Brian Baker spent three years in Northland and 40 in Melbourne before coming to Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley
Brian Baker spent three years in Northland and 40 in Melbourne before coming to Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley
A boutique record label is up and running in Whanganui East and a recording studio will follow close behind it.
Musician, producer and engineer Brian Baker moved to the city from Northland at the end of last year and wasted no time founding Nixon Street Recordings.
“I walked into this house and really liked it but immediately thought ‘Where could I put a studio?’” he said.
“Then I walked into the garage and noticed it was all dry, which is unusual for a garage, and it was gibbed and insulated and there was separate power.
“It turns out the previous owner used to have band practices there. I thought ‘Yep, this will do’.” I was home.”
Builders arrive to begin building the studio this week.
Baker already has three acts on his label roster - Dargaville’s Socially Awkward, BB and the Bullets, and The Makers - a collaboration between Baker and Eddie Rayner of Split Enz and Crowded House fame.
A band of club musicians rehearsed with 12 artists over two weekends, with the final arrangements performed, recorded and judged on May 31.
He will also collaborate with the Vinyl Room’s Ron Fisher - who he was “overjoyed to meet” - on a compilation of Whanganui artists and an ongoing series of live performances in Fisher’s Victoria Avenue shop.
Before Whanganui, Baker lived in Northland for three years and Melbourne for 40.
“I’ve been a professional musician all of that time,” he said.
“In the 1980s I was with a band called The Ones in the St Kilda scene and we managed to get a record deal with Sony.
“The record company lined up various producers but we loved Eddie Rayner. He produced our first single and we became mates.”
The pair went on to write the score for the film Rikki and Pete and eventuallystarted The Makers.
Rayner and producer Hugh Padgham, who mixed The Makers’ first recordings, were his “music production lineage”, Baker said.
Brian Baker's next project is recording the artists for Whanganui Musicians Club's upcoming songwriting competition. Photo / Bevan Conley
Padgham’s list of production and engineering credits includes Elton John, Kate Bush, The Police, Paul McCartney, XTC and Frank Zappa.
Fellow Kiwi Nick Sadler, of London’s The Label Machine, was his mentor while setting up Nixon Street Recordings.
“He (Sandler) has set up a whole system of client management software and I’m plugged into it,” Baker said.
“There is a network of distributors internationally but more than that, I get a system for marketing and promotion.
“That’s the thing missing with many of us musos - and I’m guilty of doing it myself - we work so hard in making our record, then we put it out and go ‘Yay, job done’. That release strategy has a name - ‘put it out and pray’'.”
Baker said he played in a Sydney punk band called Idiot Savant in the early 1980s who were in the same scene as Flowers - later Icehouse- and “a band who had just come over from Perth called INXS”.
“We all used to rubbish INXS because they were very disciplined and wanted to get all their ducks in a row.
“Look at how they ended up. It’s taken me 40 years to learn that, but there’s something to be said for that approach.
“To me, that‘s like a typical European city - Paris, wherever. It’s Prague without the gargoyles.”
The Whanganui Musicians Club songwriting competition is at 65 Drews Avenue from 7pm on May 31.
Mike Tweed is an assistant news director and multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.
