Head like a Hole swagger onto screen
They wouldn’t be the first outfit to do more than a few laps of an inner-city Invercargill roundabout on a quiet Sunday morning.
But Head Like a Hole did with their drummer pounding his kit on a back of a rented trailer, and Julian Boshier filming it all. The upshot was a just a few giddying seconds in the video for their single Comfortably Shagged.
Boshier’s close connection with the much celebrated, much lamented band meant he accompanied them three times to Invercargill, and footage from each of these has survived a massive editing process to make its way into his critically acclaimed documentary Swagger of Thieves.
Each visit to Invercargill produced footage that helped tell the story, he says.
This includes their 1999 Head like a Holden tour- they played the Embassy Theatre – when they were at the height of what he calls their needle phase:
‘‘And their behaviour was disgusting on that tour, especially Nigel (Regan)’’.
At times ‘‘I don’t think the kids from Invercargill knew how to take them.’’
The band’s story has been called one of addiction, death, theft and betrayal. But it far from simply repellent.
‘‘The beauty of Head Like a Hole was their deviant, disgusting, indulgent behaviour between the two main guys (Booga Beazley and Regan) was the juice that made the band what it was – and what it is.’’
Southland Times’ files aren’t short of the band’s stories, like their attempts to borrow a chainsaw for a 1998 show at Saints and Sinners.
Swagger of Thieves screens at Reading Cinemas Invercargill Friday, May 18, at 8.45pm and Sunday, May 20, at 6.15pm.