Hi,

Just when I think I've got even with Pete & Shel (i.e. creating an
all-powerful, all-seeing Mutton Birds website), they go one better and set
up a mailing list as well. Doh!

(Cue scene of mad professor in smoke-filled lab, test tubes giving off toxic
gases while occasional thunder and lightning can be heard overhead. He turns
round slowly and behind the hideous warts and cracked skin, the warped and
desperate face of our hero - the man they once called Spence - plots his
revenge on those who'd dare to overstep the mark of Mutton Birds Worship. He
laughs. It's an evil laugh. Oh yes. But he'll be back.....)

On the other hand of course, it's a damn good idea to set up a new list
focussing on the songwriting aspects of the Mutton Birds, so well done guys
for getting it up and running.

Being in the frame of mind to talk till the cows come home about how
talented Don McGlashan is, I figured I'd vent the old spleen about how good
the 'Envy of Angels' album is. I don't use the term 'my favourite album
ever' lightly, but it applies here, as there surely never has nor ever will
be a better album made than this one. And if it had had 'Face in the Paper'
on there as well, it would have been even better. But life's full of 'what
if's', right? Or 'and if's' in the case of that last statement. Whatever, on
with the show.

Pete & Shel were spot on when they described Don as a poet. The poetic
songwriter is a rare thing nowadays (well, it is over here - a country where
the Vengaboys get to Number One with lyrics like 'Boom boom boom boom, I
want you in my room') - those gifted lyrical geniuses..... It's lucky New
Zealand is there, giving us great people like the Finns, Mr Dobbyn etc,
people who know a good tune, but also know how to write meaningful words
which can hit home and hit hard. Which is where Don McGlashan comes in.

The title track of Envy of Angels has some of the most utterly beautiful
lyrics I've ever had the good fortune to hear. It took me a couple of
listens to fully appreciate the scale of what Don had written:

"...They're painting the signs,
Measuring the land, marking the lines,
Laying foundations, making it strong
For all of those people that haven't been born."

The idea of people preparing the land for future generations is just such a
powerful image. Equally, the title of the song has a lot of weight behind
it; looking around the vast landscape he stands in, knowing that even angels
probably don't have it so good. I love that feeling of awe which you can
trace through his songs about the countryside. 'Like This Train' has the
same yearning as 'Envy', but from a more detached position ("These towns all
look like our home town").

'While You Sleep' is another great example of stunning lyrics. You can just
picture yourself as the voice in the song, propped up in bed looking over at
the beautiful girl still asleep next to you, recalling how it all started,
and thinking of all the things you want to say to her but right now just
can't find the words for. It's the holy grail for a songwriter to write
something as great as that. This song is a good example of Don's
storytelling style, which is further explored on 'She's Been Talking' and
the sublime 'Ten Feet Tall'. The live version of the latter usually saw Don
playing keyboard, which gave the song a whole new identity from the
power-pop album version. I don't remember the feeling of being a stranger in
a strange place ever being so fully realised in a song. And how comforting
the ideas in the song are when you actually do find yourself in such a
situation.

And then even on the more light-hearted songs, there's a quality to the
lyrics which amuses and amazes in equal measure ("All the month of May, I
asked myself, 'are you OK?' and I would lie").

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what the major appeal of Don's writing is, but
there's something there which grabs people when they're not expecting it. A
case in point being my website collaborator Dave, who'd never shown any
interest in the 'Birds until I sold him a couple of spare CDs I had (Come
Around & Anchor Me). After accompanying him to HMV where he became a proud
owner of 'Envy of Angels', he went to York to see the guys play last
October, and the conversion was complete. I take full credit, obviously ;-)
My own initiation into the world of the MBs was via an article in Q (in '96)
which featured the magical words 'Neil Finn' (translating as 'Definitely
worth investigating - this product has a Finn stamp of approval'). 'Nature'
soon found itself permanently in my CD player, and the world of talking
heaters, neighbours disappearing on Highway 1, things well made, and the
halfway house halfway down Dominion Road opened its doors to me. I just
never got round to leaving.

Bye for now,
Spence
*********************************************************************
Please visit www.gofree.co.uk/home/muttonbirds, or myself and Dave will be
forced to come to your homes in the dead of night and kill you all in your
beds. We know where you all live. Oh yes.

(Cue a knock at the door as our hero is approached by smiling men in white
coats. He struggles as the nice jacket with buckles is slipped around his
modest frame, but it's no good! They've got him. But then he remembers the
paper-clip he keeps stuck behind his front teeth, and he allows himself a
wry grin as he plots his return to society. Very soon. Very soon. Very. Oh
yes).
*********************************************************************

> Just when I think I've got even with Pete & Shel (i.e. creating an
> all-powerful, all-seeing Mutton Birds website), they go one better and set
> up a mailing list as well. Doh!

Watch for the reincarnation of our website as soon as Pete gets his shit
together!  BTW everyone, I recommend you check out Spence & Dave's site cos it's
quite different to ours and has all those great guitar licks laid out for the
virtuosos among you. Pete was relieved you did that guys, cos he'd been meaning
to and hadn't had time and felt like a slacker ... and now he doesn't have to!

>
>
> "...They're painting the signs,
> Measuring the land, marking the lines,
> Laying foundations, making it strong
> For all of those people that haven't been born."

One thing about Don's music, it is utterly evocative of NZ.

With Envy there is this overwhelming sense of the new land. This is a very kiwi
(and probably less so Australian) phenomenon - up until probably this generation
(ie. I mean my kids 6 and 5 rather than me, old fart at 32) - felt that we were
still colonists and that "home" was England.This meant you had to leave and find
yourself on the other side of the world. NZ was too new if that makes sense.
There was no "history".

