Orchard Pinkish on Playing During Plague: an interview

All concert photos by Gordon E. McCaw, of Betty Bathory's Daddy Issues band, featuring Orchard Pinkish. Orchard Pinkish in black on the left; I am the bald guy on the right. 

Something weird and interesting took place two weeks ago at the Betty Bathory birthday bash: I was able, consciously, to set COVID out of my mind for a few hours and have a great night at a rock show. I enjoyed myself immeasurably, but there were - before I just shrugged and went with it - definitely a few moments of nervousness early on, as I entered a reasonably large group of people, none masked, and proceeded to slosh back beer and socialize, almost like I was secure that the COVID vaccines were going to protect me. Everyone else seemed on the same page too; other than LanaLou's staff members, about the only person I saw with a mask was the estimable Orchard Pinkish, onstage with Betty, wearing - at least when he first came out - black robes and a Plague Doctor mask of considerable menace.

Since he stood out, was perhaps of a like mind about the relative safety of the evening, and was amenable to my bugging him, I thought I'd ask Orchard how he felt about the night, and how well he's been weathering COVID. The following is the text of my email interview, only slightly tinkered with for clarity. 

How has COVID impacted you personally? Have you been keeping safe? What have you been working on during the shutdown?


Certainly the initial lockdown shut down any musical endeavors that I was involved in, had an impact on my job in that it caused a real slowdown and ratcheted up my already high level of stress about the state of the world today. I've been following provincial health guidelines, wearing a mask 8 hours a day at work and anywhere that I am in public for the duration.

I spent about 2 months with a light workload, no rehearsals and no social interaction. I was bringing my acoustic guitar to work just to keep sane and keep my hands moving. As someone who likes to play a lot and whose social life revolves around music, this started to take a toll on my mental health. Fortunately my work neighbor (Don Binns) noticed the guitar one day and suggested that we do a little socially distanced playing in the parking lot out back of our workplaces. The following Friday, he pulled out his upright bass and I my guitar and we stood in the parking lot and played our asses off for about 6 hours. The following week we were joined by his colleague Jamie Wilson on drums and 'The Lot Lizards' were born. We even recruited R.D. Cane to do this little video for us.  

Screen grab from RD's video

Another fortunate thing that happened was a call I got from Scott MacLeod about a month before the lockdown. Scott asked if I would be interested in joining his band 'The Imperial'. I had been a fan of Scott for some time and knew and loved his bandmates Cam Alexander, Michael Nathanson and Richard Katynski. My first thought on this was 'what the hell would I do in this band... ' Rich was obviously on bass. Scott is just a killer guitar player who needs no second in my opinion. Mandolin didn't seem like a fit for what they were doing. I was a bit perplexed. When I asked Scott his response was a bit shocking : Synthesizer. I pointed out that I have no keys skills and no gear. He said something like 'great, when can you start?' Naturally this gave me a real mountain to climb and I have done my best to catch up to these absolute giants. I have gone from non-keys player to shitty keys player in a mere 18 months, and the guys have been super supportive and seem to like what I am doing.

How do you feel about the government response to COVID? What has impressed you?

I think the government response has been adequate. I was not impressed by any aspect of it, but they did act. They did provide supports; they did not politicize it. It was just ok.

3. Have you entertained any skepticism or concern about:
a) the safety or efficacy of the vaccines

No, the vaccines went through the standard trials etc, so they are certainly as safe as any other drug that we approve. It was impressive that they happened so quickly. It make you wonder how quickly we could deal with other health issues if we were willing to put these levels of resources towards them.

b) the level of fear inculcated in the media

I don't think this sort of fear mongering was evidenced in Canadian media. I think some propaganda networks in the US really fucked their viewers by turning this into a political issue.

c) the need for lockdowns

This was a new thing, that was quite obviously a potential epidemic. That our governments were willing to shut down was a glimmer of hope for me. They were willing to at least pay lip service to saving the lives of their constituents over keeping the economy running in a business as usual manner.

d) any "hidden agendas"

