1957: Rock Around The Clock

February 11, 2021

By AHNZ

Rock and Roll music came to New Zealand in about 1955, especially under the flagship song “Rock Around the Clock” performed by Bill Haley & His Comets (1954.) It became participatory as a musical movement in 1957 when Kiwis performed their own first Rock’n Roll songs. This is very standard. New Zealand generally lags behind the rest of the West by 3 years or so, almost like clockwork. Our 1957 tracks were ‘Resuscitation rock’ (1957) and ‘Pie cart rock’n’roll’ (1957.)  The fact that the former song’s subject matter came in the form of a public service announcment about first aid shows we had a ways to go at accepting the spirit of Rock’n Roll Rebellion.

“From late 1958 Devlin and his band the Devils toured the length of New Zealand for six months, with a rock ’n’ roll variety show that attracted headlines, full houses and occasional riots. In just over a year, he had become New Zealand’s answer to Elvis Presley, and was on a boat to try his luck in Australia.”- Te Ara

Johnny Devlin and the Devils (image left) were the ones that picked up Rock’n Roll and ran with it. To Australia, unfortunately, because even in 1958 we were too square to allow Devlin to follow his rockin’ muse. The Howard Morrison Quartet, on the other hand, was a better behaved repository for Rock’n Roll so they could stay.

The young Boomers and their Rock’n Roll was becoming too powerful a force for the mainstream to withstand but they sure did try.  Ossie Mazengarb was given a CBE and the job of repressing our youth which he did with the Mazengarb Reprot and a suite of laws to criminalise the unholy rise of these damn kids: Indecent Publications Amendment Act (1954,) Child Welfare Amendment Act (1954,) The Police Offences Amendment Act (1954.) Obviously it was a doomed effort because, as Bryan Adams later pointed out, kids wanna rock.

“The old establishment, Mt Everest Dignity Culture (c.1947-52,) did have plenty to fear from their latest spawn. Resentful and repressed Silent Generation kids, Parker and Hulme, had lashed out and killed. Bodgie and Widgie subculture defied and spooked the mainstream. A real or imagined Milk Bar Sex Gang of teenagers was busted by police in the Hutt Valley. There was a radical change in values among the young and the call for good parenting was answered. It was answered (too late) by a memo called the Mazengarb Report to every house in the land! Of course that did nothing and never could. Writing a memo is a typically institutional, abstract, way to solve problems..” – 1954: Mazengarb

“Rock ‘n roll arrrived, and the young surrendered to its pulsating charms. Those same younhg, who played ‘Rock Around The Clock’ until you could see daylight thorugh the grooves of the record, now condemn their own children for their slavish addiction to punk and New Wave, and today’s punks will doubtless be appalled by what they see on the pop shows of 2005. This is known as the cycle of History”- Grant (1982)

Mazengarbian paternalism was repeated when the Boomers parented their GenX kids. It’s not that they forgot about their Rock’n Roll and their Elvis, it’s that they mostly failed to recognise that history was repeating. From their own point of view, those weirdo Split Enz guys and Misex’s New Wave and Chris Knox’s Punk music was qualitatively different to what the kids were doing now!

Millennial ‘Rock’n Roll’

Writing during this 80s delinquent panic, esteemed historian Alan Ward recognised the resemblance to the 50s. Going even further, he foresaw the next one coming in around 2005 when GenX parents would be alienated and freaked out by what their Millennial Kids would be consuming musically.

Indeed, the suite of ‘horrors’ was upon the 2005 kids having already passed through their own little Punk Era entree of Rave Culture in the 90s. This was the time of System of a Down, Eminem (rap for white kids,) Korn, Maralyn Manson, Metellica (some of it anyway,) Rage Against The Machine. This music was rebellious, raw, loud, and satisfied the requirment of being oppositional and alienating to the mainstream status quo.

Interestingly, this didn’t upset GenX parents too much and they even enjoyed much of the hard rock and heavy metal catalogue and joined in. But that’s only because GenX, despite being the parents, were not The Man. Boomers were the mainstream, not being willing to pass the torch of property and power on to anyone else. Indeed, the Boomers have so far refused even to die but when they do it’s declared the start of a pandemic called COVID-19! So, 2005s music was tailored to oppose these rulers in particular.

An interesting thing about these Hard Rock “Fuck you, do I wont do what you tell me” Millennials is that when they came of age they became massive conformists. Safe Spaces, Language Policing, ‘Me Too’ Witch Hunts, Statue Toppling, massive Political Correctness and Virtue Signalling. Sensing the trend, and hopping right on board, media and government and corporate marketers echoed all that jazz right back. So successful has this marketing been that the Millennials have become massive conformists! “Fuck you, do what they tell you,” becomes the ethic of the now authority-loving class of 2005. Goes to show that, for them, it was never really about opposing Colonialism or Imperialism or Government or The Man. All of those things are fine, provided they and their in-group are the ones pulling the triggers, dropping the blades, and watching the rolling heads.

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Ref. The birth of Kiwi rock ‘n’ roll; NZHistory.govt

Ref. The paua and the glory : the story of New Zealand’s rise to international insignificance, Alan Grant (1982)

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