Midway through last year, I started collating a spreadsheet aiming to track and trace every emo band in Aotearoa. After the final tour of scene legends Carb on Carb wrapped up, the pieces were left for a new generation of young New Zealanders to adapt the sounds of Midwest emo to the condensation of our smallest towns and eeriest suburbs. Despite the community being small, I had immediately noticed a collegiality and genuine love and care in the air from the emo bands from Papaiti Records and beyond, that I’ve only seen elsewhere at To The Front camps (Unsurprisingly, since it’s half of the same community). The roots of what makes New Zealand an amazing place to make music, from our hardworking communities to a DIY ethos, are embedded in the texts of Aotearoa emo just as much as sequels to Shihad’s ‘Home Again’ are.
While Clementine played one of our earliest sets at Carb on Carbs final house show in Tāmaki Makaurau, their Te Whanganui-a-Tara stop at the Welsh Dragon saw a name on the bill I was yet unfamiliar with in Park Flyers. Curious, I tracked down their demos and social media channels to figure out what their deal was and who their management team at Glasshead were.
It wasn’t anyone orchestrating a psyop campaign or a corporate promoter in disguise - Glasshead are simply a group of Massey students in Wellington that currently represent several prominent groups in the Te Whanganui-a-Tara scene, including Dillon Jo, Kinghit, Her Dead Bride, and The world is against you, AKA Twiay. They were immediately hitting targets I’ve struggled with in Misheard, killing it on social media without sacrificing their humility or, for lack of a better term, untouchable aura. While I could only use sporadic reels and YouTube videos to ascertain their impact in Wellington, their steadily growing presence and Beatlemania-esque crowd cheers proved that something brilliant was being built.
After niceties were exchanged, I told the two-piece that I’d be keen to host them for a flat show in Tāmaki Makaurau, knowing that my 21st birthday was coming up and that I could use the occasion as an excuse to make old friends come out to the weird new gigs I was throwing together and discover new bands they never would have otherwise.
For some reason, they agreed, and we worked together to put on a ripper weekend where they played on 95bFM Drive, headlined Whammy Bar with Clem and Jack Bromwich, and topped it off with a performance forced indoors by the untimely spring rain before booking it back to the capital.
Since then, Felix and Ezra have toured with fellow two-piece Slow Rage in an incredible run of Te Ika-a-Maui shows last March, before releasing their debut album you’re a real brick last month. The record encapsulates everything that makes the band incredible; the duos contrasting vocals that swing between soft falsettos and harsh screeching, the integration of electronic and experimental elements like Omnichords, Casiotones, and tape loops, and the delicate samples and storytelling in an utterly atmospheric and perfectly heartbreaking listen.
Park Flyers and Glasshead are leading the way in Wellington Indie, and this absolutely will not be the last time you hear about them in this part of Auckland. We’re very excitedly working together on some awesome shows this summer - if you aren’t subscribed to our newsletter yet, get onto it now so you’ll be the first to know wha’s coming up.
In the meantime, have a geez at Park Flyers full session from Live at the Void. It’s gloriously imperfect, with broken strings, cymbals, and our mixer taking in far more of the guitars bass-replicating octave pedal then it should have, but this performance remains absolutely amazing, containing some of my favourite tracks to ever come out of this tiny little scene that have either showed up on their album, or only exist in recorded form here. Shout out to the Omnichord one.
By the way, Park Flyers are reuniting with fellow Void alumni Neither Do I in Pōneke next month, playing at Vogelmorn Upstairs on Friday, the 2nd of October alongside our mates Welcomer and Western Haikus. I’m jealous as, so you should head along in my steed if you’re in the area.
If you’re Auckland based, just stand by.