I think this is just silly. If there is some sort of deep state or shadow government it is synonymous with wealth: Corporate interests or the interests of the uber rich. The last thing these interests would want is to stop the up syphon of capitol. If you look at their PR branches in the US, they have been literally fighting like hell to stop the shutdowns. Its sad that people are willing to believe in bullshit conspiracies when the real conspirators operate in the light of day.

e) the influence of anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, etc

Fear is the enemy of logic. When I think about masking I look at it this way... If masks dont help, I will have worn a piece of fabric on my face for no reason. If they do help I may end up responsible for someone dying. How can this even be a question. Who is so weak that they can't tolerate a fucking mask. I do it all day long. I literally forget I have it on sometimes. Sometimes my ears hurt a little. Boo fucking hoo. Talk about snowflakes.

f) whether we will need to go into lockdown again at this rate (care to speculate on when?).

I think we are in pretty good shape to be honest [case counts were around 300/day when Orchard was writing this, note - things change! But he may still feel the same way]. The MRNA vaxes are 95-97% effective at keeping you from getting the delta variant (and alpha), and 99.99% effective at keeping you out of the hospital if you do have a breakthrough infection. If we can get to the mid 90's percentile for fully vaccinated we should be ok, and we are on track. The caveat here is variants. Delta+, Lambda, we just don't know. This is where the politicization of the response in other countries is hurting us. It creates low vax rates in places and thus breeding grounds for mutation. Its incredibly frustrating. I was lucky in that I qualified for a shot early. I happily waited in line for 5 hours in the spring for my first shot, and have been double vaxxed since June 21. I will absolutely get a booster in 6 months if it is available and recommended.   

 

Thanks - let's get to the show: when and where did you acquire that Plague Doctor costume? Was it specifically for the show?

Yes and no. About 10 years ago I found this mask shop in Vic. I grabbed a fantastic masquerade mask and a equally wicked Plague Doctor mask. I used them a couple times with the Strugglers I think. Going into this show I had a lot of trepidation and concern about whether any of the new guidelines were a good idea. I thought it was absolutely necessary that I wear the Plague Doctor get-up as a statement of my concern. Despite my guarded optimism and favorable data, I still have a level of skepticism and worry about all of this. We are in uncharted waters and no one really knows for sure.

Back to the mask. As you know, I recently moved. Most of my show costuming is in storage and I am in that early move state of chaos. I spent a couple hours searching for this mask to no avail. The day of the show I actually had to source a new one that was perhaps not as great as the one I can't find, but it said what I wanted to say.   

Would you agree that the mood was one of just completely blocking out all thought or worry about the pandemic, throwing caution to the wind? Were you aware that that would be the case before you took the stage, or was it a surprise...? Did you feel safe? did you feel worried? Are you changing your behaviour now (avoiding immunocompromised friends or such...?).

It was a non-prophylactic event for sure. I kind of expected this. A real show, booze, that awesome lineup, friends.. It all just adds up to people really letting loose. I think we all needed that for our souls, but the though of it being a dangerous thing was in the front of my mind the whole time. Betty's birthday and Daddy Issues shows should always be considered dangerous events, but hopefully not life-threatening.   

While it was in line with guidelines (which seem to be 'go for it'), it was uncomfortable for me. I have not been in a crowd in almost two years. That felt weird and anxiety inducing, but I'm not super wild about crowds to begin with. There were no masks which also felt weird after the past two years. I kept reminding myself that there were 23 cases the day before in the VCH region (2.3/100000 cases/pop) and that masks are encouraged indoors at 8.8/100000+. I kept telling myself that most of us are double vaxxed and that I trust this group to be vaxxed if interacting (for the most part?) I cleared my schedule and got tested 5 days afterwards. (clear).

Would you do it again? (I mean, no question - it was an immensely fun night and I kinda felt like I NEEDED it, but, like, I didn't go to Crummy. I considered it but like I say, I didn't want to push my luck...

I have bookings in September and October but I'm just playing it by ear. Things are really uncertain and this one was a litmus test for me. I'm not sure how I feel about it all really, so I am going to see how things are playing out and try to err on the side of caution going forward.

Cheers,

OP

Thanks to Orchard Pinkish and Gord McCaw. Now: do I go see Crummy and Stab'Em in the Abdomen at LanaLou's on the 21st? Hmmm... let's see how my test results go...