Tag: Auckland New Zealand

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Veils Share Lush and Contemplative “No Limit of Stars”

Born in London, acclaimed singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and frontman of The Veils, Finn Andrews spent his teenaged years attending high school in Auckland. Largely disinterested in school, Andrews spent the bulk of his free time playing in several bands — and writing the material that would later comprise The Veils full-length debut, 2004’s The Runaway Found. When he was 16, a set of demos he sent to record companies created some buzz and led to invitations for him to return to London to record an album. 

Andrews and The Veils were signed almost immediately to Blanco y Negro, an indie/major hybrid imprint led by Rough Trade label head Geoff Travis. The band released a handful of singles including the promo-only single “Death & Co,” their commercial single debut, “More Heat Than Light,” and “The Leavers Dance,” a single distributed exclusively at gigs. By 2003, increasing contractual disparities and creative differences between the head of Warner and Travis wound up delaying plans for the band’s full-length debut. 

Blanco Y Negro closed up shop and the dispute turned into a court battle with The Veils regaining ownership of their masters from Warner. By mid-2003, Travis signed the band to Rough Trade. The band went on to record four more songs with former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, including “Guiding Light,” “Lavinia,” and “The Wild Son,” which led to the release of the band’s full-length debut, The Runaway Found. Although the album was released to rapturous critical applause, Andrews felt unhappy with the band’s creative direction — and after alleged altercations between him and the other members, The Veils’ first lineup split up two months after their debut album’s release. 

In early 2005, Andrews went on a solo tour of the States and Japan, eventually returning to New Zealand, where he rehearsed with high school friends Liam Gerrard (keys) and Sophia Burn (bass) in Gerrard’s bedroom, quickly amassing an album’s worth of material. When the trio returned to London, Dan Raishbrook (guitar) and Henning Dietz (drums) joined the band, completing the band’s second lineup. 

Early the following year, then-newly minted quintet started recording sessions with Nick Launay in Los Angeles, which resulted in their sophomore album, that year’s Nux Vonica. Released to critical applause, with the album landing on the Best of Year lists of both American and British journalists, Nux Vonica had a darker, heavier and much more complex sound, bolstered by string arrangements by former Lounge Lizard, Jane Scarpantoni. 

Over the course of the next 16 months, the band played over 250 shows across 15 countries. But during the Stateside leg of the tour, the band announced that Liam Gerrard was leaving the band to return home, due to personal reasons. The band continued onward as a quartet, and while living out of a classic garage in Oklahoma City, started recording demos at The Flaming Lips‘ studio between Stateside tour dates of the East and West coasts. 

By mid-2008, they returned to London to work on their third album with Graham Sutton. The three-week session at West Point Studios resulted in 2009’s Sun Gangs, an album that continued a remarkable run of critically applauded material — with the album appearing on a number of Best of Lists that year. 

2011’s Finn Andrews and Bernard Butler co-produced Troubles of the Brain EP marked several major changes for the band: They had left Rough Trade, their longtime label home of nine years and started their own label Pitch Beast Records. 

2013’s Time Stays, We Go was recorded in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles and was supported with a 150-date world tour with sold shows across North America, Europe and New Zealand. Once the tour ended, Andrews told NME in an interview that the band had moved into their own studio in East London and had already begun work on a new record, slated for release in 2016. He also mentioned that he had been commissioned to write an orchestral piece to commemorate the Antipodean dead of World War I, which would be performed in Belgium. 

2016’s Total Depravity was recorded in Los Angeles, London, NYC and Porto and features production by El-P, Adam Greenspan and Dean Hurley. The same month of the album’s release, David Lynch announced that Andrews would appear in the Twin Peaks reboot. The band with Andrews performed album single “Axolotl,” on episode 15. 

Following the release of Total Depravity, Andrews released a solo album and supported it with a world tour. One night, while lashing out at a particularly intense moment on piano, he broke his wrist on stage. “It sounds wild and Jerry Lee Lewis-esque, but it was an absolute fucking nightmare,” Andrews says. He played on and finished the tour, but it wasn’t until after he got the wrist examined much later, that he learned that was a major mistake. “The scaphoid bone in my wrist had died, which I didn’t know was possible. My sister said that at least it was a really ‘on brand’ injury for me.”

