Show #05

This was a show we played on a Thursday night at Re:Fuel in Dunedin, the site of our first ever show some weeks before. The difference was that that show was a Pint Night with free entry and cheaper beer, and this show was a normal gig that we had to entice people along to. That's always a tricky prospect on a Thursday at Re:Fuel.

In the end it was mainly the bands playing to each other, from my recollection. In continuing with our pretty sweet run of sound persons, we were lucky to have Dale Cotton doing sound at this show, and with him was Mike Holland. They brought along a pitch shifter, and asked if we minded if they tried it out on us. We were more than happy for that to occur, and the result was some pretty cool noises that Sam and I mistakenly attributed to Tim at the time. But Tim only had one pedal! How could he have made those noises?

This was the first show in a three night run that would see us playing Re:Fuel twice, with a slot at Dunedin's famous 24 Hour Book Sale at The Regent theatre sandwiched in between. We thought we'd try to make the three sets as different from each other as possible, and earmarked this one as our 'Shellac' set. That meant more of the math rock, and less of the space rock. As Tim declares at the start, Test to the Test was the first song we wrote, and given that it had already been renamed from the working title of Nasal Delivery System, this leads me to think we may have already had our first recording session with Rob Falconer under our belts.

Squirm were a great, nuggety rock band, a two piece in this incarnation with no trouble bringing the presence of a larger band, and Death By Silo were certainly well along the way to crafting many a memorable country-tinged rock number. But you'll just have to take my word for that.

Dave, May 2015


The original liner notes are as follows:
"This was my first time seeing Squirm, and they didn’t disappoint, a punchy two piece consisting of Brett Lupton & Heath Te Au, they were the sort of fun rock band that were a dime a dozen during the nineteen nineties. Dale Cotton did an amazing job on sound, letting loose with the pitch shifter on us, and it sounded great. The crowd, perhaps unsurprisingly, was sparse, and got treated to our ‘Shellac’ set.

This was Death By Silo’s second gig, and a fun one at that. A meaty rock band over-rooted in country plaintives, they are at turns catchy and emotive. Chris Matthews is a joyful kid on drums, and is particularly entertaining. There is certainly a darkness, and most notably a human core.

The following night was to be a midnight to one o’ clock slot at The Regent 24 Hour Book Sale, notable for us filling that hour with just three songs, each about twenty minutes, and being told we were too loud and staff were threatening to walk out. We quietened down, and reworked Death of a Hippy into a much more dolphin sounding song, and got a more favourable response. Forgot to record it. Stink.

All up, weird.

DAVE, JUNE 2010"

RECORDED LIVE TO MINIDISC BY KAREN McLEAN. POSTER BY CHRIS MATTHEWS