Dave Dobbyn "The Islander" 1998

...The addition of a horn section enabled him to write the brassy ‘Outlook For Thursday’, a song that had particular resonance in the New Zealand heartland. If ‘Be Mine Tonight’ had amplified a certain New Zealand stereotype – the male drinker, the smoker, out for a good time – ‘Outlook For Thursday’ showed Dobbyn refining his knack for turning the New Zealand vernacular into catchy hooks, by using the familiar refrains of the national weather report to give a forecast of his romantic prospects...

...It gave DD Smash a New Zealand Top 10 hit in 1983. By now the band were spending an increasing amount of time in Australia, in an attempt to crack the Aussie market. By the time of next album, 1984’s The Optimist, they were Sydney-based. They had also stripped down to a duo of Dobbyn and drummer Peter ‘Rooda’ Warren, with session players filling out the parts. The soul-inflected ‘Magic (What She Do)’ gave DD Smash another New Zealand Top 10 hit. And then there was ‘Whaling’, a Dobbyn song in the tradition of great New Zealand songs with a nautical theme (think ‘Six Months In A Leaky Boat’ and ‘Gutter Black’), though Dobbyn’s maritime metaphors barely conceal a sorry confession of rock and roll excess. DD Smash returned in late 1984 to headline a huge free end-of-year concert in Auckland’s Aotea Square. The event has become enshrined in history as the Queen Street Riot and is covered in detail elsewhere on this site. To cut a long story short, the concert deteriorated into a violent confrontation between audience members and police and Dobbyn was charged with inciting a riot. Though ultimately acquitted, the unpleasantness of the whole experience gave him ample reason to spend the greater part of the next decade offshore. This post-riot period also saw the final disintegration of DD Smash, and when Dobbyn re-emerged in 1986 – as the composer and performer of the soundtrack for Footrot Flats, New Zealand’s first feature-length animated cartoon – it was as a solo artist. More than anything so far, the soundtrack placed him in the mainstream of New Zealand culture. Songs like the soppy-but-irresistible ‘You Oughta Be In Love’ became as imprinted in the New Zealand consciousness as the movie’s cartoon canine hero. An even bigger hit was the song used in the film’s promotional trailer, ‘Slice Of Heaven’. Crossing a pub-rocking riff with the warm Pacifican harmonies of the group Herbs, the song felt instantly friendly and familiar, and became another Dobbyn staple. And it proved to be as popular with the Aussies as it did with New Zealanders, selling 100,000 copies and settling at No.1 on the Australian charts, where it remained for a month... to be continued - audioculture

trax:
01 Waiting 02 Mobile Home 03 Hanging in the Wire 04 Be Set Free 05 Beside You 06 Blindman's Bend 07 Standing Outside 08 What Have I Fallen For 09 I Never Left You 10 Keep a Light On 11 Hands 12 One Proud Minute 13 Hallelujah Song
…served by Gaius…