Bored Games bows out

At the tail end of the 70s the Enemy played our school dance. Chris Knox was the evilest person I'd seen. I was dreading he might come off the stage and tap me on the shoulder. I thought I was punk but inside I was cowering. Thank God they only lasted two songs before school principal Dave Rathbone kicked them off.

This same Dave Rathbone walked out two years running on Bored Games' performances at the Kaikorai Valley High School talent quest. Something about it being too loud.

The first quest was our debut, 1979: I Wanna Be Your Dog and some originals like I. H. For Me (about mentally disabled workshops), Frustration (about frustration) and 15 cos all the punk bands had at least one song with numbers in it and that's what we were. ("I might not be a kid and I might not be a man, but I'm not the little fool that you think that I am, I'm 15 ... ")

We formed a small core at school amid a sea of Kiss-emblazoned satchels and fledgling Marley-ites. KVHS drew on the working-class suburbs of West Dunedin and I came from the worst of all, Brockville. All Mark 3 Zephyrs, solo mums and their snotty-nosed kids and the smell of stew at four o'clock wafting across the neighbourhood. A lower socio-economic area according to our form teacher.

Form 4K. Among my classmates were Jeff Harford, the son of a jazz pianist, Wayne Elsey, and Lesley Paris: the only other kids in my class called to the guidance counsellor time after time in our first year. Pubescent, alienated and a bit screwed up - we had the makings of a band. The conduit was the Pistols doing Pretty Vacant on TV some time in 1978. A blast of white light: exotic, primitive and powerful. It blew me away.

Lesley's neighbour, Robin Siataga, had a tape of Never Mind The Bollocks and I'd listen to it on headphones, cranked up beyond distortion, like an avalanche in my ears. I began writing songs.

The earliest incarnation of Bored Games debuted at our end-of-year 4th form camp at Tautuku. We were a cappella and had to make do with foaming toothpaste and throwing sausages at the audience. The end-of-year school mag ran a small feature entitled "Punk at KVHS" and there we were, all ratty shirts and suitably mental punk expressions. I christened myself Peter Putrid. By the time 5th form rolled around we knew we needed to play these songs.

Wayne lied, and said he knew 23 chords. He had a 10-watt amplifier and a Sid Vicious fixation. He was bassist. Jeff, pushed by his musician father, owned a drum kit so there was no doubt where he'd be. I settled for singer. I really thought I had something to say.

Guitar was hard. We didn't know anybody with either the gear or expertise until we met Gavin, who had all of the first and none of the second. Gavin couldn't actually play. One day he fluked a note and the practice crashed to a halt as we rushed to the tape recorder and sat around in utter amazement, playing that same chord over and over. My first legitimate moment in rock.

Gavin pre-empted us by leaving of his own accord, muttering something about musical differences and wanting to try new directions. Unfazed, we placed an ad in the Otago Daily Times: Wanted 15-16-year-old guitarist for original new wave band.

The next day we get a call from this kid from Opoho, a middle-class area on the opposite side of the city. Fraser Batts was a fourth former. He played guitar and his older brother was in the Same, a similarly inclined mob from Logan Park High.

We arranged a meeting for the next day. I suppose it was almost historic. Various members of the Same floated around the Batts' living room asking us about music we'd never heard of. The Stooges? The New York Dolls? They were amazed there was this other pocket of kids on the same trip.

We jammed and Fraser's mastery of the bar chord seemed virtuosic after Gavin. Only problem was he'd promised his mate Jonathon Moore he'd form a band with him. Fraser joined Bored Games on the condition Jonathon came as well.

The latter possessed a similar mastery of the bar chord and his own amp, so there never was a problem. It made our sound bigger.

That was the beginning. Two tribes from opposite sides of the city interlocked, bringing together the 20 or so kids who made up the town's original young punk scene.

We married into the Same's scene, attending each other's practices, stealing each other's girlfriends, sharing cheap liquor in the town churchyards, graffiti-ing our band names on dairy walls ...

