Friday night is music night, so here's not one but three post-punk indie classics straight outta Auckland's North Shore in the deepest, darkest days of the early 1980s. The Screaming Meemees were all Rosmini College lads, and in 1981 they scored the first New Zealand chart-topping single by a local group to enter the chart at number one, with See Me Go. It fell right back down the charts the following week because it had been deleted in all formats after a single day on release. Later the same year they followed up with the hugely catchy Sunday Boys, and in 1983 they signed off with the influential and ground-breaking Stars In My Eyes, which is every bit as exciting as it was 31 years ago. (Now all I need to do is find the 12" remix...)
The Meemees' chart success is even more remarkable because they had no commercial radio play - it was solely on the back of student radio support and a huge live following that spread across New Zealand. Simon Grigg tells the band's full story here, and makes the point: 'Remember kids, many of these execs now championing NZ music fought long and hard to keep local music off the airwaves...'
See also:
Music: The Body Electric - Pulsing (1982)
Music: The Clean - Anything Could Happen (1982)
Music: Len Lye - Swinging The Lambeth Walk (1939)
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