Beginning in the early 1980s Goth incorporates flairs such as Punk, Victoriana, Cyber and Industrial. Some of them are black goth bag, punk, metal and grunge. It wasn’t quite what we called punk, but it was certainly the beginning of it. A group from Christchurch called Pop Mechanix came to Auckland and spent their first week practising and sleeping in the booths as they looked for a house and waited to play the following weekend. Hey ho let’s go, and on May 12, 1980, we threw open the doors and the Techtones played to a full house. No one made any money with a 60 person capacity, but a lot of bands and a lot of people had fun in the 16 months that XS Café was open. As well as the Thursday to Saturday night bands, XS Café was often booked for private functions. Ripper Records released a compilation LP called Goats Milk Soap at the start of 1982 with a cover shot I took of Garry leaning over a swimming pool where the XS Café sign can be seen sunken beneath the water. White can also appear as a stark contrast color as they are made and designed with unique detailing down to the last hem.
A couple of years previously the punk rock night spot had been a mile downtown off Durham Lane, a place called Zwines where goth-like punks crept past disco lovers in white suits. We weren’t as rough as Zwines but we would regularly have our toilet smashed in the men’s room and holes punched through the gib board wall. Some said XS was a rough joint but certainly we never called an ambulance, nobody died and the only time we called the police was to report a drunk who was badly imitating a police officer and throwing his weight around. The boot boys’ enthusiastic dancing, resembling Masai tribesmen bouncing on the spot, tended to become a little rough and tumble on the landings, which often led to push and shove fist fights. We knew most of the regulars and when fights occurred I would push the lesser opponent out the door and slam it quickly.
People were screaming and trying to run out of the way, chased by police swinging left and right. 1 on the UK Indie charts in 1984. Following the release of their second album “Futile Combat” (which features the single Promised Land) n 1985, vocalist Anne-Marie Hurst left Skeletal Family and the band went on hiatus from 1986 until 2002 when shortly after Hurst left again due to family commitments, and the band replaced her with vocalist Claire Bannister. The boot boys were usually skinheads or sported number one haircuts and went out with girls who looked much the same. It didn’t do her reputation any harm and she went on to become one of New Zealand’s leading actors with the movie Once Were Warriors. It was too hard though and we didn’t sell to the public again. This is on the Sunday seven weeks after Easter and can range from as early as 10 May to as late as 13 June (see Pentecost Date and public holiday).
He then recorded the album Hyæna with them, but left the group two weeks before its June 1984 release to concentrate on the Cure. Of the six bands that played on AK79, I said before that The Swingers were the only ones left in Auckland when XS opened. He left the band and threatened to do the guitarist a mischief if he kept singing the song, so Rena intervened and said they could use her name instead. Guitarist Warwick Hitler had written a comic ditty ‘Rachael’s Piss Flaps’ about the girlfriend of original bass player Keith Bacon. Garry’s girlfriend came up with a name and a sign was commissioned. She had achieved a degree of infamy when The Spelling Mistakes used her name in a song. At the 1998 Spelling Mistakes reunion shows, Rena Owen joined the band on stage to sing her song. It’s a hard-fought privilege to play here, and the bands are clearly psyched to be on stage.