Motorsheep - The Passionless is Fearless

Years before the internet I was tape-trading as a way to hear new music. I often traded tapes with Kelvin from Levin who also put out the Brainless Child fanzine which interviewed many New Zealand punk bands including TAB and Salad Daze. I discovered a lot of new punk bands that I still listen to and love today such as Descendents, Leatherface, Snuff, Sloppy Seconds etc through trading tapes with Kelvin.


Kelvin was also in a band called Motorsheep. I suspect the band name was taken from Jello Biafra's Name for Bands rants on his spoken word album No More Cocoons. While Motorsheep were based in Levin they released a cassette called The Mot or She EP. Later in the piece the band moved to Palmerston North. Many members seemed to come and go but bass player, Jarrod and guitarist, Kelvin were always the main members of Motorsheep.
The band released two red and blue 7"s with a pressing of 500 each.

Pinochet/Moisture(blue vinyl) was a personal favourite. This 7" featured Scott on vocals and Kevin on drums. The song Pinochet received a of airplay on the local student radio station, Radio Massey and was extremely catchy. (If anyone has a copy I'd be interested in buying it) Later Ryskie played the drum and American import Justus took over on vocals. This line-up recorded the red vinyl, Incomplete Loser 4 song 7". Scott's vocals differed greatly to Justus despite both being somewhat melodic and for some reason or another I never saw the band live with Justus. The band got it together to record a full length CD which, in a city like Palmerston North in the 90s where many bands popped up and then disappeared almost straight away, is no small feat.

On their myspace page Motorsheep describe their sound as skapunkthrashjazznoisedubshit and a few of the bands songs can be heard there as well.

The band's CD The Passionless are Fearless can be downloaded here. I've used MP3 format instead of WMA since I've recently worked out how. Enjoy.

Pierced Arrows, Adelaide Hotel, Wellington January 11 2008

Here's a couple of youtube clips from Pierced Arrows, Wellington show at the Adelaide Hotel in Newtown on Friday, January 11 2008. The camera is quite shaky in places but I'm fairy happy with the sound quality.