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| Standing (from left: Gary Hunt, Dave McLean, Dean Martelli, Roland Kileen, an unknown, Graham Snell, Mike Dooley, Alec Bathgate, an unknown, Chris Orange, Paul Robinson, a member of Dave McLean's band, an unknown and Steve Roach. Seated: Kerry Buchanan, Jimmy Jurucevich, drummer for Dave M's band, Chris Knox, Paul Kean, Jane Walker, another member of Dave M's band, Pete Mesmer, John No-one |
Moments like these: NZ Musician October/November 2005 (Vol:12, No:5). Author: Kerry Buchanan (photo by Murray Cammick). Moments Like These is curated by Trevor Reekie
Kerry Buchanan has been a fixture at Real Groovy Records in Auckland for a long time. He has more tattoos than Fletcher Christian and is a writer of considerable merit. A musicologist and a musician, he has destroyed many a drum kit playing in bands (Rooter and the Terrorways) that were punk nightmares with attitudes ...
Can you remember when and who took this photo?
Murray Cammick, then editor of Rip it Up, took this shot of the incipient punk community. He took a chance and put it on the cover of the magazine, which I think appeared in mid 1979. We were all rather excited by this media exposure - despite being cynical aviators of this punk shit we enjoyed being 'rock performers'. Sorta like Dragon without the afros and encroaching substance problems.
Where was it taken and what were you up to in those days?
We are all slouched in front of the water reservoir on the corner of Auckland's Karangahape Road and Ponsonby Road. At this stage the band I was in had changed name from the delightful Kiwi expression 'Rooter' to the more social consciousness orientated 'Terrorways'. We were influenced by the trash lumpen proletarian skinhead novels of this Allen dude and were betwixt a fashion overall. Why I'm wearing a white tennis outfit totally evades me - punk rock was so confusing!
What was your relationship to the others?
Band members here include big John No-One sitting on the far right, behind him my good friend Peter Hoffman and standing above me young Englishman Dean Martinelli. Merging in the background is the unusual Chris Orange. The rest of this motley crew include people from such acts as Johnny & The Hookers. Big Dave McLean was an icon for sure. Also there is Gary Havoc and the Hurricanes, another r'n'b based combo. Gary Hunt on the far left was their drummer and then in the Terrorways after I departed.
Hanging around are several members of Sheerlux/Stimulators who had this chip on their shoulder in that they felt they could play much better than us and had aspirations for mainstream success, which briefly they did. However I think they already felt discarded by cultural history - they were musicians, we were working class fuck-ups making noise.
We got the 'historical and cultural' attention and they got a brief look at the mainstream as it meandered away from them. Last bunch were Toy Love/Enemy with Chris Knox mugging away in the centre. Jane, Paul and Mike Dooley are lurking within.
What are you doing now?
I'm pretty much a part time professional writer doing editorial work on Groove Guide and articles for several music or cultural publications, as well as working on the 'great New Zealand working class novel'. I have been working in music retailing most of my life.
Recollections of the times...
Well it was all new and exciting - we were fighting a war. The punk wars burnt brightly then the flame slowly dimmed. All those things we held dear have become trampled and tarnished. Punk is another commodity in the social construct of the capitalistic mode of production. Back then punk wasn't a product but a wedge inserting itself into the soft underbelly of the rotting corpse of 'rock'. Of course the 'corpse' got right back up and spat us out. Musically and socially it was all chaos, lots of drinking, lots of drugs, lots of fighting, just one big mess of a time.
Would you do it differently?
Hell no! Then again I was just finishing a M.A in politics and my future was to be academic. I threw that away for a life of dissipation and indolence and absolutely no money. Punk both enriched my life and destroyed a lot of it.
How different are you from then?
Physically I look completely different as I am covered in tattoos from the neck down. Mentally and emotionally I'm still that state house kid kicking, as Samuel Beckett called it, 'against the pricks'. I'm still a politically charged punk and have even more extreme concepts and desires. You can take the boy outta the state house, but you can't take the state house outta the boy. Musically I'm the same - hip hop, gangsta rap, funk and electronic beats float by me - all these forms I relate to the punk ethos. I still dig hardcore and rate The Bleeders as one of the best around at the moment.
