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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Kier-La Janisse to Isobel Campbell (literally)

Isobel Campbell at the Pearl, by Allan MacInnis

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

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

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

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

Anyhow, Steve's sister, if you are reading this, I am sorry I lost the photo of the still I took. Feel free to reach out to me on Facebook. There's a local oddball who has wrecked it for everybody on this blog by stubbornly leaving unwanted comments on this site, tediously mostly about how I should be on Ozempic, who I have no capacity to block, here, so I no longer take comments, but I *can* block him from Facebook, so find me there if you so choose... It shouldn't be too hard! I would add a scan of that photo if you sent it to me. Hell, I'd even ask Steve some questions for posterity, here, if you put us in touch. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hi Allan,

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

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

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

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

Matteo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She enjoyed it! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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