The Ex in the Straight -- DO NOT MISS THIS BAND!!!

Photo by Geert Vandepoele, 2025

So my interview with former vocalist for The Ex, GW Sok, current vocalist for the Ex Arnold de Boer, and drummer (and only occasional vocalist) Katherina Bornefeld is NOW LIVE. If you love this band like I do, this is a shareable link. They haven't played here since 1991, I don't think...? It's a big deal that they are coming back!!!! 

 https://shrlnk.ca/s/Fiw94h5U  

Maybe more to come...?

Asian Persuasion All Stars in Montecristo Magazine, plus a note on my still not being Stephen Hamm

(rehearsal space shot by Allan MacInnis: L to R: Brooke, Melissa, Jose, back-of-Tamlah's head, Tim, and Tony)

So my Asian Persuasion All Stars piece went live today! 

The band members have been very appreciative. I didn't get to include a history of every member, and left out various details simply to meet my word count (which I did not end up doing, but there's always a question of how much over you'll be allowed to go).

Unmentioned by me, Ron Yamauchi had what the band described as a country song, "Take the Train Away", but having peered at the lyrics over Tamla's shoulder, I could make neither heads or tails of them: which train? To be honest, my mind went to Japanese Canadians being shipped out by train to internment camps in the interior of the province in the early 1940s, which would fit with the idea of writing on anti-racist themes, except Ron's not nowhere old enough for that to have been a childhood memory of his; if he were indeed writing about such a politically charged moment in Canadian history, he was doing so very obliquely. Which complicated matters: if I mentioned the song, I would have had to ask him to explain it, and then to explain it myself: a threat to the word count! 

I also made little mention, in the version that saw print, of Brooke Fujiyama's "Petrichor", which seemed clearly the least political song of the night, but my strongest impression relating to that song, was how walking to their studio, all I could smell was the East Van chicken rendering plant, whereas emerging, I was treated to that very rain-on-pavement smell that gives that song that title. It only lasted a block before the stench of chicken carcasses took over, but it was a very welcome aroma!

An early draft did have a paragraph about that song, but it got almost entirely axed (hadda chop something). 

And of course, I didn't really do justice at all to Norine Braun. She wasn't present at the one rehearsal I was able to attend, but the issue was again more one of word count: she's an accomplished singer songwriter in her own right, but her own work deserves more space than I would have been able to give, and including something more about her would have meant trimming something else out, which I did not want to have to do...  

If it's any consolation, there was someone even dearer to my heart who did not make the article: myself. Because at one point, I considered getting into an entertaining, longtime grievance I have had about being mistaken for Stephen Hamm, which actually made a "long draft". It had come up quite organically in the interviews, and seemed at least possibly relevant! But as you see, I am not in there, Hamm is not in there. If I'd been blogging it, it would have been!

The initial draft (over double the requested word count) took the time to set it up: both Tony Lee and Ron Yamauchi, I took pains to explain, were at the notorious Slow show at Expo 1986, the one that led to both singer Tom Anselmi and bassist Stephen Hamm dropping trou in disrespect of unpopular Socred Premier Bill Bennett, which caused the Expo peeps to panic and pull the plug, and further led to the remainder of the showcase getting cancelled (Tony recalled that Art Bergmann was scheduled to go on after Slow, but didn't). Yamauchi relates that  he had a press pass from the Peak at SFU, so he knows he was there, but he wasn't up front, chanting "Expo sucks" with rest of the crowd. By contrast, Soreheads singer Rob Elliott, now based in Toronto, got arrested, Lee told me. "It was supposed to be a whole two-week Expo, a local independent showcase, and then it got wacky, the whole thing got cancelled, and everyone was upset. Rob was sort of crazed and yelling, though he's kind of harmless. But they took him away, and when he was taking him away, his best friend Steve Bentley yelled out, 'Do you want me to tell your Mom?' So that was really fun!"

Telling that story (which I didn't end up doing, as you see) allowed me to at least set up the Hamm reference when we got to the bit about members of Asian Persuasion All Stars being mistaken for each other, because I got to explain that I was frequently mistaken for Hamm, and occasionally also taken for other men of onetime girth, including Ty Strangelhold, Alex Varty, Geoff Barton and the former guitarist from Aging Youth Gang. I don't think I look anything like any of these men; we belong to, maybe, the same rough category (large white males of a certain age), but that's not a matter of racism, I opined to Tim, but rather a tendency to file people of similar appearance into broad categories, which means occasionally reaching into the file for one person and pulling out another. I mean, sure, Eric and Tony don't look much alike either: 

But Hamm and I, at least in my mind, also are pretty easy to tell apart. He's about a foot taller than I am, for one thing. He has a moustache, which I don't. Tim Chan actually observed that Hamm and I do share more physical attributes than he and Eric and Tony, in part of the interview that did not get used, but in the end, I couldn't justify using any of this. Not even this charming photo:

Actually, the more I look at the thing, Tim's got a point: we do look a little alike. More than he and his bandmates do, anyhow. I still think there's something to it, really, this idea that we file people in categories, which sometimes means imperfectly identifying who is who; Eric and Tony are both drummers in independent local bands of Asian background, roughly of the same body type, so people getting them confused with each other at least COULD be some feature of categorical perception, of the same type that leads people to try to talk Theremins with me...? 

Actually, it seemed more plainly racist (as well as a much more severe failure of perception) that Tim would be mistaken for Tony or Eric, mind you, since he REALLY looks nothing like those two (and plays a different instrument, to boot). But it just wasn't worth taking up the wordcount. I decided it would suffice to represent Tim and Tony on the issue, and leave my own grievances out of it. 

So Ron, Brooke, Norine, that's my defense: yes, I wrote less about you than I might have, but I also cut MYSELF out of the story! (And a perfectly charming Slow/ Expo 86 anecdote to boot, which people would have enjoyed -- Tony sure got a chuckle out of telling me the "Do you want me to tell your Mom?" thing).

Hope people dig it anyhow!

See y'all Friday at the Fox! (Tickets here, Skaboom! video here). 

Oh, and China Syndrome plays Victoria the next night, at the Mint, by the by!

Gig tip: See The Ex (the homework is easy): one of my top five bucket list bands, playing Vancouver this month!

So I will have something upcoming on The Ex, playing the Hollywood July 26th -- yes, the same night as Ak'Chamel, which is unfortunate, since these are two bands that will have overlapping fanbases, but I gather the Hollywood set is going to be an early show, and that Ak'Chamel will start late, so there is, in fact, time to do both gigs, maybe? Just a bit of a commute between them! 

For my money, if I have to pick between one of the two, I'd pick The Ex; they haven't played Vancouver, I think, since their May of 1991 show with Nomeansno at the Commodore. Ak'Chamel will be back sooner than The Ex! 

And the homework on this is easy: check out If Your Mirror Breaks -- especially the global-warming themed "Monday Song," for starters. If it sinks, just buy a ticket and trust me. (Gord Grdina is opening, too, with Christian Lillinger, so that's another good reason to go). That album will make up 90% or so of their setlist, so that's really all you need to go on. 

