Scott McCaughey and Kurt Bloch of the Minus 5, by Erik Iversen, not to be reused without permission
All black and white images by Erik Iversen; most colour images below by me, except Debbi, Kurt, and the setlist by Rob Frith!
They also were the place where I found a copy of the Circle Jerks Wonderful on Porterhouse, the more legit of the two versions of that album that that label put out. The fact it should have shown up in town at all was a mystery to Steve K., the guy behind that label, when we spoke, since he didn't distribute that album in Canada, and he is pretty hands-on about distro. The Rick on till was able to illuminate me, explaining about how the other Rick would go on runs to pick things up in Washington, so there are things you can find there not common on the shelves at other Vancouver record stores. Like, does anyone else in Vancouver have a Death Valley Girls section? They have three whole albums in stock! (I photographed it for Erik Iversen because I know he's a fan, but he has all three).
You Watt-heads out there should also know that they have the Unknown Instructors' Unwilling to Explain at the moment, for $20 in the used section, with Watt, Saccharine Trust's Joe Baiza, J. Mascis, and I guess George Hurley still on drums, accompanying poetry read by Daniel McGuire but not necessarily written by him (there is a cool version of Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night" on it, from whence comes the title). I don't get out to this shop very often -- it might be in the old Hooked on Phono space? (I think Hooked on Phono moved online?). But when I do, I always find a couple things I didn't expect to see.
...Such as Oar On, Penelope!, the absolutely stellar new album by the Minus 5, which I'd called every other shop around about. They appear to have had the single copy that made it to Vancouver. It was discussed from the stage, later in the night at the Biltmore, with Scott McCaughey saying, "Apparently one copy of that came into town." I shouted back from where I was getting water, "I got it!" (Don't want to send anyone out with false hopes). Thank you to Rick Roll Records for being men of unusual taste!
It is a normal-sized record, though it looks smaller because of a trick of perspective.
Then it was a matter of racing back home (where I am flying solo while Erika visits her folks) and removing all my records from their sleeves, including this one, so they wouldn't warp from the heat or weigh me down too much, then pack the covers for signing. While there, I took a nap, did laundry, read a few pages of Ready Player One (great read, very different from the film) and did other life-things until Rob Frith of Neptoon Records texted me around 3 to say the Minus 5 were in town and were in fact at the coffee shop across the street from his store (we fans gotta look out for each other; in turn, I helped secure him a ticket). By the time I got there, commuting from Burnaby, the band had already been in his store and left. It would develop in later conversation that they had heard about Rob's Beatles find, but didn't realize that's who they were talking to -- the guy who found the Decca tape; they were, like, "Was that the guy?!" They were impressed. He'd been showing them the killer box of 7"s he'd gotten in, some of which (like the one by "Jethro Toe") they had equally heard of, but never seen. $700 for the original 7" of "Space Oddity"? Uh, cool! (I don't think the Buck/ Bloch/ McCaughey collector's impulse was stoked for these but they had fun taking a peek at them).
Despite Rob's text, I probably would have missed the band one way or another. Having arrived at Main St. to see the Number 3 bus pulling away, to save myself some awkward backing-and-forthing up and down Main, I first went the opposite direction to visit -- speaking of under-appreciated Vancouver record shopping destinations -- Noize to Go, where Dale was holding a copy of Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bangles! for me. That's Debbi Peterson in the foreground: though she was the Bangles' drummer, she did keyboards, guitars, and shared vocal duties last night (birthday girl Linda Pitmon, not in the Bangles, was the drummer). This is a comp of their early material, including, I believe, stuff they recorded as the Bangs. It is very different from the polished pop sounds they became famous for:
Debbi last night by Rob Frith
Linda Pitmon (not a Bangle!) by Erik Iversen, not to be reused without permission.
I had missed that this album existed -- it came out in 2014. But of course, Dale, who is a chatty dude, had some other record he wanted to tell me about, a Peter Buck side project he had had in stock, which apparently was released via... Barnes and Noble?! It sounded real piquant. I woulda bought it if it had still been in the store!
But he had actually sold that record, so it really made no difference to me, so I escaped Dale and raced back to a bus stop to Neptoon to get the Bangles' All Over the Place, which Mike Usinger had been enthusing about while we back-and-forthed about the McCaughey feature I'd done (he said he doesn't even really like pop music but thought that record was magnificent -- the one that kicks of with "Hero Takes a Fall," y'know? You can hear the whole thing here; that's Debbi on the couch). But the band had long gone, once I arrived, heading to the Biltmore for soundcheck.
