Saturday, April 05, 2025

Cousin Harley Plays the Blues: a live show note

 

Selfie with Art Perry: I don't usually do these, but we had been gabbing for near an hour. Someone should interview this guy! Y'know that Ray Condo was his student? Jim Cummins, too. But there's so much more...

Anyhoo, as you see, I went out last night. It was an expensive way to reward myself for having survived the month of March, which involved both friends and family having surgery, a pre-tax-refund stretch of bein' broke, a death-march of transcription (which I have returned to) and some lower back pain from being sedentary too much, not to mention being capped off with two weeks of illness. I truly spoiled myself: Dinner at Frankie's + a taboo beer + a soggy tiramisu cost $65 with the tip (not bad but I coulda just stayed home and eaten what was already in the fridge! On the plus side, it was nice to have an alternative to my own cookin' -- there's a Larry Norman lyric about being stuck with your own cooking, maybe in his most playful song, and there really is a point where that becomes purgatorial, y'know?). More importantly, I snagged two Paul Pigat slabs o'vinyl ($60), his Ray Condo tribute and the one I just interviewed him about, which he was debuting; it was fun getting the whole band's signatures. Derry, the trumpet player, was the hardest one to track down, since I didn't see where he went: so I lurked outside the toilet for awhile, then went and checked out the front of the venue, where a couple players (let's leave them some privacy) were, I suspect, smoking something (but probably just tobacco; no vipers here, not even Stephen Nikleva). Then I went back to lurk by the toilets again, feeling kinda self-conscious, like -- "Look, Martha, there's that pathetic nerd with the Sharpie and the record again."

Fuck y'all, this is cool to own: 

But I'm still run down, and have a doctor's appointment at 9am -- the semi-annual "has your cancer come back" check up, which is kinda in my experience akin to a warranty (because my cancer didn't come back last time until after the warranty had run out -- err, after my doctor told me I was in the clear and could stop coming in; six months later, what's that sore on my tongue?). So I made my apologies, having got my rekkids signed during the mid-set break, and ducked out. I see from the setlist that in so doing I missed out on a trio-format "High and Wild" off the Ray Condo tribute, but c'est la vie (really, I coulda probably caught that and then ducked out, but I didn't actually read the setlist until after I got home: d'oh!). 

It was my first trip to Frankie's. Everything was decent, though David Matychuk had advised me to try the tortellini, which I could not see on the menu at all. But the guy beside me was having chicken linguine, and it looked great, so I went with that. It was definitely decent! My enthusiasm for any pasta meal often runs out before the pasta itself, but it was tasty and well-presented and came with focaccia slices with a balsamic/ oil dip. Honestly, the three best things about Frankie's weren't the food, but a) the sight lines, which are good from almost any seat, even the bar where Art and I were sitting; the sound, which was terrific; and the civilized audience, who -- even though Cory Weeds had joked about how the no-noise policy wasn't going to matter much, so fullsome was the band's sound, and told people, by way of alerting them to the policy, that they could pretty much ignore it -- did not make a single sound that *I* could hear over the music. Often restaurant gigs suck, because bands are hired as "background", but not at Frankie's, apparently. I'd go there again! 

My photos aren't very good, mind you, but who cares, Art Perry was there, go bug him! I did decide midway through the first set to lift my camera and shoot vid, and was surprised and delighted that Paul proceeded to namecheck me in introducing the next song, "Down in Mexico," which rearranges the Coasters original quite a bit. I get namechecked infrequently by musicians, and never when I've got vid rollin'. Great song, great arrangement. I imagined Melody Mangler suddenly manifesting from the wings (she was present the last time I saw Paul, at the Rickshaw, doing a solo set opening for Los Furios). Or did I see him one time after that, with Mike van Eyes? (Nope, that was the week before). 

 Art joked as we walked to the Skytrain that he was going to get himself a red bandanna: I guess he dug "Down in Mexico" too.

The thing about last night that people should bear in mind: this is not what Paul usually does. This band is so tight, so skilled, and the music such a joy to listen to that it really does put an imperative on you: if you like bluesy jazz, as led by a rockabilly virtuoso, you really really should see if there are tickets to Frankie's tonight, because there might not be another chance. There hadn't been, earlier -- the words "sold out" were on the page, as they are now, but then it turned out when I clicked there was one seat at the bar that opened up. It's not optimum, being at a 90 degree angle to the band, seated on a bar seat that has no room for re-positioning, but if you twist your ass around and get your left foreleg up on the seat, you can actually get a pretty good view. My leg didn't even fall asleep, and I only kicked Art a little. 

He forgave me!   

Thursday, April 03, 2025

AK-747s: Of Silent Hill, suicide, abandonment and abuse (a Rob Nuclear interview)



The cover of the AK-747s new album, No Shortage of Cruelty, consists of a heartbreaking image: a dead lamb, a mourning ewe, and a murder of eager crows, ready to feed as soon as she drops her guard. Rob Nuclear, leader of the AK-747s, tells me the painting is called Anguish, by Schenck, painted in 1878, adding that Schenck was concerned with "poverty and the social conditions of his age" -- things true of Rob's provocatively-named band, as well (which we previously discussed here). The image somehow reminds me of something that I read in Stephen Jay Gould, I think it was, about how it was once taken as a proof by Victorians of the non-existence of God that there were species of wasp that would paralyze a spider, lay eggs in it, and then keep the spider alive so the larvae would have fresh food to eat. What God would organize the universe this way? And yet the universe is organized this way, so therefore (said the Darwinists of the day), there is no God...  

