Jack White, singer-guitarist in a relatively-unknown Detroit two-piece called the White Stripes, was in Cleveland, Ohio, when he took a call from a New Zealander named John Baker.

It was early 2000, and Baker wanted the band to tour here. When White hung up, he was asked who was on the phone. Some guy from New Zealand, he said, with incredulity. Baker sent him the air tickets, and White rang back: so Baker was serious after all. The White Stripes would play two nights at the Kings Arms as part of a five-date tour of New Zealand, and by the end of it, Baker had become their road manager. So he was there to witness first-hand as the UK realised 12 months later what New Zealand had already worked out, there to see the band play Glastonbury and Reading and Leeds festivals and become a big deal.

The White Stripes gigs at the Kings Arms have become pretty famous. But a host of other name acts have passed through those doors: the Drifters, Lloyd Cole, the Misfits, the National.

Matt Stroobant from Rock and Roll Machine jumped off the PA during a guitar solo and broke his leg. There was a mid-gig speaker fire thanks to a screaming D4 guitar solo, the band playing on as someone hosed it down. With no real backstage, the Drifters jogged to and from the car park for their encore, then got stuck into drinking with the locals. One promoter slit his wrists because his girlfriend had dumped him. Two radio DJs got married, with Blam Blam Blam playing in support. Dai Henwood’s band Meat-Bix played with raw meat strapped to them.

Baker promoted a two-date stop by Japanese band Guitar Wolf, and got a noise warning on the first night; pocketed it, forgot about it, and had noise control shut down the second gig. He paid off the band on stage at Ponsonby bar Java Jive, and Guitar Wolf and the audience walked down the road and resumed the gig.

Even the toilets have their stories. The graffiti in the ladies reads: “I’ve got the heart of a lion, and a lifetime ban from the zoo.”

The music began back in the late 1980s, with a country singer called Al Hunter, who played twice a week, including Saturday afternoons, to a raucous crowd in an otherwise deserted lounge bar. “They’d be pissed as chooks,” says Tim Werry.

Tim Werry, from the band the Waltons, and pub regular. JASON DORDAY/STUFF Tim Werry, from the band the Waltons, and pub regular. JASON DORDAY/STUFF

Werry was back from almost making it big with a couple of country bands in Sydney, and became an enthusiastic regular at Hunter’s gigs. When the Gluepot in Ponsonby closed, costing his band The Waltons their residency there, they moved over and took on Friday nights (they’ve also played a Christmas party at the pub for the past 24 years).

That two-pronged music line-up might have been it, except that Maureen’s youngest daughter, Lisa, who had left home early to work in record stores in Sydney and London, came home with remarkably diverse music tastes and formed her own band.

Werry persuaded her mother to let Gaunt Pudding play, borrowing his PA. “Maureen said ‘Oh god, have you heard them?’ and I remember like it was yesterday, saying ‘what you might think is rubbish, the young people might like and if you give it a go, you might be surprised’.”

And then Lisa began booking other bands. In was the mid-90s, and a lot of older venues - including the Gluepot - had closed. There was a definite gap in the market.

At first, the bookings were local acts, but then came promoters such as Baker, who began bringing overseas artists - in his case, mainly Japanese guitar bands.

Steven Shaw, editor of the music history website audioculture, played in several bands that performed at the Kings Arms and has been going to gigs there since the Hunter days.

The Kings Arms became a home for a diverse range of music scenes. “They had a unique, fairly organic situation on their hands, and they went with it,” says Shaw.

The sports bar’s decline had begun, and instead music became the meal ticket at the Kings Arms.

Baker reckons Maureen, rightly loyal to her regulars, worried that the music might upset them and would persuade promoters to let them wander from the sports bar into the music bar.

“...it's probably time” PRESS THE ARROW TO LISTENLisa Gordon, the pub's music promoter, on her feelings when they decided to close. PRESS THE ARROW TO LISTENLisa Gordon, the pub's music promoter, on her feelings when they decided to close.

But, says Lisa, there were rarely objections, except once when a punter came in when one band was playing rather loudly, and unplugged them (she was secretly rather grateful). “One of the locals, we used to call him Wobbly Wayne, because he was always wobbling after he had a few drinks. He’d be in his stubbies and his jandals and be dancing away and I think the bands had never seen anything like it.”

But Maureen also stood up to those who didn’t want the music in this gentrifying corner of town. When the noise complaints started coming, she put shipping containers in the car park to dull the sound, then built a $40,000 bespoke noise wall.

“I used to feel sorry for mum,” says Lisa. “The phone would ring and people would say ‘what band is playing tonight?’ And we’d have a band called the Sore Cocks, and she’d have to mutter these names.”