Hitler: “John had tied up with Jonathan Jamrag, who was playing bass for Rooter. They weren’t doing the type of stuff Jamrag wanted to do. He was into hardcore punk, and Rooter were doing 1960s stuff, so he quit.” To sing, not play bass. That was taken up by another Zwines regular, Alistair Rabbit (Duguid), another university first-year, who’d seen the tabloid furore The Scavengers kicked up and was attending punk dances.
The newly baptised Atrocities debuted in May 1978 at Zwines. Hitler: “We had to pay to get in, but we got paid $50, which is pretty good for then. We played ‘Anti-Social’, ‘War Criminals’ and a Jamrag song that Rooter wouldn’t do called ‘A Bomb On Tonga’.
“Jamrag had an awesome presence – tall, slim, quite menacing looking with a psycho look in his eye. He had a strong punk stage presence like Johnny Rotten. He was the real centre piece of the band and had been the most punk out of Rooter.”
Zwines, the Queen City’s down-at-heel punk club, was in a former 1960s and 1970s dance club up Durham Lane East, and the perfect incubator for a punk scene. It brought the Auckland punks as close to the street as possible.
Hitler: “There were a lot of runaway girls, heroin addicts, a mixed bag, not just rich kids. There were some genuine psychos, a lot of quite violent people – a lot of Nazi regalia. I got threatened with a shotgun outside Zwines.
“I’d had trouble with The Headhunters, an Auckland ethnic street gang. I was in the alley to Zwines getting stuff out of my car, when a guy with a long greatcoat on pulled a shotgun, pointed it at me and said’ ‘You better say your prayers, because tonight you’re going to die. I said, ‘I don’t give a fuck,’ because in those days I didn’t. He just laughed and walked away.”
"A guy with a long greatcoat on pulled a shotgun, pointed it at me and said’ ‘You better say your prayers, because tonight you’re going to die"." - Warwick Fowler
“There was another show with Get Smart at the Masonic Hall in Newton, where we didn’t ask The Terrorways (as Rooter were now called) to play. John No-One (Terrorways vocalist), and his brother Wayne came and they trashed the place and caused a lot of damage. There were doors kicked in and furniture smashed.”
With disagreement raging between the truculent Hitler and the left-leaning Atrocity, Jamrag left for Australia and the group split.
The Aliens
The abrasive Hitler, one of the best guitarists on Auckland’s punk stages, was soon back with The Aliens, a more flamboyant act which featured Al Rabbit (bass), Hitler’s flatmate Keith Bacon on guitar, Tommy Vomit on drums (replaced by The Idle Idols’ Jamie Jetson (Julie Curlette) and Zwines DJ and extrovert gay Craig Clash, AKA Brutus D Grading (Craig Emery) up front.
Hitler: “Craig Emery wore a studded dog collar and chain over his shoulder. He looked an awesome punk. We were doing originals, plus covers, including David Bowie songs like ‘Diamond Dogs’ and ‘Suffragette City’. The Aliens played the “Radio Hauraki Rock Battle” at Trillo’s Ballroom in late January 1979, where I trashed my guitar, and Julie had green hair and wore a black bin liner and chain around her wrist.”
The Aliens never really landed, surviving just three bare months from November 1978 to February 1979, playing mostly at Zwines. With Jamrag back in Auckland, two groups emerged from the confusion in March and April 1979. Hitler and Bacon’s Spelling Mistakes, and Proud Scum with Al Rabbit, Jamrag, John Atrocity and new drummer Bruce Diode (Hoffman), the younger brother of The Terrorways’ Pete Mesmer.
I Hate The Spelling Mistakes
Looking to give punk one last try, Hitler spied the Hanson brothers Nick and Julian at the Windsor Castle, an Auckland pub venue, one night in March 1979. The singing, drumming Hansons were just what he needed, and they were available. Their group, Zwines regulars Get Smart, had disbanded. With Bacon on bass they became The Spelling Mistakes.
Two months in Keith Bacon jumped ship to form The Secret Agents, leaving behind his signature punk tune ‘Ergophobia’. His replacement was Nigel Russell, a Selwyn College mate of Nick Hanson’s and older brother of Harry Ratbag (of Herco Pilots).
