Some favour­ites:

The Avengers
For a time in the late six­ties The Avengers were one of the highest pro­file rock bands on the New Zea­l­and scene. Their song Water­pipe is one of the greatest songs to ever glor­i­fy the joys of using water in your bong. The 1968 debut LP Elec­tric Record­ing has pos­sibly my favour­ite album cov­er art ever – look how cool they are – as well as being a damn good record. They went to try their luck in Aus­tralia and broke up in ’69.

Bail­ter Space
Look – we have to let Christ­ch­urch have The Gor­dons, and The Skep­tics were undoubtedly from Palmer­ston North, but I’m going to have to insist des­pite them begin­ning in Christ­ch­urch and end­ing up in New York, that Wel­ling­ton be allowed to claim shoe-gazey atmo­spher­ic noise rock­ers Bail­ter Space as its own. They were an incred­ible live band, known for being one of the loudest of their era. Their gigs were few and far between, and many people still speak in hushed, rev­er­en­tial tones about the week in 1993 when there were TWO Bail­ter Space gigs. And their albums still stand up as being some of the best music to ever come out of New Zea­l­and.

Birchville Cat Motel
a.k.a. Camp­bell Kneale. As Wiki­pe­dia sez,

although largely unknown in his home coun­try, Kneale has toured many times through­out Asia, Amer­ica, Europe, and Aus­tralia.

Daft name, and yet this one-man trancend­ent­al drone/noise act is surely the closest thing Wel­ling­ton and New Zea­l­and has ever had to a glob­al music super­star.

The Ele­phant­men
I’m not kid­ding, this avant-rock trio are/were one of the greatest live things I’ve ever seen…

The Ele­phant­men are no ordin­ary band. They out there in the hin­ter­land… lurk­ing roun’ the fringes of rock and jazz; and they def’nittly gone a bit fer­al.

And their new album Let You Enter­tain Me is pretty damn sharp, too.

The Garbage and the Flowers
In terms of great­ness vs. obscur­ity The Garbage and the Flowers have to be Wel­ling­ton’s – nay New Zeal­and’s – very own Vel­vet Under­ground. Named from a line in a Leonard Cohen song, and irre­voc­ably entangled in 90s con­tem­por­ar­ies Entlag and Dress, among oth­ers – their druggy extendo man­tra-rock drew as much from min­im­al­ist com­poser Terry Riley as much as it did any rock touch­stones. They went to try their luck in Aus­tralia and broke up; and reformed; and prob­ably broke up and reformed at least once more.

The Lab­coats
Not sure if I should be allowed to count these guys and their oddly effect­ive col­li­sion between 21st cen­tury beats and loops and 1920s good-times party bands, as it’s as much of an occa­sion­al side-pro­ject as an actu­al band. But their live shows (they once sup­por­ted Tor­toise and frankly, mopped the stage with them) were won­der­ful and their album Acid and Alkaline is really great, as well. Mem­bers: Dav­id Long was a Mut­ton Bird and, along with fel­low Lab­coats Steve Roche, Dav­id Don­ald­son and Anthony Don­ald­son, part of Six Volts, who first poured jazz, exot­ica and absurd­ism into the same test-tube back in the 80s. From more recent gen­er­a­tions come trum­peter Toby Laing (Fat Freddy’s Drop) and per­cus­sion­ist and sampler Ricki Gooch (Trin­ity Roots).

Little Bush­man
War­ren Max­well (Trin­ity Roots, Fat Freddy Toots, etc.) got togeth­er a new band and a new sound – which is sorta what you’d get if you crossed Lamp of the Uni­verse with Comets on Fire; or Shug­gie Otis and Al Green jam­ming with Human Instinct. Their self-released The Onus of Sand is con­tem­por­ary yet instantly-clas­sic sound­ing – its funky roots-soul-psych-rock is tempered with soar­ing vocals and exten­ded instru­ment­al wig-outs. I can­’t stop play­ing it. Mem­bers of the band include an Ele­phant­man – Rick Cran­son – and Wel­ling­ton jazz legends the Call­wood broth­ers, Joe and Tom.

The Phoenix Found­a­tion
I’ve been telling as many people as would listen – for as long as I can remem­ber – to watch these guys because they were going to be great. I’m glad to report that they haven’t let me down. One of the most soured, cyn­ic­al music fol­low­er I have ever met turned to me at a gig at Bodega in – it must have been 2002? – and just said “It should be illeg­al to be this good”. Indeed.

Prim­it­ive Art Group
Legendary free-jazz group and best Welly jazz band ever (if you’ll allow me to dis­count The Ecstasy Trio) con­sist­ing of (Wel­ling­ton music scene stal­wart, future 4/6 Volt, future Lab­coat) Dav­id Don­ald­son, (globe-trip­ping itin­er­ant single-handedly respons­ible for intro­du­cing the bag­pipes into ser­i­ous music) Dav­id Wat­son, (well-known paint­er and future mem­ber of The Garbage and the Flowers) Stu­art Port­er, (anoth­er Wel­ling­ton music scene stal­wart, future 4/6 Volt, future Lab­coat, and broth­er of Dav­id) Anthony Don­ald­son, and Neill Duncan. Their albums Five Tread Drop Down and Future Jaw Clap, as well as that of off­shoot band The Black Sheep, are now col­lect­or’s items.

Sign­er
My turn for some Bevan Smith wor­ship. Sign­er is utterly gor­geous min­im­al­ist drone-techno and third album Low Light Dreams is a mas­ter­piece. I noticed the oth­er day that – accord­ing to Last.fm – I appeared to be Sign­er­’s biggest fan in the whole wide world. ‘Nuff said?

Trin­ity Roots
You can keep yer Fat Freddys and yer Bong­mas­ter and yer Black Seeds and yer Fly My Freakin Pret­ties and so on – and keep them as far away from me as you pos­sibly can – but for me Trin­ity Roots were the real deal. Unafraid to cast off the tedi­ous crutches of dance music for the heart-wrench­ing expres­sion­ism of true roots music, they were, and for that I and thou­sands of oth­ers loved them. I was incon­sol­able when I learned that they had dis­ban­ded.