It became kind of a weird point of pride, having less common stuff for the band to sign: "Look, guys, he has the No Ones on vinyl!" (and so forth). Figured I might not get another chance and that they'd feel appreciated to see their records in the good company of other cool records.
Peter Buck by Erik Iversen, not to be reused without permission
My most interesting Buck-finds were I Am Back to Blow Your Mind Once Again, gotten only the other day out of Fascinating Rhythm in Nanaimo -- another great space for finding unexpected stuff -- and the Original Sins Move, which Buck was a producer on, and was the only album of mine he really remarked upon from my stack ("That's a good record!" I think he was impressed/ surprised to see it). I've actually had that one around for awhile (and have Brother JT's signature on it, too; I bought it off him via mail around the time we did this interview. Or was it this one? The former, I think. I actually like Big Soul and Self-Destruct better but Move is really meaty, with a lot of variety and vibrancy. Under-sung Stoogey garage-punk). I was happy that Peter was happy to see it.
Mostly it was boringly obvious stuff in my stack for him, sadly -- early REM stuff, personal faves (Fables of the Reconstruction, Life's Rich Pageant, Reckoning, Dead Letter Office). I do feel I could have gotten some more impressive/ obscure material, but I was tickled that he signed my favourite REM bootleg, a So Much Younger Then. "Is it wrong that I'm asking you to sign a bootleg?"/ "Ah, fuck, I don't care." That's his scribble!
That was my only real special item, a fascinating document, also available in a longer format as the "Georgia Peaches" boot. The version I have is almost all stuff that the band had stopped playing by the time they made their first record, including my favourite rarity of theirs, "Narrator (for the Jacques Cousteau Show)," a goofy, spunky surf-punk ditty which would later be done by the Hindu Love Gods. The singer presents as having a (possibly sexual?) Jacques Cousteau fixation (I prefer to think of it as sexual, anyhow; it's funnier). Rather than ask Buck if he wanted to do an interview (he does not!), I should have just asked about that song, but he was very much about boundaries last night, and clearly tired (I resisted the urge to photograph him napping but maybe I should go put a sticker in the booth at the Biltmore where he stretched out: "Peter Buck napped here": First booth on the left, side closest to the door as you come in!).
Peter Buck (background) and Kurt Bloch (foreground) by Rob Frith
One thing he wasn't willing to sign, I realized afterwards, was my Hindu Love Gods record -- I noticed afterwards that he had skipped that one. I think there may still be some hard feelings there (my understanding was, it began as a casual jam session between friends, not intended for release, but Zevon's people decided otherwise and got a bit underhanded about making it into a record. I should see if it's in the Zevon book...). He also didn't sign my 7", but I don't know if that was a similarly contentious release, or if the whole project just leaves a bad taste in his mouth now? It's a side of both REM and Warren Zevon that we wouldn't have heard otherwise, maybe. As a complete outsider to the deal, I'm really glad to have them -- and their not being signed at least now comes with a story.
And I don't mean to gripe. I was happy he signed ANY records. Some people (like Pete Campbell) commented that he didn't seem to be having a very good time yesterday (some wit was heard to quip, "Did his dog die?"), but we gather he was simply having some pain issues (I don't want to say much more but he was pushin' to just play, I think, and he played well, so let's leave it there; hope everything is resolved soon).
Scott McCaughey by Erik Iversen, not to be reused, etc.
But speaking of autograph-hunting, I wonder how Gerald made out? Last I saw him he was lurking for Peter to come out, but I warned him not to get his hopes up. I find in my quest for signed records I begin to have things in common with Gerald, feel an odd kinship with him. And yet at the same time, I'd kinda also feel special about having a dozen signed Peter Buck albums more than Gerald has. Did I one-up Gerald this time?
That guy has so much signed stuff...
.
I was also pleased, when I was waiting around for the band to come over, that Scott liked my Frogs shirt, and agreed it was one of the best bad movies out there.
As for gifts, I gave the band -- mostly Scott, Peter, and Kurt -- Pink Steel 7 inches, Sweaters CDs, and varied NO FUN rarities (and a Phil Ochs record for Scott, as previously mentioned). The gig was magical -- also the Samantha Parton opening set -- but I can't do much to impart the feelings of it. You either were there or you weren't (and really, it was disappointing/ mildly surprising that the room wasn't fuller). Plus for me, the experience was coloured by all the activity before and after -- one of those nights where the epiphenomena (talking to Scott and the rest of the band, hearing "Bison Queen," "Falling Like Jets," and a few other full songs in soundcheck, chatting with Rob Frith and Kevin Statham and Erik Iversen and so forth) really kinda outdid being at the gig itself, though I for one was very happy that we got to hear more of Oar On, Penelope! than any other audiences ever will.
