Vicious Cycles MC tonight, L7, the Rickshaw, and more!

I only had a small amount of space to work with in my recent Straight piece on the Vicious Cycles Motorcycle Club, so I did not get to include many details - like that bassist Rob "Not of Nomeansno" Wright is related to one of the drummers, Paul ‘Duke’ Paetz, from Jerry Jerry and the Sons of Rhythm Orchestra, who also emerged from the Edmonton scene, and have a nun song of their own. If you don't know them, they're probably the greatest libertarian/ Christian surf rock band to come out of Canada, ever. They may be the only one, in fact; I kind of hope so. They're pretty funny, if you don't mind all the Ayn Rand references.

I wonder if more standard variety left-wing Alberta hardcores are embarrassed by Jerry Jerry and the Sons of Rhythm Orchestra? (I also wonder if Stephen Harper dug them? He didn't strike me as having very interesting musical tastes - seemed like he might be a kind of Kenny G guy, maybe, or Blue Rodeo, or maybe at the outside the Barenaked Ladies, but hell, what do I know...? I am guessing Jerry Jerry would have been too punk rock for him). 

Donita Sparks and Jennifer Finch of L7, by bev davies, not to be reused without permission

Anyhow, besides the Vicious Cycles MC, also this week on the Straight website, I have a live review of the recent L7 show. It was edited a bit, both for length and for content, since I went a bit over the rails griping about a couple things that were peripheral to the actual concert review (like, I got really annoyed at being made to check my cloth tote, which meant I had to watch the entire show with a fucking pen and notepad at my side! Grr! Women aren't asked to check their bags - so it's gender discrimination! I've been discriminated against! I AM BEING OPPRESSED! - probably for the best that that all got chopped). There was one observation about a guy getting ejected from the pit by a DIY security force of punk females, who felt harassed by him - that I would have liked to include, but was deemed too peripheral to actually reviewing the band. It was kinda the most riot grrrl thing I saw that night, actually - "sisters are doin' it for themselves" type-thing.

Truth be known, I ain't actually a huge L7 fan - "I like the early stuff" - but it was fun to see how much the crowd enjoyed them, and to be reminded how good "Deathwish" and "Shove" were, and it was great they climaxed with "Fast & Frightening," which is still my favourite song of theirs. 

One thing I think I did say was that I was really  glad they picked such a cool opening act,  Le Butcherettes. I snagged bi/MENTAL, and I'm really enjoying it. The whole thing is interestingly complex pop, polished and sensual and easy to digest without being at all boring; Teri Gender Bender uses "fuck" really well in a few songs; and Jello Biafra makes a fun appearance on the opening track. This seems like the sort of album that it could become a headphone go-to that you listen to over and over and over again, a good "car record." It would be interesting to talk about Gender-Bender's costume choices in light of the issue of cultural appropriation, but...

Also on the Straight site, I have a piece up talking with Rickshaw owner Mo Tarmohamed. It's been very popular on Facebook - people just keep re-sharing it, which I'm pleased to see. Happy tenth anniversary, Rickshaw!

Finally, speaking of the Barenaked Ladies, there's also a film I would have liked to have reviewed, playing this weekend at the Vancity, but it didn't end up happening, about the situation with Norval Morrisseau forgeries. I am under the impression it takes in the ways that art galleries exploit First Nations artists. Seems pretty interesting, and a Barenaked Ladies member does pop up in the story; I gather that Adrian Mack came up with the inspired tagline for Ken Eisner's review, that "this barenaked lady is not for the feint of art." In the absence of a screener, I will just direct you to Ken's review, and mention that there is apparently a panel discussion tonight, when the film screens at the Vancity. 

And see y'all tonight at the WISE Hall for the Vicious Cycles album release (sorry, I don't have time to do justice to the opening acts, but they all sounded really, really fun, Rob had nice things to say about all of you, and I'm stoked in particular to catch Sandstorm!

Lester Interest: More than just a Gorgo-Holder

The whole situation with David M. is unlike anything I have ever experienced with any other musician. He has a small cadre of believers, collaborators, and friends who show up at pretty much every show (or feel guilty and make personal excuses). He has been coaxed (in part by me) into doing larger performances in the last while - like opening for Marshall Crenshaw at the Rickshaw, or playing DOA's Fight Back Festival - but he's said, over and over again, that he prefers the smaller shows; he really prefers intimacy over playing to a roomful of strangers. For instance, at a recent celebration of the music of Paul Leahy, out at the Heritage Grill in New Westminster, apparently exactly one person showed up who was not actually in the band or attached to the venue - but that person was Finn Leahy, Paul's son. M. was delighted with that turnout and I think Finn ended up some kind of participant, as well (M. will often bring members of his audience onto the stage, even if only to hold his Gorgo).

Lester Interest holding the scroll for the sea shanty, "The Ship Called the Anna Maria," Heritage Grill, July 31, 2017

In addition to being a quality-over-quantity kind of guy, he's remarkably loyal; to use a personal example, he played my wedding, performing a song we co-authored - having had worked graveyards the night before. He spent the day commuting to Duncan, where the wedding took place, and then commuted back to the mainland to work another shift, sleeping if at all while in transit. Would I do that for me, if I were him? I dunno.

One of the most loyal of M's friends, it seems - far more than me - was the late Lester Interest (AKA Glen Livingstone), who has been at almost every David M. (or NO FUN) show I have been to, and hundreds that I have not. More than just a Gorgo-holder, Lester read weird-ass, hilarious beat poetry set to M's music, for instance doing an adaptation of Eric Burdon's "The Black Plague," skewed to take in Christmas (so instead of "bring out your dead," it's "bring out your gifts"). He was dry, witty, enigmatic, and a wholly anomalous presence on stage. I suspect he was a pretty talented writer, actually, tho' I haven't read anything he might have done.

But sadly, Lester Interest has passed on. This is the last photo of him I took, last Christmas season, where he arrived late-ish at the Heritage to sit and watch David close the show (perhaps during his varied, 40-minute riff on "Good King Wenceslas?" (also featured in the photo are Bob Hanham, Norah Holtby, and Richard Chapman - like i say, quality over quantity, all the way).

I didn't really know Lester well. We interacted a bit about Doors bootlegs (he knew his Doors, and had, I believe, seen them live more than once). Mostly I knew him from his very quirky contributions to M's shows, but I'm sad I didn't get to know him better, and I have plans to make at least one of David's shows (he hates the word "tribute") offered in Lester's memory. I do not know what David has planned for his friend (he has a whole song cycle, Leahy Stardust, written with Paul in mind), but like the poster says, it won't be M. that I'm going to the show for. See you around, Lester (tho' the way things are I'm hoping it will be later rather than sooner). M's shows will be at least 16% less fun without you.

Belated RIPs: Roky, Dr. John

I saw both Roky and Dr. John one time each, both with my wife, and we loved both shows. RIP to both of them. (I've posted about it on FB but not here).

Dragged Across Concrete

There are lots of reasons to see Dragged Across Concrete. For one, it was shot in Vancouver by S. Craig Zahler, who made Bone Tomahawk and Brawl in Cell Block 99 (and, I gather, wrote a later Puppet Master film!). It has two very talented lead actors - Vince Vaughn, reeling it back in a bit to safer "nice guy" territory after the big stretch he took for Brawl; and Mel Gibson, whose work I like, whatever else one might say about him. It also has some terrific supporting performances from people I like (sorry, Don Johnson, Udo Kier, and Michael Jai White; I'm thinking Jennifer Carpenter and Laurie Holden here). And there's some very witty lines of dialogue, some real tension (and startling moments of violence), and some interesting psychology at work. I haven't liked either of Zahler's films post-Bone Tomahawk as much as I liked that film, but I also have had the impression with both of them that he's making films that are designed to be watched and enjoyed more than once - and that one would have to watch them more than once to really be able to say anything meaningful about them.

I guess I might as well acknowledge that I'm a smidgen disappointed this time out, since I had high hopes for the film, have been waiting for it for a very long time, and found it a little slow in the middle (on first viewing). But overall it was interesting, seems a keeper, and is a film I will probably return to someday. As one critic mentions in the poster above, Zahler seems very old-school in its approach to cinema, evoking 70's crime cinema, without feeling self-consciously retro (a flavour I mistrust). I gather there's some fussing online about Zahler's politics, which are unknown to me, but sometimes seem to resonate to the right of the spectrum. Hell, I've participated in a bit of that myself. I didn't find much of Dragged to be objectionable though; there is a moment - in Don Johnson's office - where some of the banter seems to be expressing what may be Zahler's actual opinions, but he's not the first suspiciously conservative filmmaker whose work I've found things to enjoy in (I'm also a fan of Clint Eastwood and ol' Mad Mel himself).

