Alexa Bardach Celebration of Life: Notes from Lana Ryma and Nadja Feutlinske

Alexa Bardach with Tony in the background, October 29, 2010, by bev davies. 

Tony Bardach: "The nun ones are cool, eh?"

Alexa Bardach had stunning charisma.

The best case-in-point I can offer: At the 2011 Rock'n'Relief Benefit for Japan, I saw, in the course of the evening, performances by the Pointed Sticks, SNFU, the Jolts, White Lung, and the Trespassers--all heavy-hitters in Vancouver punk, some with front people that have legendary status. But the single detail of the night that is not now a vague blur, over 15 years later, is Alexa Bardach taking the stage with Billy Bonito (AKA Billy Hopeless of the Black Halos) for the Bonitos' cover of the Stooges' "TV Eye". 

For the first half of the song, from a half-crouch over her mic stand, Bardach just locked eyes with Bonito as the band vamped, shifting like a predatory feline contemplating the best angle from which to pounce: it was electric and compelling and generated a fair bit of suspense around the question of, "Is she ever going to sing?"

By the time she did, just with the sheer intensity of her stage presence, she had already upstaged every other performer in the room. The story goes that Mr. Chi Pig had an inflatable alligator onstage with him that night. I was there, and you'd figure that would be memorable, but no.

I only ever saw Alexa Bardach on a few other occasions: at a Neptoon instore for PIGGY (I believe she predated Ange as the lead singer?), where we chatted a bit, and once at the East Vamps Lucky Bar show mentioned below. I liked her a lot, based on short exposure! 

Alexa Bardach, May 12, 2011 at Rock'n' Relief: Tony reports that Suicide was a "real fav" band of Alexa's, and that she met Martin Rev in Vancouver!

Nadja Feutlinske knew her better. She won't be at the Celebration of Life this coming Sunday, November 1st, at LanaLou's, since she's in Iceland (!), but odds are, you've seen her drumming in at least one band or another, as she's played in the Living Deadbeats, the Shit Talkers, the Wett Stilettos, the C U Next Tuesdays and several others (including "hot minute appearances" with Death Sentence and the Bombshells). But the East Vamps were her first band, which she joined at age 17 at the invite of frontperson Gerry-Jenn Wilson. 

Nadja recalls their first show, at the El Dorado: "I was underage so I had to wait outside until we played. After we played, Pete Feend came up to me and asked me to to try out for the Living Deadbeats and from there I kept joining new bands!"

Alexa was brought on board later, and was "the perfect addition" to the East Vamps, Feutlinske recalls. "She brought something special with her, not just musically, but as a person. Somewhere along the way, she took me under her wing and made me feel like her sister. That meant more to me than she probably ever knew."

Once Alexa joined the group, they began practicing at the space co-run by her father, Tony Bardach, and fellow Pointed Stick Gord Nicholl, the Dental Lab. "For me, some of my favourite memories happened after practice. Practice would be over, but I would stay with Alexa until the wee hours of the morning, writing songs and messing around with sounds. We were never quite ready to call it a night. She had this MIDI pad beat maker that I would fuck around on, and she had all these fun guitar pedals that we could experiment with. We would get lost in making music together, creating all this dark, gothy synth stuff. Those late nights were something special. Alexa wasn't just someone I played in a band with. She was someone I looked up to, someone I learned from, someone who made me feel included."

3/4s of the East Vamps: Nadja, Lisa Lloyd, Alexa

Tony Bardach has shared some of Alexa's unreleased electronica with me and it's compelling, atmospheric and quirky. We hope it finds its way online! Note that Tony will be present at the celebration, note, but I haven't pressed him with questions, other than checking a few facts. It's a tough time; Alexa was his only child. 

We're happy to run Alexa's bandmate's story instead. To Feutlinske's memory, the band only ever went on a single tour, up island, commencing with a show your present author happened to be at, on June 25th, 2011: "We kicked things off at the Lucky Bar in Victoria, where they also had a video showing of Bloodied but Unbowed. From there, we were off to Cumberland. The next morning, we went exploring around the old Chinatown area, where Chinese immigrants had settled while working on the railroad. We stumbled across this HUUUUGE field of poppies, and it was absolutely beautiful. We wandered deeper into the trails and started finding old artifacts scattered around, things like old food cans and keys."

(For those unaware of Cumberland's Chinatown, I am presuming that this is the same area that Nadja is referring to; I have not been, myself. Feutlinske did provide a photo from the poppy fields; Alexa isn't in it, but maybe she took it? These poppy fields are not otherwise known, it seems: if you search "poppy fields Cumberland" there's nothing. I have a fair guess what Chinese workers were doing with all those poppies!).

