Wellington City Libraries

Te Matapihi Ki Te Ao Nui

Search options

The Avengers

Decade(s) active:

From AudioCulture:

Over the years there have been numerous articles written about Wellington pop group The Avengers. They all dwell on the band as a manufactured pop group (although hand-picked is a more apt description) who were all extremely nice guys, toured the length and breadth of the country, recorded eight singles, five of which became hits, and three albums before breaking up in mid 1969 after a three year career … end of story. The Avengers story is more complex than it appears on the surface. Their beginnings as a group weren’t in the fertile grounds of schoolboy or neighbourhood friendships like most bands from the era. Instead, a third party, intent on forming the perfect pop group, brought them together. It is also a story of a small group of people whose input at vital times contributed to the group’s eventual success and helped to make up the giant jigsaw that is The Avengers story. (Read more...)

Elsewhere online:

On our catalogue:

Music we hold — on our catalogue

The majority of our Wellington CD collection is available from our Te Awe Branch in Brandon St, or able to be reserved for free from our Distribution Centre in Johnsonville.

We say:

Cover image

avengersa
Avengers at Ali Baba’s: L to R: Dave Brown, Hank Davis, Eddie McDonald and Clive Cockburn.

Line-Up:
Ian (Hank) Davis (Drums)
Eddie McDonald (Bass)
Dave Brown (Rhythm Guitar)
Clive Cockburn (Lead Guitar/Organ)

Formed in 1966 in Wellington, this Avengers should not be confused with the band of the same name, in which Ray Woolf was a member. His group was formed around the same time, and became known as Ray Woolf and the Avengers, hailing out of Auckland.

The Wellington Avengers were put together by promoter Ken Cooper, who was looking for a band to play at his new night club, The Place. They debuted there in June 1966 and their early repertoire was mainly covers of Beatles songs and other British groups, but as time went on they closely followed the likes of Cream and Traffic.

Ken Cooper, himself an ex-member of the Swamp Dwellers, brought together the four talented young musicians from a number of Wellington groups. Clive Cockburn was from the Mustangs, Dave Brown was from the Wanderers, Ian “Hank” Davis was from Napier band the Epics, and Dave Diver from the Countdowns. Before they even got started, Dave Diver decided to move back to Christchurch, so Ken brought in Eddie McDonald from the Strangers.

avengers
L to R: Eddie, Hank, Clive and Dave.

avengers2
Hank, Dave, Eddie and Clive

The Avengers were in the studio preparing for their debut when they were asked to provide backing for another recording artist Val Murphy. They did this and her single, “Lovers Of The World Unite”/”There’s A Scarlet River Running” was released under the name Valeria Vengers.

The Avengers became very popular in Wellington during their first year and their debut single, “Everyone’s Gonna Wonder”/”Take My Hand” got to number 7 on the NZ Hit Parade in September 1967. Close behind this was “Only Once In My Life”/”Waterpipe” which reached number 10 in January 1968.

The hits kept coming with “1941”/”What Price Love” peaking at number 6 in May 1968, but it was their classic “Love Hate Revenge” b/w “Only Last Night” that they are best remembered by. This was their biggest hit, making it to number 2 in August 1968. It was an obscure song from England’s Episode Six. They only hit the charts once more with “Days Of Pearly Spencer”/”Daniel The Postman” in December of 1968, making it to number 4.

Their first album was called “Electric Recording” and was released May 1968.

electricrecording

When it was actually released, the Avengers were in Australia, building up a following and checking out the local Sydney scene. They returned in August 1968 and being one of the highest profile bands on the New Zealand scene, they were invited to open the new Ali Baba’s club in Cuba Street, Wellington, in October. The occasion was captured on a live album called “Dial Triple A, Alive! Avengers in Action”.

aliveinaction

The “Love Hate Revenge” song was a finalist for the 1968 Loxene Gold Disc Awards and also the lead-off track of their second studio album called “Medallion”. Another song from the album, “Out Of Sight Out Of Mind” won the 1969 APRA Silver Scroll for composer Dave Jordan.

avengersb

With the experiences of New Zealand behind them they ventured back to Australia in early 1969 for a more serious assault. This time they were known as the New Zealand Avengers, to avoid confusion with a Brisbane group of the same name. They played a number of gigs around Australia, but didn’t achieve the same level of success they had enjoyed in New Zealand. For a very short time. while Dave Brown was hospitalised for a hernia operation, Melbourne-based guitarist John Pugh, from the James Taylor Move, came in to the group as a temporary replacement.

In July 1969 they called it a day, with Dave and Clive returning home, while Hank and Eddie headed to Perth to play in the underground band Bakery.

In 2001 EMI released a CD called “Electric Recording” which included all the songs from their two studio albums, except “Love Is Blue”, along with their singles and one song from the Live album.

 

Grateful acknowledgement is made to Bruce Sergent for letting us use this material from his great discographical site New Zealand Music of the 60’s, 70’s and a bit of 80’s.

For RNZs ‘Musical Chairs’ Keith Newmand interviews Hank Davis of ‘The Avengers..

Cover sourced from Amplifier.

From the Blog:


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *