DoubleHappys - Nerves (2022 Reissue)

DoubleHappys’ newly touched up Nerves on vinyl LP for the first time — 30 years after its initial release, and many more after the original tracks were originally conceived. The master tapes, sourced from the Alexander Turnbull Library, were remastered by local stalwart Tex Houston — a name you’ll find among the credits on many of the notable records associated with Dunedin and Flying Nun. Nerves (2022 Reissue) is out on neon coral or black vinyl on the 30th September 2022 via Flying Nun Records.

Originally released on CD in 1992, as a compilation of DoubleHappys prior releases, Nerves has both sides of the Double B Side single, the full Cut It Down EP, two tracks from the live How Much Time Left, Please EP as well as two rare tracks from the Roslyn Mills practice rooms.

DoubleHappys first formed sometime in 1983 when former Bored Games vocalist, Shayne Carter, joined forces with The Stones' Wayne Elsey. They had a drum machine called “Herbie Fuckface”, who lived up to his name by sabotaging most of the duo's efforts onstage, thus quickly calling for human replacement in the form of another old Kaikorai High schoolmate, John Collie.

“The DoubleHappys were quintessential punk - reared on the 1977 English kind, but sounding a lot more like the garage slime late ‘60s American original. Cheap guitars howling and snarling beneath whining snot-punk vocals. Music you make when you’re young and you think everyone else is full of shit. Music you make when you are utterly in love with the sound of the electric guitar.” - Roy Colbert, Dunedin 1992.

In 1984, the trio set about kicking up a storm, touring up north on the famous Looney Tour and recording the Double B Side seven inch while they were in Auckland. Then, early in 1985, the band recorded the Cut it Out EP and in June embarked on a short tour. Towards the end of the tour, the band were travelling south from Auckland by train and Wayne Elsey, in high spirits, climbed out of the carriage and was subsequently killed in a tragic collision with a bridge abutment.

Wayne was a well-loved member of the Dunedin community and his sudden death shocked many people. It was the end of the DoubleHappys, but Shayne Carter and John Collie eventually went on to form Straitjacket Fits. Before this transition, Shayne Carter and fellow musician, Peter Jefferies, also penned the extraordinary single, ‘Randolph’s Going Home’; a tribute to their friend and bandmate, Wayne.

TRACKLIST 
SIDE A

1. Others Way
2. Big Fat Elvis
3. Some Fantasy
4. I Don’t Wanna See You Again
5. Anyone Else Would

SIDE B

1. Needles and Plastic
2. Moss Monster
3. Wrapped Up In Myself Again
4. I Can’t Say
5. Nerves

Nerves (2022 Reissue) is out on neon coral or black vinyl 30th September 2022 via Flying Nun Records.