The Chants R&B - Featured Artist February 2010 (+LP & Ticket Giveaway)

60's Garage/Punk Rock
Contact: Trevor Courtney Ph: +64 21 0240 7203
www.chantsrandb.com

Chants R&B had a residency every weekend from 1964 -1966 at The Stagedoor, a grungy cellar downstairs from a coffee bar in what was Hereford Lane (now Tramway Lane) adjacent to Cathedral Square. It was a mods’ hangout, and there were always gangs of rockers (or bodgies) waiting to pick on the unwary long-haired straggler after a Chants’ gig, so the mod kids – and they were mostly still at school - travelled in packs for safety.

Trevor Courtney, the Chants’ effervescent drummer, was still at school in 1964, and Mike Rudd, the band’s singer, was going through the motions at Art School, already a recognised breeding ground for rock musicians, just as in the UK.

The Chants left Christchurch for the unknown and possibly hostile Melbourne climes late in 1966. Australian magazines available in Christchurch, like People and Pix, told lurid stories of sharpies (skinheads) and mods (mods) doing battle in the streets and alleys of Melbourne and bands (such as Ronnie Burns' Flies) occasionally getting in the way. Mike and Trevor (Trevor Courtney – the Chants’ effervescent drummer) read these stories with foreboding - and promptly had their hair cut.

But they needn’t have worried about the mods and the sharpies – the innate tensions in the band, exacerbated by the move, ensured the Chants’ premature (and largely unreported) demise in Melbourne just a few months after leaving Christchurch.

Word of the Chants’ break up gradually filtered back to Christchurch, and even the most fervent fans of this “ferocious garage band” (as Australian Rock historian Glenn A. Baker described them) gradually forgot all about the Chants.

When Rudd went back to the old Stagedoor in 1997 he found it had become somewhat of a shrine. While it’s just a storage space underneath a café now, the names of the Stagedoor heroes are still carved in the black timber beams that Rudd cracked his skull on numerous times in his fashionably high-heeled black-suede boots. And fashion was important. Borrie the Tailor in Chancery Lane (now living and tailoring in Surfers) made Rudd and Courtney’s stage clothes in the latest fab-fashions. While there was nothing on TV, there were always the magazines.
In an article written about the long-haired Stagedoor habitués in the Press in July 1966, Mike claimed he enjoyed “creating a barrier and then meeting the challenge of breaking it down.” He also said, “We’re maybe different, but we are still sensitive.

Mike was a chorister in the Cathedral choir and head prefect at the Cathedral Grammar School. He deliberately avoided the organised music scene at Christ’s College but became interested in pop music and began an “alternative” dance band (Mark iv) with some school-mates.

It was at Art School the band started to consume Mike’s attention – to the point that he just “plain forgot” a submission for his graphic design exam. So he tossed in the Art course and began to play music full-time with his band, the Chants, soon to become Chants R&B.

Chants R&B only had the one single released (“I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” b/w “I Want Her”) before they left for Melbourne, but their fame had spread throughout NZ - mostly because of their legendary wild stage performances at the Stagedoor to a fanatical band of devotees.

In fact, the band only left the security of the Stagedoor a couple of times in their two years there. They went (by ferry) to Wellington to record at the HMV Studios and did a couple of gigs whilst they were there. They recorded “I’m Your Witchdoctor” (b/w “Neighbour Neighbour”) for their own Action label, which wasn’t released till after they left for Australia. So, what happened to Chants R&B when they got to Melbourne? They made a couple of TV appearances – they won a heat of Bert Newton’s New Faces and mimed Witchdoctor on Kommotion – and played gigs like the Catcher and the Thumpin’ Tum.

It was at the gigs they discovered they weren’t alone – bands like the Wild Cherries and the Purple Hearts were playing the same Anglophile slant on the blues they were. The band had a dilemma – whether to follow Mike’s preference for soul and blues or go with Trev’s passion for Tamla and r&b.

The Chants did one more recording session in Melbourne before they split. The material ranged from versions of the Temptations’ “My Girl” to Them’s “One,Two Brown Eyes”. Both songs are on the recently released Zero CD and “Stagedoor Witchdoctors”, a low fidelity but exciting record of a band with everything before them, put together by John Baker, himself a garage band enthusiast.

There are a couple of interviews on the CD. One done with Jim Tomlin, the group’s first lead guitarist, has Jim asking where they think it’s all heading musically speaking. Mike couldn’t have imagined that thirty-odd years later he would be recording some of the very same classic blues songs Jim recorded the Chants' playing on his flatmate's mono tape recorder back at the Stagedoor.

Somewhat spookily, Chants R&B returned to Christchurch for a reunion and a solitary performance in 2007, and Al’s Bar was jam-packed with former Stagedoor devotees, now universally silver haired, (that’s if they’d managed to hold onto any hair at all), with a sprinkling of disbelieving kids wondering what all these oldies were raving on about.

From the opening chord of I’m Your Witchdoctor, the band’s last single back in 1966, the Chants’ performance that night was loud and swaggering, and if you closed your eyes you could easily imagine what it must’ve been like listening to the younger version of the Chants in that sweaty cellar four decades ago – even the most sceptical kids in the room were impressed.

Two years later and a slightly re-jigged version of Chants R&B is back at Al’s Bar for two nights, still with Mike Rudd, Trevor Courtney and Martin Forrer, but this time with another ex-Chants’ guitarist, Tim Piper, holding down the lead guitar position.

They’re all much older now, but they’ve all got active careers in the music business and can all still passionately hammer out the Chants’ eclectic take on British blues, American soul and rock.

R&B? The R&B tag, one Chants’ fan observed, stood for nothing more or less than serious rumble and bang.

LP & Ticket Giveaway

WIN an LP and Tickets to The Chants R&B LIVE at Al's Bar

CHART has a limited edition Norton Records CHANTS LP, plus, a double pass to either Fri 26th or Sat 27th show at Al's Bar. If your keen on going to the show and have a turntable then answer the questions below and email your answer in to us and we'll put you in the draw.

Question 1: What was the first single recorded by the band?
Question 2: In 1964, The Chants won a battle of the bands contest, where in Christchurch was it held?
Question 3: What was the venue 'Stage Door' originally called?

Note: You must be a subscriber to enter any of these competitions. Winner will be notified by email.

For more on the Chants R&B go to www.chantsrandb.com

www.christchurchmusic.org.nz/artists/chants-rb