The Bluestars


If ever there was a local record that cut straight to the heart of the confusion and frustration of growing up in radically changing times, it's The Bluestars’ searing garage punk anthem, ‘Social End Product’.

As the angry young man in the lyrics rages at the world around him – “it’s not my fault I don’t belong, it’s the world around me that’s gone all wrong” – it’s as much an anguished cry for acceptance as an uncompromising statement of being. You made me, so if you don’t like me you’ll have to change, not me, he seems to scream as the song howls its way to its fuzz-strewn conclusion and a final, biting “I’m a social end product, so don’t blame me.”

The Bluestars head north with The Dark Ages in 1965. There was a "Miss Personality Contest" to complete the bill.
The Bluestars celebrate the 1966 release of their single Please Be Kind by the UK label Decca with a dance at the Eastern Suburbs Rugby Club Hall in Auckland's Okahu Bay. The support acts were the (misspelled) Sandy Edmonds and The Mockers (no relation).
Rick van Bokhoven, Jim Crowley, Murray Savidan and John Harris
The Gallows, the band's own club in Auckland's Remuera, which operated briefly in late 1966
Rocking the St. Heliers RSA hall in 1965. Other acts that have played the hall over the years include Mr. Lee Grant (who almost caused a riot) and The Screaming Meemees and The Ainsworths in 1981 (the police shut that one down). L to r: John Harris, Murray Savidan, Jim Crowley, Rick Van Bokhoven.
I Can Take It
The second New Zealand single, from 1967
Social End Product
The 1965 UK Decca single
'Social End Product', The Bluestars' 1966 single on Allied International, has become a hugely collectable garage classic over the years and has appeared on over 20 compilations including the famed Nuggets
A 1967 flyer
Murray Savidan, John Harris, Jim Crowley and Rick van Bokhoven in 1965, taken in the old Farmers building in Auckland's Hobson Street
Labels:

Allied International


Decca

Members:

John Harris - guitar, drums, vocals

Murray Savidan - bass, vocals

Rick van Bokhoven - guitar, vocals

Jim Crowley - drums

Eric Jackson - drums

Trivia:

John Harris is the founder and was for many years managing director of TV production house Greenstone.

Harris was named as the 2012 Screen Production and Development Association / Onfilm Industry Champion for services to the NZ screen industry.

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