Andrews’ convalescence necessitated a lengthy hiatus from touring, so he spent his free time at home writing songs. “I was in a cast and couldn’t use my right hand. I sang the melody lines, then recorded the right hand piano part, then the left hand part,” Andrews recalls. “It might have been an interesting, avant-garde process if it wasn’t also just profoundly annoying.” 

When his wrist had healed enough to allow him to play again, The Veils also found themselves in need of a new label, but in the meantime Andrews was determined to write and record an album regardless. Tom Healy invited Andrews to his studio, where they listened to the massive amount of songs he had written throughout the previous year. “Tom was incredibly patient. It was a really laborious process,” Andrews says. “I brought a lot of junk down there and we had to sift through it all to try and find the parts worth saving.”

During the past two years of intermittent recording between pandemic-related lockdowns, Andrews’ wife gave birth and he wound up writing even more songs. By the time the songs were recorded with a backing band that featured Cass Basil (bass), Joseph McCallum (drums) and longtime bandmates Liam Gerrard (piano) and Dan Raishbrook (lap steel, guitar) and guest spots from NZTrio, who play string arrangements by Victoria Kelly. and Smoke Fairies, who contribute backing vocals, it was clear that the album’s material should be split into two halves to best suit such varied songs. But for a while, the overall meaning of the songs was eluded Andrews. “Then my daughter was born, and suddenly the whole record made sense to me,” he says. The music was telling a story, and somewhat strangely for The Veils, it seemed to have a happy ending.

The Veils’ forthcoming album . . . And Out of The Void Came Love is informed by and is the result of the past two-plus years of convalescence confinement, uncertainty and questioning. Structurally, the album is meant to listened in two sittings with a short break in the middle. Or as Andrews instructs us, “Make a coffee or smoke a cigarette – but don’t mow the lawn or go to the movies or something, that takes too long.”

Last month, I wrote about . . . And Out of The Void Came Love‘s first single “Undertow,” an atmospheric and brooding song centered around an arrangement of twinkling keys, reverb-drenched guitar textures, dramatic, glistening bursts of pedal steel and padded drumming paired with Andrews’ hushed delivery. As The Veils’ frontman explains, “In the year before I started writing this album, I really didn’t think I’d ever write another album again. I was done. I’d irreparably broken my wrist on stage. Then this song came shimmying down the drainpipe, and it really seemed to be willing me to carry on. It is, embarrassingly enough, a song about writing songs, written at what I admit was a pretty low ebb for me emotionally. Both my parents are writers, and though I am grateful to it for the life it continues to afford me, it is a complex genetic inheritance.”

The album’s second and latest single “No Limit of Stars” pairs Andrews’ plaintive and emotive delivery with a lush and swooning soundscape that nods at indie folk, shoegaze and classic Nashville country. Throughout the song Andrews’ narrator contemplates many of the themes of album including “the certainty of death, the power of new life, and the dizziness of contemplating yourself in an unknowably vast cosmos,” Andrews explains.

Directed by Tim Flower, the accompanying video was shot on 16mm film. The video stars Lucas Armstrong as “Warren” and Ella Finer as “The Voice.” The Voice has prepared a gorgeous presentation for Warren, depicting various aspects of human life. We also see the band performing in front of some of that same footage. The video its heavily inspired by the 1970s thriller The Parallax View.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Though born in London, acclaimed singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and frontman of The Veils, Finn Andrews spent his teenaged years attending high school in Auckland. Largely disinterested in school, Andrews spent the bulk of his free time playing in several bands — and writing the material that would later comprise The Veils full-length debut, 2004’s The Runaway Found. When he was 16, a set of demos he sent to record companies created some buzz and led to invitations for him to return to London to record an album.