Setlist courtesy Rob Frith
It made me want to use what press mojo I have to get into more soundchecks, because I really enjoyed that portion of the night. "Bison Queen" is great in any format but when you're the only person there (besides the soundguy and tour manager and bartenders, obviously), it takes on a real aura of specialness (really brought out the Beatles in it, in particular).
My favourite song in the actual set, it would transpire, was "Hitchhiker," a Neil Young cover (one of two of Neil's songs that they did; they also covered an early one, "Out of My Mind," which I don't know well. They never did get around to "Don't Be Denied," I don't think. It's on that Cortez Calling album, and on the setlist. Did they do that? They didn't... did they?). "Hitchhiker" -- about dope and fame, equally -- is great Neil deep dive that went unreleased for a very long time; it's a song Neil would later cannibalize and rewrite as "Like an Inca" off Trans, particularly interesting in that the stuff about wishing he was an Inca or Aztec or such follows (in the "Hitchhiker" variant) hard on his singing about trying cocaine -- context that is missing from Trans. I hope the Minus 5 version comes out on vinyl someday (Scott did say that maybe it would; weirdly, his vocals remind me of Sean of AJJs on this one. They normally don't!).
"I try not to do all the popular songs," Scott said of his Neil Young cover albums. "And I kind of remake them myself. I don't try to do them exactly like Neil. But yeah, I do dig deep with Neil, because there's so many great songs! I love him so much!"
Note to self: make Sean and Scott aware of each other's records.
In terms of Neil Young -- Scott and I had talked about "Pocahontas" a bit, which is also covered on the album. My question for him might not have made a lot of sense: I asked if he thought whether the song was "some kind of put on." He responded about the stuff that obviously is NOT a put on, in the song, without my getting to explain exactly what I meant (I could have worded things more carefully).
"I don't think he's putting on anything," Scott said. "He's just channeling his feelings. He's always been about the Native Americans, he knows they got a raw deal, and he knows they had a lot of value to offer. They had a lot that we still don't know. So I think that that's a sincere song; it's kind of a heartbreaking song!"
But what fascinates me is that Neil explicitly aligns himself with Marlon Brando and Sacheen Littlefeather, which you hear Scott riff on a bit, including the name Littlefeather in his lyric for the Minus 5 version... which is not a stretch, since she is, in Neil's lyric, clearly the actual referent for Pocahontas, at least in the last verses of the song (there was no "Marlon Brando and Pocahontas," but there definitely was a Marlon Brando and Sacheen Littlefeather, which is the list Neil is penciling his name into).
And Sacheen Littlefeather's is a complicated story. You are all directed to watch the film Reel Injun (try Tubi -- free with a few commercials), where they talk at some length about the AIM standoff at Wounded Knee. People who were there -- Indigenous First Nations activists, surrounded by the FBI, basically holed up in a house with weapons -- actually heard Brando reject the Academy Award for The Godfather, as done by proxy, in the person of Sacheen Littlefeather, to protest the treatment of Native Americans. This was a HUGE shot in the arm for the beleaguered AIM folks (seriously, watch the doc -- it comes up later, but the whole film is fascinating).
Where this gets complicated is that (as discussed in the film) there was an immediate dogpile on Littlefeather in the media, after she'd appeared, claiming she was a "pretendian," as they are sometimes now known. She continued to claim otherwise right up until her death, throughout Reel Injun (which also takes on the story of people like Iron Eyes Cody and other people with no Indigenous blood, who claimed and maybe even believed otherwise; cf. Buffy Ste. Marie, Joseph Boyden, etc). After Littlefeather died, two of her sisters came forward to say that she was just part Mexican; but then there was another later development that suggests she might have had a small bit of Yaqui blood (see the "Ancestry Dispute" section of her Wikipedia entry for more). Was she or wasn't she, and how much does it matter? The documentary-makers are quite careful about investing in the issue themselves; the story they tell works whatever the truth of Littlefeather's ancestry was.
Now, I'm not sure it should even matter, but to my mind, Neil standing with Marlon and Sacheen in the last verse of that song changes flavour a lot depending on whether he was reading Sacheen Littlefeather as really being Native, vs. whether he was deliberately putting himself in the company of a notorious Hollywood eccentric and a pretendian. If the latter, it sabotages his own appearance in the song, makes it absurd, almost comical (which reading is supported by odd live variants where he throws in the name of Watergate lawyer John Ehrlichmann, the Nixon family, Ann Margaret, Muhammad Ali or, as Scott also does, Judy Garland). That's kind of what I meant -- poorly expressed -- with the "put on" question -- what Scott makes of the odd sense of humour of the song, the surrealism, etc. Neil begins by standing in solidarity, to be sure, but by the time Marlon Brando appears, the song has veered towards farce.
