Romantic Andes
A very popular local live band in the early 1990's, the Romantic Andes met at the University of Waikato's Bryant Hall, initially calling themselves Giant Jack and the Codpieces. The band went through a number of lineup changes over several years.
An early recording, Anaconda Funky Limbo, appeared on the 1993 compilation Discordia Concors (with their name misspelt "Romantic Andies"), featuring the popular sing-along lyrics "Bob Marley used to sing this song". The lineup at this time comprised Dylan Parry (vocals, jewish harp, percussion), John Worsely (acoustic guitar, vocals, percussion, toilet), Brendan White (acoustic bass, backing vocals), Hayden Biglow (cello, backing vocals), Dan Hodgekinson (drums) and Demelza Locke (backing vocals, percussion). They had three additional Contact live-to-air recordings released at the same time on the Inside the Wireless compilation. Their first major gig was supporting Jan Hellriegel, and were the major drawcard to the Hamapalooza gig in 1993.
The band won the Contact Battle of the Bands in 1994, wearing drag. In September that year they released their album titled To Understand the Animals with a performance at the Wailing Bongo. By this time the lineup had evolved to John Worsely, Dylan Parry, Hayden Biglow, Mike Clarkin (drums) and Tim Hansen (bass). Crowd favourites included "Half a World Away", "Happy Hug song", and "Tiny Tom".
They released a final EP, Rocket, under the name The Andes before disbanding. On this recording the lineup was John Worsely, Dylan Parry, Chris Wyborn (bass), Luke Murray (drums) and Hayden Biglow.
They also appeared on the compilation They came to take us alive. John briefly had a side project in 1993 called Twitch featuring members of Death of a Monkey.