Andrews and The Veils were signed almost immediately to Blanco y Negro, an indie/major hybrid imprint led by Rough Trade label head Geoff Travis. The band released a handful of singles including the promo-only single “Death & Co,” their commercial single debut, “More Heat Than Light,” and “The Leavers Dance,” a single distributed exclusively at gigs. By 2003, increasing contractual disparities and creative differences between the head of Warner and Travis wound up delaying plans for the band’s full-length debut.

Blanco Y Negro closed up shop and the dispute turned into a court battle with The Veils regaining ownership of their masters from Warner. By mid-2003, Travis signed the band to Rough Trade. The band went on to record four more songs with former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, including “Guiding Light,” “Lavinia,” and “The Wild Son,” which led to the release of the band’s full-length debut, The Runaway Found. Although the album was released to rapturous critical applause, Andrews felt unhappy with the band’s creative direction — and after alleged altercations between him and the other members, The Veils’ first lineup split up two months after their debut album’s release.

In early 2005, Andrews went on a solo tour of the States and Japan, eventually returning to New Zealand, where he rehearsed with high school friends Liam Gerrard (keys) and Sophia Burn (bass) in Gerrard’s bedroom, quickly amassing an album’s worth of material. When the trio returned to London, Dan Raishbrook (guitar) and Henning Dietz (drums) joined the band, completing the band’s second lineup.

Early the following year, then-newly minted quintet started recording sessions with Nick Launay in Los Angeles, which resulted in their sophomore album, that year’s Nux Vonica. Released to critical applause, with the album landing on the Best of Year lists of both American and British journalists, Nux Vonica had a darker, heavier and much more complex sound, bolstered by string arrangements by former Lounge Lizard Jane Scarpantoni.

Over the course of the next 16 months, the band played over 250 shows across 15 countries. But during the Stateside leg of the tour, the band announced that Liam Gerrard was leaving the band to return home, due to personal reasons. The band continued onward as a quartet, and while living out of a classic garage in Oklahoma City, started recording demos at The Flaming Lips‘ studio between Stateside tour dates of the East and West coasts.

By mid-2008, they returned to London to work on their third album with Graham Sutton. The three-week session at West Point Studios resulted in 2009’s Sun Gangs, an album that continued a remarkable run of critically applauded material — with the album appearing on a number of Best of Lists that year.

2011’s Finn Andrews and Bernard Butler co-produced Troubles of the Brain EP marked several major changes for the band: They had left Rough Trade, their longtime label home of nine years and started their own label Pitch Beast Records.

2013’s Time Stays, We Go was recorded in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles and was supported with a 150-date world tour with sold shows across North America, Europe and New Zealand. Once the tour ended, Andrews told NME in an interview that the band had moved into their own studio in East London and had already begun work on a new record, slated for release in 2016. He also mentioned that he had been commissioned to write an orchestral piece to commemorate the Antipodean dead of World War I, which would be performed in Belgium.

2016’s Total Depravity was recorded in Los Angeles, London, NYC and Porto and features production by El-P, Adam Greenspan and Dean Hurley. The same month of the album’s release, David Lynch announced that Andrews would appear in the Twin Peaks reboot. The band with Andrews performed album single “Axolotl,” on episode 15.

Following the release of Total Depravity, Andrews released a solo album and supported it with a world tour. One night, while lashing out at a particularly intense moment on piano, he broke his wrist on stage. “It sounds wild and Jerry Lee Lewis-esque, but it was an absolute fucking nightmare,” Andrews says. He played on and finished the tour, but it wasn’t until after he got the wrist examined much later, that he learned that was a major mistake. “The scaphoid bone in my wrist had died, which I didn’t know was possible. My sister said that at least it was a really ‘on brand’ injury for me.”

Andrews’ convalescence necessitated a lengthy hiatus from touring, so he spent his free time at home writing songs. “I was in a cast and couldn’t use my right hand. I sang the melody lines, then recorded the right hand piano part, then the left hand part,” Andrews recalls. “It might have been an interesting, avant-garde process if it wasn’t also just profoundly annoying.” 

