"No Balony": Tony Walker and the Rubes, by way of Nick Jones and Charlie (Chalo) Quintana (and with vintage Bev pics)

Tony Walker at Budstock 1981 (July 25th) with the Melody Pimps, by bev davies, not to be reused without permission

(Note: this piece has been expanded since first published, after the gig mentioned, with added photos from that gig and a couple of stories from Tony about the Real McKenzies and Bob Dylan!)

I've seen Tony Walker, also known as Tony Balony, in a few roles, even interviewed him, but important as he is to the history of Vancouver rock'n roll, never (until recently) dug deeply into his music or saw him lead a band (unless you count the first incarnation of Trailerhawk, but that's a complicated story!). Tony dates back to the very early days of the Vancouver punk scene, with the Antheads, Bludgeoned Pigs, Actionauts and the Melody Pimps, most of whom were before my time; my first awareness of a project he did was a goofy spoof of Kraftwerk, which I heard on CFRO (probably) and read about in Discorder, when it was getting heavy airplay on UBC radio station CiTR (which I couldn't get out in Maple Ridge). I've chatted with Tony at the odd gig, even got him, as a scene veteran, to sign a copy of the Vancouver Complication (which he doesn't appear on, but what can I say, I don't have the Bud Luxford comps!).  

But my current spate of enthusiasm for his music -- and the reasons why I recently picked up Standing Rubes Only (credited to Tony Balony and the Rubes) and Treasure Town (credited to Anthony Walker) has everything to do with Pointed Sticks vocalist Nick Jones. Last Keithmas, he and Bev Davies and I were talking in the foyer of the Rickshaw and for reasons I do not recall, and I mentioned the Plugz' Chalo (Charlie) Quintana, a veteran of the LA punk scene who spent the last few years of his life living in Vancouver. I knew a bit about his time in Vancouver (that Keithmas vet Rich Hope used to cut his hair, for instance) but didn't know much about the music Quintana made here...

Nick Jones and bev davies, photo by Allan MacInnis

That was how I learned that Charlie Quintana had played on one of Tony Walker's albums, Treasure Town (it's on Spotify, and for those who crave physical media, can be bought in CD form at BoneRattle Music on Commercial Drive). Tom Harrison wrote a capsule review, emphasizing the album's Stones-y qualities. Nick also commented on Walker's absence on the Keithmas bill, noting that Tony would be perfect, and has even apparently griped himself about not having been asked, but never actually reaches out to the Keithmas organizers (!). Can *I* request he be put on next year's bill? 

Since, earlier this week, I was talking to Nick apropos of the Pointed Sticks' upcoming appearance at the Rickshaw 15th anniversary shows, I asked him a bit more about Tony: does he have favourite stories? 

This takes us back to Budstock 81... 

Nick Jones skateboarding at sound check at Budstock 81, by bev davies, not to be reused without permission

Nick Jones: 

I'll tell you about my best interaction with Tony. So on the first two Bud Luxford records, Tony had a band with Randy Carpenter and a few other misfits called the Melody Pimps. Great band -- their two songs on those two records are great [see here and here, but note: Tony explains that he is actually not on the first of those to get released -- the band did it without him!]. I decided after the Budstock show, I decided that I was going to weasel my way into the band. So I did, and Tony and I, along with Randall T. Carpenter, wrote a ton of great songs for the Melody Pimps, but the only one that ever got recorded was called "You Freaked Me Out," which was a number one hit on CITR for four weeks in 1983. It was my jazz chord [in that song], an E-flat suspended 6th or something. Four consecutive weeks at number one! And we had a ton of other great songs that we wrote in the living room at 506 Victoria Drive, like "Hyper-ride," "Take the Blow and Go," "Camerio" (sp?) -- y'know, humour! It was funny. Tony is a funny guy -- you'll find that out when you talk to him. He reminds me of Bill Burr, the comedian; he's got a lot of the same facial expressions as Bill Burr. He's very sarcastic, a bit on edge, and pretty funny! He calls a spade a spade. 

Bill Burr

And Tony's a great guy -- a family man, two lovely kids and one step kid as well, a hard worker -- he's run his painting business for years. He's possibly the best guitarist out of the Vancouver punk scene; he's certainly light years ahead of anybody else in that league. 

Tony Walker at the Buddha the Bludgeoned Pigs "with Al on the floor" by bev davies, May 22nd, 1981. Not to be reused without permission!

