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The Chills singer-songwriter Martin Phillipps at a preview of the Dunedin Sound Exhibition at the Toitu Otago Settlers Museum. Photo by Gerard O'Brien. |
One of the seminal composers of the Dunedin Sound has praised
the Toitu Otago Settlers Museum for capturing a generation of
Kiwi music in danger of becoming a distant memory.
• Slideshow
It has been more than 30 years since the Dunedin Sound first
hit the airwaves, and the Chills singer-songwriter Martin
Phillipps was pleased the history of 1980s Dunedin bands such
as the Bats, the Chills, the Clean, Sneaky Feelings,
Straitjacket Fits and the Verlaines had been recorded.
The bands exuded confidence in their ''alternative'' approach
to musicianship and do-it-yourself recording, making them
popular all over the world.
''It's great that they are treating it as history now - what
we all did.
''It was a key era,'' Phillipps said.
''It's very timely. People of the era are still alive making
music and [the museum] is recording the moment in history
before it all gets lost.''
Along with sound and video recordings of Dunedin Sound bands,
the new exhibit at the museum features a display of band
equipment, such as Phillipps' Fender electric guitar which
was used to play the hits Pink Frost and I Love My
Leather Jacket.
Other items include the Clean songwriter David Kilgour's
guitar, an amplifier used by the band's bass guitarist Robert
Scott, and an example of the equipment used to record them.
The museum reopens on Saturday.
john.lewis@odt.co.nz
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