If you need more words, however, I can offer a few: friends on social media were likening the songs by The Ex that I posted to The Fall and late-phase Captain Beefheart, and I can hear what they mean, and don't mind using the names of those bands as touchstones for people who don't know what to expect or why they should investigate. But the differences are more significant than the similarities. I actually know The Ex quite a bit better than I do The Fall, admire them more, care more, and find that besides some superficial sonic similarities -- think the Beefheart comparison in particular is misguided, if you really get down to it. Like,  sure, you could put "Listen to the Painters" on a playlist with "Run Paint Run Run" and it would be amazing. But Beefheart was never as democratic with his poetry as The Ex, had, god bless'im, elitist and obscurantist tendencies (which maybe could be said of Mark E. Smith too?). Beefheart and Smith set out to create a cult mystique around themselves, to draw you into their influence and command your attention; I don't think either artist would ever be as heart-on-sleeve topical as The Ex get on "Monday Song", for instance. Sure, The Ex has poetry and artfulness and so forth in abundance, they also just want to be understood, want to be responsible world citizens, want to work "for the people" rather than for their own cult status, which (bless'em, y'know, but still) is more than one could say for Beefheart or Mark E. Smith... I like and listen to The Fall and love some Beefheart and wholeheartedly agree that a squid eating dough in a polyetheline bag is fast and bulbous, and I can drop that into conversation at random and sometimes do, but on the other hand, that's just a nonsense phrase for Beefheart cultists to use to signify their elite status and/ or maybe entertain themselves and or bond in their status with other people who get the joke, which ultimately is kind of... not that interesting, you know? You don't want to go away and contemplate the speed or bulbousness of that squid. There is nothing to learn from it, no deeper emotional level to access. It's just entertaining bullshit -- VERY entertaining bullshit, GREAT entertaining bullshit, and I have nothing AGAINST entertaining bullshit, some of my best friends (musically speaking) are entertaining bullshit... 80% of my record collection is entertaining bullshit...

...but The Ex is much more than that. They write in a way that resonates with me morally, intellectually, and aesthetically in a way the more exclusionary, culty, individualistic tendencies of The Fall, or Beefheart do. There, I said it. ">", you know? 

Still, it's not a bad "sounds like" comparison point, if you are a noob to their music and want something to go on as a starting point. Sonic Youth might get mentioned (believe they recorded with them, tho' I don't recall liking that EP much -- a Fishtank thing). More relevant are Ethiopian jazz (they recorded with Getatchew Mekuria) and European free jazz (they've played with Han Bennink, say). Maybe Crass for the early stuff (but they are less direct). Hell, let's even mention Nomeansno, who they shared bills with? They have a bit more in common "morally" with Nomeansno, I guess... but sonically not so much... 

Really, The Ex sounds like The Ex. 

And The Ex, I am told, is not a band that delves into their back catalogue for the purposes of live shows, so as wonderful as some of their old songs are, you don't have to go back to 1979 to master their upcoming setlist; you can basically just focus on their current album, and maybe "Soon All Cities" and/ or "The Heart Conductor" off 27 Passports. Those two songs have been on recent setlists, as well, so we might expect them here. Much as I'd love to hear, I dunno, "The Prism Song" or "Town of Stone" or "Blueprints for a Blackout" or... I have a dozen songs from their back catalogue I'm deeply attached to, but the band DOES NOT DO THOSE SONGS, they don't have hits that they wheel out from past decades (they've been around since 1979!!!). So basically there are two albums you need to know (you could also throw in Catch My Shoe, if you like, which was their first LP with Arnold as lead vocalist, back in 2010. I doubt they will reach even that far back...!). 

...though if you do WANT an old release of theirs to explore, bearing in mind that it's not going to matter to the show, maybe start with (I think) their first with Steve Albini, Turn. That's a marvelous album, one I think anyone who likes artful prosocial punk should know, but it's not, like, homework or anything. 

And if you want another song they will play in Vancouver, note that I'm really excited to hear off If Your Mirror Breaks, "Wheel" is my other favourite; I always love the songs Katherina sings. 

Tickets here!  

Shfestival Weekend with Balkan Shmalkan and Friends

Did anyone do anything with the press release for this show? Truth is, I'm tired as hell of writing about bands, especially for no pay, no offense to anyone; hell, I'm even missing shows by fave local bands, I'm so burnt out: like, the Tranzmitors and Night Court were the opening acts for the Clorox Girls tonight, and *I was not there*. 

But if you're looking for something SUPER FUN to do this weekend, here's the press release for the Balkan Shmalkan Shfestival (I somehow would prefer that as Shmestival but it makes no sense). I might even catch some of this myself! Note that the first night, Like Whatever, who we much enjoyed opening for the Young Fresh Fellows, are playing... I haven't caught anyone else on the bill, I don't think!

Here is a clip from a recent Balkan Shmalkan show! (Does the choral vocal remind anyone else, weirdly, of spaghetti westerns?).

Commence press release... 

East Vancouver - Balkan Shmalkan has been a fan favourite in the traditional, punk, and funk music scenes for over ten years, and while Vancouver gears up to host the world this summer, SHFESTIVAL is here to prove that the beautiful game isn't the only thing worth showing up for. This 3-day event offers something for everyone, and in the spirit of the band's new album title, ensures there is "No Trumpet Left Behind".

June 12 Funk and Punk Night, Sub in your cleats for dancing shoes. A raucous party with notorious funky punk acts Shakter, Babyface Brass, Mooshy Face, Like Whatever, and an unhinged set of tuba bangers by Balkan Shmalkan.

Grandview Legion, 2205 Commercial Drive, 7pm–midnight, $30 for the night or $50 weekend pass.

June 13 Balkan Night, A different kind of beautiful game. Featuring local dancer legends Nada and Mihajlo from Gradina Dancers, virtuoso Balalaika player Denys Kinchev, Sindikat Sina Roza (Seattle), Bučan Bučan (Victoria), and a feisty set of Balkan Shmalkan's traditional repertoire. Grandview Legion, 2205 Commercial Drive, 7:00PM–midnight, $30 for the night or $50 weekend pass.

June 14 Daytime Park Hang, The cooldown lap. Come bask in the afterglow, nurse headaches, and toss around ideas for next year. Trout Lake, North End Dock, 3360 Victoria Drive, 1:00 - 3:00PM, FREE.

Tickets: simpletix.com/e/shfestival-tickets-268075 

Performer Information

Balkan Shmalkan’s funky brass dance beats are rooted in the aural traditions of the Roma and Klezmorim of Eastern Europe and blended with a mixture of pop, funk, and jazz. They are a spectacle unlike any other; a colourful, vibrant and celebrative group that sings in 5 languages including Serbian, Romani, and Italian. https://shmalkan.bandcamp.com

Babyface Brass is a Vancouver-based street jazz and party band known for high-energy busking, blending jazz, New Orleans second line, funk, and hip-hop. Active for over 14 years, the ensemble features horns, drums, and tap dancers ("From the Soul"). https://babyfacebrass.com

Mooshy Face is a punk band from Vancouver, Canada. Focusing on being mooshy, alcohol, aliens, and alcohol, Mooshy Face strives to be one of the bands singing about these things. The three-piece band, encourages their friends and fans to come together and be frans instead. https://mooshyface.bandcamp.com

Like Whatever brings a crushing and infectious pop-punk/rock experience with saxophone inspired by The Cure, Wet Leg, Prince, David Bowie, Paramore, and Avril Lavigne. Like Whatever creates and produces all of its own video content, having released their first single and bombastic original music video ‘Hater Blockers’ during Summer 2024. https://www.likewhateverband.com/

Shakter - Premiere performance of Live PA "dance party, dance party, dance party... sorta cerebral." https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61568983553197

Denys Kinchev is a Ukrainian virtuoso balalaika artist, composer, and arranger known for modernizing the instrument by blending folk, classical, and jazz. His "Balalaika Acoustic Show" uses advanced techniques like tapping, slapping, and finger-style to create a unique, energetic sound. https://denyskinchev.com

Bučan Bučan (Victoria, BC) combines traditional Eastern European Balkan Brass songs with a high-energy dance party. They find their sound from Romania, Serbia, Romani, Turkey, old Macedonia and surrounding areas. With a cadre of brass instruments, clarinet and violin, they add bass and drums to create a modern old-world sound. https://bucanbucan.com

Balkan Traditional Dance Lesson with Nada & Mihajlo from Gradina Dance Club. Nada and Mihajlo are core members of the Gradina Serbian/Balkan dance group in Vancouver. Mihajlo, from Ruski Krstur, is recognized as an expert of Serbian and Balkan folk dances. He has toured and performed throughout Europe and is always excited to share the magic of this captivating dance form with newcomers.