...so that was Nick's input. My next call after talking to Nick was to Tony Walker himself...

Allan: So did your time on the Vancouver music scene start with the Bludgeoned Pigs? 

Tony: I think that was the first notable gig I did. I'm not sure what I joined first. I might have joined the Antheads first, but the first notable gig I did on the punk scene was with the Bludgeoned Pigs [note: J.J. Pearson, later of Ohio band Toxic Reasons, played with the Bludgeoned Pigs at the Hardcore 81 gig; see here for more]. 

Allan: I've seen a band called the Mants that actually perform with antheads on -- you didn't actually perform with costumes on, did you? 

Tony: We talked about doing something goofy like that, but we thought it would be too obvious. The name said it all: we're antheads. And that band actually -- we were a cohort of three or four of us. The Antheads sort of morphed into Perky Pat  which was more of an experimental thing that we did for a long time, where we would get together and jam, y'know, sit around the living room with our instruments and a drum machine and turn on the tapedeck and do a thing with tapeloops and what there was available at the time, like, sampling -- some of the that stuff hadn't been invented yet. So that's why we would just get tapes of different sounds we like or tape stuff off the TV. Some of that's up on Youtube. There's probably more Perky Pat than Antheads or anything else! 

Allan: Were you all Philip K. Dick fans? [Perky Pat features in Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch].

Tony: Well, that's where that came from. We were at the time! I think Antheads even might have had a Philip K. Dick connection [it does -- those who have "undergone significant mental damage" from radioactive fallout in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep]. I can't remember that far back. But that wasn't my band name. That was a band that I joined. I joined them kind of by accident. I went down to Long and McQuade where it used to be on 4th avenue over in Kitsilano; I was 17 or 18, around then. And I looked at the little bulletin board. Punk rock was something that I'd heard, that I liked; I was from North Van, so there wasn't anybody up there who knew what was going on. But I'd heard the Pistols, I'd heard the Clash, and a couple of other things. So I was looking at the bulletin board and I saw that DOA was on there, and Private School was another one that was looking for a guitar player. And the Antheads! So I wrote all these numbers down and called up Joe, and he's like. "Oh yeah, how old are you? 18? That's a good age, come on over." He wrote about that audition in his I, Shithead book. It's kind of funny. And the guy from Private School, his name was Ron [Ron Nelson], and the guy from the Antheads, his name was Ross [Ross Carpenter]. And somehow I got my lines crossed and thought I was trying out for Private School when I was trying out for the Antheads. And I ended up over at the Antheads, and when I went over there -- I'd already been to see a show at this point; I'd seen the Modernettes, I'd been to a couple of their shows, and when I went over there, Buck and Mary were hanging out there! Because Buck used to play with Ross in Active Dog. And in fact the other guitar player in the Antheads was Terry Bowes; he was also in Active Dog. And then there's Buck and Mary, and I'm thinking, "Fuck, are these guys in this band? Awesome!" Because I was an instant fan. It turned out that they were just hanging out, but it doesn't matter, I was sold on the Antheads, so I joined immediately. 

Tony Walker at Budstock 1981 (July 25th) with the Melody Pimps, by bev davies, not to be reused without permission

Allan: Was there actually a vintage recording? I know Supreme Echo put something out, but was that a demo?

Tony: That was a demo. We never actually released anything. That was half of the reason we broke up. But... after I joined that band, Gus [Vassos] joined. And we were starting to write. And, y'know, it wasn't moving fast enough. There was a lot of argument about how often we should be playing. And when you're 18, one year is a long time. So I was like, "One year in this band, that's enough of that!" And quit, and took Gus with me, and we started the Actionauts. But it wasn't a bitter breakup, we kept hanging out; the Antheads morphed into Perky Pat, it was all the same guys, the drummer, bass player, and Gus and myself, that's what Perky Pat was; it was just the Antheads doing experimental jamming. And some of it's pretty good! If there's one band I wish I had developed more, and had it become something, I'd say it would be Perky Pat. That's the one thing I think would stand up today, had we not just hung out and smoked weed. It was really different -- an art band, sure, but it was cool. And we also had Sam Salmon in the band, who was a real avant-gardist in his background -- he came from Steve Reich and Stockhausen and who turned me onto Kraftwerk. He's an interesting character who you've probably never heard of. His real name was Sam Salmon. And his middle name is Stark. So his name totally was Sam -- not Samuel -- Stark Salmon. He came with a built-in punk rock name! 

