It’s a song that defies ending, the Clean classic Point That Thing Somewhere Else builds a digressive jamming momentum that feels like it could ride straight on to sunrise.
And indeed, since it clocked in at five and a-half minutes on Boodle Boodle Boodle back in 1981 — a dangerously progressive length for the post-punk generation — various live versions and cover renditions have subsequently added extra minutes, another 10 or 15.
Now, a new generation of Ōtepoti musicians has reinterpreted the song, burnishing its aura of timelessness and adding a further addendum to the Dunedin Sound story.
Three-piece noise-rock band Sogg released their cover this week, on Bandcamp, bringing a fresh energy and understanding to the song.
‘‘I’ve been into The Clean for many, many years, ever since I gained consciousness about older music in Dunedin,’’ guitarist Ollie Kemmett explains. ‘‘And it was always a song that kind of stuck out to me, you know, because it’s not very similar to anything else on the record that it was put out on.
‘‘It kind of sticks out as this, like, almost proto-HDU kind of thing.’’
Dunedin post-punk noise merchants HDU, High Dependency Unit, are another of the band’s influences — and another to cover Point That Thing, having played it alongside one of the song’s writers, the late Peter Gutteridge.
So, during a practice session, Sogg — Kemmett, bassist Noelle Hill and drummer Rue Tulloch — decided they were going to figure out how to play it.
‘‘And we liked it, because the type of covers that we like doing are, like, jammy things. So, it’s perfect for that, because we can make it as long or as short as we want.’’
In the event, the version the band has recorded winds up after four and a-half minutes, but in that time they capture its raw swirling energy — with a little help from a friend.
‘‘We had a week recording with Nick Roughan at Southlink,’’ Kemmett continues the story, ‘‘And we recorded the cover, and he was like, ‘oh, I can get David [Kilgour] to come do some guitar on it if you like’.
‘‘And we were like, ‘oh, yeah, that would be cool’. So, then a week later, he sent us through the stuff, and I was like, ‘that sounds awesome. So, we’ll definitely do something with that’.’’
The original Boodle recording features rhyming guitar parts — produced by adding an overdub to the initial live take — so at Southlink The Clean’s David Kilgour added extra guitar parts to twin with the tracks Kemmett had already laid down.
‘‘And it’s quite nice, because it gives it a bit of a, almost a contrast, because he’s got quite a nice style, and I’m a bit more rough around the edges,’’ Kemmett says.
Sogg, whose own original music features searing soundscapes allied to equally excoriating politically charged lyrics — their debut album is Kill Yr Oppressor — have set aside their rawest inclinations for the cover without surrendering their own intensity, which Kemmett says is consistent with their approach when playing covers.
‘‘It’s quite faithful, but it’s also got our own thing to it,’’ he says.
‘‘That’s kind of how I’ve always approached covers, I guess. I think it shows a bit more skill to make your own sound shine through a cover as well. And then, especially if people come see us live who have heard that song being played by The Clean, it’s like, you can almost unlock another dimension of the song when you apply your own sound to it.’’
Sogg’s take on Point That Thing extends to its start-stop-start opening bars, which Kemmett says could have gone any number of ways.
‘‘That intro part, sometimes we did it for way longer or way shorter, and I suppose it’s our own jankiness that kind of shines through, I guess.
‘‘That’s our whole thing, nothing’s really set in stone because we all feed off each other. It’s not like we’ve got a set amount of bars to do a set amount of stuff, it’s like, we’ll do it when it feels right.’’
Sogg, who have already been written up in Rolling Stone, are more than happy to be creating connections with the guitar music of a previous generation.
‘‘It feels like we’re the continuation of a beautiful thing, really,’’ he says.
‘‘A lot of the old Dunedin stuff had that, like, imperfect aspect to it. And that’s kind of also what I wanted to bring to it, because nothing sounds as good when everything’s played in time and perfectly clean.’’
It’s not the first time Sogg have plugged into the Dunedin Sound back catalogue. Last year at the Ōtepoti premier of Shayne Carter documentary Life In One Chord they teamed up with Sivle Talk to bend Dimmer’s Crystalator into new shapes.
Kemmett says Sogg are happy to be the go to for such assignments.
‘‘Yeah, almost like a better wedding band.’’
In a diametric contrast to the song’s original sentiment, they’re happy for the finger to be pointed at them.
