R.d. Cane, Kitty Cane, and Lisafurr Lloyd from GRRLCircus at the Hardcore 81 anniversary, Nov. 20th, at the Rickshaw (as are all the photos here, all shot by Bob Hanham, and not to be reused without permission).
I've chatted with R.d. Cane on a couple of occasions and admired his video and photography work in Vancouver, but I had never seen GRRLCircus, in any incarnation before last Saturday's set at the DOA Hardcore 81 anniversary show (which I took photos of here, and shot some live vid of here). I'd been told by Bob Hanham a couple of nights previous that they had a new frontwoman, but neither he nor I realized it would be Colleen Rennison of No Sinner fame. I'd had her on "people I want to see" list after hearing some of No Sinner's music and catching Colleen in a short film (One Last Ride, which she was very good in), but it had never worked out. My wife Erika and I once walked several blocks from a Crazy 8's festival screening of One Last Ride to an afterparty where Rennison was performing, but we underestimated the distance involved and by the time we arrived, she had completed her set, to our great disappointment.
Colleen Rennison by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission
The same is also true of bassist Lisafurr Lloyd (also of Ron Reyes' Piggy); she has a queerish aesthetic but, like, I haven't ASKED her or anything, because it's none o' my business - except, dig, I WANT her to be queer!
Lisafurr Lloyd and Colleen Rennison by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission
Colleen Rennison and Kitty Cane by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission
Actually, scrap that about the Cecil (a former Granville Street strip bar, for those who don't know it): seeing Ani Kyd basically sit Jello Biafra in a chair onstage and do the equivalent of a clothed lapdance directed at him, while singing "The Sex Song," at his 55th birthday party, back in 2013, was pretty hot, too - and more recent than my last trip to a strip bar, unless you count seeing Slow at the Penthouse - but it was entirely directed at Jello, not the audience. His discomfort was palpable and entertaining! I've never seen Jello so STILL onstage; there is probably a joke to be had about how he was quivering (like, uh...). He sure didn't know what the fuck to do with his hands!
R.d. Cane by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission
1. Prior to seeing GRRLCircus
Allan: Not having seen the band before, I am told that there have been a few different frontpeople, and that the nature of things changes a lot depending on who is fronting. So who is the singer tomorrow? (What is the rest of the lineup....?).
R.d.: We have had several singers and each one has been great... they all brought a different flavour to what we want to do.. each has helped us really zero in on what we want to do and how we want to do it. We have been getting progressively more interested in just being fun and entertaining... the world is a little dark these days and we want to keep it all as much fun as we can. We now have Colleen Rennison, from No Sinner, singing with us and we could not be happier; she fits right in, both on and off stage and that is a beautiful thing... I love watching and listening to her and Kitty Cane rip... Lisafurr Lloyd, Brad Mitchell, Kitty Cane, Colleen Rennison and I are GRRLCircus just my favorite people to have fun with..
What are your fondest memories of working with Gerry-Jenn?
Gerry-Jenn was a huge talent with a gigantic heart. There is no question that Gerry Jenn was authentic punk rock... I had only just met Gerry and we jammed out a couple of songs I had been working on. Somehow she managed to get us an opening spot for Slow at the Penthouse... she was so good that night, it was incredible watching work the room. She was a pro ..I really only knew Gerry for very a short time but it was a crash course in Punk Rock for sure... Others in GRRLCircus had very long histories with Gerry, we were all saddened by her tragic passing..She was a Legend, missed by many.
I know your work as a photographer and rock video director, but what's your history in bands in Vancouver? Who have you played with?
GRRLCircus is my very first band..I had messed around a little here and there but after battling back cancer and with the support of so many friends I decided to try something I had always wanted to do..I was 63 years old and I just said now is the time...Kitty Cane, Brad MItchell and Lisafurr Lloyd all had a ton of experience and they have been extraordinary at teaching how to do it..
I can find images of the band, and live clips - are there studio clips online where people can get a taste of your music? (No bandcamp site? No release history?).
