Happy Anniversary Darling

Very smart clean vinyl with cover showing ring wear and minor staining.

The starting point for two key members of the christchurch music community, pihed featured andrew penman on bass/vocals (rhubarb collective, golf course alligators, salmonella dub – curious george records), tom mahon – guitar/lead vocal (rhubarb collective, strangeloves, holy toledos, del burgers), caroline o’neil – vocals (blue marbles), bede pascoe – electric piano, andrew cavanagh – drums (rhubarb collective). the band recorded a set of songs with their then live sound engineer rob mayes at penman’s christchurch flat, utilizing hired pa equipment and a borrowed 4 track. the results ended up on a split album with the rhubarb collective, one track – slow haze only available on the failsafe records compilation south.

these sessions were the first of rob mayes mobile studio recordings which would provide the failsafe label with most of it’s material. the results were rough, and reverb heavy, this being the first time he or the band had seen a digital reverb, let alone used one. the band eventually mutated into the rhubarb collective featuring penman and cavanagh, as well as guitarist james wilkinson (lap dogs, rua, various respected folk projects, and brother of scott wilkinson of ballon d’essai), and vocalist/guitarist matthew garrett. after the rnrhubarb collective folded penman continued his work as a concert promoter and started his own label. later on he continued his musical work moving to guitar for golf course alligators and then on to salmonella dub his most successful project, still running and featuring the rythm section of mark tyler (genie and the wild children, catherine wheel, 147swordfish) and dave deacons (147swordfish).
tom mahon went on to the west coast of the south island of new zealand where he teamed up with rex bourke for the strangeloves. they rnrecorded a 7″ single for flying nun followed by an album see your colours which apparently sold very well in west coast america, particularly san francisco, where it was shifting 300 copies a week on initial release. they fashioned a sixties tinged velvet underground pop, also keen followers of the clean. the band eventually completed a self funded album released on the onset offset label. later the band mutated into the del burgers playing rock n roll tinged stuff, some of it a la john spencer blues explosion. del burgers also featured guitarist gareth evans (ex griffins, xu xu pedals) who’s impressive guitar style heavily flavoured the bands sound the del burgers have recorded an album of their material and are presently in progress on tidying up extra tracks and looking for a label to release them.