Check out The Chaps' MySpace page at
http://www.myspace.com/cowboylounge
January 2008
The Chaps are working in the recording studio at the University of
Otago with producer John Egenes.
Jane Clark is recording some fiddle for us.
Hyram recently discovered
this German newspaper article about one of the concerts we did
during our 2006 European tour.
December 2007
The Chaps will begin recording another CD in January 2008. We hope to have
it finished within a few months and to take it on tour through New
Zealand and Australia during 2008.
The weblog of the Chaps' 2006 European tour is available at
http://www.kiwifolk.com/chapstour/
The Chaps performing the first concert at the National Aquarium of New Zealand, 19 July 2005.
The Chaps performing at Roy McGuinness'showroom for classic cars, 16 July 2005.
The Chaps performing at the Buffalo Hall in Port Chalmers, February 2005.
The Chaps at the Queenstown Wine and Food Festival
Wellington Evening Post 13/5/94
The Chaps give new meaning to the adjective "quirky".
This thoroughly entertaining four-man Dunedin band defies categorisation,
though their own description of their music - "banjoless bluegrass,
drumless rock, westernless country and hornless jazz" - almost does them
justice.
Included in the eclectic selection performed for a raucously appreciative
audience on Sunday night were a charming revival of Ryuchi Sakamoto's
oddball early 60s pop hit Sukiyaki and a manic jazz arrangement of My
Favourite Things, which raced along at such breakneck speed that the band
constantly threatened to fall apart (but didn't). The song of the night,
however, was mandolin and fiddle player Marcus Turner's wry country lament
You Sure Did a Number On Me - a song any of Nashville's wittiest lyricists
would have been proud to call their own.
Turner, better known in the 1970s as a host on the innovative
Dunedin-produced TV programme Spot On is indecently talented - a
consummate musician with a command of several instruments, a fine singer
and a wickedly clever songwriter. But the rest of the group are not far
behind: all are accomplished multi-instrumentalists with excellent voices
and a gift for harmony.
Their repartee's not bad either, and it triggered some saucy and
entertaining exchanges with a group of loud and immodestly forward women
in the audience.
People pay $45 and pack the Michael Fowler Center to see overseas acts
with far less talent than these rumbustious troubadours from the far
south, who charged a mere $10 a head. It just doesn't seem right.
The Chaps at Whare Flat Folk Festival 1997/1998. Photo courtesy
David Barnes.
The Clarion (Magazine of the New Edinburgh Folk Club) October 1997
A couple of weeks ago The Chaps appeared at the Port Stables. The audience
were very well behaved, give or take a fisherman or two who were having at
least as good a time as the rest of us. Possibly better. Other than the
owner, they were the only ones dancing. The Chaps remain the icon they set
out to be, a benchmark against which any group of guys who get together to
play music can measure themselves. "Guys" is used intentionally; the Chaps
name and their coy partly undone zipper logo are not gratuitous. This is
blokes' stuff, distinctly masculine without being rough, offensive, or
noticeably new age. I could be wrong, but I think there were more men
there than women. Tongue in cheek, obsessive about their repertoire, their
carefully casual drift from one perfect piece to the next held a clean,
world weary and mostly middle aged audience enthralled among the equally
clean ashtrays, in a pub, for the entire evening.
I have a theory. Try this. Sometimes at home I listen to Bonnie Tyler.
Yes, I'm afraid it's true, so don't tell anyone, right? It's my house and
my stereo and I can do what I like, OK? Now among The Chaps' repertoire,
my very favourite is "Love Hurts". It's a daft country song. I hate
country music. At least I think I do; I say so anyway. The thing is, The
Chaps are the only way I can get to listen to that stuff in public without
feeling silly. And it's because they're tongue in cheek, obsessive about
what they do, because they do it perfectly and because they're unashamedly
masculine without a hint of new age. I hate that damn mothers song they do
at the damn end, and I wish they'd damn well drop the damn thing, but it's
a small price to pay. Hyram Ballard playing his grandfather's fiddle,
Marcus Turner finger picking a solid bodied electric guitar, John Dodd's
impeccable bass and Mike Moroney flat picking an Ovation, and the bits
where he and Hyram take the lead phrase about just follow me around for
days. Damn and blast, they're very good, and they deserve a bigger,
dirtier and noisier audience.
Seán Manning
The Chaps
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