Alexa Bardach Celebration of Life: Notes from Lana Ryma and Nadja Feutlinske

Alexa Bardach with Tony in the background, October 29, 2010, by bev davies. 

Tony Bardach: "The nun ones are cool, eh?"

Alexa Bardach had stunning charisma.

The best case-in-point I can offer: At the 2011 Rock'n'Relief Benefit for Japan, I saw, in the course of the evening, performances by the Pointed Sticks, SNFU, the Jolts, White Lung, and the Trespassers--all heavy-hitters in Vancouver punk, some with front people that have legendary status. But the single detail of the night that is not now a vague blur, over 15 years later, is Alexa Bardach taking the stage with Billy Bonito (AKA Billy Hopeless of the Black Halos) for the Bonitos' cover of the Stooges' "TV Eye". 

For the first half of the song, from a half-crouch over her mic stand, Bardach just locked eyes with Bonito as the band vamped, shifting like a predatory feline contemplating the best angle from which to pounce: it was electric and compelling and generated a fair bit of suspense around the question of, "Is she ever going to sing?"

By the time she did, just with the sheer intensity of her stage presence, she had already upstaged every other performer in the room. The story goes that Mr. Chi Pig had an inflatable alligator onstage with him that night. I was there, and you'd figure that would be memorable, but no.

I only ever saw Alexa Bardach on a few other occasions: at a Neptoon instore for PIGGY (I believe she predated Ange as the lead singer?), where we chatted a bit, and once at the East Vamps Lucky Bar show mentioned below. I liked her a lot, based on short exposure! 

Alexa Bardach, May 12, 2011 at Rock'n' Relief: Tony reports that Suicide was a "real fav" band of Alexa's, and that she met Martin Rev in Vancouver!

Nadja Feutlinske knew her better. She won't be at the Celebration of Life this coming Sunday, November 1st, at LanaLou's, since she's in Iceland (!), but odds are, you've seen her drumming in at least one band or another, as she's played in the Living Deadbeats, the Shit Talkers, the Wett Stilettos, the C U Next Tuesdays and several others (including "hot minute appearances" with Death Sentence and the Bombshells). But the East Vamps were her first band, which she joined at age 17 at the invite of frontperson Gerry-Jenn Wilson. 

Nadja recalls their first show, at the El Dorado: "I was underage so I had to wait outside until we played. After we played, Pete Feend came up to me and asked me to to try out for the Living Deadbeats and from there I kept joining new bands!"

Alexa was brought on board later, and was "the perfect addition" to the East Vamps, Feutlinske recalls. "She brought something special with her, not just musically, but as a person. Somewhere along the way, she took me under her wing and made me feel like her sister. That meant more to me than she probably ever knew."

Once Alexa joined the group, they began practicing at the space co-run by her father, Tony Bardach, and fellow Pointed Stick Gord Nicholl, the Dental Lab. "For me, some of my favourite memories happened after practice. Practice would be over, but I would stay with Alexa until the wee hours of the morning, writing songs and messing around with sounds. We were never quite ready to call it a night. She had this MIDI pad beat maker that I would fuck around on, and she had all these fun guitar pedals that we could experiment with. We would get lost in making music together, creating all this dark, gothy synth stuff. Those late nights were something special. Alexa wasn't just someone I played in a band with. She was someone I looked up to, someone I learned from, someone who made me feel included."

3/4s of the East Vamps: Nadja, Lisa Lloyd, Alexa

Tony Bardach has shared some of Alexa's unreleased electronica with me and it's compelling, atmospheric and quirky. We hope it finds its way online! Note that Tony will be present at the celebration, note, but I haven't pressed him with questions, other than checking a few facts. It's a tough time; Alexa was his only child. 

We're happy to run Alexa's bandmate's story instead. To Feutlinske's memory, the band only ever went on a single tour, up island, commencing with a show your present author happened to be at, on June 25th, 2011: "We kicked things off at the Lucky Bar in Victoria, where they also had a video showing of Bloodied but Unbowed. From there, we were off to Cumberland. The next morning, we went exploring around the old Chinatown area, where Chinese immigrants had settled while working on the railroad. We stumbled across this HUUUUGE field of poppies, and it was absolutely beautiful. We wandered deeper into the trails and started finding old artifacts scattered around, things like old food cans and keys."

(For those unaware of Cumberland's Chinatown, I am presuming that this is the same area that Nadja is referring to; I have not been, myself. Feutlinske did provide a photo from the poppy fields; Alexa isn't in it, but maybe she took it? These poppy fields are not otherwise known, it seems: if you search "poppy fields Cumberland" there's nothing. I have a fair guess what Chinese workers were doing with all those poppies!).

 

Nadja, Lisa, Gerry-Jenn

The tour continued to Tofino, Nadjia contiues. "We spent time at the beaches, feeling the ocean mist and getting soaked by the rain. The Tofino show was another fun one. The crowd was rowdy, loud, and full of energy. The venue even provided us all with our own hotel room for the night but I ended up spending my night in Alexa's room, and we chatted away for hours. I also vividly remember all of us — me, Lisa, Gerry, Jenn, and Alexa — hanging out of our hotel windows, yelling down at unsuspecting passersby and innocently making fun of them. Thankfully, they were good sports and yelled right back up at us! It's such a ridiculous, silly memory, but it makes me smile. I can picture us all up there, laughing our asses off, being a bunch of idiots."

