Endocrine Rosaries and Empty Restaurants: Pete Campbell and Jeff Carter on Pink Steel vs. the Dayglo Abortions, plus psychonauts, Terence McKenna, and more!

Pete Campbell with Coach StrobCam, or, uh, in this case, reading left to right, Strob CoachCam

So: Pete Campbell has been around. His involvement in the BC music scene dates back to the very roots of Victoria punk, with Pink Steel, whom we talk about more here. (You can hear the Pink Steel reissue on the Supreme Echo bandcamp). His other bands include the Wardells - who did a kind of timeless pop, a bit rootsier than Pink Steel; check out this fun little movie they made around "Get You to Want Me." Or for a taste of of what came next - with thanks to Doug Smith for digging this one up - check out this full set of his next band, the Sweaters, at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern back in 1995. 

While not all Sweaters songs are created equal, it was the Sweaters song "Hockey Sucks" - included in that Horseshoe set, and also on the first one of those Johnny Hanson Presents Puck Rock compilations - that convinced me of Pete's brilliance, but in a bass-ackwards way, because I'd seen Pete sing songs with David M (including an original, "Too Cool for Christmas," and a Christmas-themed Joy Division spoof called "Claus Will Tear Us Apart")  at  a few NO FUN Christmas shows at that point, having had no idea that he'd written my favourite song on that comp, beating SNFU, DOA, Tankhog, Ford Pier, and even the Hanson Brothers themselves. Maybe it's just that I don't care about hockey, so Pete was the only guy singing directly to me (and yes, I had hockey cards for awhile, myself, back in elementary shcool, though I never really cared and soon traded them up for Star Wars cards and Wacky Packages). 

Anyhow, it was quite a revelation, putting that together, looking at the songwriting credits on the Johnny Hanson CD, then finally approaching Pete, whom I was totally taking for granted, at one of David's shows. Really, you're THAT Pete Campbell? 

If Pete braves "Hockey Sucks" when he plays Central City on Saturday, you're feel free to come over and thank me - because it was my cajoling that brought that song back into his sets, complete with archaic lyrical references to the Mighty Ducks and such. It's sadly not a given that he will include it, he explains: "A punk rock question I now pose: do I dare play 'Hockey Sucks' during the Stanley Cup finals? Are my balls really that big and security at the Central City Taphouse so strong that I would dare to do such a thing?" 

I wait with anticipation to see just how big Pete's balls are. I'm guessing that they're pretty big, at least a 15 on an endocrine rosary (apparently actually used for getting a feel - sorry - for how big someone's nuts are. These are also called a "Prader Orchidometer," but I was raised Catholic, and love the idea of connecting testicles to the dutiful saying of "Our Fathers". But I digress). 

These days, Pete is in Coach StrobCam, of course - interviewed by me here - but he's also been weathering COVID by writing his own solo material, which we're going to talk about below (he's going to do a rare solo set before Coach StrobCam plays tomorrow!). 

But first, apropos of recent news - here's Pete's Dayglo Abortions story, parts of which are a little bit different from the version in Chris Walter's band bio of the Dayglos, Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the Dayglo Abortions. 

The Dayglos — at this time The Sikphuxz (with lead singer Ann Archy) — invited Pink Steel to play the first ever hall gig in Victoria after seeing our show at Dancer's Teen Disco where we (I) got the crowd to chant "Disco sucks" and were later told by the owner that we (I) was not allowed to insult his customers.

(The article about that first-ever hall show is on Jeff's website — found about halfway down the page. "Pink Steel Punk Not That Rotten" is the article's clever headline; referring to the fact that Johnny Rotten was rumoured to possibly be potentially in town and might attend the show to check out Victoria's "punk" "scene"). [Editorial note: Jeff Carter clarifies that this OAP gig with the Sikphuxz was distinct from the Fernwood Dayglos gig written about below, but no less resulted in "lingering animosity" between the bands].

There was somewhat of a rivalry between the bands for a while — Jeff is better on the details of this stuff than me — they kept using our gear at a shared rehearsal space, even after we told them not to. Drum skins aren't cheap and they just beat the shit out of our drummer's kit over and over again. 

At a soon-to-be-infamous gig at the Fernwood Community Centre [sometime in 1981 or 82, Jeff tells me], our guitarist Dean Shea was, I believe, shooting a water pistol at them and shouting "Dayglo's suck!" during their set, until Murray jumped off the stage and attacked him... bad move, as we were a seven-man band and kinda slapped him around a bit "for his trouble" as the article says.

Jeff Carter posts a small clip from a newspaper in the name of "setting the record straight," describing it as "an event which has been wrongly portrayed in another forum." Murray Acton is the singer in question. He's much more polite these days! 

By contrast, Walter's book - while not delving into the rivalry between the two bands - emphasizes that the audience had been abusing the Dayglos, and that Murray was reacting to being gobbed on and having his mike slammed into his teeth by someone in the front. That person is not named as Dean Shea, and there's no mention of a water pistol. Either way, the Cretin was provoked, and did leap into the audience and start mixing it up (with the help of Spud), but according to Walter, ""When the dust cleared, it turned out that the singer had jumped the wrong guy and was beating an innocent man. Cretin's victim, in fact, was none other than the keyboard player for Pink Steel, the headlining act." That keyboard player being Jeff Carter, who I guess was *not* attacked. 

Carter, in a separate email, clarifies: 

We arrived late in their set, so were not aware the band had otherwise been receiving abuse. Our guitarist Dean Shea had brought a water pistol to exact revenge for the gear misuse [mentioned by Pete above]. He sprayed Murray while calling out “Sikfucks rule!” two or three times. Murray dropped his guitar and leapt on Dean and a brief melee ensued. Murray may have mistakenly thought that Pink Steel members were also responsible for the previous spitting etc. Or maybe the water pistol was the red line. Or maybe the Sikfucks reference.

What's funniest to me here is that, whatever details Chris and/or Murray get wrong - and I challenge anyone out there to tell a story from 1980 without introducing an error or two - Pete's telling of the story actually makes Pink Steel look more culpable, since in Chris' telling, Pink Steel are entirely innocent of wrongdoing, victims of mistaken identity, while in Pete's version, Dean was in fact taunting the singer. 