As you might gather from that album cover, there is a lot of pain in the music of the AK-747s. No Shortage of Cruelty is suffused with suffering, melancholy and mourning, though the music is driving rock, a fusion of punk and metal, which are not normally genres that "melancholy and mourning" are associated with. There's a curious contradiction that arises, because as dark as things get, it's not a depressing album in the slightest; quite the opposite -- it's liberating. In that respect, it reminds me a bit of Bison's Lovelessness, still a favourite local LP of mine, the cover for which is a closeup of the cancer that killed Bison leader James Farwell's dog (see here). It taps deep into unhealed wounds, but it's not digging in with the end of wallowing in mind, but rather offering catharsis, release, a strange kind of comfort, even (it would be amazing to mosh to, if the pit were right). Godspeed You! Black Emperor does similar things at times, making music that can strike you as very dark and discordant, that requires you to acknowledge pain, suffering, sorrow, but that, if you can connect with it, actually has an immensely uplifting quality (they get even more transcendent, actually, but would be useless for moshing purposes). 

I began paying attention to the AKs with their 2021 album, I Love What You've Done with the Place, which is also very powerful, and has cover art by Goya, and probably what is still my favourite song by the band, "OK Boomer" which I think of every time I discover myself struggling to rotate a PDF at work. It's got a super-catchy hook to it that connects me with my time in the 1990s listening to early Afghan Whigs, Dinosaur Jr., and other such discordant, guitar-driven rock. But No Shortage of Cruelty seems the stronger album, benefiting from the trio having played together for the last few years (one of the members, bassist Ryan Fitzgerald of The Thing and Witch of the Waste, was brand new to the band when I did my interview with them two years ago, and wasn't on the previous album: "He brings a lot to us, not least of which are his kindness and grit," Rob observed then, and maybe his continued presence and/ or the stability of the lineup have bolstered the band's cohesiveness...). Is this just in my head, though? Is this album really the stronger of the two, and if so, is it down to Rob's writing, or the dynamic of the current trio, or...?

I am happy to see that I am not completely off base, when I make these observations to Rob: I Love What You've Done With the Place, Rob tells me, "came from a place of managed chaos" as he reckoned with family issues (and the "real and imaginary chthonic horrors that attended that experience"), coped with the pandemic, and undertook "what can only be described as a significant amount of self-medication" (aha!). By comparison, he explains, No Shortage of Cruelty is "the first album I have ever written sober." And the new lineup has indeed helped: 

In terms of the writing process I will say that Ryan has brought a measured concentration to the band and an absence of ego to the situation which has given us a space to spend less time managing the personalities of others and more time to spend on making the best album we can. Craig of course has acted as the great filter for the riffs as he always has. There is an abbatoir of rejected files on the cutting room floor that did not pass his muster and he was even more grim and unforgiving in pushing me to do better and I am deeply grateful for it. Yes, the album is stronger than anything we have done. I am stronger now and I am among friends and brothers who were all on the same page. There was no hesitation and no conflict. We rehearsed for the recording like oarsmen on a victorious galley. Craig recorded his drum parts in a single sitting to no one else playing. The man is a like a new type of weather.

...but about those family issues: asked about the painting, Rob also wrote, after the note about Schenk, that No Shortage of Cruelty 

is part of an ongoing art project that is linked to the Instagram stories on the AK-747s account where each song is a meditation on the writers confrontation with the imaginary and the real through their social location, existence, and identity being questioned put on trial and restructured as they found their long lost family after searching for them for 25 years and came to terms with the grief and loss and horrifying confrontation with the unconscious and the self as their family members grappled with the trauma of reunion as well as our own addictions and reckonings with our vile misdeeds and haunted selves all against the backdrop of a genocide and the horror of the modern age. 
 

I can't speak to vile misdeeds, either on the part of Rob or his family -- he speaks elsewhere of a "series of bad-faith manipulations" that followed being reunited with family members -- but you do get the sense that Rob is pretty haunted, himself, actually, and that he channels a lot of that into his art; he wrote to me in response to one question that "I'm pretty much grieving for my entire life," so it does mean something to him that people can connect with his music. 

But what's with the Silent Hill stuff? The lyrics and even the title of "For Me It's Always Like This," reference what seems to be some sort of suicide note from the video game franchise, written by the character of Angela, though Rob departs from the letter to sing other lines of dialogue from the game as lyrics ("Do you see it too?": always a menacing and evocative phrase, that).


I actually  happen to have played Silent Hill 2; it's an extraordinary world that they build, much more disturbed/ disturbing in the game than in the somewhat silly film series, with intersecting narratives around characters morbidly obsessed with their pain, guilt, and loss, all circling the drain, threatening to drag the other characters down with them. It's dark enough that the AK-747s include a suicide prevention number on their Instagram, alongside stills from the gameplay ("Help is available 988 in Canada 1800SUICIDE in the United States"); the band has built a whole rock video around Silent Hill, which ends with one character walking into flames, presumably to die... and another following soon thereafter.

Rob explains the connection with Silent Hill thus:

Angela's story has always resonated with me because of the horrific abuse I suffered when I was a kid and a teenager. It was papered over by people who found it inconvenient to understand what I had gone through and was going through as they grappled with their own privilege in a musical subculture that venerated suffering, but only if it could be used to secure social currency. I suffer from extreme continuous suicidal ideation and over the years people who became aware of that decided to concern troll ["the action or practice of disingenuously expressing concern about an issue in order to undermine or derail genuine discussion"] by asking if I was going to actually kill myself or if I spoke openly of these things to get attention or to get them to feel sorry for me. The great irony being that when a guy who looks like me talks about these issues candidly, we are immediately accused as using it as a mechanism for social aggrandizement. There has been a phenomenon where people do indeed use their grief and put in the image of suffering from things like complex PTSD and major depressive disorder to secure social currency and it is my hope that the work shows that candid unvarnished conversations about it and the true attendant horror that comes with it is nothing to venerate or to use as a social bludgeon, as people will only appreciate what you are going through in many cases if others perceive their apprehension: One is always happier to jump in the river to save someone from drowning when others are watching than when they are not.