The East Vamps (Nadja, Gerry-Jenn, Lisa, Alexa) at the Princeton

Feutlinske and Bardach drifted further apart after the East Vamps folded. (Google AI says the band's final show was on June 9, 2017, at the SBC Cabaret). "But one thing about Alexa was that she never completely lost touch. She would reach out by text or call to check on me and make sure I was doing okay. She was always interested in what bands I was playing in, what I was creating, and whatever adventures I was getting myself into."

Every once in a while, I'd see her at her dad Tony's place when I was there to take Cane for walks. Cane was Ryan's dog, Ryan being Alexa's long-term partner. Cane was the most muscular, massive pit bull you ever did see. An absolute tank of a dog, the sweetest boy."

Nadja ends the email interview with "RIP ALEXA. I think the world of you!"

Though Nadja can't make it to the Celebration of Life on Sunday, one of her bandmates in the East Vamps, Lisa Lloyd, will be playing in the Get Arounds, also involving Lana Ryma, the Lana of LanaLou's. Lana plays in the three bands at present, drumming in the Furniture and Ten Days Late, both of which go back awhile (Ten Days Late began in 1990!); but she's very much the front person for the Get Arounds, as you will soon see in the new video for the song "Kill or Be Killed", which is a short while away from its official debut (that is a private link, which I hope works!); note that the band will be headlining their own songs on November 14th at a subsequent LanaLou's show. 

"The Get Arounds started during the pandemic", she explains.  "I was at home, my business LanaLou's was temporarily closed. Carman had some songs and no one else was around to sing some back ups so I gave it a try and wow! I was hooked. And now we just released our latest album Going Out Tonight and we have a third album in the works." 

The Get Arounds. Back: Carman Lethbridge; front, Sean Stubbs, Lana Ryma, Kimi Mah, Lisa Lloyd. Photo by David Jacklin

Going Out Tonight has Jay Solyom of the Spitfires and La Chinga on drums, for most tracks (though Lana drums on "Kill or Be Killed" and "Do or Die"). Carman does most else. But live, the band will be Lana, Carman, Kimi Mah on guitar, Lisa Lloyd on bass, and Sean Stubbs on drums. They'll be performing songs from the Victorian Pork CD of 2001, which has Alexa front-and-center as bandleader.

We should clarify here that Victorian Pork was originally the name of a hallowed fuck band from the original Vancouver scene. According to Gerry Hannah, in this clip, the initial lineup was himself, Brad Kent, Chuck Biscuits and Dave Noga. Contemplate this vintage gig poster, where D.O.A. is the last band on the bill! 

That was in 1977, but there were many lineups of the band over the years; a photo of Bev's that will run with the Straight version of this has Zippy Pinhead on drums, Randy Rampage guesting on vocals, Alexa and Brad on guitar, and (not pictured there) Tony Bardach on bass. Their sole CD that came out on Porcine Records in 2001 (pictured above) had father-and-daughteer Bardachs and Randy Bowman on drums, along with contributions by names that I do not know. Who is "Elbore James", the harmonica player on "Buzzcocks"? (Tony sez Buddy from Vancouver retro rockabilly scene, but not Buddy Selfish, I guess; Buddy Knox?). Is the "stunt guitar" player credited as "Budge Schacte" actually Van Django's Budge Schachte, just spelled wrong? Ian Tiles provides "voiceover on 'Nite Cafe'", and we all recognize that name, but, hell, even Alex, Tony, and Randy have pseudonyms in the booklet (Alexa is lx, Tony is "tony eleven"--all lowercased-- and Randy Bowman is "five-o-man". Brad Kent doesn't appear to be on the album!). 

The songs are indeed snotty and raw and old-school, and a few of them are actually online, posted as individual tracks on the Dental Lab website, though some are (apparently) non-CD tracks involving Brad Kent on guitar: "Just Wanna Beer", the D.O.A. staple "I Don't Give a Shit"and "I Wanna Be Free" (where Brad goes full-on, reminding one a bit of Benny Doro on the Rampage solo LP). Others I think are from the actual CD, Bad: "Pretty Girls", "Mike Stole My Smoke", and "Bad". You will hear some of these recordings on Sunday, I am told! 

There's much more that will happen at the Celebration of Life -- including contributions from "everyone's right hand man", Orchard Pinkish, working with the Be Good Tanya's Sam Parton. There may be some surprises in store, too! It's definitely a be-there night. 

Never got to know you well, Alexa, but you made an impression, the few times our paths crossed. You'll be greatly missed. 

See you all Sunday! (Note: this is a supplement to a piece I'm doing for the Georgia Straight, so there will be some unused quotes and other deets there, findable when it goes online at www.straight.com). 

1st Annual BC Bat Benefit gig report with photos by Bob Hanham!