But, the people that came here were strong, innovative, self-starting and brave.
Kiwi ingenuity is a phrase often tossed about but it's true. Our ability to fix
or make anything with a roll of number 8 fencing wire is legendary. the people
that came were definitely the people capable of "laying foundations" for the
next generation. And as much as we reject that colonial image when we are 20 and
dying to head off to London, for many of us there comes a time when we return
and embrace it, particularly if we have kids. I know that i would have loved to
spend more time in London and immerse myself in the cultural life, but i
definitely wouldn't want to raise my kids in the UK.  I have a friend (British)
who emigrated here with her kiwi husband 3 years ago and has just had her first
baby - she says that life here  is unbelievably cruisy compared to the UK. The
stark beauty and contrast of the land combined with only (thankfully) 3.5
million people makes it a wonderful place to live.

and for me, Don's lyrics absolutely capture that sense - in all its positive and
negative senses.

glad to read your rave Spence - more on the rest when i've got more energy!

cheers
shel

thanks for writing :-)

Shel wrote:
>quite different to ours and has all those great guitar licks laid out for
>the
>virtuosos among you. Pete was relieved you did that guys, cos he'd been
>meaning
>to and hadn't had time and felt like a slacker ... and now he doesn't >have
>to!

Well, obviously you guys set the standard for MBs fan sites, so we had to
have something a little bit different. My personal quest was to make the
discography as concise as possible, and I think that turned out quite well.
As for the chords, if anyone out there does have any chords for any songs
which we haven't listed (or any corrections for ones which we have), please
email me. I had 'Ash Wednesday' almost done, but am still waiting for my
musical co-conspirator and band-mate Owen to get back to me with the final
pieces of the puzzle. The aim is to have everything tabbed, but that's a
pretty big task.

Cheers,
Spence.

*****************************************************
Visit Spence & Dave's ALL-NEW MUTTON BIRDS WEBSITE @
www.gofree.co.uk/home/muttonbirds
*****************************************************

Hi, I guess I'll introduce myself to the list by offering some of
my thoughts on Don McGlashan's music.

One of the things I like best about McGlashan as a songwriter is
the way that most of his songs cast some kind of new light on a
bunch of his other songs.  His songs taken as a body of work are
richer than one might expect from listening to any one song.

Two examples:

i) a similar image or idea will often pop up in quite different
songs, for example: watching the car(s) go by from a pedestrian
point of view in: the edited-out bit of "Your Window", "She's Like
a City", "While You Sleep".  (on second thoughts, maybe there are
other similarities between those songs?)

ii) Songs that seem like a different take on, or development of,
(part of) an earlier song, e.g.

"Tomorrow Night" -> "Big Fish"

"Giant Friend" -> "Straight to your Head"

"Along the Boundary" -> "Last Year's Shoes"


No time to write more now.

Comments?


Steven

Steven wrote:

>i) a similar image or idea will often pop up in quite different
>songs, for example: watching the car(s) go by from a pedestrian
>point of view in: the edited-out bit of "Your Window", "She's Like
>a City", "While You Sleep".  (on second thoughts, maybe there are
>other similarities between those songs?)

Good point. The whole watching the cars go by/driving through the
countryside theme is one of the most powerful recurring images in Don's
songs. It was great that the first three albums each had a song which
referred to this (kinda like a trilogy of driving songs): White Valiant/Too
Close to the Sun/Envy of Angels. The ideas are just so incredibly evocative,
giving a pretty good impression (well, it seems like a good impression -
coming from someone who's never been to NZ) of the vastness of the NZ
landscape. Having said that, I guess that simply looking at the photo on the
cover of Envy of Angels gives a pretty good indication of where a lot of the
inspiration comes from.

And that's probably why Rain, Steam & Speed sounds *so* different. It sounds
like a British album, albeit with a slight NZ twist. The airy atmosphere
which made Envy (the album, and, more specifically, the song) isn't apparent
on RS&S (except maybe on Jackie's Song). Not that  that's a bad thing
(variety being the spice of life, and all that).

See ya,
Spencer
*****************************************************
Visit Spence & Dave's ALL-NEW MUTTON BIRDS WEBSITE @
www.gofree.co.uk/home/muttonbirds
*****************************************************

guys, i'm curious to know how many of us are NZers or have spent time
here. (Since our grand total is currently only 10 and three of us are
related that leaves another seven we don't know about!)

i think one of the most appealing things for me (about MB music) is that
it is so NZ, and I don't mean the musical sound necessarily - which in
some bands is very identifiable, in the 80s there was the
Dunedin-pub-band-sounding- like-Cockneys sound, which I still laugh at
when I hear it coming out today ...

no i mean the evocative lyrics that somehow just say NZ to me,
particularly in envy

any thoughts ....

shel

PS: i promise to get my shit together this weekend and spill out some
serious thoughts on this, meantime, anyone else is welcome to have a
bash!

--
"I wish I was in Wellington" - Alan Gregg
Visit our Mutton Birds website at:
http://www.geocities.com/~pete-n-shel

For those of you interested in up and coming kiwi band "stellar*" you
must check our their website.

http://www.stellar.co.nz/

not only does it have all the lyrics for their recently released album
(the album sleeve doesn't unfortunately include them and we've been
trying to work some of them out for a week), but there's also a
brilliant section called Time Line. This is not, as you might expect, a
time line of the band's existence, but a history of the universe from
its inception. brilliant for anyone with the remotest interest in cosmic
history.  F*******g excellent actually.


shel
--
"I wish I was in Wellington" - Alan Gregg
Visit our Mutton Birds website at:
http://www.geocities.com/~pete-n-shel

Hi Guys:

Well, I'm not from NZ, and I've never been there (but one day, by God)
yet for someone who is not from the place, but keen to learn, the Mutton
Birds songs can really give you a sense of what the place is like before
you come.  I fancy that when I finally do come to the "Envy of Angels" I
won't be quite as lost as the average tourist, and I swear I'll never
tell anyone how "quaint" the place is.

