Beat Rhythm Fashion – from the archives of oblivion

September 30, 2011

To mark the death of Dan Birch, I tapped out this feature I wrote about Beat Rhythm Fashion, published by the short-lived NZ Rolling Stone in December 1981. The article is dated, and the author should be shot (I turned a shade of crimson while re-reading this purple prose). But I guess itโ€™s a snapshot of a time and place not often discussed.

RAVE ONE
Beat Rhythm Fashion is coloured, textured, simple and refined, blurry music with a cutting edge reinforced by straight, warped, provocative words; poetry that is both bitter and shattered romantic. Itโ€™s music that feels, glides, hits home in the most basic (not base) areas of the jaded modern psyche. Itโ€™s music of true hues.
Beat Rhythm Fashion tries to work on three or four different levels. It works off pretension, arrogance, avoids easy belligerence, doesnโ€™t fake accent and background. Itโ€™s the paranoia of the Beatles double white album wrapped in a stark, stunning and persuasively deceptive 1980s vision. Itโ€™s one year on from the Wellington Terrace scene of bilious outrage and negativity.
Dan: โ€œWe donโ€™t tie the message to any philosophy. The music had to be important. It just so happens that thatโ€™s what we write about and it just so happens that it is important. Very few are writing things like that. Thereโ€™s a kind of level that we work in thatโ€™s rare, because no-one else is really on that level.โ€
ON PRETENSION
AND INTERVIEWS