Allan: And he was in Perky Pat?

Tony: He was in Perky Pat, he was in the Actionauts... I met him in North Van, We went to the same high school when we were kids. I didn't know him, because we were four years apart; he was in grade 12 and I was grade 8. But he was in the electronic music department at Handsworth. I remember seeing him there, playing on a synthesizer in 1974 when I was a little goofball... 

Allan: Do any of these early bands have any bearing on what you do with the Rubes? Do you cover any of their songs?

Tony: No! I didn't really think of it. But it's not like I've got a lot of people asking to hear Actionauts stuff or Perky Pat. The Actionauts had a lot of really cool power pop songs. We didn't release very much either. I think there was one 45 single and then there was another song that was on a compilation album that Grant McDonagh put out years ago. I kind of wish it had been a different song. It was just some sort of rando B-side song: I said, "Oh nobody's heard this one, let's put that on!" -- when what I should have done is said, "Let's put the single on! Put the one song that people remember you by on!" But I didn't. 

Allan: What was that song, the one people remember?

Tony: The single from the 45 was called "Hash Assassin." [Did everyone realize that the words "hashish" and "assassin" come from the same place? Some fun reading there, if not, and relevant to the lyrics of the song]. That's a song that did get developed from a Perky Pat jam, one song that did get developed into a proper song. A lot of times we would just open a Philip K. Dick book and get the tape loops and drum machines going and just kind of read something, or -- another song, there was an Indian movie that was on the TV that was on the TV while we were playing, and we just read the subtitles. That song is called "Heart of Pooni." They were awesome lyrics - we had to bend them here and there, to get them to fit, but the lyrics are hilarious. 

But "Hash Assassin"... I can't remember if it was from a book that Gus was reading, but it came from a jam that we developed into a proper song, with a bridge and a chorus, and it went to number one on CiTR. And once in a blue moon they would play it on CBC radio, just because of the fact that it had been forwarded to them by CiTR, because it was a college radio station; they had a top 10 playlist, which is how CBC got their hands on it. The same way they would also play Kraftdinner. It was a joke, a fuck band -- I wouldn't say it was a tribute to Kraftwerk, because we would just take Kraftwerk songs and change the lyrics. "Trans-Euro Express" became "Dewdney Trunk Road." And that band did have costumes. We had some pretty Sigue Sigue Sputnik costumes that we came up with -- we were pretty flamboyant, pretty theatrical about that band. But that was just for fun -- that was an Actionauts splinter fuck band. 

Allan: Speaking of costumes, I've seen a photo that Bev provided from Budstock 81, with the Melody Pimps, and it looks like you're wearing a shiny blouse and striped pants. It's quite glammy.

Tony: I think that was something from a ballet or something like that, a weird little waistcoat, a ballerino jacket. Back when I weighed 140 pounds! 

Allan: Were there other bands you were in at this time?

Tony: I was in a band with Mary Jo called Thirsty Souls, [who are on] the second Bud Luxford album [pictured above].The first Bud Luxford album has the Melody Pimps, but I'm not on that one. I was in the band but I was workin' a job and those guys went and recorded that song without me. I was really pissed off about that actually. But the second album, I'm actually on a few tracks on that album. I'm one of the drummers on the Masons -- that was Phil Smith's thing. And then the Thirsty Souls. 

Allan: Tell me about "You Freaked Me Out."

Tony: That was around the same time. There was a time around then when I think I was in six bands at the same time! There was the Melody Pimps, Thirsty Souls, Actionauts, Bludgeoned Pigs... I was in another one called Avant Guard Dogs. I can't remember, but I'm sure if I sat down and made a list, there would be 35 bands that I was in to the 1990s... But "You Freaked Me Out," that was just another riff on Rick James' thing. We added that little jazz chord intro and then the "Super Freak" riff. We didn't go that far lyrically to change it! But the verses are a little different. 

Tony Walker with the Rubes, June 1, 2024, by Allan MacInnis

Allan: Did I understand that there was a lyric in there about "homemade caviar?" I wondered what that was. 

