Grace “Black Sand Shore”

The Ioasa brothers return, and this time they’re spending a night at the museum. Using the grand marble halls of Auckland Museum as a dramatic backdrop, the trio pose and generally look awesome as they stand in a variety of symmetrical formations. The only other people in the museum are two very glamorous-looking women, who are probably security guards trying to track down the source of the smooth Pacifica soul they can hear wafting from the top floor.

Much of the band’s intense posing takes place outside the entrance to the exhibit formerly known as Centennial Street (later Auckland 1866, later demolished). The exhibition included replicas of ye olde Auckland business premises, and – frankly – would have made a brilliant setting for a music video. I wonder if Grace had a look around it when they were shooting the video.

The “Black Sand Shore” video is filmed in sepia tone, with a stylish and respectful feeling. I bet they were all absolutely on their best behaviour, and probably had a stern museum director saying that if anything was broken, the museum would be closed to all musicians forever.

It’s a really successful video (and probably relatively low budget) and I like to think it marks a turning point for New Zealand music videos. Don’t need no green screen.

Best bit: how incredibly amazing Auckland Museum looks.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… Captain Don’s nautical adventure.

8 thoughts on “Grace “Black Sand Shore””

  1. Access to the museum was basically due to Kane personally knowing someone in management, ie: one of Stamp Magazines previous arts editors. A few years later he also shot Sulata’s “Not Today” video in another part of the museum. From what John Oz told me (I was no longer in the “inner circle” by this point), Not Today was the only track off Sulata’s album which was not mixed by Simon Holloway. Kane and Simon managed to talk Mark Tierney into mixing / giving it a classic Deepgrooves “deep bottom end” circa 1991 mix. As with a lot of stuff on or by the label there were tie ins galore. Te Not Today video would also featured Jason (Grace) on bass, Dan (Loungehead) on guitar and Luke (Nixons/EyeTV/Sulata session drummer) on drums. And no Marc Swadel did direct this video either, in fact I think you may well discover that although he did work on a few clips, he did not actually direct any music videos for the label.

    1. Hey, thanks for this and your other comments. It’s all these behind-the-scenes stories that help fill in the gaps .

  2. BTW: The head gaffer on the shoot was a young Tony Burrows, who would later be given the job to co-direct Johnny 14 For The New Loungehead as well as Millstones for Jordan Reyne.

  3. Tony was also tasked with shooting the first Freaker video, however I remember sadly, John’s mum passed away a few days before the shoot, so I am not sure what happened in the end. I left NZ around this time so I am not sure about / with the last few years of the label / studio.

  4. Hi Dean, fascinating to hear more about the background to these Deepgrooves videos. Any chance you could please get in touch with me? I’m writing a book on Deepgrooves and would love to find out some more info. (pertemac008 at gmail) Thanks.

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