Part 7: Skinhead rampage, we move to Christchurch
Oh, I forgot about one of the greatest gigs ever! The closing down of Mainstreet! It was a demo-gig and we destroyed the place! Kicked in all the toilets, some mates broke thru the wall into another bar next door and raided piss, ‘?FOG‘ played (they’re the only band I remember cos their singer was dressed as a Nun and was fucking herself with a crucifix on-stage!) It got a bit scary when some punks started prodding the lights with long pieces of wood and sparks were flying everywhere! Brilliant bands! Hell night!
We’d met Celia (KING LOSER) a few months before and she had started a Punk Nightclub! Once a fortnight the ‘Queen of Darkness’ on Fort street. would let her play Punk and HC etc and we’d cruise up and slamdance. (Pretty much hard out like it is today, but without the windmills or high-kicks. Hehehhe…more leg sweeps, body slams). But the skins found out and came and ruined it. They’d staunch out the punks for drinks (we were always broke tho…HAHA) and punch people out on the dancefloor. So that ended the Nightclub. I guess, to the skins then, we were easy meat. Being peace punks we rarely fought back (they’d find you when you were alone…reminds me of the NF). But some of the Metros’ mates fought back, Tony (he later went on to roadie for DISORDER) was a brick shithouse punker. Skins were scared of him…LOL…and a lot of punks too!
Got my nose slashed at work, I was working at the Ponsonby Community Centre (full of gang members but they liked me cos I didn’t give a fuck! and did what I wanted…) doing Maori Carving. Idiot was fucking round and hit me forcing my head down onto a chisel. I kept my mouth shut when the boss fired up at us….The French blew up the Rainbow Warrior… grrrrr
I was hanging out with the Aro Anarchos, they taught me how to play Dungeons and Dragons and they were laidback cool people (I still bump into them in Wellington sometimes). We had a fight with the new residents at the Big House over one of my Manurewa mates pissing on an old guy there while he was asleep! Bron stopped me from going back and most likely getting my ass kicked. Good fight tho….LOL…
We got a job as extras in a movie…’Queen City Rocker’…good pay…One of the guys on the cover has my jacket on. I lent it to him and he lost it…(MUTHERFUCKER!!!!). He got stepped out on K ‘Rd and handed it over…just like that…Always said he’d get me a new one…never did.
Vandal, an HB skin I knew from WHK showed up with Mark and we had a good yarn about the old days. I was off to WHK to see my folks and told him it was cool for him to crash at our place. Mark’s skin mates showed up while I was gone and wanted to borrow Emma’s car to go do burgs. Mark said ‘No’ so they attacked him, trashed our place and stole my records. (MY RECORDS!) Vandal was in on it. Bron called my folks distraught as fuck so I told her to go round to the ‘Aro boys’ house and they’d take care of her (they did…fuckin cool!). Then she rang from there and I told her to come to WHK ASAP. She did and met my olds… (I hate the ‘meet the olds shit’ especially GF’s fathers….you know…your pillaging their daughter, Daddys lil girl…that ‘where’s my shotgun’ look…creepy).
So it was all sweet. When we got back to AK, Mark had made up with his mates but that didn’t get my fuckin records back. So we decided to jump in the car and fuck off to Christchurch to live. (We’d heard there was really good pot down there and we had a mate down there too…Rita ‘SNORT’). We thought it would take us 2 weeks to get to CHCH. It took us 2 days. In Taupo we met Dodger (one of the Droogs). The car fucked out on the desert road….Clutch pin came out and we were fucked until I suggested a safety pin might hold it together. IT DID! We crashed in the car in Wellies that night and got to Chch the next day.
The girls went exploring to look at the shops (Mark and Emma, Tia, Bron and I, Nightmare and Tia’s cat went down), Mark and I went for a wander and were hailed by some punks/ skins getting pissed by the Avon. Mark looked at me “What do you reckon?”, “may as well say Gidday man….we’ll be living here!” So we cruised over and met the 5-8 punkers/skins. “Where are you guys from?”…”Auckland”…you could have heard a pin drop and I’m sure I sensed some sphincters tightening as they stepped back a bit from us….LOL….”What are you doing here?”…”Auckland sucks, we just wanna mellow out “…LOL…that was it….They opened up and offered us beer…It was all good.