In any case, it's kinda fun that there are still some slightly hard feelings over a melee from 42 years ago. - though Pete remembers Murray at least somewhat fondly, especially from his pre-punk, prog period: 

I went to Camosun College in 1979 and Murray was a student there as well. He was hard to miss as he had long, blonde hair and wore a black satin jacket with Brand X written all over it — apparently they were a prog or fusion band or something. Anyway due to some of those hard-to-dismiss roots, his punk-rock credentials were pretty easy to question in the early days of the scene. In actuality, The Dayglo's were likely the only real "punk" band in the city. They came from the "working-class" part of town: Esquimalt, the home of the Canadian Navy base and the attendant Legion-style dive bars, low-rent coffee shops and diners slinging cheap hash. The rest of us in the nascent "scene" were typically suburban and middle-class, or worse (!) kinda-rich kids from the chichi waterfront municipality called Oak Bay. Of course, viewed through a modern socio-economic lens, we were all just different levels of middle class. The Dayglo's also had the most noticeably badass pose to their whole presentation, consistently including in their sets a cover of The Rezillos' "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight '' as well as an irony-denuded cover of NO FUN's "Mindless Aggression". Their own redneck-anthem "Now I Wanna Be An East Indian,'' was pretty much viewed as what it was: a poor attempt at some bad-taste humour, but the overt racism was impossible to overlook when assessing your own feelings about the band and their music. [Note: Murray's own explanation/ justification for the song is here].

I bumped into Murray in front of the Rickshaw at the BUM show a couple years back and we greeted each other like old friends — which we kind of are: old soldiers from the punk-rock wars who have long since forgotten which side we fought on, or even what all the fighting was about.

Let's leap from there into the present with a discussion of Pete's new song, "Psychonaut," a catchy little bit of electropop (!) that reminds one more of the Flaming Lips than any of the bands that Pete has been in before.  

I asked Pete via email to give the story of that song - was it about a real person? What drugs were they doing? You seem to be more amused by their foibles than disturbed, but you're not a participant, right? Are the Flaming Lips actually relevant to the sound?

Pete: 

First of all, I just loved the word and thought it would make a great song title. My friend Rheostatics drummer Dave Clark told me that he feels the song has somewhat caught the zeitgeist. He is currently working with a physician who prescribes psychedelic substances as part of his therapy regime. Since the 1960s it has been illegal to do any research at all into the effects and potential benefits of the use of hallucinogens but now all that is changing — quite rapidly it would seem. These plant medicines are now being given the serious study they have long deserved.

The song emerged from a Terence McKenna rabbit-hole I slipped into on YouTube one night — that ended up lasting a couple of weeks. He has always fascinated me: he is likely the world's most famous "psychonaut". His descriptions of so-called "breakthrough experiences" while using DMT blew my mind to be honest: he says that when you use the drug, you feel as though you are transported to a completely different reality. Not only that, but there are entities that inhabit this other realm ,"self-transforming machine elves" he calls them, that appear to have been waiting for you. They are very very excited to see you and immediately try to communicate that fact to you, When they speak — an unintelligible language — these jewel shaped objects emerge from their mouth. They encourage you to try to speak and show you that you too, can create these wondrous thingies just by speaking. The drug's effects only last about 10 minutes and your conscious recall of the "trip" starts to fade shortly after you return to the everyday world. McKenna has put a great deal of effort into retaining his memories and experiences in this other realm. He thinks that the discovery of DMT and its use is the most significant evolutionary development in human history.

Incidentally, DMT is the active agent in ayahuasca, the plant medicine used ceremonially by shamans in the Amazon, which has become a "destination experience" for aspiring psychonauts from all over the world.

McKenna also thinks that most people use psilocybin "magic mushrooms" incorrectly as well. Most people take a gram or so and then go to a concert. He says that you need to take 5 grams alone in a dark room — and then the mushroom will speak to you.

 

He advocates use of these "plant medicines" not to have fun, but to explore inner, psychic space. Astronauts explore outer space while psychonauts do the same thing in their own inner world. I have an old friend who was for many years a member of a quite strict fundamentalist Christian sect. At some point he became disillusioned with his path and chose another: he started using "shaman medicines" in the way advocated by Terence McKenna and his ilk. He doesn't take these drugs to "party", he uses them to commune with the universe and his deeper self.

If you take a reasonably close listen to the lyrics you discover that the song isn't really about the psychonaut and his adventures, but rather about the friendship between the singer and the psychonaut — who is described as "the best friend I've got". He also "knows what's hot". Everyone needs a friend like that.

The song opens with the psychonaut "getting caught" and explaining that he's not high, he's a psychonaut.

Later, the singer explains their friendship like this:

"Some people never take you anywhere, even when you want to go.

My friend says he'll take me everywhere,

Anytime I say so"

The important element here is consent: the psychonaut will not coerce the singer to take the medicine, but rather will introduce him to these inner realms anytime he asks him to do so.

Musically, the song has no direct influence, though I think Erika's Flaming Lips comparison is a pretty damn good one. The song was originally one of about 20 songs that I wrote during a very productive month during the lockdown — the only productive period for me really. Like most people, I mostly binge-watched Netflix and ordered take out. I was experimenting with some new tunings —the song is written in Open D minor, which is seldom used — and I stumbled upon the riff which I thought was super- catchy. The song was written pretty quickly and I felt it was maybe the best pop song I'd ever written.

I recorded demos for 20 songs with Bill Buckingham who produced the Coach StrobCam CD, because I just wanted the songs out of my head. I quickly realized that some songs needed more than just guitar and lead vocals to communicate even the basic idea of the song. Without that swirl of psychedelic harmonies in the chorus, the song would make no sense. So I went in one day and laid down something like 22 background vocal tracks — something I have always wanted to do — to flesh out the "trip" which constitutes the chorus.

As a producer, Bill is very much a collaborator and will often radically alter the structure of a song to make the song the best it can be, to his ears. So he just added all this electronic dance-type instrumentation and sent it to me hoping I would like it..which I definitely did. I suggested a few changes but left it more or less intact. I sent it out to a few people whose opinions I trust and they seemed to like it too.

Coach StrobCam (or, L-to-R, Coach CamStrob) at the 2022 Bowie Ball, by me). 

BTW, you Central City Taphouse goers, so far I've tried four entrees on the menu there: poutine, fish and chips, some sorta chicken wrap, and a bite of Erika's steak. There's lots else to choose from, and everything has been at least good, but the steak seems to be the real deal; the one Erika got was almost Keglike in proportion, and very tasty indeed, but about half the price of a Keg steak. Also, there's a sticky date pudding for dessert that seems to be the treat. 

The remainder of what follows is a straight-up Q&A style email interview, with me in italics.

Pete Campbell Interview

The video for "Psychonaut" is really fun. Who did the animation/ how was it done? It reminds me a bit of Brother JT's "Sweatpants" in that it looks very simply done, but is still quite effective. Did you come up with a story for the video, as well as/ in addition to the song?

