FROM ROCK 'N 'ROLL TO HARD CORE PUNK - UKZN ...

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of fans of South African punk was built up, as Rubin Rose began
writing to other punk bands, and sending them copies of
recordings. This way, South African punk rock bands were almost
better known outside South Africa than within, and Powerage (a
later Durban hard punk band) even appeared on alternative charts
in Sweden and America.
Durban Punk Rock Bands
As can be seen from Figure 1, a fairly large number of punk bands
existed in Durban. This discussion, however, will deal with only
those bands which comply with my original list of constraints 51 ,
and therefore some of the bands appearing on the chart (such as
The Contaminators and Dr Crippler and the Lazers) will not be
discussed. Furthermore, this chart also includes some of the
important new wave bands (such as The Impact and The Gents) since
many of the punk and new wave bands performed on the same bills
and even shared musicians from time to time.
It must also be pointed out that the terms 'punk' and 'new wave'
were often synonymously used by newspaper reporters, even
although musicians differentiate between the two genres. This is
important for the reader since many of the quotes cited in this
discussion would seem confusing if one was not aware of this
usage. New Wave is considered by punk musicians to be a 'softer'
more listenable version of punk, and is not synonymous with punk.
The Fourth Reich
The Fourth Reich was the first punk rock group in South Africa.
The line-up of the band consisted of Johnny Wednesday, (guitar
and vocals) Mike Fleck (or Mick Sick) (guitar and vocals), Mark
Dyson (or Marko PogO)52 (drums) and Peter Kunst (or Budgie) (bass
51 See Chapter 1, pp. 6-7.
2 Note: The pogo is the frenzied dance which accompanied the punk
movement, and which fans indulged in.