{"id":23459,"date":"2026-04-05T08:40:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T20:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/upthepunks.co.nz\/?p=23459"},"modified":"2026-04-05T11:19:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T23:19:40","slug":"slammy-27-years-of-hell-yeah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/upthepunks.co.nz\/bands\/2026\/04\/slammy-27-years-of-hell-yeah","title":{"rendered":"Slammy: 27 Years of Hell Yeah!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here it is…My History in the Punk Community…<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

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…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n

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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…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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….<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first punk band I saw was The Plastic Pegs<\/strong> (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…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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!…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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…<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part two: Whakatane gets too small, I go to Auckland and meet some Punks<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I ended up at a BP party one night with one of my uncles and the ones that had tried to run me over were there. Declining my Uncles invitation to line-up for some girl getting ‘blocked’ (remember, this was a gang party…sick shit like that did happen and still does…). I cruised in and froze… These guys were huge, I was just a lil wee cherry punker, then my uncle* strode in (imagine a younger Jake the Mus without the bad bits…well, he liked fighting and was damn good at it….) and intro’ed me to the crew and they were “yeah we’ve seen you around, your his nephew eh?” Sweeeeettt asssssssss! plus there were a few of my cousins there that I grew up with so it was cool. I did, however, split later on when one of the Ruatoki guys decided to start petting my ‘hawk’. <\/p>\n\n\n

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I went to Sweetwaters the year that UB40, Rose Tattoo, Split Enz, No Tag played. A buddy and I hitched up but he told me to wear a hat(….) or else we wouldn’t get rides. My mom ended up driving us to Hamtown (I love my mom). We got to Huntly and started walking and walking until this van load of Shaveheads drove past and yelled out “Walk ya cunts!”. I whipped off my cap and they saw my mohawk… “Fuck, that cunts gotta mohawk! Stop!” and screeched to a halt and offered us a lift. Heh, vindication for my haircut…(not many people had mohawks or spikeheads back then). Turns out, they were mates of The Plastic Pegs! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sweetwaters was wicked (think the BDO with pot, dodgy food etc for 2-3 days). My faves were The Girls (all-female band, Kim Willoughby, Debbie Harwood? some others…) sorta NZ girlpop, No Tag (of course!) Fucking awesome!!!…and a shitload of other bands I can’t remember. UB40 were excellent (1 in 10 era stuff), Rose Tattoo weren’t bad, Split Enz, I was off drinking and cruising. We hitched back and I shot off to Gisborne for a look. My mate was off to England (he interviewed Glen Matlock while he was over there and came back with a cheesy pommie accent). Gisborne was shit (no offence…read on..)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My ride to Gizzy got busted within half an hour of us being there and I was stranded in a strange town, my clothes and ska sneakers in the damned, stolen, impounded car. Someone did ask me if ‘GBH’ stood for Gisborne Boys High. I got my gear back, the cops believing I was ‘just hitching’ and slept under a bridge that night. Bought The Clash’s ‘Combat Rock’ the next day and caught a bus back to Whakas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few younger guys from school were now into punk and we started kicking around for a few months, stealing milk from mailboxes and playing video games and checking out one of the guys hot as sisters. They headed off and hung out with some people who wanted to kick my head in a few months later…apparently I didn’t ‘talk enough’ for the new crew (bogans) and I was a ‘weirdo punk scumbag’ that if he ever shows his face in this town again etc etc(Kawerau)…well….the punk guys from Kawerau were all cool cunts (errr all two of them and one of those was a skin) tho and we kicked round a bit after that getting drunk and going to parties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By now my mate was back from England and invited me up to stay at his Moms in AK (his mom was like a second mom to us lil punks back in WHK…). I went to a wicked as party with another mate of mine living up there. It was like being at the NZ Music Awards of 1980something ( my dates are a bit fucked up….long time ago…). There were people from The Narcs, Dance Exponents, The Girls (!), and heaps of other then-at the-time-famous bands. The Singer from the Narcs asked how I spiked my hair up…..’Soap man’….I also met some people who said I could move up there and flat with them! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The week before I left AK (2 week holiday) there was a punk gig at Mainstreet. ‘Not the 78 punk show’ with people from the Instigators and some other old NZ punkers. I went but had to take my combat boots off before they would let me in…Fucking brilliant gig! I pogoed, grappled and skanked away (in my socks…) to a night of punk rock classics…I went back to WHK, informed my folks I was moving to AK. I missed the Dead Kennedys at Mainstreet….(I don’t want to talk about it….) and the week after DK’s (…) I was back in AK. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new flatties were into the nightclub scene. I had been dragged off dressed in NC clothes (with my mohawk spiked up and an indignant look on my face for looking like a trendy git…) to a few clubs. The nicest one was a club called’ the Venue’ (AA Venue) on Upper Symonds street. My pommie mate and a few others from WHK worked there and they intro’ed me to the owner, a nice guy by the name of Russ Le Roq (Russell Crowe back when he was a struggling muso\/pre actor..strange but true). He said cruise up any time and they’d let me in no matter what I was wearing! What a cool cunt! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, one of the flatties had been a punk back in ’77’ (gasp! an original…. ). We’d play cards and he’d tell me about Zwines, The Scavengers, Instigators, Proud Scum etc (AK 79 is, was and will always be a fave…except for the emo bits…)…He also told me about the High School round the corner (Metro…I lived on Grange rd. Mt Eden then) and that punks go there. So the next day I cruised round, sat down and waited til some punkers showed up. A spiky-headed chap came out for a smoke and introduced himself as Keegan and asked if I went to school there. “Nah I’m just here to meet some punks”…Hehehehe…He told me a buncha them were getting on the piss at a pub in town (Hmmmm….just off Symonds street up the hill from the square? Starts with ‘G’ maybe?…) and to show up on Friday. That place became our local. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My record collection had grown, my mohawk was a suitable length, I had scored Flesh D-Vice\u2019s \u201812 inches of Hard Flesh’ (chortle…). That record ruled! Still fuckin does…and met some punks to kick round with and a sanctuary to escape to if it all got too much. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AK to me back then was wicked! Country boy in the big smoke! I hadn’t been to Wellies yet but planned to because Flesh D-Vice came from there. But AK was full of strange sights, punk rockers and gigs! Tho most of the bands I saw were at the Venue. The Mockers I remember seeing after I’d been at the pub. I cruised upto the Venue on the way home one night and ran into Russ and a bouncer doing a sweep. He asked me if I was goin up but I wasn’t really dressed nice (LOL…bleached jeans 1″ roll-ups, red braces, combats, army jacket with an EXPLOITED backpatch) He gave me a card to give to the bouncers on the door. I went to walk in and the guy on the door was all “Sorry Bro! your not dressed for it!” I told him Russ said to give him this card, he looked at it and was all “Ooooo Sweet bro, Go on up!” The teenies round the door were stunned! A scumbag kid dressed like a post-apocalyptic, punk-mutant, Oi! rat was allowed in! HAH! Went to a coupla parties at expensive houses in the country with the Venue crew. It gets a bit hazy around this part…. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I moved to Parnell with the Crusties (Crass punks! Fellow travellers on the road to peace and tofu…) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* My Uncle OC, coupla years older than me and still a damn good dude. When we were kids he’d help us beat up the other kid gangs from across the St. Josephs Rugby Club valley in WHK…His wife is a Christian, I’d kill at her command (not that she would ask)…LOL…alright I like some Christians…<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 3: I moved to Parnell with the Crusties (Crass punks! Fellow travellers on the road to peace and tofu…) <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

My flatmates were good people (for nightclubbers…hehehe) but they never paid the rent. I had scored a job out in Ellerslie because the Dole Office wouldn’t sign me up: \u201cYou won’t get a job with a haircut like that!\u201d were their exact words (burned into my mind’s eye for eternity…). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between nightshift at the factory, fueled by packets of No-Doze and hanging out with the Metro punks, it wasn’t too bad, though I often failed to go to work cos I’d be on the piss. I was also hanging out with the Venue crew a bit and collecting records. My favourite record shop was down on Fort street and was owned by a guy called Kerry, whom I was told, used to be in a punk band circa 77. So I held him in awe. He had the shit in his store! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Metro mates were not, however, great fans of Crass label bands. ‘Fuck Crass, Special Duties rules..etc etc….I had bumped into another Metro punk called Kurtis (he’d hit me up for some cash one day to buy some cough syrup…). The landlord at Grange road had had enough so booted us out. I ran into Kurtis one night after a few beers at the Windsor Castle with my pommie mates GF (she was a nurse and everyone who met her lusted after her…) and we’d been dragged up to this seedy house for a smoke by some guy who wanted to hit on the aforementioned Nurse. I had tagged along to make sure he didn’t try anything on and it turned out to be this huge, rundown mansion on St.Georges Bay Rd. Kurtis was there and offered to repay the money he had borrowed. I said “Nah, Cool as man”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kurtis had the hugest Crass label collection I’ve ever seen…He had everything! Even down to the 7″ floppy Crass had released in some Romance magazine under an assumed name! We became mates and when we got the boot from Grange rd. he said I could crash at his place. He also corresponded with Steve Ignorant!  The Big House (as it was called) is right next door to the Rehab place and was inhabited by a motley collection of Punks, nine to fivers, sex workers and druggies. It was wicked! 20 something rooms, a huge lounge and a filthy kitchen. I had lost my job but was able to sign up on the dole now. The other punks were all cruisy as and there were even a few older punks there who were transitioning into hippies (LOL). Kurtis showed me how to screenprint patches and we set up business making patches, screenprinted bags etc. Our housemates would get pissed cos we’d steal their white sheets off the clothes line for material (never mind the shady stains…print over them). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kurtis had the weirdest pick-up line I’ve ever heard before. He’d go up to a girl and say “Hey, do you wanna fuck?!” The first time he said it I nearly choked on my beer. He assured me that it worked, “Even if I have to ask a hundred girls at least one of them will say yes…”. And it did. For a scrawny, smelly, Crasspunk he’d hook up with some total babes. I was always too shy to try it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was about this time that I ran into an ugly side of the punk scene. We were at a Mainstreet gig one night and some skins showed up. They beat up a couple of my metro mates, for as far as I could tell, simply because they could…I had always wondered about the strange look Keegan had given me one day when we had been setting up a night at the pub. I had asked him if any skins would show up to get on the piss with us and he had said “I fuckin hope not!”