Another song that really says NZ to me is the Tall Dwarfs "Lowlands"

Bibi G

bibi gellert wrote:

> Well, I'm not from NZ, and I've never been there (but one day, by God)

...or maybe by plane? ;)

> ... for someone who is not from the place, but keen to learn, the Mutton
> Birds songs can really give you a sense of what the place is like before
> you come.

I agree - there's an amazing sense of 'New Zealandness' that Don builds into
both the lyrics and the mood of a number of songs. I guess all lovers of the
land identify with it because the feelings would be similar anywhere - it's
just a case of getting here to experience the specific kiwi version!

>  I fancy that when I finally do come to the "Envy of Angels" I
> won't be quite as lost as the average tourist, and I swear I'll never
> tell anyone how "quaint" the place is.

Hehe :)
People who call this place quaint demonstrate that they've experienced about
0.00001% of it! I think when they say 'quaint' they mean 'small town,' and
probably never venture past the city limits. And there's so much more than
that.

I've always had a deep affinity with "the land" in this country -
understanding myself to be a tiny and fragile thing in a huge, forbidding -
yet inordinately beautiful - environment. I perpetually have this sense (and
I think many NZers do, including Don I s'pose) of the land 'watching.' I
guess that's why Don's propensity to depict the land, not just the things on
it, as 'alive' appeals to me so much. The personification come across to me
not just us arty or poetic, but descriptive of something I experience
myself, yet find hard to explain.

Pete.



--
"I wish I was in Wellington" - Alan Gregg
Visit our Mutton Birds website at:
http://www.geocities.com/~pete-n-shel

>guys, i'm curious to know how many of us are NZers or have spent time
>here. (Since our grand total is currently only 10 and three of us are
>related that leaves another seven we don't know about!)

I live in Brooklyn, New York but I've been to New Zealand twice. My
grandmother lives there and my mother grew up there. I haven't been since I
was 10 though (I'm 23 now.)

The Front Lawn came to New York twice when I was a kid and I saw them both
times. And then one time my mother was in NZ and bought the Nature album for
me. She usually picks up tapes by new bands when she's there, although so
far I've liked the Mutton Birds more than anything else from NZ (not
counting Crowded House, which of course has been released in this country.)
I will confess a fondness for the Headless Chickens and the now-defunct band
Peking Man.

Haras the Wonder Frog
Princess of the Sandwiches

********************************************************************


"Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you."
                    - Ralph Waldo Emerson

********************************************************************

The question has to be asked are we finally entering a stage where new
zealanders are no longer ashamed of saying they prefer home grown music
to imported crap thrown at us from the like of US and British record
producers with shite loads of money.  Gone, now are the days when most
people could only name one or two New Zealand artists (usually Crowded
House and either The Exponents or Dave Dobbyn).  That would in general
be the limit of most kiwis local music knowledge.  Certainly for me in
the late 80's that was about it.

But in the last 5 years especially there has been a revival of Kiwi
music and more and more people are willing to go to bars to hear live
bands rather than just hit the local and watch Super 12 or Aussie League
on a big screen.  That still happens but a new generation is looking for
better value for their entertainment dollar.  For me personally, I know
the recent nights of seeing the Headless Chickens (no fiona macdonald)
and Shihad to name a couple have been far better nights out than sitting
in front of a 18x12 foot screen with screaming drunks complaining about
refs and other generally boring conversations like that.  Pubs now are
even having jam nights for muso's to bring along their instruments and
go for it.  Last Thursday at the Bristol was excellent.  Downstairs was
a group of guys having a massive blues session.  Thankfully it managed
to drown out the tvs on upstairs.

So why is it that we are now listening to ourselves.  For me I think a
definitive 'kiwi' sound is finally coming through and bands are
realising they don't have to copy what's coming out of the states or
britain.  People are writing about things innately kiwi.  It was Don and
Alan from the birds that first got me into kiwi music.  Sad but true.
Until Salty was released and I discovered the birds my musical habits
were far from what they are now.  Not that I don't listen to, and enjoy
other bands from overseas as well.  But in the last 5 years I've
discovered just how many kiwi bands are out there and the great music
they're putting out.  Bands like, The Stereo Bus, Stellar*, Fur Patrol,
Shihad, HLAH, Weta and The Feelers.  Great songwriters in there such as
Don, Boh Runga, and Dave Yetton.  And then there's people like Dave
Dobbyn, Neil and Tim Finn, Bic Runga and Fiona MacDonald also putting
out fantastic music.

The only bad point I can see at the moment is the refusal of local radio
stations to play this music.  With the exception of ChannelZ (in
Wellington) the rest of the stations are pathetic in their attempts to
add kiwi music to their repertoire.  Even ChannelZ could do better but
at least they seem to be making a conscious effort to play kiwi music.
The old excuses of 'nobody wants to listen to it' or 'its not up to
international standard' seem ridiculous these days.  Especially after
hearing albums released recently (HLAH IV -are you gunna kiss it or
shoot it, Rain Steam and Speed, Drive, Supersystem and the latest - Mix
by Stellar).  When will radio producers finally wake up and smell the
caffeine.


Well I could go on but think i'll stop there and let other people make
some comments.  Am I talking crap? Or am I alone being the only person
that never got into kiwi music in the 80's (besides the obvious).  Has
this been always out there and just passed me by?

Cheers,
Hutch.

