BOHEMIAN SPIES
For me, there were two defining acts of 1987.
It was the inaugural season of a now legendary social rugby team called the “Mixed Veges" and also the year that the seed of what would become The Pagans was planted. I had turned 24 in January of that year and had been home for just over a year, from a stint living across the Tasman in Sydney, Australia.
Sydney was totally inspirational in every capacity for a young kid from little old New Zealand circa 1985, where you still couldn’t buy alcohol (unless dining) and retail shopping was still banned on a Sunday.
While living in an apartment block called “Emerson” at 11 Elizabeth Bay Road (very near the El-Alamein Fountain in Kings Cross), I had made the logical to myself but ludicrous to the rest of mankind decision to ultimately pursue a bohemian existence and to concentrate on writing poetry and song lyrics.
I spent eleven months in New South Wales, spying on people through these new bohemian eyes. Free from my home and country of birth, I took to Sydney like a favourite toy and went exploring as often as I could. I scoured the second hand book stores and record shops and often took the train to nowhere in particular, the end of the line and back.
I walked the suburban streets at night selling art work on a commission basis (although I was absolutely hopeless at it), it at least allowed me to discover different parts of the city, like Cronulla, Surry Hills, Bankstown, Cabramatta, albeit in the dark of winter. There was always someone wanting something done, so earning a bit of extra wedge usually wasn't an issue.
As often as I could during the day, I’d get away to Arthur McElhone Reserve in Onslow Avenue or Beare Park on Elizabeth Point or Rushcutter’s Bay Park and sit and write poetry. At night I’d walk the Cross and soak it all up, collating lines and ideas in my head. They say it can be a dangerous area, but my friends became petty criminals and prostitutes, there was never a time when I felt unsafe.
Rushcutter's Bay, 1985. The muse soaking up the sun and the excitement of what Sydney town has to offer.
I had seen the odd act of violence or depravity, but it was a buzzy, vibrant environment, 24/7, fuelled by alcohol, drugs and sexual excitement, a chaotic cocktail. A few lines that would eventually find their way into a Pagan song five years later, were penned following a fatal stabbing near the fountain. I didn’t see the incident, only a police cordon as I passed on my way home, but I noticed blood all over a park bench. The words would later become the chorus to a Pagans song called “Chills”.
Where is the night? It is disguised.
Another back street stab in the dark.
We look through glass and glazy eyes
at another blood stained seat in the park.
I was sitting in the “Bourbon & Beefsteak” on a Wednesday night with my French mate, Didier Martin, when the news came through that there had been a diplomatic incident between our two countries. The Greenpeace flagship “Rainbow Warrior” had been bombed and sunk in Auckland harbour and a crew member killed. The perpetrators were two French secret service agents. Eddie Murphy was in the downstairs bar that very night.
Didier and I shook hands and raised our pints in recognition of the unfortunate incident. I had become very friendly with him, a passionate supporter of the French Communist Party and Waid Labassi, a Parisienne of Algerian origin. Waid and I shared a love of the Rolling Stones and would sonnet each other through the Cross after a night of bar hopping. He claimed that reading and learning the lyrics to Stones songs had taught him the English language.
Around September, I moved into a flat with Didier, another frenchman called Marcou, Lotta, a blonde Swede and a Fijian named Joe, who was a bouncer at the Bondi Hotel. It was called “The Diplomat” and located at 113-125 Palmer Street, Woolloomooloo, a modern apartment block, complete with sauna and swimming pool at ground level.
Life became crazy in this place. The parties were endless and my social circle widened considerably. Whereas the months spent at “Emerson” had been largely in solitude and isolation, at “The Diplomat”, with the league of nations set-up we had (and because Joe could get cheap cocaine through the Bondi and the French had connections for great marijuana) pool parties and sauna orgy’s became more and more frequent, as Sydney heated up for the summer ahead.
At first I could not believe how folk were even able to get away with the debauchery, until I realised that of course, it also entertained the residents of the entire apartment and their balconies, which overlooked the pool, played a similar role to today’s corporate boxes.
I decided to go home to Wellington for Christmas and once I was there, decided to stay. Sydney had played it’s part perfectly for me. I had written an entire book while there, which I called “Poetry, Serpents & Sacrifice”. It, another called “At the River’s Edge” (also 1985) and “Through City Eyes”, which I wrote throughout 1986, once back in Wellington, would all end up on the floor of The Pagans rehearsal room in Thorndon some years later and lines from each would filter into late Pagan songs; “Bohemian Spies”, “At the River’s Edge”, “Chills” and ‘Reared in Captivity”.
Partying at "The Diplomat" with Didier Martin and a friend called Judy. Party's here were fuelled by alcohol, drugs and philosophical conversations. It was high-life bohemianism at it's very best, confined not just to poets and office workers, but also Doctors and Lawyers.
TIME, photographed at Brett's home in Orangi Kaupapa Road, Northland, 1986.
(From left): Myself, Brett Bailey (guitar), Caroline Gordon (vocals) and Andrew (AK) Kovacevich (bass).
Upon return, I met Jonathan Tuohey and Brett Bailey, the former had begun dating my sister, Sindy, while I was in Australia. By March of 1986, another friend of their’s from Auckland, Andrew Kovacevich, had arrived in Wellington to take up a position as Account Manager at Adventure Advertising in Manners Street.
Andrew (from now on referred to as AK), Brett, myself and Caroline Gordon formed a band called Time. Caroline worked with Sindy and Jonathan (and John Campbell, who would also jam on a few occasions with Time) at a share broking firm in Lambton Quay called Francis, Allison & Symes.
Caroline was already the lead singer of Wellington band E.V.T, a real band, we were just ‘hack-central’. Brett was into the Blues, as will be elaborated upon a little later in the story. AK and I were really looking to start something that had the means for us to manifest our own original outpourings.