Anyhow: it's worth watching! (Oh, and fans of 70's funk soundtracks for blaxploitation cinema - "Across 110th Street," that sort of thing - will like the soundtrack, with Zahler co-writing the songs himself, and bands like the O'Jays performing them. The O'Jays are still around? I had no idea). 

The Wild Bunch to screen Tuesday

I don't always see eye to eye with people about Sam Peckinpah. 

I think this is a good thing. I think tastes in film and music should be personal and subjective; I think even if we can say that a certain film is "objectively" the greatest film a filmmaker ever made - like The Wild Bunch is for Sam - that doesn't require you to love it more than other films in his canon, because (just like "what you want" and "what you get," to borrow from Pat Garrett), loving a film and recognizing its greatness are two different things. 

I really, really love, for example, Peckinpah's The Getaway, with Steve McQueen - especially the first fifteen or so minutes. I'm given to calling it my favourite of Sam's films, mostly because of how he uses editing, sound and image to bring us inside the character of Doc's mind. You feel what it's like to be in prison with Doc in those opening scenes; McQueen's acting is as minimal as can be, but his emotions, his anger, his tension, his simmering struggle to stay contained, are all powerfully present. I love it. I also absolutely adore Slim Pickens in that film, and the way the story departs from the source text. Jim Thompson's novel ends on a very grim, downbeat note; as great as it is, I love that a sort of scarred romanticism emerges in the course of The Getaway, to turn it (sort of) into a testament to the ways in which love can survive horrific tribulations. Peckinpah can be pretty cynical, but he also has a romantic, sentimental streak in him, and it pleases me to see that peeking out. People have argued with me that The Getaway was a film that Peckinpah had no deep personal investment in, that it was a project for hire, but it still has some of my favourite moments in any of his films, and you know what, I do not think there is a way that that can be wrong. 

Another thing in The Getaway's favour: it is not a fucking mess, the way, say, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia or Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid or Cross of Iron are (three other films of Peckinpah's that I love, note). I also love Convoy, very much considered a lesser work of his, which was supposedly mostly finished by other people because Sam was too drunk or high to really get the job done. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, whoever worked on it did a very good job, at times, of producing Peckinpah-like cinema, albeit at its most shitkicker/ vulgarian level - the kind of film that has giddy music accompanying a barroom brawl, you know? There's something "made by apes" about it which is at times embarrassing to behold. It's also very, very entertaining, however, and it's considerably better put-together than other "late Sam" movies, with none of the sprawl or self-indulgent sloppiness you see in, for example, Cross of Iron. 

And that whole attempt to rehabilitate Straw Dogs was a crock of shit, sorry. I listened to Stephen Prince's Criterion commentary, and, standing skeptically at a bookstore, read portions of his book; Prince argues that Straw Dogs is an anti-violence, anti-rape text. No way in hell: it's a morally repugnant, misogynist, and deeply problematic film about how women are asking for it and how, sometimes, men are their victims. It's deeply offensive, deeply misguided, even ridiculous at times.

That doesn't stop me from watching it every ten years or so, mind you: I am not saying it shouldn't be viewed, or that there isn't also truth and value in the film, in some places. I'm just saying that you don't need to LIE about it, to contort yourself and your scholarship in absurd ways, in order to give yourself a justification for watching or appreciating it, which is the simple version of what I think Prince is doing. 

Here's the thing: I do not (shoot me now) love The Wild Bunch. It IS probably the greatest of Peckinpah's films - which possibly interferes with my engaging with it; sometimes, a film has so much baggage that comes with it that you can't form your own opinion of it, for grappling with how you're told you're supposed to feel or think about it. But to me, it's every bit as problematic as Straw Dogs is in its attitudes towards women, in its macho romanticization of male self-sacrifice, it's glorifications of violence against the male body. I mean, I'm a male, and I work pretty hard, sometimes, to be a decent one. But I don't really relish the idea of taking bullets for anyone, or find poetry or beauty in it; it's an aspect of the patriarchy that I wouldn't mind seeing queried more. The Wild Bunch seems, to me, to be all about the glory of taking bullets - an uncritical celebration of the beauty of violence against the male body, and the nobility and glory of submitting to that violence. It may be Peckinpah's most "Viking" movie, in a way - about riding doomed into battle, knowing that Valhalla awaits. 

I wouldn't have made a very good Viking, I don't think. I appreciate the film as standing out against the zeitgeist, back in 1969, and I love William Holden, Warren Oates, Robert Ryan and Ernest Borgnine in it, but I have never fully been able to find myself in the film, or take deep pleasure in it, as I am with some of the other films mentioned above (nevermind The Getaway: I would even watch Convoy over The Wild Bunch, given my druthers).  

Maybe I misunderstand it, though. It's been a long time since I've seen it (almost ten years?), and I fully admit that every time I have tried to watch it, I come out the other end feeling like I've missed something. Maybe I have! But I am thinking I will attempt to re-engage with it on Tuesday, when it screens to celebrate its 50th anniversary at the Vancity Theatre. (I shudder with horror to realize that I AM OLDER THAN THIS FILM, which seems something of a bygone era now.) The listing for it says that "the violence wasn’t the point. The pointlessness was the point" - that the film is more about futility than the glory of dying in futility. Maybe the person who wrote that understands the film better than I do? 

I am open to correction.

RIP Ryszard Bugajski

I am very sad to report that a very interesting, under-appreciated filmmaker - who worked in Poland and Canada, and made several very powerful, compelling films - has died. Ryszard Bugajski made one of my favourite-ever Canadian films, Clearcut, which I have written about many times, and once screened at the Vancity Theatre. It's a film apparently stuck in copyright limbo - no one, last I heard, was sure of who owned the rights to it, which meant it has never had a proper DVD or Blu-Ray release - tho' a few different bootlegs exist (the German one is best) and you can see a not-bad, HD version of it on Youtube (the aspect ratio seems off compared to the German DVD, but the image seems crisp). 

Here's the thing: I have been waiting for an occasion to publish a long interview I did with Bugajski (not yet fully transcribed), spanning his whole career, but had hoped that it could be timed to an official DVD release of Clearcut, which WAS under discussion when we spoke. Portions of that interview were published apropos of the Clearcut screening in Vancouver, but there's much more. I helped put someone else in touch with Bugajski in regard to a screening of Clearcut, and I have written a couple of companies about possibly putting something out, including Criterion, suggesting they do an Eclipse box of Bugajski's major films... Second Run DVD were considering it for awhile, too... my understanding is that there is actually a good digital master available of the film, worthy of a Blu-Ray release, but I haven't been in the loop as to what was happening with that...

Unfortunately, with news of Mr. Bugajski's death, the occasion for publishing the interview seems to be now, or soon, since I have a project with a deadline I need to complete, first. My condolences to Bugajski's family, and apologies for having delayed publishing this interview for so long. I'll get it done this summer. I've seen several of Bugajski's films (The Interrogation, General Nil, The Closed Circuit, and Blindness) and they're remarkable, and have a real thematic consistency to them. The story of The Interrogation is fascinating in its own right - a harshly anti-Communist film made in Communist Poland, it also had a very complicated and circuitous distribution history, with many copies of it circulating underground on a bootleg level (as I recall, he facilitated that happening himself). General Nil, The Closed Circuit, and Blindness also all deal with people being tortured wrongly by an overbearing and corrupt authority. None of these films have come out on video in North America, to my knowledge, but people should see them (my favourite remains Clearcut). 

More to come...

(No, this is not signed by Will Shatter or Bruce Loose.)

Flipper with David Yow: amazing

Sometimes Vancouver's music scene gets it wrong. Missing Three O'Clock Train with the Dils - that was a mistake on the part of a lot of people, which I pointed out, chiding asshole that I am, here. The last band I saw at the Astoria, too - Spear of Destiny - deserved a much bigger crowd, considering the quality of what they did. That's one of the reasons I went to such lengths (part one, part two) to give Flipper press. In terms of sheer transcription time, it's the hardest I've worked to plug a local show in years, but I did not trust that people would know to catch the show, that people would understand what they had the chance to see, and wanted to do everything in my (extremely limited) range of power to help make it a successful night. 