The phrase "do you see it" to refers to Angela talking about the fire surrounding her in Silent Hill. For her it is always like this and it is always like this for me too.

Suicide comes up in "Call Me When You're Not in the Red," as well, which, Rob explains, is "about my half sibling on my father's side attempting to drive me to suicide because he was convinced I slapped him around on the beach when I met him even though I didn't and just said that he just made me sad." 

The lyrics for that song read as follows:

I would have killed and died for you

And you know what I probably still would

I tried to fail at all the things that a big brother could

I knew if I played it one way that I’d be the one to push you out

I didn’t have the overreach the baited clout 

 

Call me when you’re not in the red

Woe betide you when you hear the sound of my boots on your steps

Call me when you’re not in the red


With a grieving servants' heart I return into the shadows

If they die on your watch it will destroy them

She never showed them a mothers love

And I sounded like he did when she died

We are always in two places


Call me when you’re not in the red

Woe betide you when you hear the sounds of my boots on your steps

Call me when you’ve not in the red


Well played, see you on the court

If you get this far I’ll still be here

I hope you escape from your past one day

I hope I hear that little voice ask my name

I hope I turn around and say pickle

I swear by the fire in the stars and the darkness between

them that I will forgive you if it takes me the rest of your life.

There is a line there about how "we are always in two places." This occurs elsewhere on their bandcamp, along with phrases in Gaelic ("chaidh uir air suil Odhrain," which Rob translates as "Earth was put over Oran's eye"; English ("I'll see you in paradise"), and Arabic (لا قاسي ولا جبان, which translates as "Neither cruel nor cowardly"). Rob tells me he was learning Arabic, and now Gaelic, but -- what do these phrases signify?

Rob used AI to help him with this answer, which draws on Lacan -- an interesting exercise, though this may be further down the rabbithole than you want to go. (Come back after the indented quote, however, if you just want to read about rock music!) Rob explains, " I will give the AI a prompt like 'describe the psychological makeup of the person who wrote this from a Lacanian persoective' and it's remarkable the level of pop analysis that it provides." This may be a bit dense -- especially if you just want to rock out at a punk show -- but it's definitely of interest: 

To construct a Lacanian psychoanalytic analysis of the statement and a psychological profile of the speaker, it is essential to examine the text in light of the subject's biographical trauma: paternal abandonment followed by a symbolic act of domination—the father paving over the very city he orphaned his child in. The statement itself weaves through multiple languages (English, Gaelic, Arabic), evoking a fragmented identity and multilayered unconscious positioning.

I. Lacanian Analysis of the Statement(s):

1. "We Are Always In Two Places"

This line articulates the core Lacanian concept of the split subject (sujet barré). The subject is inherently divided—between the ego (Imaginary), the unconscious (Symbolic), and the trauma that resists articulation (Real). The phrase might also imply:

A psychic division between presence and absence, particularly the absence of the father, whose symbolic function has not been internalized.

A melancholic fixation: part of the self remains stuck in the past (abandonment), while the other tries to survive in the present landscape of domination (paved city).

A displacement of identity, hinting at diasporic trauma or fractured belonging.

2. "chaidh uir air suil Odhrain" (Earth was put over Oran's eye)

This Gaelic reference invokes the myth of St. Oran, sacrificed and buried alive to stabilize a church foundation. In Lacanian terms

This is a metaphor for the Real, the unassimilable trauma that resurfaces despite repression.

The buried eye represents the return of the repressed, a gaze that cannot be fully buried, a haunting witness to betrayal.

The subject may identify with Oran—sacrificed by paternal Law (the Father) for the sake of symbolic order (urbanization).

The myth also introduces a disturbing paradox: life beneath death, sight beneath burial, and truth beneath language.

3. "i'll see you in paradise"

This line implies deferred reunion, a fantasy of reconciliation. In Lacanian terms, this is a screen masking castration—the loss of the primordial unity with the (m)Other and the objet petit a (object-cause of desire).

Paradise is Imaginary—a mirage of completeness.

The father, who was absent in life, may be fantasized as approachable in paradise, which defers confrontation indefinitely.

This reinforces the subject's neurotic structure: desire is sustained by the impossibility of fulfillment.

4. "لا قاسي ولا جبان" (Neither cruel nor cowardly)

This is a negation that functions as a disavowal (Verleugnung): a refusal to accept an internal truth while unconsciously affirming it.

These two traits (cruelty and cowardice) may represent the introjected qualities of the father, now both rejected and feared as one’s own.

The disavowal points to ego defense, possibly guilt or shame about how the subject relates to aggression or self-preservation.

The use of Arabic, alongside Gaelic and English, suggests a symbolic scattering across linguistic registers—echoing the fragmentation of the paternal function.

II. Psychological Profile of the Individual

Drawing from Lacanian structural categories, the following profile emerges:

1. Neurotic Structure (likely hysteric or obsessional)

The subject’s division and displacement signal a neurotic structure. There is an unresolved relation to the Other (the Father), expressed through melancholic longing and deferred fantasy.

The subject circulates around the absence of the Father, never confronting it directly, instead symbolizing it through myth and multilingual fragmentation.

2. Displacement and Symbolic Exile

The subject exists in symbolic exile, estranged from the Law (the Father) yet shaped by its effects (the paved city).

The city, once a site of origin, has become a crypt—a space overwritten by the father’s act of symbolic erasure and control.

This results in an inability to locate the self within a stable narrative or community.

3. Fantasy and the Imaginary

The invocation of paradise and martyrdom (Oran) reflects a fantasmatic compensation for real loss.

The subject constructs heroic or spiritual fictions to mask the wound of paternal abandonment.