Iggy, M, and myself, doing it for the bats, by Bob Hanham (all photos by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission)

So that was a very successful show! We had a nice full-ish audience with lots of familiar faces (and a few unfamiliar ones), got on the news, had a fun group shot taken by Toni-Moore Ruck (though Erika is hidden behind Nick), paid back my advertising expenses and Nick's ferry fare, and raised $430 for the Community Bat Programs of BC. (I hope some of the bat facts presented in the video by Brynne Graham in the vid as well were of interest, as well; I also learned a bunch about bats from doing this). Cake was there for Adam Kates and Nick Venditti  (Hüskee Düde). Everyone was very entertaining (and I do hope entertained) and though I was half-lost in just keeping things organized ("can we get plates for the cake?") and saying hellos to people, the high points were very high. These included:  

Rowan Lipkovits' cover of Tom Lehrer's "An Irish Ballad" (which I didn't film, but here's the original; I did shoot a clip of Rowan doing Al Mader's "Dead Man's Pants", which I am glad of, because Al was at the bookstore Rowan mentions, doing his shift, so he couldn't be there). Rowan's Youtube channel is here and filled with delights; I love what he does, wish we'd see him do it more often! He also did two bat-centric Sesame Street songs, a small bit of the first of which is perfectly placed at the end of that news clip (can we get a "batty batty batty"?). 

By the way, was the context for "Alabama Song" actually the rise of Nazism? Did I misunderstand that? I thought it was just a kinda downbeat drinkin' song! 

We played Brynne's vid at that point -- see my interview with her here -- then Sister DJ and the Hired Hand (whose names are Jill and Quentin) took the stage for a brief but charming set, mostly of originals, including one actually about bats). I didn't like the one vid I shot, of their one-non original, and wish I had had my phone up for "Vegan Vampire", which was brilliant and hilarious (and is not on their bandcamp yet, alas). Apparently she is, in fact, a vegan, so I was very glad to have a vegan cake on hand, at request of  my buddy Adam (whose request that I organize some sort of birthday thing for him was in fact crucial to motivating me to get the whole show happening). I doubt many people in the audience had seen Sister DJ before but she's a true enthusiast and should get more appreciation! She would also later join NO FUN  onstage to add some wickedly enthusiastic harmonica to "Work Drink Bat Die", also with Dave Dedrick of the Sneaky Dragon Podcast). 

Nick just being there was, I think, a special motivator for people to come out -- he was the person whose set times I was most asked about. He's had some issues that kept him off the stage for a long while, but he was in fine form, doing a four or five Dü tunes and a couple of originals, including one I shot, called "What Happened". It was meaningful to me that Erika got to see that set, because she's only seen Nick in other contexts (like ranting cynically at me about the incipient destruction of the world by an asteroid when we ran into him at a Coquitlam bus stop! He can get intense at such times), had never heard him play before (unless seeing him in Little Guitar Army counts; I don't think it does, as he was sorely under-used in that band).

Birthday boys Nick and Adam!

 High points of Nick's set were seeing Adam, seated on the far side of the stage, mouthing the lyrics along with Nick to "Never Talking to You Again" (which I was also doing from where I was seated) and Nick's brother (Chris I believe) joining him, in lieu of an absent Brock Pytel (who had other commitments) to do a stellar cover of "Ice Cold Ice". (Didn't shoot that but I shot this when Brock did do this with Nick). I wasn't taking notes but he also did a "Makes No Sense at All" and at one point during that song, audience member Tony Lee leaned over an unused kit and gave a perfectly-timed drumroll, just hands on a floor tom, I think it was, where Grant Hart would have done it, which I think startled Nick a bit but was real fun. Tony also wisely took the mic to get everyone to sing the embarrassing birthday song (which I hadn't planned on doing, but I'm glad it was done, especially since I didn't have to; thanks for doing the heavy lifting, Tony!). 

By the by, Nick will be part of this show, if you're on the island this weekend! 

And speaking of people who I hadn't seen play in awhile, there was NO FUN. Of course, it is fun to get  up onstage to "eep" and flap bats with David M. and Iggy (real name Haskell), but as with Nick, the fact of him performing to a fullish house, which we hadn't seen him do for awhile, was the real thrill of his set; I don't think I'd heard a few of these songs since the last time David played one of my events! "Work Drink Bat Die", with Sister DJ on harmonica, was real fun, with the hand gestures now corresponding to "eeps" (though I sat that one out; I didn't realize there were eeps in it!). (The original of "Work Drink Fuck Die", if anyone doesn't know it, is on this album, the cover artist of which was also present over in the merch corner, with some ARGH!! boxes and more). I also really enjoyed Danielle M.'s vocal on "Manic Monday" and shot video of the two closing songs, "Fall Like Us" (adapting "Be Like Us," which also appears on that album) and (I hope I've got this right) "The Ship Called the Anna Maria", a sea shanty complete with a singalong scroll prepared years ago by the late, great Paul Leahy. We're working on a NO FUN at Christmas event, which may indeed involve the Good King Wenceslas show. More deets to come! 

