Tag: DIY punk

Fuck, that was cool! – 20th November 2004

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment


fbi interview with nick findlay

had to stir the band at 9am otherwise, they would’ve slept all day. after some pumpkin gnocchi breakfast koji and i played some soccer at the park while the others got ready. packed the car, dropped off the gear at the bowlers club, made a quick appearance at paint it black record store in newtown. the band are all keen to hear new australian music.

had a successful interview at fbi despite all our nerves and excitement. much kudos to nick who was very professional despite a crushed vertebrae. another quick look around red eye records and it was off to lunch and an interview for japanese newpaper info-m. the band is tired so we head up to the bowlers club where they all fall asleep on chairs as the sound guys work around them.


bowlers club with la huva, love of diagrams, youth group

just got the soundchecks finished in time – the sound guys aren’t too sure what to make of limited express (has gone?) but i know what’s coming. many introductions and friends were made with the other bands and with about 50 curious people through the door yukari, koji and jj ripped the place apart with their huge grins and bouncy theatrics.

must say many thanks to tim from la huva for coming to the rescue when jj broke a string and tim loaned his guitar for the final two songs.

so 30 minutes after the start of the samurai-koala show and there seemed to be 50 new fans all eager to talk to the band and purchase cds. yukari slept through some of la huva’s set – they were certainly different after limited express (has gone?) but had some really nice pop songs that everyone enjoyed. can’t stress enough – la huva are cool people.

had to pack up a lot of stuff and only managed to catch a few songs of love of diagrams whose music is as good as ever. we hope we can catch youth group another day.

koji “i was a little nervous because it was the first show but i enjoyed it very much”

jj “yeah – i was very nervous – we hadn’t played a show for one month until now. i was happy many people enjoyed our show”
yukari “i was so glad to see everyone’s smiling face”


maggotville show with pure evil trio and many other dj’s and bands

wow – now this place is cool – a warehouse location with a great diy feel, drunk punks and dogs running around and all. after grooving to misanthrope everyone got setup and the room started to fill – it was party time. champagne was served and the audience popped poppers (among other things i’m sure) and the balloons started flying.

with a much more intimate environment the bands grins were reflected right back at them and it was a joyous occasion for all. jj jumped straight on to the speakers and urged the audience on and surely, halfway through some drunk punks decided to join in during stop-go and even picking up the bass during tiger rock (and doing quite well at that!).

again many friends and fans were made. we all hung around to check out pure evil which all the band enjoyed for various reasons – yukari scoring a free album after smiling sweetly at pure evil’s bass player.

finally, at 2.15 am, it was time to head back for some food, some ping pong club and maybe even some sleep.

jj “the australian audience has a great reaction – i like the australian underground scene”

koji “i was a little scared of the punk crowd but they were cool”

yukari “when the guy got on stage and picked up my bass i felt it was great to have this kind of interaction and participation”

christine (new fan): “fuck that was cool!”

Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll #156 All Australian Special – 1st May 1996

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ 1 Comment

Arriving in Sydney, Australia I soon made it an objective to find the punk scene here. I found the record stores, the pub venues and slowly fell in with those making it happen. It wasn’t exactly the same as I was used to in Southampton but close enough.
One of the first people I was introduced to was Sean No Deal (his record label was called No Deal) and Bronwyn and I hung out with him, his girlfriend and friends around Newtown sometimes. Everyone was friendly but obviously, I was the outsider and it wasn’t easy to break into this group’s inner circle.
Coming from cold England where we kept ourselves busy doing things so as to stay warm I sometimes found the laid-back attitude of Australians a little frustrating. I thought I could take advantage of this and get involved somehow in making things happen a little quicker. I just had to figure out a way.
I’d already been up on the Central Coast and got into DJing on the local license-seeking PCR-FM where I played the most out-there music that I could find. I’d also stumbled upon the folks behind Phlegm and the soon-to-be-launched What Is Music? Festival.
In hardcore punk terms though, Sean seemed to be the one guy everyone told me to talk to and after doing so I found out that he’s pitched to Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll about doing an All Australian issue of the fanzine and had already started work on it. Awesome – that sounded like something I could really help out with. I threw around some ideas which were agreeable – ie – go for your life!
In keeping Sean up to date with my ideas I asked for all the contacts he had around the country and then to see what he’d done so far so that I didn’t double up. This is when I found out that next to fuck-all had been done so far and some of that was already out of date. It surprises me that Australians ever get anything done sometimes but that’s also one of the things to love about their laid-back attitude.
I took everything Sean had and decided now was the time to throw myself into something. Bronwyn and I were back in Sydney from the Central Coast, with a baby on the way and me just starting my career in IT. I needed to get this done before the baby was born and do it I did.
About four months after sending off a package of papers, pictures and floppy disks a free copy of the fanzine arrived in our mail and I was quite proud of what I’d managed to achieve in such a short time.
In the end, there were many other contributors who provided scene reports, interviews and information and I was really just the focal point to bring it all together to make it happen.
I’ll add some posts here with some of the interviews I did and the whole magazine is available at archive.org.

