1983

Post-tour, Wellington’s first-generation arty post-punk nihilism (think Naked Spots Dance, the last survivor from the 1980 summer of punk) gave way to a back-to-basics rock-and-roll ethos. Bands embraced UK82 punk bands (Discharge, GBH, The Exploited) and working-class Oi! punk, feeding a growing bootboy contingent that favoured slam dancing over intellectual detachment. The scene’s new energy coalesced around Gerald Dwyer, vocalist of Flesh D-Vice, who threw himself into organising community-hall gigs, importing bands from around the country, and branding the sound “hardedge rock and roll” rather than punk. Flesh D-Vice quickly became one of Wellington’s biggest acts of the decade; in October they released their debut 12-inch recording, 12 Inches Of Hard Flesh.

The year’s centrepiece was the Easter-weekend “Golden Showers” festival (2 April) at the Newtown Community Centre – billed by Dwyer as “a new wave punk celebration pissing over the others.” Twelve bands descended on a packed hall of 600 punters. The live recording became the 1984 Jayrem compilation Capital Kaos, featuring First Fifteen, Flesh D-Vice, Afterschock, Riot 111 and others. Its artwork – a collage of punks fighting police in front of the Beehive – captured the era’s raw memory of Springbok-era disorder. The gig was infamous for regional bootboy and skinhead brawls (Auckland vs Wellington factions) and effectively ended the venue’s openness to punk shows.

Other milestones dotted the calendar. In January Dwyer co-promoted the Underground Emerges show (another multi-band punk night). April also saw the formation of Levin’s Oi! band No Idea (brothers James and Red Ingle with Nigel Cairns), who played the chaotic Force Six gig at the Rock Theatre in October alongside Flesh D-Vice, Afterschock, Desolator, and others before relocating to Christchurch and linking with the Alternative Entertainment Bureau – a socialist/ anarchist collective advocating working-class rights amid the deprivation. Unrestful Movements (Rotorua transplants now based in Wellington) dropped their second EP Q: Are You A Fireman? in May, backed by a TVNZ video for the track “Anti-Trend”; their slow, snarling, grinding punk was tailor-made for the bootboy crowd.

Post-punk holdovers persisted alongside the harder edge: Vietnam (Joy Division-esque) gigged around town, including Underground Emerges, while The Gordons returned in October for a Cuba Street ex-pool-hall bill with Vietnam and H.S. Art. Recollections from the time (including bassist Richard Watts, who briefly played in Flesh D-Vice) paint a volatile underground of warehouse parties, police scrutiny, gang tensions (Mongrel Mob threats), and bootboy subculture – DM boots, West Ham United shirts, and a love of violence that replaced the first wave’s playful anarchy.

By year’s end, Wellington’s scene had become a pressure valve for working-class frustration with Muldoon’s authoritarian grip, economic hardship, and lingering tour divisions. Fanzines like Spit On Trend and live documents such as Capital Kaos captured the moment. The raw energy and organisational drive of figures like Dwyer captured the societal frustration that would peak in the 1984 Labour landslide that would sweep Muldoon away.