Category: 1993

Shihad “Derail”

In the mid ’90s, I remember video maker Greg Page saying he’d made his own version of a video for “Derail”, which the band had declined in favour of this one with roller coasters in it that was not cut to the beat.

The “Derail” video is fairly arty. It’s black and white and features footage of: a horse racetrack and punters, cathedrals, a cow in a field, a man playing golf, amusements at Rainbow’s End, and various sights along State Highway One, particularly around Huntly.

It’s a bleak vision of Kiwiana, the sort of thing that would end up in an exhibition at the Dowse Art Museum. Is this video better than Mr Page’s more traditional video based on live footage? Maybe, but I while the visuals are great, I can’t help feeling there’s a disconnect between that and the song.

Best bit: the Rainbow’s End bird mascot shakes its tailfeather.




Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… flip of the coin, flick of the hair.

Supergroove “Scorpio Girls”

When an 18-year-old dude sings about “Scorpio Girls”, those “bad bitchin’ babes [who] get my guitar strumming”, you know it’s not realistically based on a reality of a man tormented by a never-ending influx of devilwomen messing up his life. It’s more likely about being an 18-year-old who wants to have sex but all the girls say no.

This “Scorpio Girls” video takes place in three locations – a live concert, a dark spooky room (via the Northhead tunnels), and the chamber of Scorpio Girls. The chamber is a white room where girls in black jeans and sweatshirts shove the band. It looks exactly like a bunch of girls who’ve been instructed to shove a band around for a music video, and most of them are obviously really enjoying themselves, looking more like “Whee-hee! I’m in a Supergroove music video!” than “Grrr! I’m a Scorpio Girl! Hide ur penis!”

This all goes to prove that the Scorpio Girls concept is a purely fictional construct. There are no Scorpio Girls, just fans who dig Supergroove. But it is good the song exists, because it has the great chant-along “Oooooh! Ah-ha!” bit.

Best bit: DIY lighting effects – waving torches while running through the dark tunnels.




Director: Kerry Brown
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… region rock whippersnappers.

Straitjacket Fits “If I Were You”

After years of this video only being available on weird European websites, finally NZ On Screen have stepped up and are hosting it. Hooray!

It helps that the “If I Were You” video looks a bit like the opening titles of a Bond film, but instead of naked ladies, it’s the Straitjacket Fits that are presented in overlapping colourful images, complete with water shimmers and fireworks.

“If I Were You” was the Straitjacket Fits final NZ On Air-funded video, and indeed their final single. It’s not such a great swansong – all angry and paranoid (though with some lovely guitar), but the video manages to take the edge of the anger.

Best bit: Fireworks!

Director: Andrew Dominik
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… bad bitchin’ babes.

Holy Toledos “Not To Say”

I am utterly charmed by this band. They are a five-piece folk-rock band, with a 100% geek membership. Their lead singer has a cherub-faced look going on, and they all look like they’ve been taking music lessons since they were kids.

The band play the song in a slightly shabby looking Vulcan Lane of the 90s, in front of a wall of band posters (one for an Elvis impersonator). The inner-city location gives the band an edge of cool, but did they even need it? The song chorus even ends with the hilariously anti-BJ line “stop going down”.

There’s one great bit where a band member steps up on a park bench, then almost immediately steps down, as if he’s not quite ready for centre stage.

The video is obviously low-budget and a bit repetitive, but it captures the charm of the band and is a good debut as any.

Best bit: a brief shot of an old man enjoying an ice cream.

Note: this video has since been made private so it can no longer be viewed. Booo.

Director: Karyn Hay
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… Bond-esque thrills.

Fuemana “Closer”

The Fuemana family and Matty J are back with more of their smooth grooves, with influences galore, including a Monkees/Del Tha Funkee Homosapien reference with “Mr Fuemana, Mr Phil Fuemana”.

The video takes place in a day-lit club (probably Cause Celebre, which seems an Auckland ’90s thing). The group perform their song, with the Fuemanas being cool and Matty J trying to be cool.

When Phil does his keyboard solo, a very Catholic looking crucifix can be seen on the piano keys, implying that perhaps this song is about getting closer to God.

It’s funny to look at this video and think that within three years, one of the guys in this video was going to have a bonafide international mega hit single.

Best bit: Matty J’s seduction moves.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… cherub-faced folk rock.

Emma Paki “System Virtue”

Watching this video is a little bittersweet, knowing that Emma hit a rough patch soon after and left the music industry for over a decade. In the video she’s young and seems to be singing a message of hope. If only.

The video is lovely, with slow black and white footage of Maori in small towns around New Zealand, including plenty of staunch-as bros looking real hard, eh. Meanwhile, Emma busks on the streets of Auckland, with passersby passing her by, though the infamous Queen Street busker stops for a look.

“System Virtue” feels like it has a positive and uplifting message, but Emma seems to have been studying the Shayne Carter style of singing, leaving the verses sounding like they might just be make up of interesting sounds, rather than meaningful sentences. And “system virtue” – what does that even mean? But does it need to have a meaning?

