The Rubber Gun: a meta-level Montreal masterpiece, Plus Pump Up the Volume, Cronenberg, Lewis Furey and more

It's been awhile since a movie has pleased me and confused me to so such an equal degree, like maybe not since the first time I saw Blow Up or The Passenger...? Films that are puzzleboxes, but in a kind of inspiring, exciting, "what-did-I-just-see" way, that leave you genuinely thoughtful for a time?

Some puzzleboxes just piss you off. The form has been cheapened over the years: too many bad, lazy puzzlebox movies -- puzzles for their own sake.  The cinema of the day is far too much Christopher Nolan, not enough Antonioni. 

The Rubber Gun -- made (in English) in Montreal in the 1970s, and screening this Tuesday at the Cinematheque, when you approach it thematically, is a fascinating puzzlebox indeed, enough so that I guess if you really want to be puzzled by it, skip the bolded chunks below.

SPOILERS (proceed only if you know the film, or don't care). You can safely skip bolded sections and read the rest (look for the words "End Spoiler Alert" below) if spoilers are an issue. 

The Rubber Gun, ends (for the most part) with the character named Alan Moyle (played by actor/ writer/ director Alan Moyle), handing a book to the character Stephen Lack (played by -- you'll sense a pattern here -- Canadian actor/ writer/ artist Stephen Lack). 

The volume, hardbound in black, is, in fact, Moyle's doctoral thesis, and Lack and his friends are its subject. Lack is not impressed that Moyle has documented their activities as drug-dealing, drug-using, thrivingly-decadent countercultural hipsters, whose inner circle Moyle has infiltrated. Moyle has argued, contrary to the widely-held belief that drug use is destructive, that Lack's group has been "vitalized by drug use," and he's penetrated them both metaphorically and perhaps literally (there is talk of gay sex at a couple points in the film, but it's never shown, just as there are no graphic closeups of people shooting up; on some level, the film is most respectful of its subjects, which makes sense, since they're all basically playing themselves -- not that the film exactly makes them look good). 

However sympathetic Moyle's representations -- the fictional ones, in the thesis -- may be, Lack thinks they may still have played a role in his subjects' downfall (a few of them are in jail by the end of the film, though you'd hope all caper elements are pure fiction). Mostly Lack feels betrayed: What made Moyle feel he had the right to proceed so dishonestly, to pretend to befriend them so he could write about them...?

You know the book The Journalist and the Murderer, right?

END SPOILER ALERT

Really, I feel like I'm only doing you a favour by giving this much away, because the film is going to leave you with questions regardless. You might want to get a head start on thinking about them. But don't spend too much time on the paradox that the non-fictional thesis in the film is actually the film's fiction, while the fictional meta-narrative is, on some level, the documentary. That way lies madness: "the statement on the other side of this paper is false."

SPOILER ALERT #2

Coming back to that thesis statement, that book that Moyle presents Lack with: Moyle expects him to be pleased -- naively, almost on the level of "look, pa, I wrote about about you!" -- but instead, Lack feels  offended, even indignant. "You've got me down, there it is, two-dimensional, Steve Lack, in a package!" he shouts at him, adding, "I don't trust you because you sit and write me down in little paragraphs and you think because you've approximated me you're doing me a favour. That's not true!" 

As a writer -- an approximator of others -- I can see what he's talking about: it is too easy to assume you understand the complexities of someone you are interacting with, too easy to get carried away. One should not presume they "know" people they are writing about. Other people are not characters in a story told by you.  

In any event, Lack directs Moyle to take his thesis and leave. There's a bit more to the film than that, but for all intents and purposes, this is the climax--one of the more anticlimactic ones out there, really, in terms of providing catharsis or resolution in terms of "action," but perfect if you think of the thesis as a metaphor for the film itself, and thus the only real way it could be "unmade"--because Moyle is also the filmmaker, not just the character, and he's basically being told to stop. The tension of the film throughout is less one of "What will happen to these characters," but rather, if you're watching it with eye for theme, a question of what it will all amount to, and whether you'll have the wit to make sense of it. 