 
The video was done by my friend, Joe Sousa — a great songwriter in his own right — who was the guitarist in a shamefully-overlooked Victoria pop-punk band Treecrusher (along with the Sweaters and Coach StrobCam bassist Turk). Joe is the epitome of an indie artist, in that he finds something he likes and just figures out how to do it. He has a pretty active TikTok channel where he is doing mostly political videos featuring his simple, yet charming illustrations. I asked him if he would be willing to do a video for the song and he agreed. Joe has never done any hallucinogenic drugs so I had to direct him to some of the stuff I had been watching on YouTube, just to give him an idea of the type of imagery I was looking for. I just had a sense he would do a great job and he really did. He not only captured the psychedelic aspect of the song, but the central theme of friendship as well.
You can find his other stuff here:
https://www.tiktok.com/@your_friend_mr.slappy?lang=en

Do you have any memories or impressions of that Sweaters live at the Horseshoe video clip that Doug found? Details from that night? (How often did you play Toronto?)

That video is the only full Sweaters' show to be found on YouTube, so it was pretty cool to see. Apparently Punk Rick recorded tons of bands at The Horseshoe in the 90s and The Sweaters were one of them.

We toured pretty consistently during that decade, many times back and forth across Canada. While I don't remember that show specifically, it seems to be fairly representative: not many people in the audience and I talk way too much between songs. Kuba (our bassist who later went on to play with DOA) looks about 12 years old, and James Richards, our drummer, is amazing and pretty much the star of the band.

After watching the video, I had a couple of thoughts:

First, that we were a pretty damn good band live, which makes me happy to be able to say. I can't usually listen to or watch my own stuff because I'm too critical — I only hear and see what I could have done better. But Turk kept saying how great it was and that it made him a Sweaters' fan again, so I decided to give it a chance.

I can also tell that by this point in our evolution, I had been exposed to the frontman-superstar vibes of KJ Jansen of Chixdiggit — still one of my closest friends — and had upped my own frontman game. We played with Chixdiggit during our first show in Calgary, the first night of our first tour, and KJ was — and still is — the best natural frontman I have ever seen. He made me a better performer just by existing.

My favourite part of the show was when I tell Dave Clark, the aforementioned Rheostatics drummer — and another of my closest friends — that I love him, which is pretty sweet and a great memory to have on tape.

We always did really well in Toronto — and a few other cities in Canada like Edmonton and Calgary. We were treated with respect and as a pretty great band, which surprised us at first, as it was not always the case in Vancouver. Vancouver has always been a punk-rock town and pop-punk was never really much appreciated. There weren't many bands of our ilk around — which worked out great for us in some ways: we got to open for Green Day three times because there was really no other band that was a good fit. At Lollapalooza, they even gave a shout out to the Nappy Dugout, the all ages place where we played a great gig with them— though they never mentioned our band. [Note: video exists, but not of the Sweaters set!]

 
A humorous side note that tells much about my deep knowledge of the music industry: I remember standing outside the Nappy Dugout while Green Day were playing, thinking what a great band they were, but that it was too bad they would never make any money.

The Sweaters: Pete looked taller then

So CoachStrobCam, also on the bill, is now back to a trio, right? Is that a happy thing for everyone? Will you be continuing to perform thus? (I haven't noticed that many gigs since things started loosening - the Bowie Ball and this; did I miss one?).

After our cd was released and we explored the band thing for a while, there were some issues around the direction we were going. It became obvious that as a trio we still maintained the great chemistry that was our original foundation, and it just seemed a natural step to revert back to that formulation. Our rehearsals are really just the three of us sitting around, drinking a few beers and playing some songs. There is almost never any discussion of arrangements: we just all play what we feel like and it usually seems to sound great. This easygoing dynamic makes the whole affair a completely pleasurable experience and so that is the way things are at the moment. Who knows what the future holds, though? We may bring a DJ and a couple of synthesizers into the mix if "Psychonaut" takes off...

We were really thrilled to be asked to play The Bowie Ball and I thought the trio format would set us apart from all the other rock bands, which I think it did. We were able to play some deep cuts which would have been impossible if we chose to do the show as a full band. Plus, Rachel got to finally play her vintage Fender bass and we got to wear sparkly outfits, both of which were firsts for the band.

How has Sing Along with Pete [Pete's self-invented "dayjob," performing for seniors in care homes] been affected by COVID?

Well, basically I was out of work for 2 years. I was playing over 50 shows a month before the lockdown and they all stopped completely. It was really a drag. Sing Along With Pete is more than a job to me: it is my vocation. To have that pulled from my life, especially so quickly, was devastating. For the first week of the lockdown I was receiving multiple emails and phone calls every day — all of them of course, with the same bad news. Multiple daggers to the heart, day after day.

My mental health was severely affected, my finances decimated.

Eventually I got to the point where I decided to really focus on songwriting which kind of saved me. Writing songs has been a constant in my life since I was a teenager, so it was a logical place to seek refuge. It really helped me right my ship and bring some much needed stability and focus to what was a pretty sad state of affairs.

Now that things have opened up again, I am back playing gigs almost every day with the resulting benefits to both my state of mind and my finances. It's not like I ever took it for granted before, but now I bask in the glow of every show and my relationships with the amazing seniors I play for— many of whom I have come to know as friends.

I once again have the best job in the world and I am over-the-top thankful about it.

Tell us about some of the other new "lockdown songs" you (or Coach StrobCam) will be playing?

"The Times They Are Not A-Changing" was written after the Jan 6 insurrection. "It's Your Turn" was written after the George Floyd riots/ protests. Neither of these songs was a conscious response to events, but rather me playing some chords and these words emerged.

"With The Care Of Those In Your Command" was written after I woke up one morning with that phrase in my head...I had to first figure out what the hell the phrase meant ...then figure out what the hell kind of sentence fragment precedes that line to make it a full sentence...then figure out what the hell a song with that title was about...then back-fill the entire thing so that it was an actual song. It was like "song sudoku"...challenging, but fun..

I will also be playing "Cal And Beckie's" about my sister and her husband's hobby farm/ home in The Shuswap Hills. I played mandolin on that one, but Coach StrobCam now regularly include it in our sets; our harmonies are perfect fit for the song's tone and feeling.

 
My sister Beckie has been one of the only people to hear much of my solo material over the years. I usually spend a week at her place every September, play guitar every day and write some songs...then I will give Beckie a one-on-one concert, under the condition that she actually sit and give me her full attention. She has been vital to my process over the years, because by playing them for her, I can get a sense of whether a song "lands" or not. I have found that my solo material only works if the listener gives me their full attention, which is why I stopped playing solo shows around 2010.

 
"Cal And Beckie's" is a song that always makes Beckie cry, as does another song called "Empty Restaurant" that features the lyric "When it comes to love, I'm an empty restaurant" —referencing the old saying "No one wants to eat in an empty restaurant". My sister Beckie's tears are the highest endorsement for my "mope-core" material... my solo stuff in general is very sedate, thoughtful and frankly pretty damn sad... though I will be playing more upbeat stuff on Saturday night.

