En Masse “Break My Heart”
The En Masse story goes a little something like this. A couple of Christchurch businessmen noticed the success of overseas boybands and their successful managers. They fancied themselves to be the Lou Perlmans of the South Pacific so they put together a boyband called En Masse. There’s an amazing promo video of the group, that...
Damien Binder “Turn Me Round”
There are plenty of music videos that are set in classrooms, but the learning facility of “Turn Me Around” is delightfully surreal. Damien enters a classrom where all the students are men his age, all neatly dressed in the same suit. Teaching the class is a young woman, who has drawn some diagrams on the...
Satellite Spies “It Must Be Love”
Satellite Spies had one good song – their 1985 hit “Destiny in Motion”. But it turns out their 1992 single “It Must Be Love” was an ever bigger hit, peaking at #9 and hanging around the charts for almost six months. The Satellite Spies of the “It Must Be Love” era were led by Deane...
World Gone Wild “Touch”
Researching World Gone Wild got me sucked right down a google hole while finding out about the career Stanley Manthyng, one half of the goth-pop duo. Firstly: best name ever. Since the end of World Gone Wild he’s gone on to other projects, including co-writing four songs for Double J and Twice the T. He...
Missing videos from April 2001
Last seen in 1997, Dam Native returned with the boistrous “Terminal Illness” (which eventually showed up on their 2010 album “Aotearoa Nobody Does It Better”). Their video funding in the ’00s was more spasmodic than in the ’90s, with an average of one video funded every two years. (Audio) Sounding like the name of a...
Total Magenta “Kamikaze”
The YouTube description for this video notes, “I don’t really know anything about them, just found it on an old VHS tape.” That’s what I like to see. Get those old videos online, especially if they seem obscure. Total Magenta were an Auckland four-piece, at the centre of which was blonde bombshell Lorna Storm, a...
The Ross Brothers “Yippie Ki Yay”
Sometimes the world of NZ On Air-funded music videos throws in some real gems. Presenting the Ross Brothers, a high school band from Oamaru. Their big break was from winning a song competition for a national Coke ad campaign, and soon after came a profile on the Holmes show. This got them the attention of...
The D4 “Party”
After three missing videos, finally the D4 turn up with “Party” a song about partying. By this stage the group had a little chart success in the UK (something they never experienced in New Zealand) and were well regarded as part of the cool new rock ‘n’ roll scene that was shaking up the early...
Te Vaka “Pate Pate”
“Pate Pate” is an ode to having a good time dancing to the sweet rhythms of the pate log drum. Sung in Tokelauan (a rarity in the world of NZ On Air video funding), it’s an upbeat and highly danceable number. According to Wikipedia, the song was “number one in the South Pacific”, but, uh,...
Tadpole “Better Days”
“Better Days” was the final video of the seven songs released off “The Buddhafinger”. Tadpole’s previous videos have all had their own style and “Better Days” continues that with the Wade Shotter-directed video being done in anime style. We meet the band in their Japanese-style animated form being taunted by their nemesis, a thuggish, green-skinned...
Steriogram “White Trash”
This was “the video that started things off for us in New Zealand,” notes the Vimeo description. And indeed it was, with the sight of a skinny-arse, grease-covered, mulleted lead rapper Tyson kicking off the band’s burst of fame. Tyson is in character as a hardcore westie/bogan type, with a hairdo reminiscent of Dave Spade’s...
P-Money “Scribe 2001″
“Scribe 2001″ was a P-Money track (and the opening track on his debut album) but the song was undeniably about the young rapper Scribe. The early 2000s were good for Scribe, the golden years before things started to get complicated. With P-Money’s sophisticated beats, “Scribe 2001″ is an introduction to this fresh MC who had...
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