Sindikat Sina Roza is Seattle’s only dedicated Balkan brass band, founded in 2024 to bring high-energy, participatory folk music to the Pacific Northwest. The band plays raucous, soulful, and dance-focused music inspired by Balkan Romani traditions, with a commitment to anti-fascist, anti-capitalist values and cultural respect. https://sinarozabrass.band/home

Not Without Hope review: a massive continuity error, plus sharks and sandwiches and hypothermia

Joe Carnahan has made a few great films, especially The Grey. If you forgive that film taking liberties with the behaviour of wolves, it's gripping, thematically dense, and rich in character detail; if you're partial to outdoor ordeal films (as I am), it's kind of essential viewing. It's the only movie of his I've loved, but I've liked enough of his films that I did a "top Joe Carnahan movies" post awhile back, taking in my five favourite films of his, and sticking The Rip in the #6 slot. 

Probably The Rip has fallen in my estimation, based on subsequent reflection and a few somewhat scathing reviews I read after I wrote that piece, but the top 5 (The Grey, The A-Team, Wheelman -- which he didn't actually direct -- Boss Level and Narc) still remain up there in my estimation as some of the best genre exercises of recent years.  

I'm not going to try to assign a slot to Not Without Hope, however. It's mostly quite well made, has some gripping visuals, and is engaging (a punnier writer would say "immersive") while it lasts, but it's also sorely lacking the writerly flair, rich human detail, and thematic punch that make The Grey so re-watchable. It really and truly is about a group of men who go fishing, get caught in a storm, endure a nautical disaster, and have to fight for survival, all of which is interesting enough on its own, I suppose...

...But that's also exactly all you get. There is one -- count'em one -- moment that achieves something beyond telling its meat-and-potatoes survival-at-sea story, where the surviving men witness a cache of their sandwiches float from under their capsized boat to the surface, bobbing just out of reach in the waves, just as a few sharks start to circle the boat. The men's hunger resonates off the sharks' hunger and made me briefly laugh aloud; it's the most poetic and maybe profound moment in the film. 

Was there anything else to take away from this movie? I guess I didn't realize that being an athlete could be a liability in the face of hypothermia, but I am, shall we say, marked safe from the dangers of having an athletic build. So I'm not sure the information is useful; in fact, based on the behaviour of the men in the film, I feel like I have, generally, a better understanding of hypothermia than they did. Surely these four men should have spent every moment they could in a group hug, to share and preserve body warmth. Didn't they see Shoot to Kill? 

Otherwise, Not Without Hope achieves very little beyond relaying what happens. Maybe this is because it is based on a true story -- people were hampered in taking liberties, out of respect for the families and such? Maybe there was a faith that the story would be gripping enough without much need for artistic license...? I dunno. 

But the one thing that makes me wonder whether the filmmakers really cared about the movie is a glaring continuity error. We see the men through the first night that they are lost at sea, when visibility at night (in a storm) is made much of; we take in the second day (which is when the shark scene takes place -- clearly in daylight); we have a cut to a night shot of men on a boat looking for them, again remarking on poor visibility, and another night shot involving the men's family's, suggesting that we are now into the second night of their being lost at sea. Then we are back to daylight stuff, with both dialogue and intertitles confirming that this is 24 hours after the accident, not the 36+ that the second nigbt scene suggests. Eventually we *do* get to a second night in the water, but the earlier, out-of-sequence night shots are never explained or excused; they're just a massive continuity error in the middle of the film, glaring and undeniable (we hit rewind to review that we hadn't missed anything; we had not). 

How an error like that actually survives not just a theatrical run but a home video release is beyond me. It's akin to the endless legs Godzilla must have had to wade out over a bottomless trench in that otherwise remarkable recent Japanese Godzilla film, whatever the hell it was called (Godzilla Minus One?). It lessens whatever respect I may have had for the film; I can't even say, with a mistake like that so glaringly obvious, that "at least it was well made." 

Mostly well-made, I guess. 

Ah well. I guess I no longer have much interest in following the films of Joe Carnahan.    

RIP Exu Nazares

I'd been Facebook friends with Exu Nazares for a couple of years by the time I actually got to know him a bit. Not sure how we connected on Facebook, but some of the best stories in my Godspeed You! Black Emperor story came from him, related to his time in the Ashe Gallery. It was kind of insane that I'd spent decades wondering about that space, only to discover that two of the people who ran it had, when I wrote that story, been known to me for years.

The Straight story I wrote about him came next. And a crazy number of t-shirt orders. Which I hope were actually helpful -- they're delightful shirts, but I hope the money from them was meaningful? (Because of course now I'm second-guessing whether they distracted him from completing his graphic novel; the last couple of shirt designs I was going to buy, I told him not to even worry about -- I paid for the shirts but said he should just focus on his book). 

No idea what the state of his graphic memoir is. I believe there are completed chunks, but is there enough to salvage a book? In our last exchanges, he was sending me morbid promotional one-pagers for it, gruesome and hilarious stuff modeled off the advertisements in the back of horror comic books. Here's one he posted publicly back in April:

And now he's passed (either Thursday night or Friday morning, not clear technically which). I didn't get to know him very well, but enough to know that he was a neat cat. Condolences to his partner and surviving family. 

Gonna wear one of his t-shirts today...

Interpreting Backrooms: a Jungian Labyrinth -- plus Bleak Week at the Park

I have never read a book by Carl Jung. Hell, I've only read bits and pieces of Joseph Campbell. But if I were going to do a serious look at Backrooms, I'd probably start looking into how Jung (and Campbell) read the story of the labyrinth. Is the minotaur the shadow? What if the hero's journey were an inward one, into the pathways of the mind? 

Habits, loops. "Neural pathways of least resistance." The thing about Backrooms is, the first time you watch it, you are just gripped, engaged with the experience, as mystified as the characters are about what they are discovering; you feel it cohering, but how? Why? You'd have to be a sharper, faster analyst than I to be able to lucidly spell it all out; I doubt many could, on first viewing. The second time you watch it, you realize that there are decoder rings given to you throughout and the film is very, very cohesive, meaningful, applicable to your life, even. The therapy session at the beginning of the film is so thematically expressive that it gets repeated almost verbatim by the session's patient, later on, in the backrooms. 

If you cannot find yourself in these monologues, you probably won't engage on the deepest levels with this film. You are actually meant, I think, to apply the ideas of the film to your life. It seems maybe worth doing, maybe even profound? (Or profoundly depressing? That last moment is kind of grim). 

Of course, the aesthetics are gripping, too. Is that Kubrickian perspective? It seems close to it at times. And the set design is fascinating and the sound design is superb. I was able to close my eyes for one bit and just dig the music, during Clark's early explorations. You can enjoy the film just as an immersive experience, if that's what you're seeking. But thinking about what it all means... it really, really helps to see it a second time.

Some tips. If you are in Vancouver, see it at the Park. Don't pay too much attention to the decor on the way in. Just forget all about it and beeline for the theatre; but allow yourself some time afterwards to explore, because they've done something fun. Of course, one of the film's executive producers, Osgood Perkins, is involved with the Park, so there's a reason, maybe, why the theatre has some special features...? (Or is this happening in the Cineplexes, too?). 