Tony: Homemade caviar? No! That goes, uh, "I took you out for dinner/ We both ate caviar/ And then we drank the champagne/ In the back seat of my car." But the live version, would would always say, "we drank the champagne," and in the low voice, "down with the cocaine..."! It was sort of a whiteface minstrel routine. 

Bert and Tony, LanaLou's, by Allan MacInnis

Allan: You actually do have a pretty good soul voice. On Treasure Town, you have a nod to the Temptations in the liner notes. You actually remind me a bit of Spencer of the Vanrays a bit on that album. 

Tony: I don't know who that is, but thanks for saying so! Y'know, everybody has their backgrounds. Punk rock wasn't to me so much a musical style that influenced me as it was a background to bounce off of. "Okay, is this what everybody's doing? Cool, I can wear my funky striped pants, and do this-and-that, and that's the backdrop." I was never a good punk rocker -- I never had the leather, the hair, the safety pins, all that bullshit, you know what I mean? It was guys like Buck Cherry that I admired, guys who were original: look at the guy's hair, he looks like a cross between Lucille Ball and... I don't know! I remember seeing him for the first time, with his hair all sticking up and big caterpillar eyebrows: "Holy crap, who is this guy with the jacket and the polka dot shirt and the pointy boots." Nobody else was looking like that, you know what I mean? And Mary too, they had this style, and I hadn't seen it til then. So as soon as I had an opportunity to get in a band with Mary -- "C'mon, let's do this, let's do the Thirsty Souls!" 

It didn't go very far, but I think that's because she was doing the Modernettes. And then the Actionauts started, and for whatever reason, there were other people in the band... It didn't so much as break up as drift apart. You just kind of forget about it! "Oh well, we got this other stuff." 

Allan: Nick was telling me about his time with the Melody Pimps. 

Tony: Nick wasn't originally in the band; he was always kind of peripheral [Nick remembers differently: "I probably missed the first few gigs, but I was there for most of the hey-day, and I did co-write all the good originals except for "Hyper-ride" and the two songs on the Luxford records!"]. But he was involved in songwriting, way back. I was still a teenager when we started that band. And I remember when we were writing some of these songs like "Give'r" and "Hyper Ride." I don't think Nick played with us for the first year; we would have started in 81, kind of thing. But he was by 1983. In '81 I think we went to Calgary with those guys, at the Calgarian. That was the first show I ever did out of town, going to Calgary to play with the Melody Pimps. Randy and the bass player, Mark McGill, had another band called the Nelson Brothers or something like that, that were playing the next week at the same hotel, so we all went out together. And there was Spaz Otis, the keyboard player, and Murphy, who was the guy playing bongo drums with Art Bergmann at the last thing -- his daughter sang backup vocals. Murphy was one of the Prime Movers of the original scene, putting on gigs out in White Rock, where the Shmorgs would be playing. So I went out there with Murphy, Randy, Ross, Spaz, who was Tom Upex, and  Mark McGill who was Mark Branscombe. And we went out to Calgary, played for a week, and then I came back here and they stayed for another week... so that was the original lineup. The first time Nick came in, we were doing some bigger shows at the Commodore and UBC, he came in for those. He might have gotten up and done a special song before then, but to come in as a full member, it was around the time when we were doing those Rank and File shows...

Mellow joins the Rubes for a couple of songs, LanaLou's, June 1, 2024, by Allan MacInnis

Allan: I was going to ask you about Alejandro Escovedo; you cover his song "Tugboat" on Standing Rubes Only. He was in Rank and File when you opened for them, right? 

Tony: Yeah, he was the other guitar player; I don't think he sang anything. He was the rhythm guitar player. 

Allan: I forget, are you on the Escovedo 101 comp? [A now-rare compilation of Vancouver musicians covering Alejandro Escovedo songs as a benefit for him when he collapsed onstage]. 

Tony: Yeah, that "Tugboat" song is on there. That was on there, and then I asked Alejandro and whoever recorded it, who owned the recording, "Hey, I could use another song, can I put this on my disc?" I just really liked the song. And when they were talking about it... he lives in Texas, they don't have Medicare down there. I don't know if we made him $10 off that comp, but hopefully enough people bought it that something was done. That was the idea. He got some kind of surgery back then, I can't remember what happened to him. And I was flipping through songs of his, trying to pick one I liked, and I found that one. I played around with it a bit; listen to the original and then listen to mine. We had some fun with it. 