END SPOILER ALERT #2

So if I understand it, The Rubber Gun is a sort of parable about representation, setting it on the shelf, even if the angle it fits at is someone oblique, with self-reflexive classics like David Holzman's Diary, The Connection, or maybe the works of filmmaker Peter Watkins (whose fictional feature Punishment Park, with Watkins playing the filmmaker making a documentary film of the same name, was so realistic it was taken by some for a genuine documentary in Europe). It must have been during my period of vocal enthusiasm for such films that Adrian Mack recommended it to me, years ago, when I was writing for The Nerve...? The Rubber Gun appears to be a meta-level examination of the process of making art, of the responsibilities of the artist, and of the relationship of art to the real. A deep film if you are deep, like, even if you don't necessarily have to go there to get off on it... 

Because it's not all mindfuck. There is also, as I say, a small caper thriller and some badly-dressed 1970s cops, whose facial hair and clothing is utterly ridiculous; the chief one among them accidentally evokes Alan "Goorwitz" Garfield, circa Busting. Mack calls this character "the porkiest of the pigs." Intertextual moustache alert!

Regardless of how many people in this film are playing themselves, we presume that these are not real cops: it would be asking a lot (though I would be impressed).

There's also an energetic, smart (-assed) depiction of the Montreal art scene of the mid-1970s, with dialogue that is both quasi-scripted (because people flub a few lines, which means that lines existed at some point) and (at times) probably (mostly) totally improvised. There's a certain guerilla verve to the filmmaking, on the streets and stations of Montreal. Lewis Furey does the soundtrack, though that song seems to be about the movie (not sure it's actually one of the ones in it). It's engaging -- he's not someone I've listened to. A bit Sparks-y, I kinda like it.  

And the performances are pretty compelling: nowhere have people ever played themselves so well. 

It's also going to scratch an itch or two for certain kind of cinephile, because it connects to a couple of other films. Fans of Cronenberg's Scanners might have always wondered (sorry!) if Stephen Lack can act. Like, is Cameron Vale a performance so perfectly believable that you think Lack might just be playing himself: is the man just a terrible actor who is really just like that -- a flattened, incomplete, uncomfortably affectless bum? 

If these questions interest you enough that you just want to see what Lack is like in a very different role, you may want to consider the next section as a 

SPOILER: Surprise! Lack is terrific in this, which retroactively makes me realize that he's great in Scanners, too. Phew! Because if he's playing himself in The Rubber Gun, he's sure playing someone else in Scanners. 

Actually that might be how the film came up between Mack and I, too.

Another interesting aspect of the film: some of you might recognize the name of Alan Moyle (a Canadian filmmaker who doesn't get his due? Perhaps an interesting idea for a film retrospective? Just saying). Many of us I suspect, know him from multiple viewings of Pump Up the Volume back in 1990 (or the years thereafter). Certainly that was my first knowing association with his name -- caught that film a few times theatrically, then again on video. I liked New Waterford Girl, too, but Pump Up the Volume is a childhood favourite I am a bit terrified to revisit, in case it hasn't aged well. I saw it so many times in my early 20s that I can still remember lines of dialogue (or at least, one: "I can smell a lie like a fart in a car.")

Have not done Empire Records or The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag, either. Should I? Mostly I want to see Times Square -- that soundtrack was important to me, was definitely how I first heard Patti Smith, the Cure, the Ruts, and maybe even "Life During Wartime," but I've never seen the film. And, like, what is Weirdsville? 

Oh, and he's also Marilyn Chambers' last victim in Rabid, too, the one who comes back and kills her. So Moyle and Lack both have Cronenberg connections, from around the same time period... 

