“I know Not Where I Stand” by Shayne P Carter

Shop display of re-purposed NZ Music Month poster at Too Tone Records (2010-2017) in Dunedin.

It’s May. It’s New Zealand Music Month. It’s time for another tilt at the obsessive-compulsive posting of 31 NZ songs from Bandcamp over the course of the month to try to turn the world on to the kind of sonic lint that lurks behind the glittering facade of  “Popular Music”.  Kicking off the 2019 roll call is the opening track from Shayne P Carter‘s latest solo album “Offsider”.

“I Know Not Where I Stand” is a huge clunking, shuffling beast of a song. Never one to rest in a comfortable spot musically speaking, proficient guitarist Carter (Bored Games, Doublehappys, Straitjacket Fits, Dimmer) set himself the challenge of mastering the piano. His approach is similar to his instinctive approach to the guitar – as much about sound, propulsion, atmosphere, and tension as it is about melody.

Carter’s “Offsider” album is recommended for anyone into seriously good, original, adventurous pop or rock music, and particularly for those who go on about the heyday of Flying Nun Records but stopped buying new music many years ago.

Shayne Carter has written a book. Dead People I have Known is what it is called and it is available in a few days time. It’s a memoir, though it could be a novel. If it was a novel it would be better than Iain Banks “Espedair Street” and David Keenan’s “This is Memorial Device” combined.  The characters in Shayne’s book are also unusual and unlikely but they are real. Many of them are dead, as the title accurately explains.

It’s not the first book by a musician from Dunedin. Sneaky feelings’ Mathew Bannister wrote one that was pretty good in its weird combination of misguided self-loathing and self-importance. I haven’t read Peter Jefferies’ book yet.

Shayne Carter is the only one of my Dunedin music heroes I have not properly met or talked to. He was, and still is, too intimidating. His book makes it pretty clear that being intimidating, or just an occasional arsehole, was a deliberate ploy.

I read the book in one sitting. Partly because it was someone else’s review copy and I was probably not meant to see it. Also because it was, as they say, a page-turner.  Actually I read most of it twice because I have an annoying habit of opening up new books and reading bits at random first, as if to get a taste before committing to a full reading. Then I read it again, from beginning to end to join up all the bits I’d read previously. I look forward to reading it again when I buy a copy upon its release.

A couple of things about Shayne’s writing style struck me. The first was that his ease of storytelling, the way he created the scenes, brings his characters to life through their actions and words, and the associated emotion, reminded me of Tim Winton’s writing.  Like his “Breath” perhaps, but about music, and the characters associated with it, rather than surfing.

The other thing I felt, as the story whizzed along, one outrageous incident after another, was that this was almost like the kind of improbable fictional life story narrated by the central character from an implausible and fantastical Peter Carey novel.

Those were both novelists I really enjoyed, back in the days when I read novels. Nowadays I read almost exclusively music books, finding that with the best of them truth is indeed stranger than fiction.  This is more than a music book. It’s a memoir of course. But it’s also a social history, mostly of a Dunedin that is still almost there, as well as an affecting reflection on life, death, culture, identity, love, self-loathing, ego, regret, creativity, family, and friendship and more.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, it is possible to review Carter’s “Dead People I Have Known” using unaltered snippets taken from reviews or short descriptions of my favourite of Carey’s books:

“Boldly inventive, irresistibly odd.  In this darkly funny novel, death is sometimes a necessary prelude to real life. A story that couldn’t be true unless its teller were mad.  His search for a place in life where he can accept himself and be accepted by others.  A masterpiece of coal-black humour and compassionate horror. Fiendishly devious and addictively readable.”

“We Will Rise Again” By Shayne P. Carter

Seven years on from the last Dimmer album “Degrees of Existence” here’s Shayne P. Carter back with the brooding and challenging “We Will Rise Again”

Even though “We Will Rise Again” is centered around Carter’s piano playing, it is still recognisably Shayne P. Carter and there are bursts of brutal guitar noise to remind us of the 6-string sonic background we normally associate with this enduring New Zealand musician.

The other musicians playing on the track are drummer Gary Sullivan (Dimmer, JPS Experience),  bassist Nick Roughan (Skeptics), saxophonist Richard Steele (who played on The Puddle’s “Playboys in the Bush” album) and the intense string arrangements from Tamasin Taylor (Nudie Suits, Peachy Keen).

It’s a somewhat experimental, challenging listen in places, even a little bit Scott Walker at times, although without the difficult angles and baffling weirdness. Shayne P. Carter has always been about the tune and about the sensations of emotion and this song is no exception, despite its differences.

The shifting times signatures, sense of foreboding, dynamics, and especially the muted saxophone part at two and half minutes here are even a little reminiscent the kind of thing serious prog-rock legends Van Der Graaf Generator did back in the 1970s.

This progressive experimentalism was signalled in the notes to that 2009 Dimmer album where Shayne set out a manifesto which could equally apply to “We Will Rise Again” –

“i also wanted to make a return to the more experimental vibe evidenced on our first album which remains my favourite dimmer record to this point. i liked that record because it was brave and unafraid and because it didn’t sound like anything, or anyone, else. while “degrees of existence” is sonically a different beast altogether i think it has that sense of trying things while still dealing in ‘songs’. i’m not interested in music that goes from A to B to C in a fashion you’ve heard a million times before. i’m not interested in pastiche or ripping anybody off. i’m not interested in ‘irony’. i’m also not interested in becoming a ‘family favourite’ , a musician a ‘country can be proud of’, going on game shows or gradually diluting my music as i weary with jadedness and age. fuck that. i wanna make the kind of music that i’d like to hear – and that involves originality, vitality, and, yes, the sense of trying things.”

For the uninitiated, a trip through the back catalogue of Shayne P. Carter bands is a trip through the very best of NZ’s post-punk music. Start with his high school band Bored Games, work your way through Doublehappys and Straitjacket Fits to Dimmer.

 

“Pedestrian Support League” by Street Chant

Yay! Street Chant are back. A long 5 years on from their excellent debut album “Means” there’s a new album “Hauora” announced for November release. Here’s “Pedestrian Support League” from it.

“Pedestrian Support League” packs a brilliant and surprising jangle pop lightness in the verses. It makes the chorus drop into their trademark melodic power-pop-punk snarl – soothed as always by those golden backing vocals – all the more thrilling.

The lyrics are a strong feature of anything Street Chant do as well – and Emily in her solo capacity too. This tale of existential ennui is no exception, indicating that perhaps band life is not quite the chummy cartoon rush of the Music Manager game they were featured in a few years ago.

First time I saw Street Chant was at Auckland’s first Laneway Festival where amp stacks were climbed and stage crew upset, not for the last time at that festival. It’s exactly that kind of attitude that Street Chant have always brought to their live shows and it shines through on their recordings too.

First time I saw them play in Dunedin was at Sammy’s supporting the 3Ds when they reformed for a brief tour about 5 years ago. At the time they sounded like they had absorbed the best bits of the 3Ds and Doublehappys into their own unique post-millenium DNA. People I talked to during & after that show seemed genuinely disappointed to learn they were from Auckland and not Dunedin.

Street Chant play at Chick’s Hotel this Saturday.