For thems what keep records, the complete NO FUN setlist was, David reports, "Doubt In The Mind Of Royalty/If I Was A Bat (with Allan MacInnis and Iggy)/ If I Was A Bat Mash (with Allan and Iggy)/ Work Drink Bat Die (with Jill Mandrake and David Dedrick)/ COVID-19/ Close The Drapes/ Fear Is A Man's Best Friend/ In Fall/ Build On Your Dreams In Fall/ Autumn Almanac/ The Laughing Gnome/ Your Music Is Garbage/ Manic Monday (with Danielle Matychuk)/ Fall Like Us (with Fall In Love Again) (with Dave)/ The Ship Called The Anna Maria That Appears From Time To Time (with Michael McAree and Dave)."

Thanks to people who came out, people who performed, and (behind the scenes) to the Community Bat Programs of BC, CityNews (and whoever their unnamed bat expert was!). Also thanks to anyone who donated who was not there, to ARGH!! for coming out with some seasonally appropriate art, to Angela Bower for the fun and informative news report, to LanaLou's staff and to Lana herself, and to Alex Varty for helping me shorten-down my novel-length press release (!). And to Bob for the photos! We have already begun (sort of) planning next year's event...!

Also, thanks to everyone who I gifted "Release the Bats" shirts to by the late Vancouver artist Exu Nazares. He passed this year, only a few months after I interviewed him last. His absence is very much still felt by those close to him -- he was actually a pretty big personality, though not in the booming-egomaniac way that that term can denote; quiet, funny, smart, observant, and wholly unique. I will try to have a few of these shirts on hand for next year, or maybe even a new run of "If I Was a Bat" shirts, since people were asking about shirts.

And do note that when you walk the streets of Vancouver this season, remember, there did used to be bats flying around some of those streetlights. I haven't seen a bat this year, anywhere. If you still have bats, where you are, you might be able to help preserve their populations, which are in serious peril. There are a few organizations involved in bat preservation--the one I reached out to is here, and there's lots to be done. Like Ed Hurrell says at the beginning of that City News clip, do it for the bats!  

Bat Sex Education: Delayed Ovulation, Sperm Storage, Delayed Implantation and Other Weird Bat Facts

See, I like bats. And I'm sad/ scared that they're endangered, and in further danger from White Nose Syndrome, which naturalist Brynne Graham and I discuss in this Straight piece. And yes, I co-wrote a song about hypothetically being a bat, and even once dreamed of flying in the night sky as a bat. Oh, and I organized the October 25th 1st Annual BC Bat Benefit, naturally, which I sure hope catches on! 

But I'm no bat expert. There's tons I don't know about bats; I even had to look up on Youtube whether chiropetera was pronounces with a KAI or CHAI sound at the beginning (it's the former). I have at some point Googled "Are bats rodents?" (they are not). And Brynne told me during said interview many things I had never heard of before. And one of them, involving bat reproduction, kinda blows me away.

I asked her, for instance, what BC's bats are doing around this time of year. She explained that they spend much of August and September eating insects, in order to have energy reserves with which to survive their long hibernation. She also explained that they often mate around this time (though she left out some of that story, which David Attenborough does not, in this eyebrow-raising clip; often male bats, if they wake up for water, will help themselves sexually to hibernating female bats and implant their seed in several of them before going back to bed. (Below is a heat-sensitive image from the Attenborough clip of a male bat moving from hibernating female to hibernating female in a cave; they just sleep through it). 

But how does that work in terms of gestation? Brynne had pointed out that the bats are striving to save energy while they hibernate, so how does being pregnant impact the bat? And the answer apparently is, it doesn't, because bats practice -- Brynne called it "delayed implantation." A bat book I have on hand, meanwhile, actually on Australian bats, by Sue Churchill, connects this with the concept of "delayed ovulation". From Churchill's book:

Before an egg is released, it must develop in a small ovarian space called a follicle. In most mammals the follicle development cannot be stopped without the egg dying. However, bats can delay this succesfully: the process is called delayed ovulation and the signal to release the egg is not given until winter is over. Of course the sperms are now wandering around aimlessly and would die except that bats can store sperms in the female by plugging each sperm head in a tiny depression in the lining cells of the uterus where it is nourished and protected until spring when the egg is released and fertilisation occurs. [Note: this is apparently the preferred method among microbat species].

To avoid having to store sperms for the winter, the female body can permit the fertilisation and early development of the embryo to the stage wehre it can make primitive placental cells. The early embryo, calleda blastocyst, is held loose in the uterus in the process of delayed implantation [the blastocyst implants in the uterine lining, that is; I at first though Brynne had meant a wandering sperm implants in an egg]. When food resources are available again in spring, implantation takes place and the pregnancy resumes growth. 

Like, seriously, which of my readers knew any of that was biologically possible? I'd be the kid in class putting up my hand for question after question, here. Like, the bit about how "bats can store sperms in the female by plugging each sperm head in a tiny depression in the lining cells of the uterus": how is that, exactly, accomplished? Do the sperms somehow know which niches to plug their heads into? Do they have some sort of sensory organ to know where the niches are? Do they essentially also go into hibernation? What are the actual mechanisms at work here, and what are the advantages of doing it this way as opposed to, like most mammals, just getting it on in the spring? (Apparently something like 130 other species of animal practice a similar trick, including bears, armadillos, weasels, seals and kangaroos). 