When his wrist had healed enough to allow him to play again, The Veils also found themselves in need of a new label, but in the meantime Andrews was determined to write and record an album regardless. Tom Healy invited Andrews to his studio, where they listened to the massive amount of songs he had written throughout the previous year. “Tom was incredibly patient. It was a really laborious process,” Andrews says. “I brought a lot of junk down there and we had to sift through it all to try and find the parts worth saving.”

During the past two years of intermittent recording between pandemic-related lockdowns, Andrews wife gave birth and he wound up writing even more songs. By the time the songs were recorded with a backing band that featured Cass Basil (bass), Joseph McCallum (drums) and longtime bandmates Liam Gerrard (piano) and Dan Raishbrook (lap steel, guitar) and guest spots from NZTrio, who play string arrangements by Victoria Kelly and Smoke Fairies, who contribute backing vocals, it was clear that the album’s material should be split into two halves to best suit such varied songs. But for a while, the overall meaning of the songs was eluded Andrews. “Then my daughter was born, and suddenly the whole record made sense to me,” he says. The music was telling a story, and somewhat strangely for The Veils, it seemed to have a happy ending.

The Veils’ forthcoming album . . . And Out of The Void Came Love is informed by and is the result of the past two-plus years of convalescence confinement, uncertainty and questioning. Structurally, the album is meant to listened in two sittings with a short break in the middle. Or as Andrews instructs us, “Make a coffee or smoke a cigarette – but don’t mow the lawn or go to the movies or something, that takes too long.”

. . . And Out of The Void Came Love‘s first single “Undertow,” is an atmospheric and brooding song centered around an arrangement of twinkling keys, reverb-drenched, guitar textures, dramatic, glistening bursts of pedal steel, padded drumming paired with Andrews’ hushed delivery. As The Veils’ frontman explains, “In the year before I started writing this album, I really didn’t think I’d ever write another album again. I was done. I’d irreparably broken my wrist on stage. Then this song came shimmying down the drainpipe, and it really seemed to be willing me to carry on. It is, embarrassingly enough, a song about writing songs, written at what I admit was a pretty low ebb for me emotionally. Both my parents are writers, and though I am grateful to it for the life it continues to afford me, it is a complex genetic inheritance.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the “120 Minutes” era MTV-like Sounds of Auckland’s Lexytron

Lexy is a Manchester, UK-born, Auckland, New Zealand-based singer/songwriter and guitarist who claims Greek, Persian and English heritage — or as she described herself as a young girl, “Half Greek, half Persian, half English.”Much like countless other musicians, her passion for music was stoked when she learned piano and violin as a girl.The British-born, Kiwi-based singer/songwriter and musician is the creative mastermind behind the emerging recording project Lexytron. 

Lexytron’s full-length debut Something Blue was recorded in London with City Reign’s Mike Grice and the album reportedly finds the emerging singer/songwriter crafting material with roaring riffs, lush strings and soaring choral arrangements in a  way that seamlessly meshing rock and classical music — while being an an indie rock girl’s guide to love, loss and lust. The album’s latest single “Blue” is a decidedly 120 Minutes-era MTV-like alt rock song centered around jangling power chords, soaring strings and the British-born, Kiwi-based artist’s plaintive vocals. 