The Rubber Gun certainly deserves its Canadian cult status. Thanks to Adrian Mack for calling it to my attention;  Robert Dayton is a fan, too, we gather. Glad I finally caught it. Meantime, read Adrian's article, if you haven't yet. He likens the film to "some of Warhol’s seedier efforts, although considerably more watchable." And there are fewer penises on view (I'm assuming he means Flesh, Heat, and Trash here -- films, actually by Paul Morrissey -- but then, I haven't seen a lot of Warhol-qua-Warhol, and he might have. Which films do you mean, man?). 

The Rubber Gun screens this Tuesday at the Cinematheque. Don't miss it.  THIS IS NOT A CURRENT POSTER but man it is cool -- it's for the restoration's Toronto premiere, a couple months ago. And look, Robert's on it! 

The Last Horrorshow - scattered thoughts after the fact

So that was new: so many people came out to the Horrorshow last night that they had to open up a second theatre; lucky they had the tech to project the movie onto two separate screens! Would guess this was the only time that's happened, based on the scandalously small handful of these that I have attended over the years... 

My going to the Horrorshow started over ten years ago, when I still lived in Maple Ridge -- which I did between 2009 and, roughly, 2014, moving back there from Vancouver to look after my Mom -- with a screening of Night of the Living Dead, which I had only ever seen on a small screen, up to that point.  Since my Mom died, I don't go back to that town very often -- there are as many bad memories for me as good out there, and a lot of associations I'm happy to leave in my past -- but it was kind of fun to ride out on the West Coast Express again, as I used to do regularly for a time, when I was still living there and working in Vancouver...

I came out pretty much straight after work. It wasn't the first time I'd gotten the bus from Maple Meadows to the Value Village at 207th. I was able to get an extra discount by agreeing to receive promotional emails (there's some sort of drive to collect these, for the next couple of days, if you haven't signed up yet). Got a small stack of books, a Godard movie I actually have never seen, and a Wallace Beery silent film, The Red Lily, as a gift for ARGH!!. 

The best finds at the VV were a Hard Case Crime Richard Stark novel (Lemons Never Lie, one of the Grofield spinoff novels, which are a bit more Westlakian -- punctuated with goofy humour -- than the Parker series; there's four different versions of the book, including two different Hard Case ones! I found the top one, with the Elmore Leonard blurb. I've read pretty much all the Parkers, but I don't know that I've read this: 

Also found a vintage PBO (paperback original) called Bloodroot, by Thomas Mordane, which has some wacky descriptions here. Druids in Vermont? Human sacrifice? An evil tree? Sign me up! The nice thing about Value Village (shh, don't tell them) is that the very coolest stuff they get in, they generally don't know what it is and underprice it -- they're asking $9.99 or whatever for stuff like Jordan Peterson and only $1.99 for an actual collectible (which is what I paid for this, less my buy-four-get-one-free and added 30% signup discount). It's no big deal, maybe worth $20, so it's not like Eat Them Alive or anything (which I found thrifting for $1 last year; there is currently one copy of that one on Abe, for about $500 CAD)... but I'm a sucker for this kind of thing (killer bugs are cooler than killer trees, by me, but killer trees are also pretty appealing). 

So I killed a couple of hours, grabbed a fast (pretty good) butter chicken at the Indian restaurant in the same strip mall, then set out out for the theatre at around 9pm. Turns out I would fuck up and not arrive for another hour! With my newly-full backpack, I headed first for a milkshake at the 203rd McDonald's, passing the former location of the Rogers Video where I bought my first copy of Trollhunter (I've upgraded to blu since!). Then I went to the bus stop and realized -- oh shit, this is a 701 stop, which means it's going to take me through the backass of Hammond again. I so resent that detour -- having been dragged through it so many times on bus commutes back and forth through Maple Ridge that I've probably given it a year of my life or more -- that I was not going to wait for THAT bus. I ended up actually phoning a taxi, but the driver couldn't find me, couldn't reach me (my ringer was off), and tried to call me from a private number, so I couldn't call them back... I went to the next 701 stop and realized I'd missed that bus, anyhow... so I elected to head out to the highway and catch an R3, instead, whereupon I realized that the R3 -- the new (for me, anyhow) bus that actually does an efficient beeline between Maple Ridge and Coquitlam -- didn't have a stop anywhere along that stretch of road. I had figured there'd be one as soon as I got on the highway! I started walking, cars whizzing by me, thinking, "There will be a bus stop sooner or later!" 