One song, called “Lesson One” was exactly that. The first exercise in a book which AK had purchased, on how to play the bass. It was the four bass strings played openly; A G E D. Surprisingly, when AK played it - four single notes on each string, repeated - and Caroline ad-libbed her own lyrics in on the spot, we actually had a half decent song.
Another which, in demo form, had potential was called “Drive it Till it Dies”. A twisted AK story about a Porsche and a chemists assistant called Lindy. It was set to Brett’s 12 bar blues in E and played at breakneck speed. But largely, we’d just get stoned and jam. Caroline’s appearances were spasmodic.
Brett hosted a blues show on Victoria University's Radio Active and would later set up the Blues Club on Sunday afternoons at the Western Park Tavern in Thorndon. The city’s best bluesmen; Darren Watson, Terry Casey, Dave Murphy, Bill Lake, they’d all turn up and perform at the Blues Club.
AK gave up on the bass fairly quickly, but decided that poetry and stand-up comedy were the future for him and he pursued that path with great fervour.
I continued to write poetry myself and AK and I actually penned several pieces together. “Psychedelic Airways” was the first poem, written when Sindy returned home to our flat in Hood Street, Mount Victoria with a plastic bag of multi-coloured jet plane lollies. The words are as surreal/impressionistic as the title, owing to both authors having been satisfied with a brunch of Kapiti mushrooms at the time of writing.
“Theory” was another poem. We had also co-composed a song called “Partisan” when in Time. A dirge in Em about guerrilla warfare, logic interrogation and law reinstatement.
During 1986, Jonathan, AK and I, had played social rugby for the Marist St. Pats club’s J6 side. I had played for that club for a number of seasons (1985, when in Australia, aside) and I introduced my new friends to my old team-mates.
By the following season we had broken away and looked to form our own team. As AK stated when questioned as to why; “There are a number of issues we have. The clubs non-acceptance of certain social activities that we like to engage in, that are largely frowned upon by those who believe they get to decide where the morale high ground lies.”
So we switched to the more accepting University club and formed our own side called “The Mixed Veges” (name coined by Stu Beadle) and joined the illustrious social grade giants of the club, “The Teddy Bears”, “Cornelius Groat”, “Dead Ants” and the “69er’s”.
The first year “Veges” were largely a bunch of social misfits thrown together for a Saturday run around. All members were very good rugby players, who had played 1st XV or had been provincial age grade representatives, but were unfit and/or hadn’t played the game for a while.
Vocationally wise, the Veges were fairly broad spectrum. There were a number of stockbrokers and foreign exchange dealers that I did not know, but they would have been hauled in by Jonathan who was one himself. A few students, advertising people, bar staff, salesmen.
We made the decision to all play in different jerseys (everyone providing their own), but with uniformed white shorts and the clubs green and white sox. Each Vege would carry his own name, loosely associated with the vegetable which most represented one’s physical stature, in my case “Asparagus” and in AK’s “Spud”.
Our first ever match (in the J7 ‘B’ grade) was against Stokes Valley at Galloway Park in Wilton, on April 11th, 1987. We turned up and nobody had a ball, so we warmed up (after smoking a joint under the goal posts) with a frisbee.
We could hear the captain of the Stokes Valley side giving his robust team-talk before the game. It largely concerned physical dominance and smashing us up front and being into it right from the start. They threw a disdainful look our way, when leaving the changing sheds (immaculately presented in their laundered red and gold), considering I guess, that we were barely a rugby team at all. The team book says we won 47-0.
I knew approximately 50% of those who turned up for that inaugural fixture. Besides AK, Brett and Stu Beadle, Andy Salek (whom I had been at Wellington College with and would later work for in Queenstown), Doug Trotter, Chris Hocquard, Alfie Turner and Charlie Haskell were in the forward pack. A guy I met for the first time that day was Neville Harpur, a property manager for Government Property Services.
Besides myself and Jonathan, we had future TV3 news and current affairs presenter, John Campbell, Andy Harwood and Nigel Collins (another I’d been to secondary school with) in the backline.
Over the next couple of years, many would show up in the assorted colours of the “Mixed Veges", many who would become friends who drank (or worked at) the Western Park Tavern in Thorndon; Richard Whiteside, Steve Berryman, Stuart Gray, Shawn Beck, Tim Smith, Simon Kingi, Vaughn Shelley, Shane Coleman, Dave and Richard Dean, Des Small, Gavin Davis, Mike McKeown, Mark Allingham, Warren Bradshaw and Geoff Beavis (who will come into the story a bit later).
Three of them - AK, Alfie and Nev - would, by 1988, all reside at 1/87 Hill Street, Thorndon, a derelict property overlooking the southern motorway, owned by Government Property Services.
The day the end of year team photo was taken at Wolf Studios in Lambton Quay, a lot of the players involved in the finance sector were missing. It was October 20th, otherwise known as “Black Tuesday”, when world wide stock markets crashed heavily.
Billions of dollars were wiped off the value of New Zealand shares in the weeks following and many investors lost everything. Companies that had over-extended themselves were dragged under with small ‘mum and dad’ investors, also burned by the experience.
Only twelve of the team turned up for the photo (called “The First Crop”). AK is sitting in front with a white construction hat on and Brett beside him, hadn’t bothered to get changed at all. We even had to drag in the daughter of the photographer, who was also the company’s office assistant.
Surprisingly, one foreign exchange dealer who did turn up - and we’re standing together in the middle of the back row with capping hats on - was our red haired flanker, Andrew Richards, or “Carrot”. He stood out more than most and auburn hair was just part of it. I had noticed at trainings that, as an open side flanker, he was continually running a line that was interfering with our exciting and carefully orchestrated back movements.