I don't know if my articles helped, or if it was just down to word of mouth about Yow's reputation as a frontman, or if Generic is an album that all the punks of Vancouver actually all know - but I am happy to report that Vancouver - the audience - knocked it out of the park last night. Before even writing about Flipper, I have to say I am soooooo glad that the Astoria was fucking PACKED. It was the most fun I can remember having at a concert, and it does my heart good to know that people got to appreciate this. Some people were more wasted than others, and the bouncers had some stressors trying to deal with the VERY porous wall between the audience and the stage, which Yow broke more than anyone - but from the opening act (the Authorities - did everyone but me know that the drummer was Orville Lancaster of Bishop's Green?) people were totally engaged and attentive and havin' fun. (All three openers were amazing, also including Chain Whip - Joshy of the Jolts sings hardcore! - and Lie, which is supposed to have an accent over the "e" that I don't know how to make, and who sounded like a female version of the Wipers on really powerful amphetamines. I shot clips of all bands, and will eventually get them up in a post-script to this piece). 

...and Flipper was one of the nicest groups of people I've met. I mean, if people tell you "I shot pool with David Yow last night," and you feel skeptical that this is true, believe them. Flipper hung the fuck out. I had heard stories of how intimidating Flipper was back when, but Ted and Stephen and Rachel were really, really friendly last night, and seemed to be having as good a time onstage as we were in the pit. 

(Stephen DePace takes a shot while David and Ted look on). 

...And Yow was insane in the best of all possible ways. Yes, there was nudity (but not the tight n' shiny, exactly, unless I was looking the other way). Yes, he spent a ton of time surfing the audience (or sitting on the audience, or embracing them, or wrasslin' with them). Yes, his most frequently repeated enjoinder to the audience was to suck a dick (we had been talking about sucking dicks earlier, actually, and it warms my heart to know that that may have trickled down, so to speak, into Yow's stage patter: you know that clip from the Ministry documentary that people were all blown away by, where Yow told the world he met Al Jourgensen sucking dicks for drug money at the Greyhound Bus Station? It was all a joke, folks. Quote Yow: "I have never sucked a dick.") (Thanks to Les Wiseman for pointing me in that direction, actually - it was fun to talk about). And if you felt, while you were standing around waiting for the band to start, someone shove you, and then turned around to see someone duck behind another audience member, peek-a-boo style... yes, that was David Yow. My first time seeing him. Sure hope it isn't my last - the Jesus Lizard is now a bucket-list band for me, who I hope someday I'll get a chance to see.  

You can see video of some of it if you like - I shot, for example, the opening number; I have a second vid coming up later, which is even crazier (but wants to turn sideways, since Yow so often was - I'm going to try to see if I can fix that). But seeing a video on Youtube is not the same thing as being there live. I also had watched videos on Youtube. I was not prepared. If you have seen video too, and are still not sure - you people in Seattle, for example, where Flipper plays tonight - just go. Go. Trust me and go. Loosen yourself up by your preferred means, and get right up front. You will NOT be disappointed. 

I am sooooooo glad I was there last night. I am equally glad that pretty much everyone else in Vancouver seemed to have been there, too. Fun as Death was, fun as Bob Mould was... Flipper with David Yow is the best concert I've been at in years. 

That's really all I can say for now. Thanks, Vancouver, you did me proud. Thanks, Flipper, for 40 years of making my life a better place. And thanks, David Yow, for making last night so fucking MEMORABLE. (And being such a sweet guy to interview).  

Wild.

Rupture this weekend - the new Jarmusch and much else; plus DVD sale!

So I did some writing for the Straight movie section for a change, reviewing Terror Nullius and The Cannibal Club, which are screening this week at the Vancity Theatre as part of Rupture, a festival of audacious "genre cinema fueled by artistry, originality and adventurousness," as the Viff website would have it. (Note - the links above lead only to the VIFF website descriptions; my reviews aren't online at the Straight yet). If all films are as good as the two I saw, it looks to be a delightful, mind-bending weekend, which kicks off tonight with a screening of Jim Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die, his highly-anticipated zombie film. I always feel apprehensive about taking in a new Jarmusch, since he seems to veer wildly between making films that I pretty much love all of (Mystery Train, Down By Law, Dead Man, The Year of the Horse), and making films that I love only parts of, finding the other portion (which varies in size) irritating, precious, or self-sabotaging (Ghost Dog, for instance, or Broken Flowers). I actually quite liked his Detroit vampire film, Only Lovers Left Alive, so I'm hoping his return to genre cinema will prove inspired. I mean, Iggy Pop as a zombie? Can we really lose?

The other bit of news is that I'm going to be manning a table through much of Rupture - skipping Friday for Flipper - so that I can sell off a shit-ton of DVDs and Blu-Rays. Basically anything I've had for ten years without watching, which I can't see myself watching in the next ten years, is going on the table, including several films that I've owned for the prestige or importance of the filmmaker, without my feeling any concomitant love of or desire to engage with their work (Jean Luc Godard, say). It looks like I'm never going to be doing any serious work in the world of film studies; there's a hundred different ways of accessing films these days (I can sign out whichever Godards I want to see from the library, I should imagine); and my shelves are still jam-packed with movies that I can watch, neverminding Netflix and so forth. I figure I've packed at least 500 films to the Vancity. With some exceptions (Criterions, out of print films, or really tasty treats), I'll be selling the bulk of them for $3 each, or four for ten, or ten for twenty - with room to negotiate, of course, because I don't want to be hauling these back home when it's done. This is NOT just crap you pass over at the thrift store (tho' there is some of that, too). I'll be curious to see what happens today! 

Nothing much else going on. See you at the Vancity, or Flipper, or somewhere.  

Flipper!

First part of my Stephen DePace interview is online... part two coming later this week... Talked to David Yow, too, but I'm not quite sure where I will put that. Show is this Friday at the Astoria...

High and Low: From Pulp to Poetry, at the Cinematheque

Did this!

My new profile photo, plus really, now: hiatus

Had a fun time with this pic, taking in front of a Missing Link bus stop ad. Surprised I haven't seen more of these!

I really do have to take a break here. Flipper is underway (June 7th). Catching up on David Yow movies (if you have Netflix, I had a lot of fun with I Don't Feel at Home in this World Anymore, directed by Jeremy Saulnier collaborator Macon Blair; Yow is great in it). I might do a film thing briefly in addition, but seriously, I need to pause here for awhile.

Bruce Wilson, Sunday Morning, and Tankhog

I saw Tankhog once or twice in the early 1990's. I briefly had a group of friends who a) drove - which I did not - and b) were interested in seeing shows at the Cruel Elephant. Most of my "suburban purgatory" youth out in Maple Ridge was spent NOT going to shows, but suddenly I was seeing the Melvins, the Dwarves, the Supersuckers, Love Battery, Facepuller, TAD, the Volcano Suns, Sludge (from Coquitlam!), Superconductor, All, and many others, on almost a weekly basis. I'm pretty sure I saw Tankhog twice. Frankly I barely remember any of those shows, but it was sure fun to talk to Bruce Wilson about tonight's Sunday Morning gig at the Fox. I caught them once, too, at the SBC, and was kinda blown away (for a band with such polished craft in their recordings, I can honestly tellya: they're even better live!). Interview online at the Straight! (Photo credits pending - group shot is by Rd Cane, flatbed shot is bev davies. Thanks to Bruce Wilson and Mike Usinger!

Happy Birthday, Todd Serious! (My Old Razorcake Interview with the Rebel Spell)

Long ago, I posted my last-ever interview with Todd Serious, shortly after he died, but my first-ever interview with him - which took place in 2008 at a house in East Van, with wretchederin and Chris Rebel also present - has been out of print for a long time, and never saw the light in its full, unedited form. I usually make more of a fuss around Todd's date of death, of March 7th, 2015, which happened to be my 47th birthday - which is a hell of a way to remember the day someone died - but I'm seeing on Facebook that today is Todd's birthday, so in honour of that, here's the article, mostly as it was before being trimmed down for word count!).

Note: if you can track it down, this issue of Razorcake also features a Chris Walter cover story on the Tranzmitors!

The Rebel Spell: Political Punk’s Not Dead

By Allan MacInnis

I’d been bitching to members of the Vancouver Subhumans about how punk had lost a lot of its angry, idealistic Utopian edge since it “broke” as a safe consumable. Singer Brian Goble replied, challenging me: “I think there still that element out there. I don’t know how popular it is. It’s never been like, a popular end of the punk rock spectrum as far as I can see, but – you don’t think there’s still little cells of that that exist, on the extreme left wing end of punk?” 