Bored Games began building a set. Punk was perfect because all we had was the bar chord, two or three notes, and an attitude that took care of the rest. We started frequenting Roy Colbert's secondhand record store in Stuart St. He was like some musical guru who, impressively, counted the Enemy as friends.

This was compensation for his thoroughly unpunk beard. Roy gave me tapes of the Enemy. We began covering Pull Down The Shades and would perform it later, supporting Toy Love, announcing the song as our own.

At our debut at the talent quest we played five songs and mostly confused the auditorium chockablock with mums and dads. I ripped up my sister's teddy bear and David Rathbone walked out. My mum thought it rocked. There were letters to the school newspaper complaining about Rathbone's attitude, as well as the more predictable tirades against punks and their awful music.

Our second gig was the Toy Love support at the Concert Chamber. They thought we were hilarious.

We began organising our own gigs in suburban community halls - 200 or 300 real young kids somehow cottoned on - and rehearsed in the basement of a flat in London St where some older kids lived. We'd practise and party and make out. That's where I first met the Clean. Eventually we started doing shows with them at the Coronation Hall in Maori Hill. We were too young to play the pubs, and besides, Fraser's dad wouldn't allow it.

The Knobz played a lunchtime concert at school. They covered the Members' Solitary Confinement and dedicated it to Bored Games. We were unmoved, we thought they were fakes.

Getting paid was a problem. In our two and a half years together we played 24 gigs and were paid maybe three times.

Our sole appearance in a hotel came in the Battle of the Bands at the Shoreline in South Dunedin. We were up against some pub rock band and the event was decided on audience vote. We won and the other band couldn't believe they'd been upstaged by these little shits who could hardly play.

Their guitarist wanted to beat me up. He said he was a professional musician and had played in the North Island. We won but weren't invited back. Some quirk in the voting system.

By 1980, we had about 20 songs. There were ill-fated recording attempts. One session, this blind guy brought his four-track to record us at the Batts' house. Mr Batts asked the guy if he needed more light.

The recordings weren't a success. There were demos done at the folk club in Carroll St. Maybe we did them for Mike Chunn who was running CBS in Auckland. He asked us for a demo but never bothered replying after we sent the tape. He signed Dance Exponents instead.

By 1980/81, the music was changing. We played gigs with the Clean and they were taking their sound somewhere else - more psychedelic and sprawling. The Same split and Martin Phillipps began playing with Peter Gutteridge. The Chills. They were different. Songwriterly.

Wayne was getting tired of Bored Games. He left to form the Stones with Jeff Batts and Graham Anderson. We brought in Terry Moore. At 19, he was the old man of the band but an excellent player and made us more ... professional. He debuted with us at our second triumphant appearance at the KVHS talent quest. Dave Rathbone walked out again, but we won and got $100.

By this stage we were doing the tunes that eventually ended up on our EP Who Killed Colonel Mustard, recorded after we broke up. It's good to have the document but the record was slicker and more new wave than Bored Games had been.

It was produced by this guy who'd been a transvestite. A week out from an op to have the chop, he reneged, turned to God and got married. He was pretty Christian by the time he got to us but liked the tunes. We made the record in a matter of hours.

In 1981, Bored Games were on their last legs. Washed up at 17. The music was changing. It was the beginning of the - shudder - "Dunedin Sound".

In 1982, the back cover of Who Killed Colonel Mustard had some allusion to Martin Phillipps weaseling into band affairs. Bored Games fell to bits when Terry and Fraser were recruited as Chills' bassist and keyboardist. I couldn't blame them. I retired to my bedroom and practised feedback for six months. Wayne and I would form the Doublehappys.

Bored Games' final gig: the Roxy Roller skating rink. Us in the middle as skaters fell about around us. My 8-year-old sister sang the chorus to Pull Down The Shades with me. We were given $200. It was our biggest ever payday.

* Edited with Shayne Carter's permission from the fanzine Mysterex, available through Real Groovy, $8