Straitjacket Fits
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About Straitjacket Fits from Dunedin
Since forming in Flying Nun's spiritual home, the southern New Zealand city of Dunedin, in 1986, Straitjacket Fits have established themselves as the label's prime purveyors of rock'n'roll in its primal, blistering and downright sensual form. With their swaggering mix of fierce guitars and often ethereal vocal melodies, the group has carved its way past pretenders and continue in determined fashion to make their way towards what seems to be their inevitable place on rock's throne. (With their epic swathes of guitar and song, such imagery seems entirely appropriate.)
The group was formed by former Double Happys Shayne Carter and John Collie, and bassist David Wood. Andrew Brough, formerly of The Orange, joined soon after and added a foil in the form of pop sensibility to Carter's more raucous songwriting. Their debut EP Life In One Chord was released in 1987 to local acclaim -- warmly reviewed and spending 10 weeks in the Top 50.
Straitjacket Fits left Dunedin's chilly but supportive environment to base themselves in Auckland in 1988. That year saw them record their first album, Hail, working for a second time with the engineering and production talents of former Chill, Terry Moore. Hail's ten songs included seven from Carter, two from Brough, and a cover of Leonard Cohen's "So Long Marianne" -- played in a way that managed to drag the song well into the Straitjackets sphere of things.
The following year they headed overseas for the first time, reaching Australia to find an enthusiastic audience waiting. Also enthusing about the group by this stage were the international music press who cottoned onto Life In One Chord at last. (Records take a while to get from here to there...)
Rough Trade in the UK, Europe and USA followed up this enthusiasm with a release of Hail which managed to squeeze in all of Life at the expense of a couple of LP tracks and Straitjacket Fits followed this with their first tour of the Northern Hemisphere, late in 1989.
They returned in 1990 to begin work on the album Melt with Scottish producer, Gavin Mackillop. Recorded and mixed in Auckland and Melbourne, Australia, the album was a great success here and there. In the USA, Arista Records picked up the Fits for a six-album deal and preceded the release of Melt with a single release of "Down In Splendour", one of three Andrew Brough tracks on the album.
The 1991 US tour which followed the release of Melt saw the group consolidate their critical reputation and growing international fan-base. It also saw tensions between Andrew and the rest of the group reaching crisis point; citing musical and personal differences, he left the Straitjacket Fits soon after their return to New Zealand.
A new guitarist was found in the form of Aucklander Mark Petersen and the band continued through 1991 and 1992 with regular New Zealand tours and a brief Australian jaunt with the UK's My Bloody Valentine.
In mid-'92 they took four of Shayne Carter's new songs to a studio in Melbourne where, working with long-time Nick Cave engineer Tony Cohen, the Straitjacket Fits pounded out a defiant "career exclamation point" EP called Done. Reclaiming their right to rock and in doing so, saying "hear this" to those who'd always said the group's studio sound never came close to the live guitar dynamics which were their head-crunching trademark, Done saw the group set themselves a new standard for incendiary guitar noise.
They followed that EP with a trip to California, where over three months in late '92, early '93, the Straitjacket Fits pieced together the finest recorded work of their career, the album Blow, recorded at American Recording Studios with producer Paul Fox and Ed Thacker engineering. Although 'pieced together' is hardly the correct term -- Blow, which takes Done as its blast-off point and was recorded with none of the computer-controlled reorganisation of songs and sound that goes into most records that sound this huge, is the organically-correct blend of noise, pop and sexy angst that Straitjacket Fits really are. Blow has been a smouldering success, already cracking the New Zealand Top 20 and making serious inroads into American radio with its first single, "Cat Inna Can".
Straitjacket Fits have spent the latter half of 1993 taking the long road on a tour that has stretched from New Zealand, all the way through North America to Europe. They'll return home eventually to the release of a second single ("If I Were You") from Blow, and they also have a new track alongside Nirvana, Soundgarden et al on the forthcoming Red Hot Alternative compilation out of America. Definitely another step closer to that throne.
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