The New Creation's New Creation

Hi! Are y'all looking for my writing on the New Creation? Well, I still haven't recovered from my Jan-Feb writing binge - and mostly just want to chill out and avoid new projects, except for ones I have deadlines for or have already promised out. I've told New Creation fans that I will post some unpublished Chris Towers/Lorna Towers material, to correspond with my Nerve Magazine article. Well, that's a ways off. You can, if you like, read my enthusiastic blurb for their new CD on the Scratch site - or see this blurb for Troubled. At the moment, tho', I can't even find my transcripts for the interview! This may not happen, folks...

The Tom Holliston/ Show Business Giants interview

Photos by Jillian "Jillo" King!

Okay, so his solo CDs, which I think are actually far better - and can be bought at Red Cat, locally - he caved and we ended up talking. This is the full text of the article that appears in this month's Nerve Magazine - or at least it will be the full text, once I get the whole thing transcribed. The first chunk follows!

See you at the Show Business Giants show on March 17th at the Anza Club, I hope!

Allan: That’s Tom Holliston?

Tom: Yes it is.

Allan: Hey, how are you doin’.

Tom: I’m a few minutes early. I wanted to ask you a favour, if you could possibly do it. Do you have a phone book? Cos I just moved, and we’ve realized we don’t have a phone book.

Allan: No problem. I’ll get it and be right back.

Tom: Thank you! A yellow pages. We want to order some food! We don’t really have everything set up – we want to get some Indian food but, jeez, there’s nowhere... no phone book here.

Allan: Okay – getting a yellow pages. (Sets the phone down).

Tom (is silent, waiting. I kinda hoped he’d say something cryptic into the tape for when I was transcribing it later).

Allan: (Opening phone book). Okay, so I’ve just flipped to the restaurant section. Uhm.

Tom: It’s the Sitar.

Allan: The Sitar? That’s the place in Gastown, is it?

Tom: Yeah.

Allan: Okay, here it is... 604-687-0049, and there’s a minimum order of $25. Do you want to call me back?

Tom: We’re okay for now. I’ll call them in about an hour. Thank you!

Allan: No problem – I may actually put that into the interview! Okay... so – you’re a really interesting songwriter. You seem to me a champion of the obscure – you dig into some very odd... Uh... I’m sorta trying to categorize your songs, and figure out where they fit. You have lots of songs about things people normally don’t care about – your slacks, bats, gingivitis...

Tom: Ford wrote the song about gingivitis. That’s the first song he ever wrote on a guitar, and I can’t take credit for that one, and the song “Bats,” the lyrics for that one were written by Rob Wright.

Allan: Ah! Okay. But... I think of you sort of like the Auteur of the Show Business Giants – I think in some way, all the songs have your stamp on them. Or no? I mean, how collective are the SBG?

Tom: I suppose Ford and John write toward the band’s style, which is originally myself and a fellow named Steve Bailey, who used to be in a band called the Neos, years and years and years ago. And we sort of had an idea that we’d have a band where it’d be us, cos we couldn’t find anybody else who wasn’t already in a band, so we thought, we’ll just have a band and get different people to play sometimes, and then it sort of developed like that, and then people sort of fit their attitude or their style, I guess, toward what we were trying to do, which... I don’t... It’s not wilfully obscure, but I’m not very good at writing love songs and stuff like that, and I’m really interested in encyclopedias and dictionaries and, y’know, arcane and word origins interest me. And so does celebrity or call to celebrity, because I grew up watching the Mike Douglas show a lot on TV in the 70’s, the early 70s, mid 70s Catskills comics were really at their peak, like, the days of Shecky Green, and that sort of celebrity is kind of gone. There’s a different style of celebrity, but I think it’s... nowadays I don’t think people actually have to do anything, y’know? I think Madonna is one of the most influential people of the 20th century, as far as I’m concerned, because she ushered in a whole new art and lifestyle where, if you change your trousers every twenty minutes you can stay on top, y’know. So that sort of interests me a lot.

Allan: I also grew up watching the Mike Douglas show and whatnot, but you sound like you’ve thought more about it than I have.