You can find a cross section of my videos and still photography on my R.d.Cane people Page
You SEEM like the type who would throw a few cover songs into a live set, and I always find that interesting - to get a sense of a band by what they cover... what songs have you covered?
We have messed around with several covers try to find out where we land as a band and how best to give the audience their money's worth. We do an Iggy Pop song "Loose" and a Betty Blowtorch song "I Wanna Be Your Sucker". both are a ton of fun to play and both give Kitty and Colleen tons of room for doing what they do best.
Any cool history with DOA, DOA stories, memorable shows, etc that you care to share? [Note: this question was asked when I thought this would run in advance of the Hardcore 81 show].
Any of the cool DOA shows from way back are totally clouded by time and medication. hHaving said that...there is a spot in my heart for the couple of years I spent hanging with Dave Gregg... I knew him the best from those days...Somewhere there are loads of film cans and stills from our freaky experimenting with rockets, film and fire works. They were fun but dangerous times... man he could play guitar...I miss him...
What do you consider your very best rock videos, of the many you've made? Which one was the most challenging?
I have done hundreds of music videos over the years: Art Bergmann's "My Empty House" and "Bound for Vegas" started it all. I'm fond of what I have done in the last couple of years with Richard Duguay's "Take the Money," Sunday Morning's "Come the Rain" and TrailerHawk's "Don't You"...working with my friends in an easy "let's just see what happens" kinda way is my favourite thing to do. I have spent a life time over thinking and grinding to catch the next trend..Fuck it I say...let's go have some fun...
Does the band have a "philosophy of gender?" There's a real diverse range of "female" experience (and I'm not putting female in quotes because of Kitty, but because I have no idea what the gender identification of the other members are...).
...And that's kind of a weird thing to say about someone, because in some sense we seem to be moving to a world where these sorts of things - which box you are filed in - shouldn't matter. But I loved that GRRLCircus has such diversity of gender expression, and that it isn't all just a put-on. I mean, no offense to New York Dolls fans - I'm one too - but it's kind of a cool measure of how far we've come, that glam and hair metal has gone from having cis-men dressing up in female clothes, to having actual women, cis- or trans- or queer or WHATEVER, making music every bit as vital as their male dressup forebears. Men in costumes are no longer required; gender bending isn't just for show - it's a commitment. As R.d. Cane puts it - besides being a shit-hot guitarist - "Kitty Cane is the real deal, and a massive inspiration to so many of the young ones working so hard to figure out their place in the world."
Kitty Cane by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission
But maybe I'm just PROVING how not with-it I am, how out-of-date, by even making an issue of any of this stuff? I think that there's some sense in which now the people who ARE with it are trying to live as if gender doesn't really matter these days. I've gotten the distinct impression that just treating people as people without bothering with categorizing them is an ideal that has gained currency, lately; I mean, I don't go around introducing myself as Allan MacInnis the heterosexual cis-gendered male, and would probably get pretty tired of hearing that as often as LGBTQ+ hear themselves filed into this category or that. As much as I come from a very different world - because Maple Ridge in the 1980's was no paradise for the gender non-conforming, and I had any of my own youthful queerish impulses threatened or beaten out of me by age 15 - I can see a sort of Utopian aspect to this, of entering a world where gender is irrelevant. As Nomeansno once sang - in 1982! - : "Everyone's got a hole. Everyone's got stiff little fingers. You don't have to know. You don't have to be so particular."
But none of that is as challenging as knowing how to tackle writing about Colleen Rennison the other night, however, where it's my boring old straight maleness (and its reaction to her veritably bursting female sexuality) that is the problem. It would be unfair to her talents as a singer to focus entirely on her talents as a performer, and unfair to either to focus ONLY on the sexiness of her stage presence, but, I mean, fuckit, folks, the last time I saw a performance remotely as steamy onstage, it was at the Cecil (don't judge me too harshly - I mostly used to go with a queer female friend, now a transman, so we could spy on human behaviour, undercover Sigmund Freuds the both of us). Ms. Rennison is a fine rock singer and a hell of a front person, but she also was fucking HOT, and there's no other fit way to describe it, especially when that hotness seemed as calculated and deliberate and knowing as it was, which made it, umm, even hotter, and damn near impossible to ignore (which I kinda feel is what I'm SUPPOSED to do here, but - Jeezus, I can't!).
