(I have added and now UPDATED an addendum at the endum and removed a few pics by request!)
One of the great gigs of the 1990s I saw was TAD, Helmet and Love Battery at the Town Pump. I guess that would have been March 9, 1991, and TAD was touring what I still regard as the greatest grunge album of all time, 8 Way Santa, released just a month prior. Produced by Butch Vig, who scored a hit with Nirvana's Nevermind in September of that same year ("the year punk broke," y'know?), it balances heaviness with melodic pleasure in a way that still delights me and surprises me; one of my favourite alternate universe musings is to contemplate how the world might have developed if 8 Way Santa had been the record that busted through the logjam and started the grunge flood that followed. I mean, I don't even fucking own Nevermind on vinyl, y'know? But I have a few different versions of 8 Way Santa (if you don't know the story of its doomed original cover art, go here, the documentary about the band, if you have access to Prime. It's pretty funny).
Truth is, besides knowing it was great, I don't remember much of that show at all, except for Tad Doyle, all 300-some pounds of him, gleefully stage diving (he doesn't like talking TAD now, much, but he did tell me a story of a time that his stage diving went horribly wrong when we spoke about eight years ago). It was weirdly empowering and intimidating: being a fat man myself, then as now, I would have thought stage diving was simply something people with bodies like ours did not, could not, should not do: inconsiderate and ill-advised.
Tad blew that excuse out of the water. I still have never stage dived, but I was much impressed. Somewhere out there in Vancouver there is someone whose claim to fame is being stage-dived onto by Tad, can you imagine?
There was no stage diving at Green Auto last night -- wasn't all that much of a stage, either! -- but musically, it was very much a throwback to that night in 1991. I had hemmed and hawed about going on Facebook, got plenty of urgings, and ultimately followed the advice of one Ford Pier, who had told me that Oxbow were a must-see when I was picking up my Dead Bob record at Red Cat. (Dead Bob is the new project by Nomeansno's John Wright; you know this, right? And that they have a gig December 1st, at the Pearl, which was formerly known as the Venue, which was formerly known as the Plaza...? Which is where I first saw Bison, more on whom below?). Despite Ford looking at me like I'd sprouted antennae when I suggested that Dead Bob's "No Tomorrows" reminds me of "The Love Song" by Marilyn Manson, and my knowing he genuinely values quirkier, more challenging stuff than I do (his favourite song on Life Like being the mathy, persistent, practically penetrative "One of You," for instance; or, like, consider the Rheostatics), he's steered me right on a number of occasions, like helping clue me into Selina Martin, whose "The Hottest Day" (incidentally) was spun without any input from me by Mark Bignell at the Otway gig (see below), but who will not be joining Dead Bob for the Vancouver show, note (she sings the female vocal part on the Dead Bob cover of Nomeansno's "Life Like.")
Where was I? Oh, yeah: Ford was the only person who, perceiving my hemming and hawing on Facebook -- "Should I go to this gig? Is Green Auto a good space?" -- had anything caveat-like to offer about the venue, noting that there is a marked absence of seating; there is also, as I would discover without Ford's help, a very hard, veritably remorseless concrete floor (another reason not to stage dive, if you need them). Ford knows me, I guess, because that was, in fact, the only caveat worth offering (the smell of the chicken rendering plant down the block not actually wafting into the venue, though I guess that could be a fair concern during the summer). I have been in more physically comfortable venues, and standing around on concrete for a few hours is not generally my preferred mode of standing around.
Anyhow, Ford's eyebrows raised a bit to see me: "You came!" I think he thought I would pussy out. I did not pussy out -- which I am very glad of, because look who the hell I ran into?
Yes, folks, MASA ANZAI (key subject of one of my favourite-ever concert photos at the top of this Bison thing I did) is going to gigs again! He's fit, happy-looking, and contemplating whether he should start doing the odd noise gig again ("I still have all my gear"). I have not seen Masa around since Bison played the Hindenburg (which had also been John Barleys and briefly, I think, a Cruel Elephant incarnation and maybe was a gay bar for awhile?) back in August of 2015 -- Shane Clark's first gig with Bison, replacing Masa, who nonetheless came out to support his friends (then disappeared from the scene for years).
In fact, my history with Masa goes back before Bison, seeing him on saxophone at the Sugar Refinery or doing a noise gig at VIVO, once. Always liked Masa! I remember chatting with him at a jazzfest gig before Earthbound even came out, where he told me about how he was going to hang up his sax for awhile and play bass in a heavy metal band; it was because of Masa that I even got INTO Bison, seeing them play the Plaza before they were signed to Metal Blade. So it was fun running into him again and making sure he knew about the Dead Bob gig -- which itself was fun, because Masa did a double take to learn that Ford Pier was in the band, such that I would, later in the night, have cause to put Masa and Ford together to chat about the gig, once I spotted Ford (I thought he was arriving after Psychic Trash had played but in fact he saw and enjoyed them!). We jawed about how Ford is having to learn trombone (!?) and trying to master playing keyboards like John Wright. which apparently is no easy thing. Putting those two together (and letting Masa know about Dead Bob) was the my-work-here-is-DONE moment of the gig, where I otherwise spent mostly taking photos and occasionally thrashing around to Whores (the band whose live presentation I enjoyed most, though I liked Psychic Trash a bunch too, and even Disruptions, who I saw, and photographed, but did not record a clip of; sorry! Oxbow I kinda actually preferred on record -- and they were the only band whose album I bought, this new Ipecac release -- though my aching calves may have had something to do with it, by that point. They're definitely deserving of a bigger audience: Downgraded from the Rickshaw? What?!).
Oh, and Masa was impressed that Oxbow had played with Peter Brotzmann, and told me of how Bison had once opened for them...
But I have nothing much to say about any of the bands last night besides this. I shot video of Psychic Trash, Whores, and Oxbow, and a bunch of photos, too. Green Auto is INDEED a great little venue -- it's just north of Hastings, in the alleyway BEFORE you get to Pandora. If you walk up Pandora and see the Green Auto sign, you have gone the wrong way and have to go back up to the alley and then down it. Do not beeline straight for the door, as I did: there is a booth where you are supposed to pay, right after you turn into the alley, which I completely missed and then had to go find ("I think I was supposed to pay here? Didn't even see you, sorry!").
Oh, one fun story -- at the merch table after Psychic Trash, Sam, the drummer (who said hell yeah I should upload the video) explained that the song I'd shot was called "Odysseys Away," a "silly" title inspired by the fact that the band used to drive around in a Honda Odyssey, which kept breaking down, and which they were eventually glad to ditch: "We were like, Odysseys AWAY!" he said, gesticulating his dismissal of this apparently somewhat shitty car.
I also shot vid of Whores doing what I think were "Playing Poor" and "Imposter Syndrome" and Oxbow doing "Curse" off their first EP, Fuckfest. Eugene was hard to photograph, difficult to capture, maybe because they had incense burning that was wafting up into my eyes and camera? He's an imposing figure, well-muscled, with a body language all his own, and a hell of a singer (on record he often weirdly reminds me of David Thomas of Pere Ubu, but there's not much of that in his live presentation!). Thanks to Ford Pier for pointing me at them.
I guess maybe touring acts are not noseblind to the rendering plant stink, so the incense was probably a good idea. Otherwise, I'm going to let my pictures do the talking. Awesome night!
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