cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1372366
As those who follow me on Reddit may have seen with my posts over the past few years, I love the New Zealand indie rock scene to death. I have posted songs constantly from the Dunedin Sound, made write-ups about artists on the label like The Chills and Chris Knox, and have tried everything to promote this untapped goldmine (at least from outside of New Zealand) to the mainstream public. I'm trying to get anything from Flying Nun records and have been trying to get anything Flying Nun related that I can possibly get (at a reasonably price). One of these things that I have not found before, either online or physically, until now is copies of Rip It Up Magazine.
Rip It Up is a music magazine in New Zealand that was one of the biggest music magazines in the country during the 80s, where it reached a height of 30,000 copies monthly. The reason why I am so interested in this magazine is that it covered the Dunedin and Flying Nun scene extensively during its birthing period and beyond, with interesting articles detailing some of the history behind bands that may have only existed for a couple years, and wonderful pictures of these artists. It's such an interesting artifact of a time and a place that I would have loved to have seen back when it was bustling and thriving.
The particular issue that I purchased was an issue from April 1982, right at the birth of Flying Nun and after Boodle Boodle Boodle's runaway success for the label. The issue has a picture of the Clean on its cover page, which is always cool to see. The articles it discusses related to the scene discuss the Dunedin scene as it was starting to take off, covering the various bands that would be present on the compilation album that would later be called the Dunedin Double, such as the Chills and the Verlaines, and further coverage of the Clean in the lead-up to their second EP Great Sounds Great, released the following month. It's such an amazing document of a scene just getting started and I am craving to get more issues of this magazine in the future.
