ZR010 – LP – RELEASE DATE 5 AUGUST 2017
BILL DIREEN & THE BILDERS: CHRYSANTHEMUM STORM
Bill Direen has worked with musicians, writers and actors since the late ‘70s. To the list of his songs, theatre-music collaborations and records, one might add a bibliography of printed stories and poetry. But it is for his music that Bill is best known.
It was winter in Dunedin. A snow storm hit as Bill Direen was driving home, spreading huge flakes like white Chrysanthemums across his windscreen. Song after song followed about local people, stories and events – a photographer, an oceanographer, a night nurse who follows local bands, a guy who installs heat pumps …. The album has humour, EG about the waiting time on telephones (Try Again in Ten Minutes), and addresses more serious issues like anti-immigration sentiment, and the mistaken belief that criminality is genetic (Criminal Minds).
The band practised for a week in Auckland and hit the studio. The high resolution master was never released on vinyl as intended, and seven years later it is now a reality thanks to Zelle Records, Powertool Records and South Indies. Each album has a poster-sized insert of lyrics and photos.
The Chrysanthemum Storm band of 2008 has now moved on to become parents, teachers, record company honchoes and live venue managers. Andrew McCully (piano/organs) teaches music at Cockle Bay School. Andrew Maitai (drums) runs a record shop and the venue UFO in New Lynn. Brett Cross (bass) is bringing up a child and making books. Bill is still on the road, playing with various lineups in 2017 from Dunedin to Auckland.
Side A
• Nobody’s Fault
• Criminal Minds
• Rosko
• Lee Anne
• Chrysanthemum Storm
• Losers Weepers
Side B
• Marie
• The Photographer & the Oceanographer
• Reasons
• Rose in Rain
• Try Again
• Baden
lyrics
Side A
NOBODY’S FAULT
It’s nobody’s fault, it’s everyone’s grief
When you live in a vault every caller’s a thief
When you live in a hole you’re afraid of the flood
When you live in swamp you dig the mud
It’s nobody’s fault, it’s everyone’s pain
We bite without having the teeth to explain
The poison is slow, we bicker and we break
When you live in a tunnel you think like a snake
It’s nobody’s fault, but your own
You never felt so dreadfully alone
Nobody’s fault, but your own
It’s nobody’s fault, we’re stuck in the glue
The icecaps will melt but what can we do?
We do what we do not to live like a toad
But you'd better not trust the one over the road
It’s nobody’s fault, it’s the system’s you know
It all started millions of years ago
It’s the law of the jungle, you don’t have a chance
With your feet in the muck it’s so hard to advance
It’s nobody’s fault, but your own
You never felt so dreadfully alone
Nobody’s fault, but your own
CRIMINAL MIND
She got the grain
Criminal mind
Inside her brain
It’s there to find
If you don’t see criminal mind
You have to be blind
He got the mark
Criminal deeds
It glows in the dark
He got criminal seeds
Hope you don’t mind he got criminal needs
Criminal mind
We got criminal genes
We’re the evil unseen
We’re criminal bein's
We’re eternally mean
Got no right to run free, we’re the criminal kind
Criminal mind
Criminal tongue
Criminal lips
Another criminal hung
Criminal trips
Travel en masse in criminal ships
Criminal minds
Now you been lured
Of your criminal type
It’s time to be cured
Criminal psych
Has the degree — you been onlined with your
Criminal mind
Criminal drugs
Criminal songs
Criminal hugs
Subliminal longings
Criminal pain — it’s enough to drive
A Criminal insane
It's there to find
If you don't see
Criminal mind
You have to be blind
ROSKO
Rosko used to come down to the hall
Rosko had his lucky number called
Rosko! We don’t see Rosko no more
Rosko earned, Rosko paid
Rosko learned, Rosko laid
Rosko tell you his struggle’s humane
Help you feel the pain!
“You have to make your hay when the sun
Shines, not lie abed!
You have to step upon the one
Ahead!” Says Rosko
Rosko earned…
“You have to cut plants back hard
Before the seed scatters
You have to play the winning card
When it matters! When it matters!” Says Rosko
Rosko earned…
“Education is a right
That children got to earn
You got to feel the teacher’s bite
to learn!” say Rosko
“Some people dance around
As if life is their prize
You got to cut some people down
To size!” Rosko
Rosko earned…
THE STORY OF LEE ANNE
Thieves & cranks & shirkers
Her face seemed to say
That dismal day
It was plain to see she
Had already categorised me
She was one of the social workers
We went to see about Lee Anne
The guy liked a bit of ass
There were bits of ass on his wall
In the garage where he changed my wheel
With the help of a powertool
(I wished I'd had something that powerful)
Then he went outside to pump gas
And he never once looked once at Lee Anne SLOWUP!!!!!!
The night-nurse, she was a raver,
I’d seen her around
She followed the sound
She skipped the paperwork
I could do it later
She said we were going to save her
And I believed her for Lee Anne
Yesterday a guy in a van
Gave a neighbour a quote
He’s a guy, you know, he’s happy he woke
With his Hiace
He’ll put a heat pump in your place
He’s a guy, you know, he does all he can
He can’t do anything about Lee Anne
He can’t do anything about Lee Anne.
CHRYSANTHEMUM STORM
Behind me the past
And before me the damp
I’d been driving from the Trading Post
Where I’d been looking for an amp
When from east to west
A voice as dry as pain, said
Said Refrain, do your best to keep warm.
The Chrysanthemum Storm
Hit at the corner
Of Stuart and York
A shower of flowers
The colour of chalk
They were not to be harvested
They fell on the pane
And said Refrain, do your best to stay in form
The Chrysanthemum Storm
Lasted all the way down Queen’s Drive
It was cold enough to kill
I was glad to be alive
Flakes of good gesture
Had come to explain
Refrain! Beauty is always being born
The Chrysanthemum Storm
Was ending
I had to find a hat for my head
By the time I found the camera
The batteries were dead
Love is unceasing
Come sunshine or rain
Refrain! Leave behind you what is torn.
The Chrysanthemum Storm
LOSERS WEEPERS
(Vocal Version )
They give us the drug
All we think about is losing
We're on a high
A high as high as government
We're on a real cool drug
Sets your child wheezing
The reason is plain
Their gain
Your loss
Losers weepers
They give us the smile
The smile that's worth a million
Count what remains
after settlement
It's a settlement smile
That sets your child wheezing
The reason is plain
Their gain
Your loss
Losers weepers
The deal
A deal that rolls on real estate
Evaluate
the value of betterment
It's the best deal yet
That sets the child wheezing
The reason is plain no gain
No gain without loss
Your loss
Losers weepers
They give us the drug
All we think about is losing
We're on a high
A high as high as government
We're on a real cool drug
That sets your child wheezing
The reason is plain
Their gain
Your loss
Losers weepers
Zelle Records is a Kiwi music label operating from a flat in Vienna, Austria. We aim to make available flabbergasting
alternative rock and pop music from Dunedin and elsewhere in New Zealand on vinyl.
If you are looking for any other Zelle product than the ones represented here, just drop us a line....more
Auckland-based group Tiny Ruins present a series of dazzling, folk-informed songs on their latest, grounded in tender vocal melodies. Bandcamp New & Notable May 8, 2023
supported by 4 fans who also own “Bill Direen & Bilders Chrysanthemum Storm Side A”
I've been enjoying the Bats since Daddy's Highway. They keep doing what they do and I keep enjoying what they do. What else can I say? Bat's entertainment? tideracer