Mixed Messages

Wait for Nothing

chicken63's Album

The creator

Fading

Vultures

Infinity (Draw the Line)

C_h_r_i_s M_a_t_t_h_e_w_s  &  R_o_b_o_t M_o_n_k_e_y O_r_c_h_e_s_t_r_a

Former founding member of seminal New Zealand early ‘80s Flying Nun alt-rock bands Children’s Hour and This Kind Of Punishment in the early ‘80s, Chris is best known as singer, guitarist and songwriter with Headless Chickens during their 15 year career from critically acclaimed cult act in the mid ‘80s to chart-topping Australasian hitmakers in the mid ‘90s.  The Chickens released a clutch of critically acclaimed and commercially successful albums and singles – their Body Blow album in ’93 achieved Platinum sales and spawned 5 Top 10 singles including Cruise Control, Donde Esta, and Mr Moon (for which Chris was nominated for an Apra Silver Scroll Award in ’94); and their George single in ’95 remains the only release by a Flying Nun band to go at Number 1 in New Zealand - and they won numerous N.Z. Music Awards and toured N.Z. and Australia (and the rest of the world) many times before calling it quits in 2000. 

After the Headless Chickens demise in the new millennium, Chris moved from Auckland to Dunedin in 2002, where he started new band Robot Monkey Orchestra not long afterwards. His 1st solo album ‘The Map Of Love’  was first conceived in 2005 after he got funding from the Dunedin City Council Creative Communities Scheme to perform a show of songs he’d written at the Dunedin Fringe Festival, and a second Creative Communities Grant in 2007 enabled him to perform the show at other cities around New Zealand and also record the songs for a CD. The Map Of Love album was self-released in 2008 on Chris’s own Robot Monkey Records label: 

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-map-of-love/id313549998
http://chrismatthewsrobotmonkeyorchestra.bandcamp.com/

Chris is currently recording a 2nd R.M.O. album with Dunedin sound magician, Dale Cotton; playing drums in new Dunedin band Death By Silo; doing a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Dunedin Art School majoring in Electronic Arts; and recently reformed Children’s Hour for a show in February at Laneway in Auckland.

Robot Monkey Orchestra are currently Brett Lupton, Heath Te Au and Vaughan Watson of Christchurch/Dunedin indie guitar outfit Squirm, who are also on the bill at the Kings Arms on May 12th for their first Auckland gig in far too many years.



