David D'Ath - vocals & keyboards
Nick Roughan - bass, keyboards
Don White - drums and percussion, samples
John Halvorsen - Guitar
Robin Gauld - Guitar

The Skeptics were pioneers.

They lead the way in the innovation and creativity of Electronic/Avant Garde experimental music in New Zealand. Their music combined 'traditional instrumentation with electronic and machine-based rhythm and sound.' The structuring of the songs, the concept, lyrical themes and content, all were unique, personal and provoking of thought, feelings and emotion.

The Skeptics began life back in 1979. The place, the rather sedate and peaceful Palmerston North. It all started when guitarist Robin Gauld hooked up with his old friend David D'Ath and decided to put together a band of sorts. They were both interested in the sounds eminating from the UK at the time and were keen to have a go at emulating a few of their favourites. After a few unmotivated and enthusiastic jams they eventually convinced another mate, Don White to play the drums and Ian Reiddy to take on bass guitar duties. An old P.A speaker, to which all four members bravely attempted to plug themselves into was kindly offered to them by a school music dept keen to encourage and develop their musical enthusiasm and 'talents'. They focused mainly on playing their own original songs, as, due to their lack of musical proficiency, their original dream of playing covers was not feasible at this time. They recorded a handfull of very rough, out of tune and extremely primitive sounding tracks during their lunch breaks using some equally rough, cheap and primitive 'make do' recording equipment in the schools library. Not long after these raw takes, about half way through 1980, Robin met up with old friend and skateboarding enthusiast, the slightly more musically adept, Nick Roughan who was, after a single practice which more than convinced the others of his abilities, quickly recruited as a new bass player. The Skeptics line up was now set in concrete. The band quite quickly began to gain a solid and enthusiastic following and a growing reputation. They managed to score a few support slots for bigger, more known acts that toured their town like the Newmatics and The Red, which gave them the exposure they required by taking them on the pub circuit rounds with them. The word was soon out about the Skeptics. Word got around town that there was a new and highly original, if not completely awful, band to watch out for. Finally they convinced Palmerston North venue, El Clubbo, to give them their own gig in1981.

To everyones amazement the Skeptics proceeded to break all door take records. Their new, energetic and highly innovative and original sound had finally won acceptance with audiences. Their first recording came out in 1982 for a compilation titled "Last Orders" which featured mainly pop groups like the Bongos, The Dabs and the Prime Movers. At the same time they recorded a five track EP, 'Pyronnists Selections' which was to be released on Propeller Records... this never eventuated due to the master tape being stolen from the Propeller office. The band then took a long shot and entered themselves into the NZ Battle of the Bands competition held at Mainstreet in Auckland. Thirty acts competed over three evenings. The Skeptics were judged second. Paul Rose, from Furtive Records approached them and a song on the '3 Piece pack' and an accompanying tour ensued.

In 1983, the Skeptics released an EP "Chowder Over Wisconsin".

From 1983-1984 they ran their own club in Palmerston North (thanks to support from the City Council arts centre), called Snailclamps, named after a chalk inscription, 'C164 Snail Clamps' discovered in the dirty, unused former electrical warehouse. Initially the venue ran as an underage hangout but became a fully licensed venue not long after until the band decided to pack up and relocate to Wellington.

The cassette release, "Skeptics Said" was put out on the now defunct Industrial Tapes in 1984. In 1985, They released the now sought after "Ponds" album. Robin had left the band at this time to concentrate on his university studies. Enter John Halvorsen, formerly of the Gordons and Bailter Space.

During August1987, the Skeptics filmed the controversial clip for "AFFCO" in conjunction with the release of their second album, "Skeptics III", in a South Auckland freezing works to be submitted to late night television music programme "Radio With Pictures". It was rejected.

Garry Ryan, the producer of the show gave this explanation as to why the video was rejected: "The graphic scenes of animal slaughter are unnecessarily detailed and prolonged, and despite the fact that they may be everyday scenes at freezing works, this does not imply that visuals of this nature may be screened on television."

