Dub dot dash

 So, last month I did an interview with Trevor Reekie for his feature, Moments Like These, where he gets a muso to dig out an old photo of themselves and rabbit on about it. Read on. 


Moments Like These: Peter McLennan
Published in NZ Musician, Oct/Nov issue 2009. By Trevor Reekie

"Peter McLennan was once the guitarist in Hallelujah Picassos and these days makes music as Dub Asylum. He is a self-described Auckland musician, a DJ, writer, graphic designer, music blogger and pop culture junkie who buys lots of magazines. His creative curiosity and eclectic taste is only some of the sum of his many parts… a musical gent who is always on time!"

Can you remember who took this photo and when?
Wildside label boss Murray Cammick shot it. Gavin Downie had recently joined the band, which makes it 1994 I think. It was in a car park in central Auckland in the middle of winter, and we were freezing our butts off, hence the beanies, jackets, etc. At that point, we were heading in about a million different directions musically – we put together the ‘Gospel of the DNA Demon’ EP which came out in late ’95 and toured to support it. Shortly after that Johnny and I left the band for spiritual reasons.

What was your relationship then and what are the others doing now?
They were my bandmates, and today I can still call them my friends, which I’m very proud of. The Picassos were a tribe, not a band, or that’s how we described ourselves in interviews. It was about including our fans in the equation. When we’d do gigs, we’d always come back out and sit round on the front of the stage afterwards and talk to the folks who had come to see us play. There was some other bands round Auckland at the time who thought they were better than their fans and that they were special, and we weren’t having a bar of that crap.

Bobbylon and Roland are still lurking around Auckland city. Johnny Pain was in Singapore making animated kids TV shows for the last few years – he’s recently shifted to Toronto to do more of the same, but is going back to Singapore as he’s joined a thrash metal band there. He also recorded as Pains People post-HPs, and played bass in the Nudie Suits – the man is a musical chameleon. Gavin was in The Managers and a few other acts, and is working as a guitar tech for hire.

How did you get the name ‘Hallelujah Picassos’ and how did the band evolve?
We started out playing as a garage punk band called the Rattlesnakes for about a year and a half. By then our sound had evolved, adding reggae and ska, so we needed a new name. I turned up late for practice one Sunday afternoon (I’d been at work, I think), and the others had a sheet of paper with heaps of names scribbled on it. They’d narrowed it down to three, and the only decent one was Hallelujah Picassos. I was at art school at the time, so I went for that name. And of course, as Jonathan Richman sang, Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole.

The Picassos live was a full-on thing. One of the best things about the Picassos was that people either got it or they didn’t. That style of mashing up genres (labelled ‘crossover’, back then), no-one really got it on a widespread scale until a few years after we split, when US ska-punk outfits like Sublime and Rancid found mass popularity with it.

As we evolved musically, we basically kept adding new genres to our musical ammo, and didn’t attempt to limit what we attempted stylistically. We had four strong personalities in the band, with the contrasting vocal styles of front man Roland’s aggressive rasp, and crooner Bobbylon on the drum seat – he was once labelled as the Dirty Harry of NZ reggae – face of steel, voice of gold. All four of us wrote songs, so we never had a shortage of material to play with, and pretty much everything we wrote we recorded too.

We ended up with these descriptions of our music with A LOT of hyphens; reggae-ska-thrash-rap-punk-funk... which is why, when people asked us what sort of music we played, we said ‘Picasso core’. Much simpler. And we had a song mentioning it, with the delightfully subtle chorus, “Picasso core will fuck your mind”. We even made a video for it, which got played on television. Once. True story.

When did the Picassos come to an end?
The others carried on for about a year after we left, going through six drummers. I kept meeting guys in the street who would tell me they were the new drummer for the Picassos (as Bob moved to bass). They got a new line-up together, with Roland moving to guitar and a new vocalist filling his slot, and they did a few gigs and recordings. Johnny and I went and saw them play at Squid one night, and it was the weirdest thing. We were standing there watching them play songs we knew inside and out, except it wasn’t us playing them, it was this other band. We were both a bit dumbfounded by that.

I’m not sure when the band ceased as I wasn’t a member, but I gather it was sometime later in ’96, when Roland left the band. We’re working on a re-release of some of our favourite songs and our audience’s faves too, getting them re-mastered and putting together a tasty CD package for them, with the aim of getting it out by the end of the year. It will also be available as digital downloads, and if anyone wants to give us two or three grand (seriously), we’ll do a vinyl release too.

