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...

I did shoot a clip of Jesse Lebourdais and got a taste of Brasser (will post vid of both later). 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). I also bought a t-shirt for Ani Kyd Wolf of her old band, which shirt she did not even 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).

 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," which again, I'll post a link to later. 

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.   

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 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!

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 we'd 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. We'd 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. "I would have loved to have asked him about this movie," I said. "It's a bit of an anomalous role for him"-- I mean, you would be forgiven for not recognizing him at all. The stuff that happens with the Frankenstein monster is seriously moving, but 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. 

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...!