Colleen Rennison by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission
Actually, scrap that about the Cecil (a former Granville Street strip bar, for those who don't know it): seeing Ani Kyd basically sit Jello Biafra in a chair onstage and do the equivalent of a clothed lapdance directed at him, while singing "The Sex Song," at his 55th birthday party, back in 2013, was pretty hot, too - and more recent than my last trip to a strip bar, unless you count seeing Slow at the Penthouse - but it was entirely directed at Jello, not the audience. His discomfort was palpable and entertaining! I've never seen Jello so STILL onstage; there is probably a joke to be had about how he was quivering (like, uh...). He sure didn't know what the fuck to do with his hands!
R.d. Cane and Lisafurr Lloyd by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission
But Rennison, by contrast, belting out the Stooges' "Loose" in a schoolgirl skirt, cleavage misted with sweat even by the midpoint of the first song, thrusting her hips as she purred "I stick it deep inside" - good gawd y'all, it was practically sex magick, and WE WERE HER TARGET. It was almost MEAN doin' that to an audience: highly audacious, fearless, and overt, and (seemingly?) clearly designed to raise libido, to make it impossible to DENY raised libido, blocking as it did any retreat to some safe non-threatening neutered safe space where I might NOT be accused of being an objectifyin' lech. Nope - we were well past that by the end of the first minute of "Loose" (actually the second song of the night; the band kicked off with an instrumental called "Manic," before Rennison took the stage). It actually kind of went against the grain of what I've been used to seeing onstage the last few years, where even burlesque shows seem more about pastiche and playfulness and commentary on sexuality than they do sexy per se. It was, like I say, a hot performance - so much so that when, later that night, Rennison sat in the row I was in, even bumping me at one point to get by - I felt kinda nervous about it, vulnerable as poor old Jello. Ulp! If I'd had to talk with her, I probably would have stammered and dropped my pen, or something.
Colleen Rennison and Kitty Cane by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission
Maybe I am just an objectifyin' lech, I dunno, but it takes a whole 'nother level of courage to be as powerfully untamed as Ms. Rennison was at the Rickshaw. Impressive stuff indeed. And more significantly than any of the above, GRRLCircus played a very energetic, hooky set of rockin' tunes - that fans of the New York Dolls, or locally of CLONE - who seem to have some similar spirit - would really appreciate (tho' nothing quite as jaw dropping as the Stooges' "Loose" as sung by Colleen).
Anyhow, I had sent R.d. some questions for an email interview BEFORE I saw the performance, thinking - as with the Spitfires article I wrote - that I could use it to amp up excitement for the already sold out show. He was too busy with preparations to get to it in time, but he's gotten to my questions now; and the good news, here, is that y'all have ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY to see GRRLCircus with Colleen Rennison, performing November 27th at LanaLou's, with Rebel Priest.
Email interview follows (I'm in italics, R.d. is not). Thanks to Bob Hanham for providing the great pictures!
1. Prior to seeing GRRLCircus
Allan: Not having seen the band before, I am told that there have been a few different frontpeople, and that the nature of things changes a lot depending on who is fronting. So who is the singer tomorrow? (What is the rest of the lineup....?).
R.d.: We have had several singers and each one has been great... they all brought a different flavour to what we want to do.. each has helped us really zero in on what we want to do and how we want to do it. We have been getting progressively more interested in just being fun and entertaining... the world is a little dark these days and we want to keep it all as much fun as we can. We now have Colleen Rennison, from No Sinner, singing with us and we could not be happier; she fits right in, both on and off stage and that is a beautiful thing... I love watching and listening to her and Kitty Cane rip... Lisafurr Lloyd, Brad Mitchell, Kitty Cane, Colleen Rennison and I are GRRLCircus just my favorite people to have fun with..
