Jules Issa/Nightline

Jules Issa singing, backed by Lady Lee. Great introduction from TV3 Nightline co-anchor Belinda Todd, and the closing credits music is also a tune that featured on an early Deepgrooves release, by Strawpeople.

Trivia: The funky backing music doesn't sound like it's the version that ended up getting released on Jules' mini album Found In You, and it's not the more mellow mix that was the NZonAir Hitdisc version either.

Deepgrooves has recently reissued Found In You by  Jules Issa, check it on iTunes. There's three versions of Dangerous Game, plus a dub with Tuffi Culture guesting.

Mighty Asterix, 92 interview

The return of the mighty

Stamp magazine,1992 [no author listed]

Catching up with the Mighty Asterix (who has just released his debut single) is not an easy task, currently based both here and in Australia and with no phone.

Like the cartoon, Asterix is small in stature but big in heart and vocally he is hard to beat. His involvement with music dates back to the late seventies, Parliament “before anybody had heard of them”, Earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder “are some of the people that taught me to sing,” as he soldiered up and down the country with his family, one army camp to the next. “Guess what my dad does for a living.”

Around the end of that decade he discovered reggae and eventually Jah Rastafari and has never looked back.

Eventually moving to Auckland, and joining the Twelve Tribes of Israel. As a member he trained with the house band and other performers (Jules Issa, Tuffi Culture to name a few) four or five times a week.

Since going freelance he has been a regular performer throughout Auckland’s ever changing live scene, from Unity to the Rockers.

Due to the irregularity of live work in Auckland, Asterix has made the move to Sydney and is currently a regular [performer] in the Rave scene. “There are usually about four to six raves a month, with an average attendance of about 3000 people, but you have to watch yourself in Sydney, there are so many sharks in the scene. Things are starting to work out okay now, I have a regular live crew I’m working with and my record company is opening an office there, so things should be a little easier this time round.”

In town for the month of January to record an album and shoot a video for the single, Asterix is gone as this hits the streets, back to Sydney for another six weeks of live work. “The stuff we do in Auckland is completely different to the Sydney scene, over there it’s either white techno or roots music, you rarely see the two mixed up. We’re sort of somewhere in between.”

During this visit, he worked on a reggae single for Japanese release, which saw him toasting/singing in Japanese. “My job is to get the message out and it is a stepping stone process. NZ and Australia this year, and next year it will be time to take the next step”.

From Deepgrooves website, on the album Asterix started on for the label... "Early in 1992, a few months after the release of the first Deepgrooves compilation, we had the opportunity to actually get some artists into the studio when the LAB Studios was not being used. We promptly slotted in Jules Issa, The Mighty Asterix and The Riot Riddum Sound System.

This is where we discovered that Auckland had very few "producers / programmers" of the quality of Mr. Mark Tierney. Singers, Rappers, Deejays, vocalists and musicians yes, production people, well not really. Well certainly not the kind of producers we could afford. In fact it would take a good couple of years before we began to see what was really the first generation of local Apple Mac programmers come through.

Fresh out of SAE was a young engineer Mr. Chris Sinclair and a young programmer Mr. Andrew Morton, both keen as mustard to get some experience which was great because The Mighty Asterix was keen to record. Over quite a few months we compiled an albums worth of material, some early original tracks from Mr. Morton, some all ready recorded Deepgrooves tracks used in a digital dubplate style and some tracks recorded with the 12 Tribes band. "

Pause: 1998

A mate of mine recently uncovered an old CD burn he had, labelled "Pause album" and shared it with me (thanks, Kelly!). Pause were a group on the Deepgrooves label in the late 90s, at the tail end of the label's existence, and featured Justyn Pilbrow (later of Elemeno P, these days a NYC-based studio producer) and vocalists Anna Copley and Jo Currie. There's 14 tracks on this disc, including their sole official release (on Deepgrooves), the single Only.

I emailed Justyn to find out what happened to this album - did they finish it, and whether this CD burn is their long-lost debut. He told me that no, it wasn't the album -  "Anna and Jo put the stuff we had together, but it was never finished or mastered."

Below is an interview Pause did in 1998 about the single and album.

Good cause
Still wet behind the ears, new Auckland three-piece Pause are drowning in record company bureaucracy. By Bianca Zander, photo by Anthony O'Dwyer, Pavement, 1998.

Despite boasting two spunky girls and a production wizard you never see in their publicity photos, new Auckland dance band Pause are struggling to climb their way up the greasy pole of the New Zealand music industry. Although they have talent, good looks and an impressive debut single to their credit, there seems to be no one around willing to help them sharpen their claws and further their cause.