Directed by Lexy and Mike Grice, the recently released video is an intimate, DIY video of the emerging singer/songwriter on the shore of Lake Pukaki, located on the New Zealand’s South Island. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Auckland, New Zealand-based indie rock outfit Miss June — comprised of Annabel Liddel (vocals, guitar), Jun Park (guitar), Chris Marshall (bass) and Tom Legget (drums) — have received attention both in their homeland and elsewhere for a jagged, feedback-driven alt rock meets New Wave meets No Wave sound that’s been described by some critics as “some unholy union between Sonic Youth and Le Tigre” and for a formidable, attention-grabbing live show that has earned them opening slots for Foo Fighters, Shellac, Wolf Alice, IDLES and Die! Die! Die!
Earlier this year, the Kiwi-based quartet signed to New York-based indie label Frenchkiss Records, who released their double A-side 7 “inch “Twitch”/”Best Girl” earlier this year. Now, as you may recall, I wrote about “Best Girl,” a riot grrrl-era punk and 90s alt rock-like track with a rousing, arena rock friendly, mosh-pit friendly hook. Both of those singles will be featured on the band’s highly-anticipated, full-length debut Bad Luck Party, which is slated for a September 6, 2019 release. Just a few days before the album hits the street, the band release the album’s final single, “Anomaly.” Built around a classic alt-rock song structure — quiet, loud, quiet — “Anomaly” may arguably feature the most straightforward yet explosive hook of the entire album.
“I have an incredible ability to attract individuals that are as flawed as I am. It’s made my life chaotic and beautiful. This song is about a girl. A girl I will never understand. A girl that’s a gun, a burning sun and an anomaly to me,” the band’s Annabel Lidell says of the song in press notes.”
The Auckland-based indie rock act will be embarking on a lengthy world tour throughout the fall and it’ll include an October 14, 2019 stop at Rough Trade. Check out the tour dates below.
TOUR DATES
September 6 – San Fran Bath House – Wellington
September 7 – Galatos – Auckland
September 11 – The Vanguard – Sydney
September 18 – Maze – Berlin
September 19 – Blue Shel – Cologne
September 20 – Reeperbahn Festival – Hamburg
September 23 – Cinetol – Amsterdam
September 24 – Trix – Antwerp
September 28 – The Flapper – Birmingham
September 29 – Yes – Manchester
September 30 – Headrow House – Leeds
October 1 – Poetry Club – Glasgow
October 2 – Sneaky Petes – Edinburgh
October 5 – Tiny Rebel – Cardiff
October 6 – Port Mahon – Oxford
October 7 – Rough Trade, Bristol
October 9 – Latest Music, Brighton
October 10 – The Lexington, London
October 14 – Rough Trade – Brooklyn, NY
October 15 – Once – Boston, MA
October 16 – DC9 – Washington, DC
October 17 – Kung Fu Necktie – Philadelphia, PA
October 19 – Velvet Underground – Toronto, ON
October 21 – Subterranean – Chicago, IL
October 23 – The Basement – Nashville, TN
October 24 – The Earl – Atlanta, GA
October 27 – Bronze Peacock – Houston, TX
October 28 – Hotel Vegas – Austin, TX
November 1 – Valley Bar – Phoenix, AZ
November 2 – Moroccan – Los Angeles, CA
November 4 – Rickshaw Stop – San Francisco, CA
+FURTHER NORTH AMERICA DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED
Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Up-and-Coming Kiwi Band Miss June Releases Feverish Visuals for Mosh Pit Banger “Best Girl”

Miss June is an up-and-coming Auckland, New Zealand-based indie rock quartet, comprised of Annabel Liddel (vocals, guitar), Jun Park (guitar), Chris Marshall (bass) and Tom Legget (drums), and in their homeland, they’ve received attention for a jagged, feedback-driven alt rock meets New Wave and No Wave sound that’s been described as “some unholy union between Sonic Youth and Le Tigre” and for a formidable, attention-grabbing live show that has earned them opening slots for Foo Fighters, Shellac, Wolf Alice, Idles and Die! Die! Die!

The Kiwi-based band has recently signed to acclaimed New York indie label Frenchkiss Records, who will be releasing their double A-side 7 inch “Twitch”/”Best Girl” on June 10, 2019. Building upon a growing profile, the band will be playing shows in London, Los Angeles and New York; in fact, they’ll be playing three shows in town: June 17, 2019 at Elsewhere, June 18, 2019 at Berlin Under A and June 20, 2019 at Union Pool with Twen. (You can check out the tour dates below.) The double A side 7 inch’s latest single “Best Girl” immediately recalls riot grrrl-era punk and 90s alt rock, as the track is centered around Liddel’s sultry vocal delivery, fuzzy distortion pedaled power chords, thunderous drumming and and an rousing, arena rock meets mosh pit friendly hook. The song as the band says in press notes “is anthem for anyone, who has been misled from birth, into battle for a spot that doesn’t exist.” 

