Tag: minor threat

But I’ve got better things to do – 8th December 2019

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

What new belief, behaviour or habit has most improved your life?

Undoubtedly the behavioural change that has most improved my life is to have stopped drinking so much. The hangovers now are becoming too much of a burden, particularly as I’m working so much and just want to get things done in general.

I’m not going to be a non-drinker but when I do have a drink I will try to be more moderate or be prepared to have a less-than-useful day afterwards.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to be surrounded by the green jungle hills. Last night Amy came into my room and as we hugged I could smell the fresh air on her skin. I love living outside the city.

Take your time, try not to forget – 4th December 2019

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

How has a failure set you up for future success?

When I was studying to learn to teach I was doing well in the first week but failed the initial assignment, eventually being given a pass. Then I failed the second assignment, eventually passing. Same with the 3rd and 4th. Initially discouraging I persisted until passing.

Those failures taught me about trying my best, not giving up. Now, when I have a bad day teaching I can consider all the factors and try my hardest to make improvements.

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to Amy again as she has soldiered on and cooked for me when I’m feeling under the weather but she is also not well. Today suddenly I have an urge to visit England again.

21st Apr 2021 – Just pre-Covid, this bug knocked me down for about 10 to 14 days and was by far the worst I’ve felt with the flu in the last few years. It’s unlikely that it was Covid and I think I eventually got rid of it and passed it on to others. I seem to remember a lot of people getting sick around this time.

Surf’s Up With Shaun – 1st February 1995

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What is punk rock? Is it a way of acting or behaving? Is it about music? Or politics? Is it anything to do with THE SEX PISTOLS? Ог CRASS? Is it nihilistic or cynical? Optimistic, introverted or extroverted? Is it far-reaching + powerful? Small + exclusive? What do you think?

Well, when you live in the middle of a rainforest + the only rock around is sticking out of the earth, you start to think about these things. The answer is – it’s all punk rock, innit!

Cos I was sat on the beach trying to get my skin as bronzed as the surfies in the noonday sun (of course this isn’t true because if you have got any brains, you’ve got to cover up from the sun, or stick on your sun factor 15 but a lot of people don’t bother with this until a limb or two has to get cut off, so tell your kids OK!).

Well, I was on the beach checking out the surf (you see in Australia, the water is actually warm enough to go + swim in but you do have to watch out for sharks!) + watching the pelicans flying overhead + I was thinking “Man, this isn’t very punk rock is it?” and then I got to thinking “what is punk rock?” then pretty soon, I thought “Fuck it, let’s go for a swim”.

After that I went to the cafe + contemplated a bit more + I thought all the scantily dressed girls on the beach must be frustrated, cos all the surfies are interested in catching is waves. I checked out the surfies and hell, I saw me a couple of PANTERA t-shirts, a NIRVANA t-shirt and an OFFSPRING one too, so punk rock does exist here at the beach! I talked to one dude but gave up pretty soon, cos he’d never heard of MINOR THREAT, even though he skates!

Of course, this got me back to thinking about what punk rock is + I began to realise that, hey, it’s OK if that dude doesn’t know who Minor Threat is – he’s OK. I later found out he was well into conservation and abhorred racism, which is pretty punk rock for a sixteen-year-old surfie.

Sometimes, it takes me an age to realise the obvious and that I should have listened a bit harder when my best friend said “It’s all punk rock innit!?” So all you folks back in England can be satisfied that rock is alive + well on the other side of the globe + hey, they’ve even got bands here too + some are pretty good but man, it’s difficult to get away from the beach to get to see them sometimes!

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.

The time is so little, the time belongs to us – 28th June 1994

The Chase
~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

What a sad affair yesterday’s entry was but now it is written the emotion has passed. If you’d like to know, writing things down helps you to sort things out, makes things clear – hell, you probably know all this already.

But now let me tell you about the sky. Oh sweet sky, sapphire desire. Last night I happen to glimpse the sky at what must’ve been a quintessential moment in time, just as Saturn went through Jupiter (or some such nonsense). I could see miles onto the horizon where the blue was hazy, light and white, like a faded blue, sunbleached by time. And up, slowly becoming substantial, deepening, a brief flurry of fluffy white and on and up til oh, so deep the colour, like eyes, big, deep pools of the vivescense (if there is no such word – imagine it, goddamn) and my breath was taken away. I looked and looked and loved and my attitude changed. I filled up on good feelings and daydreamt about Australia and blue and water and life. Soon these dreams will turn into reality – easy!

Well, besides these things I can tell you the following that destiny threw at me and I faced proud and strong (god, Shaun, you are dramatic). Here’s some tiny things I did!

