Mistletone

Artwork by Alex Fregon

THE CLEAN TOUR DATES:

Sunday 18 January – MONA FOMA, Hobart: PW1, Stage 1, 9pm. Tickets on sale now from MONA FOMA.
Tuesday 20 January – Sydney Festival: The Aurora, Festival Village, 5:15pm. Tickets on sale now from Sydney Festival.
Thursday 22 January – The Corner, Melbourne with Lower Plenty + Ausmuteants + Twerps DJs. Tickets on sale now from Corner Presents.
Friday 23 January – The Rosemount, Perth with Doctopus + Hamjam. Tickets on sale now from Oztix.
Sunday 25 January – The Brightside, Brisbane with Ariel Pink, Dan Deacon, How To Dress Well + more. Early-bird passes for The Brightside’s 2015 Australia Day Eve party on sale now via Oztix.

Mistletone, Beat, Triple R and RTR present The Clean, touring Australia for the first time in four years, and the third time in 25 years; and playing Perth for the first time ever in their 35 year career. Having recently toured the USA to celebrate the first ever vinyl edition of their classic Anthology on Merge Records, The Clean is a band whose influence extends so far beyond their New Zealand home that even if you have never heard of The Clean before, you have surely heard of some of the bands (Pavement, Yo La Tengo, and Superchunk, not to mention the current crop of jangly Australian indie bands) who are indebted to The Clean’s unique blend of homemade garage rock, hook-filled melodies, and psychedelic experimentalism. Tickets on sale now!

The Clean photo by Gemma Gracewood

What can be said about The Clean? In 1978, they were the seeds of New Zealand punk and the reason for the founding of the mighty Flying Nun label. A truly magical band who are as vital as ever, The Clean have carved out a big sandbox for everyone to play in. Their influence resonated not only in their homeland but around the world, and can be heard loud and clear in the new generation of indie bands who have The Clean deeply etched into their DNA.

So what’s the sound? It’s completely theirs but draws on everything from the psychedelic paste of Barrett/early Floyd to vintage Velvets propulsiveness to almost everything else under the sun. They created both full studio sound and lo-fi recordings before, during, and after the various waves of the 4-track revolution, making both recording modes work with no loss of the band’s identity. As far as other influences, you can hear Arthur Lee, Shirley Collins, and the Rolling Stones, among others, but it’s never a kind of forced appropriation; while some bands seem to say, “Look at my record collection,” in the case of The Clean, it’s organic, seamless, and inimitable.

Hamish and David Kilgour formed The Clean in 1978. Hamish played drums, and David picked up a guitar and figured out how to play it as he went along. Various other folk passed through the Kilgour brothers’ orbit during the first two years or so before Robert Scott (The Bats) joined on bass. Hamish, David, and Robert all wrote songs and sang in The Clean, who made their first recordings for the renowned New Zealand label Flying Nun in 1981.

Recently released on vinyl for the first time by Merge Records, Anthology serves as a celebration of The Clean. This definitive collection kicks off with The Clean’s call-to-arms debut “Tally Ho!”; the story of the infectious track’s $60 recording bill is now legendary. From there, it continues with the early EPs Boodle Boodle Boodle and Great Sounds Great in their entirety. The hits—“Billy Two,” “Anything Could Happen,” “Beatnik,” and “Getting Older”—and live favorites like “Point That Thing Somewhere Else” and instrumentals “Fish” and “At the Bottom” all serve up memories of the joyous noise that characterized The Clean of that time. These recordings, mostly made by the band with Chris Knox and Doug Hood at the helm of the 4-track, capture the bright, raw sound of a classic garage band.

After a brief breakup, the band recorded Vehicle, their first full-length, in 1989. Vehicle was made in three days and engineered by Alan Moulder (later to become one of the top producers of the alternative era, recording the Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, and My Bloody Valentine). The sounds of Vehicle and the two albums that followed it, Modern Rock (1994) and Unknown Country (1996), make up the bulk of discs 3 and 4 of the vinyl Anthology. The Clean used organ and other keyboards to mix bouncing pop tunes with continued experimentation.

The Clean’s story is on-again/off-again purely by design. It suits the trio’s creative desires and keeps them clear of the machinery that threatened to interfere with that process from the moment they threatened to get awfully popular awfully quickly over thirty years ago. The Clean’s modern age has seen them splitting time and hemispheres: David Kilgour has a reputable solo catalogue, and recently released End Times Undone with his band The Heavy Eights on Merge Records; Robert Scott has The Bats and a new solo album, The Green House, out on Flying Nun; and Hamish Kilgour has been an endearing and enduring fixture in New York City, playing with assorted combos and recently releasing his solo debut, All Of It And Nothing, via Ba Da Bing Records.