Throughout NZ Music Month we’ll be hearing stories from young musicians about the local songs they love the most. Today, Sheep Dog & Wolf talks about songs from So So Modern, Chris Knox, Seth Frightening, Flo Wilson and Tuff Wizard.
Sheep Dog & Wolf. Photo: Asher James
Sheep Dog & Wolf aka Daniel McBride, the Wellington-based Taite Music Prize nominee and Critics Choice Award winner, talked to us about the New Zealand music that inspires him. As he points out, it was pretty close to impossible to narrow his choices down, “so rather than ‘my five favourite tracks’ I’m gonna call this ‘five of my favourite tracks’”.
Here they are…
So So Modern – ‘Berlin’
So So Modern! Oh man, where do I begin? I think So So Modern was my first band-crush. I still have skate videos somewhere on my old computer that my friend Logan and I made, all of them set to tracks from their EP Friendly Fires.
Here’s a story to give you an idea of how much I love So So Modern. The band that I was in during high school, Bandicoot, was booked to support them for the Auckland release of Crude Futures, and I was super-excited. In the week before, though, the glass roof of my shower fell on me (this is not a joke) and cut my ankle open, very deep. Lots of stitches. So extreme was my excitement for the show, however, that I insisted that I still play - crutches, bandages and all. And so I did! It was painful, but I have no regrets.
This track is really on here as a representative of the whole of Crude Futures. It’s such an awesome album, quite possibly my favourite New Zealand album ever. I have so many memories of driving around Auckland in my friend’s old car and singing along to every song.
Fun fact: While writing this I had a sudden resurgence of overwhelming So So Modern love and ordered the Crude Futures vinyl online. There were none left in New Zealand so I’m shipping it from London. NO REGRETS.
Chris Knox – ‘Becoming Something Other’
Chris Knox is just brilliant. He lived up the street from me when I was a kid, and I’ll never forget seeing him perform at a small community concert in Grey Lynn, cargo shorts, scruffy black singlet and a hands-free mic, yelling out ‘time for the fuzz!’ and stomping on his hot-cake while 10-year-old me looked on in awe and admiration.
Beat, the album that this track is from, was a staple at home. I have an interesting relationship with these songs, as when I was first listening to them I wasn’t really old enough to understand the lyrics - that came later, when I already felt I knew the songs well.
This track in particular always affected me; I have a strong memory of asking my dad what it was about, and him telling me that Chris was singing about his own father passing away. After that, whenever dad put this record on around the house, this track would always leave me very sombre, thinking about one day experiencing what Chris was singing about. I don’t really know how to explain what this song does to me, but it’s all wrapped up in my childhood and my parents and home and… Just listen to it. It’s incredible.
Seth Frightening – ‘Hospital Beach’
The first time I saw Seth Frightening live I was 18 and had just moved to Wellington. It was the closing party for Fred’s, a wonderful DIY venue that had to shut down due to earthquake regulations, and the whole event had a kind of sadness about it, the end of an era.
Sean played in the living-room-esque main room, with everyone sitting around him on the floor. I’d heard his music before, recorded, but it was the live show that gave me a full appreciation of how wonderful it is - I think I actually cried.
Sean’s music is some of the most emotionally affecting I’ve ever heard; he is always absolutely and devastatingly honest in his lyrics, and he has such a strange and beautiful way of expressing things. It was listening to Seth Frightening, in part, that made me realise how important it is to me that anything I write have an emotional impact as well as just technical appeal, and that has shaped how I write music ever since.
This track is from his new album, and it hurts. Every time I hear it, it leaves me feeling so vulnerable, in the best way. If you ever have a chance to see Seth Frightening live, go. Go and sit there and cry and feel amazing about it.
Flo Wilson – ‘Music for Dance #2’
Flo makes the kind of music where you close your eyes to listen and you forget where you are. It completely surrounds you. Back when she was performing under the moniker of ‘Foxtrot’, she played at Chronophonium up in Auckland, in a forest. I was hiding from the sun under the trees, and it was one of the most beautiful and idyllic live music experiences I’ve ever had, just closing my eyes and blissing out while the music washed over me. Everyone was completely entranced.
I’ve put down ‘Music for Dance #2’ here, but really you should listen to #2 and #3, one immediately after the other. They work together as a single piece so perfectly - get a pair of headphones, find somewhere comfortable, close your eyes, and listen. It sounds like being in a Hayao Miyazaki film, just when things start to change from peaceful and beautiful to slightly sinister and unnerving. Jonathan Bree once described the sound to me as ‘Alien Love Sounds.’ If you’re not intrigued by now, you should be. Listen!
Tuff Wizard – ‘Telling’
Miles from Tuff Wizard is one of my biggest lyrical inspirations. If it wasn’t for him I would probably still be adding lyrics as an afterthought, just something to shape the vocal takes. Everything Tuff Wizard writes is perfect indie-pop-punk, the lyrics intricate and affecting, the arrangements simultaneously rousing and heartbreaking.
If you ever have a chance to see one of their shows (which I very much hope you do) you will almost certainly see me up the front, shouting along and bouncing around like an excitable 14-year-old - which is exactly what Tuff Wizard makes me feel like. Every time I listen to this song I get this bubble of happy-sadness in my chest that makes me want to go back to high-school and feel awkward and anxious and sad, but to really appreciate it this time.