Remembering a rock remedy

Veteran independent record label pioneer SIMON GRIGG on how the late Barry Jenkin changed New Zealand music.

- Barry Jenkin

The great Barry Jenkin once wrote a liner note for an album I released in which he said he had “never much been interested in where music has been, only where it is going”.

If you step back in time to the distant pre-internet era – the 1970s to the mid-1980s – New Zealanders inquisitive or hungry for new music had limited options for discovery. The record companies were both slow to release things and very selective in what they did – it could take a year or two sometimes for interesting new acts from the UK and US to hit our stores, if ever. Strict import licensing meant the shops couldn’t import their own stock unless they had a prized and very limited import licence, usually used by shops for classical and jazz. Even the master tapes used to manufacture records, being oil-based, were restricted.

What was released locally had limited exposure unless it was mainstream pop. Student radio was banned and later restricted; radio playlists were decidedly lightweight; and at any given time there was only one late-night TV video show which would, if you were lucky, show an interesting video just once. Mostly, we relied on switched-on record-shop staff, three-month-old music magazines (until Rip It Up arrived) and the odd brave radio DJ to point us in the right direction.

Enter Barry Jenkin. Barry was what was once termed a “tastemaker”. The need for tastemakers has largely passed but that’s exactly what this young Aucklander became in the 1970s, and despite his relatively few years actively exposing the nation to new music, his influence is such that the local independent music scene still benefits from the pathways and changes in mindset the good doctor offered us.