Allan: How about Charlie Quintana? How did you connect with him?

Tony: I met him through a friend, and not a musician friend, either -- my buddy Andreas, who's more or a restauranteur; he runs Les Faux Bourgeois, and he used to run Bukowski's, over on the Drive there. He's just a drinking buddy; we were united together by the "glue of our loathsome qualities." And he took me to see a show where Charlie was playing drums; I can't remember who it was. But he just knew Charlie, and by knowing Andreas, I got to know Charlie. Whenever he came to town with Social Distortion, we'd go to the shows, and we were just hanging around all the time. So one time I said "Do you want to play drums on the CD I'm working on now?" I didn't have a band, I just had a bunch of songs I'd worked up on my own, just in my little Portastudio at home. I wrote all the songs at the same time. It wasn't like the Standing Rubes Only CD which is a bunch of songs from different eras, not even necessarily recorded at the same time. They were all written at different times and recorded at different times. Whereas Treasure Town was written over a six-to-nine month period, and I went in there one day, just me and Charlie, nobody else, and tracked all the drums, and then I overdubbed all the instruments. I did all the guitar and bass myself, and then hired people to do the keyboards and the steel guitar and backing vocals and whatever else is on there. I think Nick's on one of those songs. 

Allan: Did Charlie ever talk about the Dylan thing?  [That's a link to an interview with Plugz' bassist Tony Marsico, on the left; the person to the right of Dylan is Charlie, from their appearance backing him on the Letterman show. That's a really informative article, by the way, and where I stole this image from... sorry...! No photographer given, backstage at the Dylan show... on the far right is JJ Holliday... Tito wasn't involved...]

Tony: Okay, I'll tell you Charlie Quintana's Bob Dylan story -- one of them, anyway, that I can remember. He was staying at a hotel and I guess he was smoking some weed in his hotel room by himself, and the phone rings and he picks it up, and it's like: "Yeah, this is the hotel detective, we've had some complaints about the smells coming from you room. And we're coming up with an officer and we'll be there shortly." [Tony here adopts Charlie's voice to tell the story]: "Holy shit! So I get my stash and I flush my stash and I'm just panicked, I'm freaking out. And then there's nothing. And then the phone rings again, I hear this, 'Ha ha ha ha ha! Hey man, sorry to bust your balls!'" It was Bob Dylan, jerking him around. After he flushed all his shit and everything. And: 'Can you bring some weed down?' 'No! I just flushed it all, asshole!'" 

Allan: Ha! It's like Keith Richards story, where someone knocks at the door, says, "The police are here," he flushes everything, opens the door, and it's Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers, and Sting...

Tony: Yeah, I've heard that one! 

Allan: Did you ever listen to Daniel Romano's reimagining of the Plugz-Dylan thing, if Dylan had brought them into the studio. It's like a fake Dylan and the Plugz!

Tony: It's too bad he never actually did that! He went onto the Letterman show with them, why didn't he go into the studio! If you listen to [that Letterman clip] I would have liked to helped them with their guitar sound, because, if you listen to them, they've got a really shrill Fender-through-a-Marshall sound. "Let's roll some bass onto that, maybe use an SG -- Bob, use a proper guitar!"

Allan: What do you play, and is there a history to it? 

Tony: Lately I've been playing a lot of SGs. I have a 66 Telecaster which I was using back in the day, that was my number one. I traded a Marshall Cab for it back when I was 18. I don't have it here [at LanaLou's -- this portion of the interview was done just before the show]. 

Allan: You're playing an SG tonight? 

Tony: Yeah, I got a couple of them. I just like the sound of them. I still like the Teles and everything, but you get used to playing something. I had a 64 Stratocaster that I played almost exclusively all through the McKenzies. [Tony was in the Real McKenzies for longer than most of the other bands here, he informs me; we return to this below]. And then I sold it, and bought a Mexican Strat, and used that for awhile. It was right around the time that I started doing Treasure Town, I wanted to get that real Gibson, y'know, hard guitar "tonk" sound. It's an iconic sound that you're not getting off something else, maybe a good copy. But I did buy a good copy... and then I bought an actual Gibson... and then I bought a couple more copies...

Allan: This is starting to seem like a lot of guitars -- are you a collector?

