Flying Nun was started in 1981 in Christchurch, New Zealand. For the next decade and a half, all sorts of plucky garage bands were signed to this label, most of them from rural towns scattered around New Zealand. They've all got a similar sound --- like a punk-washed Sarah Records, or The Smiths, if Morrissey knew how to have fun.
I discovered them through The Clean's "Anything Could Happen," which, regular listeners might recall, is one of my favorite songs, ever. From there, the miracles of Youtube led me to the once-rare Flying Nun music videos (ripped off the marvelous-looking DVD, "Very Short Films").
It's rather hard to find Flying Nun stuff in your average record store, but through the combined powers of Youtube, CDs on EBay, and KUCI's anthropological shelves of vinyl, I can bury myself in that sweet Dunedin sound.
Here's what I picked out as the creme de la creme:
the clean - tally ho - anthology
the chills - pink frost - kaleidoscope world
the chills - dan destiny and the silver dawn - brave words
the tall dwarfs - the brain that wouldn't die - hello cruel world
the verlaines - pyromaniac - juvenilia
the bats - block of wood - daddy's highway
the verlaines - you forget love - bird dog
the verlaines - doomsday - juvenilia
jean paul sartre experience - own two feet - love songs
sneaky feelings - husband house - positively george street
the bats - north by north - daddy's highway
doublehappys - the other way - nerves
the clean - billy two - anthology
the clean - thumbs off - anthology
the chills - speak for yourself - brave words
the clean - anything could happen - anthology
Listen to my recording of the show here!
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If you're interested, there's a really cool documentary about Flying Nun on Youtube; here's the first part, and you can follow the related videos from there.
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