The video was re-editted and submitted once more with digital masking to disguise the rather gruesome graphics of cattle processing. This too was rejected. "AFFCO" has never been screened by TVNZ. It has however featured in a few public screenings around the country and on a new zealand music video compilation, 'Noisyland'

While working on yet another release,"Amalgam" in 1989, David D'Ath learned that he had Leukaemia. Sadly David D'Ath never got to see the finished product which, due to many unforseen problems and delays, could not be finished in time as a farewell to this legendary performer.

David D'Ath passed away on Tuesday, 4th September, 1990. The band ceased immediately after.

"Amalgam" was finally released in November 1990. In the following years to come, the Skeptics' un released material began to surface as documents of their existence. The 10" single, "Sensible' which featured studio tracks created back in 1985, was launched in 1991. A full album version soon followed which featured further recordings from between 1985 to 1990.

In 1992, a boxed-set of the Skeptics recordings was produced which contained 'Skeptics III', 'Amalgam', 'Sensible' and a live three song recording EP 'If I Will I Can' taken from the last Skeptics gig in 1990 at the Gluepot in Auckland. Also accompanying the boxset was a 12-page booklet of lyrics and artwork by, and in memory of David D'Ath.

John Halvorsen and Brent McLaughlin now live in New York playing in Bailter Space.

SKEPTICS DISCOGRAPHY

Various Artists, "Three Piece Pack", Furtive (1982). Submitted track, "Last Orders".
-"Chowder Over Wisconsin", EP, Flying Nun (1983) featured: Boo-Chang / New Barking Riff / Aud Balmoral / The Broach / Stella / The Old Grey Whistle Test / Chowder, Jelly.
-"Skeptics Said", cassette. Industrial Tapes (1984)
-"Ponds", LP, Flying Nun / Ulp (1985) featured: Tone / Bedrock / Freely Gotten Gains / For Silos / Bubba Clutha / Voluminous /Divine Muscles Flex / Ponds.
-"Skeptics III", LP and CD, Flying Nun (1987) featured : AFFCO / Feeling Bad / Agitator / Turn Over / La Motta / Notice / Rain / Luna / Crave.
-"AFFCO", video, Brilliant Film Company (1988)
-In Love With These Times compilation with 'A.F.F.C.O.'. 1988
-"Amalgam", LP and CD, Flying Nun (1990) featured: And We Bake / Felt Up / Pack Ice / Never Tire Of Looking At The Stars / Heathery Men / Bad Wiring / Threads / Spade / Sheen Of Gold / All Sum Nul.
-"Sensible Shoes", 10", Flying Nun (1991) featured: Sensible Shoes / Bub / Blue / PCH Mix.
-"Sensible", LP and CD, Flying Nun (1990) featured: You Look Great / Water / Pressure / Jonny Come Lately / Haks Off / Fwoney / Blue / Men `O' War / Splenal Langwems / Bulldozer Song / Baron Vice / Bub / Dodunski / PCH Mix / Spring / Sensible shoes.
-Various artists compilation 'Pink Flying Saucers Over The Southern Alps'. submitted track 'Sheen Of Gold'. Flying Nun, 1991.
-Boxed Set: Skeptics III (remastered), Amalgam (remastered), Sensible and If I Will I Can and also a 12-page booklet of lyrics and artwork by David D'Ath. 1992.
-"If I Will I Can", CD EP, Flying Nun (1992) featured: If I Will I Can / Any Any (live) / Two Pot Resin (live) / Mamouth (live). There are also some 'hidden' live tracks at the end of this CD of 'And We Bake', 'Threads', and 'Sheen Of Gold'.

David D'Ath
obituary

from Rip It Up, 1990.
BY CHRIS MATTHEWS

I was dreaming about drugs and strange urges, about the primeval past and the digital overload of the future, about the ride of the Valkyries and the chatter of helicopters as I opened my eyes and realised that it was 1984. I was bedded down on the floor of the Skeptics’ club “Snailclamps”. It was 9 o’clock in the morning and Wagner and the helicopters hadn’t stopped. In a darkened club, on a small stage covered with spiderwebs made of heated, stretched polystyrene, a semi-naked figure, lit by a single red spotlight, was performing the praying mantis movements of Tai Chi to the soundtrack from Apocalypse Now. It was David D’Ath...