Backrooms is the most exciting cinematic adventure I've had since Beau is Afraid, and I think (since I don't have a Jewish mom, let alone the mommy issues of the protagonist and presumed filmmaker of Beau is Afraid) the more important film, the, dare I say, better film; Beau is Afraid is audacious and fascinating, but it's not especially useful (maybe in the same way Jung trumps Freud?). You can't take its lessons and apply them to your life, I don't think. It might help you to complain about things, maybe offer you some catharsis at best, but Backrooms is actually a useful film, a work of art worth thinking about. There are takeaways, besides a queasy feeling. 

So. Go see it, then go see it again, both times at the Park. You'll be glad you did! Erika enjoyed it, too!

Oh, does Chiwetel Ejiofor remind anyone else, in his line deliveries, a bit of Ben Gazarra, or was that just my seeing the trailer for the film Husbands before Backrooms, tonight...?

Because speaking of Gazarra (and Cassavetes, and Falk), also at the Park, there's this Bleak Week thing coming up, and screenings of Husbands, as well as Bergman's noirish surrealist Hour of the Wolf, and some other films I want Erika and myself to see, starting in late June: The Virgin Suicides, Grave of the Fireflies, In a Glass Cage, The Deer Hunter, The Celebration, Nightcrawler, Christian F.... Park listings here and festival passes here. 

And speaking of Ari Aster, the (shorter) 147-minute-long cut of Midsommar is coming up at the Rio, too. I got nothing against Ari Aster, I just think that's his best film (though I prefer the longer cut, myself). 

From Kier-La Janisse to Isobel Campbell (literally)

Isobel Campbell at the Pearl, by Allan MacInnis

That was an odd but interesting day, which went from assembling a second Kier-La Janisse interview as a companion to the VIFF piece in the Straight (see previous post) to seeing her in person at the VIFF Centre. She had good news for me: she had found a book I was looking for -- Yuletide Terror, which I'd hoped to buy a copy of for my Christmas-centric friend David M.; intitially she believed she didn't have any, but it turned out she'd been sent two, so I got one for myself as well, though I am by no means as versed in Christmas horror cinema as M. is (I also snagged a Truth & Soul and a Cockfight book; actually, I got two of the latter, one for Bob. Spectacular Optical books are all terrific presentations, if you don't have one: I also have the Satanic Panic title, which I believe is out of print. 

There was more good news: though I only sat in it briefly, having somewhere else to be, the studio theatre has improved since last I was there (Tom wasn't bullshitting me). The seats are still connected to each other in a kind of bleacher-like setup, but they are more comfortable to sit in, at least in the short term. The crowd was decent in size, considering, so it would have been fun to do a show-of-hands ("How many of you people are here because of the article in the Georgia Straight?") but I did not presume to make my voice heard on this matter. I hope a few people came because of my article!

I never know the net effect of what I do. Sometimes it feels like it's not very much.  

Beforehand, in the lobby, at the table Kier-La had set up, I chatted briefly with someone who wished to remain anonymous (or at least unphotographed), who said her brother Steve had been the head grip on the shoot for the film; she was buying a copy of Truth & Soul for him, and got Kier-La to inscribe it "to Steve". He's probably findable in the nearly-unreadable fonts on the blu-ray, but he is not mentioned on the IMDB or elsewhere. Also, I seem to have accidentally deleted the photo I took of a production still she held up, wherein both Steve and Robert Downey appeared on set. Kier-La said, "There you go, Allan, you have someone you can ask about what drugs were used on the set" (one of the questions I'd put to her that she couldn't answer), but I don't actually care about this, personally -- I was just trying to come up with entertaining interview questions. Still, I was happy Steve was getting a book. 

A previous version of this post said I'd lost my image of the production still that the woman showed with her brother and Robert Downey Sr. during the shoot, but there it is! I hadn't deleted it after all (and the woman, whoever she was, never got in touch). 

I did ask Kier-La some questions about her name, because David M. had expressed curiosity if she named herself after Udo Kier ("That's what he thought, too!" she said -- she had Udo has a guest at a Cinemuerte many years ago). But it turns out, it was her parents who named her thus; it's not a self-appellation. We didn't get to talk much about that, though, since she had to present on the film. (There was a bit more but we'll leave that maybe for a future interview or something). 

Kier-La was great -- one of those spontaneous presentations of information that can only be done by someone who truly knows their stuff; nothing memorized, nothing rehearsed, and the only thing written was a section from the book Truth & Soul about a turd of God, which had some connection to a dream Carl Jung had, or something like that? I didn't take notes, and my wife is sleeping in the bedroom, so you'll just have to go buy the book to get the inside details, though I do not recall Kier-La mentioning if perhaps Downey KNEW of this dream of Jung's before coming up with the motif of Greaser's constipation. He doesn't seem the type to deliberately work an obscure Jung reference into a film! (But I'm sure he'd have been entertained to read it, had he lived to see the book published). 

I also wondered if the explosion of Greaser's Palace was a nod to Zabriskie Point, of two years' previous. I'm pretty sure it must have been (though there are no slow motion clips of exploded detritus floating around afterwards, which would have been too on-the-nose, I guess).

I did not stay for the screening, but raced off down the street to catch Isobel Campbell. Stephen McBean did an opening set, doing a solo version of Pink Mountaintops, briefly bringing Campbell out to do (I guess) an Amber Webber part (Kevin Howes tells me on FB that Pink Mountaintops is always just McBean and whomever he chooses to work with?). I have lost some interest in Black Mountain, having stopped really connecting with their recorded output from roughly their third album on, but I enjoyed McBean's set a lot, even danced around a bit. There is apparently (also via Kevin) a McBean-and-Webber only Black Mountain variant soon to tour through town...?

Then Isobel Campbell came out, with a small band, and did one of the quietest sets of live music I have seen: not in terms of volume, but in terms of the minimalism of her presentation. Many songs, she stood more or less still, one hand jammed deep in the pocket of her jeans, eyes closed as she sang, sometimes swaying a little, but not much more. Her voice was transfixing, of course, and the songs drew heavily on her collaborations with the late Mark Lanegan, with various of her band members taking up Lanegan's parts. There was very little stage patter, though often it was delivered with a personable smile and a chuckle, as when two of her band sat on the floor (for "The National Bird of India") and she joked about how tall she felt now. 

The audience was small; I recognized only local concert fixtures Brian and Douglas in the sparse crowd. I appreciated how attentive they all were, however; there was very little of that ubiquitous Vancouver chatter that can sometimes ruin a quiet set (as with Robyn Hitchcock when he opened for the Psychedelic Furs, or Carla Bozulich when she opened for Thee Silver Mt. Zion, or Wreckless Eric, when he last headlined here, at a gig at the Astoria so disrespectful of his performance that he hasn't come back since). I was struck by the wish for the ability to travel to an alternate dimension, where I'd given advance press to the show, and got to see a) what the audience would have been like then and b) if they would have been louder and less respectful? Maybe it was just as well it was just a gathering of "those who knew". Maybe press would have only helped ruin it?

I think the people who came last night all very much knew what kind of music Isobel Campbell made, and comported themselves appropriately. 

Less minimal in her presentation, Evie Sands took the stage to support Campbell somewhere around the mid-point of her set, singing lead on a few of the Lanegan songs, like "Come Undone." Sands has a fascinating career, which I knew nothing of before last night, having come close to mainstream megastardom at a few points, but having it taken from her by unfortunate circumstance. She was the first person to record a couple of songs that became big hits (including one we all know, "Angel of the Morning"), but for one reason or another, it was other people's versions of those songs that drew the fame and wealth (see her Wiki, or go here). She's 79 now, and still a solid, engaging performer, but at one point, was greeted by a female voice calling out from the audience, "Who are you, honey?" And she took a minute to answer. Maybe there was a thought there, too, in her mind, of an alternate universe in which people knew her name, recognized her face. Someone there last night surely did, but it wasn't me. I texted David M. (who had gotten all excited when James Mastro was supporting Alejandro Escovedo; he knew who Mastro was, more than Escovedo!). But he didn't know who Evie Sands was, either.