An immensely catchy tune that’s both soulful and atmospheric, Pause's debut single Only, released on Deepgrooves and distribution by Festival Records, should have had the band surfing a wave of commercial and critical popularity. Unfortunately it's one of dozens of local singles that young hopeful labels release with or without major label support, only to sink without a trace.

Despite the fact their song is just as haunting and accomplished as any of Bic Runga's chart-topping tunes, Pause are caught between a rock and a hard place. With an album's worth of material waiting in the wings, they've found themselves caught up in record company politics, leaving them unlikely to get the promotion they deserve. At least, for now.

The trio behind Pause are Justyn Pilbrow (instruments, production), and the two joint vocalists and lyric writers, Jo Currie and Anna Copley. Unlike most bands in this country, these kids met at church, of all place: one of those trendy, new inner city churches in Auckland that encourage drum n bass instead of choir music, in an effort to stay relevant to young people.

“Music is a big thing in our church,” insists Currie. “I've never really been a stage person but you just have to get up and do stuff all the time at church and you soon get used to it."

Pilbrow is the only member of Pause involved in music full-time, working at The Lab recording studio in Mt Eden, where a lot of Flying Nun bands recorded in the 1980s. Pilbrow is appalled that a lot of New Zealanders don't like music from their own country, though he's also realistic about the limited prospects in the local music industry. "A lot of people do things as favours here or for a tray of beer. When the album comes out, we'd like to do a live tour but getting 10 people around the country... We just can't afford it."

Of the three tracks on Pause's debut single, Pilbrow feels more musically aligned to the harder beats of Bionik, although he argues that the whole drum & bass genre seems to be going round in circles. “In New Zealand, we tend to see what happens overseas and then latch onto it,”he explains, citing English artists such as Lamb, Archive and Dom & Roland as his own major influences. “Drum n bass is a relatively small scene in the UK and I've spoken to DJs who're surprised by how much we know about it down here.”

When Pavement caught up with Pause to talk about their arrival on the local music scene, the three members were feeling palpably disillusioned, despite having their first single out in record shops. There is so little money available for record companies to sign and promote local bands, and with Festival not exactly happy with their working relationship with the perpetually unpredictable Deepgrooves, Pause have been left to ponder their commitment to both the label and the band itself.

“We feel like it's out of our control,”sighs Currie. “We know there's no money to promote us but we could do with some more guidance. We're an unknown band but we don't know how to go about getting known."

''If your record label has money and they want you to do well, you'll do well," asserts the admittedly cynical and world-weary Pilbrow. "We started off all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed but we've had a hard run and setbacks can lead to a lack of enthusiasm."

Incredibly the band had no idea Only had been released until they happened upon a copy in a local record shop.

Further complicating matters, the video for the song wasn't even ready when the single went to retail. With communication between Deepgrooves and Festival virtually non-existent, Pause seem to have fallen through the cracks, leaving them dangling in limbo not of their own creation.

With Pause's debut album already recorded but in a continual state of suspension, rumour has it that it may be released in March 1999. However, with the band still waiting to hear from Deepgrooves boss Kane Massey about its release date, Liz Bethell, marketing manager at Festival, confirms that the company won't be releasing the album next year, though she denies the rumours of a permanent severing of ties between Festival and Deepgrooves. Bethell also asked me to get Massey to call her if I managed to track the elusive man down.

Obviously the last word should be left to him.

“......................................”

The revived Deepgrooves website noted back in June this year that there are plans afoot to release the Pause album... "Out of all the groups, bands, artists, musicians (people needing somewhere to sleep after a hard night in the city) that utilised Kaiun Digital, PAUSE probably used the studio more than anyone else, in fact it felt like Mr. Pilbrow actually lived there at times .... and we were more than happy with that, it was clear the kid had talent. 

"We have slowing been working through the mountain of PAUSE work DATs we have with a view to releasing an album compliled on Mr. Pilbrow's original album mastering notes. We also have a couple of videos to go with the release. In fact we shot their ONLY (song title) video on black and white film (damn expensive) in and around Auckland and it still looks amazing, even after all these years. From memory we broke into the old Rail Station down town just after it had been decomissioned and spent an afternoon shooting inside." The album apparently had the title of Amplified Heart, according to Deepgrooves..

Spark it up: 94 NZ hiphop

Here comes 26 minutes of rare footage from Big Day Out 1994, courtesy of Deepgrooves. Live snippets of Urban Disturbance (feat Zane Lowe) dropping No Flint No Flame, my man Bobbylon joins 3 The Hard Way for Hiphop Holiday (at 11.21) and there's "Damn Native, Joint Force [doing Nightmare Man] and the Pacifikan Descendants amongst others. We also see an array of who's who in the local Hip Hop scene backstage along with other familiar faces, Mr. Chris Sinclair, Mr. Nathan Haines to name a couple."

