Flipper

What can you really say about one of post-punk's most important bands? Flipper, formed in 1979, extensively toured the US back in the 80s; when touring meant getting in a van and creating your own touring circuit - released Public Flipper Limited with a Flipper board game (a kind of game of life for punks where a player can contract herpes from a groupie), and while considered peers of Black Flag and Dead Kennedys are far more original and exciting. Think of Flipper as more of a No Wave band, if No Wave bands didn’t take themselves seriously and knew how to lay down a decent bass groove.

Flipper, noise rock pioneers, an everyman’s anti-art art band, stalwarts of the San Francisco label Subterranean Records, their 1981 LP Album Generic Flipper, in words of Simon Reynolds (Rip It Up And Start Again: Postpunk 1978 - 1984) “rocked like a wild party on the rim of a void”. And in the words of Henry Rollins (Get in the Van) Flipper were “…just heavy. Heavier than you”, Kurt Cobain wore homemade Flipper T Shirts, and Krist Novoselic has just finished a 2 year stint playing bass for them. Their new double album Love/Fight is due out May 19th.

Furthermore, if that isn’t enough motivation to go and see this show then read on: Support is from Tristan Dingemans (best known for his role in High Dependency Unit and solo work under Kahu) new band Mountain Eater. Few bands manage to take the intangibility of a natural landscape and transform it into sound, but those that do are absolutely momentous. Mountain Eater sprang seemingly fully formed from Dunedin late in 2008, a brooding and heavy mix of sonic landscapes and visceral, bludgeoning rock. They share a common empathy with contemporary New Zealand instrumental bands of the likes of An Emerald City, and Kerretta, while stomping territory all their own, mixing sonic experimentalism with a dense, layered intensity. The antecedants may well be obvious (High Dependency Unit especially so), but Mountain Eater are a further step down the path of tension filled catharsis, as immediately inviting as they are unrelenting.

Tickets are a steal at $25.

Available from undertheradar.co.nz and Real Groovy.