Mistletone

Artwork by Alex Fregon

Mistletone is thrilled to announce the long awaited return of New Zealand legends The Clean, touring Australia for the first time since 1989.

Back in 1978, The Clean were the seeds of New Zealand punk and the reason for the founding of the mighty Flying Nun label. Their influence resonated around the world with followers such as Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth and Pavement, and can be heard loud and clear in the new generation of indie bands who have the Dunedin godfathers deeply etched into their DNA. A truly magical band who are as vital as ever, The Clean are finally bringing their perfect pop and droney psychedelic guitar jams to Australia.

“One of the greatest bands of the last two decades” – PITCHFORK

THE CLEAN AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES:

SYDNEY: Wednesday, 9 March @ the Factory Theatre with Smudge + Sonny & the Sunsets (USA). Presented by 2SER and Drum Media. Tickets on sale now from the venue.

BRISBANE: Thursday, 10 March @ The Zoo with special guests The Deadnotes + The Legend! plus Blank Realm. Presented by Time Off and 4ZZZ. Tickets on sale now from the venue.

MELBOURNE: Friday, 11 March @ The Corner w/ special guests Sonny & the Sunsets (USA), Gary Olson (USA) and Actor Slash Model. Presented by Triple R and Inpress.  *** Please note: A small allocation of tickets will be on sale at the door on the night. Be there when doors open at 8.30pm to make sure you don’t miss out!

GOLDEN PLAINS FESTIVAL: Saturday, 12 March. Ticket ballot now open.

MELBOURNE: Sunday, 11 March @ The Corner w/ special guests Sonny & the Sunsets (USA) + Panel of Judges. Tickets on sale now. * EXTRA SHOW BY POPULAR DEMAND!

MORE ABOUT THE CLEAN …

The Clean formed in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1978. Led through a number of rotating line-ups by brothers Hamish and David Kilgour, the band (usually a trio), forged a distinctive and quirky sound that relied heavily on organ melodies and simple chord progressions. They carved out a distinctive, noisy but melodic sound, distinguished by David’s screeching, distorted guitar.

To quote Brian Turner – WFMU Music Director: The music of the brothers Kilgour and Bob Scott is 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.

In the case of the live staple “Point That Thing Somewhere Else,” here is a song that levitates any room in a way that makes you swear the band just stepped out of Conny Plank’s studio in Germany with all the bulldozing power of Hawkwind. Their jubilance at times (the organ-laced “Tally Ho,” “Beatnik,” “Whatever I Do”) makes the Banana Splits sound like Bauhaus while simultaneously exhibiting dark undercurrents, making Bauhaus sound like the Banana Splits. 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. Though hardly as prolific as The Fall, another maverick group of originality, The Clean have endured for almost as long while maintaining a completely unique, quality stamp that’s often replicated but never quite mastered by anyone but themselves. They’re also one of the best (and sometimes loudest) live bands I’ve had the pleasure of seeing.

The Clean’s modern age has seen them splitting time and hemispheres: David has a reputable solo catalog; Bob has The Bats and his solo career (most recently the acclaimed Robert Scott solo album Ends Run Together); and Hamish has been an endearing and enduring fixture in New York City, playing with assorted combos including his own Mad Scene with wife Lisa.

The Clean’s latest album Mister Pop (released last year on Merge and locally through Remote Control) sees them continue the great pop pastiche. Circus ragas (“Moonjumper”), gorgeously hazy sunset anthems (“In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul”), and the sometimes loose Dada approach to wordsmithery continue right alongside “proper” lyrical forays, and yep, a few Autobahn referential instro moments to boot (“Tensile”). Bob’s love of pastoral UK folk has brought some added weight into the overall Clean equation, as does David’s Eastern and African guitar jones, though all this has always fit in with and still constitutes the total basis of The Clean sound journey.

This year The Clean have toured more than any time in the past 20 years, supporting Pavement’s reunion tour and playing at the Pavement-curated All Tomorrows Parties in the UK, plus a handful of European shows including Barcelona’s Primavera Sound festival, followed by a US tour including an appearance at Matador’s 21st anniversary concert celebrations.

Inpress interview:

By Doug Wallen

Completing the wave of classic Flying Nun bands revisiting our shores in recent years, none other than The Clean are headed to Australia. It’s been two decades since the seminal Kiwi trio was here last, and in that time the band has stuck to the incredibly sporadic tours and albums for which it’s become known. Only five albums have come in those two decades, with 2009’s Mister Pop the first since 2001. But brothers David and Hamish Kilgour and their old friend Robert Scott have always kept occupied: David with a solo career, Hamish with The Mad Scene, and Scott with The Bats and a recent solo album. Now is as good a time as any, then, for The Clean to tour Australia.

“We don’t have any plan, really,” says David Kilgour. “It’s usually a coincidence that we get back together and play. We might be in the same country at the same time. We’ve come close to touring Australia in the last few years. It just hasn’t worked out.”