There is suddenly much more I want to learn about bats. I may pick up a book on Canadian ones! I also want to share another microbat photo, because it's so cute:

Interestingly, too, note that (some) bats perform oral sex, too, apparently, so sex isn't all just a matter of sleeping females and busy males. 

How is there so much interesting stuff out there about bats that I didn't know? Did you realize that the world's smallest mammal (depending on how you measure them, of course) is in fact the bumblebee bat, AKA "Kitti's hog nosed bat?" David M. told me about those today, and I bet he didn't know anything about them before agreeing to do this concert, either. (He too had to look up the correct pronunciation of the word "chiroptera", he tells me.  

If you come to the show tomorrow, I promise there will be other things you don't know, like, for example, the new song David and I have co-authored, which was the thing that required us to learn how to pronounce "chiroptera". Also, even if you, like me, are a longtime NO FUN song, there is at least one NO FUN tune I would guess you have not heard in any variant. David explains,

I'll be doing "Close The Drapes" on Sunday. It's a Jimmy Hamelin song from 1976's Pretentious album, the last one we did before I got the 4-track and the first one on which Dan Vere played guitar on a bunch of songs. Jim wrote the song as a first-person complaint from Udo Kier's Count Dracula in "Blood For Dracula", as well as a tribute to The Count from "Sesame Street". As such, it is unique in the annals of popular music.

That won't be the only tribute to The Count tomorrow, I expect, either. 

No advance tickets, just come to LanaLou's at 2pm.  

BC Bat Benefit this Sunday afternoon! Long-form press release

This is the LONG VERSION of the BC Bat Benefit press release! A short version has also been sent out...

For immediate release: First Annual BC Bat Benefit to raise money for and awareness of BC's struggling bat population. Event page here: https://www.facebook.com/share/1MjMsPjF7c/

THERE IS NOW A FEATURE WITH BRYNNE GRAHAM IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT:

https://www.straight.com/living/bcs-in-crisis-bat-population-gets-a-benefit-concert-at-lanalous

Or for a link that is shareable on social media, go here:

https://shrlnk.ca/s/vl3n170Y 

Event in brief:

BC Bats are in crisis, with problems due to habitat loss, predation by housepets, declining insect numbers, and other man-made factors already making the situation dire before the arrival of White Nose Syndrome (WNS), which can wipe out whole roosts while they hibernate. The fungus that causes White Nose Syndrome, Pd (for Pseudogymnoascus destructans), which was accidentally brought into North America from Europe, has now been found in BC, and will likely further deplete bat populations. The Community Bat Programs of BC have enthusiastically welcomed the idea of a bat benefit, and Regional Coordinator Brynne Graham is preparing a presentation on bats. 

Origins of the event: The organizer of the BC Bat Benefit, Allan MacInnis, had written a song with NO FUN called "If I Was a Bat" https://atomicwerewolf.bandcamp.com/track/if-i-was-a-bat and has a long, fond history with bats. After discovering that a 2024 concert he had organized, which already involved songs about bats, coincidentally took place during International Bat Week (October 24th-31st), MacInnis decided to organize an actual bat benefit for the Community Bat Programs of BC. This year is the first official BC Bat Benefit. 

Event details: The concert this year will be held on Sunday, from 2pm to 6pm, at LanaLou's Rock'n'Roll Eatery (362 Powell), and will involve headliners NO FUN, Victoria-based band Hüskee Düde (Nick Venditti of Gnash Rambler, Little Guitar Army, and others); Sister DJ and the Hired Hand, fronted by Jill Mandrake of Sister DJ's Radio Band; and Rowan Lipkovits (Creaking Planks/ Accordion Noir). More on the artists below! 

Admission is $20 at the door. The venue is all-ages and kids are welcome, BUT NOTE that the event is designed with a mature, sophisticated audience (albeit ones who enjoy, at times, immature and/or frivolous songs) and there may be profanity, eccentricity, and "mature themes" during the course of the night. After covering costs and a small honorarium to performers, proceeds will be donated to the Community Bat Programs of BC.

Event page here: https://www.facebook.com/share/1MjMsPjF7c/  

Allan MacInnis and friends

Event in full/ Backstory: 

1. Why Bats? The origins of "If I Was a Bat" and the BC Bat Benefit 
Allan MacInnis is the BC Bat Benefit event organizer and co-author, with David M., of the lyrics to NO FUN's "If I Was a Bat". He's long been fond of bats: "As a child, growing up in Maple Ridge in the 1970s, pre-Internet, one of the things some of the neighbourhood kids used to do for cheap entertainment was to go out into the parking lot of a local bar and throw pebbles in the air to see if the bats flying overhead would mistake them for bugs and swoop for them. Back then, there were plenty of bats to be seen, and it was fun to interact with them and see them dive. We made a contest of it: success meant getting the bat to dive and/or catch the rock. I hope none of the bats were hurt when they discovered what they thought was a fat flying insect was actually a small stone!"