“Nigel was spotty, stuttered and came from Remuera,” says Warwick Hitler. He was also a fine bass player and a good singer. The Spelling Mistakes played on where they could. Their first shows were in the city’s punk heart at Zwines, mid-May. Two nights with Proud Scum then on to HQ Rock Cafe in Upper Queen Street for a week’s residency.
Julian Hanson: “There were lots of little places to play – The Windsor Castle, Edinburgh Castle, Squeeze, Mainstreet, Island of Real, Gluepot – tons and tons of them. The Occidental Hotel in Vulcan Lane was really tiny. When punters went to the toilet, the bass player had to lift up the neck of his guitar to let them through. We played downstairs at the back of the small lounge bar on a tiny stage with a shelf above for the PA speakers.”
Hate Me Hate Me
The Spelling Mistakes were no strangers to conflict and controversy. The sight of Warwick Hitler steaming through a seedy Auckland punk dive could turn a punter pale, especially if they’d incurred his wrath. His own band members weren’t immune.
“People were always criticising the way I looked,” says Hitler, “but once I started wearing a Nazi uniform, people just shut the fuck up. Since punk, everyone was doing it. A lot of punk was about shocking people and a lot of people believed what was on the surface was going on inside people’s heads. It was a joke, but a lot of people didn’t get it.”
He was also fond of an abrasive topical lyric, so when an Air New Zealand jet crashed into Mount Erebus on the Antarctic continent on November 28, 1979, killing all on board, a song laying the blame at Air New Zealand’s feet wasn’t far away. It joined such abrasive ditties as ‘Germany’ (which praised the Nazi state), and ‘Moscow’ (supporting the Western boycott of the Moscow Olympics) in The Spelling Mistakes’ large set of originals.
If Hitler’s objective was outrage, he got a double dose with ‘Erebus’. At a one-off show at a posh girls boarding school, the group were unaware that they were playing to daughters of the plane’s pilot [who was initially thought to be the cause of the crash] and the head of Air New Zealand.
“Air New Zealand’s lawyers rang me and demanded a copy of the lyrics. They were publicly saying it was pilot error, but the song laid the blame at Air New Zealand’s door.”
Hitler: “Air New Zealand’s lawyers rang me and demanded a copy of the lyrics. They were publicly saying it was pilot error, but the song laid the blame at Air New Zealand’s door.” Accurately it turned out. Hitler never sent the words and the matter died.
With originals piling up, The Spelling Mistakes booked their first recording session at Mascot Studios with engineer Steve Crane for December 2, 1979. Four songs were recorded – Fowler contributed the Detroit punk-steeled ‘Stingy’ and ‘Hate Me, Hate Me’. Julian Hanson contributed the swinging geek lament ‘No Contact’ and the Nigel Russell-sung ‘I Want You’.
It was a strong collection, but not one destined for release at the time, although ‘No Contact’ had some airplay as a demo, resulting in bigger live crowds. It also pricked the ears of manager Larry Young of Sunset Promotions, who booked the Windsor Castle, which at the time was an active new band venue in Parnell. Young began booking them into Mainstreet, new underage club Squeeze in Fanshawe Street, Liberty Stage and The Gluepot.
It’s All I Know How To Be
In March 1980, The Spelling Mistakes entered Mandrill Studios with 1ZM DJ Bryan Staff to record a track for a split single with The Whizz Kids on his label Ripper Records. The result, ‘Reena’s Piss Flaps’, was a blunt ode to female anatomy from the wry pen of Warwick Hitler.
“All the boot girls used to put up their hand and ask: ‘Can I be Reena tonight?’” remembers Nick Hanson. “They were pretty young and innocent really. They were kicking people’s heads in but they were pretty silly and young. Reena was Rena Owen, now a famous actor, who was a wild character on the scene, an outrageous boot girl at the time. Rena said yes to her name on the recording. It became our star song really quickly. Everybody loved it.”
“I was surprised it didn’t become a lesbian anthem,” says Hitler. “I thought it was a good idea to record it. Something like that would never get played.”
