In 1999, McDonald and Sherborne moved to Wellington for university studies while Bryant left the band to pursue other opportunities.  He was soon replaced on bass by Mike Penhall, who brought more of a ska influence into the band’s sound. At the time Penhall was also playing in another punk band, Johnny Nostars, with both bands part of a vibrant fourth-wave of punk in Wellington that included Floorpie, Deaf Terrorists, Blake and Brubeck.

Channel 13 injected themselves into Wellington’s vibrant punk scene, playing at Victoria Uni Hall, Indigo, Valve and house parties, along with out of town bands like Shinkasta and Sommerset. In October 1999, they performed a set at Punkfest’s Saturday night show held at an inner city warehouse flat on Wakefield Street. The following month, C13 headed into OMW Studios in Mount Cook, recording seven tracks with Peter Jamieson as engineer. These were released as the EP, “13“, in early 2000.

A second recording session took place in 2001, this time at Marmalade Studios with the five new tracks recorded. These were released as a split EP with Christchurch ska-punk band Molly Says Go through Stake Out Records. The split release was launched with a gig at The Stomach on July 1, 2001, which also featured Molly Says Go, Mailbox Skipole and Nana Squad.

“Our mate Alastair Tye Samson was a huge part of this, he helped us put everything together and basically acted as our manager at this time. Matt Barnes from Punkas.com was also a huge help at the time, and arranged the release show gig at The Stomach in Palmy for us. As was Blair Jones from the Wellington Punk scene and NAY records.”

Mike Penhall

By 2002, Channel 13 added Anton Becic on lead guitar, but their activity slowed. Penhall was planning to travel overseas, and McDonald had begun jamming with his new project, Not Quite Right. C13 decided to call it quits and played their final show at Valve on December 18, 2002.

Mike returned to the Kapiti Coast and went on to play in The Know Nothings and The Ganomes. Dave McDonald drummed in a succession of long running bands in the Wellington scene including Not Quite Right (2001-2009), Outsiders (2008-2013), Starving Millions, and Dimestore Skanks.