So that was interesting -- a story I did not know, some of which I read on my phone while the band was performing (!). Sands brought a bit of liveliness to the night -- she's more of a "performer" than Campbell, though her voice is less gorgeous. This is her version of "Angel of the Morning", if you're curious (just a studio version; it wasn't played last night. I like how her voice quavers on the word "dawn"; there's more vulnerability here than the Juice Newton version, for example). We were lucky to have seen her. But I did not buy the album of hers on the merch table, nor did I stick around to get things signed (I did bring records, including The Boy With the Arab Strap and two later Campbell albums, but both my wife and I have been tired this week, and I elected to just come home without even trying. Maybe they came out? I ultimately decided I'd rather be home early). 

Mind you, if I had Campbell's albums with Mark Lanegan on vinyl -- if they had been issued thus, or were on the merch table -- I would have probably stuck around; they're my favourite items in her discography (I have three of them, but only on CD, and I seldom bother asking for people to sign CDs). The setlist I believe was the same as this one, and as you see, many of these are off those albums, without it being noted by Setlist FM, including a cover of Townes van Zandt's "The Snake Song" and "You Won't Let Me Down Again", both evening high points. Musically, I liked that rootsy stuff, and the near-psychedelic first quarter of the set, better than the more R&B-oriented last half.  

Maybe the slightly sad quality to Campbell's stage presence owes to missing Mark? 

But I don't have much else to say. Campbell did only one Belle and Sebastian song that I recognized, "Is It Wicked Not to Care". She did one song written by Jeffrey Lee Pierce, "Free to Walk", because he and Lanegan were "best buddies," I think was the phrase she used. Interestingly, there is a duet between Nick Cave and Debbie Harry doing that song, which in my mind connects with the only time I saw Mark Lanegan perform, opening for Nick Cave (where the two did a duet of "The Weeping Song").

It was a very low-bullshit night, where if you came to the Pearl to bask in the aura of celebrity or see a dynamic performance or such, you probably left disappointed, but if you came to listen to music being performed beautifully, you were probably intensely satisfied. I would place myself somewhere in the middle; I probably would have enjoyed the night more if there had been seats, though it would have interfered with the few songs I did kinda dance to. It did seem a gig that would have been more appropriate to a seated venue. I wonder how many people were in the house -- maybe 100, tops? Maybe not even that. 

Someone should really reissue those Campbell-Lanegan albums on vinyl. 

Kier-La Janisse on Truth & Soul: A Robert Downey Sr. Reader, apropos of tonight's film screening

  

Tonight, Kier-La Janisse will be introducing Greaser's Palace at the VIFF Centre, and bringing with her books from her publishing imprint, Spectacular Optical; the screening is the release party for her newest, Truth & Soul: A  Robert Downey Sr. Reader, co-edited with Clint Enns (that's the Spectacular Optical link; see also the VIFF website, here). I wrote a piece on the film screening for the Straight, which was directed at getting people who might not know Downey's work interested in the film (which is weird and remarkable; Downey himself comments in an interview with Rudy Wurlitzer on the blu-ray that it would make a hell of a double bill with El Topo, which it would!). 

Since then, I have revisited the film, and would change a few things about the article. The credits for the film and the subtitles give "Jesse" as "Jessy," for example, and even though this is not followed elsewhere (and may well not have been deliberate), I would probably follow suit. Also, the subtitles render Jessy's invocation as "If you feel you heal," which is different from how I've always heard it ("if you feel, you're healed"; it's actually really hard to hear the difference between the two). The business about the Resurrection is a bit more complicated than I'd remembered, and to be honest, I no longer find the donkey scene quite as funny as I once did (I had remembered it being quite a bit longer, in fact!). Now the funniest scene for me was when "the woman", played by Elsie Downey -- Robert Downey Jr.'s mother -- is shot by arrows (but I don't want to spoil the laugh by telling you what about that is funny). 

The other glaring omission in the article is talking about the book, which, it turns out, is a stunning accomplishment. The art is gorgeous and the writing feels like a throwback to the glory days of the early 1970s, when film criticism was actually a respectable calling. Kier-La, it turned out, was available for a supplementary interview focused on the book, which she will have with her at the VIFF Centre, and provided a couple of collages of art from the film to illustrate. 

Oh, by the way, the girl in the bottom left corner of this image is Toni Basil! (Whom I also neglected in the Straight piece, along with Hervé Villechaize and Don Calfa). But what we really need is more about Truth & Soul, however, so... here! 

AM: Do you see Spectacular Optical as being a bit anachronistic? Are there periods or modes of film scholarship that particularly appeal to you? There is a feeling of the book, somewhat like the films of Robert Downey Sr., coming from a lost time in flm history... (maybe I'm just out of the loop...). Do you see yourself, your project, as anachronistic? Is there a year or decade that you attach more meaning to than others?

KLJ: I’m more interested in older things because context and patterns make more sense to me after a lot of time has passed and I can see the network of how so many things are connected. That interconnectivity helps me to feel more connected to the material. My sweet spot is probably 1967-1974. Part of that may be that I’m stuck in my childhood and what was in the air around the time of my birth, but also it’s such a contained moment in history where you saw a massive amount of change all happening at once, and all these utopian dreams reflected in music, politics, art, spirituality - and then the fallout of that as everything broke apart and the 70s became very dark and dystopian. I feel like between those two places is everything I like.

Downey’s films just don’t really fit neatly anywhere, with the exception of PUTNEY SWOPE where I feel like he made the right film at the right time. Even when he makes a film that’s clearly tapping into trends – like CHAFED ELBOWS or GREASER’S PALACE -- the films are inevitably making fun of that trend, and so they always remain outside of it.

AM: Was there a film or a moment in a film of Robert Downey Sr.'s that planted the seed of doing a book on him? 

KLJ: The impetus for the book was that Clint Enns and I were talking film over drinks one day back in 2014, and we both wished there was a book about Downey’s films because both of us were very curious about his work but there wasn’t a lot of writing out there about him. Even the Criterion DVD releases had no contextual extras. By the end of the evening we had decided we were just going to make this book ourselves. So we didn’t come to the project as people who already knew a ton about him; it was really the lack of info or insight out there that made us feel such a book was necessary.

AM: Did you ever cross paths with Jonas Mekas? I think he would have liked what you're doing. I see his name coming up a couple of times in people's articles, and he was alive during the period of the book's preparation, though I don't know what his health was like... Did he contribute in any way, even indirectly?

KLJ: Clint may have, as he travels more in experimental film circles, but I never met Mekas. His Anthology Film Archives was instrumental in restoring many of Downey’s films but they were not a help with our book.

AM: Do you have essays in the book you are particularly pleased with the inclusion of?

KLJ: The pieces in the book all take wildly different approaches to the films, because all the contributors come from different research areas and we basically asked them to apply those research areas to the work of Robert Downey, Sr. My favourite may be Stephen Bissette’s piece on STICKS AND BONES because it’s very detailed and it connects to his larger research into Vietnam veterans on film, but also has this great conspiracy at its heart related to Nixon and Ozzie & Harriett. I also love Christine Lucy Latimer’s chapter because she breaks down the Marx Brothers influence in specifics - the Marx brothers are often brought up as a reference with Downey films but she’s the first person I know to actually break it down with scenes and dialogue side by side. Andy Votel’s chapter on composer Charley Cuva is a great deep dive into this mysterious character, told in Andy’s manic style. And lastly, the chapter on HUGO POOL. It’s not the most polished essay in the book, but it was by our youngest writer, and I got to see firsthand how the film won him over with each draft of the chapter. The author Jeff Siegrist died very young before the book came out – it is dedicated in part to him. HUGO POOL was a film we all initially underestimated as being part of Downey’s California sell-out period, but if you watch it a bunch, it will break your heart. Downey was grieving when he made this film and as silly as it is, it’s also his most poignant film.