Directed by Chi’lita Collins and shot in the band’s hometown of Auckland, the recently released video for “Best Girl” features the band getting out of a broke down hoopty and passionately performing the song in a wind-swept  suburban backyard. But just behind them is some surrealistic, logic-defying action — a man wearing a suit and a tiger face paint pulls a passenger out of the trunk, who begins dancing on top of the car. Their drum kit is set on fire, another older, Rick Rubin lookalike tries to put it out and stands next to the man in the suit, watching dispassionately. Simply put it’s a 120 Minutes-era MTV fever dream. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Over the past year or so, I’ve written quite a bit about the London-based garage punk quartet The Cavemen, and as you may recall, the band can trace its origins to when its founding members, Paul Caveman (vocals), Jack Caveman (guitar, vocals), Nick Caveman (bass) and Jake Caveman (drums) met attending high school in Auckland, New Zealand. Reportedly, the members of the band bonded over a shared love of sniffing glue and wild rock ‘n’ roll. After spending several years drinking and loitering in their hometown’s basements, graveyards and parking lots, they honed their sound, eventually spending the better part of 2014-2015 recording their full-length debut. Interestingly, their debut album received attention locally for their ability to craft furious, face-melting power chord-based punk, inspired by The Ramones, The Cramps, The Stooges, and The MC5. Thematically, the material found the band making references about grave-robbing, necrophilia and other perverse, Troma Films-inspired shit but with a sneering sense of humor.

Just two weeks before the band was about to relocate to London, they went on a national graveyard tour that became infamous for its tackiness and for being ill-fated: the band’s Nick Caveman died in a tragic car accident, which forced the cancellation of the rest of the tour. Since then, Dirty Water Records released their debut across the European Union and elsewhere — and as a result of album single “Stand By Your Ghoul” and their “Burn Out For Love” 7 inch, the now London-based received international attention for boozy and filthy punk rippers.

They built upon their growing reputation for old-school-inspired punk rippers with the release of last year’s Nuke Earth and the “Lowlife” 7 inch, which featured the Johnny Thunders‘ “Born to Lose,” Highway to Hell-era AC/DC and New York Dolls-like “Lowlife.” Interestingly, this year has been a rather busy year for the London-based punk rockers, as they quickly followed the “Lowlife” 7 inch with the breakneck, filthy, troglodyte stomp of “My Baby Knows.” Centered by buzzing power chords, a rousing, mosh pit friendly hook, shouted vocals and a boozy Chuck Berry-like solo, the track is frenzied and furious take on ’77 era punk, compete with Troma Films-like lyrics.

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

Born Julia van der Torn, the up-and-coming singer/songwriter Julia Zahra was born in Indianapolis and raised in The Netherlands. In 2013, Zahra auditioned for the fourth season of The Voice of Holland with an acoustic cover of Britney Spears‘ “Oops I Did It Again” that has since amassed over 6 million steams of Spotify; as a result of the popularity of her cover, an 18 year-old Zahra became one of the show’s youngest winners to date.

After winning The Voice of Holland, Zahra released her full-length debut. The following year, Zahra competed in the Dutch TV singing competition show, The Best Singers of The Netherlands, a show in which each artist performs covers of each competing artist’s material — and she wound up winning that show. “Just an Illusion,” which she sang on the show shot up the Dutch iTunes charts in 2015, and by 2016 the song was picked up in Fiji, where it’s still a Top 10 song, and eventually across much of the Pacific. Recently, the song was played on radio stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and parts of Canada, amassing over 4 million Spotify streams. Building upon a growing international profile. Zahra spent 2 months touring the Pacific including Fiji’s Vodafone Arena and a sold-out Club Royalz show in Auckland, New Zealand.

Last year, the American-born, Dutch-based singer/songwriter released the Something New EP, a collection of stripped down, acoustic versions of her previously released material. And since the release of Something New, Zahra has been busy playing sold-out live dates across Holland while gearing up to release new material, including her latest single, the empowered, “I ain’t taking your shit anymore” anthem “Do You.” Centered around a slick production that pairs looping acoustic guitar with thumping electro pop, a rousing hook and Zahra’s emotional, pop belter-like vocals, the song is about recognizing when you can’t trust someone you’ve been involved with, trusting your own instincts and doing what’s necessary to move on.