Follow the link for an interesting commentary on local hiphop in the 90s and the label's take on the Hiphop Holiday controversy ...

Screengrab: Bobbylon with 3 The Hard Way, at Big Day Out 1994.

Fuemana filmed

Deepgrooves.co.nz has posted up some great footage of the late Phil Fuemana, out-takes from a video shoot for a Dei Hamo music video...

"This footage showing MR. PHILLIP FUEMANA doing backing vocal duties is actually from an early unreleased (might be the first) DEI HAMO clip which, from memory somehow came around the same time as the Papa Pacific / Wireless Studio deal. We don't have the original song, but it may be on a KIWI HITS DISC released in nineteen ninety six, which was when this was shot. From memory this was shot in ALBERT PARK. Note, what appears to be an early LOST TRIBE logo on the back of MR. JOHNNY SAGALA's jacket.
Anyway, it was nice to see Phil again. The music backing track (I LOVE YOU - Originally released as an acoustic track on the CLOSER single) was one of our favourite's and we were once working to remix and release as a Fuemana single ..... many years ago."

I wrote a piece on Phil Fuemana at Audioculture. Lots of great photos too. Take a look.

Walls

Another rare local video has turned up on the Deepgrooves website... debut single from 1995 by Ermehn, featuring Fieldstyle Orator, akaTha Feelstyle... absolutely wicked track. You can now buy it off iTunes too, recently reissued.

Kane Massey interviewed, 1993

The Deepgrooves logo, designed by Mark Tierney and John Pitcairn. The story behind the logo is here

Self Adhesive Labels: Getting It Out
By Emma Farry, NZ Herald, 8 Oct 1993; s.2 p.1,3   

At the age of 28, Kane Massey, of Auckland, owns his own magazine and his own record company, but he says neither business has made him a rich man.

The record company is the Deepgrooves label, which specialises in producing groove music ranging from hiphop to soul to instrumental jazz. The magazine is Stamp, the Auckland city give-away with a leaning towards the arts and music. The combination would seem like the perfect recipe for success.

Massey is the major shareholder in Deepgrooves so “What I say goes.” He uses his position to keep pushing the boundaries of what started as a small project back in late 1991.

“It was a mistake, really,” Massey says with a grin. “It seemed like a good idea at the time to start this label and it just got out of control and there was no way I could get out of it.”

Massey is banking on big success with Deepgrooves in the future. He is in the process of moving the label base to Sydney and hopes to have some kind of expansion deal in either Europe or the United States within the next two years.

He is adamant the move across the Tasman won’t be detrimental to the artists on the Deepgrooves label here. On the contrary, he aims to use the Australian base to take the artists to a bigger and more lucrative market.

Massey believes timing is what life is all about and he is sure that our Aussie neighbours are ready for what Deepgrooves has to offer.

“Australia is trying desperately to get away from this huge rock thing which seems about the only thing going on over there. But there are a lot of Pacific Islanders, especially Tongans, in Sydney and they’re starting to get into bands. It’s just starting out now so they haven’t had time to develop that strong groove music thing that we have in New Zealand.

“It was the same here about two or three years ago and then a whole subculture sprung up around Pacific-based groove and reggae music and what we produce now is really good.”

Deepgrooves was set up by Massey, Strawperson Mark Tierney and Bill Latimer. After a while, the three went their separate ways but the label remained. It was originally supposed to take advantage of the crossover between the alternative bands, a la Flying Nun, and the explosive dancehall, reggae and groove music.

“Back in the 80s, everything was very clear cut: the white alternative scene was the cool music to be listening to. But at the same time, the popularity of reggae music was growing. It was starting to move away from the Herbsie roots reggae into something more urban which became the ragamuffin and hiphop styles.’

Massey kept seeing the same people at the same places and thought he would try to bring together two very different musical groups.

“All of a sudden, the crossover started to happen. Bobbylon from an alternative white thrash band, the Hallelujah Picassos, suddenly found himself doing a good job of singing reggae… and the Headless Chickens changed from a hardcore alternative band to a pop dance band in the space of 12 months.”

Dance music became ‘cool’ very quickly and Deepgrooves was there to capitalise on an eager market. Since 1991, the label has released four albums and four singles, including two compilation albums and other by Nemesis Dub Systems who are now based in New York city.