AM: Tell me about the difficulty of seeing the films? I assume you and Clint saw everything you wrote about, but some of these must have been challenging to source. Are there films you could not source? (Have you seen Downey's hemmorhoid commercial? Is it in any way interesting? Is it weird that I perked up when I read about that?).

KLJ: Many of his films haven’t been officially released since their first release – POUND has never come out on home video (we actually hired someone to track down the chain of title and it belongs to Amazon/MGM now, and they’ve made an exclusive deal for physical media with Alliance Entertainment who are very unlikely to prioritize a release of this film). This is no fault of Downey’s, the films he retained rights on are those that Criterion released and you can see them streaming on the Criterion channel even though the DVDs are out of print.

KLJ, continued: But the other films he doesn’t own comes down to the companies that own them and their interest in exploiting those rights. PUTNEY and GREASER’S are both available to book easily enough, and RENTED LIPS is available for licensing through Studio Canal if anyone wants to release it, but that, along with AMERICA and TOO MUCH SUN remain unreleased on disc. AMERICA is actually great – up until the last 5 minutes when Richard Belzer gives a racist monologue (which he wrote himself – Downey did not write it) and while it’s satirical – showing the degeneration of the news – it’s very hard to watch. Many of the films we watched from Nth-generation VHS dupes uploaded to torrents. STICKS AND BONES I originally had to fly to New York and watch it at the Performing Arts Library, that was the only way to see it for a long time. But then a couple years ago a copy popped up on Youtube. A bunch of his other films are on Youtube too. So it’s really fans keeping the stuff circulating.

I haven’t seen any commercials Downey worked on but I have seen at least one of his industrial films, which is funny when you think about his later film RENTED LIPS whose protagonist (Martin Mull) plays an industrial filmmaker who makes a film called “Aluminum, Our Shiny Friend” - which is the kind of film Downey would have made in the 60s as a work for hire. I mean that’s one of the things that’s interesting about examining a filmography is you can see all these tendrils back to other parts of their filmography – even AMERICA, the film I wrote about, is set at a cable news station in the early 80s but is referencing changes from the past 15 years of news history, while also being prescient about the news situation American finds itself in now.

AM: Can I ask about the economics of what you do? The graphic design, the fonts, the archival resources you've tracked down, the many contributors, and the number of hours put into the writing and editing suggest a luxury of resources -- it's a luxuriant book -- but I do not sense a great luxury of resources at your disposal. Will the book actually pay for the cost of its making? How do you manage to afford what you do? (How important was the Indiegogo campaign? Were there notable sponsors or donors?).

KLJ: The indiegogo campaign paid for the basic printing of the book. It did not cover the slipcase, the design fees, the archival fees, nor the contributor royalties. But the book has to exist before it has a chance of earning revenue to cover those other things, so getting enough money to print it is step one. Generally over time the books (mostly?) pay for themselves and I pay royalties to all the contributors no matter what, even if out of pocket. But I get paid nothing for my time working on it, so that’s what I’m working on improving. I’m trying to get wider distribution for the books, and the extras units we can sell with a distributor will help me get paid.

The most notable donor was Kevin Ford, whose name I recognized as being one of the producers/editors of the documentary “Sr.” – I messaged him because he had made two orders and I wasn’t sure if it was an error, and he ended up writing a last-minute afterword to the book about working with Downey on his final film.

AM: Did you and Clint have any prerequisites for your contributors, in terms of their knowledge of Downey's work? Robert Dayton, whose essay is one of the ones I've been able to skim, seems to have seen films beyond the one he is writing about, like No More Excuses, which is at least seeable on the Eclipse box. Did you have a list of films that people had to have seen before submitting an essay? (Did you have to ever give editorial feedback like, "No, you're off the mark here, you need to reconsider this comment in light of ______?" (where ______ is a film by Robert Downey Sr.?).

KLJ: When we first started looking for contributors we were looking for people who had already written about Downey or had some documented relationship with his work. But it became apparent there weren’t many of these people. Part of why the book took 10 years to do is that many scholars and film critics we approached weren’t confident they knew how to read Downey’s films. The main thing was I wanted a thesis. I was less concerned with whether they were already a fan than that thy could say something interesting about the films. So we asked people who we knew would bring their own backgrounds and research areas to the films to dig out a specific aspect of it. For example Eivind Rossak we specifically asked to write about CHAFED ELBOWS because he had written in the past about stasis in film, and that film is mostly shot in still images. We would guide people where needed with additional films or texts.

AM: Did you have to pay for the use of the archival materials? The Life article was quite something. Why the hell was Downey harrassing people in the lobby of a theatre, condemning his own film?! (Kier-La doesn't answer that question but it's an eye-opening stunt -- he's standing in the lobby of a theatre playing Putney Swope telling people how vile it is, challenging them to explain why they saw it; one woman he accosts complains to the manager about his behaviour, but the manager explains he's helpless to intervene, since the man is in fact the filmmaker himself). 

KLJ: We paid a shitload for that LIFE article. We also paid handsomely for Skip Gates’ piece on PUTNEY SWOPE. Others were a bit more reasonable. There are 2 images licensed from Getty that cost an arm and a leg. A lot of images I licensed from Alamy which is waaaay more affordable. Technically I can get fair use on most of this stuff, because of the editorial scope of the book, and so a lot of lobby cards and 8 x 10s I bought and used, but ultimately if the same image is on Alamy it’s worth it to license a high res image for download and save the cost of shipping.

AM: The fonts are great. Who is responsible for them? Where does the "main font" (the Truth & Soul font) come from? Does it have a name? It has almost a "Japanese calligraphy" feel.

KLJ: Andy Votel (of Finder’s Keepers Records) hand-painted all the titles. He even sent me the original painted title for my chapter.

AM: Did you and Clint have much of a hands-on role in determining elements used in the collages? Who is Luke Insect?

KLJ: Clint was co-editor of the text but the design and layout was my responsibility as the publisher. I’ve worked work with Luke Insect on other projects - he’s a Manchester-based artist and did the design for my folk horror and Emanuelle box sets for Severin, among other things. I made folders for each chapter, procured and chose all the images, and told him I wanted a collage style, so he would send me pages and I would approve or ask for changes – it was a process of several months.

AM: You mention two other Vancouverites. One is Robert Dayton, obviously, but who is the other? (Any stories there of your history with either are welcome -- I was first made aware of Robert at the Phantom of the Paradise screening you mounted as part of -- was that a Cinemuerte or Big Smash? Do you have any regional bias here, a desire to support people who are doing interesting work locally?). 

KLJ: Robert Dayton and Kliph Nesteroff, who covered UP THE ACADEMY – he is a comedy historian who wrote the books THE COMEDIANS (epic), WE HAD A LITTLE REAL ESTATE PROBLEM (about Indigenous comedians) and other things. I actually try to hire Canadians as much as possible – many of the writers in the book are Canadian. Robert is an old friend – and it was Big Smash he played at, his band July Fourth Toilet did a Paul Williams set, with Paul there in person; Paul actually got up on stage with them when they did “Dangerous Business” from ISHTAR. I don’t know Kliph from Vancouver, I just know him through his work.

AM: My biggest hurdle in buying the book is that I have not seen many of the films in it, just Putney Swope, Greaser's Palace, and... I think I saw The Gong Show Movie? What films should people track down?

