Here it is…My History in the Punk Community…
I first got into punk back around 82. I’d watch Radio with Pictures on Sunday nights (Barry Jenkin, later on Karyn Hay then Dick Driver) and they’d play hard out shit like Venom, Kreator as well as, The Clash, Sex Pistols, The Damned, Siouxsie and the Banshees, No Tag, Unrestful Movements, Flesh D-Vice etc…
The way I got into punk was when one day we were walking back from soccer and one of the lads said “hey, what shall we get into?”…Someone suggested Reggae but at the time the only people really into reggae were stoners, gang members and Rastarfarians (strangely enough….). Then someone else suggested punk rock…They looked at me and I said…”yeah, sounds good to me….” and that was that. The other guys didn’t really last long at it after a year or so they turned to the Alt/ Nightclub scene but once I’d said that I’d be a punk, that was it for me. A couple of the guys ended up in the Hallelujah Picassos.
Being a punker in Whakatane in the early 80’s meant being able to run fast (cos a lot of people hated you and wanted your leather jacket), being snobbed by your relations and the usual hassles from the cops/gang members. I was into Crass, Disorder, The Exploited (we spraypainted a huge ass ‘EXPLOITED’ on the Whakatane baths wall! It must of been like 20′ long…hehehehe), Undead (the brit punk band), Dead Kennedys, The Violators, Abrasive Wheels, PTTB, Varukers, One Way System, Blitz, 4-Skins, Infa-Riot, Vice Squad and my fave, ACTION PACT. The local record store (music was on Vinyl in them days…LOL) was damn good at getting punk stuff in. I’d hit them every dole day and then I scored a job which boosted my vinyl collection and sustained my pot stash. I’d get fucked up stoned and lay on the floor with the speakers up to my ears singing my heart out to brit punk, Oi! and the Dead Kennedys! They also had a video copy of ‘The Decline of Western Civilisation’ which is a must see for anyone wanting to see American hardcore back in the day. Henry had just joined Black Flag…
My first mohawk was cut for me by the Black Power/Mangukaha (willingly! a few of my relations were members). My mom had threatened me with banishment but that urged me on even more! She turned up just after I had it done and I just smiled at her….she didn’t banish me….meh….
The first punk band I saw was The Plastic Pegs (AK) who played at the Ohope community hall (now gone). I was fucked up on straight Vodka (ahhhhh…vodka…) when the pigs showed up and closed the show down but not until the band thrashed out A.C.A.B.! Then they made people tip out their alc…bastards! I then went home, munched out, threw up on my records…..tho I didn’t realise it til the morning…
Back then there was a magazine called ‘Punk Lives!’ I’d buy two issues every month, one for posters and one to stash. That was a major impetus for me to journey to Tauranga and Rotorua to hit record shops for punk releases. We’d collect anything that was punk. Any mag that had any reference to punk, we scored it if we could. Safety pins, chains, studs, badges adorned my black clothing or bleached Levis, red braces and army jacket. Combat boots or Doc Martens were the footwear of choice. Tho I did have a pair of snazzy black and white chequered sneakers for skanking into The Specials, The Beat, Selector.
I went back to school one day to drop off my books with a mate of mine. We noticed a few of the bro’s checking us out so we started to leave, by the time we got to the school gates, there were like 20 bro’s telling us ‘Punk Sucked’ and they were gonna ‘kick our punkheads in’! I yelled out “Fuck you, you black cunts!” (hey, they started it…) then me and my buddy ran….hotly pursued by several of my relatives….Fuck them….rude bastards!…
A few HB Skins were around then (Hawkes Bay) I got on it with them a few times and they seemed like good guys. Years later, in Auckland, I found out what a buncha shits they were…
Mainly, I’d go to work (I had to wear a hat at work in case my mohawk caused the old folks to have a heart attack….grrrr), go home, get stoned, listen to music. On the weekends I’d hang around with my mate who was into SKA or my Punk bro (Punk bro had a GF tho so he was usually with her….). Sometimes we would go to metal head parties and listen to AC/DC while the bogans called us ‘brush-heads’. Then we’d go to the local church and pig out on milo and toasties, the price of which is that they would try to convert you… (didn’t fuckin work tho! HAH!)
Out of town Black Power from Ruatoki would pull up to us tell us to “COME HERE PUNK SCUM” and we’d run so fast! They had tried to run me over once so I wasn’t gonna have anything to do with them. I did have school buddies in the Junior Blacks so they would help us out with the Bogans/Bro’s/anyone if they were around so it was pretty safe between our ability to sprint and them. It wasn’t too bad apart from being called punk weirdo, cop hassles, running exercises and surfer scum…