Later in life, MacInnis would enjoy seeing our local bats swooping around under streetlights, hunting for moths and mosquitoes (and a plethora of other insects). When he moved to Japan for three years, 1999-2002, he found they also had lots of bats. "I would always be very aware of as I rode my bike through country roads on the way home from work, between rice paddies and bamboo groves; sometimes they would swoop quite close to you, so you did kind of notice them: 'Duck, it's a bat!' It was then, dodging bats on my evening commute, that I had the idea for a song lyric in which I imagined myself as a bat. I kind of envisioned it as a bluegrass song, originally: 'If I was a bat, girl, would you still love me?' It seemed important that it not be in the subjunctive mood, since a real bluegrass musician wouldn't sing, 'If I were a bat,' you know?"

Flash forward to 2017, when the "If I Was a Bat" author discovered he had squamous cell cancer on his tongue. "My girl Erika Lax and I were going to get married, and we had to move the date up, because we wanted to be married before I went in for surgery, which was going to remove a part of my tongue. I wanted to give her a memorable wedding gift, and I needed a best man for our wedding. So I asked my friend David M., of the so-called 'Beatles of Surrey', NO FUN, if he'd be my best man and write music for and perform 'If I Was a Bat' at my wedding. He did! His music was different from the peppy bluegrass tune I'd initially imagined but it worked perfectly and has become definitive."

David M., founder of NO FUN, the headliners of the BC Bat Benefit, writes: "I was surprised to get an email with a set of song lyrics from Allan MacInnis a few weeks before his wedding in March of 2017. The lyrics came with a request to set them to music so as to be performed by me at the reception as part of my contribution as best man at the wedding. I didn't change a word, including the 'Eep Eep Eep Eep, Eep Eep Eep' part, which stayed at 4 eeps then 3 eeps, and I emailed a demo version of the new song back to Allan about an hour after I got the lyrics. The demo didn't change much by Allan and Erika's wedding day, and it hasn't changed since. I know Allan had something different in mind for a musical setting, something more like boilerplate ragtime, but I think the intent of his lyrics was better served with another musical approach."

The first public performance of the song was on March 18th, 2017, in Duncan, BC, mostly in front of Erika Lax's relatives, many of whom were conservative Brits. M. says now of the performance: "When I played the song at the wedding reception, I sort of enjoyed the mild apprehension of the wedding guests about what they were about to hear. I mean, the groom and the best man wrote a song? Oh, no... but they relaxed almost immediately once the song started and they realized it would be pleasant and touching, and then very amusing with the eeps. It was a great moment in a great day. Thanks, bats!"

"It was perfect", MacInnis remembers. "I was nervous that I was going to be left speechless by my tongue surgery, where I'd only be able to express myself with sounds, not words, hence the 'Eep eep eep' chorus, so the lyric totally fit. How would Erika feel about having a husband who couldn't speak? Luckily my surgery went better than I had feared, so I can get onstage now with David and help with the eeps, which I did not in fact do at the wedding. But it was really fun to see David walking between the tables of the wedding guests in troubador mode. He did other songs, too, like a mixup of Bruce Springsteen's 'If I Should Fall' with Ben E. King's 'Stand By Me', but the bat song was the highlight, and I was delighted when, later that year, David performed it when he opened for Marshall Crenshaw at the Rickshaw. He reported that he could see Crenshaw chuckling at the side of the stage."

More on that story here: https://alienatedinvancouver.blogspot.com/2024/10/why-bats-story-of-if-i-was-bat-my.html

"If I Was a Bat" remains a staple of NO FUN live sets, and was performed at LanaLou's in multiple versions in 2024 at the 20th anniversary of MacInnis' blog, along with other batty contributions (like Rowan Lipkovits doing the Sesame Street song "The Batty Bat"). Members of his wife's family attended, hearing "If I Was a Bat" live for the second time in their lives. Local photographer Gord McCaw was on hand to document the event.

https://alienatedinvancouver.blogspot.com/2024/11/anyone-want-bowling-ball-alienated-20th.html

The event planted an idea in MacInnis' head: to hold another concert explicitly understood as a BC Bat Benefit, to raise money for and awareness of the plight of BC bats. Because he had known for years that something was amiss with BC's bat population. The once-plentiful bats that swooped around streetlights were few and far between. One evening in 2012, he had walked out into the countryside looking for bats, photographing streetlights as he went north on 224th. There were no bats to be seen; this was the topic of a blogpost entitled "Batquest 2012: Where have all the bats gone?" https://alienatedinvancouver.blogspot.com/2012/05/batquest-2012-where-have-all-bats-gone.html Colony collapse disorder among bees was already getting attention, but no one seemed that concerned about local bats.

2. BC's Bats in Crisis

Brynne Graham is the Regional Coordinator for the Metro Vancouver-Squamish Community Bat Program of BC. and an enthusiastic supporter of the BC Bat Benefit, not just as a potential fundraiser, but as a way of widening the conversation about bats, which, she says, are a stigmatized, misunderstood animal. Most of the calls that BC Bats get are people who are worried that they have bats on their property, and are along the lines of "how do we get rid of them" or "Is it safe?"