I used to do solo shows at The Main every couple months after The Sweaters passed on. It was at one of those shows that my collaboration with David began. I believe I bumped into him on the street and asked him to play my 50th birthday party show...he asked me to get up and play a couple songs with him at the show, and once he started playing solo shows again, he asked me to join him playing electric guitar.

I wrote 20 songs in a month or so during the pandemic, a bunch of them using a Dmin open tuning, the first time ever using a different tuning for me...many players use open D maj, but few open D min..

After I went through the big songwriting purge, I decided to go record demos of all songs with Bill Buckingham who produced the Coach StrobCam CD. I just wanted the songs out of my head!

Get Pete Campbell's songs into YOUR head at Central City Taphouse in Surrey, a short walk from Surrey Central Station. Come hungry! No cover, no age restriction - but give Pete your full attention, please! Facebook event page here. 

Some cool things: WITCH, Pete Campbell, La Femme, Red Herring, VU, and EUGENE CHADBOURNE!

A few brief notes of things that interest me going on around town. Basically my wife is on the phone, so I'm stealing a minute, here...

Zambian rock band WITCH (an acronym for We Intend To Cause Havoc) combine elements of psychedelic and garage rock with African music. That's about all I know to say about them, but they're playing on Saturday and I really like what I've heard. There is a film about them. Better yet, there's a chance to see them at the Rickshaw this Friday. How can this not be interesting? What was the last African rock band you saw live...?

Meantime, Pete  Campbell will be doing a rare solo set at Central City Taphouse on Saturday, followed by  a Coach StrobCam concert. He has a new rock video to give you a taste of where COVID took him as a songwriter; it's not what you'll expect, if you know Pete from Pink Steel, the Wardells, and the Sweaters. More to come on that!

On Sunday, French band La Femme return to Vancouver, again at the Rickshaw. Not sure how to describe their music - it's a very cool multi-genre mix that I'm pretty sure you can dance to, but I don't really know their stuff deeply, haven't seen them live, etc. But I loved a track that appeared on the soundtrack for the Dowdle brothers film As Above, So Below, "Hypsoline." So I might go just based on that one song, because damn, I love it. 

Monday, you have a choice: Red Herring is going to play in a fuller format at the Princeton, with Enrico, Stephen Nikleva, Id Guinness, and maybe one or two other original members. Again, there's no cover, and the music is more likely to be polished songs than stream-of-consciousness jams. Here's Enrico with Charlie, a friend of the band...

Or if you're more of a movie fan, you might be interested to note that, at the VIFF Centre, you can see the Songs for Drella documentary, with Lou Reed and John Cale, in a double bill with Todd Haynes' Velvet Underground doc (which is a bit of a deep dive into the more avant-garde aspects of the band, so if your favourite Velvets' album is Loaded, it isn't the film for you, but if you're into Tony Conrad and LaMonte Young, say... rush to the theatre.) More information on the VIFF website - looks like the Haynes doc is Monday only, but the Songs for Drella one is on Tuesday and Wednesday, as well. 

Also note: mark your calendars, Eugene Chadbourne is coming back to town in late July - his first Vancouver appearance since just before the pandemic hit! More to come there, but there will be a show at LanaLou's on July 22nd and another at Central City on July 23rd. 

Like I say, more to come on almost all of the above, but that's some really fun music (and music-related film stuff).  

Philip Baker Hall in Zabriskie Point

I've always been fascinated by the movie Zabriskie Point. Even with a simple story, there is so much going on, so many ways to appreciate it; I don't think it counts as a cult movie - not a big enough cult - but the appeal of the film stretches so wide for me, is so multi-layered, that I certainly can be said to have a cult relationship to it. 

Some of these aspects: the film boasts... 

...a great soundtrack: there are inspired juxtapositions of the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones, Roscoe Holcomb and Patti Page that show a very interesting take on "American music" (Yes, yes, the Stones are not American, but the music they are inspired by is). The Pink Floyd tracks that bookend the film, "Heart Beat, Pig Meat" and the explosion scene (which is the music that the film is supposed to close on, though some versions throw in a terribly misplaced Roy Orbison track the studio insisted upon) are some of my favourite of their Saucerful of Secrets years, trippy abstractions that defy easy categorization. Any film that ranges from music like that to "The Tennessee Waltz" in one soundtrack is all right with me. And the famous, lovely Jerry Garcia-scored "hippies making love in the desert" set-piece is actually meant to be understood as an acid trip; if you watch carefully, you'll see the leads sharing some blotter before it all starts. It's still one of my favourite filmic representations of sex - sex as polymorphous, polyamorous play - even if you sense that Antonioni is getting a bit misty-eyed for the American youth movement. Apparently he and John Fahey came to blows in a discussion of politics and Fahey lost the privilege of scoring this segment himself, though his "Dance of Death" still appears, later in the film. 

...a weird backstory on the cast: Mark Frechette, for example - the youngest guy in the top picture, about to try to cadge a sandwich  - was a member of the Mel Lyman "cult" (Lyman, who was affiliated with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, was tagged "the East Coast Charles Manson" by Rolling Stone). After briefly acting in two other Italian-made films, one of which, a WWI movie directed by Francesco Rosi called Many Wars Ago, I highly recommend - he ended up robbing a bank (apparently hoping to finance an American film adaptation of Crime and Punishment with the money) and dying in prison at age 27. Fellow Lyman enthusiast Daria Halprin, briefly married to Dennis Hopper (and later a yoga teacher) appeared with Frechette on Dick Cavett to tell people not to waste their time on the movie. Which Cavett is duly amused by. Nothing against the actual name actor who appears in the film, Rod Taylor, but personally I love that Antonioni fills the screen with faces you've never seen before, non-professionals and first-timers and Lyman cultists. Not a boring face in the film, except maybe Rod Taylor's (though he's meant to be boring, so...). 

There's also a singular backstory on the film's director, Michelangelo Antonioni, who, having begun as a revered European arthouse filmmaker, had had a huge hit with Blow Up - y'know, mimes playing tennis, the Yardbirds, David Hemmings as a photographer in swingin' London - which is actually vastly less kind to the youth culture it depicts, Antonioni seeming full of judgment about his characters' shallowness and stupidity (it's been awhile since I watched it but I don't remember him seeming exactly fond of the scene, which hostility gets less convincing when you see, for example, how wrong he gets the behaviour of a rock concert audience in the Yardbirds scene. I'm with the Guardian reviewer in thinking Zabriskie Point the superior film). Blow Up was such a hit that Antonioni got bankrolled to come to America and make a movie there for MGM, back in the days when studios actually took risks (sometimes without realizing how big those risks were). Properly understood, Zabriskie Point offers a European perception of America, which you kind of need to bear in mind, especially since Antonioni seems to fall completely in love with the American youth movement, making an unabashedly sentimental film. This rubbed viewers wrong, at the time, but if you're watching it with an awareness of what it is (and better still, an appreciation of other Antonioni's), if you're thoughtful enough in your film viewing to be able to step back and observe how the film is shot through (figuratively) rose-coloured lenses, you'll be fascinated.