 

Nadja, Lisa, Gerry-Jenn

The tour continued to Tofino, Nadjia contiues. "We spent time at the beaches, feeling the ocean mist and getting soaked by the rain. The Tofino show was another fun one. The crowd was rowdy, loud, and full of energy. The venue even provided us all with our own hotel room for the night but I ended up spending my night in Alexa's room, and we chatted away for hours. I also vividly remember all of us — me, Lisa, Gerry, Jenn, and Alexa — hanging out of our hotel windows, yelling down at unsuspecting passersby and innocently making fun of them. Thankfully, they were good sports and yelled right back up at us! It's such a ridiculous, silly memory, but it makes me smile. I can picture us all up there, laughing our asses off, being a bunch of idiots."

The East Vamps (Nadja, Gerry-Jenn, Lisa, Alexa) at the Princeton

Feutlinske and Bardach drifted further apart after the East Vamps folded. (Google AI says the band's final show was on June 9, 2017, at the SBC Cabaret). "But one thing about Alexa was that she never completely lost touch. She would reach out by text or call to check on me and make sure I was doing okay. She was always interested in what bands I was playing in, what I was creating, and whatever adventures I was getting myself into."

Every once in a while, I'd see her at her dad Tony's place when I was there to take Cane for walks. Cane was Ryan's dog, Ryan being Alexa's long-term partner. Cane was the most muscular, massive pit bull you ever did see. An absolute tank of a dog, the sweetest boy."

Nadja ends the email interview with "RIP ALEXA. I think the world of you!"

Though Nadja can't make it to the Celebration of Life on Sunday, one of her bandmates in the East Vamps, Lisa Lloyd, will be playing in the Get Arounds, also involving Lana Ryma, the Lana of LanaLou's. Lana plays in the three bands at present, drumming in the Furniture and Ten Days Late, both of which go back awhile (Ten Days Late began in 1990!); but she's very much the front person for the Get Arounds, as you will soon see in the new video for the song "Kill or Be Killed", which is a short while away from its official debut (that is a private link, which I hope works!); note that the band will be headlining their own songs on November 14th at a subsequent LanaLou's show. 

"The Get Arounds started during the pandemic", she explains.  "I was at home, my business LanaLou's was temporarily closed. Carman had some songs and no one else was around to sing some back ups so I gave it a try and wow! I was hooked. And now we just released our latest album Going Out Tonight and we have a third album in the works." 

The Get Arounds. Back: Carman Lethbridge; front, Sean Stubbs, Lana Ryma, Kimi Mah, Lisa Lloyd. Photo by David Jacklin

Going Out Tonight has Jay Solyom of the Spitfires and La Chinga on drums, for most tracks (though Lana drums on "Kill or Be Killed" and "Do or Die"). Carman does most else. But live, the band will be Lana, Carman, Kimi Mah on guitar, Lisa Lloyd on bass, and Sean Stubbs on drums. They'll be performing songs from the Victorian Pork CD of 2001, which has Alexa front-and-center as bandleader.

We should clarify here that Victorian Pork was originally the name of a hallowed fuck band from the original Vancouver scene. According to Gerry Hannah, in this clip, the initial lineup was himself, Brad Kent, Chuck Biscuits and Dave Noga. That was in 1977, but there were many lineups of the band over the years; a photo of Bev's that will run with the Straight version of this has Zippy Pinhead on drums, Randy Rampage guesting on vocals, Alexa and Brad on guitar, and (not pictured there) Tony Bardach on bass. Their sole CD that came out on Porcine Records in 2001 (pictured above) had father-and-daughteer Bardachs and Randy Bowman on drums, along with contributions by names that I do not know. Who is "Elbore James", the harmonica player on "Buzzcocks"? Is the "stunt guitar" player credited as "Budge Schacte" actually Van Django's Budge Schachte, just spelled wrong? Ian Tiles provides "voiceover on 'Nite Cafe'", and we all recognize that name, but, hell, even Alex, Tony, and Randy have pseudonyms in the booklet (Alexa is lx, Tony is "tony eleven"--all lowercased-- and Randy Bowman is "five-o-man". Brad Kent doesn't appear to be on the album!). 

The songs are indeed snotty and raw and old-school, and a few of them are actually online, posted as individual tracks on the Dental Lab website, though some are (apparently) non-CD tracks involving Brad Kent on guitar: "Just Wanna Beer", the D.O.A. staple "I Don't Give a Shit"and "I Wanna Be Free" (where Brad goes full-on, reminding one a bit of Benny Doro on the Rampage solo LP). Others I think are from the actual CD, Bad: "Pretty Girls", "Mike Stole My Smoke", and "Bad".

There's much more that will happen at the Celebration of Life -- including contributions from "everyone's right hand man", Orchard Pinkish, working with the Be Good Tanya's Sam Parton. There may be some surprises in store, too! It's definitely a be-there night. 

Never got to know you well, Alexa, but you made an impression, the few times our paths crossed. You'll be greatly missed. 

See you all Sunday! (Note: this is a supplement to a piece I'm doing for the Georgia Straight, so there will be some unused quotes and other deets there, findable when it goes online at www.straight.com).