By the way, if you love this song, stay away from the album version on Oxygen of Love. The distinct jangly guitar and meandering bass is gone, with distracting backing vocals inserted. The general appeal and emotion of the song has been smothered with full-on pop production style, more suited to a Feelers track. But thankfully the one-two punch of the original recording and its video are how the song is best known.

Directed by Josh Frizzell, the “System Virtue” video won Best Video at the 1994 New Zealand Music Awards.

Best bit: the lady enjoying a cup of tea in an Arcoroc mug.

Director: Josh Frizzell
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… man on the verge of a popstastic breakthrough.

JPS Experience “Into You”

The song is underpinned by some nice nice nice crunchy guitar, with lovely pop melody over the top. The video doesn’t try to fight this, and the camera swooshes around the band performing the song with red and green stage lighting along with bits of blue and white. There’s also swirly lava lamp-like stuff, because lava lamps were cool in the 90s.

Also a relic of the 90s – Dave’s striped top, making him a perfect 90s indie pinup. The JPS lads have perfected the lingering camera glance. It’s as if to say, “Hey, girl. U know I’m in an indie band, but I always got time 4 u”.

The JPS Experience have previously gone for bigger concepts in their videos, but I think this simpler video is one of their strongest. When you have a great song, you don’t need to spice things up with exotic locations, lol props or bleeding edge digital effects.

Best bit: The sneer and the pout.



Director: Jonathan Ogilvie
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… is it you or is it me?

Headless Chickens “Mr Moon”

This is probably the most hard-sell, down-the-barrel-of-the-camera the Headless Chickens have made yet. Chris and Fiona take turns at singing the song in close up, with the rest of the band in the background. They both look utterly beautiful, in that dark sexy Headless Chickens way.

The song is bookended with sampled dialogue, and this is represented by various Chickens miming the words, as well as a reel-to-reel recorder being played like an instrument. The massive influence of street fashion in the early ’90s is also apparent, with Fiona wearing a Stüssy cap. Stüssy was so very cool.

The video is in black and white, with floating, overlapping circles (moons?) of pink, purple and a third which a overlaps to turn the monochrome into colour. Like the song, the visuals manage to be dark with tiny uplifting moments that only serve to make the dark even darker.

Best bit: The lone appearance of a person wearing a chicken head.

Director: Jonathan Ogilvie
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

P.S. Owen reminds me that this song uses the chorus melody of “The Sleepwalker” by This Kind of Punishment, perhaps best known for being covered by Cat Power.

Next… the perfect indie guy lover man.

Moana and the Moahunters “Tahi”

Moana’s all gothed up in black clothes and black lipstick, but the song is anything but goth. It’s a really uplifting dance track, that feels more like something from the mid-’80s crossed with some bangin’ house keyboards.

There is some green screen, but it’s done with much more style than we’ve seen over the past two years. As well as the Moahunters’ girl-group styles, there are kapa haka performers and some black and white footage of little kids in a suburban backyard.

The best thing about this song is the Moahunters lovely harmonies. In a way, I’d much rather see the trio singing their silky “Aue! Aue!” part against a green screen than any of the other stuff.

Best bit: the splendid bone and greenstone jewellery of the Moahunters.

Director: Kerry Brown
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… the floating circles of sexy hard-sell.

Hallelujah Picassos “Rewind”

A song about relaxing and taking it easy, which seems to be the national genre of New Zealand. The “Rewind” video is a cruisy collection of a lively studio performance and scenes from New Zealand.

It’s a fun video that nicely captures the spirit of the song, with green screen used quite thoughtfully. The background images, scenes of both rural and urban New Zealand, are contrasted with the laid-back band.

The video also features the nice bright, highly saturated colour palette that was cool in the ’90s, and I think this kind of colour use has come back around. Now all we need is for chunky green screen to become cool again.

Best bit: the green-screened turntable.

Directors: Clinton Phillips, Peter McLennan
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Bonus: Peter McLennan of the Hallelujah Picassos has again been kind enough to share his experience of the video:

We worked with Stratford Productions on this video, as we did for the previous video Lovers Plus. The latter video was directed by Bruce Sheridan, and for this one we worked with Clinton Phillips. I co-directed the video with Clinton, which was very generous of him, as he did a lot of the work, really. We shot Rewind at the Powerstation, using the stage for the band footage, and shooting from the balcony for the verses, looking down on Bobbylon, singing. We bounced round the stage Roland and myself wearing turntables strapped on like guitars, and Johnnie playing his korg synth, nicknamed the Hog.

The black and white footage in the verses was shot on super 8 film by me, while we were on tour. I gave it to Clinton to send off for telecine transfer over in Sydney and never saw it again, which was a bit sad. There’s also footage shot on video of us clowning round on the roof of Civic House, next to DKD, which also makes a brief appearance in the video. The only green screen is on the record on the turntable, which also serves up my fave shot in the video, at 2.09 – Roland doing his best Michael Jackson tippy-toes dance move.

This song will be included on the forthcoming collection of Hallelujah Picassos tunes, remastered for CD/digital. Out before the end of the year.

Next… do the wildebeast