Dan: โ€œItโ€™s pretentious to assume that anyone would be interested in finding out what weโ€™re talking about. But itโ€™s only pretentious until someoneโ€™s reached. Itโ€™s not pretentious any more because weโ€™ve succeeded.โ€
WORTHLESS HISTORY
Beat Rhythm Fashion (herein referred to as BRF) are Dan and Nino Birch who grew up in China and donโ€™t see New Zealand as a place to be. These boys, with clipped British accents, strummed their first guitars in their early teens, but only last year electrified themselves. Dan is in his late twenties, Nino his mid twenties, and the two bicker as brothers are wont to do. Dan plays bass/voice, Nino plays guitar/voice, and they both write โ€“ Dan most of the lyrics, Nino most of the tunes.
The BRF plan finds electric beginnings in Terrace parties mid-to-late 1980. No venues but plenty of crazy house parties with live music sees the rise and meteoric fall of the Wallsockets (whose flat these bands use as a base), Life In The Fridge Exists (with whom Dan plays occasionally) and others. Dan and Nino hang out here and hatch the plot.
The first-recorded BRF potential is unearthed on the Terrace sceneโ€™s climax/obituary sampler album, Four Stars. Dan and Ninoโ€™s two budding creations are โ€œNot Necessaryโ€ and โ€œNone In The Universeโ€, real drug-induced hippy/punk jokes: โ€œI would much prefer to be made of air/It would make me so happy not to be here.โ€
When all that ended, BRF got serious. They were next seen with a new sound, a proper high quality repertoire and new drummer, Glen, at dates in April 1981. Their big gigs were at the defunct Last Resort, and at the infamous first Wellingtonzone concert. Three BRF tunes (โ€œNo Great Oaks In Chinaโ€, โ€œArt And Dutyโ€ and โ€œSong Of The Hairless Apesโ€) along with pathetic audience response are to be found on the Wellingtonzone LP document.
โ€œBeings Rest Finallyโ€, backed with โ€œBring Real Freedomโ€, was released by Bunk in July. The A-side is a lovely introspective pop song tinged with jazz melody and Cure-sound. It sold in encouraging numbers and left Joe Public waiting for the second and third instalments of the BRF Marmalade-recorded singles trilogy.
The second single is the best BRF song to date. โ€œTurn Of The Centuryโ€ is wordlessly lovely, aching with melancholy. So simple, condensed and open to interpretation, such a feeling: โ€œItโ€™s a long project/With no prospects/But Iโ€™d still like to see the turn of the century.โ€
Itโ€™s haunting and slow with spectral swirls of string synthesiser adding immensely to its atmospheric ambience.
Drummer Glen left not long after the singles were recorded. Now BRF are back as a duo, and theyโ€™ll use hired hands when necessary unless they find that elusive kindred spirit to work with.
BOYS WILL BE BOYS
Nino: Dan and I only really speak the truth and say what we really mean in our music. Outside of that we just talk a load of bullshit.โ€
Dan: โ€œSpeak for yourself, sonny.โ€
Nino: โ€œYou do it too. You donโ€™t give a fuck what you say.โ€
Dan: โ€œI give very clear signals when Iโ€™m pissing and when Iโ€™m joking and being serious.โ€
Nino: โ€œBut those signals may not necessarily be seen.โ€
Dan: โ€œBut thatโ€™s not my responsibility.โ€
Nino: โ€œSure.โ€
Dan: โ€œItโ€™s my responsibility to give the signals.โ€
THE CURE COMPARISON
On first taste, and those skeptical but mesmerized second and third absorptions, BRF sound like The Cure. Definitely not outtakes; just the best Cure material The Cure never did! That comparison wears off as the music becomes embedded.
Nino: โ€œAll this bullshit about our pretentiousness and Cure clones and that weโ€™re just trying to jump someone elseโ€™s trainโ€ฆโ€
Dan: โ€œWhat we write will stand on its own. The only song we deliberately used a Cure sound on was โ€œBeings Rest Finallyโ€. We used a Cure guitar. I think itโ€™s legitimate to take an area that a band is into and try and work on that area, because thatโ€™s the whole nature of the music scene. Modern music will develop through that sort of interaction. Specially when The Cure have sort of left that area and theyโ€™re not exploring that anymore. We just took a Three Imaginary Boys thing and started working on that. There is a pool of consciousness in music. Inspiration in music comes from there. I donโ€™t think you can compose in isolation. We never steal melodies like other bands do. Now thatโ€™s unforgiveable.
REALLY?
Dan: โ€œI think Ninoโ€™s a better guitarist than Robert Smith. Robert Smith is a novice and thatโ€™s why he plays guitar like that: because all he can do is strum. All weโ€™re doing is playing music we like and if itโ€™s Cure MkII, I donโ€™t give a fuck because the melodies are not. Theyโ€™re their own, and stronger than anybody elseโ€™s, much stronger.โ€
Nino: โ€œSuperstrong.โ€
SONGS AND LYRICS
Dan: โ€œThe song has a structural problem. A well-structured song will have all levels running through it the whole way. Each verse, each line. Thatโ€™s the art of wordcraft, isnโ€™t it. Thatโ€™s what I find great. Each word is right. Every single word. Iโ€™m not saying all our songs merit close scrutiny, but some of them do.โ€
The Birch brothers donโ€™t really fit into the popular music model the way our arbiters of taste on radio or TV see it. Itโ€™s a curse on the inflexibility of our radio programmers that they canโ€™t see the viability of BRF and suchlike music; and itโ€™s not even hard on the ear. It is unfashionable because all the best music is of โ€œnowโ€ only in that it was created in a special moment in time. Yes, sweets, itโ€™s โ€œdifficultโ€ โ€“ but only if you really donโ€™t want to know. BRF themselves know not where they fit, so theyโ€™re using the pop music machinery as the only commercially possible mode. They like the idea of radio play but donโ€™t like the company theyโ€™d be keeping. They respect good pop music, but how much of that do we hear on radio?
AH-HA?