Proud to be alongside these legends. In the following decade, I would also meet Mykel Board and Adrienne Droogas along with Lawrence Livermore again.

The one thing that got pulled from being printed was an interview with Oren Ambarchi and Phlegm and the What Is Music? Festival, which is a shame because that was what I was most interested in at the time.

Huggy Bear, Bob Tilton, Thirst!, Persecution Complex – Joiners, Southampton, Hampshire, UK – 13th August 1994

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From Rich Levine’s encyclopedic memory banks:

“Another landmark & eventful gig for us! One evening I took a phone call from a bloke called Stuart asking us about a Joiners gig for HUGGY BEAR! Now as this was not too long after the height of the Riot Grrl media exposure & HUGGY BEAR had made a high-profile appearance on ‘The Word’ (Channel 4’s then flagship music show) my initial reaction was to suggest that he spoke to Mint about doing a Next Big Thing gig but Stuart was adamant that they wanted to play a D.I.Y. gig & that he knew all about the S.T.E.
When I met Stuart at the gig it turned out we recognised each other from London gigs & he was a friend of Sean from WAT TYLER! So we did the gig & there were no problems at all with how things worked – as per our usual way of working there was no contract or guarantee.
There were a couple of surprises though – the first was that a band from Plymouth called PERSECUTION COMPLEX turned up & ended up playing. The second was that Graham Coxon from BLUR was going out with one of HUGGY BEAR then & he accompanied his girlfriend to The Joiners.
Afterwards, when he heard that Coxon had been in attendance, Rob Turl exclaimed that he would have decked him if he’d known! 😉
THIRST! opened & their ‘Friend’ 7″ was out at this point (the very first SD Records release).
This was also the start of a long & wonderful friendship with the guys from TRAVIS CUT (Chris Evans, Mac Cut McDonald). We’d met them at a JAWBOX gig in their Harlow hometown earlier in the year & got in touch, loved their debut ‘Waking Hours’ 7″ & when Nottingham’s BOB TILTON, who were originally billed couldn’t do it (we’d have to wait for their first S.T.E. gig), they were an obvious replacement.
Afterwards TRAVIS CUT stayed at Jonny, Selina & Dave’s house in Maybush, me & Rob joined them & it was a wonderful evening.
The next day, just as TRAVIS CUT drove home to Harlow, a beautiful cat turned up almost as if he’d jumped out of their van. He stuck around & it seemed inevitable to call him Travis (Cat). I immediately struck up an affinity with Travis & a year later when Jon & Selina moved to a house where they couldn’t have cats, Travis moved in with me & lived with me for the next 14 years of his long life until his passing in 2009. R.I.P. Travis.
Sadly, Stuart the guy who booked the HUGGY BEAR date passed away some years back too.
The flyer backdrop photo was of a Japanese or Korean musician that I again purloined from The Observer or Guardian newspaper.”

5th Jan 2024 – I was selling off my records at the back of the room throughout this show and though I remember little of the supports, I was really into Huggy Bear’s music but at one point their hyperbole made me wonder what their point was as it was a little lost in the mess of noise coming from the stage. From the back of the room, I shouted out ‘Who are you and why am I here?’ to which Bronwyn shushed me. I thought it was quite a valid sentiment though not sure if anyone was paying attention really. And it really didn’t stop me from enjoying them at all.

STE Bulletin – 2nd July 1994

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Shaun’s Show

The last 2 S.T.E. gigs at the Joiners have really impressed me and I don’t just mean band/music-wise. Being a long-time friend of the S.T.E. Collective, I feel reasonably comfortable at the gigs and the Joiners where most have been in the last 4 years and I guess I know pretty well what to expect.

Over the time, one gig sticks out as being particularly good and that was seeing Green Day play around the time of Rich’s birthday. Green Day, as you probably well know, are good fun blokes and raised many a moshing smile that night, dragging Rich on-stage for a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ amongst other mad moments.

