continuing the band’s tradition of getting together on the 1st Sunday of Aotearoa’s daylight saving.
The weather was so abysmal this time that the drummer didn’t want to bike over in the rain, and so it was just Dave and Antony for this one (though Dave did jump on the drums for the last track).
“Weirdly perverse all-over-the-place free-form jam recorded at a practice for a gig. Pretty much zero editing so it is what it is (…). Veers between NZ garage squall and free jazz skronk with epic relentless drumming from Mr Heath. Copied onto disk as a quickie give away for the show.”
“A few months between drinks but The Troubled Times are back with perhaps their ‘dustiest’ session yet. The whole thing was recorded onto Dave Edwards‘ phone resulting in a slightly more lo-fi sound than usual. Murky drones, percussive clatter and spasms of edgy delay soaked bliss. A mumbled song.” – Antony Milton
“Sometime in 2024 a battered old home dubbed cassette was found in a local charity shop. Hand written on the cover was ‘Graveyard show, Masterton radio, 1998’. It was 20c and I figured it was worth the punt. As the text suggested it was an after midnight radio show, mainly made up of – to my ears- mediocre (or at least very dated) grindcore and industrial techno. Not my bag at all really- but the in-between banter was GOLD. I true snapshot of the generally ‘munted’ nature of Masterton at that time. (Its only moderately improved since to be honest). I only remembered the existence of this tape when the idea struck me to do this compilation- why not swap out the music but keep the banter? I make no claims to this being anything like a reliable overview of underground music in the Wairarapa. All the towns here are ‘small town’ small towns, generally very conservative and less than likely to celebrate their ‘weirdos’. All the same I’ve gotten to know a fair few of them over the 7 years I’ve been here and had been tipped off to a couple more. There must be some I just haven’t stumbled across yet however. It was particularly exciting for me to finally hear Spectrum Is Green as David (Heath– the drummer in The Troubled Times) had always been a little elusive about this band from the 1980s that he had fronted. Finally he gave me their unreleased album from 1988 to listen to. Its gobsmackingly great and WILL be getting released shortly. David also gave me a cdr of a singer/songwriter from Masterton named Brent Grey to check out. This was recorded in 1999 and is also a true treasure. The track on here was so perfect that its title became the title of the entire compilation. Most of the other stuff is a lot more recent. Some of the names will be familiar but I’m sure many won’t. I also made the perhaps perverse decision to go with somewhat more ‘approachable’ tracks from each artist. For the most part anyway. I have given a full breakdown of each artist on their individual track pages which can be linked to by clicking on the respective title.” – Antony Milton
Join us to launch Beneath the Underdog (BTU), an old-school DIY, fanzine focusing on local music, arts and ideas from the fringes. With BTU we hope to shine a wee spotlight on people doing interesting and creative things and comment on things we think deserve attention.
Be the first to get your hands on Issue 1 (bound to become a rare collector’s item!), and get down to live sets from our friends and fellow contributors, Ken Double, Zac Winterwood and FFSE (Featherston Free Sound Ensemble).
And if that wasn’t awesome enough already, you will also be among the first ever visitors to Murtle Chickpea’s Tiny Travelling Art Gallery, full of tiny little pieces of art (for sale!), which Murtle will be bringing along for the night.