...which will be only aided by the astonishing, sumptuous visuals. Apparently the documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself, which I have never seen, comments at some length on Zabriskie Point's representation of LA; I can't speak to that. But the film - intended, I am sure, as an acid-trip movie - has some very striking imagery, from the playful dogfight between the car and plane in the desert to the aforesaid lovemaking and building-exploding tableaus to what feels like documentary-style footage of the radical student movement and campus protests. The "gunshot" scene is deliberately framed so that it riffs off Blow Up - you can't really be sure what happened in that moment. Some of the filmmaking actually gets quite abstracted, at times, and at times this abstraction is enhanced by Pink Floyd's music. They don't make movies like this anymore; in fact, even back then, they barely ever did. 

...And how many feature films are there that actually are structured to be watched on LSD? I don't think even 2001 was. Zabriskie Point is up there with the Roeg/ Cammell film Performance as a movie that you really are meant to watch under the influence; psychedelics are to Zabriskie Point what 3D is to Avatar. If you've only seen Avatar in 2D, you haven't really seen the film. I wish I'd tried to reach out to Sam Shephard about the film at some point; he was involved in the writing of it, but I have no idea what he felt about the finished product or what his actual contributions were.

As I say, you might be able to find fault with Zabriskie Point for its sentimentality, naivete and idealism - I won't argue with you, really; people who hated Easy Rider probably won't be very compelled by Zabriskie Point (I actually offered to send a copy to Peter Stampfel, in that regard,  to see if he liked it better, and given that he was friends with Sam Shepard; he declined my offer). But all told, I think the film is a bit more complex than it was given credit for being, at the time of its release. For instance, assuming Daria is stoned out of her gourd when she fantasizes the house blowing up at the end, does that make the scene an endorsement of direct action (given that it's only happening in her head) or a condemnation of psychedelics (given that, again, it's only happening in her head...?). Or is it something that is neither, exactly - a sentimental gesture towards the feelings and desires of the youth movement, coupled with a slightly melancholy realization that they won't amount to anything? (Of course, I think some people out there who poured derision on the film have it that she's ACTUALLY blowing up the house, that she's suddenly acquired Firestarter-esque psi-powers of some sort; I hope we can just dismiss that interpretation as the fruit of literal-minded laziness, unworthy of consideration). One of the key arguments in the film comes when Daria challenges Mark to play a "death game," designed to teach him that violence and killing and blowing things up are not the way to change society; the film is remarkably unclear at the end as to who wins that argument. Is the film's ultimate message that "It's okay to blow things up, but only in your head?" I suspect the critics who condemned the film for its simplicity couldn't begin to answer these questions... so JUST HOW SIMPLE IS IT?

I mean, I love this movie, what can I say. Wish there was a proper blu-ray of it with the correct score, because it drives me nuts that all I have is a DVD that ends on that lame Roy Orbison tack-on (I like Roy, but not this). No idea why there's been no subsequent release, since this lazy DVD churn-out; wish a boutique label would pony up the money to do the film justice. 

End rant, but... now to the point of things: if you want really trivial reason to see Zabriskie Point, apropos of recent obituaries, it turns out that the film has Philip Baker Hall's first role. He's the deli clerk in the top photo - an uncredited role, but confirmed on IMDB and elsewhere. He was in his late 30's and quite a bit more portly, such that it's almost hard to believe it's him, but if you listen to the scene where the customer is trying to get more meat on his hoagie, the line "if ya wants extra, ya pay extra" is delivered distinctly in Hall's voice. I've included a still I think from Magnolia that makes it easier to see that it is, indeed, Hall. I never would have realized this if I hadn't gone to IMDB, on reading that Hall had died, to see what his first film was; I was floored to learn it was this. 

I had nothing against Philip Baker Hall - he's good in the films I saw him in. I wasn't exactly a big fan or anything. But I'm a big fan of Zabriskie Point, and thought this was an interesting discovery. 

Show review: Dayglo Abortions, Citizen Rage, and Car 87 at the Rickshaw, June 14, 2022

...So that sure was fun. 

The high point for me was seeing "White People" played to a happy, active moshpit. The moshpit itself was a joy to behold (you can get a small taste of it here). Healthiest pit I've seen in some time; people took advantage of the space not being so full to really spread out, and those of us on the margins were happy to let them do it. No overt thuggishness or violence that I could see, and what excess testosterone was sometimes visible, in the form of angry glances from the shoved, they didn't keep it from being a... "gender neutral pit?" 

...What's the non-binary-inclusive way to say that it wasn't all just dudes? "Gender-neutral pit" sounds like there's a toilet and a sink, but no urinal. 

If I might just be binary for a moment, it's always nice to see a pit with girls in it. It's kind of like seeing frogs in a pond: you know the ecosystem must be healthy - in this case meaning, "inclusive," aside from it being mostly white people. Hell, there was a guy older'n me, moshing away, crapping on my too-old-to-mosh excuse (I got out from where I was standing the first time someone collided with my back; I'm still sore there now). This guy had long white hair and seemed in no better shape than I am, but he could be seen wading right in several times. There was even someone with a wheelchair in close proximity to the action, too - closer than I wanted to get. 

I don't think he moshed, though. 

And whether songs were super-fast or slow and heavy, whether they dated from the 1980s or were off Hate Speech, that pit was exuberant and moving all night, and occasionally added in pleasant ways to the experience of the songs. Take a minute here and contemplate mostly white kids moshing along to lyrics like this:

Those white people have done had enough
They keep getting in shit every time they fuck up
They can't figure out where it all went wrong
Cuz they've been working for Monsanto for way too fucking long.