PS;  Bibi- I went out and bought that Fur Patrol mini cd today.  its
great.  Shel - I'll let you listen to it if you cook me dinner on
wednesday.  hehehe.........hang on, you do that anyway.  :)


--
Cause when a man holds a thing well made,
There’s connection,
There’s completeness,
When a man holds a thing well made.

-Don McGlashan

hello there
>  guys, i'm curious to know how many of us are NZers or have spent time
>  here. (Since our grand total is currently only 10 and three of us are
>  related that leaves another seven we don't know about!)

Well I'm from Scotland, and haven't been to NZ ever, but met a kiwi at a camp
I was helping out at and from there the MBs and that was my first real
contact with New Zealand apart from when your rugby team hammered us every so
often.

I found MBs music, or perhaps just the New Zealand attitude to be very
similar to Scotland's and mine as Scotland is very close to a much bigger
country who traditionally we don't like because they are arrogant. My friend
had a t-shirt which said "I support two teams -New Zealand and anybody
playing Australia" I recognised that feeling. Not that I hate everything
English but there is something deeper there.

The songs have made me want to go to NZ as the imagery in some of the songs
is almost reach out and touch it good, and I again think I would have more
common ground than somebody who just thought New Zealand was Australian
overspill. I hope this helps you in you search Shel as to what a MB fan is.

Graham Kerr
Visit MUTTON DRESSED AS LAMB- the new MBs fan site
http://members.tripod.com/kerzo/

Hi folks

>The question has to be asked are we finally entering a stage where new
>zealanders are no longer ashamed of saying they prefer home grown music
>to imported crap thrown at us from the like of US and British record
>producers with shite loads of money.

I think more and more people are becoming disenchanted with manufactured
music and I have to agree that a lot of music coming from the UK, to which I
listen to only as punishment, is terribly terribly terrible. The UK charts
last week had 2 songs with lyrics in the top ten, the rest were dance songs,
remixes. And of the two lyriced songs, boyband and girlband. The target
market is much younger and I believe that number 1 means very little in this
country anymore, as basically the big record companies buy that position
rather than the singer/band earning it.

For this reason I found no interest in music apart from the occasional band
that was different to all this and had songs with meaning to me, Deacon Blue
my most obvious example. Then I was introduced to the MBs and suddenly music
had a purpose to me. People who thought I was strange for not liking music
found me even stranger for liking a band from New Zealand. And I feel this is
the problem that many people face, the prejudice against anything that is not
from the cool countries musically, UK and US basically is given such a hard
time that they give up and get disillusioned. Whereas bands that shouldn't
ever see the light of because of severe lack of talent (I won't name names)
get all the money people can throw at them to make countless terrible records.

It seems in today's world, musical talent means nothing in the music
business. People are stuck in there ways and I fear that nothing will change
as long as the record companies keep making money. A little pessimistic
perhaps. But I've never anything from NZ on the radio in Scotland and you try
asking for the Mutton Birds single in HMV in Glasgow if you want to see an
entry for "funniest look ever given to somebody"


Cheeripip

Graham Kerr
Visit MUTTON DRESSED AS LAMB- the new MBs fan site
http://members.tripod.com/kerzo/

Hi folks,

Great to see discussion is picking up!!!!!!!!!

Graham wrote:
>The songs have made me want to go to NZ as the imagery in some of the
> >songs
>is almost reach out and touch it good, and I again think I would have >more
>common ground than somebody who just thought New Zealand was >Australian
>overspill.

It's great when a song can inspire such rich images of a place you have no
knowledge of (apart from maybe on TV). Another great one in this vein is
Icehouse's 'Great Southern Land'. Like with 'Envy..', that one just has the
perfect mix of evocative lyrics and the kind of musical backdrop to make you
wish you could instantaneously make the airfare appear.

And on to one of my fave topics - slagging off the UK chart. Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!
There was a time (God, this makes me sound old) when I'd eagerly anticipate
the Chart coming on Radio 1 on a Sunday afternoon, then even more eagerly
await Top Of The Pops later in the week. But due to the oh-so-cool Radio 1
with their ridiculous playlist (if your name's not Fatboy Slim, you're not
coming in) the chart and the whole singles market has become an absolute
joke. I read somewhere recently that in America, a single can go Top 20
without actually getting a release (apart from being a 'radio single'),
which sounds kinda ridiculous, but then again, if the money is only ever to
be made on albums, that's probably a cheaper promotional tool than putting
out a retail single.

Graham wrote:-
>I think more and more people are becoming disenchanted with >manufactured
>music and I have to agree that a lot of music coming >from the UK, to which
>I listen to only as punishment, is terribly >terribly terrible.

Hmmm. Radio 1 surprised me last year when Simon Mayo had Neil Finn on as a
guest. Hearing him play 'Pineapple Head' live with just an acoustic guitar
(yes, that's right, kids of the MTV generation - a GUITAR) would have
probably terrified the pop kids out of their self-induced Steps coma. And
this, a couple of years after the station had got rid of the DJs who were
actually fond of playing songs by the bands like the Crowdies (Nicky
Campbell, Steve Wright etc). To be a guitar band is a novelty nowadays
(Stereophonics, Manics, er.... and...well..(?)) Most amusing is when record
companies foist new concepts onto us. Like for example 'boy band playing
instruments whilst keeping shirts buttoned up'. Hmmm. Then watch as their
first single goes to #13, and the next one only just scrapes into the lower
reaches of the chart before dropping out of the public eye (along with the
group). Hello 'Next Of Kin' - where are you now?

Not wanting to sound like a boring old git (I'm only 21, fact fans), but
Radio 2 sounds more and more like a viable option nowadays. Lest we forget
which station had numerous interviews with not only Neil Finn but also Bic
Runga last year? Bic's 'Sway' apparently got quite a bit of airplay on R2.

