Remembering the Spores, plus the debut of STIFF MIDDLE FINGER (featuring Danny Shmanny!)

Do you remember the Spores? They debuted in 1984 with a killer single, "Meat Bi-Product," which packs  horror, humour, and an awareness of human degradation into just over two minutes of anti-consumerist, anti-capitalist, anti-war, and even quasi-feminist/ pro-sex worker punk politicking. The tune is undeniably catchy -- the singer, Danny Shmanny, was schooled in British street punk, among other things, so there's an anthemic quality to the song; it's leagues more playful, more fun to sing along to (or jump up and down to) than, say, (vegan death metal band) Cattle Decapitation's earnest, in-your-face "A Living, Breathing Piece of Defecating Meat" (though there's obviously some thematic overlap, meatwise). 

...But there's also an up-front, inescapable absurdity to it. A good anthem rallies you around a goal, a cause -- "I Believe in Anarchy" or something -- that you can sing along to and make your own, but who the hell wants to embrace consuming (let alone being) a meat bi-product? There's just as much chance that a casual listener is going to feel annoyed and horrified by the song as liberated and entertained, though one senses that in the band's best case scenario, you're going to be both, pogoing up and down and shouting along with the chorus while some part of you recoils inwardly: "What exactly am I singing along with, here?"

That's some rich, witty shit right there, the very essence of absurdity.  How can one not love it? But as catchy and playful and funny as the song is, it's also sonically abrasive, not all that far, in fact, from the approach taken by Michigan hardcore band the Crucifucks (though Danny's nowhere as nails-on-a-chalkboard grating, vocally, as Doc Corbin Dart, nor as angry and earnest; Dart would go on, under his later Alias of 26, to write in your face vegan anthems, but Danny's own approach is to become the burger. Not sure what it means to have a song sung by a human meat patty, but it's about as far from preachy as you can get -- nobody here is posturing as being BETTER than anybody else, no fingers are being wagged, we're all just bonding in how horrifying and ridiculous our circumstance is: Be the meat that you want to see in the world.)

Suffice to say, I loved the Spores from the moment I first heard them. I was 16 when I bought that single, probably from Collector's RPM; I may have already seen the video on Soundproof and gone looking. By that point, punk had already started to fade from the public eye. Bands that HAD put out great punk anthems a few years previous, like, believe it or not, the Payolas (check "TNT" from 1980) were already making smooth, radio-friendly consumables (hard to believe this is the same band, three years later); while on the other end of the spectrum, the people who actually were serious about the revolutionary aspect of punk rock were going to prison for guerilla activism (note that one of the b-side songs to "Meat Bi-Product," "Five Fingers," was written about the so-called Squamish Five, known to themselves as Direct Action). The Spores were one of very few bands from mid-80s Vancouver that kept the legacy of punk very much alive, and they were considerably more fun (to my mind, anyhow) than most of the other current punk from that time, like the Bill of Rights or AKOB. (House of Commons were also pretty great, mind you, but like Nomeansno, they weren't really a Vancouver band, but a Victoria one). 

I only ever saw the Spores once. It was at a gig at the York Theatre, at some sort of festival of independent music, where I can vaguely remember seeing three bands of the several that played: Death Sentence, the Spores, and the Haters. Sadly, it is my most poorly-remembered gig of my youth, where I recall only arguing with a big-haired female friend about whether Death Sentence or the Spores were the better band (she preferred Death Sentence, who I acknowledged were slicker, "but their lyrics aren't as witty") and being horrified by the Haters, who were wearing dark hoods and destroying things onstage with power tools. Absolutely nothing else remains in my memory. I have, for years, longed for a Spores reunion, but while such a thing has been discussed, it has never come to pass; I've had to make do with seeing Danny front tribute bands -- Bones in the Hallway (who do Forgotten Rebels covers; see here, here and here) and a Stranglers tribute with members of the Enigmas (no video exists that I can find). I also got to see Aging Youth Gang, which features two other Spores, Sandy Beach and Boom Boom Benson, and who do have some great songs of their own (like "Maggots," their most-Sporeslike tune, though that live clip is not really the equal of the studio version).  

If you're new to the Spores, or want to know more, I do have a recommendation: there is a fine, fine compilation CD of the very best of the Spores, also including their LP, Schizofungi!, songs off their one cassette release (including "Expo in BC," which repurposes a rather famous punk anthem to be about the 1986 Expo), and several previously unreleased recordings (like "Holy Cow," about a person on LSD who hallucinates that he is turning into a werewolf). Maybe best of all, there is also a fine presentation of their second single, "Narcs in My Pants," and its killer b-side, "PM/ Conspiracy in the Sky." It came out in 2009, to little fanfare (though I wrote about it in a print magazine called Skyscraper). 

Note that for the CD release, which improves the sound of many of these songs, Danny took care of a longstanding annoyance with "Narcs in My Pants." The song involves a "subversive" singer being hassled by drug busts, who at one point complains of having narcs up his ass; he was meaning with that image to evoke cavity searches, but for whatever reason -- a Freudian slip -- Danny managed something quite different, singing in the original version, previously linked, "Now they're in my bedroom/ now they're up my ass," which suggests gay sex more than it does a drug bust. Not what he'd intended, so for the CD reissue, Danny went into the studio and sang a single word, "suitcase," which he edited into the song (at about the 2;23 mark here): admittedly, a bit of a ridiculous thing to do, but quite delightful for just that reason.

Anyhow, that's a must-own punk CD, if you've somehow missed it, and note that there are hidden bonus cuts that people with an older computer might be able to source, including "The Weyayeamme" (with much improved audio on that clip, and none of the weird Star Wars intro; where did that even come from? I don't think it's the Schizofungi! version) and videos of both "Meat Bi-Product" and "Up the Boss." (There are other fun surprises but I'll leave them for you to discover). 

The other bit of news is that Danny will be debuting a new tribute act, Stiff Middle Finger, devoted to the music of, yep, Stiff Little Fingers, and featuring members of the Enigmas and EddyD. There is, in fact, a gig on the main drive of Britannia Beach, up near Squamish, on the 19th (it's a bit of a street party so it shouldn't be that hard to find). It an "all day street party with a dozen bands, with Stiff Middle Finger playing at 6pm; I'm told "just head up the main street and you'll find us" and to "bring food and beer."

I doubt they'll be playing any Spores material, of course. I care much more about the Spores than I do Stiff Little Fingers (or the Forgotten Rebels or the Stranglers, for that matter), but I get to see Danny sing once every five years ago or so... so Brittania Beach Saturday, here I come...!