Quincy Conserve "Tasteful" 1973

 …“We were in a lucky situation [in the late 1960s]. We had a resident dance hall that has long since gone, and we were also the resident band for EMI for their recordings. We used to back everyone up – all the schmaltz singers, Suzanne, Craig Scott. We had the recording down here sewn up. We used to spend all day in the studio and all night at work, 12 to 14 hours a day, every day. There were [import restrictions] on US and UK records and of course Aussie and NZ groups started covering them.”..

...“So from 68 to 74, of my own band I [recorded] five albums and something like 14 to 20 singles, which was an awful lot of material for a band in a country of this size, plus covers and backing for other people.”
Even today, it’s hard to get one’s head around The Quincy Conserve, and its leader. On the one hand, for many years they were the go-to band at residencies in Wellington, and were so good they were employed to back visiting international acts like Millie Small, Clarence “Frogman” Henry and Sonny Til of The Orioles, and the supporting musicians for touring roadshows of pop stars including Allison Durbin and Craig Scott. On the other, they were central in turning Wellington into the core of the NZ recording scene in the early 70s, where various permutations of the group provided the musical backing for dozens of pop records. The group was even, as Hayman explains, the culprits behind those dire sound-alike hit compilation albums that once plagued the bargain bins:
“We used to turn out these Cindy [label] records. They were albums that had covers of everything on the charts in the States and that. They used to give you half a day to do a whole album, and you’d go in with three bands and mix guys up, use the drummer out of one, the brass player out of another. They were cheapie albums, with the top 10 on one side and the top 20 all over them. You just had to do these tunes with whoever you had available. They were pretty rough, you can imagine what they were like. They were the beginning of K-Tel Records. We’d fly people into the city, bung them in the studio, teach them three times through the number, then do it. Three and a half hours to do an album and it was on a 4-track tape recorder, so there’s no overdubbing, nothing. Bang it down, that’s it. Close enough’s good enough.”… to be continued - AUDIOCULTURE

trax:
01. Volcano 02. Move On Up 03. First 04. Keep On Pushing 05. Live Today 06. Keep On Playing That Rock And Roll 07. My Brother Jake 08. Lulu Belle 09. I Saw The Light 10. Lazy Kind Of Day 11. Ain't Seen Nothing Yet 12. Slut
…served by Gaius…