I conceded that I was a bit out of the loop, since I tend to listen mostly to music that I knew from the old days – I’m 39, and my prime years of punk consumption were 1982-1988 – but I still felt like something was missing. Despite the odd band like Propagandhi or Anti-Flag, the sort of idealism, misguided or otherwise, that led Subhumans bassist Gerry Hannah to give up music to become an urban guerrilla back in the early 1980s seemed in short supply – a holdover from the political activism of the ‘60s, long since dissipated as a cultural force.

It was around about this time that I saw the Rebel Spell for the first time, opening for DOA at Richards on Richards. One of their songs has lyrics along these lines...

If this ever ends, I imagine whole armies on trialYou’re guilty by your apathy and complicit in your simplicitySo don’t try to blow it off, it’s too far beyond your meansI will repeat myself until these ideas are heardI will write about disorder and murder driven by simple greed (from “Sullied Graves,” off 2005’s Days of Rage)

The band were remarkable in their energy, and I could make out enough of the words that I knew I’d be poring over their lyric sheets later, something I’ve done less and less of since my teen years. Some of their charisma was pure rockstar – their small blonde female guitarist, Erin, seems to have appropriated her onstage persona from heavy metal male guitarists of yore, which somehow makes me very happy to see – but there was also a clean, angry edge of idealism, mostly radiating from their lead singer, Todd, whose songs seemed angry populist speeches set to music. I approached him at the merch table afterwards. Lean and intense and Mohawked, he presented as a pretty serious fellow (I didn’t realize at the time he actually calls himself Todd Serious). I was impressed that their CDs were selling for only $5 apiece – a pleasing bit of money/mouth congruency – and a little offput that they had obscured their eyes and faces in the art; was it an affectation, or were they actually concerned about their faces being seen? Just how political were they, anyhow?

When the day of our interview arrived, I found myself more than a bit nervous as I made my way to the band’s homebase in East Vancouver, in the lower-rent, arts-oriented Commercial Drive area, with plentiful trees lining the road and rickety wooden steps to their backdoor. As much as I craved some sign that punk was still alive as a way of stirring up shit, my own life is pretty comfortable and compromised; the lost idealism I was pursuing was as much my own as the culture’s, and to some extent, that might have been apparent in the skepticism of some of my questions. Stepha, their drummer, was off being a Mom, so I had only Todd, Chris, and Erin to talk to, and we positioned ourselves equidistance from the tape recorder to attempt conversation.

Allan: So I’d wanted to ask about punk politics, to start with. It doesn’t seem that there’s many bands around that take punk politics seriously these days, and you guys do – it fills my old soul with nostalgia and, uh, wonder [chuckles].

Todd: Yes! [Laughs. Lengthy silence assumes, in which he stares at me, deadpan]. Is this like Jeopardy, you give us the answers...?  

Allan: Uh... you have references to things like the Zapatistas and things like that. Are you pretty well-read, when it comes to labour history?

Chris: I think it’s part of our lives. I wouldn’t call myself well-read, but I try to keep up.

Erin: I’m going to school for international relations, but I don’t, um, help with the lyrics much. I’m not active in that way.
Allan: Why not?

Todd: It’s kind of crushing to bring lyrics to me, because I’m so critical.

Erin [defensive]: Well, I never even wanted to, really. What I’m doing is academic work...

Allan: Academic work leading to what?

Erin: It’s a stepping stone to journalism, I think.

Allan: Particular areas of concern or interest?

Erin: Ummm... [laughs, hesitates, and says apologetically:]. I’m not giving you much...

Todd: I think she means by starting with international relations and then going into journalism and writing about international relations.

Erin: Yeah. [Silence ensues].

Allan: Okay. Chris – you also write sometimes.

Erin: [Giggles nervously].

Chris: Yeah, uh... If we’re talking about politics, and why we choose to be a political punk band or something... I think it’s because I’ve always been interested in it since I was young, and the same with Todd, like, before we even started the band, we were already reading the Communist Manifesto and other books. I always had an interest in politics and anarchism. And now, it’s protruding out of our band through us because we kind of live those lives. I try my hardest to be a vegan and do all these certain steps that are, like, condemning the shit that’s going on in this world anyways...  through the crap food that people sell us and all the shit corporations that are just trying to rule you. So you live that life, and in anybody’s mind, with politics, you always think you know best – so you just want to share you knowledge with people all the time - the stuff that I’m learning through our lives, you know. Like, let’s say the song “December 8^th 1980” that I wrote – I stumbled across, and was interested in, the conspiracy theory of –

Allan: Mark David Chapman being programmed by the CIA –

Chris: And Reagan and Bush being behind the murder of Lennon. And so I read about it, and it was a great song to write. I mean, Joey Only said it best on the _______ show, “It’s awesome about that song, you’re actually teaching somebody something.” When you read the lyrics... we got emails from kids, you know – they email you back and they say, “Oh yeah, we had to go look up Reagan, and he is a douche!” Or was a douche.

Todd: “...Though he happened before I was born.”

Chris: I mean, we’re not necessarily teaching history, but – we’re teaching history!
Allan: Sure.

Chris: A song like “The Strikers,” my whole purpose behind that is to tell people not to take shit from your boss, you know – and at shows I say, if your boss isn’t paying enough, steal from him.

Allan: Is there a particular strike you were thinking of there?

Chris: No, it’s just a metaphor, in general, pretty much.

Allan: Right. Do you guys read a lot of political theory?

Todd: Chris reads the first chapter of anything he can get his hands on.  

Chris: I’m in so many different books right now... I’m not even really reading political stuff right now, I’m kinda reading caveman books.

Allan: Caveman books?

Chris: Ancient history and stuff.

Todd: Pre-history.

Allan: For academic reasons, or personal?

Chris: For personal...

Allan: Any sort of connection to what you’re doing in the band?
Chris: I’m just interested in civilization and stuff. I’m just learning about – I’m trying to learn more about evolution and whatnot. I never really learned it in high school.

Todd (giggles): You weren’t really at high school!

Chris: No, I wasn’t... but I read anything I can get my hands on, any –ism you can throw at me.

Erin: I’m not so interested in the –isms, I’m more interested in social justice in general, so I don’t subscribe to any particular ideology.

Allan: Particular issues you get passionate about?

Erin: A big issue of concern for me is the media and how it’s concentrated. I think it really skews people’s perspectives – it affects every other institution that there is, because dissenting voices get marginalized and they don’t get heard as much.

Allan: Do you do any writing for independent media?

Erin: Workin’ on it, but no.

Allan: Stuff that you read about or particularly...

Erin: I just picked up Mother Jones magazine for the first time last week, you ever hear of it?

Allan: It’s sort of a hippie magazine, isn’t it?

Erin: Yeah, I guess so. It’s sort of American liberals – they’re sorta rich left-wing liberals, but I thought it was really good journalism. I’d never seen it before.

Allan: You guys play in America, in Washington, next week, right?

Todd: Yeah, well – we try to go there a lot, ‘cos they’re fairly close to home, and as long as you’re clever enough to get past the border without being a band, then yeah – it’s a lot of people that are right there!

Allan: Do you encounter any sort of prejudice against your politics? Like, in “December 8^th, 1980,” you’re encouraging John Hinckley Jr. to shoot straight. All for it, but, it’s kind of...

Chris: That’s seriously the best line ever... Down south, I think when we were in Arizona, I met some US marines at one show and the Days of Rage CD, there’s some kinda anti-military stuff in there, some Osama bin Laden thing, and one guy asked, y’know, “What’s this all about?”

Allan: I don’t know all the lyrics, so – there’s a reference to Osama bin Laden?

Chris: No!

Todd (laughing): I’m like, what?

Chris: It’s for the song “Truth Crew,” so for the artwork, I did a collage. I wanted to throw a picture of him in there.

Erin: We don’t get contradicted very much, people are very supportive.

Todd: Yeah, that’s just it. We go to the States, yeah, but we go to hang out with punks, and you’re not gonna... One guy – where was that, Las Vegas? - identified himself as a Republican punk or something?

Erin (Laughs): Yeah.

Todd: I’m like, “Dude, it’s an oxymoron.” Like, I’m not one to say there’s rules to things, but I don’t think that that can be.

Chris: That’s like Michael Graves, the singer from the Misfits, he’s a Republican punk. Colbert does a report on him, it’s fuckin’ funny.

Erin: We’ve been getting lots of orders from military bases!

Todd: Well, I think that’s just... you look at any numbers on the military, how unhappy American soldiers are in general, they’re just getting sucked in -

Chris: (indicates confusion). From what?

