NEWS

The Side Effects

Artists: Dickos Fortuna, Boss Christ, Segue Lugosi, Oscr Trm and Trevlak

Time: 2000-2001

Refers to:

MAG 17 THE SIDE EFFECTS “Gold Apache”

Listen to The Side Effects “Wolfman”

Space— the infinite expanse of nothingness. Dusted with a thousand sparkling lights suspended in an endless volume of the unknown. The rhythm of the cosmos captured mid flight within a black canvas of the endless deep.

Here, among the countless drifts of dust and ice, among the shimmering rays of its sun, on a small island set at the edge of the sea, in a bustling city street of the nations capital we are drawn slowly to the unassuming entrance of a solitary motion picture theatre door ascending discreetly from a crowded footpath. As we climb its cola-stained carpet, measuring each step in its viscosity and surgery tack we reach the  illuminated atrium– a hole-in-the-window ticket booth and complimentary candy bar. Vague figures swagger in the shadowed area of three cinema attendants conversing.

The three bow-tied loiterers, skirting duties of sweeping up after a thousand childrens spilt popcorn, are, at an average age of about twenty years — Dickos Fortuna, Boss Christ and Segue Lugosi. Over garbage bags dripping with discarded soda they consider the potentially catastrophic consequences of forming an instrumental combo.

Dickos Fortuna, the handsome pakeha native to the rural metropolis of Masterton, invoked a pivotal miscreancy to the Masterton teen scene of 1995. Where he had met and cajoled with the similarly untamed Boss Christ and Segue Lugosi of the lesser, more northern country township of Pahiatua. When Boss’ parents – Mr & Mrs Christ, relocated from Pahiatua to Masterton both Dickos and Boss alchemised a kinship in the shared enthusiasm for both rapscallion throng and complimentary audio experimentation.

Segue Lugosi, the lanky amateur double bassist, and Boss Christ – hairy Roman sandal welding guitarist, had both applied for  the study of the modernist musical movement known as “jazz” at a Wellington University. Being from more rural origins and lacking in the general aptitude of the sophisticate, knowledge, experience and most things, were surprised to be accepted into the study and consequently to Hoyts Cinema for part time employment.

One summers evening in the year 2000, in a downtown brick ally way apartment housing Dickos Fortuna, the trio met to further discuss the pros and cons of SURF. It was THEN, in a routinely hedonistic high five, that an oath was perceived in the cosmos and special powers thusly bestowed upon them.

Once deep in the walls of academia, Boss and Segue happened upon a curious first — a relatable Aucklander. Their interest in both the alchemical and hypnotic aspects of ritualistic inebriation coupled with musical performance aligned suspiciously well. Oscar Trm, the organ wielding Aucklander who relocated to the windy city was an immediate and dependable ally in sonic exploration. With a penchant for the obtuse, the angular and the asymmetric a common curiosity between the players ensued. 

A few weeks later, now armed with Oscr on a veneered Casio, Dickos and Boss on guitar and Segue on bass the intention for a combo to realise these ideas was close to ultimately manifest. All that lacked was a drummer who understood the kind of tribal swing and psychedelia essential to it.

The gods were listening. Days later Segue crossed the city street that ran straight down the hill toward the water when a drummer of a punk band he’d seen a year or so beforehand crossed the opposite way. It would be unbelievable if it wasn’t plain truth as the two exchanged greetings and got talking of the idea. 

The name his mother gave him was unclear but the world knew him simply as “Trevlac”. He could have been a karate chopping secret agent but he was too handsome for war with an air that captivated a lustful yearning in most by the simple swish right of his sideburnt aviators or the sultry flop of his shaggy beatle bob set majestically aloft a wide collar of tanned pleather. Like the lost knickers torn away in a visceral southerly he appeared to jauntily float rather than walk. His drumming was equally impressive. He owned a drum kit and his own car and because of all of this he became the fifth and final member of what they were now calling THE SIDE EFFECTS.

In the following weeks the living room turned bedroom of an Art Valley flat became the headquarters where the five would test their various theories. Propositions were heavily rhythmic in nature, chiefly repetitive, at almost nauseating overuse between unknown spaces for cosmically “Freaking Out” — as it became paramount that it was essential to dwell psychedelically for the optimal “freak-out”. The resulting experience became 5 to 8 minute long songs branching into various colours as each player did whatever the hell they felt like within the motif of the proposal.

Shows began discreetly, tuxedo clad and to rooms of less than a handful outside of friends. Gradually, the live show appeared to work as a guaranteed “dance” performance— literally too rhythmic for anyone in the room to avoid at least a toe tap. In less than half a dozen shows they began to completely fill venues which bopped or boogied wildly for the entire hour long set. Occasionally catering to the additional dancer on stage or saxophone player. In fact, it soon became typical to see an entire room full of people, dancing in wild abandon.

