1990 – UP THE PUNKS

In 1990, the Wellington punk scene was notably subdued- a quiet year that echoed the broader cultural flatness of the city’s ill-fated Sesquicentennial celebrations. The wider social backdrop was grim. New Zealand was still reeling from the 1987 stock-market crash and the ensuing recession, with unemployment climbing sharply. After the National Party won the October 1990 election, Finance Minister Ruth Richardson quickly signalled an austerity drive that targeted beneficiaries and welfare spending – the opening moves toward the infamous 1991 “Mother of All Budgets” and the era later dubbed “Ruthanasia.”

Despite the quiet atmosphere, a handful of Wellington acts still delivered. Skapa launched the year with their “Skank Till You’re Blind Tour,” hitting university orientation gigs before releasing their debut EP Skaparty in August and throwing a 2-Tone night at the B.N.U. Clubrooms in Brooklyn. T.A.B. unleashed their 12-inch, The Argumentative Bastards, at a riotous launch at The Carpark on 21 June. Flesh D-Vice, stalwarts of the capital’s punk/ rock scene since the early 1980s, dropped their 10-inch EP All My Sins (Remembered) with a release show at Cuba Street’s Rocky’s on 23 March; frontman Gerald Dwyer was also busy managing the rising young metal band Shihad. Vas Deferens kept gigging around town, while the long-running zine Anti-System rebranded as Social Dis-Ease and put out an October issue packed with coverage of Animal Liberation Front actions nationwide.

The year closed on a high note when Flesh D-Vice played New Year’s Eve at the New Carpark alongside Toy Love legend Chris Knox. By comparison, Auckland’s scene was buzzing with bands like Bygone Era, Salad Daze, Heathen Filth, Fed Up, and Migraine, while a tragic note from further afield – Colin Long of New Plymouth’s Toxic Avengers killed in a street fight with skinheads – served as a reminder of the violence that still shadowed the wider punk world.