People get confused as to who is who in Dunedin’s current Pop Underground, or, as Did Not Chart blog calls it, The Sound Of Young Dunedin.
So, in the interests of clarifying confusion and shining a light on the stuff that keeps people awake at night, here’s a Venn Diagram showing just four of the current bands with new releases – Trick Mammoth, Males (being released soon on the label I run – Fishrider Records), Astro Children (Auckland label Muzai Records) and Mavis Gary (via Dunedin cassette label The Attic).
I’m considering expanding this but it would soon get very huge and messy. Maybe there’s a computer application that will automatically do it…? For example Males link to Dunedin legends The Clean in one easy move through a band called Kilmog which Males’ guitarist/ vocalist Richard Ley-Hamilton plays in along with Robert Scott (The Clean and The Bats).
Plus, if you added an historic overlay you’d find Richard, Sam Valentine and Adrian Ng all playing together in Mr Biscuits and then, briefly, Blonde Hash. But let’s not get too carried away here.
All this might explain why Dunedin keeps producing more great pop bands per head of population than anywhere else in the world. Is it cheating? I don’t think so. It’s just that the weather here is pretty lousy a lot of the time, there’s not that much to do of an evening or weekend, and the kids have music in their DNA. Being in just one band doesn’t keep you busy enough – there’s only so many times a band can play here in the 4 or 5 live music venues in the city. Plus there are never enough drummers.
Pop Lib 
The history is important, but it’s absolutely crucial that the elder statesmen remain in Dunedin, whether that’s to inspire, encourage or accompany younger bands. The closest parallel to this is Glasgow, where many of the best bands of the 80s and 90s are still involved locally.
Part of the reason for Melbourne’s world-beating pop scene in the past 2 or 3 years is a solid social security system whereby bands on the dole can survive. This informal arts funding has withered away in the UK, along with state-sponsored tertiary education which allowed young bands a certain freedom from the commercial imperatives of music making.
The argument that British music flowered particularly well when art school students were free to experiment is made persuasively by Frith and Horne in Art Into Pop.
I think it’s fair to say that Dunedin had a golden age in the 1980s and has started another one. That leaves a missing generation, or a relative lull in the last 20 years. I don’t think there was such a lull in Glasgow, although with 5 times the population of Dunedin, perhaps that’s unsurprising.
Of course, you might dispute there was a lull in Dunedin. What we can agree on, though, is that Dunedin is producing some very exciting bands now and the promise is there for more bands, and the baton may be passed again by these new bands in the future to the next generation. Unless they all bugger off to retire in the Hollywood Hills on their royalty cheques.
Thanks Ben – interesting observations re- Glasgow & Melbourne. The elder statespersons are still around and some are still involved.
What Dunedin may lack is the continuity between the young and those elders. The transient side of the scene depletes experience and expertise in-between years.
But on the other hand there may be a freedom from established bands which might provide opportunities for emerging bands that may be harder to find in bigger cities with less transient musician populations.
This would make a great social-geography thesis for a Dunedin sociology post-grad student with an interest in music!