As comic book controversial as the song’s words were, it was the music – Nashville schlock-country – that was the biggest shock.
When ‘Reena’ was finally released in August 1980, the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (NZBC) banned it and talkback station Radio Pacific played it as a civil liberties issue.
When ‘Reena’ was finally released in August 1980, the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation (NZBC) banned it and talkback station Radio Pacific played it as a civil liberties issue.
In early April The Spelling Mistakes entered “Rock Quest 80”, organised by Larry Young, and held over Easter weekend at the Windsor Castle. They won first prize. It was a single financed and released by Propeller Records, a new Auckland indie label run by Simon Grigg, former manager of Suburban Reptiles.
Over two days in May The Spelling Mistakes recorded their pop punk masterpiece, ‘Feels So Good’ with another take of ‘Hate Me, Hate Me’ and the skanky ‘I Hate The Spelling Mistakes’ at Mascot Studios in Auckland. The producer was Fane Flaws, who’d played in new wave pop act The Crocodiles and stoned hippie theatre-rock ensemble BLERTA.
Wellington and Christchurch
Come the middle of May and The Spelling Mistakes were on the road for the first time, playing to packed, friendly houses at prime Christchurch venue the DB Gladstone. They then headed north to Wellington to film a video for ‘Feels So Good’ and play a three-night stand at the Last Resort cafe, supported by Shoes This High.
The New Zealand capital, at the time in a strong post-punk phase, didn’t take to them. In Touch’s Dave Maclennan found them “rather ordinary”, noting “engaging front man Nick and John Maher-esque drummer Julian.” “There are a few gems,” he conceded. “In particular, the opener ‘Dumb Blonde’ is a knockout. It should be recorded post-haste as should the Buzzcock-ian ‘No Contact’.” The audience reaction was more enthusiastic. Then it was back in Auckland to play the New Station Hotel, Mainstreet and Squeeze.
Feels So Good
In June ‘Feels So Good’ debuted at No.29 during a five-week run in the national pop chart. Sunday night TVNZ music video show Radio With Pictures showed the song the following week. Despite their success and even with an album’s worth of strong songs, there was little interest from the recording industry. Record companies in New Zealand didn’t often risk money on albums by new bands. A chance to appear on the mainstream hits package Platinum Plus stalled at the last minute.
In June ‘Feels So Good’ debuted at No.29 during a five-week run in the national pop chart.
The bratty quartet played on through June into July at the Gluepot, Windsor Castle, Squeeze, XS Cafe, Kicks, the New Station Hotel and Mainstreet with Wreckless Eric. In August, ‘Another Girl’, a Julian Hanson pop ballad, was announced (but not released) as the group’s next single with ‘Stingy’ and ‘No Contact’ on the flipside.
In early September, The Spelling Mistakes appeared briefly with the pop-reggae old school act Coup D’Etat at the Windsor Castle. Julian Hanson: “They threw us off the bill because we were creating negative energy, maaaann! We were pretty obnoxious in those days and said whatever we felt like. I think we got thrown out of there for swearing and revving the audience up.”
They were barred, the owner told Larry Young bluntly. They’d already been banned from the New Station Hotel. With Auckland’s venues closing to them and the boot boy menace showing no signs of abating, The Spelling Mistakes decided to knock it on the head. They bowed out at XS Cafe, the underage venue in Airedale Street, over two nights – October 31 and November 1, 1980 – to a capacity crowd, which broke The Spelling Mistakes’ own door record. They closed with ‘Reena’, as always.
X-Teenagers – the first reunion shows and album
The backstreet mix of sub-seven foot strongmen, junkies, hookers, psychos, students and runaway kids who peopled the late 1970s Auckland punk scene may have been missing (or there a little older and wiser). But the legendary on-stage energy and humour of The Spelling Mistakes survived intact. That soon became clear at the punk-pop pranksters March 1998 reunion show at Luna, a second story venue on Symonds Street, a stretch of inner city Auckland that was no stranger to 1970s punk.