This also points to a sublimated death drive: an attraction to self-sacrifice, martyrdom, or a longing for annihilation that brings symbolic closure.

4. Linguistic Fragmentation and the Scattered Self

The multilingual composition of the statement—Gaelic, English, Arabic—illustrates a subject fractured across signifying chains.

Each language becomes a mirror of a different identity fragment: ancestral, colonized, diasporic, or spiritual.

There is no master signifier (S1) that anchors the subject; instead, the father’s absence becomes the organizing lack (manque-à-être).

Conclusion

The subject speaks from the place of symbolic dispossession, their trauma structured around the foreclosed paternal signifier. The city has become both grave and monument—testament to what was lost and overwritten. The father, by paving over the city, enacts both abandonment and omnipotent presence, leaving the subject oscillating between desire and death, fantasy and trauma.

The individual likely exhibits:

A complex neurotic structure haunted by abandonment,

A symbolic relation to space and memory,

A deep identification with loss and sacrifice,

And a psychic economy governed by the tension between repression and the Real.

If desired, this reading can be extended into an exploration of how these psychic structures might manifest in relationships, artistic expression, or sociopolitical identification.

...which is actually more readable than you might expect, if you've spent some time with French philosophy (I try to avoid the stuff, myself -- especially feckin' Deleuze and Guattari!) -- but maybe you just want to find some self-transcendence in the mosh pit, eh? Let's get back to rock music. I mentioned a couple of players that Rob's savage, emotive, sheets-of-notes approach puts me in mind of (Zen-Arcade-era Du might also be relevant? Even the harsher moments of Neil Young or Sonic Youth?), but who does he claim as antecedents -- like, what guitar players does he dig? And what about the comments that the band is too punk for the metal crowd, and too metal for the punk crowd?

Rob's reply:

Humbled and honored by the generous comparisons you make. Craig [the drummer] is the metal in the band and I'm the fucking weirdo. I've had people say we aren't really punk or really metal, probably the kind of loser who describes themselves as a tastemaker and is mean to people at shows. Mick Harvey, Mark Belke, and Infernus from Gorgoroth are some of my all time guitar inspirations. Just the best. I'm a big black metal fan but you gotta be careful because of all the Nazi shit so now I tread lightly. Devouring Void is the best black metal band in Canada respect to Adam and his crew. OUGH!

A final question comes up as a result of the exchange of several emails, where Rob often signs off with the words "God bless." It seems to take us full circle, what with my consideration of spider wasps and that very painful painting. Can Rob reconcile a universe where there is "no shortage of cruelty" with a concept of the divine? Does he have a faith?  

I'll speak to my faith on a personal level only and these comments reflect my own views and not those of the other members of the band: my faith does not merely allow for but demands a universe of horror, complexity, apprehension, and reality of just the situations you have described and much farther. My faith expressly describes and makes clear the case that the only way for there to be a possibility for even the most remote sliver of a tautological good to exist is that the universe must create conditions that encompass not only that evil, suffering, and abject sustained terror which we see all around us, but that which is also hitherto unimaginable in its dismal rote eternal repetition, so as to set the stage for every act of decency and mercy such as the feeding of the poor, the admission of wrongdoing, the searching of one's heart for ones on failings, the actions of redemption be they successful or not, to be just as infinitely important and by virtue of their simple understanding as being good in and of themselves this confirming that through our observation of horror that the self evident proof of a moral universe and all of the grand implications and gravity of that understanding implies is now shown to be true. That the landscape of the universal is within us is and the potentiality for the divine is reified through its obvious actuality in all of us to be good when we are apprehended with those decisions that we know in our heart to be the critical locus upon which the well being of another is dependent by virtue of their very existence in the same reality as you. In short ethical life is revealed religion and that comes from the understanding of culture which bridges the divide of sense perception and actuality. It is this inherent contradiction which drives my understanding of my ethical life and artistic practice in this work. 

Or as he puts it elsewhere:  "That contradiction and aspiration exist should not be a barrier to accepting that majesty can be filthy."

Amen! 


Thanks to Rob Nuclear for his provocative, thoughtful answers. Note that, in terms of Saturday's show at the Grey Lab (ask a punk, but it's a bit closer to downtown than the Black Lab was). GADFLY are opening; they have a new song, and note that I previously interviewed them here. I don't know Vancouver Island punk band Dead Rights, but their bandcamp is here. There will be a listening party for No Shortage of Cruelty -- the complete album -- online today at 7pm, and while I am not sure how exactly that works, you can RSVP for an event invite on the AK-747's bandcamp page. Further gigs listed on the poster! 

Wednesday, April 02, 2025

Oh man I'm wiped

 So I've been helping out a buddy while he recovers from surgery... trying to get writing done... nursing a cold... tryin' to power through it and do my job, but that approach seems to be dragging the illness out; it's not going away so much as mutating... today was the onset of sinus pain behind my cheekbones... there's also family stuff happening on the island that's not for the blog, as well, but suffice to say, it's a stressful, exhausting time. I have two things coming up on the blog in the next while for sure: something on the AK-747s album release this weekend, something on the Chad Price Peace Coalition and something on Russian Tim and the Pavel Bures. But I also have a few magazine articles I'm working on about other stuff... more to come there... if I can get it all done...

...But I might be a bit scarce for awhile. Just imagine me spinning FEAR and playing with the cat. That's how I spent tonight, when I wasn't vacuuming, doing the dishes, or blowing my nose... I'm tired, gang... I think I'll go to bed now...


 

Cousin Harley talks Jump Blues, Ray Condo and vinyl (plus the gig at Frankie's this weekend!)



