Various: Pie Cart Rock'n'Roll

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * *)

Twenty-eight slices of primitive backbeat local rock'n'roll from the late 50s which includes overlooked classics like Peter Lewis and the Trisonic's Four City Rock, the title track by Johnny "The Maori Cowboy" Cooper, Max Merritt and Meteors' Get a Haircut and Haka Boogie by Morgan Clarke and Benny's Five ("Swing your puipui and do the haka-boogie the Maori way").

There's some almost paleolithic guitar playing on Bob Paris Combo's Dragstrip, unfortunately only one track by our own Elvis, Johnny Devlin (the snakey Nervous Wreck), and a stacked deck of one-hit wonders.

The high count of original songs (all within the limits of the idiom) shows even way back in the days before the Beatles made writing your own song almost mandatory our musicians were taking things into their own hands — but sometimes penning nonsense like Rod Derrett's Teddy Boys Picnic. Historic and sometimes hysterical.

Label: Zerox