>For this reason I found no interest in music apart from the >occasional
>band that was different to all this and had songs with >meaning to me,
>Deacon Blue my most obvious example.

Check out Tim Finn's new material, which I reckon has elements of Deacon
Blue in it.

>Whereas bands that shouldn't ever see the light of because of severe >lack
>of talent (I won't name names)get all the money people can throw >at them
>to make countless terrible records.

Ah, money. The be all and end all. And there was me thinking that maybe,
just maybe, some people were still in it for the sheer desire to make music
;-)

Hutch wrote:
>Gone, now are the days when most people could only name one or two >New
>Zealand artists (usually Crowded House and either The Exponents >or Dave
>Dobbyn).  That would in general be the limit of most kiwis >local music
>knowledge.

You're talking from a Kiwi perspective here, right? All of my knowledge of
Kiwi artists (which is albeit not huge) all stems from the Finn Brothers.
Working back from Crowded House into the vast canon of amazing songs which
is Split Enz, I then moved on to related artists and even artists with
obscure connections with anything Finn (obviously the Neil-produced
reworking of In My Room was enough to make me a Mutton Birds addict...) My
interest in Dave Dobbyn came about through Neil producing his brilliant
Twist album, and my interest in the Exponents came about through Enz maestro
Eddie Rayner producing their even more brilliant 'Better Late Than Never'
album. Then there's the inevitable Bic Runga connection (with Alan Gregg,
and Nick Seymour somewhere along the line).

>So why is it that we are now listening to ourselves.  For me I think >a
>definitive 'kiwi' sound is finally coming through and bands are
>realising they don't have to copy what's coming out of the states or
>britain.  People are writing about things innately kiwi.

I think the Mutton Birds embody that. It's not SO easy to get from Crowded
House records (although Tim Finn's 'Tim Finn' album certainly does the trick
for me). But yeah, the Exponents and Mr Dobbyn have a definite 'sound' which
I guess can largely be attributed to something geographic.

Phew. Crikey, I'd better do some work, otherwise my boss might start getting
a bit annoyed.

See ya,
Spence.
*****************************************************
Visit Spence & Dave's ALL-NEW MUTTON BIRDS WEBSITE @
www.gofree.co.uk/home/muttonbirds
*****************************************************

> It's great when a song can inspire such rich images of a place you have no
> knowledge of (apart from maybe on TV). Another great one in this vein is
> Icehouse's 'Great Southern Land'.

intersting that you mention this song Spence. It in particular (& Primitive Man
as an album) has been one of my favourites since I was at high school. and I
think again the reason is because it does, as you say, inspire such rich images
of the place. I'm interested that it does this for you when you've not been to
Australia, since I have and thought the reason it resonated for me was because
I'd seen some of Australia and understood those images.

  the vast emptiness of Australia is quite something to behold... of course it
never was a terra nullius or the Australians wouldn't have had so much trouble
with Aboriginal land rights, but of course there are only (I think) 16 million
people in a land the size of the continental United States.

coming from a tiny country like nz (where you are never much more than an hour
or so from the sea, unless you're in the middle of the Uruweras!) Australia is
often our first introduction to a big space. Landing at Wellington or Auckland
airport is strange - one moment you are flying over the sea, the next you're
landing. (wellington of course is even more bizarre - a tiny strip of airport
bounded at either end by crashing waves -  i love it but it scares the pants of
Americans !  :-)

the first time i went to Australia i remember flying over land for ages and ages
and thinking, where the hell is the airport - are we going to land in the bloody
desert?, and seeing vast miles of empty land, flat, where in NZ you'd see green
hills, dotted with sheep or bush, or sparkling blue sea peeping through the
green ...

Australia is beautiful but terrifyingly huge.  Great Southern Land summed up
that feeling for me ....

and now i must go and listen to Primitive Man for the first time in ages. thanks
spence for reminding me that Icehouse is still one of my favourite bands - up
there in the multi-cd count!

cheers
shel

>  I swear I'll never
> tell anyone how "quaint" the place is.

Actually Bibi, i for one don't mind people thinking we're quaint.

i hear this from a lot of overseas visitors (esp. Americans) and it
interests me. without wishing to appear totally jingoistic, i guess if being
in a country where you can stop and obtain help from people in the street,
allow your children (mostly) to play in their own backyards without fear of
abduction or other brutalisation, drive 10 minutes to get home and unwind
with a bbq and glass of wine before the sun goes down in the summer, spend
10 minutes in a car and find an almost (sometimes completely) deserted
beach, then drive another 10 minutes and find a vibrant, educated,
interesting city with cafes, theatres, cinema, museums, art galleries,
libraries, street life ... or drive 40 minutes to visit a region like the
Wairarapa where you can spend a very cruisy afternoon at (one of my fav.
places) the Te Kairanga vineyard sitting in the sun sampling the produce and
listening to a live band play with your kids rolling around on the grass in
front of you, or later on trot down to the local dairy for a sunday
newspaper and an enormous icecream cone for $1 and a shop owner who chats
about the local happenings like he's your great uncle's third cousin twice
removed and have you seen Aunty Sheila lately ... or take a 3 hour cruise to
the South Island and drive through some incredible landscape to more cities
which all have their good and bad points, but are still overwhelmingly
friendly and open and relatively safe ...

i think these are the things that people from London and NY or Frankfurt
describe as quaint - in fact Pete's third cousin's wife from Dusseldorf
thought we were quaint, she loved NZ, but thought it very unsophisticated
... i guess in comparison to those places it's not a rat race, but we do
have great coffee and fantastic BANDS

what do i want to see overseas?

old old old buildings
the art galleries and museums of Europe of which we get only a taste when
exhibitions are toured here
places of antiquity - Greece, Italy, Asia Minor (as it was in the time of
Augustus Caesar)

these are destination things - but would i want to live there? only for as
long as it takes to have my fill of those things. maybe that would be a long
time, but i'd always come home. flying into Wellington always makes my
throat convulse - the sea sparkles, even in the wind, and the land with all
it's hilly contrast always looks so beautiful, except when you can't see it
cos there's a howling southerly and it pissing down, but then you probably
can't land safely anyway!  :-)

and now, i promise, no more rabbiting on ....

although that is why i set up this list in the first place . ... oh well.

more please someone!

shel

PS: Bibi, you are welcome to stay here when you do come to NZ.  ;-)

Shel wrote:
>interesting that you mention this song Spence. It in particular (&
> >Primitive Man as an album) has been one of my favourites since I was >at
>high school. and I think again the reason is because it does, as >you say,
>inspire such rich images of the place.