Tony: Not a collector. I wouldn't... I don't have guitars where it's like, "Oh, look at this, this is my..." They're cheap! I don't believe in paying a lot of money for a guitar. If it's a nice guitar to play, like, the Gibson I brought tonight, that cost me like, $800-$900 bucks. But the other one I have cost me $145. But it's every bit as good. In fact, I might be playing that one first, because it's awesome. Some guy made it, it's not just some assembly line copy. It's got this mother-of-pearl inlay. You'll probably see it. And then I got an Epiphone, which is a subsidiary, a Gibson knockoff company, I've got one of theirs. And that first one I'm talking about, but I don't play it as much. I should probably sell it, let some kid have it...

Allan: Okay, coming back to Treasure Town, why did you put that out as an Anthony Walker album, as opposed to a Tony Balony album? 

Tony: Because that's not really what it was, y'know. I didn't know what to call that -- in a way, I maybe kinda wish I could have called it something else. I guess branding has always been my problem. I've been in a million different bands. And that goofy Tony Balony name, that was something that came along in the Antheads! Had I known it was going to stick like tar, I would have said, "Fuck you, you're calling me that!" At the time I was, like, a teenager: "Hey, cool, I've got a punk rock name!" And after, it was like, people kept calling me that: "Hey, I'm not in that band anymore... Okay, fine." I was called that in school when I was a kid, it was something the kids would tease me with: "Tony Balony/ Full of macaroni..." So it wasn't a dashing punk rock name I cared about. I wasn't a Randy Rampage, or someone with an awesome name like that!

Allan: Heh. Yeah, it is kind of humble. So is there a consistency between incarnations of the Rubes? I don't know who is playing next week. Who is in the band? 

Tony: I've been with the same guys for awhile. Walter Brady and Alex Koch were on that first CD you've got there, And then the Anthony Walker album was Charlie and myself. That was funny: I gave Charlie all these demos, with just me recording them on the Portastudio, as best as I could. I'm not very technical, I'm not an engineer. I can barely work a Portastudio, which is a goofy little tapedeck idea that came out in the 1980s. And he heard them and he goes, "These are great songs! When we go in the studio, I don't want to hear any bass players or keyboard players or any other guys. I just want to hear you and your guitar in my headphones." And I go, "Oh, perfect, awesome, because that's all I got!" 

And when we went to record it at Mushroom, or whatever it's called now, it was just me and him, except for one track that Ray Garaway played drums on. [Nick adds: "Treasure Town, outside of the drums, was mostly recorded and mixed at Gord's old studio in Japantown, called Paramount Recorders. Same place we did two records, and the Furies, Bughouse 5, Juvenile Hall and others recorded at as well. Gord played most of the keyboards, and his contributions to the sound of Treasure Town were huge."]

[FINAL EDIT?: Anthony replies to Nick's comment: "Nick was right that Gord was instrumental in that disc getting done so well but he only actually plays on one track, "Already There." Mark Olexson did most keyboard tracks and I even did a couple. Gord engineered and co-produced which was a monumental task I can assure you."]

The Rubes with guest vocalist Mellow (By Allan MacInnis)

The Rubes with guest vocalist Bert Man (Bert Canete), also by me

Allan: What is Treasure Town, is that an actual antique shop? 

Tony: I don't know! It was just a lyric that -- a lot of times I just write stream-of-consciousness; I'll track the song first, the verses and the parts are there, and I'll turn the mic on, and where I want to put lyrics, I'll kind of sing along to it and just mumble stuff, then listen back to it: "Gee, what does that sound like you're saying?" "That sounds like you're saying 'Treasure Town.' Cool, we'll call it that!" I'm not saying that's how we did all of it -- a lot of those songs were carefully and painstakingly written, like "Starlight TrainStarlight Train" or "Already There." I don't think I've ever played that one live. A lot of those are what you call album tracks: "That will be on the album, I'm not going to play that live."

Allan: What do you play live?

Tony: Good question! I let Dave [identity unclear!] put that together. They want to do the fun ones, they want to do the rockers. From Treasure Town, we'll do "Right Again." We do "Low Profile" and "Jubilee." "Jubilee" is the one Nick Jones sings backups on. And there's a couple of others. 

(Thinking that's James-Tony-Dave-Doug, lifted from the Rubes FB, photographer not identified)

Allan: Can we return to who is in the band now? 