Anyhow, maybe someday I'll get a chance to ask Neil. I unsubbed from the archives but I should have put that question out there: "When you wrote 'Pocahontas,' were you thinking of Sacheen Littlefeather as authetically Indigenous, or not?"
Anyhow, it was such a fascinating and full day that I was spoiled by my circumstances, so that the actual gig, when it came, was less the point than everything swirling around it, was almost an afterthought, terrific as it was... though in terms of songs I *didn't* know well, I definitely have to get to know "My Collection," off Stroke Manor, a song I didn't really know that Scott said really interesting things about that I cannot confidently paraphrase, now, but they made me think that I could learn things from this song: something about the uses and abuses of record collecting when it comes to propping up imperiled identity, maybe? Like, after you've had a stroke?
Scott and Samantha Parton, by Erik Iversen, not to be reused without permission
Scott signed the record on his brain. He also had a fun way of illustrating how his brain works now, during the show, asking the audience to shout a question about a song at him, and responding, when they did, "Too late!" (as in, "the information has already left my head").
I shoulda showed him my hairy tongue.
Another fun thing that happened was running into Kev Lee of Infamous Scientists and BUM (Scott had actually brought him up in a shortlist of local confederates who he was hoping to run into). I took a photo of Kev to offer as a shout out to Rob Nesbitt, and let him know about the pop-up Dead Bob gig at Green Auto tonight (Kev was in Infamous Scientists with John Wright, pre-Nomeansno). Maybe we'll see him there? I am pretty sure Scott and Kurt were BUM fans, as well -- but it's foggy, now, what actually was said. Maybe one of them had Mine Would Be the Sun? Someone I spoke to did...
Two other favourite moments involved the music made by my friends David M. and Pete Campbell. I had brought a copy of the Sweaters' The Pop Thing to give to Kurt Bloch, since there is a song on it ("Kurt Got Hurt") that Pete wrote about an accident Kurt had had (and Pete didn't have one to give away).
When I offered it to Kurt, though, he said, "Oh, I've got that," whereupon Scott piped up: "I'll take it." This, reported to Pete Campbell later, was very pleasing, and I was pleased to have pleased him. Scott and Kurt also got a copy of another Sweaters CD that Pete brought and three of the Supreme Echo Pink Steel 7" inches, but who ends up with what remains to be seen. I ultimately just left fistfuls of 7" inches and CDs for Scott and Kurt and Peter, and even brought NO FUN 7" inches for Linda and Debbi, too.
The other story involves NO FUN's "It Came from Heaven/ Don't Leave Me Hanging," which I got David to sign copies of to each member of the band. Scott saw it and went, "I already have that!" To which I responded, "Not signed." And he said, "True," and took it.
Which again, pleased David to hear about quite a bit. Oh, and I got his Dear December CD signed, too. It's one of his favourite albums of original Christmas songs (that he himself didn't record). The vinyl version has an advent calendar cover!
Kurt was also aware of NO FUN, too, and keen for his swag (copies of the Eep Eep Eep Eep EP, also signed by me AND David, were also proferred and accepted). So that makes me happy: two of the guys in the band were aware of people I consider friends, and happy to receive records by them.
I also had fun turning Adam Kates on to the Minus 5's music. He didn't know anything of the band before this week, but he was really impressed, and it just so happened that I got a great photo of him and Scott.
Most importantly, I played a small role in getting Scott and Tim Chan back in touch, so I'm real happy with that. Tim was there and having a great time, too. I didn't get his photo (or Eric Lowe's either); 64 Funnycars share a Conrad Uno connection with the Fellows, of course. Shit, I shoulda brought my 64 Funnycars record to get signed, too!
For people who were not there, I did record the last two songs of the night -- "Aw Shit Man" -- sorta-official/ sanctioned rock video here! -- and the Sonics "Strychnine." I hope you get another chance to see this band. Scott and Kurt, in particular, seem like really nice people, true enthusiasts, and it was a big deal to talk with Scott and see him play, finally, having been a fan since I was a teenager. Also glad I hooked onto vinyl of the Young Fresh Fellows' Toxic Youth, which is really growing on me (guess I'll give the CD to David?).
Now about this Loft...
Kurt, Scott, Debbi by Erik Iversen
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