Those white people say that they're coming to save the day
But really they're just coming to take your pay
And the rent is due in your shitty apartment building
The one with the broken windows and the roof that needs fixing

Here comes some white people feeling sorry for themselves
Here comes some white people feeling sorry for themselves
Here comes those white people feeling sorry for themselves
Cuz it's all about themselves yah – Fuck Every One Else

Those white people are mad at every one
Cuz no one will fight no more wars for them
The coloured folks are shooting at them with their guns
And everybody's laughing at them watching them run

So the white people prayed to their angry white god
Come and save the earth cuz it's going to the dogs
But it turned out that god wasn't white
And she laughed as they all got dragged off into the night

There goes those white people feeling sorry for themselves
yah there goes white people feeling sorry for themselves
There goes those white people feeling sorry for themselves
Cuz it's all about themselves yah – Fuck Every One Else

There goes those white people feeling sorry for themselves
yah there goes white people feeling sorry for themselves
There goes those white people feeling sorry for themselves
Cuz it's all about themselves yah – Fuck Every One Else

This isn't just political punk, it's viral political punk. It's getting under the skin of these kids in ways that will, one hopes, replicate inside them and permanently affect them, make changes to their RNA, like Murray is (sorry) vaccinating them against FOX News or something, programming these kids as to what song they should be humming to themselves the next time they see some aggrieved Tucker Carlson type mouthing off on teevee. It's not just a song: it's an implant that will make these kids smarter, stronger, and more resistant to self-pitying/ racist/ overprivileged white bullshit. It's really, really smart - which I knew before I saw kids moshing to it, but appreciate even more now. 

After all, Murray had said to me - previously quoted on this blog - that songs are "a super-powerful way to transfer information to people," talking about how to use music to get past people's defenses: 

Because when you’re telling people certain things, and you start infringing on their belief systems, like, “I don’t think this whole transgender thing is…” If you start a conversation with a social justice warrior-type like that, it’s a fight; they have a mental breakdown, they’re screaming at you and shit. So you don’t! You don’t start it like that. You validate their beliefs, right away, and come up and get things goin’ really nice: play them a bit of music, la-la-la, look, it’s groovy, melodic, everyone’s rockin’, your friends are rockin’, and now that everything is relaxed and all the walls are down, all of a sudden, like a vat, you start pouring in all of this [he leaves the thought unfinished - all of this WHAT? - but it's something like, "evil shit"]: Mwah-ha-ha, like mind-control. It’s exactly what the television and what everybody’s been doing to us forever, so why not?

I admit, my eyebrows had raised a little when Murray was saying that. I didn't take the bait re: "transgender," one of those hot-button/ reaction-provoking words, but certainly an apt one, as conversation often seems to break down around that particular topic (for reasons somewhat puzzling to me, actually, since most people I know seem to be adapting to a more trans-inclusive world just fine; I've seen people who were balking at using preferred pronouns a few years ago getting kind of used to them, in ways that make it all seem less difficult than I think a lot of folks thought it would be. You mean a much-mocked, abused, discriminated-against minority can feel more included in society if I just adjust my language a little? I mean, what kind of person is not gonna be okay with that, if you put it to them reasonably?). 

I assumed that was a red herring, but I still wondered just what kind of evil shit was Murray thinking about with his "mwa-ha-ha?" There's a lot of evil shit out there to choose from, a lot of stuff you could use music to indoctrinate people into, but based on last night, I like to think that inoculating kids against the backlash of challenged white privilege is the sort of thing he was talking about. From the point of view of someone on the left, it's not actually all that "mwa-ha-ha" after all.  

...although it was pretty fun to see kids moshing to "I Love My Mom," too, so maybe it's just the sheer incongruity that was amusing to me, in both cases. 

Not to say that, great a time as I had, there weren't a few rocky patches, performance-wise. In particular, "Sacks of Meat" - which Murray intro'd as being a Black Sabbath ripoff, saying he likes to put one on every album (or something like that) - kind of went off the rails at one point: or to use another metaphor, the bridge washed out, and a few sections got swept down the river, kind of hilariously, such that Murray closed the song (after a fast rescue) by saying, sotto voice, "...or something like that." 

Elsewhere he told the audience he could sympathize with them for their unfamiliarity with the  new stuff: "We barely know these songs ourselves" (or, again, words to that effect). It didn't stop them from playing tons of material off Hate Speech - "Raised on Chest Milk," "Kill Kill Kill," "Sociopath," and maybe one other were all on the setlist. I think, properly understood, the sometimes-rougher delivery of those songs was testament not to the band's lack of professionalism, but their desire to get these songs out there even if they haven't become ingrained in their DNA yet.

I mean, the other option for getting back on the road after COVID would be to not play the new stuff at all; that's what the Blue Oyster Cult did, for a half-dozen shows they did after their new album was released, not playing "That Was Me" or "The Alchemist" or any of the new stuff until they'd had a chance to work up live arrangements and practice them and so forth. They added the new material very gradually, one or two songs a show. Personally I prefer an album-release show that actually has lots of songs from the album in question, so...

And of course, the Dayglos were  razor-sharp on the older songs, including a generous helping of material from The Armageddon Survival Guide, which they had in vinyl on the table,  doing "Your Facebook Can Kiss My Assbook," "Cockroaches" (which Murray dedicated to the street people outside the Rickshaw, saying that "everybody's gotta survive.") and "To Prove that We are Free," on the heels of a request from the audience (Did Murray say some variant on "Ask and ye shall receive, maybe," on playing that song? I didn't note down his exact wording, but again, it was something like that). 

And there was plenty of stuff off Feed Us a Fetus and Here Today, Guano Tomorrow. (I didn't catch a lot off Two Dogs Fucking but I don't know that album as well). I was particularly happy they did "Acting Like Black Sabbath," a song that the Shittys taught me, back when I didn't actually know the Dayglo's catalogue very well (I came to them late), and happy, too, that here was a decent crowd (201 people on a Tuesday is not bad at all; probably the biggest crowd I've seen the Dayglos draw, given that both my previous Dayglos experiences were at Funkys, a much smaller space).

The social element was fun, too: I got to chat a little with a few people, musing with Phil of Precious Dudes  about his having been a bouncer at the Rickshaw and getting some recommendations off Talesha about local rockabilly. My only two wishes left unfulfilled by the night were that I'd kind of hoped there would be a copy of the second Mutated Earthlings album. That's Blind Marc's band; Murray is apparently on the second album, but I've never seen it. I have the first one, tho', and it's quite hilarious (there is a song called "Swearing in Braille" but the only song on the internet by the band is not that one). 

Also, I kind of had hoped to get a Hate Speech t-shirt, except they didn't have white in my size and, more significantly, I ran out of money.

Actually, after paying for my Hate Speech CD, I spent about fifteen minutes fretting about a missing $25, going back through my day to figure out what exactly I'd bought, even phoning the restaurant I'd had dinner at to see if I'd dropped a bill on the floor, before realizing that, d'uh, I'd PAID TO GET IN THE RICKSHAW. Exactly $25, as a matter of fact. 

I don't need any more t-shirts, anyhow. 