KLJ: People shouldn’t have to have seen all his film to buy the book – I buy film books constantly about people I’ve never heard of if their work sounds interesting. Most people who buy my book HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN haven’t seen all 300 films discussed in it. I don’t think anyone has to “justify” buying a book put out by me. I’ve done my time and if my name’s on something, it’s worth owning!

The event is tonight at the VIFF Centre, starting at 7:30 with a presentation from Kier-La Janisse; tickets here!  

Dead Bob, Nomeansno, the Devonian Fool, Matteo Farinella, and a Tarot Rabbithole (or two)

"Live" Bob Hanham's favourite shot from the Rickshaw, May 23, 2026. 

Note: all photos of the band in this post are by Bob, as is the band shot in the insert of Nothing Changes Everything. The very last shots are by me, though. And various other images (Tarot ones, say) are just from the internet! None of it is to be reused without permission, dig?

Note: Bob Hanham's images here are not to be reused without permission! 

The new Dead Bob album is great. In particular, "Hard is Hard" and "No Fun" (which I shot a clip of) are two of the tightest, catchiest, most creative local punk tunes in recent memory, even though my friend David M., of No Fun, may someday have to retort to the latter and write a song about not needing Dead Bob, either. My comment to John Wright when I interviewed him for the Straight is that Nothing Changes Everything is the single greatest album he's been involved in since The Worldhood of the World (As Such), and in fact, my original proposed title for the article (which I knew Mike wouldn't go for, but I gotta try) was "The Bobness of Dead Bob (As Such)", because, y'know, fuck'em if they can't take an in-joke. Considering one of the "new" Nomeansno covers that got played (blowing both me and longtime Nomeansno supporter/ podcaster Michelle Strangey away), in fact that title would have seemed quite a prescient reference (but I only plan to spoil one of the surprises in the setlist, and it ain't that one. They did do a song off Worldhood tho!).

The article is still something I'm really happy to have put into the world: in it, among other things, John clarifies the origins of the figure of Dead Bob, from the cover of You Kill Me to now, which is a topic that needed to be addressed. The album cover (by John, who doesn't get enough credit as a visual artist) predated the song by a year or two, and was the egg from which the Dead Bob chicken eventually hatched, if you see what I mean.   

One thing I didn't think to ask about is the little cat in the You Kill Me cover -- one of my favourite elements -- and whether his presence on the new LP cover was meant to reinforce an apparent reference to the Fool card in the Rider-Waite Tarot; while merely an onlooker on the earlier Nomeansno EP, the cat serves as the equivalent of the dog on that card, but that might just have been a happy accident. The Fool is the equivalent of the Joker in a conventional playing card deck, but in cartomancy, symbolizes youth, heedlessness, innocence, and being unwittingly on the cusp of receiving one hell of a life-lesson. Some people have described the Major Arcana as charting "the Fool's journey", by which reading the dog is egging the Fool on, since he knows what richness of experience amd learning a good plunge into the abyss can bring. Thanks, there, doggie!

There are also elements of the earlier Marseilles Tarot in the cover for Nothing Changes Everything, too, however, including a similar animal, though this one actually looks more like a cat. Said kitty, as you will see in the video I linked above for "No Fun", got an expanded role in the Dead Bob onscreen animations, which, as Ford Pier observed at some point, did indeed run the whole time the band was playing (which I quite liked, but it was fun that he only seemed to realize this 2/3rds of the way through the set). Some people have remarked that the animal in this card is chasing the fool away, rather than egging him on; also, there is no indication of an abyss ahead (so I prefer the Rider-Waite, designed by Pamela Colman Smith, and think it more germane). 

People wanting to delve deeper into the Fool in Tarot should go here for Marseilles and here for Rider-Waite...  

But do note that Ford Pier of Dead Bob thinks I'm reading too much into the cover art, suggesting that it's more influenced by Warner Brothers cartoons than the Fool. I wonder, though: which Tarot card would best represent Ford Pier?

All Dead Bob shots by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission

Ford also adds "Red Devil" to my list of Tarot references in Nomeansno lyrics, re: the Prince of Cups. (I believe it's the Crowley Thoth Tarot that calls them Princes; they're Knights in most other decks. So there's a hint at Rob's own preferred deck, maybe? Was Rob ever into Crowleyanity?). 

By the way, speaking of Thoth... the Fool in the deck also has a cat... and some sort of reptile? The abyss here becomes an alligator, or something, and... is the Fool about to fall backwards onto it? 

Given all this, if I'd thought more  carefully about my t-shirt choice before dressing for the show, I would have worn my Devonian Fool shirt to the Rickshaw, which shows a prehistoric fish crawling onto dry land, but I was in a rush and blanked on the reference to the Fool. 

Note that I bought this shirt from GeoCuriosity, but discovered shortly thereafter (thanks to the interventions of anti-AI scold and Accordion Noir honcho Rowan Lipkovits) that, while their shirts are high quality and came in good time with correct sizing, the company has been criticized for plagiarisms in their designs. It took about a half-hour poking through the variants of the shirt (which you can find on Etsy and Redbubble and many other sources) to discover the artist; the original (might we say primordial?) design is from the Women of Science Tarot, which seems like an awesome undertaking, and the artist behind the deck is Matteo Farinella.  

This has been confirmed, by the way; I reached out to Matteo to check my supposition, and he wrote back: 

Hi Allan,

Congratulations on your research skills - that is indeed my work!

I mean, I can't rule out that someone else independently came up with the same idea, but I definitely had never seen it back when I created the Tarot back in 2018.

I did notice the image became a meme around 2021-2022 but since the t-shirts use a different design they don't have to pay me any royalties of course (although it's pretty crazy to see them sell for $30+ each!). I just surrendered to the fact that the internet is a wild and weird place, and it's a fun anecdote to tell people.

Anyway, thank you for reaching out, it's good to get some recognition

Matteo

Incidentally, for you Tarot enthusiasts, below is Matteo's Women in Science Tower, apropos of Nomeansno's "The Tower"--the other significant Tarot reference in their catalogue. "The Tower" is one of my very favourite Nomeansno songs, but I believe I only ever heard Nomeansno do it live once, when I followed them (with the help of fellow fans from the now-retired Nomeanswhatever discussion forum) through three gigs in Ontario, in Hamilton, Waterloo, and Toronto (the same week I saw Jandek for the first time AND Tony Conrad, the only time ever!). 

Tarot enthusiasts and Nomeansno geeks will also want to find a more literal interpretation of the Tower behind that song discussed here. I'm getting a whole new angle for a Nomeansno interview.

But let's get on with the show, shall we? 

Again, Bob Hanham, not to be reused, etc.

The gig this past Saturday was remarkable for a host of reasons:

1. Colin MacRae, who is hard at work on a reissue of a Pigment Vehicle's Murder's Only Foreplay When You're Hot for Revenge,  sang a song off that album, "I Compare You", which was dynamite. I am not sure if it was for that song or the next one, but if I'm not deeply confused, I believe it was also Colin who offered a verse or two from the Residents' "The Making of a Soul" ("the achin' and the breakin' are the making of a soul"). I don't know that Residents album as well as I'd like, however, so it took me a chance encounter with the song a couple of days later to realize what he'd done (thanks, shuffleplay!) and I cannot tell you if he delivered more than that line from it. In fact, I misheard the lyric originally and thought that Colin initially sang "the bacon of the soul". Which makes no fuckin' sense, of course, though the soul munching happily on crispy, tasty, maple-flavoured suffering, served with your breakfast, was a pleasing thing to contemplate.

(Note: I have since seen a setlist and there is in fact an entry for "the Residents", so maybe they really did the whole song?). 

Colin also played a drum pad on "Centre of the Universe", as John mentioned in the artice, but we don't have photos of that! Read more about Colin's history with Pigment Vehicle, and their history with Nomeansno, here. Some of their songs appear to be on Spotify! 

