To some degree my stay in Dunedin was a musical pilgrimage, albeit a fairly narrow one. This was the city which transformed a niche record label that by rights should have vanished in a puff of market reality into a going concern that exists to this day. Though Flying Nun was based in Christchurch at the time, its role in fostering what is referred to (sometimes contentiously) as the 'Dunedin Sound' remains its most enduring achievement. Of the many Dunedin acts that emerged as part of this movement, The Clean, The Chills and especially The Verlaines hold the most interest for me, and it was their footprints I endeavoured to follow. In many cases this meant poking about in places that have fallen into disrepair, or whose significance has been obscured by later development, necessitating some tame breaking-and-entering on my part. Some places, I was deflated to discover, simply don't exist anymore, such as the perfectly named record shop Records Records that acted as a hub for aspiring Dunedin musicians. Others, including the portion of the Otago Peninsula where The Chills' iconic 'Pink Frost' video was shot, were not accessible via public transport—and I wasn't willing to stump for expensive guided tours just to say I had been there.
Among the more significant landmarks is the Empire Tavern, an erstwhile live music venue sometimes referred to as Dunedin's Cavern. All the bands featured on the myth-making Dunedin Double EP—The Stones, The Chills, Sneaky Feelings and The Verlaines—were regulars of the Empire, the proprietors of which were unusually sympathetic to amateurs who performed their own material. Wandering up Princes Street from the Octagon, I was pleased to see that the building still existed, though it had developed a rather advanced case of scaffolding. A sign informed me that it was in the process of being restored and preserved as a historical building of architectural and cultural significance.
Through its open doorway, fenced off but easily accessible, I could see sawdust and grit and discarded tools on its carpeted hall and stairway, but no sign or sound of the handipeople tasked with the restoration. It was a Sunday, so it was reasonable to assume work was off for the day. Hesitantly I made my way inside and climbed the stairs to the historic first-floor bandroom. The room was as small as I had heard; it would not require a great deal of people to satisfy a young musician's ego. Presently it resembled a storage attic, but it was possible to picture what it may have been like in its heyday. One only hoped it did not smell quite so much like an upturned urinal back then.
Before I left, I did the only responsible thing: take idiotic self-portraits of myself on the stairs using the 10-second delay function on my camera. All in all it was worth the probable asbestos exposure.
Santa's last trip.