"It's shocking how many people still really dislike bats! We get contacted all the time about having bats living on the side of their home, in their barn, on their property, things like that. The biggest thing that people can do if they do have bats is, allow them to stay. Bats really are not problematic to have living around your home, as long as they're not getting inside. And I think that's a big misunderstanding that people have: they think that, you know, so many bats carry rabies, it's not worth the risk. Or people think that bats do damage to structures, and they don't; they're incapable of chewing or digging or damaging anything. So allowing them to stay if you have them is definitely the biggest thing, because it allows the population to remain in a safe spot that they've likely been using for years, sometimes for decades."

Another positive thing people can do is combat disinformation by talking about bats. People think that bats are "flying rats", but they aren't even rodents; as part of the order chiroptera (from the Greek for "hand wing"), not only are they the only true flying mammal, they're more closely related to cats and dogs and other carnivores than they are to mice or rats. And less than 1% of bats in the wild test positive for rabies. Finally, of course, bats are long associated with vampires, but in fact, BC bats are more likely to prevent your blood loss by eating mosquitoes, since Canada's bats are entirely insectivorous.

Brynne Graham continues: "The more we don't recognize their importance and continue to spread misinformation about bats, the more likely people are to get rid of them when they do have them, or demonize them when they see them, or to only ever talk about bats in the capacity of them having rabies and things like that. And I think as that kind of stigma shifts, so that people see how bats are critically important to our ecosystem, honestly in so many ways to our lives as well, that people will at least have a different view of bats, or be more inviting to having bats in the area. That's a really big part of it."

Because all the bat species in BC are insectivorous, declining insect numbers is also a challenge bats face. "If there are less insects, there are going to be less bats. Their population can't withstand that, they need those insect populations in order to thrive. And similarly, we have really manicured lawns now, where there are fewer insects growing and surviving, where we're scooping up all the leaf litter and getting rid of all the [insect] eggs. There are so many factors where we aren't necessarily helping bats all that much. And insects are also demonized! People don't want to have insects. When you tell people that they can garden for bats by encouraging insects to their properties, people don't really want to do that, because they don't want to have more insects. So it's unfortunate. And also, with lawn care now, people are getting plants that aren't native, or they aren't planting that many plants. I can't tell you how many lawns I've seen where it's flat grass, or even fake grass, and they don't have any shrubs, they don't have any flowers, so there's not really any way to support a robust insect population, which would then support a robust bat population."

New Roost for 2026 by Mike Gravnic

Habitat loss is the biggest problem faced by BC bats, Graham continues. "ll those places where bats have historically been living, people are now, what we call, 'excluding' bats from those properties. So many people don't want to have bats live on their property, even if they're totally harmless. They don't want them there, and they'll exclude them out, and they'll have to go somewhere else. Not to mention that there are also pest control companies that don't get rid of bats in a proper way; and there are people who still kill bats, even if that's illegal, you can't do that. But there are people who still do those things. I think when the environment changes so much, and we have all these big skyrises going in in areas where bats may have previously been living, all of a sudden, they're not there anymore. Sometimes they get killed without us even realizing it: buildings get demolished that have huge bat colonies living in them, and people don't realize. The building gets knocked down with all these bats inside. There can be these really big populations of bats in certain areas, where we were seeing them previously, and then their home gets taken away, and either they perish or they have to move somewhere entirely different in order to continue. It's really unfortunate."

White Nose Syndrome is a fungus that spreads among hibernating bats, and has decimated bat populations back east, including Ontario, where Graham first came in contact with bats as part of her work with Ontario Parks. Though it has not yet been found in a BC Bat, the fungus that causes the syndrome, Pd (Pseudogymnoascus destructans) has been found in BC, so it is only a matter of time, Graham continues. "It's killed about seven million bats in North America since it came here in 2006. It's a huge number of bats, many of those on the eastern side of the continent. When they're hibernating, their immune system shuts down; they hibernate similarly to a bear, so they're asleep during the wintertime. So it's kind of like getting poison ivy in the summertime, and you're trying to sleep: it starts growing onto their wings and their face and their ears, and it constantly wakes them up. It's itchy, they're trying to groom it off themselves, and every single time they wake up, they're wasting energy that they've been reserving through that hibernation. Some of them can also wake up in the dead of winter, and since they are all of a sudden awake, fly out looking for water or food, and they're met with an icy landscape where there's no food, there's no water to get to, and unfortunately they die." Graham previously worked for Ontario Parks, and saw her own park's population of a couple of hundred bats dwindle to about ten in a short time span due to White Nose Syndrome.

The Community Bat Programs of BC are studying bat populations in the hopes of better preparing them for/ insulating them from the effects of White Nose Syndrome, but meantime, Graham notes, other things people can do are to:

- Garden for bats, plant native plants that attract moths and other night time insects
- Keep large old dead trees when possible, cut them off at 20-30ft to leave habitat for bats
- Keep pet cats inside when it is getting dark out, cats are a number one predator of local bats
- Allow bats to roost on the side of your home so long as they aren't getting indoors
- Don't use pesticides or harmful deterrents like sticky tape
- Avoid fake cobwebs at Halloween
- Fight to protect local Riparian habitat, a must for healthy bat populations
-Talk about bats! Share your passion for bats and help dispel harmful myths about them.
- Report dead bats to our program from November-March (email address: bcbats@gmail.com, toll free# 1-855-922-2287.)
-Help count bats with us every summer!
- If you have a bat colony roosting on your building, call us for information on how to live safely with bats, or for best management practices on how to exclude them without harming them.