Hmm. Not only images of the place, but that album just has an amazing
atmosphere right running through it. I found an old vinyl copy at a record
fair a few months back (the UK version was called 'Love in Motion'), and my
fave track on there is 'Trojan Blue'. I just love those old synths and the
sheer feeling you find yourself immersed in while listening to it. Wow.

>I'm interested that it does this for you when you've not been to
>Australia, since I have and thought the reason it resonated for me >was
>because
>I'd seen some of Australia and understood those images.

Well, to be honest, the first time I heard Great Southern Land was in the
movie 'Young Einstein' (yeah, it's dumb, but I love that movie) and the song
was used as backing music for great landscape shots. I guess that did it for
me.

>Landing at Wellington or Auckland airport is strange

One day I'll hopefully find out.... It's been a dream for a few years now,
inspired by reading Mike Chunn's 'Stranger Than Fiction' and realising my
life won't be complete without going on an Enz (and NZ music in general)
pilgrimage at some point.

>and now i must go and listen to Primitive Man for the first time in >ages.

Believe me, it's rarely off my stereo nowadays.

See ya,
Spence
*****************************************************
Visit Spence & Dave's ALL-NEW MUTTON BIRDS WEBSITE @
www.gofree.co.uk/home/muttonbirds
*****************************************************

Hi,

Just to add to what I was saying about songs which create an
all-encompassing atmosphere, I've just thought of another really good
example - the MBs 'Face in the Paper'. That's an awesome one for totally
dragging you into the song, the situation, the emotion. One of Alan's finer
moments on bass as well, I'd say.

Any thoughts?

Spence.
*****************************************************
Visit Spence & Dave's ALL-NEW MUTTON BIRDS WEBSITE @
www.gofree.co.uk/home/muttonbirds
*****************************************************

Wonder Frog wrote:

> I will confess a fondness for the Headless Chickens and the now-defunct band
> Peking Man.

Ah... fond memories myself. "Room That Echoes," et al.
I reckon Stellar would be right up your alley. Their album really smokes my
tyres.

Check out some snippets at their site: http://www.stellar.co.nz and if you (or
anyone else offshore) are interested, we could pick up a few copies and despatch
them snailmail.

Pete.
--
"I wish I was in Wellington" - Alan Gregg
Visit our Mutton Birds website at:
http://www.geocities.com/~pete-n-shel

Just finished reading the Tongue in the Mail list, where JP informed us
that the NZ tourism board picked "Don't Dream it's Over" to represent
New Zealand to the rest of the world for the purposes of encouraging
tourism, currently one of the most important of NZ's money making
capacities.  Since we have been discussing how the Mutton Birds music
evokes images of NZ that make us want to travel there, does anyone else
think it's a travesty that a tired old number like DDIO was chosen
instead of "Envy of Angels"?  I mean really, which song has something to
do with what a beautiful country NZ is?  Who wouldn't want to visit a
place called "The Envy of Angels"?  What a beautiful song it is too-how
lovely to hear it coming out of TVs worldwide.  All that need be done is
a bit of editing, which the song's author could handily do-and don't
think there won't be some tinkering with DDIO-to make the song fit the
commercial format.  I think all the NZ members should ring the tourist
board, or we should find an email address, and register our complaint.
The tourist board has had its fair share of cock-ups lately, and this is
a major one. Far worse than that Saatchi deal.

Bibi g

bibi, are you sure you're not living here, or are you just permanently wired
in to National Radio?

i agree that Envy is a far better song, and although i have no opinion to
speak of on what the hell the tourism board do, i suspect that envy is not
an obvious choice for them for a couple of reasons:
a) they have probably never heard of the MBs or consider that they don't
have a high enough int.l profile
b) it would make people think too much - after all, it's made all of us
think - and the iimage they are trying to convey (i think if you see their
website you'll agree) is NZ as a fun, adventurous, in tune with nature kind
of place with a huge variety of things to do - and maybe getting away from
the Cinema of Unease concept which pervades so much NZ film, and certainly
Envy does have its dark overtones, that's why i love it so much ... it's not
frothy enough ...

what do you think?


shel

incidentally, has anyone seen Run Lola Run? (german film) hutch and i saw it
the other day and just loved it. it was here for the Film Festival and was
so popular they kept it on for an extended season ....

of course hutch is now in love with Franke Potente ...

girls dye your hair!
ooops sorry hutch

well people its d day.  time for old hutch to catch that plane and
cruise to the land oz.  im off to auckland for the weekend for an
outward bound reunion/21st.  then on monday i hit sydney.  im there till
the following wednesday.  mikes stag night/weekend starts on the friday
the 27th.  were going to the bledisloe on the saturday night and
anything else that happens..........well sorry folks but what goes on
tour stays on tour.....that is unless im paid hefty sums of dosh to blab
it all at the wedding.  hehehe.  so ill be out of touch for a couple of
weeks now.  i know how disappointing that is to all of you.  look out
for us at stadium australia amongst the other 110000 people there.  god
i hope we can see the field from where we're sitting.

take care all and ill catch up with you when i return.


cheers
hutch.


