Witchcraft

When I was in Wellington DJing at Webstock a few weeks back, I managed to squeeze in an afternoon of digging at Real Groovy and Slowboat Records, which made me very happy.

I scored a handful of goodies at Slowboat, and walked up to the counter to purchase them. I had a Screaming Meemees 12" (Dancing with stars in my eyes, #375 of 1000), the IQU EP featured above, several Three The Hard Way CD singles on Deepgrooves, and a Sneaky Feelings CD. The guy behind the counter took my purchases, looked at them for a minute, then looked at me and said "Are you Peter McLennan?" He'd deduced who I was based on my purchases. Smart chap! His name is Jeremy.

Turns out we'd corresponded over the years and crossed paths on the internet, as you do. I had a lovely chat with him about the state of music and music retail, and he told me that new vinyl does well for them, but the problem is sourcing it, in some cases.

For Flying Nun's new releases on vinyl, because Warners no longer deal with small shops, he has to order it from a one-stop outfit in Wellington, who then order it from Warners in Auckland, who get Roger Shepherd to ship it up to them from his Wellington base. Funnily enough, it's easier for Slowboat to deal directly with Roger rather than do that ridiculously convoluted purchasing routine. Warners also handle the digital distribution for Flying Nun too.

There's a great article on record shops I posted a while back, that profiles Slowboat and Real Groovy, written by Gordon Campbell at the end of last year. Slowboat owns their premises, no rent overheads.


IQU were a studio outfit from Auckland, who released an EP in 1984 on Jayrem. From the liner notes for the EP, the band were ...

Betty Monga, Paul Agar - vocals; Jon Lowther - keyboards; David Meech - Guitar; Ryan Monga - Bass; Robert Mayo - Drums; Percussion - Jay Foulkes.

Engineered by Mike Farmer, produced by Paul Crowther and IQU. Recorded at Echo Park Studio, winter 84. Digitally mastered. Disc mastering: Roy Carr, EMI Wellington. Sleeve design: Jon Cooper and IQU. All songs composed by Jon Lowther.
IQU Organisation: J Lowther, R Mayo, A Lamont.