Pull Down The Shades: GARAGE Fanzine 1984-86 by Richard Langston

GARAGE chronicled a crucial period from an extraordinary and hugely influential era of punk, new wave and experimental music emanating primarily from Christchurch and Dunedin, two southern cities in New Zealand during the late 70s and 80s. From The Enemy, The Clean, The Chills, The Verlaines, The Bats, The Builders, Victor Dimisich Band, Scorched Earth Policy to The Great Unwashed and Straitjacket Fits, the sounds from fledgling indie labels Flying Nun Records and Xpressway are now legendary.

Richard Langston's book collects the original six issues of ultra-obscure fanzine from 1984-86 and includes new interviews and essays from the underground luminaries – musicians, artists and label staff – such as Alec Bathgate, David Kilgour, Roy Montgomery, Shayne Carter, Bill Direen, George Henderson, Francisca Griffin, Ronnie van Hout, Chris Heazlewood, Peter Jefferies, Stephen Cogle, Hamish Kilgour, Tom Lax, Stuart Page, Martin Phillipps, Bruce Russell, John Halvorsen, Dean Allen, Robert Scott, Brian Turner, Gary Olson, David Swift and Roger Shepherd, not to mention iconic photos of The Clean by Carol Tippet.

These are first-hand accounts and reports as the Flying Nun scene emerged as a force in the international underground music scene. Just like the music it covered, GARAGE was a bedroom-creation – typed, glued, and stapled together – that came to be read by music fans around the world. 

Pull Down The Shades makes the six issues available in print for the first time since they were published in the mid-80s. It includes sixteen recent interviews with many of the leading songwriters, performers, and key figures in the scene.

Hozac, 282pp, 21cm x 26cm, paperback, 2023, limited second printing of 500