Uncharted territory: how the Fall’s fractious New Zealand tour nearly sank Flying Nun records
When Flying Nun announced in 1983 that it was going to issue a new live album by the renowned Mancunian outfit the Fall, the news came as a bit of a surprise. The label had positioned themselves as advocates for New Zealand underground music and here it was doing a live record from a prominent UK act. Yet Flying Nun’s Roger Shepherd and Chris Knox sensed an opportunity. Knox and Doug Hood, also working for Flying Nun at the time, had recorded the Fall’s appearances in Auckland the year before and had managed to secure a tacit agreement from the band to release it on Flying Nun.
Unlike back home in the UK, where the band had the backing of taste-makers such as John Peel but meagre record sales, the Fall were minor stars in New Zealand. In fact, if there was a barometer of New Zealanders’ distinctive musical tastes in the early 80s, it was their unparalleled support of the Fall. When Gap Records from Australia licensed the Fall for the territory, their single Totally Wired landed in the New Zealand singles chart for six weeks in the middle of 1981 (it peaked at No 25). The following year Lie Dream of a Casino Soul made the Top 20 and Hex Enduction Hour reached No 11 in the album chart after the band’s short New Zealand tour. Thanks to Knox and Hood’s tapes from two of those shows, Shepherd found himself with an unexpected opportunity. Putting out a Fall record on Flying Nun could make the label some real money and help offset the cashflow problems that threatened its stability.
The project had its origins in 1982, when the Fall were booked for a string of New Zealand shows that August. Chris Knox detailed the particulars in stalwart New Zealand music magazine Rip It Up:
Three months ago (or so) Helene, who runs Sydney’s Stranded venue, and Ken West … managed to convince the Fall’s manager, Kay Carroll, that they were eminently suited to bringing her bunch of Northern Soul Boys (joke) over to Australasia … A tour was born. Being a Wellingtonian by birth (nine years in Levin, hardy soul), Helene thought NZ would benefit from the Fall, and maybe even vice versa. So, completely bypassing the normal promotional avenues, Mainstreet in Auckland, Victoria in Wellington and Christchurch Town Hall were booked through people in those three cities who had never had any experience with overseas acts.
For Kiwis, this was a big deal. Relatively few international punk, post-punk or new wave bands ever ventured as far as New Zealand and to have legends like the Fall coming was big news. When the band arrived in Christchurch in mid-August 82, a local photographer was there to meet them. The next day a photograph of a smiling Marc Riley sauntering through the airport appeared on the front page of Christchurch newspaper the Press under the headline Happy Fall Guitarist. For anyone familiar with the band, a shot of any of them smiling was a rare sighting. Press reporter David Swift later wrote about the origins of the headline. “The news editors were so taken with the image of the gangly Marc Riley swinging his suitcase at the arrival lounge of the airport they ran it on the front and told me to caption it in a way that even grannies would understand. So I did, with tongue in cheek!” Read More…
