Product Code: PRA 2067
Artist: Kiwi Animal The‎
Origin: New Zealand
Label: Massage Records (1984)
Format: LP
Availability: Enquire Now
Condition:
Cover: NM (M-)
Record: NM (M-)
Genre: Acoustic , Indie Rock , Rock U

Music Media

 

 

With his radical Wellington post-punk quartet Shoes This High faltering, vocalist/provocateur Brent Hayward grabbed a stray acoustic guitar in late 1980 and set about creating a body of work that would match his previous group’s in importance while vastly exceeding it in volume.

As persistent and wide-ranging solo act Smelly Feet, he played and recorded throughout 1981 before morphing into The Kiwi Animal in 1982 with the equally talented Julie Cooper and later, Patrick Waller.

File Under New Acoustic Music’, the first Kiwi Animal album suggested. And it was certainly that, but oh so much more. Hayward chased a string of ramshackle Smelly Feet singles with a formative Kiwi Animal EP (Wartime) and two enduring albums (Music Media - 1984, Mercy - 1985).

Before Kiwi Animal’s extinction in late 1985, there’d be shows with many of the country’s rising indie acts; determined, rambling tours; fascinating multi-act one-offs and offbeat collaborations with Red McKelvie, Dance Exponent Brian Jones and US beat poet William S. Burroughs.

A Song For The World

With Shoes This High’s Jessica Walker and Kevin Hawkins often away at hippie communes on the Coromandel Peninsula and back in Wellington, Brent Hayward found himself at a loose end in Auckland, where he’d lived since mid-1980. He didn’t let on, but he had a new direction in mind. He’d learn guitar, write songs and then record them – all at the same time. No wonder it was a surprise when the records appeared. 

He was soon onto RipItUp about his new enterprise. “I mainly play on the streets,” he told them, “but I did an old people’s home, where they clapped by banging on their wheelchairs. I would like to play clubs and pubs, but I wouldn’t use a band unless I was playing the town hall. There are enough bands already, and people tend to categorise you.”