A new generation of New Zealand acts is making its way to New York City next week to participate in a special CMJ Showcase, and by way of a preview for that evening (and akin to our previous time down under) TVD will sound a lot like New Zealand this week.
We’ll meet the bands and chat a bit about our favorite topic around here—rekkids.
We’re bringing our week to a close with Andrew Keoghan and a rumination on The King of Pop’s Off the Wall.
It protruded magically from my parents’ classical music-flavoured vinyl collection. My older sister had moved out but left this small treasure behind, resplendent with her ballpoint pen-inscribed love hearts and daisies on the front cover.
It was 1989 and we were living in the small New Zealand south island town of Mosgiel. The only Jackson I’d heard of went to the neighbouring school and played trumpet and field hockey. Home alone and after a few minutes negotiating the intricacies of stylus balancing, the vinyl crackled and bang, 8 year-old me was smothered by a blaze of Quincy Jones-produced pop genius and it was love at first waveform.
The searing strings on ‘Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough’ still get me, along with that most apt of lines, “It’s got a lot of power.” This Jackson sure had it over me. I was helpless, bouncing up and down tirelessly on our old springy brown couch into track two ‘Rock With You’, followed by the knock out punch ‘Working Day and Night’.
Andrew Keoghan – Clean Sheets and a Fishbowl
With disco beats and all manner of organic percussion including M.J’s incessant panting pre ‘banana-nanana’ era, it was all so groovy I remember weeping at the time with sheer joy and fascination.
—Andrew Keoghan