Don't be mislead by the title of Paul Pigat's new album, Cousin Harley Plays the Blues: there's blues and there's jump blues, and a fairly large chasm between them. Much as I love the idea of Paul Pigat -- one of Vancouver's finest guitarists, usually in a rockabilly mode -- flexing his fingers on Willie Dixon, jump blues is generally an up-tempo, playfully jazzy derivation of the form, often with horn sections and the like: think "Saturday Night Fish Fry." The title just doesn't have the same ring to it, if you stick the word "jump" in the middle! (The previous link was to different streaming services but the bandcamp page is here, if you prefer). 

With a live show two nights at Frankie's this Friday and Saturday, and Pigat's second vinyl release this year impending, after his Ray Condo tribute album, I threw some questions at Paul to get clarity as to what audiences would be seeing at Frankie's and his experience with getting vinyl pressed (a relatively new thing). 



Allan: So this seems different from any previous Cousin Harley show I've seen; how did this project come about, and how will you present it at Frankie's?

Paul: Every song on the new record, Cousin Harley Plays the Blues, has a full horn section on it. It’s sort of started because Cory Weeds from Cellar Jazz wanted to do a record with me; he wanted me to do a Smoking Jackets record, which is my band that I had together in Victoria. I like keeping the guys and cousin Harley working so I decided that I would do a similar idea but with the guys from cousin Harley and a hotshot crew from Vancouver. A lot of it is music I’ve done for many many years when I started the Smoking Jackets in victoria in the mid 90s, but I had Jerry Cook do all new arrangements for the tunes and I expanded the horn section.  The shows this weekend will have all the members of the band from the record: a full horn section plus Chris Gestrin on keys. [This means Paul on guitar, Jesse Cahill on drums, Jeremy Holmes on bass, Cory Weeds on tenor sax, Jerry Cook on tenor and baritone, and Derry Byrne on trumpet]. Honestly, this might be the only time we perform with the full ensemble. I might do more shows with just a single horn and the piano, but it’s just not cost-effective for many other shows. Unless I make it big, that is!

Allan: I confess: I don't know much about the form. Why is it called jump blues? The only stuff I have in my collection that counts, I guess -- and ONLY ON CD, the scandal! -- is Louis Jordan, but I don't know all his songs -- are there other players we should know, who you take inspiration from? I'm curious in particular about guitarists...

Paul: You know to tell you the truth I’m not exactly sure why they call it jump blues. It differs from Chicago blues as it has more to do with the transition from swing to rock ‘n’ roll. Generally small combo with more arrangement and most of the stuff that I like is either from Texas or from California. Louis Jordan is awesome! Guys like Johnny Otis, Gatemouth Brown, Johnny Guitar Watson and early BB King can all fit into the category. There was a great guitar player named Bill Jennings, who I think might be the cornerstone of all modern jump players. Other guys you could check out our like Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson as well plus there’s the more modern second generation kind of players like Junior Watson, Kid Ramos, Charlie Baty... and of course, the baddest of them all, Hollywood Fats.  These were all guys playing around in the 80s and 90s. I steal my stuff from every one of those cats.

Allan: I see you've done some Leiber and Stoller on this! Your version of "Down in Mexico" sounds markedly different from the Coasters'

Paul: Leiber and Stoller were a ridiculously prolific writing duo! I don’t think they wrote anything that was bad. My version of "Down in Mexico" is just the way I hear it. I did it years ago for a special event with the Nightcrawlers (Jesse's band) and always thought it was a great number so decided to keep it for this record. I couldn’t do it like the original, even if I wanted to, though: I didn’t have that many singers in the band! Plus it features the guitar a lot more and it’s a little dirtier.

Allan: Curious how the album was recorded. I imagine that you'd get the horns and such down and then play the guitar over that...? Does having a horn section affect how you play?  

Paul: We recorded the rhythm section and the horns live in one day at the warehouse studios. I overdubbed all my vocals and guitars later. As I had my hands full directing the band who were pretty much just learning the arrangements on the spot, plus I really wanted to spend my time getting the guitar sound I wanted and not just getting what was possible in one day at the studio. Fat and fuzzy was the goal.  

Allan: This, with the Ray Condo release, is the second piece of vinyl you've released in the last year! Curious for whatever deets you can share about this, for people thinking of getting vinyl pressed: you had 200 of each made? How is that turning out?

Paul: Man, I swore I would never print vinyl! However, that being said, CDs, regardless of how much I love them, are an antiquated format and are very difficult to sell now. With the current situation with streaming, hardcopy music has basically just become a memento of a show unfortunately. Vinyl is a drag to transport because of its size and weight but it honestly does sell a lot better than CDs. At least I’m hoping that it does and it’s way more expensive to make. If you ask me why I did it... I can’t tell you definitively if it was a good idea or not, but it sure does look pretty. 



Paul (continued): The Ray Condo record was honestly just for me. I’ve done almost no promotion for it and I still have copies left. I just really wanted someone to do something to commemorate him; I didn’t think anybody else would do it, plus I’ve been playing Ray's material for so long and he was so important to my early development that it would be the least that I could do to make a tribute record.

I’m sure I would sell more of the Ray Condo records. If I let more people know about it, maybe I’ll do a blast sometime in the summer. I printed 300 and I think I have almost half of them left. However, this summer is gonna be pretty quiet so maybe I’ll make a fort out of them all!

Allan: I bet there are songs on the setlist that are NOT on the album; will you be adapting other Cousin Harley stuff....? Will the setlist be the same or similar both nights at Frankie's? Anything else we should say about the shows?

Paul: I’ve done a couple more arrangements to add to the horn sections job for the shows. some originals and a couple of tunes I have done forever but not the standard Cousin Harley repertoire.  I think we probably start off each set with a smaller version of the band, the trio plus saxophone and maybe piano. It’ll definitely be swing oriented and not so hillbilly psychobilly. I’m gonna try and switch up at least a few tunes for each show so it’ll keep me interested and hopefully the audience as well!