--
Cause when a man holds a thing well made,
There’s connection,
There’s completeness,
When a man holds a thing well made.

-Don McGlashan

Hey there Hutch,
Have a great time (I know you will) and I'll watch out for you in the
stand!

TAN xxxxxx




Hutch <hutchy@...> on 19/08/99 09:28:18

Please respond to muttonbirds@onelist.com

To:   Al and Denis <klassykitsch@...>, Amy <pritch@...>,
       Ants <antsutherland@...>, "Beastie and What'sname"
       <martin@...>, bibi gellert <bibigellert@...>,
       Dale <dale.finlay@...>, Dallas <dallashall@...>, Guy
       <guy.singer@...>, Guy and Rona <guy.rona@...>, hels
       <hel.ward@...>, Jessie <jel0996@...>, Karen Pritchard
       <pritchard@...>, "kinetic@..." <kinetic@...>,
       Lizzie <stroomy@...>, Mutton Birds - Onelist
       <muttonbirds@onelist.com>, Nadine Wong-She
       <n.wong-she@...>, Ness <muirv@...>, Paul Marsden
       <paul.marsden@...>, pete&shel <pmonk@...>, Poppy and
       Wills <hanco@...>, Rona <rs@...>, Sonya
       <sonyabk@...>, "Spencer.....bless" <spewee@...>, Tanya
       Hancox/PUBLICIS/MMS_UK
cc:

Subject:  [muttonbirds] im off to see the wizard........




From: Hutch <hutchy@...>

well people its d day.  time for old hutch to catch that plane and
cruise to the land oz.  im off to auckland for the weekend for an
outward bound reunion/21st.  then on monday i hit sydney.  im there till
the following wednesday.  mikes stag night/weekend starts on the friday
the 27th.  were going to the bledisloe on the saturday night and
anything else that happens..........well sorry folks but what goes on
tour stays on tour.....that is unless im paid hefty sums of dosh to blab
it all at the wedding.  hehehe.  so ill be out of touch for a couple of
weeks now.  i know how disappointing that is to all of you.  look out
for us at stadium australia amongst the other 110000 people there.  god
i hope we can see the field from where we're sitting.

take care all and ill catch up with you when i return.


cheers
hutch.


--
Cause when a man holds a thing well made,
There

Hi there,

Well it's been almost a week since anyone said anything here, it seems a bit
of a lull. Have people ran out of things to say?

I would have to agree with Spence email about face in the paper being a
really amazing song, it's one of those songs that can make the hairs on the
back of your neck stand up, I like it a lot. What do people think of the new
mailing list.

I'm not sure about As Close as this as the new single, I would have prefered
one of the other one's, notable candidates might be Jackie's Song and Small
mercies. Since they aren't releasing it over the global nastiness, they don't
have to be as commercial as all that. I guess I'm just nitpicking.

I was a bit dissapointed that nobody at all came to my MBs web site, still
maybe I was a bit optimistic in making it in the first place.

Graham

http://members.tripod.com/kerzo/

Hey Graham
Well I for one have been and seen your site. well done. there is a lot of hard
work involved in getting a web site up and running. One benefit of
yahoo/geocities is that they do have heaps of resources available for beginners
-
perhaps tripod have this. frames for instance are actually dead easy - it's just
a matter of setting up your index page properly for them. we learnt a lot of
stuff just from checking out resource pages at geocities, so have a go and
experiment.

re: not much talk - well it's the week - most of us work - pete  & i for example
have three children under 7, pete works 12 hour days, i work 2 days a week, plus
study for my design course, plus violin lessons for my kids and lots of work
with
school things,  there isn't that much time left in a day for thinking let alone
typing - and i don't think we're unique - we all have really busy lives. that's
why it's great that we can use these kinds of resources when we've got time. it
enables a level of contact with people from outside our immediate social circles
that we would never have otherwise.  hutch is off this week - and believe me
he's
a great contributer of endless drivel. (and i will suffer for that one when he
gets back from Sydney!)

pete and i are pleased with the response to the list. we didn't want to replace
the cardwell list as an immediate posting point for mB news, but we did want
somewhere we could have an off-topic rave (such as now) without pissing off the
people who just wanted MB news.

I am curious to see how the Front Lawn side of your site develops. I am a big FL
fan - i only have one album (Songs from) but i love it. actually i think it's
hutch's but it lives here - i keep hiding it when he comes round so he won't
take
it back.
i had an e-mail last week from someone with a query about the line "On Takapuna
Beach" - of course it's from "Andy" - they thought it was a MB sounding song and
were searching for the lyrics. i'm glad i was able to forward them to the person
- but it would be interesting to see you putting some stuff up on your site in a
Front Lawn context - i don't think there's much out there.

Shel

--
"I wish I was in Wellington" - Alan Gregg
Visit our Mutton Birds website at:
http://www.geocities.com/~pete-n-shel

Hi folks,

Shel wrote:
>Hey Graham
>Well I for one have been and seen your site. well done.

Ditto. It's a great idea having a song-of-the-fortnight feature, and I hope
it's more successful than the song-of-the-week thing I started on the list
last year, which had a decidedly underwhelming response. I just hope that
what with new MBs sites popping up every few months, Don and co realise that
there is genuine support out here, and keep churning out those great songs.

>re: not much talk - well it's the week - most of us work

Yeah, and some of us pretend to be working while in fact reading email (heh
heh!). Correct me if I'm wrong, but catching up on MBs news is slightly more
interesting than installing Windows NT for the 3000th time.

>study for my design course, plus violin lessons for my kids

Crikey Shel, why not the euphonium?

