For Crago x
Decreasingly Successful Conversations: The first bit.
The week I moved to Wellington, the only Kiwi I actually knew was chatting to me about its techno scene, when she casually dropped the bombshell "Oh, we had a club but it closed down." 'We had a club but it closed down?' Faaackin'ell. I asked "What about all your warehouses?" She goes "Businesses use them for their original purposes." I almost threw up. Needing no encouragement, it allowed me to indulge in some wishful incredulity. Thinking terrible things like: "This is exactly how victims of cultural exclusion must feel." And "This systemic marginalisation of my underground culture constitutes ethnocide." My friend could see this fantastical overreaction playing out behind my eyes & put a stop to it before I could cry out TECHNOCIDE into the nearest unabandoned warehouse. Sensing the need for intervention, she invited me to see her friend spin some techno in the back of a punk club. It's tough being a pessimist but when we are wrong, we're grateful. When something bad happens, we're magnanimous. But when we know there's shit all chance of a techno night in a punk club in Wellington being any good, we pretend to feel optimistic.
The club was hidden down an appropriately unwelcoming alleyway. We step inside a little sheepishly, both almost tripping over nothing as our feet stick to the floor. I hadn't dressed for such hostile terrain and appeared to be the only one unfettered by Doc Martens. My friend said "I forgot about the sticky floor, it's famous!" with unmistakable pride, there aren't that many famous Kiwis after all. Between each beat is the ripping sound of people peeling their boots off the canvas. Making people dance like they're shuffling through snow wearing them tennis rackets. Everyone was dressed like they were trying to get a reaction out their mum. This one chap had a mowhawk at the front and mullet at the back, akin to a dog out of surgery. It was surprising New Zealand even had a punk scene. What were they rebelling: the price of Guinness or tyrannic hiking regulations?
The toilets were finished in immaculate white marble and smelled of fresh linen. Imagine. Actually, they almost made me heave. There may only be five million people in NZ but to get all of them to tag their name in the one bathroom is still impressive. Someone even managed to slap their sticker inside the actual toilet. Curiously at the bottom of the pan, beneath the water. I've seen three wonders of the world but this was the first time I felt the inexplicable sense of wonder. A truly beautiful achievement. Sure, the sound was tinny, the music varied wildly and there was a herd of leather jackets getting trampled on but that's just part of the gross charm of it all. Who needs a cloak room? It might be a punk club but it's still NZ, nobodies stealing your jacket.
This dude who said he was Scottish but was definitely a Kiwi far too keen to meet me, somebody who said they were from London but is definitely from Watford. He excitedly listed a load of impossible-to-remember London bands but my reluctance to humour any knowledge of them killed the chat stone dead. And I’m rewarded with the chance to stare at my phone instead. With no social media on my blower I have to doom scroll the BBC news app, but every title of every news story now seems like it has a great punk band name in it. Although the more I read the worse they got. Pockets of Disorder, Supercell Tornado, Mystery Surrounds, Prisoner Swap, Jazeera Rebuffs, Gaslit Over Strictly, Vulnerable Men, Teen Allegedly, Accused 9/11, Hopeful Jenrick.
We head out the back / parking lot. My mate introduced me to her friend who's DJing out the back of his Corolla, beneath the fire escape. Very cool. Even if he was playing Pendulum. I remember thinking "What else do you play in such circumstances?" In a single sentence he asked where I was from and if I would like some ketamine. The 'yikes' etched across my face was unsubtle, as though he had just offered up some lovely pig anus. He understood and like a consummate host, started digging through his hemp satchel, offering alternative drugs as he discovered them. They all sounded like they were straight out of the Beano or Grange Hill. "Errr, we got Zeppy, Cava... Nuz-Lux. Ooh la la, we got Mandy." Fucking 'Ooh la la, we got Mandy?' He said it with such reverence. We don't seem to hold real drugs in such high esteem in the UK. Difficult to imagine I know, but some people even view them unfavourably. I drink a dark lager called Tui, then a parliament of Tui's thinking our night was done, but then we’re invited to the afters. There's a party at 'The Bakery'.
We pack up the DJ kit into the Corolla and the three of us head out. We drive through the hills into a residential area above the city. The Bakery is a house. A well-hidden, wooden house with piles of shit outside. I could have easily used 'rubbish' there, or maybe 'pallets, pizza boxes & garden waste'. But sometimes 'shit' is the only appropriate noun. A general, unspecific term for whatever the fuck was happening in this garden. I had assumed it was the DJ's house but as we battled our way to the front door he said "Oh hey, it's unlocked!" I was about to ask what was with all the shite outside when I stacked it over an assemblage of detritus inside and lost my thought. He led us down to an unfinished basement. It had low ceilings with exposed insulation and wiring but much more importantly; a sofa, decks, real speakers & a lighting rig. It was a tiny club. He started playing techno but only had the two tracks, so swiftly reverted to psy-trance. New Zealanders are a uniquely tolerant people. Which might explain why Psy-trance can't be found anywhere else.