Erin: People are ordering CDs.
Chris: From military bases?!

Todd:  One of them was from Alaska, one of them was in the middle of nowhere, and – Erin, where was the last one?

Erin: It wasn’t even a state, they’re called IPOs or something. It’s not technically in New York, though geographically it is. I think it was strange.

Todd: She was all freaked out! She’s like, “Where is this?”
Erin: Yeah! I totally had to map quest this place to see where it was – it’s not a state, it’s just a base.
Todd: I was like, just send the damn thing!

Chris: I’d be like, “No way!” I’m paranoid about that shit, like last night, this guy called me, and he asked if we’re playing and I’m thinking that show in Seattle, so I’m thinking he’s a border agent seeing if I’m crossing the border.

Allan: Do the US border guys ever hassle you for being punks? I mean – I’m an old fart, right, so I’m coming from a time when being a punk you get beaten up and hassled a lot, but punk seems to have become a lot more mainstream now...

Todd: As an individual, you might have a little less trouble at the border for your appearance – like, having a funny hairdo or whatever – that’s a little more accepted, I think, but it’s so strict now, and they’re so after bands, that if you look like a band... We get away with stuff, because it’s two guys and two girls crossing, so they think “A couple of couples,” they don’t look at it like a band. If they see four dudes in a van, you’re done, man, it’s over.

Chris: I mean, not always, because people do make it through, but in some fucked up weird way, like, “How did you do that?”

Erin: The issue isn’t that we look freaky or that we’re punk rockers – we’re gonna go down and destroy their economy by making too much money.

Allan: So CDs and whatnot?

Todd: We never bring anything. Like – a guitar pick in your pocket is pushin’ it.

Allan: You bring guitars and stuff?

Todd: No.

Chris: Are you sure we should be telling this for an interview, for a magazine?
Allan: For an American magazine.

Chris: No, but US intelligence does read Maximum Rock’n’Roll and any kind of rock journals. I’m sure they do.

Todd [deadpan]: We’ve never been to the States.

Allan: Right! I see. [Laughter all round]. You’re funnier than I thought you would be, given your lyrics.

Todd: I’m not bein’ funny!

Allan: Okay. I’ll show you guys a draft of this, and we can edit it later... Talkin’ about history: the Subhumans, Gerry Hannah, and Direct Action – how do you guys feel about that stuff, how does that bear on you as punks. I mean – you were all born in the early 80’s?

Todd: Yeah, roughly.

Erin (giggles).

Allan: ‘Cos I was like 14 when that happened, so I was getting interested in punk when Gerry got arrested and DOA put out the Right to be Wild single with “Burn It Down” and “Fuck You.”

Chris: As a teenager, I remember something about Gerry moving to ‘round about where we were living, in Williams Lake (a fairly rural area of BC; Gerry’s an outdoorsperson and spends a lot of time away from the big city). I don’t know if I’d just moved there, or where I was at that time, and kids were talking about this guy from the Subhumans showing up and stuff. And I was pretty young. And the Subhumans – I never even realized for so long that there was a UK Subhumans. I see these kids with patches everywhere, and I’m like, “Wow, the Subhumans are back!”

Todd: ______ was so blown away, he was ranting about you not knowing how these UK Subhumans – he was just like, “How can he not know?”

Chris: I was just – I never – whatever –

Todd: Never whatever?

Chris: I don’t pay attention to kids’ patches! So it’s like, I had never stumbled across it.

Todd: What was the question?

Erin: I don’t think it’s okay to use violence, ever, to make a political point, but in that particular circumstance, they were blowing up a weapons plant. This was during the Cold War, as well – so I can sorta see a justification for what they did.

Allan: Most people you talk to sympathize with their aims, but not their methods.

Todd: I sympathize with their methods and their aims.

Allan: Yeah.

Todd: Yeah...

Erin: Back then, everybody had this nuclear threat hanging over their heads – the whole planet could be destroyed at the push of a button.

Todd: We have that threat now.

Allan: Yeah, but we were more afraid of it then. Why aren’t we afraid of it now?

Chris: Our brains are bigger. We’re smarter because of technology and what we have... Back then it was like a monkey in that fucking Matthew Broderick movie, where he’s playing chess with it. Back then, we were like, “Holy shit, chess can cause World War III, with Matthew Broderick? And now it’s like – we’ve got video games and board games about it... It’s not a novelty now, but the threat’s still hugely there. The Americans never got rid of their missiles...

Erin: The situations a bit different. It’s not an active hostility. Now it would be more like an accident.

Chris: Yeah, but – I’ve seen some stuff on the internet, what some guys in China are saying about the US, and that’s pretty hostile.

Erin:  What were they saying?

Chris: That, like, “If Americans ever got involved with Taiwan or anything like that, I don’t care if we spend billions of our own people, we’ll wipe you out.”

Allan: The Chinese are saying that?
Chris: Well, I don’t want these guys comin’ after me, so you gotta check the source on that one... [laughter].

Todd: Now the Chinese and the Americans are after Chris!

Chris: I mean, you can judge for yourself, but I read that, from like, a statement on the net. I’m not just reading Wikipedia. But that’s a somewhat serious threat. The North Korean situation, that got somewhat resolved – they’ve been given aid – but the guy makes his whole country shave his head just like him. He’s nuts, okay?

Erin: But Russia – I mean, still, they’ve got 30,000 warheads hanging around. So do the States, but Russia doesn’t have the infrastructure right now to take care of it. They’re laying off their soldiers...

Chris: The States wants to put a missile base in the Czech Republic. That’s like, putting their own missiles over there...
Erin: Getting ready for Iran or something.

Chris: But you can see that on the internet, too.

Allan: Do you have a lot of fans in the United States?

Chris: Uh-huh. And Russia! We just got released on a comp out of Moscow.

Allan: What’s your opinion of punk as a motivating force now?

Todd: I think music’s been used for movements as long as you can remember, and every kind of movement, because it’s another way of reaching people. If you just hit people with straight rhetoric, it’s often difficult to get through. When you get some people on a more emotional angle, which is where music kind of connects the two things – if you can get your rhetoric with some emotion attached to it, I think it works differently, and people are receptive to it in a different way. As far as the state of punk – I think punk’s become a lot less political than it was.

Allan: Why do you think that happened?

Todd: ‘Cos people caught on to the style of the music, and it’s just become a standard style you can harvest if you want to make music.

Erin: Or just a fashion, not even...

Todd: Yeah, but we’re talking about music, so let’s just ignore that for a sec. It’s a style of music to draw on. You can just take some of that – you don’t have to have any of the ideals, you can just might want to take that part of the music. Whereas before, when it started, it was kids making music for kids, so it was inherently just attached to the feelings of youth at the time. Now it doesn’t have to be.

Allan: How did you get started listening to punk? Was the politics of it one of the draws?
Erin: For me it was, because in Victoria, the scene was really political. It was just, come to the youth center and see some bands. At that point, I didn’t really care at all. I was 14, it didn’t mean anything to me, but – you know, they had the little zines and the propaganda and I just started thinking about those issues.

Allan: What bands were you listening to at the time?

Erin: Back then, it was Hudson Mack, and and Black Kronstadt, and Goat Boy, and Ultra-Vires.

Allan: None of whom I have heard of.

Todd: Yeah, for me it was the same thing. I got into punk from skateboarding, so the politics weren’t really a part of it, but then, when I got into underground music a little more, it was music from Victoria that really had those politics that totally made me start learning about that stuff.

Allan: Are you from Victoria?
Todd: No, I was raised in the interior (of BC), in Williams Lake (far, far away from Victoria).

Allan: But you were hearing Victoria music?

Todd: Yeah, it was funny actually. We had a friend and we would go there and buy tapes out of the music store up there and so these people knew all these underground punk tapes were going to Williams Lake. And then I finally got to meet Tony, who was in –

Chris: Lootbag.

Todd: Lootbag, which was the big one, like everybody just loved Lootbag up there, and he just thought that was so funny, because they never played off the island (ie, off Vancouver Island, the land mass Victoria is on). But then – Hudson Mack, he’s in AK-47 now –

Chris: And Nothing to Lose.

Todd: Yeah. A bunch of bands like that. Anyway, we were getting these tapes, and we just thought they were the greatest thing ever. I mean – he would have had no idea that he’d have 500 kids show up if he played a show up there, but...