Thanks, Paul! Frankie's event page is here -- not quite sure if the shows are both sold out? But maybe we can still get in if we show up early, bring cash, and are nice about it? 

Monday, March 31, 2025

The FEAR / Dead Bob/ Vicious Cycles show: Live at the Rickshaw, March 30th, 2025

My favourite photo from last night -- of the ones I took -- involved Nomeansno band biographer Jason Lamb, whose "Bob" shirt was incredibly visible in the pit. I took a few shots of him, and gotta say, this one is near perfect. It almost looks like I've drawn the word "Bob" on using some computer program, but nope, that's really the back of his shirt. 


Meantime, my favourite musical performance was Dead Bob doing "Long Days," which I shot vid of here. I took no photos otherwise of Dead Bob. I have seen every single public Dead Bob performance in Vancouver and I confess, parts of this one, I sat out, because cripes, I'm exhausted... sick, tired, weak, stressed  and so forth. 

But I caught a couple of good pics of the Vicious Cycles MC. I'm going to send them the video I shot, though, in case they want to use it!



And I was delighted and surprised at who came out from backstage to check the VCs out. He was mobbed by a few fans who wanted selfies, of course. Me, I have never really been much about selfies. But I did shoot a couple photos, more for the VCs sake than anything else (they have been doing some things with Lee that we will discuss at a later date). It was delightful to see one of the heroes of Los Angeles punk enjoying one of our home team bands. Robert of the VCs told me afterwards the name of the bike Lee used to ride and the bike club he was in, but, y'know, I had *had* some of that pot cookie I was sharin', so... I'll have to ask again at a later date.

I am hoping there will BE a later date. Lee seems like a real sweet guy when he's not singing "Strangulation." 


Oh, and hey, look, there's that dude with the shades who would NOT LET PEOPLE ALONE in the pit, including me, colliding into us, grabbing onto us, tugging on our arms, grabbing our shoulders, pulling at us like anyone not moshing was somehow doing it wrong. I wondered if he was some sort of paid plant, tasked with getting people physically riled up; it worked, insofar as I visualized punching him in the face, after he nearly toppled me over, but I don't think that's the kind of "riled up" he was aiming for. I even told him flat-out that he had nearly knocked me down and asked him to stop grabbing onto me, just LEAVE ME ALONE, but he would not. (He actually seemed to mean it all in a friendly way but that still didn't mean I wanted to be grabbed by him). Ultimately -- after he'd pretty much wrecked "White Stone Eyes," one of my favourite Dead Bob songs,  I just left the pit; it was impossible to enjoy the music with impending, involuntary doughboy action coming at you every few minutes. For fucksake, folks, MOSH WITH PEOPLE WHO WANT TO MOSH WITH YOU, and leave the people standing off to the sides ALONE. They want to mosh, they will -- let people enjoy things in their own way! 

I sat out the rest of Dead Bob's set, but I totally enjoyed, in particular, the version of "Life Like" they did at the end, which, no foolin', put me in mind of the BEAT show I saw, y'know, with Belew and Levin and Vai and so forth. It wasn't a bad song to be seated for -- to close my eyes and listen to. I would have preferred to be up front, but really, it's been one hell of a month (I even sold my Amyl and the Sniffers ticket last week, and had no regrets -- I couldn't have managed it, was falling-down exhausted and ill). 

Finally, it was time for FEAR, and I snuck back down to the front, hoping the coast was clear. I snapped a few photos -- not many, but enough! (Bob was getting good stuff that maybe you'll see at some point; I do hope to write more about this night). 



Lee was in fine voice; Spit Stix was a fuckin' machine, and the guitarist, Eric Razo, was a fine replacement for Philo -- maybe not quite as flat-out goofy, but deft as hell, very enjoyable. 

Somehow, this show was much, much better than the Vogue show the other year. Part of it may have been the more intimate environs, and part of it may just be that I'd come to accept that Lee is not exactly the menacing toughguy that I had been expecting, based on the footage in Decline, the last time I saw him. But he was plenty chatty and personable between songs last night; he even made a kind of witty joke at the end of "Strangulation" -- which has the grossest of any of the lyrics he sang, so I welcomed his quipping as it finished something like, "And then I'll ask her if she loves me." He punctuated jokes like that with little gruff "heh hehs" that put me in mind, I dunno, of how I imagine Robert DeNiro might sound in Dirty Grandpa, which I have not seen, but he was also pretty positive and friendly in the things he said -- he really ISN'T the guy in Decline anymore: "It's all about sportsmanship and love, and if you bump into anybody while you're bouncing around, please say excuse me." 

It's almost like Lee could read my mind, re: the pudgy pit provocateur, and was making fun of me or something.

Actually, quips like that made me want to ask him if he has Bill Murray stories. The infamous Saturday Night Live appearance was all about John Belushi, of course, but Lee these days has more of a Bill Murray vibe to him, maybe -- a sardonic senior wiseguy (not in the mafia sense). I hope I get to interview him at some point... he seemed amenable... 


There's not much else in my bag of stories, though, folks. At one point, someone shouted out a request for "New York's All Right," and I responded somewhat loudly, "but Vancouver's better." Rest assured, I didn't really mean it, it's just that I'd been thinking about my brief chat with Syd Savage, out in the lobby, who had recently led Death Sentence through a cover of the Exploited's "USA," which I would LOVE to hear them do live. If there's a timely punk song, that's it, and if there's a local band perfect for it, it's them. Syd assures me that Death Sentence will be at the Rickshaw soon enough...  



