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Punk Renovation: Mint Chicks Style
Just when you might have thought punk was pretty much dead (or at least in a teen punk wannabe coma) the Mint Chicks treated an Auckland audience to a truly punk experience at their penultimate New Zealand gig. The show began with silence as the crowd tuned in to a strange semi-musical noise; a little like synthesizers mixed with sounds of the bush. As the “music” pulsed and finally died down to not much more than a hum you could feel the crowd’s eagerness growing. And then just as frustration started to build there was a final pulse of noise and the four members of the band came on stage. An eruption of alternative punk filled our ears as they blasted out “Walking Off A Cliff Again”. A smoke machine behind them worked in perfect harmony with the eclectically coloured lights surrounding the stage and wisped out over the crowd while I tangled myself in the mosh pit and let the music wash through me. The bliss of the moment was tainted only by the persistent awareness that this was the just about the last Mint Chicks in good old NZ. Fortunately I had a chance to talk to drummer Paul Roper before the gig to ask them about their decision to move. “We've run out of things to do here,” says Roper with a laugh. “And Ruben and Kody have their US passports already so we can go over there with a small amount of hassle.” Along with the rest of The Mint Chicks NZ fan base I'm devastated about the move, but how do they feel about the move? “These last gigs are going to be a little bit sad ‘cos Michael's leaving. We're going to turn into a trio and Kody's going to be playing bass on keyboards,” says Paul. “It's fun though, heaps of fun because lots of people are coming tonight and heaps of people are having a good time so it's just like any other gig really in that sense but the fact that they're gonna be the last few with Michael is a bit stink.” says Paul. Despite it being one of Michael's last gigs playing with the Mint Chicks he had a huge grin on his face throughout the night and made the most of it going all out with his battered bass guitar as usual. The Mint Chicks have led the charge in creating a trend that I like to call a “punk renovation”. They’re still very much punk except they focus on the creativity, leaving the violence and “fuck you” attitude to others. Their performances and artwork are eccentric, charged and energetic but celebratory, rather than destructive. After the sound check I noticed the four of them walk outside with armfuls of blank t-shirts in various colours and styles and bags full of coloured spray paint and Mint Chicks design stencils. Intrigued, I followed them and was treated to the unusual experience of seeing a band creating their own merchandise. They started with stencilling “Mint Chicks” on the t-shirts but after a while the artistic urge broke through and the stencils were cast aside as they went free hand. I couldn’t help feeling that I was witnessing the essence of modern punk. It was the DIY sense and the last minute mayhem, a slightly crazed number eight wire attitude that made it so incredible. In New Zealand the Mint Chicks can proudly claim to be amongst the instigators of this modern punk genre that’s having such a profound effect on many other new performers. But what worries me is that this modern punk could be so easily wiped out under the twin pressures of US style commercialization and our small size. There’s been a long tradition of NZ bands that begin to make it big in NZ and then shoot across to America, chasing the dream of “success”. However, making it big can kill a band’s true spirit and “Americanize” them. Before you know it a band like the Mint Chicks could be zapped into a band like My Chemical Romance… ew! So why can't NZ bands make it big here and keep their true spirit? I begin to feel that I might be the only one worrying about this. “The thing is a band might be quite big over there, even a New Zealand band might be doing quite well but you don't really hear about it in New Zealand. You could be selling hundreds of thousands of albums in America and not even make it on the radar in New Zealand. So people in New Zealand think that they've just disappeared but really they're probably still going really well,” says Roper confidently. Is it possible that the Mint Chicks will keep their original modern punk theme and make it big in the US? Does moving necessarily wipe out their innovative modern punk attitude? Will the US “get” the handmade t-shirt thing? I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the US treats our precious Mint Chicks and if it decides to let the rest of the world experience the renovated punk phenomenon. 
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