A local sports bar named after the South Pacific star cluster Crux soon offered the band a weekly Wednesday night residency of which the band happily accepted for small pay, drinks and the chance to practice more. The bar was mostly catered to sports watching and slot machines during the day and at nights would occasionally host live music shows to various popularity. The residency was a shot at attracting some folks to an otherwise quiet mid week bar and word spread quick that the Side Effects performed there weekly for free while three dollars beers were served.

A few months into performing, Mike Fabulous of the band Star Factory assisted in recording them. The upstairs of the old community hall at the top of Cuba street was hired for space to record and the band brought in their own four track cassette recorder. The room was large and wooden as the band set up similarly to a show on the stage at one end of the cavernous space. The opposing emptiness of more than three quarters was a barren space except for the four track and a handful of pals. The resulting sound was hugely echoed with the faint woops of friends about the wooden reverb chamber. Everything was recorded live and in one take unless someone made a mistake that was obvious. The recording seemed more like a device for capturing the total experience of what was happening rather than any conventional kind of recording but on review the band approved and the result was their debut cassette album “Gold Apache”.

The bands reputation around Wellington in particular became notorious quickly and news spread out to surrounding towns of the psychedelic experience that is THE SIDE EFFECTS, and soon offering shows. As if the cosmos had echoed out the intention of the psychedelic frequency wranglers the universe made space for the cosmic combo to thrive. Strangely, a bush doof techno festival set in the remote South Island valley of Golden Bay asked the band to perform in their food tent resulting in the instigation of their one and only “tour”. 

Travelling south in Boss Christ’s unregistered, unwarranted Bedford van named “The Swamp of Love” they boarded the Blue Bridge ferry south with a herd of cows. With no seats in the back and a van full of gear, two of the band had to travel squeezed in between amps and drums over the Takaka hill which was an experience in itself. Once arrived at the festival the band prepared for the show  in the slot after legendary Flying Nun punk Chris Knox as weary rave bunnies staggered by, exhausted of nutrients. It was notable in that the show was generally ignored. However, the band was grateful for the gas money and the inspiration to tour in the South Island. After the show, someone asked Chris Knox what he thought about the Side Effects  performance which he simply reviewed as “very silly”.

As the earth turned slowly once more to face its dominant star, the trauma of spending a night among thousands of chemically displaced uni students the band headed south in the Swamp of Love, down the West Coast toward Christchurch. After partially breaking down somewhere and them fixing it the Swamp of Love managed to roll in to the small mining village of Blackball where a large hotel called the “Hilton” stood. Surrounded by nothing but primitive nature the township appeared as a target for cosmic radiation. Like a n inverted radar translating messages from space the band knew it was more than fate calling them to the bar that night. Having partaken in a bout of refreshments the band got to enquiring to the custodian if they may be interested in a psychedelic surf band performing in the hotel in exchange for lodgings or meals. Th truth was that the band knew that it’s cosmic frequencies would be best amplified by such a place and the pleasure would be all theirs. The bar curiously agreed and the five weary tuxedoed travellers set up with all drinks and meals supplied. At 6pm the sonic emissions ensued for a total of exactly one family of four politely eating dinner at the Blackball Hilton that night, kindly leaving their seats post desert to twist and shake the rest of the night family-style about the band.

That night the echos from the Blackball Hilton rose up toward the clear starry sky piercing through the stratosphere and out into the vacuum of the solar system. At precisely 7:13pm, after a brief intermission for refreshments, the intensity of the resulting emanation formed a natural waveform of both sonic and light waves that penetrated out into a new void recently carved into into the southern portion of the moon. The resulting concave depression consequently acted as an echo chamber, collecting the incoming waveform and projecting them further at an angular pitch toward the rising planet Venus. Later, scientists would discover a type of amalgamated mineral so rare that it would only be found in this quantity and in this exact location. The discovery would lead to a Millenia old puzzle confounding future minds for generations. Incredibly, the next day, the Swamp of Love made it to Christchurch where the band performed with the Hi-Tone Destroyers before successfully returning back to the North Island again.

It was shortly afterwards that the two guitarists, Dickos and Boss would have to move out of Wellington leaving the band with just the bass, organ and drums who would go on to continue as a new formation and attempt to further the sonic explorations initiated by The Side Effects.

