Books
Dix’s midnight runners
by Gareth Shute
The success of a popular history book relies on its author’s ability to make loose strands of events cohere into themes that progress as a narrative, while also allowing room for the individual stories of those who were most crucially involved. The failure to achieve either of these aims was what marked David Eggleton’s disappointing Ready To Fly: The Story of New Zealand Rock Music. Throughout the book, most bands were simply given a paragraph each, with little attempt to characterise their association to one another, and there was seldom room for an anecdote to liven up the text. How was it that a great writer like Eggleton came to fall so short of the mark?
Part of the problem was that the definitive history of New Zealand music had already been written more than a decade earlier. John Dix’s original Stranded in Paradise came out in 1988 and was a comprehensive guide to the progression of popular music in New Zealand since its beginnings. The book was large to the point of ungainly and laid out in a fashion that represented all the worst aspects of design in the 80s, yet it left few stones unturned and held a treasure trove of anecdotes, stories and wildly unsubstantiated rumours. By the time Eggleton came along, there was little left to do but trim the interesting bits from Stranded in Paradise, introduce a few stories from Wade Churton’s local punk history Have You Checked the Children? and add a few chapters to bring the story up to date. He needn’t have bothered, since Dix has now returned with what we really needed: a new updated version of his book.
This time, Rick Bryant has been replaced on the cover by the younger but equally resilient Jon Toogood (Shihad). Inside, the format remains black and white, although the design has improved markedly – the cluttered layout has been pared back and the garish heading fonts removed. Another improvement is that the photographs have been reduced in size and now sit neatly alongside the columns of text rather than sprawling over whole pages to their edges, although one downside of this tidy-up is that some photographs have been dropped. Much of the content remains similar to the original version and, telling the story, Dix expresses excitement (for the ground-breaking artists) and scorn (for the more derivative acts). Take the following section on the lead singer of one of his favourite acts, the Enemy: “He threw himself around the stage, leaping, crawling, staring demonically, spitting, screaming, wrapping his head with bandages, dribbling, demented. In the space of one hour, Chris Knox had become … Chris Knox.”
Dix begins with the rise of the two Johnnys – Cooper and Devlin – who had some success in the mid-50s, appropriating overseas rock’n’roll hits and introducing local audiences to the outrageous onstage antics of Elvis. Cover versions were the norm, until local songwriters like Wayne Mason (the Fourmula) emerged and helped the nation get over its cultural cringe. The final chapters are devoted to the last decade and a half, during which time the local music industry has grown exponentially – which is emphasised by the fact that Dix struggles (and perhaps fails) in his attempt to cover the sheer breadth of music that has been put out during this period.
Nonetheless, the last chapters give a sense of completion that was lacking in the 1988 edition, when local music was still struggling to be accepted by a wider audience. As Dix points out, of the 52 local albums that have topped the New Zealand charts, all but 10 have been released during the past 17 years and this is a sign that the New Zealand music industry has reached a new level of sophistication. Looking back from the present day, Dix is also able to mark the passing of many of the musicians who did the ground work that the modern scene is based on – including such figures as early rocker Bob Paris, Invaders Wally Scott and Jimmy Hill, the multi-talented Bruno Lawrence, the powerhouse that was Dalvanius Prime, and hip hop pioneer Phil Fuemana. But fittingly, the book concludes with a round-up of local musicians whose progeny are carrying on the flame: Neil Finn’s son Liam, Tigi Ness’s (Unity Band) son Che Fu, Paul Woolright’s (Ticket/Hello Sailor) son Shelton (Blindspott), and the list goes on.
STRANDED IN PARADISE, by John Dix (Penguin, $45).