How has your musical career progressed since the time this photo was taken?
A rapid descent into poverty! I started working on a solo project under the moniker Dub Asylum around 1998, although I notice I’m wearing a baseball cap with Dub Asylum on it in this photo. I’ve released an album, two EPs (one of which was on vinyl) and a handful of singles under that name. I’ve also directed a few music videos for Dub Asylum too. I think I did a jungle/drum n’ bass cover of I Love My Leather Jacket by The Chills back then, and it got used on the closing credits on a music TV show.

My musical career has pretty much devolved back to what it was like before the Picassos got a record deal – which was DIY, The Picassos recorded and released two cassettes independently before we got a record deal. Do it yourself, you ain’t got no one else to blame. It’s not hard – just ask someone who has already done it. There’s plenty of people to give you advice and encouragement. If it’s any good, people will like it and buy it.

Who is one artist and/or record that you would say has had the most influence on you and why?
Argggh, back then we were listening to Fishbone, Urban Dance Squad, African Head Charge, Bad Brains... just one? Okay, ‘London Calling’ by The Clash. I heard it when it first came out, taped it onto cassette off a mate’s 2LP set, and have revisited it numerous times since. Like a lot of skinny white boys, it marked my first exposure to reggae and ska. It was an education, and a damned good record filled with great songs.

When the deluxe re-issue package came out in 2004 I discovered the stories behind this album, thanks to the bonus DVD that came with it, including watching old video footage of the album’s loose-nut producer Guy Stevens swinging a broom round the studio while Mick Jones tried to play. But mostly, I revisited these tunes and was reminded what a great band the Clash were. They were a gang.

What would you consider your proudest musical moment?
Dunno, still to come. Making music that people like is pretty damn special. You make music because you want it to connect with people. Opening for Screaming Jay Hawkins was special. We opened for him two nights in a row, and he saw us on the second night, at the Gluepot.

We asked him after we played if he saw any of our set, and he said, “Yes, I did. I like to hear other bands, cos I get sick of hearing my own”. We asked him if he had any advice for us. He told us to “Keep rocking”, so we did. He strolled out of the Gluepot at the end of the night with a beautiful woman on each arm. He knew how to live.

We also opened for Violent Femmes, Faith No More, Primus, Ice T and Body Count, African Head Charge, Beastie Boys, Soundgarden and a few others.

The most imposing presence I have ever been in the presence of was?
Screaming Jay Hawkins. And Noam Chomsky. He handed me my award at the Media Peace Awards when I won a Highly Commended for an article I wrote for Pavement magazine. He had a firm handshake, which was reassuring.

The most important thing you have learned from your creative endeavours is?
Do it yourself.

What are your recollections of the music scene back when you started compared to now?
Local music was not cool. NZ music was less than 2% of NZ radio play – if you weren’t Dobbyn or a Split Enz derivative, you were invisible. I think it’s really cool that there are kids growing up now that think it’s normal to hear NZ music on the radio. Back then there was still a debate going on over alternative vs mainstream - glad that idiotic notion died. The closest we ever got to commercial success was one of our singles Rewind grazed the Top 40. It was at number 39 for one week. But we still packed out venues around the country, so we didn’t really care.

As a music blogger what pleases/annoys you most about the current local scene?
What pleases me is that musicians are getting motivated to make music without waiting round to see if they get an NZ On Air grant or whatever. What annoys me? People’s sense of entitlement. Earn my respect, fool.

What’s the best book about music that you have read?
Please Kill Me, by Legs McNeil, cautionary tales in drug taking and NYC punk rock, and Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, an essential read on the history of the disc jockey – from Northern soul to disco, reggae, hip hop, house and more. They also wrote a fantastic book called How To DJ (Properly) which is a must read for any DJ, no matter whether you’re a veteran or a newbie. That’s three, and then there’s this other book...

What can people read about on your blog?
Music that I like. That simple. I’ve got a pretty eclectic taste,and that’s just got broader as I get older (although I tell myself it’s got more refined! Ha ha). There’s music from Jamaica, Canada, Ethiopia, Argentina, all over. Good music is where you find it.

What’s on your playlist right now?
Albums by Mayer Hawthorne, Quantic and his Combo Barabaro, Opensouls, Wheedle’s Groove, Ze Records 30th Anniversary compilation, Best of Steely and Clevie, and the Esso Trinidad Steel Band. And a ton of vinyl 7s and 12s.