What are your fondest memories of working with Gerry-Jenn?
Gerry-Jenn was a huge talent with a gigantic heart. There is no question that Gerry Jenn was authentic punk rock... I had only just met Gerry and we jammed out a couple of songs I had been working on. Somehow she managed to get us an opening spot for Slow at the Penthouse... she was so good that night, it was incredible watching work the room. She was a pro ..I really only knew Gerry for very a short time but it was a crash course in Punk Rock for sure... Others in GRRLCircus had very long histories with Gerry, we were all saddened by her tragic passing..She was a Legend, missed by many.
I know your work as a photographer and rock video director, but what's your history in bands in Vancouver? Who have you played with?
GRRLCircus is my very first band..I had messed around a little here and there but after battling back cancer and with the support of so many friends I decided to try something I had always wanted to do..I was 63 years old and I just said now is the time...Kitty Cane, Brad MItchell and Lisafurr Lloyd all had a ton of experience and they have been extraordinary at teaching how to do it..
I can find images of the band, and live clips - are there studio clips online where people can get a taste of your music? (No bandcamp site? No release history?).
You can find a cross section of my videos and still photography on my R.d.Cane people Page
You SEEM like the type who would throw a few cover songs into a live set, and I always find that interesting - to get a sense of a band by what they cover... what songs have you covered?
We have messed around with several covers try to find out where we land as a band and how best to give the audience their money's worth. We do an Iggy Pop song "Loose" and a Betty Blowtorch song "I Wanna Be Your Sucker". both are a ton of fun to play and both give Kitty and Colleen tons of room for doing what they do best.
Any cool history with DOA, DOA stories, memorable shows, etc that you care to share? [Note: this question was asked when I thought this would run in advance of the Hardcore 81 show].
Any of the cool DOA shows from way back are totally clouded by time and medication. hHaving said that...there is a spot in my heart for the couple of years I spent hanging with Dave Gregg... I knew him the best from those days...Somewhere there are loads of film cans and stills from our freaky experimenting with rockets, film and fire works. They were fun but dangerous times... man he could play guitar...I miss him...
What do you consider your very best rock videos, of the many you've made? Which one was the most challenging?
I have done hundreds of music videos over the years: Art Bergmann's "My Empty House" and "Bound for Vegas" started it all. I'm fond of what I have done in the last couple of years with Richard Duguay's "Take the Money," Sunday Morning's "Come the Rain" and TrailerHawk's "Don't You"...working with my friends in an easy "let's just see what happens" kinda way is my favourite thing to do. I have spent a life time over thinking and grinding to catch the next trend..Fuck it I say...let's go have some fun...
2. After seeing GRRLCircus
Does the band have a "philosophy of gender?" There's a real diverse range of "female" experience (and I'm not putting female in quotes because of Kitty, but because I have no idea what the gender identification of the other members are...).
GRRL started because I was looking to play more music. I had been doing solo guitar shows to support my photographs and I did well...I bought an electric guitar and started learning.. I met Gerry Jenn and went looking for Kitty Cane. What started as just something to do, very quickly turned into an extraordinary friendship between Kitty, Brad Mitchell, Lisafurr Lloyd and myself, we just fit for a crazy idea... Kitty found a way to explore something deep and personal and I was looking to try something I had never done before.. we supported each other's lifelong dreams... I produced and organized it like I was working on a movie and we began and it grew.. Gerry moved on and we went through several other very good singers but none really fit what we were about. We are inclusive without labels; we call each other by our first names...we have all had darkness and GRRLCircus is our light... Our last singer decided to move on and we were bummed. Colleen heard us rehearse one evening through the door of our jam space. and quickly learned one of our songs... she kicked the door in and sang like a motherfucker, crazy, and sparks flew...the only thing we all have in common is a desire to have fun, be safe and enjoy the shit out of this crazy ride... we do and it shows. We are posers and love playing... GRRLCircus are at Lanalous Nov 27th and Funky's for New Years with great hope for the New Year; the next goal is to find ourselves a spot for Pride...can anybody out there help us with that!!
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