“Imagine a crazy cross between Dr Seuss’s Sleep Book and the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper.“ - Nick Bollinger Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of its original CD release - THE UNDERWATERMELON MAN AND OTHER UNREASONABLE RHYMES will for the first time be released digitally. It features an impressive cast of celebrated Aotearoa musicians and entertainers, including Neil Finn, Tim Finn, Chris Knox, Bic Runga, Boh Runga, Dave Dobbyn, Jenny Morris, Don McGlashan, The Topp Twins, Renee Geyer, John Clarke, Ché-Fu and King Kapisi and many more. The album began its journey in the mid 70s as a drawing of a surreal character ‘The Underwatermelon Man’ created by Fane Flaws whilst on the road with his then band Blerta. In the early 80s, pestered by one of his young children, Fane made up a rhyme for it, which was soon joined by a couple of throwaway nonsense pieces from the brilliant NZ lyricist Arthur Baysting. Over the next 15 years, Fane and Arthur developed a collection of around 50 rhymes, which Fane and composer Peter Dasent set to music. Fane then set about illustrating all of the songs. By 1998 - under the name The Bend - Peter and Fane recorded the first 25 songs as an album, featuring a ‘who’s who’ of NZ stars to sing on it. Now fans of this illustrious art project can celebrate another chapter, with the digital release of the album for the first time, including animated videos for each song also being made available on YouTube.