Screaming Meemees - See me go (Part One)
12.08.09
This is the first part (of three) of Simon Grigg's fascinating personal account of the Screaming MeeMees and his involvement with the band.
Sweetwaters, January 1983. The Screaming MeeMees had just, that week, released their final, and to my mind, best single, the stomping Stars In My Eyes. It came in two formats, the 7", and the 12" which featured the first extended remix released by a New Zealand artist, (and an almost On U Soundish dub of a track from their album on the flip, inspired by the early work of Adrian Sherwood amongst others).
It was the first record produced by the band themselves, or a least a member of the band (Tony, with soundman Tom Sampson and Glyn Tucker Jr) and was easily their most definitive and mature statement, a solid pointer towards the future.
They were on the main stage of Sweetwaters, in front of a crowd of some 30-40,000 amped up bodies, who after two days of drinking, dust and sun were at best unpredictable and could go either way, at 9pm on the Saturday night, the prime spot for any local band, before Simple Minds, who were the headliners. The Screaming Meemees were one if the two biggest bands in NZ (DD Smash was the other) and just as they were going on I was told the cricket score from the game in Australia...NZ were winning (yes I know it's unusual, but there you go) so I told, in what if I may pat myself on the back, was a moment of genius, Tony to announce this, which he did, and the massive crowd, which stretched back into the hills behind, went absolutely nuts as they did for the rest of the set. It was a triumphant moment and the world beckoned.
Within 4 months it was all over and they went out with the biggest crowd numbers ever at Auckland's Mainstreet Cabaret, bigger than any international, bigger than Split Enz.
What happened?
I guess, basically they grew up.
In the years since NZ has basically forgotten Meemee mania but for a couple of years these 4, Tony Drumm, Michael O'Neill, Peter Van Der Fluit and a drummer who just went under the name Yoh, were something of a phenomena. Formed in the music room of the Catholic boys school, Rosmini College, they led, in late 1979, early 1980, the Rip It Up tagged North Shore Invasion, when what seemed hundreds of bands (but was in reality only a couple of dozen) stormed across the harbour bridge and filled the stages of any inner city venue that would allow them to support a 'name' band.
The post punk revolution meant that there were venues everywhere in the city and these bands arrived just at the right moment to fill them, so fill them they did.
Influenced by the ska bands coming out of the UK, and sixties pop (The Monkees would play a bigger part in their sound than The Clash), these Shore acts soon garnered large and very loyal followings from the crowds whose elder siblings had followed the punk bands of 77 / 78, but none more so than the still under 17 year old Screaming Meemees whose innocently dumb, but really very smart originals included the infectious Till I Die (with lyrics from Catholic hymns), the inane, but extraordinarily catchy Pointy Ears, and Can't Take It, which, in late 1980, after months of supports to the likes of The Features, The Clean, Shoes This High and The Spelling Mistakes, was recorded as a one off side of a double A sided single (with The Newmatics).
I'd seen the Meemees countless times and wanted them badly for my new Propeller label, so I plonked them on my forthcoming Class of 81 album and signed a long term deal with the band, putting them into the studio before Can't Take It, which came out in March, 1981, entered the lower end of the singles chart (and was, as a bonus, picked up as the theme for a kids music video show).
The obvious debut single proper was the live favourite See Me Go, which they'd demoed earlier (and had appeared on a Radio Hauraki new band collection, and thus had found it's way on to the Radio B top ten, peaking at number one).
By late Feb, early March, managed originally by David Merritt (now a poet in Palmerston North), they were about the biggest thing in the city, with sell-out gigs, often two a night.
See Me Go proved tricky to record. Down at Harlequin Studios it was proving hard to nail a version that equalled the original, Steve Kennedy produced, demo. We'd bought in Pop Mechanics vocalist Andrew Snoid as a producer, keeping Kennedy as engineer, and there were now three or four versions, including one produced by Harlequin owner Doug Rogers.
I'd decided on a limited numbered edition of a 12" with four tracks, including two of the takes of See Me Go, Till I Die also recorded at the sessions, and a live take of another early favourite, Poison Boys.
500 copies and that was it. Shops started taking orders. There was to be a 7" too, with just two tracks, See Me Go and Till Die, available from the distributor (Festival) for just one week.
The band had also made their first jumps outside of Auckland with hugely successful trips to Wellington and Christchurch (the Class of 81 gig there was a sold-out Easter Monday at The Gladstone).
I'd also assumed management duties, after the band had told me it was either me or a break-up. And so it was to be, rather reluctantly on my part.
Part two will be published tomorrow (13.08.09)
Simon Grigg has a long history of releasing and supporting our local musicians. He owned/operated the label that released the Screaming Meemee's as well as managing the band.
If This Is Paradise, I'll Take The Bag (Remastered And Extended) by the Screaming MeeMees was released digitally this week.
Find out more about Simon's contribution to NZ music on his site.
Screaming Meemees on Amplifier