There was no bus stop. It was about 9:40 by the time I called Erika, to let her know that I would be late joining her in line (we were meeting at the Hollywood; she also wanted to get out and show support for Jonny!). I told her I thought I was going to have to walk it -- which I remember actually thinking was an exaggeration, when I said it. She reassured me, it was okay, the line was really long, and moving really slooowly... Ah well: I hadn't had much exercise yesterday (I think, when I finally arrived, that she calculated the distance I walked at 3.4 miles). 

Eventually a familiar set of Golden Arches appeared ahead of me on the highway. Almost there! 

The line, when I arrived just after 10 -- which is when the movie was supposed to have started -- still extended around the corner. The Fog, last month, did pretty well, but this was kinda nuts. When I arrived, Jonny's sister was doing panicked sprints up and down the line, doing a headcount, trying to calculate if they could fit everyone into two theatres. But there was only one till open at the concession, and everyone would have to be seated before they started, so the movie didn't start til after 11. 

Good thing my wife wanted to join me -- I'd never have gotten to finish the movie, otherwise!

Jonny had posters from the Rickshaw gig and old Horrorshows, which he was signing for people. I grabbed copies of The Fog and King Kong, which I actually had been to; there was no Night of the Living Dead. I grabbed a Black Christmas for my friend David M., and because I know it's Jonny's favourite Carpenter, In the Mouth of Madness. I'm pretty sure I went to one other Horrorshow, back when I lived in Maple Ridge, but I have no recollection at all what it might have been. I was happy to see Trollhunter among the posters: how could I have missed that?!

I grabbed vinyl of that Acoustic Brunch thing, too, just to have one song of Jonny's on vinyl (there was Ninjaspy and Social Outcasts vinyl, too, but he's not on those records). 

I have no idea what any of this could be like for Jonny. Like, on the one hand, this is a LOT OF LOVE AND SUPPORT and on the other hand it is also A LOT TO TAKE IN when you're also dealing with cancer and communicating with people through text (it did look like he was actually talking to a few people, last night, but he's telling me, on reading this, that he can't, anymore -- some people are just better lip readers than others). The Gofundme is now over its $50,000 goal. Reports are that over $20,000 more was raised at the Rickshaw in terms of both donations and merch sales. I would guess there was another $5000 taken in yesterday? Bear in mind that the last time I saw Jonny play LanaLou's, about a year ago, before he got cancer, there were maybe 20 people in the room (the video has had 12 views, as of this writing, while a Still Spirits clip from the same time period has 43). I would guess that last night's attendance was maybe 10 times larger than the very largest of Horrorshows past. Where are all these people coming from?!

It actually reminds me a bit of the time that Lemmy joked with me when I asked him about a lyric on the title track of the Sam Gopal album he did -- the first album where he sang and played songs he wrote, pre-Hawkwind. Bearing in mind, Jonny is STILL WITH US, and let's hope he stays with us for a long time, but the line goes, "if you like me when I'm living/ you're gonna love me when I'm dead." "Because," as Lemmy explained it, backstage at the Vogue, "people get better when they’re dead! I mean, Buddy Holly and Randy Rhoads -- they acquired much more dexterity on the guitar when they were dead. Nobody seemed to notice it before..."

I mean, I'm joking here -- and I think Lemmy was, too, because he would have known as well as any of us that people loved both Buddy Holly and Randy Rhoads when they were around (just maybe not in such numbers).  I wonder, though -- being more of an asshole than Jonny, I guess -- if the thought has crossed his mind that it would have been nice to have this many people out on ANY OTHER OCCASION he was involved in? Is part of him, like, retroactively jealous, or something? (Is there even a word for that emotion?). I wouldn't blame him, if so!

