Screaming Meemees - See me go (Part Two)
13.08.09
Part two of Simon Grigg's fascinating personal account of the Screaming MeeMees and his involvement with the band. You can read part one here.
In July 1981, with a single about to be released, we all headed off on the now legendary Screaming Blam-matic Roadshow with other Propeller bands, The Newmatics and Blam Blam Blam, touring the campuses of the nation. In Christchurch the test pressings of the 7" single arrived, and we were shocked to find that Festival's marketing manager had taken it upon himself to remix the A side...and it was utter garbage. I made a quick call to the studio, to Festival's production manager, and to the pressing plant and within a few days the offending mix was assigned to the bin and the Snoid mix was on the A side. To this day Festival's errant marketing manager, who went on to be MD of a Major record company, doesn't know, or couldn't tell that his mix was dumped.
The delays had caused a feeding frenzy and we had orders for the 12" far beyond the 500 copies so rationing to retailers had to be enforced. We felt like we were being pricks, and I fielded countless calls from often irate record stores asking for a few more, but 500 was 500 (505 actually including test pressings).
Back from the tour, I was in Sounds Unlimited on release day and watched the frenzied mayhem. We sold all the 4000 7" within 24 hours too.
The single entered the chart easily at number one that week, survived a challenge from Radio Hauraki who simply couldn't understand how a record they'd refused to play (no commercial radio played any NZ releases) had charted that way, tumbled, since there was no stock for sale, got to 13 the next week, then into the 40s and gone.
It was quite a thing, the first NZ single ever to enter the charts at number one, and I was rushed into the Festival offices where exuberant managing Director, Ray Porter, suggested we rush out a live album immediately, adding the single, to cash in...uh no.
In fact we had nothing much in the can, and the Meemees, after two years of playing live three or four times a week, had decided that they didn't want to play in front of a crowd quite so often in the future, setting the scene for the couple of years when the gigs would be less common but rather bigger. Three nights at Mainstreet the largish cabaret in upper Queen Street once a month, and national tours every few months, pretty much all sold out, with extended periods, at some expense, in the studio, became the rule.
Most bands in New Zealand survived by playing extensively but we made the very conscious, perhaps foolhardy, decision to jump head first into Harlequin, with producer Ian Morris, and engineer, Steve Kennedy, and record an album. We didn't have the funding but we had a sympathetic studio and faith.
Thus for most of the last part of 1981 and the first few months of 1982 The Screaming Meemees were in the studio from midnight to dawn almost every week, and it soon turned into quite a social scene. I tried to haul it in but the sessions were often host to 20 or so people, friends, girlfriends and assorted hangers on. It wasn't an atmosphere that ideally was conducive to recording a make or break album, and the budget of course rocketed, and rocketed.
But, yes, we had faith, and I guess we weren't the first indie to put it on the line for an album or two (we had the Blams recording at the same time).
As time passed we worked out that we needed to sell a minimum of about 10,000 albums to cover costs (coupled with the costs that our repeatedly recorded number one single had never recouped) and that figure crept up to 14,000 by the time it was completed. NZ albums sold, on a good day in 1982, with absolutely no commercial airplay unless you were Dave Dobbyn or Split Enz, in the low thousands.
The first fruit of the sessions, with a Murray Cammick designed sleeve, was the anthemic Sunday Boys, released at the end of 1981. It made number 11, but, in Auckland (there were Auckland charts then) hit number one for two weeks. The way-oh way-oh chorus inevitably became a live audience chant, and at Sweetwaters the sound of so many thousands singing it acapella was quite a moment.
The album slowly came together over the next few months, and was wrapped in a sleeve designed by Peter Urlich, from a Philip Peacock image. If This Is Paradise, I'll Take Bag lifted it's title from the opening tune My Accent, which in turn lifted it from the iconic kiwi TV figure, Selwyn Toogood's 'the money or the bag?'.
The jump for the Screaming Meemees, from the ska pop of See Me Go, a year earlier, was immediately apparent and, to many rather confusing. This was an album that was wide, very adventurous, and thoroughly in touch with the world outside NZ. Even Sunday Boys, added reluctantly to side one (the band wanted At At, the B side of Sunday Boys, but Festival insisted on at least one of the hits) sounds out of step with the rest of the material.
AllMusic probably said it best:
If This Is Paradise, I'll take the Bag was recorded in 1981 with producer Ian Morris and boasted a eclectic range of influences in the mix of power pop, electro, dub, and funk -- styles not usually associated with New Zealand rock sound. Their work for the album brought the Screaming Meemees closer to what U.K. groups A Certain Ratio and Rip Rig and Panic were up to.
The album entered the NZ charts at number 8 and over the next year or two eventually went gold..only one of two NZ rock albums to do so in the period 1979-84. Still it was a very long way from the 14,000 sales the band needed just top cover costs and it proved a burden.
Despite the still strong fanbase and the implied success of an album in the top ten, the band continued to be a little uncomfortable and needed to grow. By late 1982 they'd discarded most of their pre-Paradise material live, even See me Go, with the early All Dressed Up and a couple of others being heavily re-written to reflect the harder edged funk and alternative influences of the band. These were merged into a set of new material that was much tougher, and more rhythmic than anything they'd done before.
Part three will be published tomorrow (14.08.09)
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