Front man Nick Hanson, wearing a T-shirt with “Anti Social” scrawled across it, left no doubt it was going to be a feisty, wired show. He was soon talking to the crowd, camping it up, trying a bit of Iggy-style confrontational theatre, waggling a mic into the front rows for a sing-a-long of their 1980 hit single, ‘Feels So Good’, and it’s flipside, ‘I Hate The Spelling Mistakes’.
By Hanson’s side, Warwick Hitler (Fowler), a small smile burning under his matte black German army helmet, rarely missed a note as Nigel Russell and Julian Hanson laid down a beat that didn’t let up, lasting for two 40 minute sets. In the sweaty, hyped crowd, Rena Owen, she of the Mistakes’ infamous ‘Reena’s Piss Flaps’ fame, was circulating, shaking it to her de facto anthem onstage. Down the back, a mini skinhead reunion had convened, only now the boots looked new, the jeans were pressed, and partners were present.
Beneath the venue, Barry Jenkin, our John Peel, huddled in the doorway, blowing a number as punk period pieces echoed off the surrounding buildings. The lights above his head flashed like cop cars from the second story windows. The Spelling Mistakes were inside camping up the New York Dolls’ ‘Personality Crisis’.
There would be four more early reunion shows, including a packed night at The Globe, an early punk haunt revisited, which earned mixed reports from fans and band alike. That should have been warning enough. But it was the poorly attended “Raw Power” Punk show in November at Auckland’s Powerstation with the best bands of the other NZ punk tribes – Sticky Filth, Balance and Gobsmakt – that nearly proved one show too many for The Spelling Mistakes.
During their set a skinhead punched singer Nick Hanson to the ground. The group walked off.
During their set a skinhead punched singer Nick Hanson to the ground. The group walked off. An eerie echo of their original boot boy related demise was in the air. They played only twice more: at the inner city Auckland club Squid for the release party of Action Records’ Yuletide compilation Xmas in the Summertime (a short set, hard and direct), and at the revived Sweetwaters outdoor festival in January 1999.
There still remained the problem of what to do with “those songs”. They were too good to let lie. We Still Hate The Spelling Mistakes, the first reunion show giveaway CD of live and studio tracks from the group’s hey day, underlined the point.
‘All I Know How To Be’ alone justified a revisiting, but really this was a band with no shortage of quality songs. ‘Ergophobia’, ‘X-Teenager’, the misanthropic ‘Anti-Social’, their lost 1977-style snarler ‘Latest Photograph’, ‘What’s Wrong With Me?’ and ‘Nothing To Say’ all deserved studio treatment.
They got it in November 1998 at Frisbee Studios in Auckland, with Bob Frisbee engineering. They scrubbed up well, those old Spelling Mistakes gems. There’s brash pop smarts and punk rock power all over the great, lost album. ‘X-Teenager’ is a NZ 1970s punk anthem in absentia. The relentlessly upbeat ‘All I Know How To Be’ combines power pop Buzzcocks with the grander structures of early Magazine and a peerless vocal from Nick Hanson. ‘Latest Photograph’ is pure pop. ‘Helium Head’, written by Julian Hanson after The Spelling Mistakes demise, is spacey Beatles psych with Nigel Russell keyboards, druggy harmonies, and a stray Chuck Berry riff.
It's an intriguing hint of where The Spelling Mistakes might have gone. ‘Ergophobia’, ‘Anti-Social’, ‘Nothing To Say’ and ‘What’s Wrong With Me?’ crackle with punk’s original electricity and humour. Warwick Hitler, getting that Detroit amphetamine crossed with Chuck Berry guitar sound down. Hard evidence of the group’s live fire. All compiled on Fast Food Records double CD from 2003, Epileptic Apocalypse – 1979 – 1999. Age had not wearied, nor the past condemned.
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Julian Hanson passed away on 11 February 2021 after a short illness. In the years since the initial run of The Spelling Mistakes, Julian had been a constant in the Auckland music scene, playing and composing for bands that included Rank and File, Terror of Tinytown, The Doris Days and Lozenge. However, he will always be remembered for the handful of songs he composed – and sometimes sang – with The Spelling Mistakes, which seemed to effortlessly merge punk with infectious pop.
