Formed in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1978 by brothers Hamish and David Kilgour and Peter Gutteridge, the Clean pioneered a lo-fi DIY spirit steeped in the sound of west coast psychedelia, Velvet Underground and post-punk. They’ve had an indelible influence on indie acts Pavement, Yo La Tengo and Guided By Voices, and made their first Flying Nun Records single, Tally Ho, for just NZ$50 in 1981, leading the way for a thrilling new chapter in New Zealand music.
Point That Thing Somewhere Else (1981)
The scorching parting shot on the band’s first EP, 1981’s Boodle Boodle Boodle,was born a bass line from original bandmate Peter Gutteridge during a jam session. The EP’s five songs were recorded in a hall and hit No 5 in the New Zealand music charts, staying in the Top 20 for six months despite no commercial airplay. This heralded a ground zero for New Zealand music and led the way not only for Flying Nun Records but independent music in New Zealand and internationally.
The song features ecstatic free-range guitar with a huge, sprawling sound bringing together surf, proto-punk and drone, with Hamish Kilgour establishing himself as one of the greatest singing-drummers. There’s a blistering 15-minute live recording from 1981 in which the song takes on a life of its own. Just three people creating epic sheets of sound.
Slug Song (1982)
In 1982 the Clean supported the Fall in Christchurch on their Hex Enduction Hour tour where the band’s frontman Mark E Smith was impressed by the trio. In the same year they released their second EP. The impossibly titled Great Sounds Great, Good Sounds Good, So-so Sounds So-so, Bad Sounds Bad, Rotten Sounds Rotten was named by Chris Knox after he saw an ad for a Sony TC-530 stereo tape recorder in a hi-fi magazine.
Recorded on a four-track over three days in a cramped house in Christchurch by Knox and collaborator Doug Hood, the EP’s sound is a slight departure from its spacious hall-recorded predecessor. Beginning with a dinky cheap chimney organ riff and clattering drums building up to a hypnotic swirl, Slug Song has Kilgour throwing in a Dylanesque “well, anyway …”, and cautions us, “don’t ever bend to the hip, the grip of the insipid”.
Franz Kafka at the Zoo (1996)
1996’s Unknown Country was recorded and mixed in two sessions when Hamish Kilgour returned to New Zealand from his adopted home in New York. With 18 songs in less than 45 minutes, AudioCulture called it the band’s “least compelling album” – but Franz Kafka at the Zoo, which came together quickly in the studio with words written just before recording, is beguilingly atmospheric, and one of the band’s most literary songs.
A quietly arresting low-key ramble, the song features mesmerising layered dual vocals from David Kilgour, whispering “the lucky get what they deserve”, and Hamish Kilgour’s nonsense spoken narrative of Franz Kafka being sighted at the zoo along with Hansel and Gretel, Karl Marx and Dostoevsky – while “Virginia Woolf is late for a dental appointment” and “Bertrand Russell likes anchovies on pizza”. The abstruse lyrics (“Mickey Mouse ate a vanilla shoe”) belie the song’s wistful heart-tug with its spare piano, and languid siding bass line over a bed of quiet, almost subliminal squall.
Secret Place (1994)
Their second studio album, 1994’sModern Rock, introduced new sonic textures for the band, incorporating hammered dulcimer, cello, viola and mandolin. Robert Scott wrote this bittersweet organ-led song after being inspired by a dream. Taking the lead vocal with his distinctively plaintive non-singer singing voice, there’s an irresistible, bright tonal uplift as he sings, “I guess it’s what we’re hoping for, just a little truth.” Concluding as a spidery piano fades out, there’s a dreamlike pastoral delicacy here.
Diamond Shine (1990)
The New York Times wrote of the band’s first studio album, 1990’s Vehicle, that “the guitar chords still tumble out with the grace of falling bricks, and the songs have an endearing buoyancy that results from the band’s conscious rejection of precision”. Diamond Shine is a shimmering acid-tinged gem.
Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis invited the band to record the album and the famed producer and engineer (including for the Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine) Alan Moulder engineered the record, which has a professional sheen while still retaining the band’s DIY spirit. With David Kilgour’s fast and loose chippy guitar stylings and Scott’s endearingly daggy vocal interjections, this song shows a trio (all of whom shared songwriting and singing duties across their career) completely in sync with one another.
Quickstep (1981)
A non-studio nugget which captures the energy of the Clean as a formidable live band, this live recording of Quickstep was recorded by the Bats’ Paul Kean on a Ferrograph reel-to-reel tape recorder at Christchurch’s Gladstone Tavern in 1981. Like a mangled, sped-up Stooges or southern hemisphere Swell Maps and with an unwavering death disco bass line, it shows a band with confidence and an instinctive dynamic. There’s a terrific live clip of the band performing this at Auckland’s Rumba Bar in 1982 to an audience of enthusiastic dancers.
Getting Older (1982)
From the intro’s squalling guitar and bass trade-off, chaotic crashing drums and taunting vocals – “you’re getting older, and you dunno what, you dunno what to do” and the cheery “why don’t you do yourself in?” – David Kilgour has said he wrote the song about an unnamed person in Dunedin who was “shallow, vain and so bored with everything”. Accompanied with a slapstick Buster Keaton-esque music video directed by artist Ronnie van Hout, Getting Older brings together pop melodies, a big Spector sound and dissonance.
Those wonky, celebratory trumpet blasts were recorded by Scott playing the trumpet into the cavity of a piano that the band had opened up and put a mic into, resulting in a reverby quality. And how about that majestic chord change about a minute in?
Beatnik (1982)
An absurdist, good-time anthem which recalls the garage rock classic 96 Tears by ? and the Mysterians and the Clean’s love of west coast psychedelia. The callout in the introduction is pure Rolling Stones or Pretty Things, and lines like “she’s a pebble” (could that be a nod to the Pebbles garage rock compilations?) and “he’s a blam blam” (perhaps a high five to Blam Blam Blam of There Is No Depression in New Zealand fame) are nonsensical.
The band shot a goofy music video which recruited their friends from the music community to dress up like hippies and beatniks in beads and berets in a 1960s-looking coffee shop. David Kilgour looks strikingly west coast cool in sunglasses and autumnal-hued paisley shirt.
I’m in Love With These Times by Bailter Space (1987)
But wait, what’s a Bailter Space song doing on a list about the Clean? The Hamish Kilgour-penned I’m in Love With These Times had its origins in 1978, from the Clean’s original lineup of the Kilgour brothers and Gutteridge. With Hamish joining Alister Parker from the Gordons, Ross Humphries from the Pin Group, Scorched Earth Policy and the Terminals, and Glenda Bills to form Nelsh Bailter Space (later named Bailter Space) in 1987, they recorded Hamish’s song for their self-titled EP.
Its clanging motorik beat and janky piano come together with the sardonic lines “I’m in love with these times, police cars and parking fines” and imagery of “shiny cars, shiny buildings”. Flying Nun later used the title to name one of their compilations, and the label’s founder, Roger Shepherd, used it as the title of his 2016 memoir In Love With These Times.
Anything Could Happen (1981)
It may have a laid-back, countryfied swagger but Anything Could Happen was written as a chord reference to Dunedin punk band the Enemy’s Pull Down the Shades. Hamish Kilgour’s lyrical base came from a friend of his uncle, who told Kilgour he needed to pull himself together if he wanted to function in the New Zealand workaday world. The gently uplifting chorus, “anything could happen and it could be right now, but the choice is yours to make it worthwhile” made it the perfect song for a country coming-of-age. With its imagery of junkyards, empty doorways and highways, there’s that Bob Dylan influence again, with David Kilgour also looking very Dylan-like in the music video. The former New Zealand deputy prime minister Grant Robertson loves the Clean so much he named his 2025 memoir after this song.
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