Draft:Death Ray Cafe

• Comment: Probably notable, but more inline citations are needed, especially for quotations like "the next up-and-coming alternative band from Dunedin", and for biographical details on living people, such as Pine's move to diplomacy.
  Are you able to clarify if "I'm Listening to Merle Haggard Singing She Thinks I Still Care" is a Death Ray Cafe song, a Sneaky Feelings song, or just a David Pine song? The mention of former bandmate Matthew Bannister creates some ambiguity. Nil🥝 22:55, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

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@Nil NZ: Thanks for your comment. Have made substantial edits with contributions from another editor. Please let me know if you think the revised article is suitable for publication.

Death Ray Cafe were a New Zealand band formed in Dunedin in 1989, comprising Mark Brooke (guitar, vocals), David Pine (guitar, vocals), Peter Bell (bass) and Nathan McConnell (drums). Known for their quirky lyrical content and guitar-driven indie rock, they were associated with the 'Dunedin sound' movement and were active until the early 90s.

Death Ray Cafe in 1989. L-r: Mark Brooke, Pete Bell, Nathan McConnell and David Pine

They recorded one single ("I Love the News", 1990) and one album (Built on Good and Right, 1991), both on the independent label Pagan Records. They also had a track ("All Gone Crazy") on Pagan's 1989 compilation Positive Vibrations.

Hailed as "the next up-and-coming alternative band from Dunedin" in Rip It Up, they had two main song-writers in Brooke (who was also a published author) and Pine, who had been a mainstay of the critically-acclaimed Sneaky Feelings. Bell was also manager of the student radio station Radio One, which Pine co-founded, and McConnell was a political studies graduate and former member of the Dunedin bands Crystal Zoom, Love in a Gas Oven (with Ivan Purvis, Jonathan Underhill and occasional member Denise Roughan) and The Moon (with Nick Buchanan, Richard Wallis and Tony Shields).

In 1990 Death Ray Cafe had a minor hit in New Zealand with Pine's song "I Love the News", described as a "semi-novelty song" which name-checked several prominent newsreaders of the time. It was also notable for featuring The Verlaines' Graeme Downes on keyboard.

Another of their songs, also written by Pine ("I'm Listening to Merle Haggard Singing She Thinks I Still Care"), was so highly rated by former Sneaky Feelings bandmate Matthew Bannister that he chose it in 2013 as the one song he would not be embarrassed to earn royalties from for the rest of his life. Described by fan and fellow musician Alice Bulmer as "a charming, enchantingly nasty post-Dylan ballad", it was included on Death Ray Cafe's album Built on Good and Right, but never released as a single.

Following the release of the album, which did not chart, Pine shifted his focus to his studies and a career in the diplomatic service. After postings in New York, Canberra and Kuala Lumpur, he served as New Zealand Ambassador to the Philippines (2006–2008) and High Commissioner to Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam (2011–2014). He then took a break from the foreign service in favour of various industry roles before being appointed High Commissioner to India and Bangladesh and Ambassador to Nepal (2021–2024). He is currently New Zealand's High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Pine also serves on the board of the Flying Nun Foundation and is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the School of Languages, Social and Political Sciences at the University of Canterbury. He occasionally plays with a re-formed Sneaky Feelings, who released two further albums in 2017 and 2020.

Discography

• "I Love The News" (single) – 1990 (Pagan Records)
• "Built On Good And Right" (album) – 1991 (Pagan Records)