Executive function notwithstanding, I was doing quite well on the Ooh la la up to this point. I didn't wanna explore the nooks of the hemp satchel at the punk club because it was a strange place with strange people. So why the fucking hell I decided to go 'all in' inside the demon house from that Nick Cage film MANDY is a total mystery. I do it, look up and the room fills with 30 people. I force myself to get chatting. The first person I speak to, who had a cross dangling from their nose ring, invited me to their church. What sort of deranged punk excuses Jesus Christ from their anarchism? I panic. What if they're all Christians? I try to assess the next person but start articulating less and mumbling more as the brain cells evaporate. So in an effort to disguise my heresy I start dancing. A short sighted plan as my natural rhythm dissonance is exacerbated by the portent distortion of reality.
Trouble was brewing. The line between speech and thought began to blur. "five, six, seven..." I thought I thought until an uncharacteristically alarmed looking goth chick asked what on Earth I was counting. Caught off guard I answered earnestly "My limbs." The power cuts out (or at least I hope it did as everything went black) and the music stops. It's down for a minute and when the light bulb turns on, which is only an inch above my head, I get an idea. I think "I better go do this poo in case I end up catatonic and incontinent." I excuse myself to myself and step out the club.
The stairs seem eight times longer than they were on the way down. An illusion so flawlessly executed I even knacker near the top have to crawl the last part on all fours. When I eventually make it to the ground floor I recognise absolutely none of it. I seriously consider retracing my steps to see if I took the wrong set of stairs, ones which led to next door. I think "That's just silly." Then somebody replies "What’s just silly?" My executive function now enjoying a sabbatical, I wonder "Who the fucking hell can hear my thoughts?" The only people near me were sitting around a dining table. They were much older than the crowd downstairs and playing what looked like Biblical Top Trumps. So I stare at them. They stare back. And there's an awkward pause as I initially reply using the power of the mind. But eventually I actually manage the complete sentence "Toilet mates?" One of the card players points some words over their shoulder and I pretend to understand in a desperate attempt to look normal. I go, pleased to get away with it until it dawns on me that I'm still on my hands and knees.
I stand and once again the room looks totally unrecognisable. I consider asking for directions again but I'm aware of how fucking mental that would sound. I see somebody walk out of a room opposite and leave the door open. TOILET. I make the arduous journey refusing to break eye contact with the loo in case I lose it. I lock the door. Then check the door is locked many, many times. I sit down and to my surprise, poison absolutely explodes out of me. A concoction of drugs, Cheap Dark Lager, a local delicacy known as 'Mince On Toast' and a disdain for Jesus lifts me off the seat like a sewer rat operating a fireman's hose. The genuine catharsis is overwhelming and I feel spiritually grateful to have made it. The hand wash & sink appear counter-productive, with the remains of poorly cleaned vomit. So I lean over the bath, turn the tap but the shower head turns on. The rattle and squeak of the pipes sound just like the crescendo of a church choir. Have I just been baptised? Instincts tell me that I probably haven't and to not go near the towel hanging on the back of the door, so I shake like a dog instead. I had been avoiding the gremlin in the mirror but sneak a glance. I don't believe it. I look almost… normal. There's a sense of relief. I'm gonna be okay. Maybe I'll even enjoy myself. I swing open the door with the confidence of a born again Christian. This new version of myself lasts for roughly half a second. The cold shock of just how unimpeachably wrong one can be hits hard. This house is evil and I am doomed.
I need to find my way back down to the basement but find myself unable to recognise this bastard room yet again. The card players are still there but they’ve moved twelve feet across the room and are floating one foot off it. They are in every sense more demonic. I try my best not to notice. The only way out of hell is in an Uber. I look to my phone for help but the screen looks as though I'm using a pair of binoculars the wrong way round. A card demon smells my growing desperation and points their talons towards the basement - a stairway to heathen. I obey. My only hope is to find people who will give me the benefit of having previously spoken to me. Not to be outdone, I tackle the stairs standing up, palms flat on the ceiling. The elevated perspective of looking down gives a sense that I'm growing too large for the space, as if I'm Alice in Wonderland. Which almost explains why, as I make it to the door, I struggle to get my limbs through the opening. Imagine a cat which really doesn't want to be put into a box. This is the sight which greets my friend as I sprawl into the club room. She laughs at the sight of me "Why you walking like an octopus?" The ensuing limb count proves indecisive. In an effort to keep the spiritual journey I've been through between quiet, I ask for help as subtly as I can: "Let me know when you're ready to go home." She said "Mate, we've only been here five minutes".
Artwork by Catboy
@BillyCatHantz
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