2. John offered what I presume was an obscure bit of theatre at one point, getting up from his drumkit to take a phonecall, which he then talked about with his band  This seemed to set up more than was ultimately delivered; I wondered when he first took the call if perhaps there would be a mystery guest unveiled at some point, who had called in, or perhaps a delivery to the stage, or...? He discussed the call with Colin and Byron (if I recall correctly), and did so a bit too expressively for it not to have been theatre, but what did that all mean? I am in no way clear. Bruce Stayloose, also in the audience, has suggested to me later that it was a reference to the song "Five Sacks of Phones", the B-side to the "No Fun" single (which they did play; the 7" still hasn't made it over here, I don't think). I actually forgot about that one! John also did speak from the stage about our phones later on, inviting us to wave them in the air with our flashlights on, prefacing the song "Just Breathe", connecting it with the idea of seizing momentary respite from our technological shackles. And Bruce is no doubt correct about the connection to "Five Sacks of Phones". I still feel like there was more of a payoff due than we got, but maybe I was just thick!  

In any case, I don't think I've ever seen a musician take a call from the stage before! (There was the whole "cell phone crowd-surf" perpetuated by Gustaf, though -- that was fun). If someone wanted to get John in the right pose with the drumsticks, he would obviously be "The Magician" in the Major Arcana. He was, as ever, tireless and precise, but he did not stand up from the kit to take a lead vocal this show (the band have thus far avoided predictable routines like that; they do things a bit differently every time I see them). 

About the symbol's on John's shirt: null-delta-translingual = Nothing Changes Everything

All photos still by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission

3. As I say, there were three songs (I think three) from the Nomeansno catalogue that I had never heard done live by the band, but I only want to mention one of them, because it connects very intimately with the first album I bought by Nomeansno, back in 1982 (!). (Let this serve as a spoiler alert, if you don't want the surprise to be ruined, and skip this paragraph and the next!). I was very early in my "discovery" of punk, which I didn't even know about until I was age 14, it was so invisible growing up in Maple Ridge. I had only just begun seeking punk records, figuring out that I could catch a bus into Vancouver and hit shops like Collector's RPM or Zulu Records or DG Collectibles (or whatever it was called) out by the Kootenay Loop and actually find things that I could not out in the suburbs. Many of the first-gen Vancouver punk classics were out of print at that point, and information about what to get, even, was hard to come by, but I looked to papers like Discorder and Seattle's The Rocket for ideas -- it used to be available up here! 

It was in Discorder in 1982 that I read my first interview with Nomeansno, talking about Mama. I liked what the band members had to say and how the writer described them, and so immediately started seeking out their music, which meant, of course, a long busride into Vancouver. Even though this was still in the year of its release, RPM and Zulu were out of the album, by that point, but I found a used copy for $10 in the "misc N" bin at a shop on Granville Street incongruously called Main Street Records. The first song that I fell in love with on it was the fastest tune on the album, "No Rest for the Wicked." It is probably also the first song I fell in love with for its bassline. Also, it is a song I never heard Nomeansno do, any of the dozen-or-so times I saw them.

Dead Bob played it last night, Kristy-Lee on vocals. Again we might ask her Tarot equivalent? How does a High Priestess dance? 

Kristy's exuberant contortions now equal Ford's; she somewhat supplanted him as the scene stealer of the band, or at least now supplements him. You can read my recent interview with her here; it informed my having a happy little chat, myself, with Rob Wright, when he turned up at a different Dead Bob show a few months back (he really does love The Godfather soundtrack).  

Again, all live Dead Bob shots by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission! 

Back to "No Rest for the Wicked": I have never danced so enthuasiastically to a song. It surpassed even dancing to "Self Pity" at that bloody Indian banquet hall Dave Bowes rented out for a Nomeansno gig, back in April of 2009 (reviewed here, but not by me!). Those two moments both make my top-five ever dancing-to-live-music concert experiences, along with a Cousin Harley show where I really got the spirit, or, like, dancing to "Rock'n Roll Pest Control" a couple months ago at the Young Fresh Fellows show, or Crummy covering the Butthole Surfers... 

Loved Kristy's vocal, too. (She also closed out the night with "Dead Souls" and gave it killer voicing, but it's a song I love less; though -- if you're curious -- my least favourite Nomeansno cover in Dead Bob's repertoire, a song I have never gotten, is "Some Bodies", which also got played. My wife Erika had come down to the pit with me at that point; she's met John (and all the other bandmates), even facilitated my interviewing John at his homebase in Lund, but this was her first-ever Dead Bob show! 

She enjoyed it! 

4. Byron was slightly less front-and-centre as a lead this time. He did sing lead on an Invasives song, but I don't think it was one of the usual "Epic Suite" ones. The band did not do "Dead Bob", so he didn't have to risk leaping the barrier to solo in the pit, as he sometimes does for that song. But he gave some impressive high kicks! 

 5. And finally, Ford did the same thing he did last time Dead Bob played the Rickshaw: he climbed up onto the side-stage architecture and leapt from it. You can also see another angle of this, in my own photos for the night, where Ford is just a vague blur ("Let's hear it for the vague blur!"). Bob's photos are much clearer than mine, capturing Ford in the fall. Into the abyss. Yes, I think we know what Ford's Tarot equivalent has to be, eh? He just needs a small animal yapping at him from behind. 

I don't think Ford sang lead on anything the other night, that was another variable aspect. There certainly was no "You're Paying for Your Body Now", for instance, which I had quite come to enjoy. I guess I have to buy D.O.A's The Black Spot, eh? I didn't remember loving that album -- save for Brian's tune about big guys loving D.O.A. -- but Pier enthusiastically endorsed it when it got reissued on vinyl, said he was as proud of it as anything he's done. Really, it's only Dead Bob's inclusion of that song in their sets that reawakened my interest in that album! Sold out at Red Cat, though, or it was last I checked, and obviously that's the place to buy that, especially if Ford is on shift...

(There is a copy at Neptoon for $21, if you can't wait).

Here's two of Bob's photos of everyone holding up their cellphones at John's request. Note the presence of Aging Youth Gang/ Spores guitarist Sandy Beach on the right! 

There is probably stuff I should be mentioning that I am not. Nod to the Residents aside, were there other covers, from outside from songs in the Dead Bob combined repertoire? I don't recall, if so. "White Stone Eyes" did not get played, off the first album, but much else did, including "Life Like". Most of Nothing Changes Everything got played, but not "The Present" and not the Selina Martin song, "Save Me From Myself," which was a song that she began working on, John had explained to me, when the first Dead Bob album was being assembled. Aside from "Some Bodies" and "Dead Souls", most of the Nomeansno covers from their previous Rickshaw show got changed up: no "Metronome", no "Long Days". It's wonderful that they have such a breadth of work to choose from, in selecting songs...! 

This photo is by me, and the next ones, too!

One cool deet is that, as I say above, I finally met Nomeansno podcaster and former Nomeanswhatever forum poster Michelle Strangey, who was as blown away as I was to be seeing the Vancouver debuts of the three Nomeansno songs we hadn't heard Dead Bob do before. Strangey and I have been interacting in some respect online for almost 20 years! She was brash and boisterous and totally enjoying herself. So there's that! 

Also, Aversions and Yep, the openers, were both fun. Aversions was like "Joy Division meets Magazine to cover a Mission of Burma song" and Yep were kinda goofy prog, almost Zappalike in their playfulness. I shot clips of them here and here, if you're curious! Had not paid either band mind before, had that blase "wait-through-the-opener" attitude before they commenced, and was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying both of them. 

So it was a great night: if you get a chance to see Dead Bob... do!