The other entertaining non-FEAR related conversation I had was with resident Vancouver genius of transgressive horror burlesque, Betty Bathory, who has announced she is going to give up all non-disgusting, non-horrifying side-projects and focus on her own brand, as expressed through Daddy Issues ("there are plenty of people in this town who can sing, but no one else is doing what I do": amen!). I recently had a vid I shot of them at Ronfest doing Mudhoney's "Touch Me I'm Sick" censored off Youtube because of sexuality and nudity and such. I did try to dispute it! I mean, she WAS pulling some sort of horrifying goo out of her vaginal area, as she is wont to do during that song, but it wasn't, like, REAL vaginal goo, nor was it her REAL vagina it was coming out of. To my mind, that makes it art! 

The Youtube censors stood by their decision, alas (they didn't even give me space, in filling out the appeal, to explain what they were seeing).  Oddly though, they left the clip of her performing that same night in her Peg-Bundy-from-Hell wig, with a girthful dildo strapped on, online for all to see. Fake dicks okay, but fake vages are taboo? 

Love the guy with the finger! 

Anyhow: it was great night, even for someone as wiped out as I was. Got to briefly meet Lee and Spit and and Eric and one of the two other FEAR members, getting a couple things signed. I was happy to say to Spit Stix, "You gotta bring Nasalrod up here," and he grinned and said "I know!" I hope other people know about his other band, that I wasn't the only one who remarked on how amazing they are -- they were the other band on that Victims Family split the last time Dead Bob played the Rickshaw, and to my great amazement, their songs were every bit as great as Victims Family's, which is a tall order. Someone should line up a show between them and Vic Bondi's band Redshift, also a Pacific Northwest band... that would be amazing to see, eh? 

We need to be nice to our American punk neighbours, folks -- they do not deserve what is happening down there; like Lee said as he launched into the band's nihilistic closer, "No More Nothing," we're all family, we've got to be good to each other (I'm just paraphrasing, but it was pretty close to that). 

Thanks for having come back to Vancouver, FEAR. See you again sometime? 

Saturday, March 29, 2025

Vicious Cycles, Dead Bob and, yep, FEAR again

I wonder if Lee Ving is motorcycle guy? It doesn't seem a stretch -- there he is with Willem Dafoe as one of the biker bad guys in Walter Hill's Streets of Fire; he seems entirely credible. Of course, the opening band tomorrow night, the Vicious Cycles, are motorcycle people -- their full name is the Vicious Cycles MC, with MC standing for "motorcycle club," which I confess is something I did not know most of my life, despite my longtime BOC fandom. I dug into their backstory in an interview in the basement of Neptoon Records eight years ago, and have enjoyed catching them multiple times since. The song I was riffing on in the title of that story, "You Ain't So Tuff," is still one of my favourite songs of theirs, and the story behind it one of the best stories anyone has ever told me about the inspiration for a song... didn't hurt that the inspiration was right there in the basement with us... 

Anyhow, I was told something by the band today that makes me think I need to interview them again, if I can find a good home for it -- it's super-cool news, but it may not be yet ripe for public consumption. But they definitely are going to have FEAR stories to tell at some point, since this is the second time they've opened for those guys locally (and I believe they are playing with them in Seattle -- actually Portland; oops -- as I type this!). Suddenly, I really want to know if Lee took an interest in their history with bikes (maybe I should watch Streets of Fire again? He actually rides in that, doesn't he?). 

So I have a story that I can't leak yet, which led me to want to leak a different story about Dead Bob, only I've just discovered that I'm not supposed to leak the thing I found out about them, either (I need Depends or something; I'm a leaky boy). Suffice to say that I am very, very excited by a couple of the songs on it, which I believe I have heard them do only once. One is a Nomeansno song, and one is a Dead Bob song. I hope I'm allowed to leak THAT much?

John Wright by Bob Hanham

And while I have no news at present, I am hoping to talk to Colin MacRae tomorrow about impending Pigment Vehicle reissues. I actually have become quite a fan of Pigment Vehicle, whom I wrote about here. I think, since Erika and I went up to Powell River to check out the pub John and Colin (and others) were running, I've actually listened to Pigment Vehicle more than I have Dead Bob (!), and -- though I was there to talk to John, I quite enjoyed interacting with Colin, even though I didn't know his former band so well at that point. I think I briefly owned Murder's Only Foreplay When You're Hot for Revenge, but that was it. 

By the by, where the hell did they get that title from, and if murder is only foreplay, what counts as coitus -- full on Maori-style cannibalism, turning your enemies into feces? Or were they thinking of something about more, uh, necrophilic? "I ain't done with you yet, dead man..."

Incidentally, do I have a certain American public figure on the brain or does the guy on this album cover REMIND you of anyone? I would rather turn this person into feces than fuck his corpse, I think. Maybe you gotta go on a case-by-case basis (or maybe they had some other indignities to the human body in mind with that title? Guess I have stuff to ask them, too, if and when reissues happen!).  


But the thing about Pigment Vehicle: it is still very fresh to me. Not only did it come to me at a time when I was plunging into math and prog and really getting into Don Caballero and King Crimson and such -- the student was ready, and the teacher came, then had to go change his pants -- I had not listened to a single release of theirs all the way through, ever, until 2023. I could recite you a goodly chunk of Nomeansno's lyrics; there aren't many songs of theirs that aren't deep in my DNA, at this point, such that I seldom need to hear them now -- but I don't think (speaking of motorcycles) that I'd heard "Saving My Cash for a Hog" until 2023. Hell, I knew Ford Pier's catalogue better than that, or the Invasives better. I didn't know Rong as well, and have been really, really enjoying them of late, too, but to me, the most mysterious element in Dead Bob -- the one I have seen play least often, in fact -- remains Colin. I have seen John play with Nomeansno and the Show Business Giants; Kristy-Lee with Rong; Ford with Nomeansno, D.O.A., the Show Business Giants, the Ford Pier Vengeance Trio and more; and Byron with Rong and Invasives. But Colin I have seen play three times, each time a Dead Bob gig. 