Chris: Yeah, 16 at Williams Lake, I had the Laughing Stock/ Goat Boy split tape, and the Lootbag tape, and then I had Shutdown from Victoria. Those were my tapes, from two different people who spent summers in Victoria and would bring these tapes back. That’s what got me stoked – that’s why I originally moved to Victoria, to go play with my band there. It’s like, at 19, I moved there – my first time ever being there – to go play music.

Todd: So it’s interesting that Erin was from there and we were these kids from Williams Lake. So that music just affected us.

Allan: How did you guys hook up?

Erin: I met Todd through a Georgia Straight ad.

Todd: She was the ad – she was the guitar player, looking for a band.

Erin: I was in another band, but it wasn’t working out so good, so I was looking for a side-project.

Allan: So you were originally into punk rock? I mean... I don’t mean this as an insult, but there’s something kinda metal about your guitar.

Erin [small laugh]: I started playing years before I was into punk rock.

Allan: Right. And what were your original influences.

Chris [whispers darkly]: AC/DC.

Erin, Allan: [laughter].

Erin: No, you know, I was 12, I was reading Guitar World! And noodling off the tabs in Guitar World – taking lessons, whatever the teacher would...

Chris [ironically]: She’s only like 18 now, so...

Allan: Guitarists that you liked?

Chris, Todd [they’re enjoying this line of questioning, and you can hear one of them say]: Sweet. Here we go – Slash.  

Erin: Slash and Angus.

Allan [laughing]: It’s okay!

Todd: No, it’s good – we would never get this out of her if you weren’t here.

Erin: Whatever –

Allan: And now.

Chris: Pantera. 

Erin: Now? Well, I stopped reading those magazines because they were so –

Todd: Horrible.

Erin: I lost interest in the mainstream magazines because they were all sort of macho and stupid, their whole tone, their target audience is like 14 year old boys, and I was not that anymore.

Todd: After the operation.

Erin: I don’t know about a guitar player that influences me now.

Allan: How about women in rock? Any ones that you look up to?

Erin: I really like the Riot Girl scene, like L7 and Babes in Toyland. I really liked Nashville Pussy when they were big. That’s something I don’t like to say in front of these guys.

Allan: They’re not the most... liberal band.

Erin: No, not at all, but I saw them live and she was just so incredible.

Allan: Raunchy female power?

Erin [laughs]: I don’t like to say it like that, it sounds pretty cheesy, awful. But no, she’s a sweet guitar player, she’s awesome.

Allan: Do you guys have any ideological arguments? Are you both vegan, as well?
Todd: No, I’m vegetarian. I’ll starve to death if I eat vegan.

Erin: I’m barely even a vegetarian.

Chris: I’m not vegan. I’m about 90%, but I’m eating non-lactose cheese right now. It’s organic. And I eat eggs, and sometimes I have to buy pizza, because it’s all I can get.

Todd: If you’re going to travel or anything, it’s, like, so hard on the road.

Chris: You gotta like bring a bag of nuts and fruit... It’s like...

Todd: It’s funny, because the band is the reason I own a car. The band is the reason I’m not vegan. It’s just kinda fucked up. [Note: Todd told me much later on that having said this in print bothered him, and was part of why he committed to being vegan, on-tour or not]

Chris: Yep.

Erin: But he wants a fight out of us.

Chris: Like, we argue a lot about stuff. We fight about a lot of different ideas, like – sometimes we argue about this whole –

Todd: No we don’t! We don’t even want to go there!
Erin: Don’t go there!

Todd: I argue against misinformation and ignorance, and I get mad when –

Chris: So you’re saying I’m misinformed!?

Allan: [laughing in delight]

Todd: No, I didn’t say that! I said the only time you’ll get me mad is when you make a statement which you know sounds misinformed to see if you can get me mad!
Chris: Yeah, well –

Todd: So that’s a good way to get me going... There’s a lot of horrible misinformation out there, and we are all children of the 80s, and the Red Scare, so there’s a lot of stupidity around that...

Allan: Would you all be comfortable describing yourselves as socialists or communists? No. [Speaking into tape]: Erin shakes her head, indicating no. [There is a long pause].

Todd: It takes a lot for people to have... [changing his mind]: I don’t want to get into this.

Allan: You don’t want to get into this?

Erin: Do you subscribe to an ideology?

Todd: Do I subscribe to an ideology... See, that’s what I’m trying to get at.

Chris: Are you a member of the Communist Party?

Todd: [giggling]

Allan [giggling]: Are you now or have you ever been...

Chris: Are you a member of the Communist Party? Yes or no?

Todd: Are you doing the border guard thing now?

Chris: No, but I’m asking, and you won’t answer!

Todd: I’m getting to a very convoluted answer here. ‘Cause this is what I started to answer...

Chris: You are! You are a member.

Todd: No, I’m not!

Chris: See – the answer is, “No, he’s not.”

[General pause].

Chris: Okay, I was just bugging you about that.

Todd: Like you needed to make this a little more difficult.

Chris: No, I was bein’ a border guard.

Allan [laughing to himself]: I’m going to sit back...

[General pause]

Erin: I’d call myself a feminist, but beyond that –

Todd: Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s scary to say you subscribe to a particular ideology because people have so much information around them that they assume all these things that they think they know about these ideologies, which don’t fit.

Allan: Okay.

Todd: So I could explain for an hour where I sit, but I do sit somewhere kinda in the anarcho-socialist kind of realm, right. I would take either of those and object seriously to the anarchist’s lack of any kind of feasible plan, but I also disagree with several parts of a traditional socialist view. Now as soon as you say that, people start attaching it to past regimes which they figure were flying a certain flag – and may have been flying a certain flag, just like the US calls itself a democratic state. So, if you want to call anything that’s occurred in the past, if you want to go into history and call something communist or socialist state, fuck you, okay? You need to look at the what the ideology behind that is, and know it very clearly at it before you can call yourself that – and don’t run someone down because of history, don’t run down their idea down just because of history, because it’s just like saying, “I believe in democracy,” and someone going, “Oh, you’re a fuckin’ American, then!”

Allan: Okay.

Todd: That stuff just gets me.

Allan: But, I mean, the Zapatistas, for example – you see them as a pretty positive example of people organizing?

Todd: I think people’s right as a group, to choose how they live, is one thing. Within that culture, repression, oppression will develop, regardless of what you do, because people are people and they aren’t perfect. But if you look at, from the outside, what they’ve done – indigenous autonomy is the part of that that does it for me, and standing up to this accelerated capitalism that’s trying to move into Mexico? Right on: give me a gun. So...

Allan: Have you guys ever played in a situation like that – squats in Europe, or played Mexico?

Todd: We’ve never been off this continent as a band, so...

Erin: We’ve never been to Mexico, either.

Allan: Is it something you want to do?

Todd: I’d certainly play anywhere, and if there’s something you can lend to somebody by their music, supporting them by being there, then sure, great. I personally don’t know that I can do that much. I mean, I think, part of it with the music is to raise some awareness. I mean, if I put an idea in someone’s head – they might want to learn about it. And I mean, I think – I’ve seen evidence of that, people are influenced in some way, and they learn about these things because of the music.

Allan: Sure.

Todd: And in that song you’re referring to (“Rebels Sing”), I refer to a bunch of different things - the Sandinistas, I refer to the People’s Army which is referring to the ongoing revolution in Nepal... And it’s just to put that idea out there, so people are aware these things are going on, because you never hear about it in the mainstream media. 

Allan: Right.

Todd: You heard about it when the Nepalese – when the prince went crazy and shot a bunch of people in the palace. You didn’t hear about the revolution that’s been going on in that country for ten years, right? I just wanted to put that out there so someone would hear it.

Allan: Okay.

[General pause].

Allan [speaking to the tape]: Everyone else has gone silent.

Todd: They’ve seen me like this before. 

Allan: [laughs]

Chris: Like he says, too, it’s scary to really put something –

Todd: [interrupts]: Okay, I think it’s the hardest – okay, hang on. [Stops himself]: Go ahead.

