Unrestful Movements Profile

Gary Steel

23 Jan 2014

A few years too late for the peak of Wellington’s post-punk scene, Rotorua couple Glen Wilson and Pam Curreen moved to the capital in 1982, and recruited new members to revive their group Unrestful Movements. The result? Slow, snarling, grinding songs that echoed the punk era and anticipated later "sludge" rock bands.

The fertile Terrace Scene had dissipated along with its ready-made audience made up largely of university students. Unrestful Movements found themselves the unwitting entertainment for the infamous boot boys, whose antics scared off many would-be appreciators.

The group’s striking looks and incomparable sound made them one of Wellington’s standout acts in 1983.

The group’s striking looks and incomparable sound made them one of Wellington’s standout acts in 1983, the same year their two EPs were issued through Jayrem.

Saddled with an awkward name that inevitably conjured up toilet nightmares (were they the last flush of Wellington punk?), Unrestful Movements released the five track First Movement In Eb in November, 1982 and followed up with a six track second EP, Q: Are You A Fireman? in September, 1983.

In total, the group only played a handful of gigs in their two active years. Back in 1983, Glen Wilson told me why. “We decided that we wanted to record because no one would let us play anywhere, so we thought we might as well do something rather than just vegetate and sulk.” Venue owners were, possibly rightly, concerned that the group would attract the “wrong audience”.

Their songs bear names like ‘No Job’, ‘Depressed’ and ‘Anti Trend’. “Human relationships, love songs – there are enough people doing that sort of thing," said Wilson. "I like vocals that carry a message … I write bluntly so there won’t be as many misinterpretations of what I’m trying to say.”

The group dissolved soon after release of the second EP, (reforming briefly in 1986 to record a cassette only EP) but all these years later, their recorded output still sounds fresh, and unreleased live recordings confirm them as an outstanding and powerful act.

In 2011, celebrating 25 years of operation, Jayrem released a CD of the two EPs, and included some unreleased tracks the band recorded later as they fumbled with a more Goth-style sound.

Its members soon faded into obscurity, leader Glen Wilson playing the traps in a variety of bands, and currently in Tauranga with Dead Simple, which performs new songs as well as Unrestful Movements songs and covers. Grenville Main became a graphic designer and more recently, a creative director. Tim Hunt owns a tattoo studio in Paekakariki specialising in Māori and Polynesian art, and the whereabouts of Pam Curreen are unknown.

Glen Wilson and Tim Hunt

Unrestful Movements on the cover of Wellington's TOM, May 1983

The debut Unrestful Movements EP from 1982

Unrestful Movements

Anti Trend (1983)

Tim Hunt

Unrestful Movements

The 1986 cassette A Rolling Stone Needs No Moss

Grenville Main, Tim Hunt, Glen Wilson, Pam Curreen

Glen Wilson

Pam Curreen

Pam Curreen

Grenville Main

The group’s original name was Unrestful Movements In The Vegetable Patch. This version of the group performed at the Railway Stage of the Sweetwaters music festival in 1982 shortly before Wilson and Curreen moved to Wellington.

Tim Hunt previously played in A Front and Grenville Main in Insects That Jive On Crippled Grass Blades (with a debt to Janet Frame). What is it with Wellington and ungainly band names?

Writer Steve Braunias blogged on www.witchdoctor.co.nz: “Unrestful Movements! Good live band – the records were terrible, very boring. Onstage, they were loud, theatrical, menacing. Offstage, they were quite sweet, but also pretty thick. The singer was tall and had high hair. He did that Satanic growl thing. One of my favourite live bands of the time.”

1983 article on Unrestful Movements by Gary Steel

CD reissue review by Gary Steel

Unrestful Movements at Up The Punks

Glen Wilson - guitar

Pam Curreen - bass

Tim Hunt - drums

Grenville Main - guitar