Empire in Ruins

The Clean - Tally Ho!

To some degree my stay in Dunedin is a musical pilgrimage, albeit a fairly narrow one. This is 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 lingering claim to fame is its role in fostering what is referred to, somewhat contentiously, as the 'Dunedin Sound'. 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 is their footprints I have endeavoured to seek out. In many cases this has meant poking about in buildings that have not been preserved for public consumption, requiring some tame breaking-and-entering on my part. Some places, I was deflated to discover, simply don't exist anymore, such as the bluntly named record shop Records Records. 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 original amateurs. I located the building on Princes Street, a walkable distance from the Octagon. Though I was pleased to find it still existed, it had developed a rather advanced case of scaffolding. Having ceased operations some years back, it was now 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 Sunday, so perhaps 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 take many 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.