Vinyl Vault – “NZ Music”

Weird Culture – Weird Custom (1986) was, as far as I know, the first record release co-ordinated by the entire New Zealand stu­dent radio net­work. There were twelve tracks on the album, two chosen by each of the six mem­ber sta­tions.  Radio Active selec­ted the two  to rep­res­ent Wellington: cow-punk combo the Crawbilly Creeps with “A Day in Lucky Gulch” and feminist-folkies Putty in Her Hands gave us “NZ Music” which became an instant favor­ite and was oft-requested for a long time afterwards.

Putty in Her Hands were a duo con­sist­ing of Charlotte Yates and Christine Jeffs. Yates con­tin­ues to write and record, con­tinu­ing to release solo records and also put­ting togeth­er the acclaimed com­pil­a­tions of NZ poetry set to music, Baxter (2000),  Tuwhare (2008) and Ihimaera (2011).

After the only offi­cial Putty in Her Hands release (trick of the Light in 1987) Jeffs took a dif­fer­ent turn and became a film­maker. Her first fea­ture film, Rain in 2001, received tre­mend­ous acclaim and led to the Hollywood fin­anced pic­tures Sylvia (2003) and Sunshine Cleaning (2008).

Have a listen to “NZ Music” here. It’s quite lovely.

[audio:https://funeralsandsnakes.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/03‑N.Z.-Music.mp3|titles=Putty in Her Hands “NZ Music” (1986)]

Other not­ables on Weird Culture – Weird Custom were Jean-Paul Sartre Experience with the very poppy “Let That Good Thing Grow” but my favor­ite track (oth­er than Putty) was “Happy” by 3 Leaning Men from Palmerston North, a band which fea­tured Alan Gregg who later joined The Mutton Birds. According to Wikipedia, “Another mem­ber of the group, Rhys Bevan, moved to the South Island of New Zealand and began a career as a baker.”

[audio:https://funeralsandsnakes.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/09-Happy.mp3|titles=3 Leaning Men “Happy” (1986)]