Stop Making Bedroom Albums - a Vorn Bio
George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin, of Protestant stock, in 1856, and died at Ayot St Lawrence, Herts, in 1950. After a false start in nineteenth-century fashion as a novelist, he made a reputation as a journalist-critic of books, pictures, music and drama. This, however, is not his brief bio. This is a brief bio of Vorn. Vorn was born in Tauranga, of stock, in 1977, and raised by assorted farm animals in Taranaki. After a false start in twentieth-century fashion as a drooling, mulleted bogan playing in assorted New Plymouth-based sludgepunk bands, Vorn made his reputation as a drooling, long-haired bogan playing in Hamilton indie legends The Living Room.
The collapse of The Living Room saw Vorn at somewhat of a musical loose end. Undeterred, he borrowed a four-track from local indie giants The Dead Pan Rangers and recorded his debut Normal the Normal Normal in his lounge in two weeks of sweaty, semi-employed idiocy. Normal's record-breakingly tiny album sales didn't prevent it impressing the pants off all who heard it - in a New Zealand Musician Magazine review Chris Knox averred "... a great grinding grandpappy of an album it is too. . . returns self-indulgence to its rightful place at the top of the desirable qualities list".
Fast forward two years and Vorn, after a stint living from busking and sleeping in a tent, on his friends' floors, and a in hole under the stairs in an Aro Valley flat, is lying in a pokey one-man apartment atop an English school in a South Korean winter. Huddled on the heated floor in an attempt to avoid terminal hypothermia, Vorn is putting the finishing touches on Not Quite as Good, his second album. Recorded mostly with an acoustic guitar, a nasty purple bass, and a ten-dollar Korean keyboard, NQAG is more no-fi than lo-fi, a no-expense-spent oddysey into that Daniel Johnston world where no amount of tape-hiss and pedal-buzz can kill a great song. "Vorn has made a mountain out of his molehill", enthused New Zealand Musician Magazine, "despite the flakey quality, beautiful passages, poignant lyrics and layered detail emerge miraculously through the gloop." Indeed.
2003 saw Vorn return from overseas, and plunge headfirst into musical partnership with Christopher Agar. Their indiepop group dangerpin has released two EPs - The Leapy EP and The Beepy EP, and a long player, Dangerpin in Albumen, and have been a continual presence in Wellington's live scene, playing gigs with The Sproutts, Mestar, The Salford Lads Club, and Tommy to name a few, and appearing on Good Morning with sleep in their eyes.
2006 sees the release of Vorn's third solo long player, .Thunk! Thunk! is the bedroom album to end all bedroom albums - a tottering, kitchen-sink-included masterpiece of twisted songwriting genius. Written, recorded, mixed and mastered in Vorn's Mt Victoria flat, with guest drums from local legend Declan Bailey, Thunk! veers uncontrollably through the realms of 80s synth pop, ol' school Flying Nundom, and twitchy whiteboy hip hop, stopping only to do a couple doughnuts in Bach's backyard. Angular guitars joust gallantly with questionably-recorded drums, skirls of violins do battle with nasty-assed casio keyboards, while Vorn provides the kind of needlesharp lyrical wittitude the average songwriter would happily swap a kidney for.
Vorn currently abides in Wellington, with his collection of instruments and some rather iffy recording gear. He is an Aries, and likes anchovies on pizza, no matter what anyone says to the contrary.