Car 87 - whose bassist wore a Citizen Rage shirt - opened with pummeling hardcore, which I could make out not a lyric of. Their singer looks like what would happen if you cross-bred Henry Rollins with Ian MacKaye, and their guitarist looks a bit like a young Greg Ginn. I think they're the type of punk band for people whose favourite Black Flag album is Damaged, and that ain't me (tho' I really liked one slower song they did, the one that began with a beat kinda like Black Flag's "Gimme Gimme Gimme;" it was a bit more tuneful and the vocalist almost took on a Lemmylike growl at a slower tempo). Good band, if not my cuppa; they got a pit going right off the bat, if a bit on a smaller scale than what the Dayglos later inspired. They were one of those bands Todd Serious had nice things to say about to me, when he was trying to get his friends press. 

Citizen Rage, from Calgary, were more on the Suicidal Tendencies end of things, with a singer (wearing a Car 87 shirt) who seemed like an ex-gang-banger turned "Scared Straight"/ tough love guidance counsellor for kids at risk, or - gee, I hope he has a sense of humour - maybe what Dadrock sounds like when your Dad is in the Special Forces, and starts DEMANDING a circle pit like he might order pushups. 

But he was just fine as a frontman (not getting his name from their bandcamp, which doesn't have either of the songs I mention below on it; presumably they are from their upcoming Cursed Blessings LP? ). And he ably demonstrated that introducing the topics of songs, or even just telling people the title, can really help an unfamiliar audience learn how to appreciate a band (assuming an opening slot is viewed as an opportunity to teach an unfamiliar audience your music; kinda makes sense to me, anyhow). I liked "Talk to Me" more for knowing that it was about not keeping suicidal feelings to oneself, for example, and could even pick out the chorus, so it made the song catchier. I didn't get what "Watch What You Say" was about, besides the announced title, but I assume it's something akin to Body Count's "Talk Shit Get Shot." 

It isn't really my type of punk, actually - I don't break out my Suicidal Tendencies or Body Count very often, and I don't even have any Cro-Mags - but I appreciated the undergroove, liked the bass player's shirt, and enjoyed each song they played more than the last, as they "taught" me how to dig them. Near the end of their set, I found myself thinking, "Holy shit, these guys would have been awesome opening for DRI." 

It was the only time I thought of DRI the whole night.

All photos, such as they are, by Allan MacInnis

Dayglo Abortions Teaser: a Hate Speech review and hints of a Murray Acton interview

Dayglo Abortions at the SBC, 2019, photo by Bob Hanham, not to be reused without permission

So COVID knocked me for a loop. I basically lost the month of May, in terms of serious project work; I had already had a backlog, and then... argh. Now my backlog has a backlog, and I'm playing catchup...

...the biggest part of which, at the moment, is trying to transcribe Murray Acton of the Dayglo Abortions. I'm just over 30 minutes into it, but it's a two hour interview, and Murray talks fast. He's actually got a great voice for radio or podcasts, and often seems very well-informed - I haven't fact-checked everything, and there are a few things I might have challenged Murray on if the point was to have an argument, not an interview... but the Cretin is no cretin, I tellya, and these days, as a songwriter, seems to be miles away from the fella who wrote "Dogfarts," "Stupid Songs" and "Fuck My Shit Stinks" (which I guess some could argue is about not obsessing over problems miles from home, when your own country has plenty of flaws - "Canada's shit stinks, too" - except with references in the lyrics to a diet of beer and tacos, it does seem to be his own literal shit that Murray is singing about, coming from Murray's literal ass, and not, uh, figurative/ metaphoric shit, coming from, say, Ottawa). 

So he's come a long way, maybe. If once it pleased him to deliberately give voice to his inner moron, even if he was doing so sarcastically or with his tongue rammed deep in his cheek, nearly every song on Hate Speech, the newest Dayglo Abortions album, is loaded with political meaning, with targets ranging from white privilege ("White People") to Christianity ("an institution of social control built on hypocrisy that has been a haven for murderers and child molesters since its beginning") to, perhaps a bit more controversially, the self-righteousness of so-called Social Justice Warriors ("Raised on Chest Milk," which he writes on his bandcamp is "about the rise of groupthink and the seeming inability or unwillingness of people to think for themselves.")

And though there are a few songs on the album not overtly about political topics, like "What's for Breakfast Mom?" about the plight of parents with opioid-addicted children, they're still intense, provocative affairs, with a very dark and distinctive sense of humour.  My favourite personal-is-political tune on the album is probably "Smart Food," which, with Swiftian savagery, proposes cannibalizing children, frying their brains in butter as an alternative to the pain we cause factory-farmed animals (Murray does eat meat, but seems at the least conflicted about it). And the whole album is offered with dark humour, hyperbolic violence, and that other trademark of the Dayglo Abortions: circumlocutious, brain-tingling guitar solos from Acton, with occasional counterpoint from former Dayglos like Mike Jak (who takes a solo on "Sacks of Meat;" another alum, Scott Henderson, also pops up on bass on a couple of songs). Since the Dayglos stripped down to a three-piece, awhile ago - Murray, Blind Marc, and Matt Fiorito are the lineup tomorrow - fans of guitar interplay may have missed that element of their live shows, but it is still a factor on the album, which - with apologies to fans of the Gymbo years, or Holy Shiite, or The Armageddon Survival Guide, is my favourite Dayglo Abortions album since Here Today, Guano Tomorrow. 

Hey, Murray, want a pull quote? Here's a thumbnail review: "Hate Speech is the funniest, sharpest, most punk rock album the Dayglo Abortions have unleashed since 1987's Here Today, Guano Tomorrow, and is every bit as flat-out rude and over-the-top entertaining to listen to as that album, while being leagues more grown-up and thought-provoking in its lyrics. In fact, song-for-song, Hate Speech boasts the most interesting social and political commentaries of any of their albums, as well as having their funniest album cover since Two Dogs Fucking and dizzyingly delightful solos around every corner, which will make it no surprise to learn that bandleader Murray Acton is a big Frank Zappa fan. If Murray's punk rock sobriquet, the Cretin, might once have suggested that he was shy about letting the world know just how smart he is, the COVID crisis seems to have taken care of that for once and for all, with Murray revealing himself to be in the same league of punk pundits like Jello Biafra. Highly recommended, even if you didn't LIKE those early, 'classic' Dayglos offerings. This is something else - something better. Shit, it may even be the best thing they've done."

Actually Here Today is the best thing they've done, of course - I'm fudging it a bit; never trust a reviewer who uses words like "may be," which are deliberate plants to give them room to wriggle out later. But Hate Speech is a strong contender for second (or maybe third, after Feed Us a Fetus; you can't knock the classics). 

And speaking of songwriting, that topic itself came up in the interview, with Murray advising budding songwriters to "keep the point simple."

