Getting Even Olderer--Tally Ho!--Flying Nun's Greatest Bits--Happy 30th!

"Roger slings the hits"

So New Zealand's Flying Nun Records is 30 years old this year and is once more helmed by its original founding father, Roger Shepard. If you are paying attention to things, it seems as though they are sorting out their back catalogue and re releasing some superb music that has been out of print for many years. They also have been selling some pretty cool looking nostalgic T-Shirts on their website. So many great bands put out music on this label, like The Chills, Jean-Paul Sartre Experience, The Clean, Straitjacket Fits, Able Tasmans, The Bats, Pin Group, Bailter Space/Gordons, Tall Dwarfs, Verlaines, Cakekitchen, Look Blue Go Purple, The 3D's, Dead C, Sneaky Feeling and so on and so forth. Here's hoping that some great new artists will have their music released sooner than later.



Of course if you are unfamiliar with these names, or only the most notable in the bunch, you will be happy to know that after all these years, Flying Nun has released a 2 Cd Greatest Hits collection. If you want to dip your toe into the waters of the Kiwi rock scene, this would be a very logical place to start. Sure they have put numerous samplers out in the past, and they put out a big fat 25th Anniversary Box set which is a work of art (which unfortunately did not include rarities or anything too far off the beaten path). I don't own the new collection, but the tracks lean toward the earlier years, but as it is an overview includes more recent bands like High Depency Unit, The Subliminals, and Phoenix Foundation. The recording includes the classic Randolph's Coming Home, by Shayne Carter and Peter Jefferies, one of my favorite songs, a grand, moving elegy to Wayne Elsey, who played with Shane in Bored Games, who died in a train accident. One of the great New Zealand songs. Buddy by Peter Gutteridge's band Snapper is another great tune that more people should get to know.



But I don't want to over-dwell on things here. Unless you want to whole hog and start picking up legendary records like The Chill's Submarine Bells, give this collection a spin. I was fortunate to have seen a cross section of these groups when they toured the US, and I assure you that as far the quality of this music is, nobody has any right to put baby in a corner. Check out this new compilation and discover why I've devoted so much blogspace to the Dunedin sound. Happy Thanksgiving!