Tony: Doug Donut has been playing drums in the latest incarnation. Like I say, the first album was done with Alex and Walter, and we played around a few years after that. And then I took a bit of a break -- I can't remember what happened, but usually what happens is, I'll get pissed off about a show, where something happens or we're treated with disrespect, and I'll get out for a year and not do anything until I get out of my system. "Okay, fine, I'll get in some band and play again." When we recorded Treasure Town, I think Charlie played the first few shows after that. And then Richard Brown was one drummer that played with me. But -- I remember we did a show at the Media Club, and somebody just took a piss on us there, a so-called promoter, and I was just so pissed off about the whole thing that I went, "What am I doing this for? Fuck this." And parked it for a few years. 

Allan: So I still don't know who the current band is! 

Tony: Doug Donut, Dave Charan [aha!] -- he plays with We Found a Lovebird -- and James Paul McMaster Phillips... he's got a lot of names. I call him James Names, because he's got so many names; that's his dashing punk rock name, James Names. 

Allan: A final question, then -- some stories about the video for the song you did with the Real McKenzies, "Mainland." Who shot that? 

Tony: Danny Nowak! [Who shot Hard Core Logo, sang in the Spores, and is currently a member of Stiff Middle Finger, may they play again soon].

Allan: That is Danny! Cool. Okay, where did you guys do that?

Tony: Off in the water off Point Grey, near Wreck Beach, out that end. And then other parts of it are shot in North Van. The part where the ambulance comes and takes me away, that was real. I seriously injured myself on the beach there. 

Allan: Oh no! 

[Warning: this gets a bit wincy]

Tony: We were in the water, and on the sand, but it was in this area -- people aren't supposed to go there. There were these old boat hulls that were rotting away beneath the sand. So I'm walking out, singing along, and I didn't have any shoes on, because we're on the beach, you know... and I stepped down and the sand sunk and this rusty old spike from one of these hulls went right through my foot and through the top. I had to pull my foot off of it... 

Allan: Oh jeezus.

Tony: Heheheheheheheheh. Danny Nowak, who has a foot phobia or whatever you want to call it, saw this and fainted. Hahahahaha! So he keels over, and that was the end of the shoot -- except they kept going, and filmed it when the ambulance is showing up, they're wrapping up my foot, and take me away. My dentist was watching the video later, and he goes, "I was watching your video, and -- those [ambulance attendants] were real!" "Yeah, of course!" "What, they let you film them? Didn't you have to get some release form?" "No, we just asked them, and they said, 'Go ahead.'" 

Allan: Sorry, who was watching? 

Tony: My dentist. He was the one who was medically astute enough to see they were wearing the patches. That's not Hollywood, those are actual ambulance attendants. But there are no ill effects, other than, I can still feel it once in awhile. It was a bit of a piercing, heheheheheh.

Allan: So they had to treat you for tetanus and shit?

Tony: Yeah, they were cleaning it out with pipe cleaners, you know what I mean? Oh, it was horrible, you don't want to hear all those details. I was in Lion's Gate, I was in there for hours. They'd come in, they'd freeze it, then they'd clean it out, they'd freeze it. And then they'd take forever and ever and the freezing would wear off. Meanwhile my foot's floating in this saline... and then they'd come back again and freeze it again, poke into it, sticking the needles right into the wound. After like four hours that I'd been in there, I kicked the bowl of the saline onto the floor. So finally they stitch it up and then, after they stitch it up, they take the X-ray: "Oh, no, there's still some material in there!" "Well why didn't you take the X-ray before you stitched it up! You're not taking that apart now -- I'll just wait for it to come out in the wash." And over the years, it worked its way through -- bits of sand that were still in there. 

Allan: Oh my god. That's hilarious that Danny fainted, because he's a big horror film addict! 

Tony: If you tell him, "the sickening gristle-y crunch of the spike going through Tony Balony's foot," BANG, he'll fall over. Heheheheh. The sickening gristle-y crunch! Heheheheheh!

The gig is now over, but see vid I shot for the Rubes doing "Starlight Train" Crummy doing "Goofy's Concern" and "Motor" (here), and Tequila Bats (with Orchard Pinkish) doing (a portion of) Tom Waits' "Underground" and Roger Alan Wade's "If You're Gonna Be Dumb, You Gotta Be Tough," here. The poster was this! This is not a show review but just a word to the wise, Tequila Bats do an acoustic "Ace of Spades" that you're going to want to see...