(And I mean, I sure wish I'd come out to more of these, back when I actually lived out there. Fifteen years, and I only went to four or possibly five of these? Where's that time machine at -- I want a do-over!). 

All the same, it's great that the situation has captured people's attention and that so many people are getting out to show the love. 

Sometime soon, I expect, you will see photos on social media of Jonny striking a pose in front of the audience at the Hollywood. It happens that he went front-and-centre for this, which meant that he was standing in front of me and my wife. I strained my neck to peek over his shoulder and get in the camera, but here's Erika, and note: THIS WAS *NOT* THE FIRST TIME SHE'D COME OUT TO SOMETHING JONNY DID. She'd seen him at a couple of Adstocks, back when I was living in Maple Ridge and she was coming out to visit me! 

Of course, Carrie was great -- though I find I enjoy most in the film the buildup to her lashing out, when things seem to be going so well for her; DePalma's epic climax, which I think is the draw for a lot of people -- and may have been once, for me, too, seems a bit too-too on the horror-movie side of things, now, like he doesn't know how to have blood and fire and violence and still keep a tragic tone, and the scenes with Carrie and her Mom at the end don't ring nearly as true as, basically, anything else in the film (her Mom STABS her? And why the hell does the house collapse, even? Carrie doesn't seem to be willing it...). But it's still a classic tale of a misfit's revenge, a theme I definitely resonated with when I read the novel as a teenager. King has pulled Rage, his school shooter novel, from publication, but there are similarities, which run through other works, other characters of his, like Harold Emery Lauder in The Stand. Carrie -- the character or the movie -- is maybe the most tragic of all of them. I kind of want to see the remake now, to see how they handle things?

Jonny's prepared speech, which was read for him before the film started, is the same as he posted on Facebook. I'm cutting and pasting it here because Facebook is kind of ephemeral, who knows if this will be easy to find in the future: 

TONIGHT!

It's the end of an era.

I've had the pleasure of sharing my favorite films of all time with a smattering of creeps, ghouls and fellow fear friends for the past 15 years, and tonight we get to gather once more inside the comforting crypt of the Hollywood 3 for one last time, to celebrate the simple pleasure of a horror movie with friends.

I can't truly express what being able to do these nights had meant to be over the years. There's some ephemeral quality to doing a thing like this; here one second and gone the next, existing only in that moment, that means more to me than most of you will ever truly know.

It's why I seek out live experiences. Why I go to shows, see a play, or catch a film on opening night.

These are moments in time that will only ever exist once, never to be repeated.

And while, yes, there is always another show, and you can pull up these films in the comfort of your living room the simple tap of a button, that doesn't really capture the moment in the same way.

You weren't there, you're not a part of it. You missed the energy in the room, the spark of life in a shared experience.

Those moments mean more to me than anything I've ever known, and being able to do it again, one last time, is bittersweet; but it also feels right.

To end my horror hosting career with the film that launched my favorite author, from minor literary failure to a household name and enduring horror icon, is full circle in a way that is almost to perfect to plan.

That's because I didn't.

It just worked out that way.

I didn't know when I selected this film that the theater would be shutting, I didn't know that it would be the last title I ever got to screen.

The fact that in the 15 years I've been doing this that I never screened such an obviously iconic choice is also interesting.

It's like it was waiting.

Life's funny like that.

See you tonight.

Come watch a horror movie with me.

I guarantee it's still the best $10 you can spend in this town on a Friday night.

I promise.

It was nearly 2am when people filtered out. I would guess that there were still people at the theatre, posing for selfies with Jonny, getting things signed, and talking about horror movies and punk rock, by the time my wife and I were back here in bed. 

Would sure be nice if some Vancouver movie theatre stepped up and offered Jonny another chance to do this in front of an audience, but then again, maybe he's ready to take a break? This has been a pretty momentous week. 

Thanks for your generosity, Jon. See you again sometime.  

