The Chills perform Pink Frost

The Chills’ Pink Frost

The Chills were the first band I ever saw. Well, actually, they were the first band I never saw, despite my best intentions. I was fifteen at the time, and my friend got word that the seminal Flying Nun act, who hailed from the deepest, darkest trenches of Dunedin, New Zealand, were to play a show that night at the now long gone Max’s in Petersham, Sydney. We had to go. It was The Chills, the very symbol of low-fi sullen rebellion, with their ruddy cheeks and out of tune guitars. So we whacked handfulls of gel in our hair and resolved to sneak our way past the doorman. Only my friend arrived at the venue a little earlier than me (his Dad was clearly a better driver than mine) and promptly sauntered into the venue, while I was turned away for ‘obviously being a minor’. Dammit! They were probably better on record anyway.

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The Chills’ Heavenly Pop Hit

At first listen, The Chills were like nothing else when they burst out of the relatively cloistered confines of the Dunedin student set way back in the early 1980s. Only, in retrospect, they were kinda like so much of the rest of the Flying Nun roster: lo-fi, wearily melodic, understated, and joyously brash in their use of lush vocal harmonies and ringing guitar licks. It was simply divine. And the first time I heard this song, Heavenly Pop Hit, I thought it was exactly that: the most decadent single imaginable. Some twenty years later, it still sounds fresh. [Click here to listen to Heavenly Pop Hit]

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The Bats play Mastery live on New Zealand TV

When I was teenager, I was obsessed with the bands that seeped out of sleepy Dunedin, in New Zealand’s ruggedly beautiful South Island. There was an absolute contrast back then between those acts on the Flying Nun label, presided over with paternal wariness by the godfather of low-fi pop, Chris Knox, and the slicker bands that emanated out of the upper reaches of the North Island. I liked the immediacy and the accessibility of the South Island acts, particularly The Chills, The Clean and The Bats. This grainy, weather-beaten footage captures The Bats at their melodic best; bass clunkers, pasty faces and all.

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