Eight Living Legs "Emigration" EP 1983

Eight Living Legs first appeared in the Auckland alternative scene in about 1981, but it wasn't the first time they'd played music together. In fact, in many respects they were already seasoned musicians, having been playing instruments through high school, even in various semi-professional capacities...…Drummer Huw Dainow, guitarist Bryn Driver and bass player Robert Carey lived in Te Atatu South (in West Auckland) and were schoolmates. I first saw them play after our guitarist, Dieneke Jansen, met Robert at university. Huw was always tinkering with cars and often found work as a mechanic (he became fully qualified later) and Bryn worked in prepress, as he still does, with some time out as an architectural draftsman. Where our band (Flak) had musical influences and expectations way ahead of our abilities, the Legs had musical confidence to burn. On stage Huw would feel his way around the kit, playing incredibly tight rhythms with a tactility and feel way beyond most drummers of his age, while a grimacing Bryn would stand as if anchored to the deck of a heaving ship, legs braced, body swaying as he sent out blistering bluesy licks at breakneck speed or harnessed feedback to power chords. Robert, imposing, almost gaunt, would pace restlessly, sweeping the air dangerously with the long neck of his Fender. Robert did most of the singing, voice gruff or pleading, sometimes wailing. His voice had a good range. On stage the band had presence, some songs that could-have-been should-have-been hits, and crowds loved 'em. I always enjoyed an Eight Living Legs concert - lots of people did. We often shared gigs - the Hunters and Collectors' support and playing before the Dead Kennedys were highlights. By a strange coincidence, the trio were all left-handed, just as we were (three-piece, left-handed). In a review published in Rip It Up (June 6th 1983) Russell Brown wrote "Eight Living Legs' confidence meant they succeeded where Flak didn't quite" and this is an accurate summation. Russell also wrote of Legs "They were hard, angry, played with space well." was the Auckland heyday of the Legs, and that's when we talked Flying Nun into doing a dual EP - the support of Chris Knox was a big factor in FN's agreement, I'm sure. We were all planning on heading overseas so we decided on three songs a side and called it 'Emigration'. The recordings clearly showed our lack of experience in the studio. Recordings were horrendously expensive in those days and you often ended up with a technician who knew nothing about the genre. And cared less. With the meter ticking, you said yes to stuff that was decidedly second rate, or went with the advice that it could be fixed in the mix - which you then couldn't afford. Flying Nun, with their habitual inattention to detail and general all-round disorganisation in those days, dragged their feet so much the vinyl didn't come out for over a year. By then, Eight Living Legs were in London and Dieneke and I had moved to Amsterdam. The Legs came to see us in our flat there - on listening to tapes we realised how awful the recordings were and how decidedly irrelevant the whole exercise was, so we co-wrote a letter saying 'please stop the record!' and sent it off. On another visit, months later, we went out shopping for music - Amsterdam in those days housed John Peel's favourite record shops. We found our disc in the Imports bin, complete with premium price. 'Dismay' doesn't quite do the emotion justice. Apart from the fact we thought the record should never have been released and had made that clear to Flying Nun, they'd left a colour off the sleeve and an entire track off the Flak side. Even Eight Living Legs' material sounded thin and anaemic - as (now renowned) Dutch musician Ferry Heyne said at the time, "It sounds like it was recorded in a matchbox"!.. to be continued…trax:

01 Five Yards Ahead 02 NATO Practice 03 Don't Do That Near Me

…served by Gaius...