No Tag


No Tag broke bar consumption records while their audience broke heads. It was a volatile combination, the consequences of which had shadowed the tough Auckland punk four-piece out on the hard West Auckland hall scene and at inner city Auckland venues.

The band got a double dose of approbation when their blistering three-song EP for Propeller Records, featured the ‘Oi Oi Oi’ chant adopted by British street punks, some of whom were overtly racist, resulting in a tabloid plastering for alleged (and completely untrue) Nazi leanings.

The 1983 poster for No Tag's Can We Get Away With It tour.
No Tag's Andrew Boak, Screaming Meemees' soundman Jack Hares, Screaming Meemees drummer Yoh and Karen Stevens backstage at Sweetwaters 1982
Photo credit: Karen Stevens collection
Andrew Boak, Carl Van Wetering and Paul Van Wetering
Mark Sullivan
Andrew Boak, Mark Sullivan, Paul Van Wetering
Andrew Boak
Andrew Boak and Paul Van Wetering
Photo credit: Andrew Schmidt collection
The 1982 Oi Oi Oi EP. Drummer Carl Van Wetering provided the arm.
Paul Van Wetering, Andrew Boak, Carl Van Wetering and Mark Sullivan in an outtake for the Oi Oi Oi EP photo shoot.
No Tag keeping an eye out ...
No Tag (live in Auckland 1983)
Auckland, 1982
The Dead Kennedys at Auckland's Mainstreet
Pub Song (live in Auckland, 1983)
Paul Van Wetering
No Tag's Can We Get Away With It? album, March 1983.
London poster, mid-1980s
Trivia:

Andrew Boak was station manager at 95bFM in the early 1980s and also provided backing vocals on the 1986 Dead Kennedys album Bedtime For Democracy.

Paul Van Wetering is a Feng Shui practitioner and a director of The New Zealand School of Feng Shui.

Andrew Boak was guitarist and vocalist with Auckland North Shore trio The Regulators, who self-released ‘Neat Boy’ as one side of a single with The Ainsworths’ Coin on the other side, in 1981.

No Tag’s Mark Sullivan brought the song What A Great Cunt’ry from The Flicks, his early North Shore punk band, who had recorded it at Harlequin Studios. The Flicks placed second at Rock Quest 1980 at the Windsor Castle.

Labels:

Propeller

Members:

Andrew Boak - guitar

Carl Van Wetering - drums

Paul Van Wetering - vocals

Mark Sullivan - bass

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