. Being into Oi! I couldn’t understand the division between punks and skins then (I do now, mostly it’s caused by our own miscomprehension of each other, but a lot of it is that some skins are dicks…LOL…but assholes come in all colours and genres). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was shocked. A skin I knew told me to “do nothing or I’d be next”. So we ended up bailing. Being a peace punk, I found it hard to accept why anyone would beat up someone for having a good time (I was pretty naive back then…). Even tho I had terrorised our kid gang enemies when I was little there was always a respect thing. We’d beat them up, they’d try beat us up or we’d have massive dirt-fights…hehehehehee… but this was pre-meditated. From what I later learned, most punks were open to attacks from skins, boot boys etc…As if it wasn’t bad enough with the cops, gangs in AK we had to contend with people who listened to the same shit as us out on the streets. Oh well…. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hanging out with Kurtis opened up a new world of Crass label bands. Poison Girls, Rudimentary Peni, The Mob were my faves as well as the SUBHUMANS! My clothing slowly changed from Oi! to (alright…I’ll use the word…) crust. Studded denim jacket, leopard skin covered german commando boots (with speed lacing!), bum flap and front flap (adorned with our own patches), scum-covered black Crass t-shirt (scored in WHK!) and hordes of badges, Discharge (FUCK YEAH!), Crass (of course), The Samples, Infa-Riot, Sham 69, Cockney Rejects, Cock Sparrer (alright ya can’t take the Oi! out of the boy…), Poison Girls, The Mob, Subhumans. But on the back of my jacket I had painted ‘FLESH D-VICE’ as well as \u201cATTACK\u201d… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We never had enough to eat and always seemed to be scrabbling in gutters for ciggie butts. Truly, we were crustie…we lived on soup mix and rice or chips. Drank homebrew and smoked the odd joint or two with the older hippie\/punks. I look back on that time now as one of the best in my life….Ahhhhh….little did I know something even stranger and terrifying was on the horizon…<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 4: I meet a girl<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Big House was cool as. The people were mostly laidback, tho the Clown in the bach out the back was a bit weird (he was a clown..it was his job…). Kurtis also had a wicked Alternative Tentacles collection as well so I plowed into listening to that. My fave was ‘Pepe the Sailor’. We were printing and selling patches in Cook Street market, Kerry Terrorways shop (he was always great to us!) and to our mates. We made a killing (well 110$) selling Anti-Apartheid patches at the HART marches that we stuck back into materials and a bit of food. We went on an ANZUS countermarch (we were the Anti-ANZUS side…). Only 10 or so Pro-Anzus marchers showed up to their march! Compared with the 20-25 or so Punks that showed up on our side. The cops let us march up the footpath on Queen street but kept us away from the other side by making us stop at lights. We sold patches at the Nagasaki\/Hiroshima memorial day and presented one to a survivor of Nagasaki.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We started doing fanzines (Kurtis had made a few before) called ”Blind Attack’ and another one he\u2019d done called ‘Urban Indians’. There were a number of gigs I went to featuring The Morning Horns, Dead Image (Warners). Shows at the Uni hall and I would still go to The Venue now and then. One day when I was off to pick up screen printing stuff in Newmarket I had the strange feeling people were looking at me. Everywhere I went people would look. Not the normal ‘scummy crustie’ look either. On the bus to Newmarket the person in front of me asked if this was me on the cover of the paper… Fuck me! On the front page was a piccie of me at a protest march! Eeeek! We also hung around the Unemployed Workers Rights Centre a bit and gave them some 5 day old homebrew (not yet ready but we all drank it anyway!). Some of us got the shits…some of us were constipated.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then one day Kurtis and I were sitting out on the porch, when this straight looking chap walked in and asked if there were any punks living here. Kurtis, ever the opportunist, said ‘Yeap! That\u2019s us!’ (tho I’d like to think my mohawk and Kurtis’s twin mohawks sorta gave it away) The journos name was Bruce Connew and he wanted to do an article on us. Kurtis worked out the details and even tho no money exchanged hands for the next couple of weeks Bruce followed us around taking pics and shouting us food. <\/p>\n\n\n

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He took masses of pics and gave us a stack to keep (which unfortunately are now gone). We also did an ad for Levis and an article in ‘Charlie’ magazine (:roll:) about punks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around this time I met some punks from Manurewa (Semp, who now plays in Horror Story) and some who had moved up from the Hawkes Bay and who were later to become part of the NPHC crew (Slug, Sid). Also there was Phil, who lived at the Big House. He listened to American Hardcore! (bloody weirdo). Phil and I were going into town to see the concert in the Square but once we got there and saw how many people there were we decided to flag it and go to the pub. We’d been in the pub a coupla hours when a riot erupted at the Square and quickly spread down Queen street. The pub closed the doors and wouldn’t let anyone in or out (fine by us…no cops could get in…we were underage). They also headed up our way and rioters chucked packets of liberated cigarettes thru the open windows to us as we cheered them on! They finally let us out and we lurked back to the Big House avoiding the large police presence. We got back to amped up punks wanting to go looting in Parnell, the few that were foolish enough to go got busted even tho we had told them there were masses of pigs around! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We got busted for smoking pot in the park by the Uni. The cops were scum. They told us to give us a confession now or we’ll beat one out of you at Central. I told the other guys to keep quiet. In the paddy wagon on the way to central the two cops in the back went on about how they were scoring wicked Oz’s from some guy and they were gonna get stoned as fuck after work…(tossers). Then I got kicked out of the Windsor Castle at the Unrestful Movement gig for being underage but ran into Pommie mates GF and she blew me out. Tho I never saw any bands, the cops wouldn’t let me get my money back…grrrr. Then we got busted for stealing paving stones to build a rock garden  (the cops even tried to say I was rioting, they had a pic of a guy with a mohawk with an armful of watches…I pointed out my side spikes and the pictures lack of side spikes and they let me go..). But life went on… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long after that I met Richard (original Toxic Avengers\/ Evilis) at a reggae gig in Ponsonby. Kurtis had been telling me about this girl that ‘followed him around a lot’. I nodded my head knowingly (even tho I didn’t really know WTF he was on about). Why would a girl follow you around? (As I said I was pretty naive back then). Not long after, we were at the Dept. of Labour when we bumped into two girls that knew Kurtis. Kurtis whispered that she was the girl who followed him around. I checked her out. She had blonde hair, grey eyes and a pretty face. Not long after that, Bron and her friend Tia started coming around and would sit there for ages watching us screenprint. I couldn’t figure out why the hell two pretty girls would want to watch us print. I had girl mates but usually we just got on the piss, went to gigs or hung out. Girls hanging round watching us do menial shit was weird. I had a nervous feeling all the time… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard was in a band so we’d cruise over and watch them jam in Grey Lynn (‘Dioxin OD’, Turakina street). I met a young Heath (Sausage guy) there and Colin Long. Richard would get me to drop off tapes on my way home at BFM to Neil Cartwright’s show and I wouldn’t leave til they played them. It turned out Bron was Richard’s younger sister! We started hanging round together heaps but she still made me nervous… Slug hassled me one day about her. “She likes you man! Go for it!” ….But my experience with girls was errr…minimal…  I thought at the time that GF’s took too much time and I could see if anything happened it would cut into my Punk rock career! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long after that Turakina street had a party. It was wicked! Bonfire, Alcohol, hell sounds! And I ended up in Brons bed…nothing happened, we just talked…But in the morning I was awakened by 3 mates of Brons who had been to the EGGs ball still dressed in their ball gowns. Her mates made me get up and make them a cuppa and I scrabbled around trying to find my t-shirt. I couldn’t, so quickly done a runner so they couldn’t see my nekkid chest (I abstain from public nudity if I can help it even if it’s only my chest). I’m weird like that… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was too late, I was fucked, my carefree, batchelor days were numbered… Bron would come round and we’d hang out and listen to music and talk or not talk. Then one night, she stayed and we ‘hooked up’: oops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new chapter had opened in my life…<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 5: The Streetkids vs the Punks<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

So life was a bowl of cherries, our crew had grown and our tentacles were touching parts untouched by tentacles before. About this time some Skins moved into the Big House…We were a bit worried but they turned out to be alright guys and the knock-on effect meant that other skins didn’t hassle us fuck-all anymore. We formed the St. GEORGES BAY RD.\/ PARNELL PUNKS\/YPRS (young punk rockers…tho the bastards hassled me about getting my shirt cos I was the oldest..a wizened 18!….). A very young Bartleigh (Wgtn) showed up and moved in, his stay only marred by his attempt at chopping 3 of our heads off with an axe one night…We’re still mates tho (he was up for the Gobsmackt, DIY, Nunrapers show and we yarned about the old days!)….LOL…I thank Satan that my running skills had not diminished. \\m\/…It was also around this time I met ‘Nazi Scum’! Tho he was ‘Punk Scum’ back then I guess….  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, Kurtis and I would sit outside pretending to smoke pot to bum the people at rehab out (Higher Ground is next door to the Big House). Or he’d throw tinnies filled with tea-leaves over and watch them scurry to get them. We’d creep over and liberate their milk and bread supplies before they’d get up and once I was fucked off my tree on crap pills and went over there. I thought I had been hallucinating til I realised my visions were actually drug counsellors telling me to leave or they’d call the cops. I saw ‘Death’, but I guess he didn’t see me.  Yayyyy! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Big House org.committee decided to have a show and shadily sell piss to cover the costs. Some old school punkers were living at the Big House by now and the skins had been kicked out. Tho they would come back round and steal our food supplies from the unsecured kitchen. Fuckers…. The Org. set up a few bands to play (Not the 78 Punk Show and some others?) and on the night hordes of people showed up! Us punkers were up the front slamming into the old codgers…LOL…(Slamdancing was taking over from grappling, pogoing etc…) and it was all good. A skin asked\/ informed me that “We’ve seen you round, do you wanna join our crew?”…but I refused…”Nah mate, Punk rock! cheers for asking tho…” Bron couldn’t make it to the party but it didn’t really matter. We had free piss and a cranking band. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then some old school skins tried to step out our mates on the bar for the bar takings. One of the org.crew\/ barmen got bashed so grabbed a knife and stuck the thieving bastard. That was it… party over…The cops flooded the house\/ road and chucked everyone out. Our mate who had stabbed the skin packed up and bailed for whereabouts unknown (we later heard there was a death sentence on him from some skins). He’s still alive today tho and living a fine life in…(oh no…I don’t know nothing….)! Yayyyy! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We did have a neighbour who would complain all the time that ‘your hideous music is too loud’ (tasteless bitch! Black Flag is wicked!) and would barge into our house asking for the landlord. Kurtis shot her in the ass one day with our air pistol….LOL…he’s seen her bending over in her garden and nailed her on the rather large buttcheek…A young girl we knew up the road from us hung herself. It was so sad…(I can’t remember her name but I remember her face). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there was Woodpecker…grrrrr…He hung out with us for a while but decided that we ‘sucked’ so went to live with the streetkids. I knew a few of them (they’d hit me up for 20 cents and smokes when I’d go play video games in town). But Woodpecker started spreading rumours about me and he got a few of the bigger street kids together and started beating up lil punks for there boots and belts..etc…We had to move from the Big House (the landlord wanted to ‘upgrade the tenants’..LOL…he’s alright tho…a bigwig in the medical profession now…) to a place off Symonds street near the Uni. My Metro mates informed me one night that Woodpecker and some big streetkids were out to get me, “We’ll stick by you but these guys are huge!”… thanks mate…I bought a leather jacket and started studding\/ painting it up. My musical tastes were heading towards America now but the UK music was still the foremost. The Turakina crew listened to American HC and Dioxin OD reflected Fang, Black Flag, Circle Jerk influences. One of my favourites was MDC, I painted a huge ass Foghorn Leghorn on my jacket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then one Sunday night, Bron and I were walking up Queen Street to home. When lo and behold…Woodpecker shows up. He started mouthing off that they’d ‘beaten up heapsa punks for their gears’ and ‘I’d better watch myself’. Fuck him! I duly informed him I didn’t give a rat’s ass if his street scum had beat up some punks and I was gonna kick his ass ‘right there’! (I had consoled myself that fighting was alright if you were defending yourself or your friends). He turned and pointed up the street where I saw about 6 big street kids walking down so I told Bron to bail. Her and I sloped off up the hill when they started yelling abuse at us…the usual ‘PUNKS SUCK’ and ‘WE”RE GONNA KICK YO PUNKASS’…then they started yelling they were gonna ‘GET YOUR MISSUS WHEN YOU AINT AROUND’…Right…I turned round and yelled out as loud as I could…”FUCK YOU YA FUCKING BLACK CUNTS! WHY DON’T YOU FUCK OFF TO ZIMBABWE!” (yeah, well they started it…and that’s like my favourite insult…tho I never get to yell it at anyone these days). A moment of shocked silence fell then was replaced by yells of “GET THE PUNK CUNT!” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bron and I bailed uphill, I told her to go one way and I’d lead them off the other way “Get your ass home babe and get the boys! A couple of them started running after her (she wasn’t as fit as me…LOL) and so I yelled at them “HEY FUCKERS! COME AND HAVE A GO IF YA THINK YOUR HARD ENOUGH! (LOL…I love that shit….tho at the time it was a bit ‘nerve racking’) and stood my ground. I was trying to pull a fence post out of the ground but the fact that it was attached to a fence sort of detracted from my plan. They turned from running after her and came towards me but once again my speedy running skills saved me. Seeing she was alright I legged it! We got home…everyone had gone out…bastards!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 6 : We win the war\/move to Ellerslie\/Grey Lynn <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Hawkes Bay punks we lived with were into drugs bigtime. So our intake of weed, pills, and alcohol rose accordingly. (I’ve always treated drugs more as a hobby than a lifestyle, having seen the effects on career drug-users). The HB punks introduced us to the ‘Aro Street Anarchos’ who became great mates of ours and a place of calm in a stormy sea (there is a piccie of them on the back of ‘Capitol Chaos<\/a><\/strong>‘ some of them had been in Compos Mentis<\/a><\/strong>). One night we went to a party in Mt.Eden and the HB crew got in a fight with some old school skins. Bron and I had been for a walk so missed all the action. A few days later however there was a knock on our door late at night. We opened the door to see 6 guys standing round tooled up with bats. They’d found out where the HB crew lived and were here for payback. There were only 4 of us. The usual verbal went down and after an interminable age of threat-counter-threat, Lizard (HB punk) was to fight one of their guys. Well, Lizard peeled the guy out in like 10 seconds! He could brawl! As they were leaving however, This dumbass acid-head who hung round with one of our other flatties started throwing stones at them and they turned round. We bailed inside and the fuckers took out every window in the house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next night they showed up again (this continued for a week or so…all our ‘mates’ avoided coming round at night) and hung around outside yelling “come play with some Nazi Skins!” etc…I was busy making Molotovs out of kero\/ turps and polystyrene\/ sugar while the other guys were barricading the doors. We were outnumbered and small and pooing ourselves! LOL! The HBers had split on holiday so we had to deal with their shit. In the end we got kicked out by the landlord but our connections with the skins from the Big House came thru and got the Nazi skins off our backs…Tho, for awhile there I thought we were fucked (I never got to use my Molotovs…)! Around this time I met THE OVERLORD!  when we caught the same ferry to a mutual friends party on the Shore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We pulled a hit on the Street kids. Woodpecker and his wrecking crew continued hassling punkers so one night after an alcoholic binge we jumped in a van (hmmm a White van too…) and cruised to ‘the hole in the wall’ on High street (this was a well-known SK crash zone). Lucky us! Woodpecker was there with a couple of girls. Our ‘recon team’ (hehehe) pulled me into the hole and I cornered the lil runt fueled by rage and beer (:oops:). While my metro mates flicked their lighters on for light I laid into him. He threw a couple of punches but this just fucked me off more. I shoved him up against the wall and beat the fuck out of him (a couple of the metros tried to get in on it but I told them to ‘fuck off or they’d be next’….I was pissed off). So I left him there on the ground. Someone went to boot him but I said ‘Nah, leave him alone’. The two SK girls were freaking, they must have thought they were next but I knew one of them and told them we were here just for him. We bailed…The Metros were on a high but all I felt was remorse for it all having to come to this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We cruised back to our place and I fell into Brons arms and shattered out. I thought I had gone against my Crass punk ideals, but now…well it had to be done. He had made himself our enemy and attacked my friends\/ threatened people I loved. At least I gave him the honour of a one-on -one fight which was more than he had given to others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But still the war went on. So one night myself, Lizard, Slug and a couple of others caught them just off Queen street. Lizard staunched out the biggest streetkid there and we ended up by them blowing us out and calling off hostilities (very smokum peace joint shit). Plus the fact the Skins were after them too sorta convinced the SK to pull their heads in (Woodpecker had pulled a knife on me outside of Kerry\u2019s shop, a skin girl I knew slapped him round the ears and told him \u201cI’ll kill you if you fuck with my mate\u201d.  She was big and harder than most guys!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, there were other battles. I saved a mate from a beating by a horde of Tongan Mafia by sticking my hand behind my back (pretending I had something hidden…). They were trying to scope what I had but I had my back to the wall. In the end they said \u201cWe’ll get you later” to my buddy and bailed. A couple stuck around and asked me what I had. I pulled out my empty hand and said ‘Nothing man!”, for some reason they didn’t believe me (I did, in fact, have nothing…LOL…don’t play Poker with me). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They did get him later tho, oh well… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We moved to Ellerslie and it sucked, raided by cops, too many of Bron\u2019s brother\u2019s dumbass skin mates. The place we were living in was a gang house and they didn’t like punks living there. They turned up one night tooled up with shooters but one of the flatties did jobs for them. He saved our asses with some quick talking and a deal. We moved back to the city. Much safer than the burbs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grey Lynn is nice. I liked it there. Our house was Bron and I, Emma and Mark (an AK skin and his gf who was a mate of ours), Ricketts (a mate from the big house) and Tia. Unfortunately, Mark’s mates would come round and act all tough. They stole Tias’ cat and dumped it down the road (toughies) but our reward posters did get me a lil black street kitten I later called ‘Nightmare’. He was so sick and mange-ridden, I just couldn’t send him back out to die. A friend of mine who worked at a vet done me a deal and Nightmare became my familiar! Fuck, he was cool!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 7: Skinhead rampage, we move to Christchurch<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

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<\/strong>‘ 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! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’d met Celia (KING LOSER<\/strong>) 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! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026(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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 8: Christchurch, flat, cold, cheap beer, I liked it!<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

We spent the first coupla days camped out by the Avon until the girls had found us a place to live (us males didn’t want to scare off prospective landlords). The houses were so cheap compared to AK and reasonably seedy to suit our needs. We’d met a few locals and headed off to our first gig not long after getting there. Unfortunately, one of the fuckers we invited back for an after-party stole Brons Docs. The girls sorted it out in the toilets at the next gig and all was well with the message of ‘the AK’ers are alright, don’t fuck with the females’. We’d met some Hamiltonians and hung out with them alot. But I didn’t get invited back to the local\u2019s game of D\u2019n\u2019D on account my character was ‘too damn evil’ I guess (hey! those orphanages practically burnt themselves down!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christchurch is nice and flat (unless you’re a rich cunt and live on a hill) and the bottlestore was within ‘staggering with a crate’ distance. I interviewed a couple of bands (Holocaust, I remember cos I bump into Dave Gideon usually once a year) for a zine and got the ‘Serious Talk’ from Bron’s dad. Social Welfare were bastards tho, so to get them off my back, I went to an interview at Polytech. This girl at the interview kept on hassling me to ‘have a biscuit’. After refusing several times she said ‘You’ll like it’…Sheesh alright! Give me a biscuit!…. Yay! Dope biscuit! LOL…turned out she used to live at the Big House and moved out just before I moved in! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of our mates from AK were already down there so we had a small crew and the Hamiltonians were cool dudes too (hehehe…most of our mates down there were North Islanders….the Southers seemed slightly weird to us). NO IDEA<\/a><\/strong> was down there too! There were gigs at pubs and dole day rages as well as hall shows. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Richard had come down and was being a twat. He’d ripped off the neighbours pot and was flaunting his AK Skin shirt. I’d got accepted on a course and came home one day to find Bron crying. I asked her what was up but she fled to our room…’Hmmm…must be woman stuff’… Then Richard came out of the kitchen and started going off at me accusing me of ‘mouthing off behind his back’… “Fuck you! I’ll say it to your face!”. So after the usual verbal I punched him and he fell back. Then I jumped on him and pummeled his head a few times and shouted shit at him… mainly ‘Fuck your Skins shirt! Your not in fucking AK now you bald-headed bastard!” LOL… I could possibly have been wearing my Crass t-shirt. After he left, I got pissed and he came back with a bottle of Brandy to make up….Yayyy! (Try not to brawl with your GF’s family…it’s never pretty). A coupla weeks later I was backing him up in a fight. HAHAHAHAHA <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My cat, Nightmare, was huge and evil. He could whip any cat foolish enough to cross his path and often did. If I was lucky, he’d let me watch! AUCKLAND STREETCATS AOK! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d go up to Wellington and hang out for a week with Kurtis and a buncha Wellingtonians\/ Aucklanders every now and then, getting drunk and going to ‘sly groggers’ (illegal bars usually run by a gang’s prospects) hidden in the depths of Cuba street. I met Shane (pre-tattooist days) and we sussed out our birthdays were on the same day! (He’s younger tho). We’d play ‘Russian Roulette’ with a soft airpistol I’d scored and get fucked-up…LOL One morning in CHCH I’d walked into our spare room and found a crashed out Steve Droog there! Showed him round a bit of CHCH til he found some skins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apart from that CHCH was pretty much the same as other places (slightly prettier in winter maybe…) but it was fucking cold to us Northerners (tho I prefer the cold). Tech was sweet, we’d gone on a pub crawl with only 4 out of 10 pubs letting us in (No Punks!) and a pretty good music scene. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then one night at a NO IDEA gig we got in a fight. At hall gigs, one side of the hall would be skins, the other side punks. Mark and I would wander in and say “Seeya Later!” and go off to our respective sides! I happened to be looking across and saw Mark get jumped by a couple of skins and ran over and jumped on the nearest guilty looking shavehead I saw. In no time at all a big brawl had broken out and the band had stopped with the shout of “TAKE IT OUTSIDE!” We got outside and were hanging around Mark when this Skin jumped over and clocked him with a bottle. He dropped, I grabbed the dude who’d bottled him and we lined up… when another fist hit me from the side dropping me. Next thing, two of them were kicking the crap out of me and I took a steelcap in the face (lucky I was drunkish…) ‘Hey! I thought youse were into one-on-ones! just got me kicked harder til a Hamiltonian saved me (Cheers Rob!). We bailed, my face was swollen for a week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They jumped Mark again at the Hospital…and I ran into one in town “we’ll get you, ya punk scum”.Great…A week after that we were at a party at James (No Idea\u2019s house) and the same guys were there. But they were all friendly and blew us out and got us drunk! Turns out they had heard that the AK SKINS were gonna come down…LOL…knew they were handy for something! So it was all good now. The pot was great, the gigs were brilliant, and the parties didn’t have the Riot Squad show up like in AK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 9: The Black Power pad\/ We see the Queen<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

My sister showed up in Chch and invited me to the local BP pad. I was rather reluctant to go but considering I had not seen my sister for a while I thought ‘Why the hell not?” So donning my leather and saying my farewells to the flat I headed off. I got there and some prospects asked me “Who the hell are you?!”, ” Things brother”….”Oh, she’s inside”…I wandered in and headed for a pair of bat-wing doors, pushing them open. I was confronted by about 10 large, patch members having a meeting (nearly damn pooed myself…) “Errrrrrrrrr, Hello…..”. Her BF jumped up and introduced me and led me to her room. Then after the meeting we got down to some serious debauchery! Alcohol flowed, Huge gang members gave me handfuls of pills (which you can’t reallllly refuse….) and I got fucked up big time (in a good way…not the other way). They drove me home and I dragged a mate back with me. The next morning I woke up at home with all my gear intact and a few hours missing. “Oh, the BP guys dropped you off and chucked you in bed,” Bron told me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next week the BP were all under ‘close police watch’ as they had killed someone a few days later… (That’s why I avoid gangs). But I had a good time and can’t fault them for their hospitality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Queen was visiting ChCh so we all spiked up and headed down to see her. Hordes of people were clustered around, G-men were on the roofs surrounding the Square. We held up Ricketts and the Queen saw his ‘God save the Queen’ t-shirt. She was not amused…Some skins we knew were there clapping and enjoying themselves (they were pro-queen). Can’t say I was too impressed, I thought she’d be bigger… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We moved to Buccleugh street to a wicked rundown house. Slug and Shane came down and raided building sites around the neighbourhood. They ended up building a 8′ half-pipe in our backyard! I was always an indifferent skateboarder tho (it’s pretty hard shredding in steelcaps) and used it as a slide. The Aro crew came for a visit and we played D\u2019n\u2019D and got fucked up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bron and I broke up…You get that…people grow apart, want different things…ah well. I did discover that trying to drink yourself to death didn’t work in my case cos I’d just fall over and hit my head. I did miss her spiking my hair tho (she was the greatest at spiking! Even rows that would last for days) but I’d learnt to spike my own hair in the early days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went to Wellington and when I got back my records had been ripped off again! We sussed out it was the neighbour so Richard, Sean and myself tooled up and went over to see him. Let’s just say he was ‘conducive to our argument’ and gave us pot and got me a few of my records back. More gigs at some pub whose name I cannot remember and vast amounts of alcohol. Had several fights with people one night and got my ass kicked by 2 wanna-be karate kids. So this friend of mine showed me unarmed combat techniques which actually worked! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shane and I went into business and started printing shirts for the local comic shop as well as Black Flag tees (not that there were many people into BF apart from ourselves but we’d move a few in Wellington). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was pretty down, debauchery does have its downsides. You can only drink so many buckets of ‘all-in brew’ (a hideous concoction made up of everyone’s alcohol tipped into a bucket no matter what it is) before it gets boring. So on one trip to Wellington (I was on the piss with the Droogs, we needed more alcohol, so I spent my fare back to Chch) I decided I wasn’t going back. Got Shane to sort my gear out and stayed in Wellington. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One night, coming back from the Hutt, the people I was on the piss with drove passed McD’s in the mall. I looked out and saw a shavehead getting the bash. “Stop the fucking car!” I bailed out and ran back, clocking this guy who was slamming this skin-girl, from behind (HAHA). I picked her up (she was still clutching her bottle…skills) and said ‘Gidday’. The pigs showed up, got all irate with her (she was underage) but I grabbed the bottle and claimed it as mine. The cops told us to piss off! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like Wellington. The high regard I feel for Wellies is indicated by how fucking trashed I get whenever I go there. If Wellington had a decent mountain I would move there…<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 10: Wellington…Bulls…New Plymouth (well Inglewood…)! <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As I’ve said, I like Wellington. I spent a coupla months living on couches and getting drunk with old mates of mine from AK that were living there as well as The Droogs, Aros and assorted critters. The other Wellington skins gave me the old “who the fuck are you?!” line a few times until they sussed out that I was alright (cheesy initiation bullshit). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was on the piss with a skin mate, JB, one day on Cuba street when we decided to go to the pub. Drunkenly staggering down the street, JB, pointed out two Black Power females coming towards us. “Watch yourself man, BP….” We lurched to an upright position attempting to show a bit of staunchness as we walked past them. Suddenly, one of them punched me! “Don’t you recognise your own sister! Bro!!!” Oooooooppssss… LOL….”Sorry sis  ” Apparently, she’d been in Wellington for awhile trying to meet some punks who might know me. But every time they pulled up to some, the punks would bail…I’d heard a few stories from my mates about being chased by BP. Hahahahaha…sorry people….I did hit her up for a loan and turned down her offer of a sawnoff… “nah Sis, boots and fists will do me”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day I ran into the skin girl I’d helped out. She just turned up at a place I was crashing on the floor at and walked in. “Hey! you’re that guy!”…”he’s that guy that helped me that night!”…Yayyy! Turned out they were mates of my mates from AK. We hung out in the same group for awhile and that’s when I met Lynn and Poodle. Poodle just turned up one day and asked if I wanted to go for a cruise out the Hutt with some other guy I didn’t know. The car fucked out on the M-way and we crashed the night in it….I remember thinking at the time…”Hmmmm, I’m in a fucked car with two guys I don’t know…..” The Skingirl, Kirsty, had an American flag they were gonna burn but using the fact I’d saved her ass, I demanded the flag as a reward…”Okay then, since you like that American crap you can have it”…I still have it..It’s WW2  (pre Alsaka\/ Hawaii). I tell people my Grandad wiped out a nest of American soldiers to get it….but wasn’t he on the same side I hear you cry?!)  Lynn is\/ was and will always be cool..I’m glad I saw her at Punkfest.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went to Bulls to visit some mates from Chch. We’d hang at the pub or go get drunk at parties and the rugger heads would hassle me about my haircut to impress their tarts. “D’oh! nearly spiked me in the eye!”…”get a haircut!”…nothing truly original. By now I was listening to Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Overkill, Husker Du, Day Glo Abortions as well as heaps of Brit-punk. It was a progression. I still loved the old stuff I listened to but the American HC stuff had more of an edge to it and was faster. My mohawk was reaching epic proportions and I mostly dressed in tartan bondage, black. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was, however, on my way to NP. My old crew from the Big House were living there and they’d told me to come up. Shane had secured my stuff in CHCH so I was a free spirit. I guess it was late \u201886 maybe \u201887 and so with nothing better to do, I got a ride up to Inglewood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inglewood, is a blink-and-miss-it town. Its only claim to fame was the highest murder rate per capita in NZ back then (supposedly). Slug, Sid and assorted others had set up a house on Dudley Rd. They had a half-pipe (tho by now I’d given up falling off skateboards), a couple of Vespas and the animosity of the locals. Bron and I had been to NP once before to visit Brett (Singer for Dioxin OD<\/strong> and soon to be singer for the TOXIC AVENGERS<\/strong>!). We’d seen the early incarnation of Sticky Filth with Colin Long (pre-Snowden) while we’d visited. I built a loft in the lounge (it was a step thing…you start off in the lounge and if you were lucky someone moved out and you got a room…I was in the lounge for months) and set about making my mark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I decided to organise a keg party so with the crew’s help I printed up tickets (10 bux) and sussed out some kegs from the local (which would let us buy kegs but wouldn’t let us in to drink…They didn’t like ‘individuals’. Quite a few people showed up at the first one so I started making them a weekly event. They went off! Soon all and sundry were making there way out to SRH House (Steakie Road Hogs<\/strong>…Oink Fucking Oink!!!! yes, that was our war cry…and my tattoo). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’d cruise into NP on dole day for gigs (Sticky Filth, Casualty<\/strong> mainly. I had the hell night at a hall gig with Bygone Era, Casualty, Sticky Filth, The Warners<\/strong> where I showed my dominance on the dance floor by wiping out Slug with a leg sweep avoiding his crude attempt at a body slam!) and parties and IMA HITT<\/strong> record store. I met a girl and we went out for a while (Craig knows her..LOL…I give him shit about it…’Hey do you know I used to go out with her when you were 4?’). NP then had a reasonable scene going but better things were to come. Casualty would come out to jam at our place and I started doing my crap zine ‘BLIND ATTACK’ (using the name Kurtis had come up with. I’d have competitions every issue! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mushrooms were great…We’d go out hunting for them, the first time we scored a bread bag full and showed a local punker….he tipped the lot out and gave us the handful that were actual magic mushies…ooops…thank fuck for that… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Casualty had a sXe guy who hung out with them, Greg Serious, he was the first actual edger I recall…I damned nice guy…for a straightie…but he did have access to really good American HC…Minor Threat, Youth Brigade, Agnostic Front, Corrosion of Conformity. We were listening to a lot of Suicidals as well (I met them years later…Mike Muirs a cock…)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 11: Inglewood vs. Tariki…duhn dun dunnnnnn! Trips to AK <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Some punks and skins had moved up from Wellington to Tariki (5 mins south of Inglewood). What the fuck were they doing on our turf! They didn’t even have the decency to drop in and pay homage\/ cringe in our presence! One day a lil punker showed up and told us tales of ‘humiliation and degradation’ he suffered at the hands of Poodle and his cronies. Poodle?! Poodle lives there! Yayyyy! Unfortunately, Slug and the rest of the unit wanted to go out there and pay the Tarikis a ‘visit’ (you know, a VISIT! with extreme prejudice) As they tooled up to leave they asked if I was coming… “FUCK YOU’S!” “You touch those cunts and y’all can get fucked! They’re mates of mine from Wellington and as far as i’m concerned they can do what the fuck they want! and who the fuck is this lil cunt anyway!” Needless to say Slug and the crew didn’t go out and lil punker was sent on his way to stay with some less-partisan punks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several months later, Slug came up to me at a gig at the Rising Sun (AK) and stuck a pair of Docs on the table. “Where did ya get those?” I asked…”Lil punker, I stepped him out for them” replied my buddy, Slug. “Fuck you cunt!, Take those fuckin boots back and apologise, ya fuckin asshole! We’re not fucking Skinheads or gangmembers so don’t fucking pull that ‘step-out’ shit around me!” (I was starting to get angrier as I got older). Slug duly returned the boots and avoided me for the rest of the night. I hate that shit having had it tried on me a few times when I was younger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our crew had grown, Shane had come up and joined the SRH, there was young Steve (a local lad and trainee punker), Selwyn (ex-army), Sid (Slug\u2019s bro), Slammy, Rachel, Joannne, Belinda lived not too far away and a few hangers on. The keg parties were going off but when I’d bail to AK for R’n’R they wouldn’t have them!? (How hard is it to put a skull on a piece of paper and collect 10$ off people? quite hard nowadays, granted). We’d play war in the bush (using those light beam guns) around our place and set booby-traps for each other (I found the neck height ones worked good). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had a big bash for Neil Roberts<\/strong>\/ Vickies B-day (can’t remember what year) I drove over all T-Anarchy sussing out a PA which in the end no-one knew how to use and cost someone shitloads) We’d got 6 kegs for the non-SRH and between 9 SRH’ers we got 3 kegs for ourselves…heheheheheehehehehehehehee). By the time I got back everyone was well on it and I settled in for a beer. The Toxic Avengers<\/strong> were playing and some others?:oops:…I got drunk, slammed, avoided women and had a wicked night! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had painted ‘TOXIC NPHC’ on the back of my leather and started carrying gear for them. Colin, Richard, Brett and Craig made up the Toxic Avengers<\/strong>. I called my cat ‘SLAMMY’ (after the MEATMEN song ‘Punkarama’?) and soon after called myself that as well to make it easier at dinner time not because I slam danced wickedly. The NPHC were made up of the IHC (Inglewood HC) and the Taranaki Hardcore (THC) and, of course, the New Plymouth crews (predating those stupid surfer shirts nowadays….none of us wear them). And I hate being called ‘Naki boy’…grrrrrr. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’d travel to AK to visit old mates and meet new ones at parties\/ gigs. Auckland Uni, Rising Sun, Gluepot (but I never went there, even when I lived in AK). Kurtis had changed into a Rockabilly (geeee…guess it was ‘Cosmic Radiation’…). I’d catch up with the Overlord (don’t kill me) and a lot of crusties at the Calgary Manor and stay at Amanda’s and Ajax\u2019s. At a gig at the Railway Shed (owned by some BP’s, I heard) I was approached by a skin (I’d heard about this one from my mates in AK, he was an Aussie (ewwwwwww) and had been hassling people out at a gig previously) with the words “Noice bleddy Mow-hork meaate” (my aussie accents shit…). Some band called the Hallelujah Picassos were on but I was so intent on the approaching shavehead that I didn’t recognise my old WHK buds in the band!) He went to touch my hawk and I blocked his arm “don’t fucking touch it ! Your that fucking Aussie ain’t ya?! I’ve heard of you”…. I gave him the ‘I’ve stepped in something’ glare and he nervously toddled off (if one can toddle nervously). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amped up on adrenalin I buggered off outside to have a beer and a smoke when I noticed a young punk girl crying (tadddaaaddaaa! Sir Slammy to the rescue!…crying girls and cats…gets me everytime). It was ‘Aussie Skin’. He was hassling her BF for his boots. I cruised over and said to the lil punk guy “Hey Man! How the fuck is it going!? I ain’t seen you for years!”. The lil punk guy and his GF both stared at me in puzzlement (they didn’t know me, I didn’t know them). Aussie skin looked at me. I gave him the ‘Fuck off or Die in Pain and Humiliation’ look (hmmmm and a song for NEKROTIKA me thinks!). He fucked off. “Cheers man!”…”No probs, that fuckers an asshole”. After the gig, they came up to me and said cheers again. It’s cool, just doing my job…I also changed a tire for someone that night too. Ahhhhhhhhhh\u2026Someone gave me a 750 of Tequila later on…wicked! A warm glow settled in my bones (not just tequila induced, I’ll remember that night for Eterni…Alzheimers). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around about then this friend of mine nearly got raped, I was lucky enough to get there before…lets just leave that buried… It did however get me invited to some damn fine piss-ups, a few handshakes and the ‘super’ added to the front of my name for a while. It’s not about rewards, it’s about duty though. Duty to your crew and some esoteric ideal of what is right. Maybe…I’m rambling…that memory always fucks me up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite a few people would come from around the country to hear my wisdom…(:lol:) nah just joking…to stay and we’d get on it and hunt the fungus. Skins, punks, herberts, were moving here and it was good. Lots of parties and gigs. I also got my head beaten in by this thieving fucker who stole Selwyns leather when I drunkenly challenged him to a fight. Luckily I was drunk (If I can find the photo I’ll post it). It hurt for days and my face was like 10x bigger and I couldn’t wear my mohawk up because it covered my beaten visage. Bastard…you get that sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 12: The Mushroom Ball, Colin\u2019s death<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Mushroom Ball is a bit of a legend now (that is, something that happened long ago to some old cunts…a bit like ‘Troy’). This covers them all. Organised by Wafer it brought together bands from around the country with NP bands for a night of HC\/ Punk rock and debauchery fueled by Mushrooms, booze and other substances. The substance abuse was just part of it though. It was about the bands man! And the kids! I went to all but the 1st one and the non-official one (featuring Succubus and some other cunts) out in the wops years later. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Picture Punkfest with more skinheads, punkers, metallers, freaks and HC mostly dosed up to the eyeballs on cheap, free or stolen booze and the aforementioned drugs but without the politics I guess. We’d all spike our hair up to the max and don our finest rags and head along in our groups to mingle with the out of towners and slamdance the night away to such fine sounds as The Manson Family (I’m sure they played….It’s all a bit hazy and this list is from all the Balls), Sticky Filth (of course, I knew I should have kept the posters), Toxic Avengers, Kitsch, Afterbirth, Tension, Wretched Skinny, Monkey Puzzle, Reverend Stinkfinger, Casualty, The Warners, Nefarious, Cleopatra Grip, Sadius Fiend, Goat Fucking Nun Rapers…shitloads….Fuck, I can’t really remember who played! Oh, Dead Centre and Snort played one 1 (ask ‘TFC’ who played….my brain\u2019s are not working). I do recall one I went too quite well. I was working at the time and came home to find a keg party going on and a horde of AK’ers, Wellingtonians and Hamscum boozing it up at my house. We cruised down and I dropped some mushies opposite the cop-shop then cruised in and got fucked up. That’s where that memory ends….We’d play soccer the next day, NP vs the rest of NZ and usually make a week of it getting drunk with our mates from around @-o-Terroroa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One Ball, this huge Skinhead came up to me with a shit-eating grin on his face….I thought ‘Fuck, I’m gone, he’s gonna fuck me up bigtime…but he held out his hand and said “Your Slammy?! Bron sez to say Hello!” …Farmer, he was a damn good mate of my exes. He died that night…Strange, meet some guy who knows a mate, 6 hours later he’s gone, just like that. Oi Oi Farmer! I heard they took his ashes back to Dunedin and mixed them in with a cauldron of mushies and drank them. Crazy Southers!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They was good…a fucking legend. That would have been the height of NP’s ‘power’ (guffaw) 89-93? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our keg parties continued. One day I was off to pick up the kegs in Spleens car but couldn’t fit my mohawk in, I hit the accelerator as I was trying to look over the dash, squash my ‘hawk’ in and plowed into a tree in the drive….oooopssss…a bit of rough car surgery and we were off on another night of puking punk rock\/ HC madness! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had a competition in my zine to see who had the longest mohawk in NZ, the prize being 1 dozen beers. I won! (Of course it was rigged…I didn’t know anyone else with a 13″inch mohawk) Colin\u2019s entry won the beer but he wasn’t gonna be around long enough to collect it… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dudley Road split up and we moved into NP (after having a Demo-party with the landlord’s permission…I caught on fire from a dodgy WW2 german lighter I had in my pocket…bloody krauts…and melted my flatmate’s camera that her folks had bought her for graduation… I was broke for weeks paying her back). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The locals breathed a sigh of relief once we left Inglewood. One day when we were being raided by the pigs one of the cops asked why we had moved to Inglewood and why don’t we fuck off back to the cities? Slug replied, “Nah mate, we like it here, we’re staying!”