South Recordings Presents The Bads

South Recordings are a new label based in Christchurch, New Zealand and founded by Stephen McCarthy (sometimes note hitter in Christchurch trio Pine and founder of independent music resource site bands.co.nz).  Their philosophy is to be committed to tunes without gimmicks: lo fi, hi fi, 4-track with tape hiss, or 5 mics just for the hi hat.... as long as there's a song amongst it all.

The label's first signing is The Bads, made up of recent repatriots Brett Adams and Dianne Swann.  The pair started writing together and formed TheJulie Dolphin in London in 1992. Within six months they had a record deal, had written, recorded and produced an E.P. and an album, received critical acclaim and a growing audience when they toured and played live with the likes of Oasis, Green Day, Catatonia, etc, etc found themselves on college radio in the States, Radio One in London and single of the week in NME.

The Julie Dolphin were hand picked by members of Radiohead to tour with them twice throughout the UK. Dianne is the female silhouette seen playing keyboards in the Radiohead Live at the Astoria video and the other voice on a song called How can you be sure? a duet with Thom Yorke which featured on the Japanese version of 'The Bends' and on the B side of Fake PlasticTrees.

Dianne and Brett's songwriting talents were recognised and they signed a publishing deal with Chrysalis Music (UK). A demo of their song Super Model Human found its way onto the XFM A list and before long they were signed by Jerry Moss and Herb Albert, to their label Almo Sounds. They recorded an album as Boom Boom Mancini and the excitement continued- videos were shot and tours were booked to support the coming album- until the sad day Jerry Moss decided that a million years in the music industry was long enough and closed his record company. Dianne and Brett felt as though enough was enough and so disbanded Boom Boom Mancini.

Dianne and Brett returned to New Zealand in 2002 and have recently finished recording 'Earth From Space', an album of songs they have written together and separately as The Bads. After the amazing and sometimes stressful London experience, they feel a lot more relaxedabout music and things in general and which is evident in this collection of songs that show a strength and maturity, and have a unique yet timeless quality.