The Skeptics: David (vocals), Nick Roughan (bass), Don White (drums) and Robin Gould (guitar), were four high school friends from Palmerston North who started playing together in 1980 (initially as X-It) doing a mixture of covers and originals. The first time I saw them was in Auckland, at the Reverb Room in 1982, after the band I was playing with had to cancel at the last minute.

The Skeptics, who were up for the weekend, agreed to step in using borrowed gear and, fuelled by the pathetic crowd, produced a set of such ferocious intensity that I became an immediate fan. The music was aggressive and unsettling but the focal point was David with his slight stature, his hooked nose and his deep-set eyes. He looked like some strange, punch drunk bird and the veins in his neck bulged as he forced mysterious words and noises from his throat.

They were still playing a handful of covers (Joy Division’s ‘Shadowplay’ and Killing Joke’s ‘Wardance’ among them) but the song that really stood out was their own, ‘Last orders’, about a man who has wrongly predicted the end of the world. With it’s unusual riff of picked harmonics and the narrator’s frustrated chorus of “Lies! The end was yesterday!” it was a good choice for a record and later in the year became one of the songs chosen for the compilation EP Furtive Four Piece Pack.

I saw them a few months later at the Rhumba bar in Auckland and the Skeptics, and David, were not only scary but funny as well. David had placed a table on the dance floor in front of the stage with a cornet on it and when it was his turn to play the others egged him on to run out, retrieve it and climb back on stage in time to produce an ear piercing blast. This ritual was repeated throughout the night and it was like watching the idiot son of Nosferatu who’d been hanging out in a David Lynch film: disturbing but blackly humorous.

The Skeptics made various trips to Auckland over the next few years in their beat-up old ambulance and from 1983-1984 ran their own club in Palmerston North. Stories had drifted north about the weird goings-on in “Snailclamps” (including one about a particularly deluded soul attempting to copulate with the PA during a Skeptics gig) so, of course, when Children’s Hour decided to tour NZ it seemed right and natural (since our bands had become friends) that we should play there (and sleep on the floor).

The club closed down at the end of ‘84 and in 1985 the Skeptics decided to move to Wellington. They’d released two records independently (‘83s Chowder Over Wisconsin and Ponds in ‘85) but neither had managed to capture the magnificence of their live performance (watching David, dangerously close to a seizure, bawling the lyrics to ‘Divine Muscles Flex’ was exhilarating) so they set about building their own recording studio, Writhe. Robin had decided to stay in Palmerston North so John Halvorsen and Brent McLaughlin, previously of the Gordons, were recruited as guitarist and mixer (although Brent later became second drummer for a while).

At this stage the Skeptics became fascinated by the possibilities of sampling keyboards and David became involved in writing music for the first time. Their sound, which had previously been guitar oriented, became more dominated by ominous loops and samples of everything from squeaking doors to Al Pacino’s dialogue from the film Cruising.

It was a very different band that appeared in Auckland in 1987 and they were stunning - songs like ‘Turn Over’ and ‘La Motta’ were thrown from the PA in a sonic storm that was beyond comparison. The sound was being created mostly by machinery but it was raw and organic and David’s voice, as always, was an instrument in itself. How anybody could wring emotion from words like “June, June, June, June, June, July, August” (from the darkly beautiful ‘Agitator’) was inexplicable but it was great to watch. And listen to. In 1988 they finally released the great album they’d always been capable of. Titled simply Skeptics it was recorded at their own studio and stands out as one of the best local records of the last ten years.

At the end of 1989, as they were working on their fourth album Amalgam (to be released shortly) David learned that he had leukaemia. He spent most of this year undergoing various treatments and a bone marrow transplant. Even though his health was fairly precarious, the Skeptics still managed to play two great gigs at the Gluepot with the new songs (particularly ‘Sheen of Gold’) sounding more inventive and better than ever.

On Tuesday, 4th September, 1990, David died.

In a darkened club, on a small stage covered with spiderwebs made of heated, stretched polystyrene, a semi-naked figure, lit by a single red spotlight, was performing the praying mantis movements of Tai Chi to the soundtrack from Apocalypse Now. It was David D’Ath...

He will be remembered.