Colin MacRae by Bob Hanham

But there's lots I want to hear from Dead Bob, too -- truly a local supergroup led by Vancouver's most swingin' punk drummer. Without spoilers, the album, including songs you will here tomorrow, is discussed at some length in this interview I did with John Wright



Oh, and speaking of FEAR and things mathy, check out "I Am a Doctor" on the album the anniversary of which they are touring. Or check out the whole album. I remember having mixed feelings about More Beer when it first came out, but I went through it in full the other day with headphones on, just playing it off Youtube while, uh, on a break at work, and, by damn, it's quite fun. There are a couple of songs I don't much need, and there's a lot of between-song silliness (who do they think they are, NO FUN?), but there's hook after hook, and songs I'd kind of forgotten and now am delighted at the prospect of seeing, like "Waiting for the Meat."

Damn I hope they have this album on their merch table tomorrow. 

There are still tickets for FEAR, folks. I'd be there, tomorrow. I think it's gonna be fucking great. 


Friday, March 28, 2025

Wolf Creek 2: kangaroo splats and more

Watching Greg McLean's Wolf Creek 2. It's fun -- it's quite a bit different from the first film, which is pretty nasty and mostly without humour (unless you're fairly twisted, you'll probably find the first Wolf Creek an unpleasant watch, overall, though very effective as a straight-up outback survival-horror meets deranged-murderer movie). By contrast, one of the funnier "bits" of the second film has Mick, the pig-hunting killer, played by John Jarratt, who is the common element in these films, driving through a panicked mob of kangaroos in a massive truck, running into several, running over several, and apologizing as he goes (the kangaroos are not his object; they're just in the way). You might think -- if Wake in Fright flashes through your mind, here -- that killing kangaroos is not funny, but rest assured, these are CGI kangaroos, reminding one of the running packs of tiny dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park movies, so you don't feel too bad getting a chuckle out of the carnage, which is pretty bloody indeed. Also, the soundtrack is chosen for low comedy: the Tokens doing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," as punctuated by marsupial splats.  

I mean, it's shamelessly lowbrow, and more than a little over-the-top, but what can I say, I laughed!  

The film also boasts probably the, uh, most enjoyable cop killing scene in cinema history. Understand, I'm not anti-cop; and I have, generally, rooted far more often for cops killing bad guys than the reverse, when it comes to genre films. In Wolf Creek 2, you get to cheer the bad guy killing two cops. This all happens in the first ten minutes of the film, so there are no deep spoilers here: the setup for the violent payoff is perfectly executed and makes what happens quite entertaining, again in a shamelessly lowbrow (but quite satisfying) way. Two highway patrolmen pull Mick over, even though he wasn't actually speeding, using the pretext for the stop to humiliate and frighten him. They're not as quite as viciously unprofessional as the cops in Jennifer Lynch's Surveillance, but they're in the same ballpark, and definitely not "the good guys." You'll be waiting with great anticipation for Mick to take them out -- which is quite an accomplishment, since anyone who has seen the first film knows that Mick is a horrifying, cannibalistic killer, possibly a sex killer to boot, with a basement that brings Tobe Hooper to mind, so it's kind of remarkable that you can be so easily twisted into identifying with him; anyone who has ever been humiliated or abused by authority figures will have no problem cheering him on, and the payoff does not disappoint and includes a bit of gore equal to anything in early Peter Jackson.  

And yes, there is a joke about killing "pigs," heh-heh. 

I have had the DVD -- which I bought back in the days when Videomatica was in the back of Zulu Records -- sitting around unwatched for some time, maybe as long as ten years, because even though I have enjoyed everything I've seen by the director, Greg McLean -- with my favourite being his killer croc movie, Rogue, which you can find on Tubi -- I was concerned that there would be a lack of fresh ideas in this film. And indeed there is some repetition -- as when tourists arrive at the titular crater -- but the tone is quite different, as it would have to be, since this time, we know what kind of person Mick is. The repeated elements are done long before the film's midpoint, however, and are surrounded by varying bits of action (Mick stalking his prey on horseback, for example) that do things with no precedent in the first film. There is also a "showdown" at the end that surely taps into any genuine resentments working class Australians feel at the British, where Mick quizzes a "pommy" captive about Australian history. I didn't know the answer to even one question, though I could recall some of the lyrics to "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport," which are made much of. (The film came out the year before Rolf Harris was arrested, and it seems like McLean and his main character both have some fondness for the song). 

Though the stories are dissimilar, as far as follow-ups to popular works go, it all reminds me, a bit, of the novel Hannibal, where you get the sense that Thomas Harris was probably doing it for the payday, but figured a way to make it amusing for himself, imagining entertaining ways to expand on the world of the first film. I think McLean probably enjoyed making this movie a lot, and I've certainly enjoyed. watching it. It's unfortunate that the ending is on the weak side -- but it does have an element of surprise to it (though quite a bit of the story is wrapped up with end titles, which happened with the first film as well; and the final shot of the movie is very close to a straight repetition of the final shot of its forbear.) Not saying I had a better idea for the ending, but it's a shame that a film with so much engaging, fresh, and -- from a gory-horror-POV, "fun stuff" -- should fizzle out as un-dramatically as it does. 

One question lingers: is there any country whose films are as anti-tourism as Australia's? Even movies like Razorback, which has a tourist as the ultimate hero of the film, make the prospect of visiting the land seem very, very unappealing. Rogue, too -- it is kinder to its tourists than either of the Wolf Creek films, allowing them to become flat-out heroes, with the main Australian character being in fact saved by a tourist at the film's climax... but it still depicts the country as an extremely unwelcoming, hostile place to visit. The anti-tourist theme becomes quite explicit in Wolf Creek 2, with Mick going on several rants about them, so people interested in this angle should definitely seek the film out...

Might go for the TV series next, though that does seem to be milking things a bit...