Dan: โ€œI feel, when I feel self-important, that my songs are going to change what singles do. Theyโ€™re going to raise it to a more respectable artform. Songs are all that count for me.โ€
THE REAL CURE: TRUTH HURTS!
Isnโ€™t BRF music a bit of a downer? Isnโ€™t it somewhat negative?
Dan: โ€œTruth is pretty negative. As soon as you say something positive, problems start popping out at you. I donโ€™t really see it as being negative or positive. If weโ€™re going to be honest weโ€™ve just got to do what we feel.โ€
Nino: โ€œPeople can say what they like about the fact that itโ€™s more important to get up there and have a good time, but they still wake up the next fucking day, theyโ€™ve gotta go to work, the girlfriendโ€™s pregnant. Real life is real life. Cops are bastards, politics is fucked, thereโ€™s trouble in the Middle East, war is looming. If you can accept that, and try and understand it, then you can go out and try and do things. But if you just try and chuck it all outside and make your world as โ€œniceโ€ as possible, you become a dead person. You just exist for yourself.โ€
Dan: โ€œThatโ€™s why itโ€™s not negative. Itโ€™s positive. Itโ€™s an uplifting thing when truth gets out.โ€
Isnโ€™t โ€œTurn Of The Centuryโ€ a little too morbid? It doesnโ€™t reflect the way you appear as people.
Dan: โ€œTurn Of The Centuryโ€ isnโ€™t all that morbid. Itโ€™s contradictory. Itโ€™s morbid musically. That songโ€™s a vision of the future but it doesnโ€™t make any statement one way or the other. We thought โ€œTurn Of The Centuryโ€ would do a lot better than โ€œBeings Rest Finallyโ€ because itโ€™s such an irresistible tune.โ€
Nino: โ€œSo pretty.โ€
Dan: โ€œNo, itโ€™s not โ€˜prettyโ€™!! Itโ€™s really lovely, eh? My grandmother likes it. My dad likes it. Everybody likes it, yโ€™know? It strikes a chord. I was in this shop where it was playing and an old guy who was in there turned to me and said โ€œthatโ€™s a very nice sentiment.โ€
BREAKING UP THE SECTS
To whom would BRF wish to appeal?
Dan: โ€œโ€ฆto break across the lines of demarcation between the different sects. Thereโ€™s so much aggro and fights between tribes. I think what started it was the Beatles mythโ€ฆ the myth of becoming a pop star. People could become musiciansโ€ฆ doing it because it was their childhood dream. That makes them tailor their message. That thing that the Beatles did that was so healthy at the time, beautifying everyone, and everyone loved the Beatles. It was a huge phenomenon that put cheer into peopleโ€™s lives at the time of the Cold War โ€“ itโ€™s resulted in all these bands wanting to be the only ones. Weโ€™re doing it because weโ€™re driven โ€“ itโ€™s all we ever think about, talk about. Iโ€™d like straights and suburbanites to like us because I feel that their lives are just so homogenous โ€“ Iโ€™d like to get into those lives. Old people โ€“ theyโ€™re thinking about who they are. Universe reverts back to self-analysis. Theyโ€™ll be shuffling off the mortal chord quite soon, and they start thinking quite cosmically.โ€
NICE REVOLUTIONARIES
The BRF song to date that has created the most dissension and cause for discussion is the B-side of โ€œTurn Of The Centuryโ€, โ€œSong Of The Hairless Apesโ€, which begins with the lines: โ€œJohn Lennon is dead/But heโ€™s always on the radioโ€ฆโ€
Easy sensationalism or what?
Dan: โ€œItโ€™s a little statement. Quite a cheap shot really. Quite trivial but the verses arenโ€™t. Like your enemies only become your friends after youโ€™re dead. Itโ€™s just an example of how fucked the music scene is.โ€
Nino: โ€œWe like John Lennon.โ€
Dan: John Lennonโ€™s message was never really got across.โ€
Nino: โ€œItโ€™s not disrespectful but I hope itโ€™s not misinterpreted.โ€
Dan: โ€œThis is talking about the real greats, which John Lennon is. John Lennon, John Lydon, David Bowie. My main men of the last two decades.โ€
Nino: โ€œItโ€™s blatantly arrogant and itโ€™s blatantly cutting but it was written with that genuine anger. Lennon cut across the whole fucking board. My father and plenty of other parents and kids listened to him and loved him. They were nice boys. They were revolutionaries.โ€
Dan and Nino Birch can be downright arrogant. They make many dogmatic statements that make them as many enemies. With the arrogance comes a searching, questioning and challenging of everything including, one hopes, themselves.
They say, though, that fans should not concern themselves with the personalities of musicians. Itโ€™s irrelevant to the music, they say.
RAVE TWO
Never mind. The music: concern yourself with that. That which is not irrelevant. That which is, like Joy Division (note: this is not a comparison), weaves sound into colours and feelings โ€“ a unified and distinctively strong whole, rather than the common compositional musical nervous twitch that most โ€œbandsโ€ โ€œentertainโ€ us punters with. No ego-boosting arpeggios found in this vicinity.
And BRF go walkies. Theyโ€™re off to Auckland and (can we hope?) the exposure their music cries out loud for. Que seraโ€ฆ etc. GARY STEEL

* The BRF compilation on Failsafe Records is required listening for all NZ music fans.
www.failsaferecords.com/artists/current/beatrhythm.htm



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Steel has been penning his pungent prose for 40 years for publications too numerous to mention, most of them consigned to the annals of history. He is Witchdoctor's Editor-In-Chief/Music and Film Editor. He has strong opinions and remains unrepentant. Steel's full bio can be found here

1 Comment

  1. Thanks for this neat article again, Gary.
    Always want to catch up with all things BRF.
    Really wish I’d been in Wgtn and seen them in their prime.
    As it is, the nostalgic mystery along with their outstanding, albeit all to brief musical legacy, is still kind of a neat way to experience the Birch brothers’ music.

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