>pete and i are pleased with the response to the list. we didn't want to
>replace
>the cardwell list as an immediate posting point for mB news, but we did
>want
>somewhere we could have an off-topic rave

And a damn good idea it is.

A quick question/request: does anyone have any old reviews or articles
regarding Chris/Starlings. I've got a new website I'm putting the finishing
touches to, and so far I've got a UK discography worked out, but I need
other info. Any help, please email me a.s.a.p

Cheers,
Spence
*****************************************************
Visit Spence & Dave's ALL-NEW MUTTON BIRDS WEBSITE @
www.gofree.co.uk/home/muttonbirds

Comments, suggestions or abuse? Sign our guestbook -
Go on, it makes us feel popular ;-)
*****************************************************

Hi folks,

Thanks for the positive feedback, I'm sorry for whingeing, (I'm not even
English) , I know you all work and stuff, I'm just being a bit of a pratt.
I'll take each thing you wrote

>Ditto. It's a great idea having a song-of-the-fortnight feature, and I hope
>it's more successful than the song-of-the-week thing I started on the list
>last year, which had a decidedly underwhelming response. I just hope that
>what with new MBs sites popping up every few months, Don and co realise that
>there is genuine support out here, and keep churning out those great songs.

Well I hope so, but at the mo the response so far has been zero. But I know
the site is just new and stuff and all but it's a bit disheartening when the
only stuff on the site was stuff I wrote, the SOTF was nominated by me and
the only reviews in the review section are mine, but with a bit of hope and
luck it'll improve I hope. I do hope that Don and Co. realise that their fans
are some of the greatest in the world (that's you guys).

>pete and i are pleased with the response to the list. we didn't want to
replace
>the cardwell list as an immediate posting point for mB news, but we did want
>somewhere we could have an off-topic rave (such as now) without pissing off
the
>people who just wanted MB news.

It is a grand idea, and well done for being the pioneer Shel. Have you got a
number of how many people are on it now.

>I am curious to see how the Front Lawn side of your site develops. I am a
big FL
fan - i only have one album (Songs from) but i love it.

Yeah I wanted that to be a big part, as those songs are worthy of discussion,
but seem not to have anywhere to go in the information super sandwich. As for
FL content on the web, the only site for the Front Lawn was a site that
basically had the 2 running orders for the albums, and seems to have been
abandoned, so I hope Front Lawn stuff sits nicely within the site. I have
only got "songs from" at the mo, but my birthday has just been and gone so
it's going to be a little visit to the website to get "more songs from" in
the near future...Huzzah.

Well I think I've taken too much of your time already,
cheeripip folkies

Graham
http://members.tripod.com/kerzo/

> catching up on MBs news is slightly more
> interesting than installing Windows NT for the 3000th time.

shel chokes on her cornflakes with laughter

> Crikey Shel, why not the euphonium?

well if AJ had the choice he'd be learning the saxophone, the trombone, the
drums and the electric guitar all at the same time and he is only six and we
didn't want to overburden him. but i would imagine the euphonium will creep in
there at some stage!  :-)
--
"I wish I was in Wellington" - Alan Gregg
Visit our Mutton Birds website at:
http://www.geocities.com/~pete-n-shel

Graham wrote:
>Thanks for the positive feedback, I'm sorry for whingeing, (I'm not even
>English)

Ouch!

>As for FL content on the web, the only site for the Front Lawn was a >site
>that
>basically had the 2 running orders for the albums, and seems to have >been
>abandoned

True. So let's discuss the Front Lawn, as you say, these songs *need*
discussing. I've got both albums, and thanks to the generosity of a kind
listee (Hi there, you wonderful human being), some great footage on video. I
can't decide which of the albums I prefer, to be honest. The first one I got
was 'More Songs From the Front Lawn'; some of the songs and musical
arrangements on which definitely laid the plans for later MBs songs. It's a
great mix of ideas as well, from the brilliantly quirky ('A Good Address')
to the downright haunting ('Because She's Gone'), it's a very very good
album. At the moment I'm swaying more towards the first album though. 'Andy'
is just a classic, as are 'Claude Rains' and 'A Man and a Woman'. Really
good for singing along to. Any MBs fans NEED these albums. Definitely worth
discussing in more detail, but some idiot on the campus can't access
Windows, so I really should get going and sort it.

See ya,
Spence

*****************************************************
Visit Spence & Dave's MUTTON BIRDS WEBSITE @
www.gofree.co.uk/home/muttonbirds

Comments, suggestions or abuse? Sign our guestbook -
Go on, it makes us feel popular ;-)
*****************************************************

Spence,

I absolutely love "Claude Rains" - I'm not sure why, perhaps it's just because I
love Casablanca so much, and can watch it over and over again.

I can't listen to "Tomorrow Night" without thinking of my dear sister Tan who is
in London and I think of her riding the underground with her kiwi accent (well
not so kiwi these days, she sounds like a bloody pom half the time!) and
although I wouldn't call her a Hutt Girl, (she'd probably hit me)  the images of
flying into Wellington over Oriental Bay are pretty moving for those of us here,
and I guess I wish she was "standing on the same ground as we are" .... roll on
March

oh dear, this has real potential to deteriorate into sentimental slop, sorry
guys

anyway - "how you doing" - is such a commentary on blokeism - their life is so
ho hum, and it's so bloody typical - the attempts to share something about one
life, and the other guy just totally not wanting to talk about it. I don't know
if British men are like this too - i guess it's a bit of a colonial cliche,
although i'm definitely not married to one of them!

I suppose many of the songs on this album sound naive in some ways - they're not
slick, over produced - they're odd, quirky, definitely not primetime play
material - but they're very honest and thoughtful and insightful ...

thoughts anyone?
shel