Munched out at the Thai restaurant with both the women in my life, my sweetheart and my mum! Being the only customers, we were waited on hand and foot by the whole staff (could have been the whole family) and served up delicious delicacies, beers and dessert. But remember to speak slowly and in sign language or better still, learn their language. They were sweet and willing though.

Of course, there’s been fucking tons of football on and I’ve been watching as much as possible. Too much to tell you about here – buy the video!

Broni fell off her bike in the middle-of-the-road – luckily not the busy one but I watched in despair as she keeled over unable to put her foot down, her laces being wrapped ’round the pedal and so sweet, her baby crying face as she sat, dumped on her back, on the tarmac. A couple of bruises to show now. You know, she bruises so easily – I have to be very careful when I pick her up and turn her upside down.

I was thinking anyway, about us, and fuck, there’s magic between us. I think some of the more cynical of you out there might think we’re like soppy sloppy teenagers but I reckon you just haven’t come across this feeling before (and fuck I love this feeling, I just want to suck it all up, more more more). But you know, you’re all okay too. You can guess we’re both still madly, badly in love with each other. If that makes you sick, you make me sad. I still have faith in the human spirit. Some of my friends out there give me that faith.

Hell, went to see ‘The Chase’ too, with Henry Rollins playing some meathead cop (total fucking irony – who said Americans don’t understand irony!), with a soundtrack featuring NOFX, Bad Religion, Down by Law, Rancid and a ton more. You know it’s punk to go to the cinema, don’t you! Yes, it’s true – everything you do with your life is punk.

You know me, I probably did a million other things though now I’m not in such a fucking hurry. Taking it easy up until launch date – no stress for me and my baby. As always will keep you informed.

Am I holding on, am I moving on? – 19th April 1994

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Eight years now, worked here more days than I care to remember. Started as a wide-eyed innocent boy, fresh from dole queues and eager to please. Here I rode or trod to drove my way to work and not even now do I notice my surroundings. Sometimes I wonder about the people in the building across – our only vision from our cramped tiny office and I only got to see out of the window after some five years.

On bright sunlit days, we’d still need all the lights on – tucked away we were and all the heat would rise and bake us if ever we were upstairs and sometimes I’d be on the top shelf cleaning up touching the asbestos roof as the sun beat mercilessly down on it and I’d be carrying a cooling fan with me, lead dangling all over the place as only one socket in office upstairs.

I remember the place as was all those years ago and now only me and one other remain of those nine who worked there then and soon I’ll be off leaving it all behind (did it take me this long to figure it out?). And work, we worked like crazy. Me young and eager to impress, I worked my coworker out of a job – lazy scuzzball he was (we are now pretty good friends). He spent most of his day lazing away as I’d already done it all, so quick was I and I loved it and they loved it too.

I don’t see that enthusiasm now in my co-workers and wonder if I’m being too hard on them and fuck it, I’ve damn near killed myself doing this and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone; so today I gets to thinking, it’s not work that’s so bad but business and the business of work. The endless emphasis on money and more money and the bloody mad dash for it and then us panting and dying in the race being knocked back by some young bureaucrat says you can’t do that. Bloods boil I’ll say.

Now I’m in a funny position, not to care, to look back and reflect. Someone turns to me and says ‘don’t you think this is bad and wrong?’ And I thinks ‘shit what do I care?’ I stopped myself and took some time and sat upstairs and looked out of the window. Saw the trees on the edge of this squabble of old factories and buildings – reminded me of good things, reminded me of freedom and I saw the freedom I’m about to gain. I looked at the cars across the way, remembered mine and Mark’s motorbikes getting run down by some mad driver who did a bunk from his job next door when the police came; remember all the pretty young girls who worked there too, who so astounding was their beauty to my keen young eyes that I failed to ever utter a word to them. The sunny days are still clear in my mind.

Falklands Square – 15th January 1988

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It’s summer down in Falklands Square
All the yob’s hanging out there
Sun hanging in a cloudless sky
Talking about the week gone by
Everyone a stranger ’til the weekend
Saturday afternoon and everyone’s a friend
And when the winter comes on down
They’ll still be there hanging around
Their faces sadder, their cheeks are red
Maybe wishing they hadn’t left their bed
But that spirit lives on in the square
Just waiting for summer to arrive there

8th Nov 2021 – It’s odd that the square is actually called Falkland Square without the pluralisation. The seats and island on the left in the picture was taken over by punks from Wareham, Bournemouth and far out in the sticks where I was too. It was an epic journey by local bus that only ran twice a day and you were fucked if you missed it. It was a long walk home and I don’t think I ever did miss the bus but there were occasions I chose to walk home instead. I had been coming to Poole most every Saturday since 1983 or 1984.