I got to meet and talk to Larry Livermore which was way cool and everyone there was smiling and talking to each other and having fun. There was a sense of achievement and a spirit of one-ness (Rob thinks he’s got the monopoly on taking hippy shit!). Fuck, you know what I mean, don’t you?

Anyway, I got that feeling again last week, while seeing Thirst/The Harries/Rhythm Collision. I was stuck most of the night behind the record stall but it gave me a great vantage point to look and watch everyone and get a good feel of the atmosphere. It was good to see many happy faces and excellent to see new ones (and Rocket From The Crypt t-shirts!) and girls too seem to be coming forward more and more into the gigs, which is great. Gigs can still seem intimidating sometimes.

Thirst played a good set, getting better all the time and always getting a reaction one way or another from the crowd! Both The Harries and Rhythm Collision play music that’s not really to my taste (I don’t like Green Day much either) but it’s got that foot-tapping happy tone to it, that makes you feel good inside. 

Many people hung around afterwards and chatted to the bands and with friends and as I was talking to Rhythm Collision’s guitarist, it suddenly struck me that what’s going on here is bigger than all of us (though made up by us).

There I was talking to a complete stranger about my forthcoming trip to Oz and finding out we both have a mutual friend there. I’ve heard it said that hardcore is the second biggest underground organisation in the world (next to the Mafia!). Who knows if that’s true but it seemed cool to me that I have friends all around the world, who I’ve never spoken to, written to or even met yet. The main thing that draws us together being music (and sometimes politics).

The second gig – Thirst/Zimmer Frames/Bedlam Hour – proved even more so, the trust and respect that us punks give and take from each other. Bedlam Hour toured without any equipment (relying on being able to use other bands’ when they got to the gig) and organised their whole European tour themselves from names and addresses in ‘Book Your Own Fuckin’ Life’ magazine.

Here they were in Southampton, thousands of miles from home, welcomed into our friendly atmosphere. They were the most friendly, admirable people you could ever wish to meet.

The one thing that got the crowd going being a magnificent rendition of Minor Threat’s ‘In My Eyes’ sung by Queer Rob. From then on, everyone was convinced. I saw guys at the bar looking on, thinking ‘Who the hell is this band?’, who were now jumping up and down and sideways, with their pals.

Girls not sure about the huge bulldozer bass player with udders were now laughing along at the absurd fun everyone was having.

Note should be made of Queer Rob’s Art Deco dancing (too much Big Breakfast methinks!) to Thirst and The Zimmer Frames great sets.

These gigs were certainly events to be proud of and now let’s look forward to the next gig and all those to come in the future. Sharing our music, our friendship, proud in the knowledge we are part of something bigger and that we are making a difference.

It’s going to be a fine night tonight, it’s going to be a fine day tomorrow – look at the sky – 19th May 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Yum yum yum – life’s here for eating up. Not that I’d lost any faith in people but had I done so it would’ve been restored by last night’s events. Well, start at the beginning somewhere.

Last night was another trip up to the Joiners and this time we took John and Sarah and some records to sell. John was in particularly enthusiastic mood – jeez, that guy is enthusiastic about everything! Well, I was in a bouncing mood tonight that’s for sure and found it difficult to stand behind my records for long periods so hell, I didn’t.

The atmosphere reminded me of Green Day’s gig there a couple of years back. Everyone was happy and everything was cool. The Thirst single was here for sale too – great job Tony has done and a fine tribute to Steve. Chrissy was in cheerful mood too along with Selena etc and me in charge of photo opportunity (dropping it while pissing!).

Thirst played a great set and are coming on really well and I gave them not too much stick! Wow! There was lots of pissed French punks here too – where did they come from!? (France! – ha!) The Harries played of set of Ramones style riffing – fun but unexciting. Everyone was happy though – it was that kinds bouncy music. Much chat and record sales (!) later, Rhythm Collision played a reasonable set of hardcore tunes, the guitarist later buying a Lemonheads LP from me and then us having a way cool conversation, me telling him about Broni and our love affair and plans for Oz. He knows Greg from Spiral Objective in Adelaide too which was cool coincidence. This dude was way cool anyway which is what I’m trying to relate, ok.

Eventually we got away and home at 1.15am and all today I feel proud to be a part of such good, honest fun things that friends across continents can organise for each other and it really feels like one big family with all sorts of diverse influences and anything goes and respect comes first. Today I love life and remember where I am in this world.