David is on the phone from Dunedin, where he’s brought his mother from the post-earthquake chaos of her home in Christchurch. But while David and Robert Scott still live in New Zealand, Hamish has been based in New York City for about 20 years. He and Scott both have children, and there are always real-life jobs to attend to. That naturally makes it hard for The Clean to come together much more often than it does. “We’re all quite busy with other things,” notes Kilgour. “It’s not easy to line up.”

At the same time, that could be the key to the band’s longevity. Formed in 1979 with a different bassist, guitarist David and bassist Hamish picked up Scott the following year. They recorded a clutch of influential singles and EPs in the early ’80s before abandoning the band, only to pick it up again towards the end of that decade to make a proper first album, 1990’s Vehicle. Like those early recordings – since collected in various forms – Vehicle came out on Flying Nun, as did subsequent albums, save Mister Pop. Influential from the start, The Clean’s songs veered from punkish pop to bleary drone while sifting through post-Velvets jangle and scrappy ’60s garage.

“I think it’s kept it fresh,” decides Kilgour. “It’s kept it interesting for us. When we reformed in the late ’80s, we just kept it going as a creative project. Whenever we do get back together, we’ll always write new material and record and release new stuff.”

Thus, the rough edges of early songs like the quintessential Tally Ho and Oddity gave way to distinct albums: Vehicle’s sunny jangle, Modern Rock’s slippery guitar-pop in 1994, Unknown Country’s ragas and detours in 1996, the extended jams of 2001’s Getaway, and the dreamy, anything-goes freedom of Mister Pop. In fact, the latter contains some of the breeziest Clean songs to date, such as Are You Really on Drugs? and In the Dreamlife You Need A Rubber Soul. There’s a levity to those that’s just as apparent in that album’s searching instrumentals and the vocodered anomaly Tensile.

“That sounds about right,” Kilgour reckons. Asked if that’s part of the appeal of The Clean as opposed to his solo output, he answers, “We certainly keep each other in check. When we’re making a Clean record, we don’t really want to make David Kilgour solo records or Bats albums or Mad Scene records. We just want to go in and make good music, really. Or music we think is good and that we’d like to hear, I suppose.”

As for the enduring tug between long-form drone and fleeting pop songs, he agrees that it’s a permanent fixture for the trio. “The drone’s always been there,” he explains. “We’ve always been attracted to that. And we’ve always liked pop music. Hamish and I have always loved ’60s garage music, especially in the [band’s] early formative days, so I guess that shines through. But primitive droning we’re quite fond of as well.”

Like Yo La Tengo, one of many beloved U.S. indie rock bands influenced by The Clean (see also: Pavement, Superchunk, Guided by Voices, Apples in Stereo), the trio doesn’t eschew those drone-y songs in favour of the poppier ones live. Rather, it’s a sloshing, unpredictable combination of the two, with entries picked evenly from the last three decades. That means no album or era is off limits for this overdue Aussie tour, which includes a pair of robustly selling Corner gigs and a well-picked slot at Golden Plains.

“We usually do a totally mixed bag,” says Kilgour. “We’ll do some new stuff, but we’ll do everything, going right back to the beginning. But only the ones we still enjoy doing. We don’t do stuff we’re sick of or don’t like.” Is there a specific song he’s gotten sick of in the past? “Well, not at the moment, but for a long time I had a great deal of difficulty playing Tally Ho,” he laughs. “We played it very sporadically for years, much to the annoyance of audiences. But in recent times we’re back on it again.”

With its tinny keyboard melody, bratty vocals, and general wobbliness, that song is doubtlessly The Clean’s most famous, so it’s nice to hear it’s been worked back into regular rotation. And although one should know better than to expect a new album so relatively soon after Mister Pop, Kilgour says the band’s going into the studio for six days prior to its Aussie tour, with the idea of making an EP. There was also talk of putting the recordings immediately online, but he’s uncertain whether that will actually happen. Whatever way, a resurgent Flying Nun is planning lots of crucial reissues down the track, presumably including the classic Clean albums. Plus, Kilgour has a new solo record, Left by Soft, coming out in just a few months.

“It’s probably a bit more guitar-based, this one, and band-based,” he offers, comparing it to his previous six records. “It’s a bit more jammy, perhaps.” And as Scott continues his longtime work with The Bats, Hamish is readying a new Mad Scene record as well as playing with New York songwriter Theo Angell & The Tabernacle Hillside Singers.

But there will always be room for The Clean, whose fan base still grows from year to year. While Kilgour credits that partly to last decade’s two-disk Anthology, which came out on Merge in the States, he’s pleased about it. “I’m surprised the interest is still there,” he admits. “I got the feeling in the mid- to late-’90s that maybe it wasn’t going to go away. It looked like the kids were catching on. Y’know, garage music is always out there, but it seems to have these waves of destruction every now and again.”

Laughing, he concludes, “It comes through and the kids jump on it again. Or the kids have been turned on to it by their parents.” That makes for a real cross-generational turnout at Clean gigs these days. “It’s certainly split down the middle when we do shows now,” he says. “It’s young kids and grey tops and everything in between.”