..from January 2003


"Dead moon were amazing. Beautiful people. Beautiful music. We loved
them. We hated their dog though. You see they brought a horrible
obnoxious poodle with them.

When I was seventeen my girlfriends parents had a similar six inch
high over pumped beast. Back then it was puppy love that prevented me
from biting it's head off every time her folks left the room.

On that Friday night it was respect for the worlds finest rock and
roll band that ensured the poodle did not leave town looking like a
British bulldog.

Not to worry though. I have talked to our people in Picton and they
have assured me that Poodle's are not welcome upon our Island and
that such an embarrassment will not occur again. We certainly hope
so.

We caught up with Dead Moon at Chris Rigby's house in the afternoon.
This was the first time I had met them and the gig was to be the
first time I had seen them.

I guess you can't help but mention their age though it seems
irrelevant once you have seen them play.

Toodie & Fred are in their mid fifties. Enjoying their middle age you
might say. Andrew Loomis is 35 odd years 'young' and has probably won
teenager of the year awards more times than he cares to remember.
This guy is a party gladiator. Let the good times roll.

I didn't talk to Fred much in the afternoon but I had a good chat to
him before the gig at the venue. The two things that stick out that I
learned from the afternoon are crosswords and get some ear plugs.

Fred Cole is as deaf as a post but I guess that comes with the
territory when you've been 'screaming at the top of his lungs since
1965!!'.

He is also a crossword junkie!! I saw him and Toodie absorbed in a
crossword puzzle for most of the afternoon. They told me it helps to
pass the time on tour.

This answered a lot of questions for me. Fred and Toodie must have
beautiful words bouncing around inside their heads all day. No wonder
the lyrics are so good.

I interviewed Toodie later in the afternoon and hopefully my
Dictaphone actually recorded the interview so look out for that in
the near future.

I asked Toodie if she minded if we played a 'Rats' cover? She said
sure what one? To which I replied 'Burnside'.

Loomis then says 'Yeah, I love that song. I've been trying to get
them to play it in Dead Moon for 15 years! We'll be listening out for
it.'

The pressure was on but the Palace of Wisdom was in an excellent
frame of mind to play some punk rock. The gig had zero promotion
other than some posters. There was nothing in the papers or anything.

When we played there was around a 100 people or so and by the end of
the night there might have been around 180.

The audience was basically 90% of the Christchurch population who
have good taste in rock music. Which is pretty sad in a town with a
population of 300,000. The audience contained members of most bands
that have meant anything in ChCh in the last 20 or so years.

Most people were already PoW fans but the crowd did indeed love us.
Burnside went sweet and Dead Moon and the elder statesmen of Ch-Ch
rock really dug it which was the whole idea.

Slavetrader were up next. Slavetrader is Matt Alien's (ex Hi-Tone
destroyers, Black Panthers & Palace of Wisdom) first Auckland band.
The Hi-Tones changed my life but Slavetrader sadly does not quite do
that much for me.

If the Hi-Tones was all '68 Stooges & Detroit via the early Stones,
Slavetrader is all '70's over blown arena and pub rock fusing
into '80's metal.

Hard rocking cock rock I guess you might call it. If you love that
stuff Slavetrader may be just what the doctor ordered. Either way
they just don't have that chaos factor that the Hi-Tones had but they
still put on quite a show and they're a whole heap better than most
bands you'll see.

Myself and quite a few other old Ch-Ch rockers had to finally accept
that the Hi-Tones are history.

What can I say about Dead Moon live that would do them justice?

On record, Fred probably stands out more than he does on stage.
Andrew and Toodie are incredible.

Andrew was the first drummer I have ever seen put on a performance
that has the charisma of a front man. He is having as much fun as
anyone in the audience as he dances around upon his seat behind his
primitive kit.

As always the candle burns upon the bass drum. Why's the candle
burning? Cause nothing ever lasts!

Fred is probably the most restrained (by comparison) of the three. No
clichéd guitar hero moves here. Just passion, energy and the literate
beauty of his songs exploding out to meet us.

The mix is pretty damn good but definitely louder than earlier.
Toodie is louder than Fred but I think that's just cause she is
screaming. Check the photos.

In a way they are exactly as I had imagined they would be. Andrew is
the only real surprise. His drumming is incredible and yet he still
finds time to pull pantomime poses for my camera in the middle of
songs.

The set list covered most periods of their discography. 54/40 was a
standout. As was it's Ok. Yet their later material like 40 miles of
bad road and rescue (off 'trash & burn' 'Destination X ') sounds as
fresh as and blends seamlessly with earlier material.

I also heard a couple of covers I hadn't heard them do before. I'm
sure everybody had their own stand outs. They would have played maybe
17 songs and despite the enthusiasm from the crowd there was no
encore. Never mind. The travel and the new years gig a couple of
nights before at the 'Tote' in Melbourne had taken it's toll.

What a gig. For me they are the greatest Rock and Roll band on the
planet. The song writing is incredible. The songs are totally
accessible and stick to the inside of your head. Not to mention that
they have never sold out and are living the Punk Rock dream.
Overnight success is a forty year mission.

Ben went to see them on the west coast the next day and said they
were amazing all over again. The Delburgoes were the support and
apparently by all reports the Burgoes were excellent. Nice work Rex."

from:
http://www.rockstar.co.nz/gone/deadmoon_jetset.asp