Brynne Graham is preparing a brief presentation to run before NO FUN plays! 

Brynne Graham

3. About the bands:

NO FUN, the Beatles of Surrey, is a long-lived comedic folk/ punk/ glam band that has existed in many forms since the 1970s. Their most famous incarnation also involved guitarist Paul Leahy (also of Toys, Transvestimentals, and POLLY), who passed in 2017. The duo were long associated with the Railway Club and their lively themed shows (NO FUN at Christmas, NO FUN on Drugs, NO FUN in Love), and opened for artists as diverse as the Violent Femmes, John Cale, Tupelo Chain Sex, and (in a solo incarnation, billed just as David M.), Marshall Crenshaw.
David M. continues to play around Vancouver and record under the NO FUN banner. Much of NO FUN's sizeable catalogue, which was for the longest time cassette-only, has now been reissued via the US-based Atomic Werewolf label.
NO FUN bandcamp here: https://atomicwerewolf.bandcamp.com/album/eep-eep-eep-eep
Most famous albums: 1894, Snivel; most famous songs, "Be Like Us", "I'm Not Taking Suzy to the Be-In", and "Mindless Aggression", which appeared on the legendary Vancouver Complication LP in 1979, alongside another song by NO FUN, "Old," and music by the Pointed Sticks, D.O.A., the Subhumans, the Shades, U-J3RK5, and the proto-Young Canadians band the K-Tels (featuring Art Bergmann). 

A new song based on NO FUN's "Why Are We So Fat?" has been repurposed by David M. and Allan MacInnis to be bat-themed and will debut at the event on October 25th. 

David M., left; Allan MacInnis, right. Bat: dangling from my  hand. 

Hüskee Düde is the alter-ego/ brainchild of guitarist/ vocalist Nick Venditti, whose has been in several bands, from Sex in Sweden to Aging Youth Gang, from Little Guitar Army to his own main project Gnash Rambler. Hüskee Düde was originally conceived of a Hüsker Dü tribute act but has expanded its pallete to include songs by bands as diverse as Mission of Burma and local heroes the SLIP~ons, as well as Nick's originals; though the set on Sunday will still ikely involve a few Hüsker Dü classics and deep dives. Nick fondly recalls his own interactions with bats: "I remember when my family went to Italy in the summer of 1983 my brother an I stayed up at our hotel room in Bologna to sit on the suite balcony and feed the bats there with tiny bits of salami. They would catch the pieces, chirping away to get a fix on the airbourne deli meat to catch it."

Nick Venditti

Gnash Rambler bandcamp here: https://gnashrambler1.bandcamp.com/album/gnash-rambler
Nick singing with Greg Norton of Hüsker Dü at Buddies Vancouver in 2025: https://youtu.be/D3jeX5uApOQ?si=teaZODMC4aiKOV4c
Sizeable interview with Nick here: https://www.straight.com/music/all-young-dude-many-guises-of-gnick-gnash#

Trivial side-note: Grant Hart of Hüsker Dü once toured with a bat-themed t-shirt! None of us have it though. 

Sister DJ & the Hired Hand:
Jill Mandrake is the former frontperson of Sister DJ's Radio Band. She has a long-lasting friendship with David M. of NO FUN, and references bats in her song "Halloween Lullaby". https://sisterdjband.bandcamp.com/album/halloween-treats-2 She normally performs with a small band billed as "Sister DJ and the Hired Hands", but since only one of her hired hands is available, guitarist Quentin, she has has requested for the singular to be used ("the Hired Hand"). She describes the event as a "fascinating fundraiser", pledges to put 100% of her honorarium to the cause of supporting our bats, and plans a short set of songs that are themed around Halloween or bats!

Selfie by Jill, with Quentin and Edgar Allan Poe

Rowan Lipkovits, AKA Blackbox Squeezebeard of the Creaking Planks:

Lipkovits records often-humourous covers of popular artists re-interpreted for accordion, which he posts on his Youtube Channel,Stupid Accordion Tricks with Rowan. Rowan is taking seriously the task of learning seasonal/ species-appropriate material, like the Sesame Street favourite "The Batty Bat", to kick the night off in a suitably chiroptera-centric way. Rowan, asked by MacInnis if he has any bat stories, says, "I got nothing, My involvement is due to my respect for your strange and deep seasonal reverence for the humble bat."

Note: Since at least one of the performers (Nick Venditti) and one of the audience members (Adam Kates) are celebrating a birthday, there will be cake! Kates and MacInnis actually first met at a Grant Hart show at the Lamplighter (Nick was there too, I think). 


The first annual (?) BC Bat Benefit will take place Sunday, October 25th, from 2pm to 6PM, at LanaLou's Rock'n'Roll Eatery (362 Powell). Again, the event is all-ages and educational but it is not necessarily designed for children: there may be mature themes! Caveat emptor!

Event page: https://www.facebook.com/share/1MjMsPjF7c/

Hibernating Myotis by Jordi Segers