Chris: I don’t believe in a lot of things, and I do believe in certain things, and I think the older I’m getting and the more I’m learning about certain things, it’s just becoming so overwhelming. And even, you know, I read a lot of books about anarchism, I read a lot of books about communism, and, y’know, books about religion – everything. So you read something – what I’m reading, this Leninist book, this guy, Sergey Nechayev, and he talks about the true revolutionary, and who this person has to be, and it’s so intense that it makes you like – if you try to think about it, if you have to be this person, the way he describes the true revolutionary, it makes you sick to your stomach, because it’s something you couldn’t possibly ever do, as a human. Like they say, you have to detach yourself from everything. You have to be, at all times, the enemy of the state. There’s no in-between, “I’m just gonna hop in the car and whip down to my buddy’s house,” y’know – the convenient, ‘cause you’re still giving into that system. So... My wife’s grandfather asked me, when I sat down at the kitchen table, when I first met him – he fought in WWII, and the first thing, he seen my AK-47 sewn onto my sleeve, he said, “Are you a revolutionary?” And I was just like – I didn’t know what to say.  And Samarah like, told me her grandfather is cool or whatever. But I was just like... I didn’t know if this old guy, if –

Todd: If he’s gonna punch you –

Chris: Yeah, if he’s gonna punch me, or...

Todd: Or what that meant to him, because of the misinformation that’s been pumped into his brain.

Allan: Well, the photos of you guys in the anarchist masks and whatnot...

Erin: [giggles]

Allan: [laughing]

Todd: The idea was to put pictures in and not have faces, so the border guards can’t see who we are.

Allan: I don’t think those pictures will make the border guards think of you in a more fond way.

Todd: No, no. But if they can see it, harvest our image, and then flag us...

Chris: I think, even on both our CDs – what could I just put on there that would be so awesome, y’know? Fuck the Police, NWA – straight up, on the back of the CD (Expression in Layman’s Terms). I’m like, that’s awesome. Now it’s on the record – you’ve got to pull the record out to see it. I think I took it off the CD. But, y’know, it’s like, in Days of Rage – it was my idea to be somewhat a little bit harsh – it’s not like, ultra harsh, because I’ve seen harsher shit. But now it stresses me out, because when cops pull us over and look at our merch it says “Fuck the Pigs” on there.

Allan: I missed that. Where does it say that?

Todd: It says “Fuck the Police” on the CD cases.
Allan: Where? (We start looking through the artwork for the CDs I’ve brought.)

Chris: It’s not in this one.

Todd: You’ve got the third pressing or something.

Allan: You’ve taken it off?
Chris: I’ve changed it.

Todd: No, there it is. [Points. It’s huge and obvious; I blush to have missed it].

Allan: Oh, is that what that says? “Fuck the Police!” I was too busy with the lyric sheets...

Chris: With Days of Rage, I was reading about the Weather Underground, and that’s where it comes from, was this riot in Chicago – the Days of Rage, and that’s where I got this idea. They just kinda seized the moment. And the whole concept behind everything there, with the communiqué (in the liner notes to Days of Rage), was this kind of anarchist militant vibe to it – what I tried to put into that. We’re not necessarily militant in a military violent way, and our communiqué is pretty pacifist –

Todd: I believe in violence.

Allan: You believe in violence.

Todd: Just for the record.

Allan: Well, come on – you went there before, saying you subscribe to direct action as a method. How far would you take that?

Todd:  Well, there’s two different ways to look at that. The first is - I said, I believe in violence right now, and I’m thinking – like, it just kills me when people say “pacifist.” If I burst into your door at your family reunion and start shooting people, one at a time, and start making my way through your house, and you reach over and grab Grandpa’s shotgun: if you call yourself a pacifist, what are you going to do? You’re gonna fuckin’ blow me away.

Chris: But that’s not – you’re a pacifist – you’re completely - 

Todd: No, you’re not –

Chris: But that’s like anything!

Todd:  Hold on! Back up: you now are an indigenous group, and a bunch of yahoos land and start raping and pillaging. Are you going to sit down and let them do that?

Chris: Never.

Todd: Okay, what about these people, they come and they massively take over your country or your space – I don’t believe in borders per se but at some point you have to do it, “this is my space,” right? And they come in and they start destroying things, they set things up, and they just slowly destroy your culture. They erode it away by encroaching on it and polluting it until its gone. I don’t see that as any different. It’s another kind of invasion. I fully believe that you have every right to –

Chris: Drag them out into the street –

Chris, Todd [together]: And shoot them in the face. 

Allan: Uh-huh. [To Erin]: They’re very male [chuckles].

Todd: And I’m not -

Chris [laughing]: I can give you some photos of us with guns, if you need photos with it. there. Erin with a shotgun or a handgun: what do you want to see? She’s as male as us!

Allan [laughing]: Okay okay okay, I take it back.

Todd: Just to clarify a few things: I don’t like the idea of people being hurt for any reason, and I’d do anything to prevent that, but I think when someone – there is a line where you have to be willing to fight, because all you can do is die or be wiped out. Whether it’s the current form of cultural genocide that’s occurring to the Native people here or all around the world, so you have a group like the Zapatistas that stand up and say, “We’re going to use violence if necessary to stop what’s going on.” I totally agree with violence in that regard.

Allan: Okay. Fair enough. Erin, anything you want to say?

Erin: Umm – just to go back to the mask thing. I like it for aesthetic reasons, let alone the political reasons. A lot of bands are so narcissistic and they’ll have glossy promo shots that they hand out to everyone – that’s just an additional thing about that that I really like.

Allan: In terms of women... how do you feel about artists like women like Madonna and Britney Spears and whatnot – the way women are being sort of encouraged to “empower themselves” as sexual objects.

Erin: [laughs]

Allan: How do you react to that?

Erin: Well, how we’ve done it in this band is try not to even play up the gender thing, try not to make an issue out of it – just kind of play it down and let the music speak for itself. [Interrupting herself]: Hey, Doug! [A guy named Doug enters the room, and Todd ducks out to talk to him]. The whole pop culture that you’re talking about – I don’t really have anything original to add to the conversation, it’s just so fraudulent. It’s not real power. It’s not... We’re still as women, we’re still under-represented in politics, in business, and taking your top off... Looking that way doesn’t help women get taken seriously. It’s just not real power.

Allan: Okay. So, you don’t want to play up the gender thing, but there must be a lot of people in the audience who are very aware of the fact that two members of the band are women, and who really like that.

Erin: Yeah! It’s great. We do get a lot of support from females, but we’re not sexualizing ourselves.

Chris: Definitely.  I get kind of annoyed now, ‘cause I don’t even think of the gender thing, because we’ve been doing this for so long, plus we’ve all lived together so long, we just seem like this family. How some people put it – “two guys and two hot chicks.” One guy said to me, “It doesn’t hurt your band to have a couple of hot chicks in there, does it?” My answer was, you mean like, “hot chicks that can play their instruments?” And he concluded by saying, “I don’t want to sound like a pervert or anything, or just a guy who is just there to check out the chicks, but you can’t help but notice that.” I’m like, “Well yeah, but I can’t help that the people in this bar are half women, half men!”

Erin: The women are stoked. I think we probably have more women in our audience than maybe some of the other punk bands around. Going back to, umm.... What was I going to add?

Allan: Talking about real power, females exploiting themselves.

Erin: Yeah, it was something to do with that...

Todd [re-enters the room with Doug]: Wish I’d heard.

Erin: I forget.

Allan [to Doug]: You’re not actually in this band, are you?
Todd: No, he’s the guy who’s recorded pretty much all our stuff.

Allan: Oh, okay.

Doug: Yeah.

Allan: Is there a new CD in the works?

Todd: Hmm... okay: talk to me before you go to press, okay?

Erin: I know what I was going to say! The pop star thing. It’s also part of a really fucked up attitude society has towards sex. It’s this thing where it’s gotta be so dirty and disgusting, and I think it’s how they make so much money out of it, because it’s taboo. I think it’s one side of the same coin that’s led to all these women being murdered in the downtown eastside (Erin is referring to the murder of dozens of prostitutes and marginalized women in Vancouver, that was allowed to continue more or less unchecked for many years, and has become a focal point for feminists). The way we look at sex is just so screwed up. I don’t know how to articulate that better...

Todd: I think, to expand on what you’re saying – it puts people in unsafe situations, because they’re being hidden, because of the taboos.

Erin: Yeah, it goes even further.

Allan: But that relates to artists like Madonna and whatnot, who are parading their sexuality in a very public way.

Erin: I’m not saying it’s Madonna’s fault, but her popularity, as well as the scourge of these prostitutes – it’s part of the same thing.

Allan: The same phenomenon.

Erin: Yes.

Allan: There’s no healthy middle ground where sexuality can occur. There’s extreme sexualization in the media, and the complete denial of suppression on the other hand...

Erin: Yeah. That’s the closest way I can express that right now without givin’ it more thought.

Allan: You don’t really have songs about feminism or women’s issues per se.

Erin: Not yet!

