Space Waltz: By Alastair Riddell

Brand new sealed reissue of this classic album.

With a sound clearly influenced by David Bowie's Hunky Dory / Ziggy era, Space Waltz became big stars in their home country of New Zealand, driven by the smash hit single 'Out in the Street'. After recording and touring this record, Riddell split the band. Keyboard player, Eddie Raynor went onto further fame as an integral member of Split Enz, while drummer Brett Eccles joined Aussie rockers, The Angels. 'Space Waltz' is a classic album in the history of New Zealand rock!

Fraulein Love / Beautiful Boy / Seabird / Out on the Street / Angel / Open Up / Scars of Love / And Up to Now / Love the Way He Smiles.

His musical exposure was vast from symphonies to Scottish ballads, from Gilbert and Sullivan to popular hits of the time. His father played the mandolin and piano and his mother could sing with good pitch.

At eight, Alastair began five years of classical piano lessons. It wasn’t long before he was experimenting, playing by ear and dabbling with the structure of the pieces. His mother had an old guitar kicking about that she’d once learnt a few songs on. When she found her son teaching himself how to play it and sing from old blues records she asked if he had thought about being a professional musician. The seed was sown and the young Alastair began to envisage carving out a musical career for himself.

On Alastair’s twelfth birthday his parents bought him an electric guitar and his older brother Ron (junior) a set of drums. For Alastair’s thirteenth birthday his father bought him a ticket for a concert to be held at the Auckland town hall. He told his son he was about to become part of history and that this band would be one of the greatest bands of the twentieth century. The band was The Beatles. It changed the young teen forever.

Fourteen-year-old Alastair rehearsed his entry onto the stage at Kelston Boys High School. It was in this band he formed at high school that he met bassist Peter Cuddihy, who later would be the bass player for Space Waltz. Riddell also played in Blues/Rock bands Original Sun throughout his high school years which proved to be not only a ‘good earner’ for a schoolboy, but a sound initiation into music scene. The other members of the band were considerably older than Riddell and had no idea about his age until Alastair’s mother asked them “Not to make it too late home from the gig as her son had school in the morning”.

In 1972 Riddell, along with Cuddihy formed a new band. Joined by drummer Paul Crowther, keyboardist, Eddie Rayner, and a year later by bass guitarist Wally Wilkinson, the band ORB was now formed. They gigged around Auckland with an emphasis on original music. They had a play list featuring a mix of progressive rock and some of Riddell’s original songs including Seabird (later featured on the Space Waltz album).

The band eventually dissolved, with Paul, Eddie, and Wally joining Split Enz - Alastair was also asked to join, but declined, going on to form Space Waltz around his own collection of songs.

Riddell and Space Waltz won the NZ music award for best new act in 1975. This accolade was bestowed on the back of two performances on the NZ talent show ‘New Faces’ in 1974 which resulted in the huge number one single Out On The Street only one of a handful of NZ songs to be the certified equivalent of a million seller in NZ.

The Album Alastair Riddell’s Space Waltz was thrashed on the turntables of the young and disaffected across the country, its stand out mix of glam, prog and distopian themes of science fiction were like nothing seen in the Southern hemisphere at the time, and has endured as a cult classic. It has even been re-released worldwide by UK label RPM records.

Alastair released a second self-named album in 1978, which spawned the hits What Good Does It Do Me and Wonder Ones. He followed it up with 1982’s Positive Action.

The early eighties were spent playing music in the US and the UK, after which he met and married an English model, Vanessa, and returned to NZ where he concentrated on raising a family of 4 children in Titirangi, West Auckland.

In the latter half of the 2000’s Alastairs’ musical popularity in NZ culture has been borne out with tracks appearing in the films Boy and In My Fathers Den, as well as TV series Jacqui Brown Diaries and Underbelly New Zealand.