Proud to be a Kiwi punk all over again

By GRAHAM REID

What to say other than it's a labour of love about something which laboured very hard to be unloveable?

We're talking here about the second edition of the fanzine Mysterex, devoted to Kiwi punk of the late-70s/early-80s, and the tie-in compilation album Move to Riot, which features 23 ear-abusing thrash punk songs by the likes of the Henchmen, Dum Dum Boys, Proud Scum and the Scavengers (who weigh in with their seminal if seldom heard Born to Bullshit).

Ah yes, this'll take some people back - back to when the hair and the songs got shorter, the pants and music tighter and information about the nascent punk scene in Britain was sporadic and confusing.

Yet despite sometimes mistaking a downpage reference in NME as Holy Writ, New Zealand developed a vibrant, sometimes violent punk scene, much of it recorded in excellent verbatim interviews in Mysterex, named for the terrific Scavengers' song of the same name.

This issue - edited again by Andrew Schmidt, and with contributions by the equally dedicated and on-the-spot Johnny Volume, Wade R Churton, Jeremy Chunn and others - gives over many pages to the emergence of Christchurch's Androidss out of various bands including the Loonies (who admit to hailing Bowie at a concert with a fascist salute, then crawling off in embarrassment when he dissed them).

There's an equally lengthy piece of the Newmatics who brought together punk, untutored ska and politics (Riot Squad), another on Brent Hayward/Shoes This High, and Mark Brooks of Christchurch's Vauxhalls who formed (loosely) the year before Dylan Taite's era-defining Sex Pistols television interview in 77.

Of equal interest is the overview of the Clash in New Zealand, where opinions from then and now vary wildly between the British band being considered "monstrous, raw and robust" or damned because "for all their rhetoric about reality and not selling out, the Clash were actually a pack of rock stars who slammed through their 'hits' at lightspeed, pulling all those 'this solo hurts me so bad down in mah soul ah gots tuh screw mah face up and stand funny while ah does it' poses".

Those who met the band - skinny white guys on speed and bad food - were unimpressed. Colin Hogg notes "talking to some of those guys almost stopped me liking their music". The admirable thing about Mysterex is that it lets all opinions, positive or otherwise, co-exist.

And there's plenty more punk stuff besides, all appropriately tossed together in a low budget cut'n'paste fanzine manner, that should engage those who were there (and say, "Yeah, Herco Pilots! I'd forgotten about them") or for D4/Datsuns fans who might want to know what mum and dad did during the First Punk Wars.

The disc, of hilariously variable sound quality, offers some rowdy clues also and will be sought out by collectors who have always wanted No Tag's Mistaken Identity, the politically inspired Riot 111 title track (there was a Springbok tour, remember), some barely audible Enemy, a couple of tracks apiece by Nocturnal Projections and Desperate Measures, and the Johnnies' quite brilliant stab at ersatz Ramones on Who Killed Johnny?

So as New Zealand music month rolls to a close here's some pause for reflection on a feisty, exciting and energetic period in our history. It certainly killed the career of pretentious art-rockers Ragnarok, anyway.

* Mysterex, $14 plus $2 p&p from Box 7127, Wellesley St PO, Auckland or contact through crawl@ihug.co.nz