Power in the Blood: Carrie at the Last Horrorshow THIS FRIDAY

The last Horrorshow is the first adaptation of the first-published Stephen King novel: a horror movie about religious fundamentalism, persecution of outsiders/ high school bullying, and menstrual blood. And pigs blood. And Christ's blood. There's power in the blood, I'm told. (And power in telekinesis, for that matter, but, uh, spoiler alert?). Imagine everyone has seen this film already but if you haven't, Roger Ebert wrote a glowing review of it back in 1976 that does the film justice, which you maybe shouldn't read, because holy shit, if you haven't seen this movie, how lucky you are! Just come see it without knowing anything more about it; that's the way to go! It's screening this Friday -- doors at 9:30.  

If you haven't done a Horrorshow before, there won't be any more. You've already (I hope) read about Jonny, which is more than enough reason to make the trek, but the movie is terrific, too. Jonny deserves a full house for the last Horrorshow! Hope to see you there... 

Transit notes for fellow non-drivers who do NOT live in the Maple-Meadows area: 

Getting to the Hollywood 3 in Pitt Meadows is not hard: I'll be taking the scenic West Coast Express luxury commuter train out of Waterfront Station, leaving at 5:30: the landscape is pretty, out the window, during the summer, and the train arrives early enough that you can probably catch a one of the other movies (Sinners is all right). You're also a short busride from the Maple Ridge Value Village at 207th, if that's more your scene. Get off at Pitt Meadows Station and walk or bus north on Harris Road -- it's not far!

You'll have a couple hours to kill -- there are some restaurants along Harris Road, though they'd all closed by the time I got there and I was stuck with maybe the most depressing McDonalds ever, last time, so... arriving early isn't a bad idea... 

There's also a super-fast bus, the R3, out of Coquitlam Central, for fellow non-drivers -- a straight shot with few stops. To catch it, take the Millenium Line for LaFarge Lake/ Douglas and get off at Coquitlam Central and find the bus loop... I think the R3 stop is at the near corner as you approach the loop. Getting there is easy! What you have to be concerned about is getting back -- you might want to hang out at the theatre with Jonny and friends, but if you plant to catch the Skytrain back into the city, you have to be aware of the last run!

To get the bus home: cross the Lougheed Highway to the stop numbered 59823, I believe it is -- just across the highway from the theatre. There are buses at 11:55 and 12:12, but if I understood the transit operator correctly, if you want to connect to trains going all the way into town -- depending on where you're going -- you might have to be on the 11:55. I would recommend clearing this with BC Transit? There's also a 12:12 but I'm not 100% sure that some of the lines won't have stopped running by then!

Won't lie, it's a bit of an adventure gettin' back, if you're not used to standing on the highway waiting for the midnight bus, but, like, come with a friend (or get a ride!). See you there...?

Jonny Bones Benefit vs. the Clowns Down the Street: double-booked again

I was double-booked again last night. 

Really, my inclination was to stay at the Rickshaw for the Jonny Bones tribute (which I wrote about here). But I am interviewing Dan Scum later today (and did a pre-interview here), so I figured I should actually see him do his thing (I had only seen Powerclown with a different frontman, while Dan was still in prison). I was enjoying the Rickshaw show a bunch, and am actually more inclined to ska-punk than Maiden these days, but professionalism trumps all, I guess... 

I learned the hard way that I've been away from Maple Ridge a long time. Even despite the graphic of the town's centerpiece mechanical horse, I read the opening band's name as being "Big Shiny Horse Cock" at first. "That's a weird name," I thought. But if you don't know Maple Ridge, swapping the cock for a clock doesn't actually make it make much more sense! 

They were fun. I didn't pay attention to some of the openers (sorry!) and didn't try to document EVERYTHING (because I was mostly there to DANCE), but I liked Big Shiny Horse Clock enough that I snapped a photo, mostly because the keyboard player (who sang a few of the songs) was wearing a bone-suit that I'd seen Jonny in back in 2014 at Adstock...