— Segue Lugosi

SHIT ALL TO HELL
Artists: Smiley Master Clown Assassin Savage & Phats Punishment Distributor

Time: 1998 — 2001

Refers to:

MAG 1 SHIT ALL TO HELL “Eazy, Sleazy, Greazy”

MAG 7 TANGENT “Primordial Goo”

MAG 8 SHIT ALL TO HELL “Flames Baby”

MAG 9 V/A “Night of Satans Sidekicks”

MAG 16 SHIT ALL TO HELL “Women Cry For It, Men Die For It”

MAG 19 ZOMBIE PROM QUEEN “Stone Cold and Grey”

Micheal “Smiley” “Voodoo Savage”Stephens and his brother Sam were active in the thriving noise art music community of Palmerston North during the mid nineties. Both teenagers at the time and children of involved and artful parents, one of which worked at the library, the brothers were exposed to a tonne of great literature, art and all manner of alternative subcultural references. Because of that (we all thought their parents were the coolest), and a healthy predisposition to critical thought, and interesting art they were miles ahead of their time in knowledge. Both were infamously well read and had all the records you were just discovering well before you’d even had the inkling to go discover it. They also had a band together called “Phallus” which was the greatest name ever for a band of brothers. They had a hit on student radio – a version of the Spelling Mistakes “Hate Me”. Later on, while Shit All to Hell were forming, Phallus would branch out into a five piece big band of total carnage, of which I drummed for.

Smiley & Sam Stephens, late nineties

I met Sam first, at one of the Wild Horse Saloon shows. The Wild Horse was one of the few classy establishments to turn a blind eye to children too young to be buying booze — and then selling it to them. It was also one of the few bars tolerant enough to host artful, antagonistic bands that were thriving at the time. A refuge from the opposing dreary banality of Palmerston North. In those super dark booths teens absorbed all manner of illegal activity in relative peace. One of the very first bands I was in played there. Me with my best mates from school, Bad and Boss, played a punk fest there while audience members complained about how Not Punk we were, which we took as a compliment. An older, wiser wizard-like legend named Adam Candy came up and told us plainly that as three miscreants from Pahiatua playing in a band that smashed up our stuff and didn’t give damn was “ Punk as Fuck ” and promptly put our first cassette out on his DIY label Lizardmull. That’s about when I met Sam Stephens, and somehow we ended up becoming good pals. It wasn’t too long after that when I also met his brother Smiley.

Sam played guitar like it was a psychedelic dough that he kneeded into various baked goods. He had some weird harmonic pedal and tended more toward gutteral contortions of texture than what you’d expect any traditional guitar player might do. This was an inspiration and a major relief as I too didn’t necessarily feel comfortable with the notion of “musician”. I was much more interested in what was possible from sound as a wild, chaotic texture than being able to play a song as such. Sam confirmed our suspicions- that others like us existed in the neighbourhood and that music could be pretty much anything you decided it was.

Sam Stephens wrangling like a boss

It was Sam, the only one of us that had an actual job, that lent me the fifty bucks I needed to buy my first batch of blank cassettes. One night as I wandered the boring Palmerston streets, clutching at straws for some meaning to my existence, I just made a decision that I should make a cassette label like other folks I knew, to help document some of the music happening around me. I remember telling Sam about it and he was happy to lend me the cash. I made sure I paid him back as soon as I had it as we were in a community of hustlers, drop outs, thieves and general wayward oddballs. It meant a lot that he had trust in me and I didn’t want to let him down. I learnt then the power of coming up with ideas and making them into real things. Sam was always working on a tonne of his own recordings and within this first batch of, I think seven stink magnetic releases, Sam’s project “Tangent” was included. Later on the brothers made another great album of broken hearted gravel blues under the name “Zombie Prom Queen”.

I began duplicating tapes of my band Dallas Pro Drag Allstars from a live-to-air radio recording and a session we did in the local recording studio the Stomach. I knew there was also a bunch of recordings from friends bands on the other side of the hills too that needed releasing-  Mike Fab and Dane Taylors’ Starfactory and the band with the 13 year old drummer- The Wet Pussies. At that point I was living in an old farmhouse in the middle of the city. One of the earliest in the area I was told – possibly the original house as the driveway conveniently merged into the street straight in front of it. Rumour suggested the old man who owned the place was born there and didn’t care that it was occupied by punks as long as it was still there and not developed land. It was severely decrepit. With the back half sinking in the swampy soil, thick oily dust and cobwebs everywhere and a lack of several essentials that would qualify it as “a house”. However it was filled with “vibes” and we would often find great treasures there like the box of plastic envelopes I used instead of buying cases for the first batch of releases.