Todd: Most of the stuff is not that literal, right? So – there’s probably themes there, but it’s not overt. I think the best way to turn someone off something is to say something too overtly, especially in music.

Erin: But we haven’t even really touched on that in a subtle way, yet.

Todd: I’ll bet you I have. I’ll find it.

Erin: We’ll talk.

Todd: You’ll be like, “Where,” and I can’t think of it right now, but –

Erin: But I’d like to see a little bit more of that, just a song or two.

Todd: Well, yeah, no, I will – that’s fine - [Adopts mock submissive tone]: Yes, Erin.  

Erin: Something I’ve –

Todd: Well, give me a topic.

Chris [makes a troubled sound]: Ehhh. No, I was just thinking - in “Drain” (off Expression in Layman’s Terms) you talk about that a little.

Todd: Yeah, that’s literal, but it’s just the surface of it.

Chris: To go deeply into it, there’s a lot of stories and issues that people need to know about. Even writing a song about our problem in Vancouver here, for missing prostitutes – I was listening on the radio at work there a couple of days ago, and it was a woman who was advocating the law to be turned over, for certain prostitution laws. Like, the fact that prostitutes should have their own workspace, as opposed to being on the street where they have to work alone, because working in pairs draws attention from pigs, that arrest them. When we lived on Fraser Street, the prostitutes were out there by my place at the Fraser and 19^th area, and again, I thought the bigger problem was the fuckin’ johns that were just hanging out, y’know? And it’s like – those people, even if they are being targeted, it’s such an obvious situation. It’s a small little quaint neighbourhood, too, with families... Prostitution can be anywhere, but it’s like, a different kind of neighbourhood, it’s not like the downtown eastside. This woman – just bringing out these laws that are oppressing women, for something that it’s their own right to do. It keeps them from regular hospital visits, or with clinics, to be monitored properly –

Erin: And they can’t go to the police if they have been beaten or threatened -

Chris: - because what are the cops going to do? You’ve seen Bad Lieutenant – they’re all like that. The cop that fuckin’ smiles at you, it’s because he’s trying to trick you. But that’s the thing – that shit needs to be changed. I’m not, like, “Yay, all women be prostitutes,” but if you want to be a prostitute, you should be a prostitute... You should be allowed to be a prostitute.

Allan: There was a period where the left was really against that, where it saw the legalization of prostitution in terms of the exploitation of women.

Chris: There’s also leftists who don’t like pornography, and I’m not gonna say I’m a huge porno freak, but I don’t see anything wrong with it – big fuckin’ deal! It’s people having sex for other people to enjoy, and it’s a huge culture...

Erin: It’s not about condoning prostitution, it’s about recognizing that it’s going to happen and that you should have harm reduction, and as long as we don’t, these women are going to get marginalized and they’re going to get hurt.

Allan: Yep.

Todd: And we’re condoning freedom, too.

Chris: And condoning freedom, because who fuckin’ has the right to tell you what you can and cannot do, if you’re not really harming people. But sometimes there is harm in that situation, because people are careless and we’re all human, and everyone makes mistakes, or gets fucked up on drugs and doesn’t do something right, and all of a sudden some people are in trouble, but...

Todd: We gotta get goin’ pretty quick, here.

Allan: Okay. Let me ask you two other questions. Giving stuff up, making sacrifices, not participating in consumer capitalism – what do you guys do in your lives? Like, you were living collectively for awhile, right?

Chris: Yeah.

Todd: We were stuck together because of poverty, yeah!

Chris: There was at one point ten of us together in the house, for quite awhile, and it was awesome, because I didn’t work for a huge chunk of it, and I was gettin’ fed tortillas and beans and rice every night. That was pretty rad! And then when I did come into money, I got to throw my share in a bit, y’know? In that sense, living was very anarchistic, because not all of us had much, but some people did, and they shared. There was never really an issue – we all kind of shared that space. Even how we rented out the certain rooms and whatnot – who paid what: like, I slept on the porch in a tent for two months, and only had to play a hundred bucks a month, which was pretty rad. But I was still sleepin’ on the porch, listening to people steal our empties...

Allan [chuckles]: But that’s more just being poor.

Todd: Yeah, well, whatever. There’s a choice – to go and get a real job or whatever –

Chris: But you can be poor with people – I was poor with people before, and this guy’s throwing his food in the garbage while me and another person – actually, it was Stepha (the absent drummer) are boiling cabbage to eat. And he just fuckin’ chucks his food in the garbage, and we’re like, holy shit! Y’know, and I gave him a place to stay. We didn’t have money. That’s why I gave him a place to stay like that...

Erin: I think your question really relates to how screwed up our economic system is. The easiest thing to do is the worst thing to do – we haven’t incorporated social costs into the things we buy.

Allan: Sure: the cheapest way to live is to shop at Walmart.

Erin: Yeah, absolutely, and it’s just – really hard to be ethical the way society is now.

Todd: I was thinking about this because we ran into this street punk that we know from down here. Like, the guy’s lived on the street for as long as I’ve been in Vancouver. But he was over in Victoria for the winter and he came to our show the other night. And I was thinkin’ about it, you know, like – people are so down on people that are living like that. And I was thinking, well, what’s the size of his ecological footprint? It’s smaller than yours, y’know?

Chris: I mean, he’s the one who gets to snub us, because yeah, he’s doing it, full on. He may be living in the city, or whatever – so he’s not completely... That’s the ultimate thing, too – to be like a total green people leave as little waste as possible. I mean, the energy we’re using up in this place is already disgusting. The fact that some of us drove here, or used whatever to get here, when we could have walked or rode a bike...

Allan: The other question I wanted to ask you is about keeping the price of your CDs so low. On the one hand, it seems great and idealistic, but on the other – I wonder about it as a business model.

Todd: It’s a really crappy business model! The best part of our business model is that we sell t-shirts for $20.

Chris: Yeah! [laughs]

Todd: Music should be – like, I like to give it away, and sometimes I do, a lot, but if you’re going to make money off something, why not make t-shirts instead. I mean, we’re not making any money at this. This is the wrong thing to do for money.

Allan: But at the same time, punk is becoming a mass-produced phenomenon.

Todd: No it’s not. That’s pop music.

Chris: Yeah, that’s –

Todd: As soon as it gets there, it’s pop music.

Chris: And that’s the thing, and I think, the way do this, we like to stay as punk as we can for as long as we can. I don’t have a vision of reachin’, like, the Warped Tour stage or anything like that, and hawkin’ a bunch of red shirts and some yellow shirts and blue shirts.

Todd [giggling]: No coloured shirts!

Erin: [giggles].

Chris: Wrist bands, and... I don’t care about that! I don’t want that! Like, for t-shirts, it took me awhile to even want to do that. The price of the CD, the original price – we figured out how much does it cost to print the CD. It was like, $1.50 was the total cost for black and white, so I say, we’d sell it for $3, so we don’t have to worry about a reprint. It’s genius. We were selling CDs – I don’t know how many we were selling, and all of a sudden we ran out of 500 CDs. It’s like, great. Some people were like [indicating skepticism]: “Their CDs are only $3, blah-blah-blah,” but the price doesn’t matter; but still - it’s the product that we’re putting out. People were stoked to pay $3, and then you get this email going, “Holy shit,” you know? [The band had just raised CD prices to $5 shortly before the interview took place, due to rising costs].

Allan: They’re really good albums. It would be interesting to see you guys attract a larger following.

Chris: Oh, it’d be great. They’d still be getting cheap CDs. Then again, I can’t always say that – maybe something will happen where CD prices will have to go up, because there’s only one CD pressing plant, or imports or something like that, or... They’re in stores now, because we pretty much do our own distro. Scratch does some for us too. We sell our records for $6, and then they can sell it for $20 if they want. They usually sell it for $10. That’s all right for a record/

Allan: Is anyone distributing your CDs in other countries, or is it still mostly local?

Chris: No, it’s all on our website.

Erin: Interpunk is really good – we make sales off of that, and it’s not a label, you just mail them your CDs.

Todd: They buy them, and –

Allan: Interpunk?
Erin: Interpunk dot com. It’s everything from really mainstream to super obscure stuff.

Chris: Good prices, fast shipping.
Erin: It’s secure, so people know it’s not just some fly-by-night kind of thing.

Chris: That’s where I send people, because people would send us cash, or something, and sometimes our addresses are wrong, and they’re like... I’d much rather they go there, ‘cause it’s easy, it’s so easy. A couple of clicks and you got a record sent to you.

Todd: Yeah.

Chris: So tell people not to bug us!