Countrymike (Member)

When I first moved to Waiheke Island the nickname The Rock might have applied to the geography but it didn't strike me as a moniker that applied to the music scene at all. Singer-songwriters and aged jazz singers, with the odd badly-formed reggae band dominated the small scene.

It wasn't until now defunct band Clench snuck their way into the local Irish pub that it occured to me that there were other musicians on the island, people that wanted to turn the volume up to 11, and put the shivers up the local wine growers worried about their tender crops and who wanted sav blanc and jazz to dominate the entertainment landscape, not Guinness and punk rock. Clench is long gone but tank&PUMP have emerged perhaps filling the void somewhat left by Clench but carried on by Clench front-man Bede Taylor. But unlike the 4 minute rock basics of Clench t&P display much more sophisticated musicianship and a flair for improvisational experimentation not found in the 3 minute Clench repertoire.

On Friday the 4th of December 2009 local pumpshop rockers tank&PUMP (all 7 of them!) came into the Waiheke Radio studio to do a live set on Rock on the Rock. The result was a fantastic improvised grungy rock'n'roll extravaganza.

You can listen or download this show here: http://www.waihekeradio.org.nz/node/672

or a higher quality bitrate is available on Archive.org: http://www.archive.org/details/TankpumpLiveOnWaihekeRadio

tank&PUMP are: miles Gillet (drums), jet Power (electric guitar), jules Silk (saxophone), nikki Ngatai (vocals, tamborine, bucket), kevin Glamuzina (semi acoustic guitar), mike Bassman (bass guitar), bede Taylor (vocals, electric guitar noize)