What's on your playlist?
Many things, nearly all hip hop or funk related. Digging the new Ry Cooder for its politics and intellectual sensitivity, I always play Frank Sinatra, in particular the suicidal reveries of his drinking and depression songs, and lots of old school r'n'b from the '50s. As well as free jazz and loud discordant classical music. Music means everything.
Kerry Buchanan has been a fixture at Real Groovy Records in Auckland for a long time. He has more tattoos than Fletcher Christian and is a writer of considerable merit. A musicologist and a musician, he has destroyed many a drum kit playing in bands (Rooter and the Terrorways) that were punk nightmares with attitudes ...
Can you remember when and who took this photo?
Murray Cammick, then editor of Rip it Up, took this shot of the incipient punk community. He took a chance and put it on the cover of the magazine, which I think appeared in mid 1979. We were all rather excited by this media exposure - despite being cynical aviators of this punk shit we enjoyed being 'rock performers'. Sorta like Dragon without the afros and encroaching substance problems.
Where was it taken and what were you up to in those days?
We are all slouched in front of the water reservoir on the corner of Auckland's Karangahape Road and Ponsonby Road. At this stage the band I was in had changed name from the delightful Kiwi expression 'Rooter' to the more social consciousness orientated 'Terrorways'. We were influenced by the trash lumpen proletarian skinhead novels of this Allen dude and were betwixt a fashion overall. Why I'm wearing a white tennis outfit totally evades me - punk rock was so confusing!
What was your relationship to the others?
Band members here include big John No-One sitting on the far right, behind him my good friend Peter Hoffman and standing above me young Englishman Dean Martinelli. Merging in the background is the unusual Chris Orange. The rest of this motley crew include people from such acts as Johnny & The Hookers. Big Dave McLean was an icon for sure. Also there is Gary Havoc and the Hurricanes, another r'n'b based combo. Gary Hunt on the far left was their drummer and then in the Terrorways after I departed.
Hanging around are several members of Sheerlux/Stimulators who had this chip on their shoulder in that they felt they could play much better than us and had aspirations for mainstream success, which briefly they did. However I think they already felt discarded by cultural history - they were musicians, we were working class fuck-ups making noise.
We got the 'historical and cultural' attention and they got a brief look at the mainstream as it meandered away from them. Last bunch were Toy Love/Enemy with Chris Knox mugging away in the centre. Jane, Paul and Mike Dooley are lurking within.
What are you doing now?
I'm pretty much a part time professional writer doing editorial work on Groove Guide and articles for several music or cultural publications, as well as working on the 'great New Zealand working class novel'. I have been working in music retailing most of my life.
Recollections of the times...
Well it was all new and exciting - we were fighting a war. The punk wars burnt brightly then the flame slowly dimmed. All those things we held dear have become trampled and tarnished. Punk is another commodity in the social construct of the capitalistic mode of production. Back then punk wasn't a product but a wedge inserting itself into the soft underbelly of the rotting corpse of 'rock'. Of course the 'corpse' got right back up and spat us out. Musically and socially it was all chaos, lots of drinking, lots of drugs, lots of fighting, just one big mess of a time.
Would you do it differently?
Hell no! Then again I was just finishing a M.A in politics and my future was to be academic. I threw that away for a life of dissipation and indolence and absolutely no money. Punk both enriched my life and destroyed a lot of it.
How different are you from then?
Physically I look completely different as I am covered in tattoos from the neck down. Mentally and emotionally I'm still that state house kid kicking, as Samuel Beckett called it, 'against the pricks'. I'm still a politically charged punk and have even more extreme concepts and desires. You can take the boy outta the state house, but you can't take the state house outta the boy. Musically I'm the same - hip hop, gangsta rap, funk and electronic beats float by me - all these forms I relate to the punk ethos. I still dig hardcore and rate The Bleeders as one of the best around at the moment.
What's on your playlist?
Many things, nearly all hip hop or funk related. Digging the new Ry Cooder for its politics and intellectual sensitivity, I always play Frank Sinatra, in particular the suicidal reveries of his drinking and depression songs, and lots of old school r'n'b from the '50s. As well as free jazz and loud discordant classical music. Music means everything.
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