We had so much fun in this place, blasting Minor Threat to the bemused locals, (some) stealing anything not nailed down in the shops, hanging out at the Animal Rights stall, eating baked potatoes in the late afternoon when all the alcohol had run out, jumping, shouting a being a general nuisance. We never had any problem with the police though sometimes the shopping centre security guards would try to quiet us down.

In the picture, the shopping centre is called The Arndale Centre but around 1988 they changed the name to what was perceived as the more upmarket Dolphin Centre. Before Falklands Square was built all sorts of kids would hang around in groups looking over the balconies, waiting for friends to show up, shouting and screaming as kids would do. There would be groups of trendies with cute girls, Goths, also with cute girls, and then the mostly girl-free wanna be punks, as I might classify myself looking back. All the security guards ever did was ask us to move along and we would joke with them every time, shouting ‘move along’ before they even had the chance. Each group would scatter and reform at another part of the centre and so it went on. I think the security guards were happier once we had relocated outside to the Square.

The strangest memory I have of that time is when a messed up punk kid, who none of us knew, was stumbling around the ground floor without much coordination and looking completely lost. We watched him anxiously for a few minutes and were as horrified as the straights and regular shoppers when he decided to pull down his pants, squat and take a shit right there in the mall. We didn’t rush to help him. He was fucked!

*Records of the Year – 31st December 1985

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1980:
Damned – Machine Gun Etiquette
Dead Kennedys – Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables

1981:
Restricted Code – First Night On
Nine Below Zero – Three Times Enough
Dead Kennedy’s – Too Drunk To Fuck
Crass – Penis Envy

1982:
Black Flag – Damaged

1983:
Social Distortion – Mommy’s Little Monster
Minor Threat – Out Of Step

1984:
Husker Du – Diane
DOA – Bloodied But Unbowed
Anti-Sect – In Darkness There Is No Choice
Subhumans – Cradle To The Grave
Black Flag – My War
UK Decay – Werewolf
Cult Maniax – Cold Love
Black Flag – Slip It In
Black Flag – Family Man
Subhumans – Rats
Wasted Youth – Wild and Wandering

Phone Numbers:
Paul Chambers
Andy Anderson
Justin Butler
Simon Bradbury
Dave Brown
Alan (Josh and John)

*The Week That Was –25th June 1984

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Records of the week: Conflict – 1st side of Increase The Pressure, Minor Threat – Eps 12″, Major Accident – Massacred Melodies LP, Black Flag – Three Nights

25th June 1984
Got up and stayed in my room most of the day. Zoe rang in the morning. Got petrol in the afternoon. Watched telly most of the time. Rung Jez. Had a game of snooker which I won. Came back – watched Scully then went down track. Muz is giving me bullshit. I went to James. Had a chat with him and Greg. Watched Hill Street Blues.

26th June 1984
Got up late. Watched telly most likely. I haven’t been keeping up with the diary so I can’t remember everything. I think I went down to the track. Mum’s been going on about me getting a job. Getting really pissed off with her. Watched telly in the evening. Mum has found me some jobs to do tomorrow around the house. I’m pissed off. Watching the stars.

27th June 1984
Got up late again. Cleaned out the yard. Did the bricks. Fuckin’ pissed off. I keep playing Three Nights by Black Flag. Sieved elderflower. Had tea. Went down track. Pissed around. Built freestyle jump which is pretty good. Came back. Went to sleep. Working at Sharon’s tomorrow.

28th June 1984
Mum woke me up at 9. Rung Sharon. Went over. Cleaned windows. Went to Poole with Sharon. Then to Bournemouth and back to Poole again. Then back. Cleaned garage doors and racked up grass. (?) so came back. Had tea. Went down track. Went to James. He gave me money to get a video tomorrow. Went to (???). Came back with her.

29th June 1984
Went to Wimborne. Got videos. Went to Sharon’s. Did wallpapering all day. Got £4.50. Came back. Went down track.. Burd came down. He went to Wimborne. Went to James. Got wrong type of video so went back and changed it. Came back. Poltergeist – was ok in places. Pretty daft story though. Came back at 1 and went to sleep.

30th June 1984
Got up at 9. Went to Bernice’s. Got bus down to Bournemouth. Bern bought some shoes and dress. I got some records. Both Christian Death LPs are there. Saw plenty of people. Ran out of money so came back. I came home. Went down track. No one there. Went to James’s and had a chat with everyone. Came back. Watched telly for the rest of the night.

1st July 1984
Woke up at 9. Couldn’t sleep because of stomach upset. Took aspirin and went back to sleep. Didn’t get up til 1.30. Took dog. Went down track. Digging it all up. Everyone’s getting on each other’s nerves. Came back. Went back down again. I got my light smashed. Me and Murray are thinking of setting up a delivery service. Went to sleep.