 If you want to say something with the song, if you want a piece of information to be transmitted, make it really obvious, don’t be fuckin’ around and hiding it behind a bunch of weird riffs, keep it right on the straight-up and just put the thing there on a platter, so it’s just “blaaat” – so they don’t have to do an interpretation of metaphors and all of this.

I mean, you can do that too, sure, it’s funny, you’ll hide stuff in there. But mostly, just get the point right on the thing like that, and blammo. It’s a super-powerful way to transfer information to people. Because when you’re telling people certain things, and you start infringing on their belief systems, like, “I don’t think this whole transgender thing is…” If you start a conversation with a social justice warrior-type like that, it’s a fight; they have a mental breakdown, they’re screaming at you and shit. So you don’t! You don’t start it like that. You validate their beliefs, right away, and come up and get things goin’ really nice: play them a bit of music, la-la-la, look, it’s groovy, melodic, everyone’s rockin’, your friends are rockin’, and now that everything is relaxed and all the walls are down, all of a sudden, like a vat, you start pouring in all of this [he leaves the thought unfinished - all of this WHAT? - but it's something like, "evil shit"]: Mwah-ha-ha, like mind-control. It’s exactly what the television and what everybody’s been doing to us forever, so why not?

And humour helps with that?

Oh yeah. Standup comics are the perfect example; the best platform for the delivery of politics is the standup comedian. And if you look at them, they give you about the most accurate idea of what’s going on, too. Because the reason that they’re talking politics is that they’re concerned about something, and they’ve done some research, they’ve looked at things and they might not be right, but quite often they have a pretty good handle, they’ve checked out their sources, they’re working it into their humour, and quite often, they’re more accurate than the news is. The news you can’t believe a word of it, not anymore.

...but smart guy or not (Machiavellian manipulator or not?), it's still not an easy interview to transcribe, as Murray is also one of these people whose mind is always leaping ahead of what he's just said, who says something and then goes back and modifies it or amends it, and in so doing is reminded of something else he thinks, so he zips off on tangents every which way. It's hard to keep up, in conversation, hard to transcribe, and harder still to streamline the finished piece into a nice linear topic-by-topic structure.

For example, one minute we're talking about his favourite comedians (Murray is a big Jimmy Dore fan), which segues into Murray talking about the alleged Syrian sarin attack and Max Blumenthal, which segues into Murray talking about Qaddafi and how the US hates non-compliant nationalists, which quickly turns into commentary on the plight of the Kurds, whom Qaddafi persecuted ("I don't know what everyone's got against the Kurds," Acton observes). This in turn reminds Acton of how the Kurds "kicked ass on ISIS... they found out the guys who want to be martyred believe that if you get killed by a woman, it’s all cancelled [=all the promises of glory in the afterlife]. If you get killed by a useless woman, you’re not a fucking hero, you go to hell. So the fuckin’ Kurds sent out a platoon of women against them, and they dropped their guns and ran for it!" All of which - Dore, Blumenthal, Syria, Libya, and the Kurds - comes in the course of the answer to one question, "Where do you get your news?" 

Murray Acton and Blind Marc by Bob Hanham

So, uh, it's a jam-packed conversation, which you're going to get to read someday, but not before Tuesday's show at the Rickshaw, where the Dayglo Abortions headline, with Car 87 and Calgary hardcore band Citizen Rage opening. Again, THE NEW DAYGLOS ALBUM IS THE BEST NEW PUNK ALBUM I'VE BOUGHT SINCE... what? Probably Alien Boys Night Danger, in 2019. I actually kinda like some things about Hate Speech better than that album, too, like Murray's giddy, gleeful solos - Erin is one of my favourite players in Vancouver, but she's more Angus than Zappa, y'know? Maybe I've missed out on some great stuff, but in recent years, I've poked my nose into releases by Amyl and the Sniffers, Chubby and the Gang, Viagra Boys, Sleaford Mods, Idles, Turnstile and others, in the hopes of finding new punk I really care about, and I haven't kept one of them (or in the case of stuff I've streamed or downloaded, just didn't pursue it). I've been listening to a bit of Vic Bondi stuff, and really respect how much energy Dead Ending and Redshift bring to their music, but with a few exceptions ("Ivanka Wants Her Orange Back"), even their stuff just isn't as catchy of fun to listen to as Hate Speech. so... 

I suspect that I might be a bit closer to Vic Bondi in my politics, mind you - every now and then Murray said things that raised my eyebrows, when we talked COVID, for example, or Barack Obama, who gets namechecked in "Sociopath," despite having been out of office since 2016. Acton on Obama (also skewered on the previous Dayglos album as "The New Black"):

I’d love to hang out with Obama. I bet he’s awesome company, he’s witty and funny and incredibly charming. And just bought. His soul is so owned by the fuckin’ people that put him in power. Like, he was groomed for the job. It goes to show you how real the American election system is. After two Bush presidencies in a row, and the fuckin’ Iraq wars, they were starting to think, “Jesus, we might just be the bad guys, here.” No, no, we’ll give you a saviour, a black guy, a super-charming black guy, and it’s like [gasps in orgasmic relief]. The best one was, in his first inauguration speech, he said, “I hear it’s rumoured that I come from Bethlehem” or something like this. “No—I’m from Krypton.” And I’m just like, "Whoa, this motherfucker is a total sociopath: Look at me, how charming I am.” He’s like a narcissistic psychopath... a machine of success in this world. He’s ruthless, with a beautiful smile, like the fuckin’ antichrist, for chrissake. I saw right through it. He’s not a black guy. What he is, is he’s a real nice happy smiling face on a multi-death corporation, on the whole weapons industry. And look at what he did? Holy fuck, he upped the ante on the war shit, he started really pummeling everybody. They were in nine countries or something like this, dropping more bombs than you could count...

...all of which may be spot on, but it still seems an odd level of vitriol to be directed at the person who seems the least overtly evil American president between the years 2001 (when George W. Bush got in) and 2016 (when Donald Trump was voted out). Does evil that successfully camouflages itself piss Acton off more than evil that's right out there on the surface of things? I don't know, and I'm not going to be able to answer that question before the show.

But whether you agree with everything Murray says or not - that really should not be a prerequisite for checking the band out (see above, re: "groupthink"). Investigate for yourself: go spend time on Murray Acton's bandcamp, and listen to Hate Speech in its entirety (it's all there, for free, with his "liner notes" for each song). If there's a better, more vital, funnier, catchier punk album that's been made in the last few years, I've missed it - in terms of Canadian political punk, Hate Speech is right up there with the very finest works of the Rebel Spell, the Subhumans and DOA, and funnier by a long shot.  

And you have a chance to see them at the Rickshaw, tomorrow! Headlining! Which may not happen again anytime soon. MORE TO COME (eventually!).