Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Zodiac digitised

About a month ago I heard some mighty exciting news, and it's finally seen the light of day. Amplifier/DRM announced late yesterday that they have signed the Zodiac label for digital distribution. They will be digging through the Stebbings vaults.

Now, if you take a look at Simon Grigg's discography of Zodiac's 45s (which is an incredible piece of work), you'll see there is some amazing Kiwi music in there. It's almost the audio equivalent of Chris Bourke's recent book, Blue Smoke: The lost dawn of New Zealand popular music 1918-1964.

There's names like The La De Das, The Keil Isles, Peter Posa, Claude Papesch, Daphne Walker, Ray Columbus and The Invaders, Sonny Day and The Sundowners, Tommy Adderley... I really hope they get the rights to Rim D. Paul And The Quin Tikis - Man River / Poi Poi Twist (from 1963) cos I love Poi Poi Twist. It's a great NZ rock n roll hybrid that deserves to be more widely heard. I've got a different version, by the Maori Hi-Five - but I need to hear this one!

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