There's Jonny, with the Rebel Spell behind him, sprinting around the pagoda... compare with the circle pit in the Brasser video below!

I did shoot a clip of Jesse LeBourdais and got a taste of Brasser. Jesse was intense as ever and shared a lot of love for Jonny over the mic, which was a common theme of the night; Jonny came out to watch each person perform and hug friends and so forth (apparently over 500 people came and raised $12,000, which means the average donation at the door was around $25; I am pleased with myself that I paid $30 -- on top of my Gofundme donation). I bought a t-shirt for Ani Kyd Wolf of her old band, which shirt she did not already own; it's small, so probably won't fit her, but it was an excuse to put more money towards Jonny's cause (the t-shirts were all from "his personal closet," as someone said, presumably all printed by his company). Besides: there was nothing my size.

Brasser seemed more punk than ska but gave an energetic enough performance that I was dancing even though I didn't know their songs. 

There was a nice variety of gender representation in the evening. It's kind of become a feature of the youthful punk scene, more than the older one (everyone seemed pretty "cis" at the Powerclown gig). 

But realizing that I'd seen Die Job and Alien Boys before, the latter many times, I decided to zip off to the Waldorf. I ended up spending all too much time there, such that I missed the Still Spirits set. I hear it was fantastic, but... there was plenty of Jonny-love to go around during other parts of the evening.  

I was startled, given that the room was pretty full by that point, to emerge and discover it was still daylight outside the Rickshaw... it was a fast five minute bus jaunt to the Waldorf. Dan Scum was standing on the sidewalk as I approached...

Initially I was worried, given that the Rickshaw was packed, that Jonny  had stolen the entire audience from Powerclown, because on arriving at the Waldorf, with SNFU tribute band Painful Reminder on the stage, it seemed like the venue was basically empty. Uh-oh!

But I needn't have worried: the real issue was that it was still pretty early, and by the time 10pm hit, with Painful Reminder still onstage, the room was filling up. Wendy on the door was posting about how odd it was to be hearing a different band do Chi's songs, but I gotta hand it to them, Painful Reminder did a really bang-up job. I'm not sure any of the members ever played with SNFU -- I would doubt it, but that band had a pretty long roster of musicians. I shot vid of "Rusty Rake," but it was all equally good! 

There were some familiar faces -- Cat, Betty, Dave, Poib -- who had elected to be at the Waldorf instead of the Rickshaw and I said a few hellos. I wasn't actually sure what I was going to make of the Mr. Bungle tribute, Dead Goon; I was heavy into avant-garde jazz and John Zorn and such when that first Mr. Bungle album came out, so I liked some of it -- and of course, Mike Patton and Zorn collaborated a bunch -- but I think it actually might help to have an interest in funk and/ or Zappa, neither of which were my thing back then. Having spent a lot more time with both funk AND Zappa seemed to have prepped me appropriately for the show: I thought Dead Goon was fantastic and now I might actually pick up that Mr. Bungle album for the first time (!). I think the songs I shot are "Slowly Growing Deaf" and "Egg" but I don't really know this stuff at all... 

Sometimes your best photo from a show is also the worst photo. No idea what happened here:

I did catch the first few Powerclown songs, but I think I kinda got a fair idea of what Powerclown is about with their other singer! (I wonder if those were the same shoes). It was fun to hear the "Iron Maiden" theme song sung with "Powerclown" subbed into the lyrics for the band name... Matt's guitar playing seemed singularly intense... it was nice to see that Murray was there... said hi to Wendy... but I left during "Flight of Icarus," with no regrets, and caught the bus back to the Rickshaw....

...where I discovered that I'd arrived just in time to watch Los Furios set up and soundcheck, which took quite awhile! (I also shot their first song). I could have probably seen three more Powerclown songs, but I hadn't had any way of knowing that. Turns out that I got the whole nutty story of Kyle Fury's commute pretty much right in that Straight article -- having flown out here a couple of days ago to prep for the show, he really IS flying back home to New Zealand today to fly back here with his kids on Tuesday. I am humbled by his devotion to Jonny. I promise to learn from it and not bitch so much about my own commuting heretofore!

