Archive Archive

I spent three days late last week driving a transit van from Wellington to Auckland and back to good weather and great winter scenery. I have to say I really like the look of those snow covered volcanos on a clear day. Anyway the task was to pick up the Flying Nun archive and drive it back to its new home in Wellington.

Welcome home

An archive sounds like rather dry business when defined as “a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people”. Our archive is all of these things and is not in the least dry or dull. Even the cardboard boxes are fascinating.

An example of the intricate and fascinating packaging involved

Master tapes, cassettes of demos and live shows, vinyl, cassette and CDs of every release, poster and cover art, photos, stacks of press releases and reviews, promo thingies and t shirts and a few more gold discs than one would think. And not all just black on white but generally actually rather colourful.

This might be worth having a listen too

An organised collection but not too organised. What leaps out is the vitality and energy of all those involved in the past. It oozes the personalities of the individuals and groups that made the music and the associated imagery. 30 years worth of New Zealand music history viewed from the point of view of those who made and released it as well as those who responded to it here at home and internationally.

All of it worth keeping safe and there is some extraordinary material. Multiple Chris Knox self portraits (easier than getting the photographer in), outstanding demos of well known releases, early hand written band to record label correspondence, lots of long forgotten poster gems from the past and some great never seen before photos.

Is that a gold record....

All worth keeping somewhere safe and organised and plenty of absolutely great material to put up on this very website over the next year or twenty I think.

– Roger Shepherd.

Tags: archive, early demos, photos, posters