RIP Mr. Chi Pig

Back in the early 1990's, one of the local punks I'd see in Maple Ridge, Darien - that's how I always spelled his name in my mind; not sure it's correct - used to urge me to come see SNFU with him, but I never went. I knew their rep as this amazing live act, but Darien's invites came at a time when I was listening mostly to free jazz, John Zorn, the Lounge Lizards, and exceptionally weird stuff like Trout Mask Replica or Pere Ubu. And to tell the truth, as someone who, as a teen, had pored over the lyrics of the Dead Kennedys, DOA, the Subhumans, and Crass, hungry for intellectual stimulation and political direction - which were always more important a draw to punk, for my younger self, than the music - that first SNFU LP, the only one I'd owned at that point, actually hadn't grabbed me as hard as I had wanted it to, when it first arrived at Collector's RPM in its second state cover, back in 1985. I had previously heard and loved "Victims of the Womanizer" - a song on a BYO comp released in 1984 that took aim at toxic masculinity at a time when it was extremely rare to do so - but songs like "Cannibal Cafe" seemed kind of silly by comparison (I love it now, of course - but I was a much more serious, maybe a much more confused, guy back then). So not only didn't I go see SNFU back in the day, I didn't buy any of their other albums, either, until years later: I think my second SNFU album ever purchased was In the Meantime and In-Between Time. By the time I caught them live, the Belke brothers were both gone, so my introduction to SNFU shows was with Goony, Willy Jak, and Jon Card as Chi's backup, back in the days when Chi was busing tables at the Cobalt. So I never got to see SNFU or Mr. Chi Pig in his prime, taking massive leaps, hanging from rafters, belting hotdogs into the audience with tennis rackets, or other such legendary shenanigans (tho' I was in the audience at Funkys when he emptied a bag of puffed wheat on us, so there's that). Considering how potent a frontman he still was - and how amazing a singer - when I finally started seeing him, I have always  regretted that I never saw him in the '90's, any of the dozens of times I was invited to do so.

You were SO right, Darien, and I was so wrong.

Rest well, Chi.