Pull Down The Shades – GARAGE Fanzine 1984-86 collects all six issues of New Zealander Richard Langston’s homemade publication, an endeavor that focused on his country’s music scene of the era, and specifically the bands commonly associated with the Flying Nun and Xpressway labels. The depth of the in-the-moment coverage by Langston and his numerous contributors and the insightful and moving contemporary essays and interviews that follow the six issues illuminates how the scene took shape but also documents how the fanzine was an instigator of progress as it helped to get the word out beyond Kiwi shores. It’s an indispensable tome; a second printing of 500 copies is out now from HoZac Books.
The Kiwi scene Pull Down The Shades documents is one of the richest geographical uprisings in 20th century pop-rock music, an underground movement that resonated across the globe. Back in those days, it took a while for word to get around, and fanzines were crucial, not just to spread the info to other regions, but to solidify the scene it covered, getting the word out to locals and new folks in town.
Bluntly, the 1980s Flying Nun scene could not be contained. By the end of the decade, its biggest bands were well-known entities in the international college rock/ alternative/ indie scheme of things, with the two most pop savvy, The Chills and The Verlaines, eventually landing record deals with Warner Bros. through subsidiary Slash Records.
But what made this particular scene special wasn’t its ability to flirt with mainstream success. In fact, it was just the opposite, as the essence of the ’80s Flying Nun experience was that it was just too good for bland broad appeal. Pull Down The Shades accentuates this reality in a variety of ways. Foremost is the fundamental DIY nature of the zine reproductions, which effectively mirror how these bands were creating for the sheer pleasure of it rather than calculating their career moves.
Amongst the bands covered are The Clean, Tall Dwarfs, Sneaky Feelings, The Puddle, The Orange, Bill Direen/ Bilders, The Rip, Look Blue Go Purple, Bird Nest Roys and the Great Unwashed, along with the aforementioned Chills and Verlaines. The zine interviews are informative and the articles are engagingly written, lacking in the overexuberant syntax slinging that often accompanies zine making. And refreshingly, the six issues of Garage are devoid of any embarrassingly dated attitudinal baggage that can arise when giving old ’80s zines a reread (particularly those from the USA).
The production value of the zines rises along the way, as does a desire to document Kiwi events pre-’84. Issue 5 dives deep into The Enemy, the foundational Kiwi punk band featuring Tall Dwarfs Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate, whose song (better known in a version by Knox and Bathgate’s subsequent pre-Tall Dwarfs band Toy Love) gave this book its title.
Garage’s historical interest at the time of publication helps make Pull Down The Shades more than just a nostalgic undertaking. As the pages turn, there’s a palpable sense of not wanting to revel in past glories but to preserve the minutia, an admirable impulse that combines well with the numerous heartfelt remembrances of Hamish Kilgour (The Clean, Bailter Space, The Mad Scene), who sadly passed late last year.
Another insightful aspect of Garage is the non-NZ music that was chosen for spotlight, including Alex Chilton and Big Star (not a surprise) and The Cramps (kind of a surprise, until one recalls the live album RockinnReelininAucklandNewZealandXXX). In the tidy review sections can be found positive words on Meat Puppets and the early SST Records compilation A Blasting Concept, and notably, a lukewarm take on the NME’s C86 collection. The latter might read as unusual until it registers that by 1986, much of the Kiwi underground was moving beyond jangle (Xpressway Pile=Up was just around the corner).
If Pull Down The Shades’ cover image looks familiar, then you’ve likely gazed upon the sleeve of The Clean’s classic “Boodle Boodle Boodle” EP, which featured a cover drawing by Chris Knox modeled on this very photo by Carol Tippet. That’s a surefire way to hook longtime fans of New Zealand’s u-ground music scene, but trust that the book’s contents exceed expectations by a considerable margin.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
