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It's been about five years since Dunedin band The Clean played to New Zealand audiences and over 25 since their experimental style of pop music first began making waves.
Their local record label Flying Nun has referred to them as being "the band that started it all", following
a period in the late 1970s and 1980s where they were considered trailblazers for a wave of alternative punk, rock and pop music to originate from the south.
They had a relaxed work ethic and were never going to become commercial heavyweights, but nevertheless eventually managed to gain a worldwide cult following and have been credited with influencing some heavyweight overseas indie bands.
Their status didn't go unnoticed when Dunedin City Councillors last year decided to organise a festival to celebrate the city's heritage.
The Clean have never really disbanded and Hamish Kilgour this week flew into Dunedin from New York, where he has lived for 18 years, to join his brother David and another original member, Robert Scott.
Kilgour says the band have talked about coming together again and festival organisers created an opportunity to do that by showing eagerness for them to play a home gig and paying his travel costs from New York.
Talking from his brother's Dunedin home he sounds pleased to be back.
"It's pretty pleasant and very relaxing," he says, describing his morning.
"I wake up early, go down town, wander around, go to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, sit there for a while, go and see a movie and come back home."
His musical interests have continued in New York and he says he has also been "attempting" to do some artwork and paying the bills working in the construction industry.
Kilgour doesn't seem to have picked up an American accent and isn't sure if he calls New York home yet.
"Home is where you hang your hat really. But New York is an alright place to hang your hat.
"It's a very hard working city and ever since I've been there I've been a working man."
He calls it a "large rock" that one has to hang on tightly to.
While the Heritage Festival gig has provided the nucleus for the reunion, fans will be pleased that they are also playing shows up the country as far as Leigh, north of Auckland.
All three band members have stayed involved with music over the years (David Kilgour has just toured Australasia with his band the Heavy Eights) and Kilgour says playing together again comes fairly naturally for the trio.
"We really learned to be musicians together, so have an empathy which is something you probably always seek when you're playing music with other people.
"It's a pretty good basis to use as a point of exploration. So it's a bit like riding a bike."
He says while the band had a temporary split in 1982, a few years after beginning, there was an unspoken agreement when they came back together that they would write and play music "when the time is right".
"And that's actually proved to have been pretty damned good," Kilgour says.
"It means that we can kind of assimilate these things and not conform to any ideas of what we might be or should be.
"So essentially it gives us complete freedom musically and creatively and that would be the most valuable thing anyone could have really."
The relatively short reunion isn't an issue in terms of the band's ability to gel, and Kilgour says they have already come up with some new material to play.
"We've already written a new instrumental which we'll probably unveil at the first gig. We're doing a few rehearsals and then should be in fine old shape," he says.
Those attending the Dunedin Regent Theatre music night will also be treated to some more musical blasts from the past including The Chills, Sneaky Feelings and Mother Goose.
The Clean will be supported by various other bands as they travel throughout New Zealand to play six other gigs.
* Wellington, March 16 San Francisco Bath House; Auckland, March 17, The Studio; Leigh, March 18, Leigh Sawmill Cafe; Oamaru, March 21, Penguin Club; Dunedin, March 23, Heritage Festival; Christchurch, March 24, Jetset Lounge; Lyttelton, March 25, Harbourlight.
- NZPA
