Ground-breaking Christchurch 3 piece, exponents of melodic tinged rock, sort of New Wave for the time. Existed from 1980 -1982.
The Newtones featured Tony Peak on guitar and vocals, Mark Brooks on bass and vocals and Graeme Van Der Colk on drums, replaced by another drummer later on.
The band were included on the Propeller Class Of 81 compilation with New Way and then self-released a 4 track 7″ Paint The Town Red including band postcard, followed by another 7″ My World.
Accident Compilation also includes another track from the My World sessions All Over The World.
The band were a popular fixture of the local live scene with a few impressive guitar pieces that never made it to tape, such as the sonically exciting instrumental Four Ships, of which no known recording existed, until recently when Guitarist Tony Peake’s personal archive surfaced.
The collected works of the band was recently released by Failsafe records including a version of Four Ships, the track that inspired the label to start because of it’s unavailability. Failsafe formed to try and stop the loss of quality local bands music and the Newtones collection is perhaps the perfect circular motion where they get to go back in time and set the loss of much of the bands catalogue right.
The band eventually disbanded with Peak embarking on a career as an influential DJ and nightclub entrepreneur pioneering the local club scene and introducing many to New UK sounds.