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Cavemen Return with a Scuzzy and Boozy New Single Paired with Debauched Visuals

Earlier this year, I wrote about the Auckland, New Zealand-based punk rock quartet The Cavemen, and as you may recall, the band which was originally comprised of Paul Caveman (vocals), Jack Caveman (guitar, vocals), Nick Caveman (bass) and Jake Caveman (drums), formed while in high school — with the band’s founding members bonding over a shared love of glue and wild rock ‘n’ roll. After spending several years drinking and loitering around their hometown’s basements, graveyards and parking lots, the band’s original lineup honed their sound and over the course of 2014-2015 or so recorded their full-length debut, which received attention locally for material that could be roughly described as face-melting and furious punk that drew from The Ramones, The Cramps, The Stooges, The MC5 and others but thematically focused on grave-robbing, necrophilia and other weird shit with a sneering sense of humor; in fact, they’ve developed a reputation for being infamous — or as the band once claimed they were a “great band to clear a party.” 

As the story goes, just two weeks before the members of The Cavemen were to relocate to London, they went on an infamous national tour to support their debut album, and unsurprisingly, the tour included an ill-fated graveyard tour that had to be canceled when the band’s Nick Caveman died in a tragic car accident: their tour van’s engine exploded, and as Nick Caveman was trying to see what was wrong, a passing motorist hit him. Now as you’d also recall, the British record label Dirty Water Records re-released their debut album for release in Europe and elsewhere, and from album single “Stand By Your Ghoul,” the band specialized in filthy, cretinous punk, centered around fuzzy power chords and howled lyrics. Unsurprisingly, the band has released the “Burn Out For Love” 7 inch and it’s a boozy, grimy and filthy punk ripper, full of power chords, amphetamine-fueled drummer and howled vocals. Sonically speaking, the song brings to mind, punk’s riotous boozy and revolutionary roots. 

The accompanying video is a cheap and scuzzy cut and paste job on the Mexican punksploitation film Intrepidos Punks featuring the prerequisite debauched orgy of car crashes, breasts and gratuitous biker violence. Enjoy! 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: British Label Dirty Water Records to Re-Issue Infamous New Zealand Punk Rockers’ Debut

Originally comprised of Paul Caveman (vocals), Jack Caveman (guitar, vocals), Nick Caveman (bass) and Jake Caveman (drums), the Auckland, New Zealand-based punk rock quartet The Cavemen formed while in high school — with the band’s founding members bonding over a shared love of glue and wild rock ‘n’ roll. And as the story goes, after spending several years drinking and loitering around their hometown’s basements, graveyards and packing lots, the members of the band honed their sound, recording their full-length debut over the course of 2014-2015 or so, with the material receiving attention for being furious, face-melting punk that drew from The Ramones, The Cramps, The Stooges, The MC5 and others with songs that focused on grave-robbing, necrophilia and other weird shit with a sneering sense of humor, and for developing a reputation for being infamous — or as the band once claimed that they were a “great band to clear a party.”

As the story goes, two weeks before the members of the band were to relocate to London, they went on an equally infamous national tour to support their debut, and the tour included a now, ill-fated show in a graveyard was canceled when the tour van’s engine exploded and a passing motorist collided with the band’s bassist, Nick Caveman. British record label Dirty Water Records are re-releasing the Auckland, New Zealand-based punk rockers debut album for release in Europe and elsewhere, and from album single “Stand By Your Ghoul,” the band’s sound is a filthy, troglodyte stomp, complete with layers of fuzzy power chords and howled lyrics. And honestly, every single time I’ve heard it, I keep thinking of how it would fit in the dank and dirty dive bars that I spent so much time in during my 20s and 30s.

Starring Florence D’Hay and The Cavemen, the video for “Stand by Your Ghoul” draws from 60s B movies — but with a ridiculous, tongue in cheek vibe, complete with zombies, graveyards and weird rituals.