A silhouette of a person playing an electric guitar on stage with dramatic lighting in the background.

Land of the Long White Stain

A Love Letter to Music on the Margins

Claire Duncan (i.e. crazy, Dear Time’s Waste) follows her musical comrades on a tour of Aotearoa in this contemplative ode to a brood of genre-bending Auckland musicians, among them Girls Pissing on Girls Pissing, Seth Frightening, and Shab Orkestra.

Land of the Long White Stain fuses digital film formats into a rip-roaring 30-minute musical tour of an Auckland sub-culture. Performances were recorded live at Chick’s Hotel in Port Chalmers, the Wine Cellar in Auckland, Log Recording in Christchurch, and the Newtown Community Centre in Wellington. It premiered at the Wine Cellar on 3 July 2015.

Where to Watch

Land of the Long White Stain is currently available for free on NZ On Screen. A remastered version with Closed Captions and Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing will be available from mid-2026.

Director’s Statement

A year or so ago, I mumbled a complaint into the echo chamber of Auckland’s Whammy Bar at 2am, bemoaning the lack of quality live footage of local bands and artists. Land of the Long White Stain attempts to capture the rarely recorded, incredibly intense live performances of these acts. While the songs themselves are the heroes of the story, behind-the-scenes footage permits a glimpse into the processes and world-views of a group of fiercely creative individuals whose work falls outside the ever-constrictive paradigms of popular music in Aotearoa. It’s a personal tribute to the music and people I love; their relentless pursuit of creative excellence, regardless of mainstream trends and taste. —Claire Duncan

Featuring

Seth Frightening, ‘I Left it When the Water Broke’
Shab Orkestra, ‘I Will Not Take You Back to the Water’
i.e. crazy, ‘Body of Debt’
Girls Pissing on Girls Pissing, ‘Out of Zone’

Recorded live at

Chick’s Hotel, Kōpūtai Port Chalmers, Aotearoa
Wine Cellar, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa
Log Recording, Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa
Newtown Community Centre, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa

Also featuring

Seth Frightening, ‘Bury’ from the album But We Love Our Brothers and Sisters (2015, Sonorous Circle)

Press

2015-07-04 On RNZ’s Music 101, Zac Arnold is with director Claire Duncan as they discuss the difficulties of capturing the essence of live performance and what it means to be a musician on the margins.
2015-04-02 Radio One 91FM’s Tussock Creek Social Club talks Land of the Long White Stain with Claire Duncan (55’50”).
2015-06-30 Claire Duncan joins the bFM Breakfast team to discuss Land of the Long White Stain.

About the Filmmakers

Claire Duncan’s work incorporates both copy and editorial across a wide variety of creative industries. Her writing has featured on The Pantograph Punch, for whom she has recently directed a short documentary celebrating the West Coast’s Barrytown Settlers Hall. As a musician, she has completed a number of national tours under the performance name of Dear Time’s Waste. Claire is committed to engaging with and celebrating New Zealand’s artists and creative communities.

Melinda Jackson is Producer of Out of the Mist, Land of the Long White Stain and Paper Boat. Freelancing in production, editing, casting, and assistant directing, she has produced for music, corporate, and promotional videos, as well as two short films that have screened in festivals both locally and internationally (The Small Movements and Mou Piri: A Rarotongan Love Song). She lives in New York City.

Credits

Written and Directed by Claire Duncan
Produced by Melinda Jackson

Director of Photography: Joe Hitchcock
Editor: Luke McPake
Handycam: Claire Duncan, Sean Kelly, Melinda Jackson, Catherine Cumming, Alexander Knight, Anthony Sheehan-Drent.

Live sound recording by Steven Huf, Henry Nicol, Tom Bell, Rohan Evans, Melinda Jackson, and Claire Duncan.

Sound post by Sam Moore
Title painting by Alexander Knight
Narrated by Paul Blanchard

Publicist: Rebecca McMillan
Series Producer: Tim Wong

Special Thanks:
Catherine Cumming, Steven Huf, Sean Kelly, Alexander Knight, Casey Latimer, Aka Iti Ransfield-Crummer, and Luke McPake.

Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Melinda Jackson, Tim Wong, Joe Hitchcock, Ian Brown, Paul Blanchard; Rohan Evans and the Wine Cellar; Henri Kerr and Henry Nicol at Log Recording; Reade Audio, Mike McLeod, Tom Bell, and Hope Robertson at Chick’s Hotel; Thomas Lambert and Sonorous Circle; Eyegum Music Collective and the Newtown Community Centre; and all of those who came to the shows.

Tūī communication calls courtesy of the Department of Conservation (NZ Crown copyright ©)

Release Date:
3 July 2015 (World+Online Premiere)

The Lumière Reader presents
in association with NZ On Air
“Land of the Long White Stain: A Love Letter to Music on the Margins”