, and that's quite.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
A lot of money.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Not mic, this is going to be the original. This
is worth about six hundred New Zealand dollars, so this
reissue will be worth a lot of money. So check
out Doctor Tree and all your favorite record stores.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Kind of like a jazzy, funky version of eighting sixty band.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Yeah, it's just doing some great yeah, really great stuff there.
So hey, and then let's hit this next thing, Ethan,
this is controversial. Oh no, what are we doing? Christmas.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
You're not going to Christmas stuff already.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Oh there we go, Thank goodness. Ethan's hit the record,
stop on the record, play Ah, that's sad time. And
overnight it's the forty I'm not sure if you you know,
like it's the fortieth anniversary and they've released a new
version of that absolutely punisher song by Bob Geldoff, who
himself was a complete and us a banger on.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
This is a this is Here's the news.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Came out twelve hours ago touring Beyond Shot.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
He yes, John.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
So this fortieth anniversary number thirtieth, the under twenty. Then
it's a controversial and me and Ethan have been bullying
each other, having worked bullying with each other about it.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Because he's such an original man.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
And he loves Paul McCartney and McCartney's on it and
McCartney loves it.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I love Galdolf too.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Oh. I think he's he's such a punisher. He's had
so much mileage out of one song that he wrote, well,
you know, Boomtown Rats.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
And he saved a lot of lives and he saved
all life.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
See the young fellow in there. That's killing me.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
I hope he goes to the concept or.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Here we should force him to go to a review
up there. So the fortieth came out overnight. I made
my own version. Let's have a listen to my version.
You made a version I made a version of It
wasn't out yesterday when I was cutting it up. Let's
have listened to my version.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
This is the original.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
And then we've got boy George where I isolated the
vocals and he's been out a tune in the second.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
Listen to this duoy George, give it number cut magic
and here anniversary you Ai because this bit of AI involved.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Listen to that terrible does he?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Rascal's graceful?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Phil it's the twentieth or is it the thirtieth? And
here's the thirtieth version?
Speaker 5 (08:59):
Fast.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
I did not know they did all these versions.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
I'm sorry, neck, I've probably just completely lost your whole
audience base there.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Well, it just we're all over the place. Didn't And
it's controversial.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
It's Shearon's angry because he's been put into the fortieth version.
He doesn't want to be anymore. Yeah, and it's got
lots of controversy saying that, you know, Africa doesn't need
this kind of stereotype this of.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
You know that, well, they didn't think that was the
right thing to do.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
You know, Africa is an emerging continent. It's not in
a country, you know. And yes they know it's they
know it's Christmas because Botswana, Rwanda, Zambia, Madagascar, Tanzy is
South today and has got majority Christian populations.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
James, that's your rent for the day. I gotta go.
I'm gonna take a break. I need a pillow and
a cup of tea. I need a cup of tea
and a pillow, James Irwin, our music man, god damn.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
to news talks It'd Be Wellington from nine am week days,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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