…We would of stayed just to fuck them off. They hit Dudley Rd. heaps! Hey, those bottle stores were liberated by forces unknown to us!  I lost track of how many times they raided. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By now we were drinking at The White Hart. A notorious biker pub we made it our own thru persaverance and our usual ‘fuck you’ attitude. It took us about a year before the bikers finally accepted we weren’t gonna go to another pub and stopped hassling us. The back of the Hart would be full of punkers\/ HC\/ skins from Thursday onwards (I even had a bar-tab there!) One time I heard a bigass biker handcuffed Blowfly to a bar table and kept on making him drink, the bastard wouldn’t let Blowfly go for a piss. I guess BF just pissed himself (he was a scumpunk in the finest GG Allin tradition…we’d invite him round for dinner only if he’d have a bath once he got to our place). I guess it was around 88-89 I met a young punk\/ hc kid called Nigel. He seemed pretty cool for a 15? year old dude. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One gig at the Omata Road hall turned ugly. Sticky Filth were playing for the local biker pres’s daughter’s birthday or something. The atmosphere was strange, violence was breaking out inside the hall. There were hordes of people outside just drinking but not coming in. Some girl I knew came in and said one of our mates had been beaten up. So, Richard Toxic, Craig Toxic, Colin Toxic, Shane, Slug and myself cruised out to see what was up. A mate of ours was on the ground bleeding and this Waitara Maori (there was rivalry and many fights between NP and Waitara) said “Where’s a bottle? I’m gonna bottle this cunt!” (verbatim). I said “Fuck off man, you’ve fucked him up already!” Next thing I heard was Slug yelling “What did you say about punk rockers?!”…Fuck…That was it…I yelled out to Richard to ‘grab all the punks and skins from inside’. Next thing, we were getting showered by beer bottles and running for the hall! Some Waitara scum jumped on me and I dragged him back to the hall door punching his stupid head in. As I got there, bottles flew at me and I raised my arm to cover my head. One broke on my left elbow and shattered on the leather I was wearing. I got inside and we slammed the doors (Shane was trapped outside!) Luckily, I had told the GF to go home earlier cos as we got inside some guy sucker punched Slug and dropped him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dave (old SF drummer) was yelling for everyone to ‘tool up!’ and we grabbed wine bottles, whatever was to hand and bailed out the doors yelling like banshees! Needless to say, we fucked them up big time…They started it …we finished it. Fuck em…After all the ultra-violence had gone down I knew we’d better bail before the cops arrived so gathering up some crew we left. The cops were sitting round the corner too scared to go down the street!  We got back to my GF’s and I went into the bathroom to check the damage. Blood was running down my left arm so I pulled the leather off, surprised to feel it soaked in blood! I cleaned my arm off and the Crimson shit started squirting out of my elbow! Wicked! I yelled out to Belinda to ‘check this out’ and once she saw the red she said ‘errr you better go to hospital man…” “you reckon?”…”yeah…quickly…”. Shane was injured too so we went up to the Med base where Colin was as well! Checking our wounds, we all had the same! A cut on our left elbows and a cut above our eyes!  Brotherhood! Yeeehawww! I declined anaesthetic (being drunk and adrenalined out) and watched the medic poke around fishing out bits of glass (I like gore…). Hard fuckin core! A damn good night. After that, the Waitaras left us alone pretty much. I did get busted tho for ‘Wilful Damage’ for the car we kicked in. Ah well… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One night (January 19, 1990) we were at a party in the middle of town. It was great! I had my Sapporo 3L container full of wine and all the crew was there. Someone came in and said some skins were fighting around the corner. ‘Ah, Skins, they can handle themselves…’ a couple of minutes later someone else was ‘hey, Colin’s in a fight round the corner’. Shane and I bailed as fast as we could round to Devon Street. We got there…the paramedics were trying to resuscitate Colin….next thing…the medic shook his head and got up…Colin was dead…. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We went back and broke the news to the crew…Colin was dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Colin Long, 1986. Photo: Jennie Woodford<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 13: Funeral in Hamtown…The SRH disintegrates<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The next day, we all cruised to the Hart. It came on the news on the radio that Colin had been killed the night before and we all went quiet. There must have been 20-30 of us all dressed in our usual black and leather. The barmaid asked why we were there and we told her. “Oh, I knew him, he was alright, nice and quiet most of the time”. Someone had told me the night before who had done it and the name was disseminated to the people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We cruised up to Hamtown for the funeral, hordes of us, and after the usual shit at the crem. We headed back and got on it at Colin’s olds with the people from Hamtown, Colin’s brothers and family. All the NP people looked wicked, hair all spiked or heads shaved, and we drank to our brother. Fuck, it was so hot! We headed down to the Outcasts (before they got the pad where they are now) and got drunk. That was the last day I ever spiked my mohawk up… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bikers showed up at our place in NP and gave us a day to move out (they owned it…strange thing is…bikers have come up to me recently and asked if we’ve ever had a problem and if we did, we’re sorry….LOL…respect!) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For weeks after, the guy who killed Colin, was hunted by evil as skins and HC. The place where he worked had its windows smashed every weekend. His car was vandalised. A couple of skins went to blow him away but the fucking gun jammed! In the end he left town. Supposedly, he comes back now and then, but I’ve never seen him. Shit went down about that for months. Even now his brother avoids us. Fucker…paybacks a bitch in steelcaps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My funniest memory of Colin was after a Keg party. I had crashed out in my room when this girl, Roche, came in (picture the hottest punk babe ever…well back then) and jumped into my bed (wicked!!!!!! I’m in!). Then Colin comes in and jumps into my bed too! “Fuck!” ….”you cunts can have my bed, I’m gonna crash in the lounge”. Next day, I asked Colin if he had scored… “nah, but I beat off and shot a load on her face…” was his reply….”What the fuck did she do man?!!!”…”Smiled”… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

See you in Hell, Colin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SRH had moved into town but weren’t living together. We had a place right in town and this place called the Practice Rooms was out the back of us. Casualty and a few other bands would jam there, then they started having gigs. Everyone would cruise over and hang out \u2018cos we lived right in the middle of town (in the year we were there, I think there was only one day when no-one came round!) We’d have keg parties and listen to Zodiac Mindwarp, Metallica, Slayer, Overkill, Napalm Death, DRI, Black Flag (of course!), Beastie Boys (early shit…), Death!!!!, Sticky Filth, and all the old faves…Subhumans, DK’s, Violators, Flesh D-Vice, etc… We met heaps of nurses doing their degrees (they could drink like fishes!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember seeing SHIHAD at the Practice Rooms all young and fresh-faced playing Metallica covers! They did look a bit scared…The Practice Rooms were great! All ages, BYO, a double garage with concrete walls and a toilet. I guess the cops reckoned it kept us from causing trouble elsewhere so left it alone. It was a 55 second stumble home. Sticky Filth, Das Untermensch<\/strong> (pre Tension<\/strong>), Casualty<\/strong>, The Warners<\/strong> and a lot of other bands played there…(yes, I was drunk a lot and can’t quite remember who played) I do remember waking up with puke down the back of my screenprinted Corrosion of Conformity, Suicidals army shirt. Apparently, some girl had food poisoning and I carried her out to a taxi on my shoulder. I’m glad I can’t remember her puking on me… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My hair was getting longer and I listened to lots of Slayer, Death, Mega Death, Agnostic Front, Metallica (went and saw them on the ‘In Justice ‘tour…got the poster somewhere…Simon\u2019s band played with them! Enigma….wicked). But I still listened to heaps of punk and HC (and always will…) Slug was slowly fucking out and up. Too many drugs and booze. He punched his ex out in front of us one day and we jumped him til he mellowed out (we shoulda kicked his ass…mighta saved him…ah well…who can say?). We were hanging out with more bogans and carheads but heaps of people would still come and stay. People from Dunedin, Wellington, Auckland, Hamtown, Christchurch. But the crew was changing, getting older, some were hitting the drugs hard and doing fucked up shit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona died, she was a cool as punker whose sister I went out with for awhile in NP. Burnt to death in a fire in AK. Heath had tried to save her, but it was too late. Dodger Droog and Tim Droog had died. Belinda and I went to the funeral in Palmy for Dodger. A hundred skins, nazi saluting! and two punkers (Alana and I). I was doing the SRH salute (arm raised, trigger finger cocked!) I ran into Pat from the Aro’s and we stood back from the grave and watched as drunken Skins tried to fill it with their bare hands. Someone fell in… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One night at a gig, Slug got kicked around by some bogans. We all cruised over to sort them out but I held Shane back and said “Wait on, come round the back and watch…” We watched, then when we saw some Bogans try to double-team one of our guys I yelled at Shane “C’mon! Him” We both rushed in, grabbed one of the bastards and wacked him and told him to ‘Fuck off’… Then back to wait for the next one…LOL..We won that fight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shane moved back to Wellington (taking with him my ‘Thor’ icon as a present) and I met a girl from Finland. I still travelled to AK to visit and check out gigs. The Ramonees, Warners, Migraine, Enigma and shitloads of others. But the scene was slowly changing…<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 14: I become a Roadie (a proper one..with pay! sometimes…) <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

By now all the Steakie Roadhogs had their own places but we’d still get on it together at gigs and parties. We’d tried to form an actual ‘Club’ with fees and shit to finance stuff but it had fallen thru. We did have a few hell parties tho before the collapse! Perhaps if we’d put aside our ‘personalities’ and did it for a ‘sense of cause’ rather than a ‘sense of self-importance’ it may have worked a bit better. The skinheads had formed the ‘Taranaki Skins’ and a few of the punkers had tagged along with them. We were all mates tho but I was a bit shocked that some of my old punk crew shaved their heads and jumped in. I did get a Taranaki Skins shirt for myself by asking them for one…”I’m not a skin but gizza shirt!”.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had travelled back to Whakatane for my Grandpa’s funeral. The Black Power still remembered their ‘Punk Rock’ cousin and hit me up for shrooms! Wrong season bro! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As people left for other cities and others decided hard drugs were more important than music\/ crew\/ community, I was asked by a mate of mine if I could drive them round the country. I’d met Nige not long after moving to Inglewood and we’d let him move into our flat when he’d needed a place to live. I’d seen a band called ‘Post Mortem Depression<\/strong>‘ Nige had been in and videoed them and The Toxic Avengers at a Hall gig as well as giving them some artwork for a tape they released. I’d seen ‘The Hard-Ons’ when they’d played NP and gone with Casualty<\/strong> and an Ozzie band (whose name I can’t recall..ooops) to Auckland and Hamilton as well as many other shows just as ‘travelling support’ but never as an actual roadie as such. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our trip to the 89′ Anarchist Unconvention was memorable for the fight we had with some AK Skins and a rather comfortable bed I ended up in that weekend. (I have a couple of pics but they’re hidden in my room somewhere…if I find them I’ll post them later). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Nefarious<\/strong>‘, some of y’all old cunts woulda seen them, I’m sure there’s some label that could be applied to them nowadays (cos it’s all about the labels…) but I’d call it ‘Hardcore’ with tinges of ‘Scumpunk’ thrown in. Fuck knows and who cares! Stand-out shows with Nefarious<\/strong> were, Mount Maunganui\/ Gisborne\/ Napier with Man With A Dog<\/strong>. I collected over $1100 at the door in the Mount. My camo-pants pockets were bulging with loot! Two of us would do the door, myself and Chardie (he was a skin and a damn good fighter!). I was the \u2019nice face’ he was the ‘evil face’ (sorta good-cop\/ bad-cop shit). If any crap went down Chardie would sort it out and I’d back him up (not that he really needed backing up!). The guy setting up the Gisborne show (Steve…RIP) even scored us porn to watch in the ‘Green room’:lol. I remember waking up on the floor of the room and looking up to see one of the ‘Man With A Dog<\/strong>‘ guys glued to his seat. He’d stayed up after the show and watched porn all night! I also recall wondering what a certain singer\/ bassist was doing with his rather soaked trousers that morning as well. Chard got bottled by some chick but he stood there and took it! “C’mon bitch, Do it!”…Crazy cunt! I puked helicopter styles after having 13 Tequila laybacks (1$ each!) and filled the toilet sink with tequila and free pizza. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can’t remember how long I worked with Nefarious for. I guess it was a year or two. I was at the infamous Sick Of It All show here in NP when one of them got beer poured on him. SOIA played to a crowd of NPHC at Section 8. Fuck all of us had ever heard of them, them being ‘sXe’ was looked on as a bit weird considering most of the crowd were all pissheads! The promoter had supposedly not paid Nefarious for the previous shows on the tour and Von Toxic was pissed off when he saw the fruit basket for SOIA backstage. Semp Skumhead pissed on the fruit and the guy from SOIA came back offstage and complained about the beer incident “Someone tipped beer on me!”… Boo-fucking-hoo. Von Toxic told him to ‘get his fucking ass back onstage and play or he’d kick his prima-donna ass over’. So there you have it. SOIA hate us…We don’t give a fuck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gigs at the POD, Hamtown, New Plymouth all blurred together in an alcoholic, pill-filled haze. Girls, drugs, rock’n’roll! The lack of crusties to hang around with in NP was noticeable, with most of the Tariki crew having moved back to Wellington or been assimilated into the NP scene. NP was fueled by drugs, alcohol, hardcore and punk rock. The SRH indoor soccer\/ laser strike team won a few championships. Our outdoor soccer team (with the likes of Casualty and crew, the SRH) came second in the league. Not bad for a buncha drunk, leather clad, HC\/ punk rock\/ metal heads! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was listening to more metal than punk\/ HC now but either genre was\/ is acceptable to my ears. Von Toxic, Johnny Milano (Sticky Filth\/ Tension roadie) both had \/have wicked music collections and flatting with them meant I didn’t have to buy music! I could listen to their stuff. Milano was more metal orientated, Von Toxic was more punk\/ HC\/ dark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hell Hall had come and gone. It was where Von Toxic lived with a motley crew of skins\/ HC. A big old house with a hall attached to it just 5 minutes walk from town! Many a show was had there and it did get raided quite a few times. I moved into the house at the back on Molesworth Street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 15: Molesworth street… Devils Whorehouse! Ooops..The Sticky Filth Roadie from Hel! <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Before Molesworth Street I flatted with Semp and his missus in Devonport Flats. A couple of the NPHC paid a visit to our place one night to pull a hit on Slug (whom was staying with us in our spare room, not that they told us that’s why they were there!… ‘Is Slug home?’…Yeah sure dudes, he’s out the back….”Cheers!”… fuckers…). The first thing I heard was my name being called so I ran into Slug\u2019s room, Sledge and Dean had him bailed up in the corner, Dean had an iron bar…I rarely hit my friends, in fact, never. It’s like part of the code or whatever…But this time, well, I punched Sledge and he dropped (he was fucking drunk and precariously wobbling on a mattress at the time) and pushed Dean into the corner. After that Semp ran in to help and it turned into a bullshit slanging match. I couldn’t believe these assholes would pull a hit at my place! No matter that they fucked it up as well! Sheeshh…time and place guys… It was pretty fuckin dis-illusioning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

140 Molesworth street was to become home to the core of the remaining NPHC. A seedy dive with the obligatory filthy toilet and pile of unwashed dishes, this old house would be around for 13 years or so, and home to many of the later Demon Nation<\/strong> Horde. Starting off in the smallest room there with flatmates Johnny Milano and Michelle (their must of been someone else too but fucked if I can remember…) I carried on roadieing for Nefarious as well as part time doorman at other NP gigs (Notably, Das Untermensch\/ Tension, Sticky Filth, Nefarious and the gigs they would do with visiting bands). Breaking up fights seemed to be my destiny for a while there. I guess it must be my peaceful demeanour…  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nefarious were dark, gritty, evil. I loved it! Hardcore at its sleazy, shady best! Drugs, sex, rock\u2019n\u2019roll! (hmmm or have I said that already!) The kind of music your mommy told ya to never listen to but that she wanked herself off too in the hope of a visit from the band… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Nefarious and Sticky Filth there was an exchange of members. Radford joined Nefarious for a while and became their singer and not long after that I was asked to roadie for Sticky Filth (after their roadie, Milano, had to leave). I asked Nige if it was cool (my allegiance was to Nefarious!) and he said ‘go for it’. So I became a SF Roadie! Woowoo! and also Tension roadie part-time too. Tension’s drummer, Paul, had joined the Filth (after Pete Westbury left……). Mainly, it was the usual driving, security, loader shit but drum teching as well cos Paul had a ‘rack system’ that was a bit of a bastard to set up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most people over 25 (:lol:) have heard of Sticky Filth, I guess. Noisy, melodic, punk rock with wicked lyrics and stand-out vocals. Dunno, people who listen to it know how they feel about SF. Paul, being from a metal band, had the tightest drumming I had ever seen up to that point. Apart from early Metallica and shit (but it’s not like ya can stand behind Lars’s drums and watch him…). Chris is a fuckin demon on Guitar. He does shit with his gat that sends chills and thrills up your spine! I’d often stand there wasted as and just stick my head in the stack to get the full-glory of an arpeggio (or whatever ya call them). Craigs bass playing is solider than iron and pounds away at your cerebellum and his vocals are sometimes haunting, other times, driving, daring you to get the fuck up and slam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fucking wicked…good times…. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were the SF crew. Hell, they did so many gigs back then they all seem like some crazy, roller-coaster ride in a rental van down a slippery hill to perdition. The Filth have friends everywhere, skins, punks, hardcore all listening to that distinctive sound. Drunken nights all over New Zealand, catching up with old friends for a night then blasting off to somewhere else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember Steve (Gisborne, Riverbar) giving Chris and I the left-overs of all the top shelf bottles cos I had helped him out in a small set-to. We sat up all night getting drunk as skunks before heading to Napier to play at the Shakespeare (?). The Nile River Festival (Greymouth?) where we shared our hotel with Shihad on one side and Snort on the other and getting fucked up with both bands and discovering Canturbury Ale and Old Dark. Gigs at the POD and free piss from Steve (?) and the bar. Shows with The Warners, Bad Brains, Sick of It All (haha), two shows with Suicidal Tendencies, Gobsmakt<\/a><\/strong> at the Powerstation, Flesh D-Vice<\/a><\/strong> in Wellington and the all night drinking session at Indigo (when some mates of ours were the barmen!). Strawberry Fields Festival (near Raglan) and getting cheap(ish) dozens with my band pass. The gig in Dunedin and staying at Bron\u2019s before going out to blast off rounds with assault rifles before the show. Sitting at Caffiends in Chch singing ‘Hooters’ with Richie from Hideously Disfigured<\/strong> while the SNORT<\/strong> girls laughed along with us. Searching for change in Timaru to get burgers and endless nights annoying people with my snoring (it’s a Demon…it just sounds like snoring…well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching Emily (1080) getting her nose bitten by Spence’s ferret and hassling her about turning into a ‘Were-Ferret’…Full Moon!!! Runnnnnnn! Ems is gonna changeee!. Some annoying skin in Hamilton while I was drinking with Nazi\/ punk scum that got a beatdown from Phil OC. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pakari Fests and chatting to Mark H (Demoniac, HLAH<\/strong>) about how wicked we thought Demoniac was…”Oh, it’s sorta a joke, really….” and staying up all night drinking while Ems asked me if I had had acid ..”Naw…Just Gimlet!”. Stage diving from a hundred different stages onto people I hopefully knew. Standing over Gareesh to get paid and wandering along white sand beaches in a drunken stupor telling old ex-NP people that Nivek had died. Shows with Front End Loader<\/strong> and numerous other bands. The roadies beating the band at touch and backing up Chris at the BDO when some eejit wanted to have a go. Two shows at Mountain Rock, one that got rained out so the Filth couldn’t play (while I drunkenly clung to the vans steering wheel in the mistaken belief it would sober me up while swearing to ‘never touch straight bourbon’ again…) then the other where we saw Dave Dobbyn\u2019s van get ‘shaving foamed and feathered’ by some famous NZ muso’s and Midnight Oil kicked everyone out from backstage before they played (fuckin divas!). Locking in ‘Douff’ (The NOD) at Squid cos he was in the shitter and trying to get Mikey Havoc’s keys out of the car in which he had locked them in. Missing out on Al Jorgensen’s (Ministry) big bar shout at Squid after the 96 (?) BDO…Giving Heath my Suicidals pass after the first time and him losing it a half hour later…Crashing Suicidals room cos we heard they had beer and only finding low alcohol shit. Pakari Fest where I met Mel and Pakari fest where Poodle got a beatdown while me and Chris stood their tripping when we shoulda stepped in… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Giving the Suicidals roadie shit after Pat had been caught filming them…”I’ve been to prison,… Where’s that tape!”…’Big fucking deal, dumbass’. Getting shit from the stage manager at BDO and asking “Where’s our free beer?!” after the stage was nearly invaded by Filth fans. Sitting in countless burger bars and waking up on countless floors. Carrying amps, drums, guitars all over NZ and throwing idiots off stage cos they ripped out leads. Standing around looking menacing with the Filth Crew and posing for photos with Ian Afterbirth in the Hutt at Rocky\u2019s. Drinking kegs at Hair street after Noise control had confiscated their stereo only to be shown a whole cupboard of spare stereos! Laughing at the boys after their little ‘accidents’ in the morning…(ahhhh, that’s why ya take spare pants!). The Bad Brains manager asking Chris politely not to film them and dropping his guitar cos his case was fucked…Plugging in amps and slaving them to other amps to get brutal punk rock, Climbing on stacks and taking wicked photos for Raddie’s collection. Smuggling cans of pilsener into shows on Upper Symonds street with The Warners…Wondering how the Herald could fuck up and call Sticky Filth ‘STICKY FINGERS’ after the BDO. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having Claire from Palmy refuse me entry to the Mushroom Ball cos she didn’t believe I was the Filth Roadie “Your names not on the list…”…But, I’m the Roadie!….(Spence sorted it…)…then 2 weeks later being introduced to her in AK …”This is Slammy, He’s the Filth roadie from Hell…”  Paul\u2019s second to last gig after Radford drunkenly collapsed onto his drums knocking them over and having to give people refunds. All the boys from Tension and The Filth going to Auckland to see Sepultura and Tension played with them! Pungent Stench and Tension at Section 8 and seeing Al’s black eye after the Tension\/ Pungent gig in AK and their set-to with the bouncers on Fort Street. Seeing the ‘Butter Ad’ girl wearing a SF shirt while we all had our ‘STICKY FILTH CREW’ shirts on. Being asked if I knew how to play the drums after Paul left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boots first gig and finally seeing the Filth like it was meant to be… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fuckin good times….all like a part dream\/ part nightmare now… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hell Yeah….. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memorable quotes…Some guy in Napier…”Fuck, your roadie looks like a hard cunt….” (awwww some people say the nicest things…) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris on the way to Wellington and stopped at a burger bar “Damn, Slammy looks like he wants to kill someone…” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slammy to Raddie “Hey Man, ya can’t sleep there, the bugs will crawl all over you”… <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 16: The Filth and Trying to settle down… <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Touring with the Filth was fun. We were all around the same age group and had known each other from parties and gigs for years. They had filmed part of the ‘Weep Woman, Weep’ video at Dudley Road and we’d always go to their gigs. I can’t even recall how many years I worked with them for! One day, I’ll head round to Raddies and check his photo albums…one day.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My fave places to go were The POD in AK, VALVE in Wellies, FRAMPTONS in the Mount, RIVERBAR in Gizzie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In between gigging (ligging?) with the Filth I’d get drunk and go to gigs in NP to see Nefarious, 1080, Namrepus, Wrath and whoever the fuck else was playing. I was a slamdancing, stagediving, drunken fool! Floors were wiped with my victims as I hurled myself offstage like some leather clad Angel of Death! Of course, I’d pick them up after wiping them out….These were the days of vodka and listening to Johnny Milano\u2019s metal collection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d gone to see Anthrax, Metallica (twice), Danzig, The Cure (I used to get free tickets off Wafer for driving a van load of people to gigs at the Supertop…wicked!),Sacred Reich (fucking wicked!), Sepultura (twice), Iron Maiden, Ministry, The Cult, Suicidal Tendencies (twice…still have my crew pass somewhere gave the first one to Cornbeef, which he lost…), Slayer, Bad Brains, Pearl Jam (she made me go!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d met a girl and she had a cute lil daughter which I taught to shoot, kill, hunt and fish (just joking…) but we did have fun doing family type shit and going to parks and stuff. I’d also scored a job at the Council decapitating shubbery and other small, inoffensive flora as well as planting crap. Which, like all jobs, cut into my gigging but still I soldiered on. I moved out of Molesworth and got a house with my family and attempted to settle down and do normal shit (fool that I was!). Still, The Filth were doing gigs and I was still roadie for them as well as Poodle (He is the roadie machine! He even did a course!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Domesticity does have a price. Nothing lasts forever and one day, after a couple of years, her and I split up and I waved goodbye to the kid. Her last words were ‘Slammy, I want chew to come wiff us’… ‘Can’t kiddo, seeya round ,huh?’ Ah well… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I launched myself into a debaucherous limbo of homebrew spirits and vodka, joined the NP SKINS, and vowed never to trust a female ever again! Dark, horrible days…I’d scored a part time job collecting money for a guy and he gave me some names. The first guy I ran into at a party here in NP. After telling him to ‘pay up’ he took my invitation to come outside for a chat. He came at me and got me down and pinned me! I knew I’d have to pull a cunning maneuver (it was at a party and, of course, everyone was watching!) so I flipped out of his arm lock and got on top of him and started pounding his face in. Then I gave him the VOICE…’PAY YOUR FUCKING BILLS CUNT OR I’LL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF AND PISS DOWN YOUR THROAT!”…After that, he surrendered and left, promising to pay up asap. The bouncer at the party was a mate of mine from the skins club so there was no bother there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He paid his bill and so did the other people who owed this guy money when they found out I was ‘collecting’. Not very satisfying really…I’ve never really liked fighting for money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Filth were playing gigs at biker pads a bit. The pay was good but the atmosphere at biker pads is a bit ‘tense’. Fuck being somewhere where you have to watch your back. At gigs there  are always people you know, at pads, it’s all their friends and fuck all of yours. I did go to the Outcasts when the Filth played there. A mate from the old days was pretty high up in the hierarchy and had asked if I would come along. I let it be made known to the crew that I wasn’t really into bike pads. The end was near… <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Part 17! Hospital…End of being a Filth Roadie…<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The NP SKINS consisted of the younger members of the skinhead community in NP with a couple of the older guys as the leader types. I joined by asking the two main guys who are old mates of mine. The piss-ups were damn good and apart from one or two dumbfucks, all the crew were a bunch of good guys. Plus, with me as a member, any possible neo-nazi factions were nullified to some degree (and I didn’t cut my hair off either…) Though, it did make me enemies, one in particular whom I ran into one night after consuming a vast amount of alcohol (errrr about a 750 of Jim Beam, several Goannas and some beer). This lout is a wannabe SS floozy who basically trains all the time with swords\/ martial arts etc. It was coming really, our showdown, though it would have been nicer with less alcohol in my system (though it did kill the pain while severely hampering my combat effectiveness…) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the basic insults were swapped we headed round the back for our fight and halfway thru my rhetoric he dropped me. Whampf! Didn’t feel a thing cos I was so sozzled. I woke up cursing my ass off and headed back to the gig but he had bailed. Then I noticed my ankle was all fucked up. “Fuck, broken ankle, better walk to the hospital…” Luckily one of my mates drove me up there cos in my pissed state I woulda walked the 3 miles to base. So I missed out on going to Sweetwaters with the Filth cos I was laid up in hospital. I had quite a few visitors but the meds wouldn’t let me out in time for the gig. Meh… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 3 months later, I was out of plaster and back at work. I’d met another girl (it had been a couple of years since the previous one..and I always like a break inbetween). We headed off to a Filth gig and I asked Boot if he needed a hand. “Nah, we’re doing our own roadie stuff now”. Sweet as, after the show we went back and all got drunk together but I was no longer part of the roadcrew (though, my roadie pass still works with the Filth and likewise). It was a bit depressing but hey, Shit happens, and I had other things to do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward 2-3 years of domestic bliss… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slug died in the Hawkes Bay from an overdose, he’d come to stay in NP a few times but he’d gone to the pack. Too much drugs and alcohol had turned him into a former shadow of himself. I didn’t go to his funeral, I’d rather remember him as the Punker I met years ago in AK rather than the derro he became. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She left (damn…I liked her too…) and I launched into another binge of drunkeness and hanging round with Nazi Scum and the ‘Transport Officer’ basically going to gigs at Flicks bar or the Hart to see Horror Story<\/strong> and whomever they were playing with: 7.62 Short<\/strong>, GMC<\/a><\/strong>, Release<\/strong>, Backyard Burial<\/a><\/strong>, Flesh D-Vice<\/a><\/strong>, Wrath<\/strong>, Cynical Ploy<\/strong>, Brutal Truth<\/strong> and hordes of others. Von Toxic and the boys were still living in Molesworth street and I needed a place to stay. So it was back into my old room at the ‘Mole’ where Toxic asked me if I had my drivers license (hahaha…he couldn’t recall that I used to drive them round in the Nefarious days). So I became the Horror Story roadie. I also asked Toxic if he could show me how to play bass. After a couple of jams he pronounced me ready to join a band! WTF! So NEKROTIKA<\/strong> was born (he did ask me what type of music I wanted to play…’brutal, simple death metal!’) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was good to be back roadying for a band again. I’ve always preferred lurking in the shadows rather than being in the limelight. I did\/ do indulge in a bit of bouncing at shows still, breaking up the odd fight and generally, standing round, not smiling. Poodle became the Filth roadie which was all cool cos he’s more into it than I am. Chris said to me one night at a Filth show that when I was roadie we were doing 30-40 gigs a year but that was a while ago now. I last saw Sticky Filth play at Kings Arms when we were up for Marty Fucks memorial last year and my roadie pass still worked! I lurked off to the Edens bar to see Graymalkin and Skuldom…  and when I got back SF were still playing! It’s fun being in a band (cheaper than buying a Harley…nearly…) and every once in a while I get to indulge in a bit of UV. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One night at a Horror Story show an ‘acquaintance’ from the NP SKINS showed up wearing a White Power shirt (meh). He proceeded to make an ass of himself by trying to rip off some alcohol from the bar, steal some merch and then try to step Toxic out. I stepped him out and once he’d stopped pulling my hair and trying to punch thru my arms I flipped him on his stomach and put my knee in his back. I gave him the ‘VOICE’… ‘YOU DON”T WANT TO FUCK WITH ME OR MY MATES, COS I WILL FUCKING CRUSH YOU’ and then Poodle stomped on his head (unsolicited by me….). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our crew is pretty tight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life is a circle I guess… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that’s pretty much my story…I’ve left bits out and not mentioned a few people. Brenda (cheers for the Card!), Sue, Shazza, Hannah, Rinay, Brad and Wade, All the New Plymouth Bogans and a horde of good mates that have been there. The remaining Droogs and a host of faces from over the years… I remember most of the fights cos it’s the way I am but I still recall that lil Crass punker I was\/ am….. And I’m still meeting damn fine people, Wax, The PNHC, Becs and Ronnie, Ted, Viking Dek and the Wellington Crust Horde from Punkfest last year (my first…) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All a bit of a laugh and a pint of Vodka really… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and Slammy lived happily ever after with his Sword and his collection of war stuff…. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

……………………………………Seeya’s at the Show……………………………… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

………………………………… the end….(sort of)…………………………………..<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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