Kane Massey with Kelly Ana Morey. Source: Audioculture

Massey is unwilling to reveal the identity of the three companies which have invested in Deepgrooves or exact sales figures, but he does say that the albums have sold “in the low thousands” and a couple of singles have hit the magic thousand mark.

Four new Deepgrooves releases show the label’s diversity. The first is from Colony, which Massey describes as a hardcore rap band, another is by Grace, three Samoan brothers who make Pacifican soul music; and the others come from Urban Disturbance, a popular Auckland hiphop group, and Freebass, a jazz band with an album recorded live at the central Auckland jazz club Cause Celebre.

Massey is proud of the diversity and hopes the move to Australia will take artists he believes are world class to a bigger market. Rastafarian reggae singer Jules Issa will be Deepgrooves’ “flagship artist” in Australia.

“From what I’ve seen over there, no one comes close to Jules in the reggae scene. She’s already made it big in Noumea, which has a large reggae market, and I’m sure she’ll have the success she deserves in Australia.”

A Deepgrooves devotee, Sonoma Message, was sent to Dame Edna country eight months ago to set things up and lay the foundations for the move. Before Message arrived, sales figures in Australia were lower than a rattlesnake’s belly; now they are looking a lot healthier, especially for non-charting records.

Massey is keen to emphasise that Deepgrooves is different from other independent record labels, because none of the groundwork is inhouse. The label has a deal with Festival Records, which distributes and produces all Deepgrooves releases, so unlike the others, Massey does not do the whole thing from his garage.

“We’re licenced to Festival and they do everything for us… at a cost. Deepgrooves is really more of an artist development label; we concentrate on getting the right material together for each of our artists and then marketing it, rather than spending our time dubbing tapes off DAT masters.”

Deepgrooves draws deeply from this country’s roots as a Pacific nation.

“We don’t even need to push the Pacifican thing because the music speaks for itself. The whole groove music scene has a lot of Pacific Island influence.”

One of the next Deepgrooves projects involves the South Auckland Samoan band Fuemana - a family affair with Phil Fuemana mixing the material at his own studio.

“Phil works with the Christian Mission in South Auckland, so he has all this great talent at his fingertips. We have an album coming out next year; Phil will collect all the talent and produce the album and some kids in South Auckland may get a big break.”

[NOTE: The original published version of this story refers to Chris Fuemana - I have corrected this to Phil Fuemana.]

Drummer boy

Lole, Johnny Sagala (later of Lost Tribe) and Ermehn collaborate on a tune produced by Phil Fuemana, for Papa Pacific Records. Lole got picked up by Deepgrooves when Papa Pacific folded, and apparently recorded an album's worth of material with John Oz (Freaker) for the label. More on this track at deepgrooves site.

Grace interview, Planet, 95

Grace, photo from Planet mag, Autumn 1995

[Black Sand Shore, the sole album from Grace, has just been digitally reissued] 


Grace: The Family Way. By Erin Duncan. Planet magazine,p31, issue 16, Autumn 1995

The three Samoan brothers who make up Grace don't do acapella or sing the blues - come to think of it they don't do hiphop either. Their music is populated with smooth and heady love songs that blow apart any preconceptions of what a group of brothers should be doing musically. Erin Duncan talks to Grace about their musical aspirations, and growing up with a father who wanted nothing less than perfection.

Anthony Jason and Paul loasa, better known as Grace, were always destined for a career in music, whether they liked it or not. Their father, Jason Ioasa Snr immigrated to New Zealand from Samoa in the early 60s, determined to make a success of himself and do things ''the New Zealand way." Heavily into the stars of the day, he got together 'The Plantations", a covers band, with his wife on rhythm guitar, when first son Anthony was still a toddler. At age four Anthony began teaching himself to play the drums.

''Dad had a kit set up in the lounge, l used to muck around on it, sitting up there on a high stool and loving it!'' It just so happened that his father was having trouble auditioning drummers at the time and, disappointed with the applicants, took his son on the road - Wednesday to Sunday - almost every week.

''We went throughout the North Island constantly - Hastings, Napier, Huntly, Hamilton, Wellington and all those places. The people those provincial towns loved watching us kids in the band. The band used to make so much money, I never saw any of it though - but I used to get tips. My highest one was five dollars. I called it the 'orange note', because I didn't know what it was. I just knew that I could buy lots of lollies with it!''

Jason was next in line. Immediately, his father recognised his talent for playing bass and began to include Jason in The Plantations. Before this, he and youngest brother Paul still had to accompany their father, Anthony and the rest of the band on the road.

Anthony and Paul now resent their father shaping their future right from the very beginning. ''Music was shoved down our throats! We had a really strict father, he was determined to make sure that we were equipped - that was his keyword...'' 