Even if I ended up missing the Still Spirits set entirely, I did get to see Jonny join Los Furios -- who again, shared a lot of love for him from the stage -- for their final song, an awesome "Together As One," which Kyle talked a bit about in that Straight piece, as exemplifying the band's (and Jonny's) philosophy of inclusiveness, unity and community, particularly as expressed through music. Jonny mouthed the words enthusiastically from the stage; he's still a full-on frontman, stealing the song a bit, even if his voice isn't working now, and the chemistry and the hugging and so forth was all really moving to behold. It is probably for the best that my phone had died before I could shoot that -- some things aren't for Youtube -- but I did catch a song Kyle dedicated to Jonny (and which he'd dedicated to me the second-to-last time they played the Rickshaw), the Clash's "Revolution Rock," which Kyle and I had talked about for Montecristo. It comes as no surprise that Kyle and Jonny share Joe Strummer as a hero (I have occasionally only half-ironically called Jonny "the Joe Strummer of Maple Ridge," though I guess you could call Kyle that just as well!). That song, I have posted video of. 

Then Los Furios finished and 75% of the audience went home and Jonny played the remaining bunch of us Monster Squad. The following art is by Peter Panayis of Evil Eye Art UK and by far the best image I could lift. The Frankenstein monster on the right is played, marvelously, by Tom Noonan (who also played Francis Dolarhyde in Manhunter). 

Was happy to see the Creature -- also on my t-shirt -- represented. Some great Stan Winston work in this movie. 

I've only ever seen Monster Squad once and it was a real treat to see it again, tho' I sat aloofly away from the main seats, a) because they were way far back, b) because the audio wasn't optimized for film and I couldn't hear it from back there, and c) some of Jonny's friends were a bit chatty. I like to actually focus on a movie! Noelle actually came over to invite me to join the party but I stayed put (it was considerate of her, though). At one point Jonny came over and put his arm around my shoulders and I told him it was a terrific choice for a film. We watched it a bit together, and then I figured he might enjoy knowing that I'd interacted with Tom Noonan a little. Noonan and I sent a few emails back and forth when I was considering doing a screening of Wang Dang, one of the films he directed; he actually declined my suggestion, saying he didn't know how he felt about the film (which, to my knowledge, has still never played anywhere). "I would have loved to have asked him about this movie," I said, of The Monster Squad. "It's a bit of an anomalous role for him"-- I mean, you would be forgiven for not recognizing him at all; he's second only to Karloff in bringing pathos to the role, and the stuff that happens with the monster is seriously moving. I don't think I want to explain it -- you'll get it, if you know your original Frankenstein (thinking about it is bringing tears to my eyes as I type, which I guess is kind of weird, but... I'm a sentimental man...). 

Note that if you now want to see Monster Squad -- and you should; it's really sweet -- the version on Tubi is NOT THE RIGHT ONE. I'm sure you can find it somewhere. 

Anyhow, Jonny listened to my comment about Noonan and tapped out for me, "It's been my favourite movie since I was 7 years old." I guess if I had an equivalent -- a childhood favourite that has stayed with me that I still have a lot of love for -- it would be Time After Time, a time-travel movie with Malcolm McDowell as HG Wells and David Warner as Jack the Ripper. But it was really nice to know that this was his fave. Favourites mean a lot. What you love means a lot...

I don't think I'll ever really get to have a seriously satisfying movie conversation with Jonny -- there's just not enough time, and we are different kinds of film geek -- but I sure do plan to be at the Horrorshow next week for Carrie. Could be the last one -- the building is being sold or something. 

Terrific night -- really fun, really moving, really positive. I'm glad so many people were there (but happy that the Waldorf was pretty full, too). 

And now I gotta go interview Dan Scum...!