After living on the dirt under another house didn’t go so well for me, my friend Adam offered staying at this old piece of crap. Shortly after, Sam’s little brother Smiley moved in as well, and we immediately hit it off. He was closer to my age – most of the folks in the local music community at that time were about ten years ahead of us. We were the unintended offshoots at the tail end of a thriving era. We looked over the remains in jealousy but also found a space that needed filling. Smiley and I shared a love for similar records and were both keeping our ears open for the latest Sympathy For The Record Industry or Crypt Records releases. Smiley also liked to write and paint and I enjoyed making videos and collage so we were both on the same page as far as unrestricted creative pursuits were concerned. We were two peas in a pod at that house.

One particularly boring Palmerston North day, we began playing music together. I played guitar and Smiley was a natural poet. He could also hit stuff while he rambled so it instantly made sense in our minds to do this type of activity regularly. After a bunch of mucking around just for fun I borrowed Adams’ four track and started to record. We experimented with layering various pots and pans, boxes, bins and pretty much anything that sounded interesting. I would put a guitar line down and then smiley would both sing and hit stuff at the same time then we would fill the rest of the tracks with random stuff that we thought sounded cool. It was sort of a Lo fi blues punk thing. I guess. We didn’t really care too much if anyone else thought it was good or not or say, in a particular genre or whatever. It’s just “what we did”.

We had a cassettes’ worth of songs in no time and as I had been working on duplicating tapes for the label all of the sudden we had a tape, a record label and a band. We came up with the band name to describe the sound to some extent. One of us said something like shit all the way to hell or something and it was too great to not use.

Like I was saying, Smiley was a natural poet. He could pretty much babble about anything and make it sound great. In fact, he was well know for his extended chats with anyone that would listen, which was excellent because I’m pretty bad at speaking. He could do all the relatable stuff and I was free to go nuts in the background. It was a combination we used solidly for many years after. Basically, we gelled really easily when it came to makin stoopid art ideas and had no trouble just doing it. 

Our first show was on the front porch of the house I was just talking about. It was old and covered in worn out couches and broken stuff and sun bleached almost white by being positioned directly at the centre of the solar system. It was loosely decorated with the odd t shirt left to dry or bottle of beer now ashtray. The deep front lawn was overgrown with unnaturally high grass, a house truck or two parked at random and a sculpture in the centre featuring the skull of a large mammal made by a former resident proudly proclaimed our opposition to the world beyond that section. It was about one or two in the afternoon when we got the idea to bring all the stuff out onto the porch and play a set to the civil service engineers working on something at the footpath outside the house. Not sure why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. 

Amps squealed feedback and actual trash was repeatedly whacked while Smiley hollered, spiritually, into a crunchy mic toward the workers about psychopathic lovers and getting drunk on wine and whiskey. It was a total success in that no one turned us off or complained at all. In fact I think the workers may have actually appreciated it on some level.

We didn’t play a huge amount of live shows. I remember some local bars and what would be the closing of a cafe type joint thing but mostly it was something Smiley and I did when we were living in the same place for fun. We would record tonnes of stuff and constantly experiment with various instruments or things that sounded interesting. One particularly enjoyable discovery was using the drum machine on an old Hammond organ. We discovered you could switch between drum styles and get this erratic jazzy robot beat going on. Smiley constantly blew me away with his singing and lyrics. I don’t ever recall him writing anything down on paper and I don’t remember doing more than just one take for vocals. Like I said, he was a natural.

After a couple of years in Palmerston North we both ended up living in the same house in Aro Valley in Wellington. So we did what we always did and ended up making a twenty plus song album of classic hits. Smiley had the same approach to making as me which was kind of a burn and turn method. You just go like hell and then move onto the next song. There were no mistakes. Analysis was boring. And we were in the zone. It was the visceral result of going through the steps of adding to an idea that was the most interesting part. A natural predisposition to “good times” and making music as one activity meant whenever we were together we mostly escaped out the other end with something to show for it.

— Phats Punishment Distributor

Related Bands:

Phallus

Tangent

Zombie Prom Queen

Voodoo Savage and his Savages

Ol’ Four Eyes

You may have been at the hall when the Tape Wolves played live at Tararua College and forgot to grab yourself a copy of the Esoteric Surf Trash LP. Well, we were up to our pits with those til we ran out. Bone dry. Nuthin. Not that anyone was asking or anything but then someone actually did! And it was some guys from the other side of the world that actually has cash and offered to reissue this 22 track monster.

So, thanks to BACHELOR RECORDS based out of the Transylvanian alps you can now enjoy more copies, yes hundreds more copies the world over, so you may never escape the haunted surf vibes this summer.

Available now from our studious and water tight fulfilment service RIDE ON SUPER SOUND. Hassle them about a copy if you’re in New Zealand and can’t find it anywhere. All other countries can get in touch with Bachelor records themselves for distribution details in your neighbourhood. Ok bye.