Mi-Sex - as I recall some memories from their days of playing great music.

I remember well the Mi-Sex concert in Invercargill in the 1980's and followed the band mainly because of the two local boys that were part of it.  For your information have written a few notes about the band.

Mi-Sex evolved from the band, 'Father Time' and 'Think'.  There were three key players, Steve Gilpin (vocals), Don Martin ( bass) and Kevin Stanton (songwriting/guitar and vocals).  It is interesting to note that Gilpin won the 1972 talent quest with second place going to  Shona Laing. Gilpin performing with a variety of bands in the early 70's met Don Martin and they talked about setting up their own band.  Martin bought Kevin Stanton on board and then they approached Alan Moon and Phil Smart who had both been part of a band called 'Father Time'.  Martin and Stanton had been involved in 'Battle of the Bands' which they won respectively in 1971 and 1972.  Murray Burns replaced Moon.  They realised that a new style was needed to try and entice EMI so they came up with a mix of new rock, punk and pub and up the anti on stage theatrics. Along with this they realised they would also need to change the name and in a meeting in the back room of the Aranui Hotel in which they were playing Stanton came up with the name which he got from an ultravox poem set to music 'My Sex".  (1977).  They recorded their first single 'Straight Laddie' which was originally set to be a demo for EMI in 1978.
 The same year the band headed to Sydney where they became a major success and signed up to CBS records.
Mi- Sex gained publicity through ,Prime Minister at the time, Robert Muldoon, slapping a 40% tax on record sales and the band took the opportunity to challenge Muldoon to attend one of their concerts. He went along with his daughter who loved the band.  Burns recalls that Muldoon was very pleasant but does say he remembers seeing a newspaper article saying Muldoon thought the band were as cultural as 'Big Time Wrestling on the Mat'. 
Footnote:  Gilpin remained in Australia and while returning home from a gig in 1991 he had a serious car accident and was in a coma for a few weeks which he did not survived and died on 6th January 1992.