Sweet Treats Punx – Big Fan, 15 December 2023: Review

Sweet Treats Punx are a volunteer music collective promoting all manner of Young Punks and partying with them. Featured tonight are Melanie, Dick Move, Late to Chelsea and Groopchat.

Big Fan is a boutique little music venue offering local musicians a great place to showcase. Of course, any small mistakes do get amplified. It is also a chance to practice stagecraft.

The brainchild of Joel Little, a stellar global songwriter, producer and musician. He can name drop Taylor Swift, Lorde and Jack Antonoff just for starters.

To kick off is a fledgling band Groopchat.

Three young high school girls in only their second public outing.

Yana Wanakore-Chase guitar and vocals, Huia Cameron bass and vocals, and Teina Pecotic drums.

They have the attitude right as they play first song Chow. Mid-tempo rhythm riffs and flattened vocals.

The drummer leads on a song with lyrics, you’re a bad banana with a greasy???

They get it all together on a cover of an Elastica song. Bass guitar carries the melody.

They seem comfortable with Art Punk, a big part of the New Wave that was vomited up in the wake of the initial Sex Pistols Ramones explosion of 1976.

Vocals get bigger and more passionate later in the set. One song they phrase like Mark E. Smith from the Fall.

There is certainly promise.

Late to Chelsea are a fun Punk Noize outfit which disguises the fact that they are a well-drilled unit with a hard-edged sound.

Jack Horsnell lead guitar and vocals, Sam Ashton bass and vocals, David Hulbert rhythm guitar and Jack McKenzie drums.

Smash into your head straight up with Men Love Me. A meshed barrage of hard Punk riffs.

We Suck!!! They are all in agreement with that. Let’s suck it and see then!

Lead guitarist breaks two strings within 2 songs. The second one he borrowed from another band. Cheaper than smashing up a guitar as an art statement and I am looking at Who? of course.

Bass guitar plays a Bo Diddley riff to occupy the space while lead guitar sorts his shit out.

When they finally get to second song Night City, they have the sound of early Black Flag nailed. The Damaged era when Henry Rollins came on board.

I am a Centipede crashes right back in with yer most basic Punk thrash. Literary as well and they must be fans of William Wild Bill Lee Burroughs.

The secret influence on music from the Sixties onwards. Everyone from Rolling Stones to Nirvana.

A song called MMM demonstrates their breadth. Starts with heavy Rock riffing. Making my own way/Down to New Orleans. There is the dissonant guitar noise that Alex Chilton got out of the early Cramps. A psychotic Grunge Blues of the style that Delaney Davidson excels at.  

Dick Move are mixed gender feminist Punks who are coming on in leaps and bounds, since I first caught them sometime in Year Zero of the manufactured Pandemic.

That was 2020 and they were part of some multi-band extravaganza in the bowels of Karangahape Rd, otherwise called the Whammy Bars and Wine Cellar.

Lucy Suttor is the lead singer, and she dominates the stage with her top-of-the-range frantic vocals. She looks and acts like Rob Tyner from legends MC5, right down to the hair.

Lulu Macrae (is she really the owner of the Whammy Bar?) and Harriet Ellis. Bass and guitar and you can pick who does what.

Luke Boys and Justin Rendall. One of those is the drummer and is the secret weapon of this band’s speed and economy of sound.

Pissing, Femoids and Ladies Night goes by in a flash. A thrash barrage Punk attack.

Rampage accelerates to warp speed and becomes cathartic.

They do get to the energy level of MC5 debut album, where they are seriously trying to tear the music apart. Check out Kick Out the Jams (Motherfuckers).

Girl on Girl and the singer can also sound like Patti Smith when she is pissed off and in a rage.

A Christmas song with the exclamation Get Fucked!

They end the set singing Say you’re sorry for what you did.

Hardcore and retro Punk and they do approach Metal like many of the current Post Punks do.

Melanie are a four-piece Indie Rock act from West Auckland.

Young guys from Boganville who are less in the shadow of Punk than the others. Power Pop blurs into Hard Pop which blurs into Punk.

Descriptive titles should not be limiting. Both Bo Diddley and Donovan claim to be originators of Punk. Tongue-in-cheek whilst also quite serious. Mellow Yellow, remember the song from Groopchat?

I did call them Punk when I first heard them. The middle of winter in Henderson. It can make you hear things in a certain way.

Jamie Dentice guitar and lead vocals, William Dentice bass and vocals, Robin Lusk guitar and Joe Gasparich drums.

A&E, No Shoes and Crumbs. Hard and fast with plenty of melody.

The guitars do change through the gears like a good Rock outfit. What we listened to in the Seventies in high school, before Punk hit.

Slade, some of T-Rex, Suzie Quattro. The harder and purer stuff and not the Prog noodling or the bloated stadium Rock.

The stasis of Seventies music. When excessive entitled behaviour, copious drug abuse and shambolic performances that you would have to wait over an hour above the scheduled time to commence became normal.

The current generation of popular musicians have a much better work ethic.

Lead singer has a powerful delivery which you appreciate on songs like Goliath and Collide.

Especially Maude Street and Bills which are rowdy declamatory chants.

TLC closes their set and the show. A contender for best song of the evening.

They have adapted the classic Sly and the Family Stone’s Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin). It rocks hard.

A great night for Sweet Treats Punx. And their showcasing of Melanie, Dick Move, Late to Chelsea and Groopchat.

Rev. Orange Peel

Photography by Desirée Ramirez Durán