Equipped? 

''With the musical knowledge, both theory and performance; we had special teachers."

At the age of 12, Jason was sent to train in jazz and classical bass with Chuck Morgan. Later he played with as many diverse rock and jazz bands as he could, gathering experience and beginning to initiate a new style of playing.

At the age of 11 Paul was finally given permission to take up the guitar, but it only amounted to six lessons because of financial difficulty.

Perhaps it was their father's lack of formal training that made him so pushy about technical perfection.

''Definitely the reason," say both Paul and Anthony.

''It wasn't just with music, it was with education and everything else," says Paul. So if he had no music training, could he sing? ''He had a definite singing style; a Tom Jones style."

''He also had a few Elvis outfits,'' says Anthony. ''He had the works, the sideburns, medallions etc. Ask any Samoan family. They've got a picture of Elvis next to a picture of Christ in their living room. Elvis first, Jesus second."

There was also a great deal of violence within the Ioasa household, directed by their father towards their mother and the boys. Anthony finally ran away from home in 1987 because of pressure within the family home.

“I went out to stay with an uncle in Mangere - my Dad never looked there. He was a frustrated perfectionist, so insecure with himself that he couldn't handle us ever getting less than perfect school marks.

''Dad took us right away from the Samoan lifestyle when we were very young. We had a totally European outlook on life, music, dress, speech and custom. Dad always taught us to know what is right and wrong in the Samoan custom - he never instilled it in us though. He was a rebel in that respect. All my friends were white and I got along with them much better than I could with my Samoan peers - they used to hassle me about the way I spoke - I thought I spoke OK. I actually thought they (Samoans) talked funny. When I said that, it didn't go down too well.

''If we have children, we are not going to let them get caught up in the opinion that if you're Samoan, you should only have Samoan friends, talk a certain way, dress a certain way. We're New Zealanders first! Otherwise we'd feel like we have a false culture."

Did you have a clear idea of what Grace's style would be before you began? ''Definitely,'' says Anthony. ''We knew what we wanted. We knew we weren't interested in doing what the other bands were doing. We didn't want to do rap or acappella, raggamuffin or reggae. These styles just weren't us - we were surrounded by early 80s music, bands from Europe and the UK. We were just about to I hone into the acid house, pure club style dance music - lucky we didn't huh! We just want our music to be appreciated for what it is."

Grace have definite intentions towards music, provided one of their number hangs around.

"We are not a novelty," says Anthony. ''We want to be treated like a Sting CD - always being played. We're going to be around for quite a while, hopefully 10 years or more, depending on how Jason feels.''

“We had to persuade Jason for a long time to join this band," concurs Paul. Jason happens to be at work today, trying his luck in the corporate sphere. 

" I gave up on him," says Anthony. ''Jason was the one who said that he would definitely come in and join. First of all, he said yes, then he changed his mind - typical Gemini. He's the one with the best voice, he has that rich husky texture. He doesn't like starving for anything. Whereas Paul and I have been starving for success for so long that an extra few months or years isn't going to matter that much. We need money to buy a house - we need a family house again. We lost the old one when our parents split - I even lost my piano."

" I was still at AIT (Auckland Institute of Technology) doing Marketing and Advertising when Anthony started pressuring me to join a band with him," says Paul. " So I quit my course. Not too many good things (besides music) have happened to us. If we keep faith in the music we're sure everything will fall into place".

DG re-up

 
From the revived Deepgrooves website...

"It may have taken a while but we are finally making progress. The following 10 Deepgrooves albums have been digitally remastered, had bonus tracks added (where applicable) and are now available online via Xbox and about nine other downloading, streaming and iRadio services.

"We are currently working to have the rest of our "released" catalog remastered and online as soon as possible. The Urban Disturbance album is starting to turn into Sandinista.

"As previously mentioned, we are also planning to release a number of albums that did not get physical releases back in the day. PAUSE, CINEMA, INSTRUMENTAL KILLERS VOL2 to name but a few. We are also working on two completely new albums for release in 2014. We encourage all assocaited [sic] artists to email us and update us with their current contact details." Email is info@deepgrooves.co.nz

• Came A Weird Way [New Loungehead]
• Kia Koe [Sulata]
• Instrumental Killers Vol 1 [compilation]
• Black Sand Shore [Grace]
• Samoans Part 2 [Ermehn]
• Found In You [Jules Issa]
• Deepgrooves 95 [compilation]
• New Urban Polynesian [Fuemana]
• Sofa So Good [compilation]
• Deepgrooves (Original 1991 Release) [compilation]