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Friends of Hamish Kilgour, who died this week after he went missing in Christchurch, have paid tribute to the Kiwi music pioneer.
Kilgour co-founded Dunedin band The Clean in the 1970s and became synonymous with the 'Dunedin sound' music scene.
He was reported missing on November 27, after last being seen in The Palms shopping centre in Christchurch, where he had been living recently.
His body was found on Monday, and police have referred his death to the coroner.
His friend and bandmate, bass player Robert Scott remembered him as a loving and kind man.
“He was totally generous and open and loving and kind. Just meeting him and working with him was amazing," Scott tells Karyn Hay.
Scott met Hamish and his brother David in 1980, and it didn’t take long before they began making music together.
“[Hamish] and David were a force of nature, a machine. I just joined them, and I was the glue and the oil that held them together. Once we gelled, we knew we were able to make any kind of music we wanted to really.
“New Zealand was a very different place back then and when The Clean came on board we basically did things the way we wanted.”
Ideas came fast and steady in the band and Kilgour was a prolific artist, he says.
“Within the band we had a great backlog of ideas, especially visually for the posters.”
The Clean were inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame in 2017.
Kilgour was like a brother, Scott says.
“We shared so much together. When you tour with someone it’s quite extreme conditions in terms of being bundled in the back of a car hurtling across Europe and your possessions are flying off the roof. Or holding the fort on stage in front of an angry crowd.
“He was like a total brother to me; we were so close in terms of making music and living together. It was incredible to share that time with him.
“His music will live on.”
Flying Nun founder Roger Shepherd told Morning Report Hamish was a crucial figure in the Aotearoa music scene, and in the development of the label.
In fact, Kilgour was the first person Shepherd hired at Flying Nun.
“I really enjoyed his company, I count him as a really special friend."
Shepherd first saw The Clean play at the Gladstone in Christchurch. “They were just clearly the best band in the world.”
“I guess Hamish was a bit older than a lot of the other bands we dealt with. He was at the tail end of the counter culture really and a lot of his thinking around that he carried forward into the whole punk scene."
Kilgour was really engaged with the world and had strong opinions, Shepherd says.
“He was pretty special.”
Shepherd told the ODT meeting Kilgour had been a life-changing moment.
"It has been a tough week of waiting to find out what had happened but now we know," he said.
"You can be a music fan all your life but you might only be able to count on one hand the number of absolutely amazing shows that you have seen and The Clean, at least two, three or four times that I saw them, were pretty astonishing.
"The first time I saw them at the Gladstone they were clearly really special. I had this idea for a new record label and it was clear to me that they had to be on there, so I pursued them all the way to Auckland to reinforce my interest."
-Additional reporting Mike Houlahan, ODT