Tom: (laughs). I guess so! It’s not really that productive, in that sense.

Allan: How was this past notion of celebrity – are you being critical, do you think we’ve become shallower?

Tom: No, I don’t think so. I mean, it’s an interesting study. Celebrity status is as common as asphalt, y’know, just from that perspective... although I think there’s certain things I don’t think people can do anymore. I mean, there’s certain, like – I don’t think it would be possible to make Valley of the Dolls anymore, because people just aren’t that big. People don’t have to act or don’t really do anything, they just have to be themselves. I think (back then) people still were expected to sing or act or do something, or have a quick, fast quip, y’know?

Allan: Hmmm?

Tom: Perhaps I’m just completely out of touch with what’s new and modern, but I just don’t see anybody out there to take the place of the old six people who used to be on The Match Game.

Allan: (Laughs)

Tom: There’s just sort of a different... there’s just not the same sort of shabbiness and trying really hard, but, y’know, to hide the fact that you have a one bedroom apartment. Even if it is in Beverley Hills, it’s still just a one bedroom apartment. I’m not very... I don’t explain myself so good...

Allan: No, no, it’s great, you just – after you speak, you may hear me sitting here sounding confused, rustling paper trying to figure out, okay, where do I go now?

Tom: Okay.

Allan: So do you consume a lot of media? Do you read tabloids or things like that?

Tom: No, not at all. I try to avoid them. I mean, I would just... I mean, I think... I don’t smoke, but if people aren’t allowed to smoke in public places, I think – I mean, I can’t help – I dwell on petty details and stuff like that, and I dwell on things, but I really don’t enjoy looking at supermarket tabloids, because I find them very fearful. I don’t know, just sort of thinking - folks who devour, I mean, who actually are absolutely fascinated by Jennifer Aniston – although, I mean, on the other side of the coin I’m really interested and fascinated by how well the Toronto Blue Jays are gonna do this year, so I guess its – people’s different passions. Allan: I mean – I was wondering if you were exploring things in a sort of scientific way. Do you watch television?
Tom: I don’t have cable. Once in a blue moon when I’m in a hotel room, or something like that, I watch TV for half an hour and I’m kind of – well, I am almost literally shocked about how bad it is, like, how trite, how embarrassingly shallow. TV’s the kind of thing I think I would watch behind closed doors and shut the blinds so nobody would see me, cos I find it – well, it’s partly because it’s not – you can’t – I think people now who are in their early 20’s, if they were at all interested, have really missed out at 11:00 on a Friday night, watching The Incredible Two Headed Transplant – that just doesn’t happen anymore? And I don’t think TV is very fun anymore, like, y’know... But then again – I think I’m such an utterly subjective person, I cannot – this is not how the world is, this is how I see the world, and so I think those are two very different things. I don’t think my opinion carries very much weight or counts for very much. But that’s just how I see things, and I just, sort of, write about ‘em. I can’t help it! (laughs)

Allan: Part of my thesis – the songs are often on obscure or misperceived things. You also have a lot of songs about, sort of, middleclass life, and people just sort of – “Carrying the Ball for Hair Design,” “I’m Always the Last One to Know,” “Big in Real Estate.” Lot of songs about everyday details – you make little fascinating novels out of them, these moments of human experience that no one would really care to notice or write about.

Tom: No, because they’re unimportant, but I mean, that’s like 95% of everything is... The fact is that if something great suddenly came out of the ground, the fact would be that the ground would have still been there for quite awhile, y’know? And why not document the ground, rather than the great thing that came out of it, because that’s what everybody else is doing? And, y’know, why at this place – I think – it doesn’t really matter to me so much what the end result is, it’s like, why did it happen here? How did it come to happen, I find, a lot more interesting. I think it’s quite boring, though. It’s a pretty boring way of looking at things.

Allan: I’m not entirely sure I understood any of that...

Tom: I have a tendency to speak in very poor analogies, and uh, it’s just – middle class, whatever, things like that are of little or no consequence. I mean, say, okay, you can look across the street, and an hour later, something else is there, and everybody is interested in what this thing is now, but no one was looking there before, and there could have been just as many things going on, or not going on. Like, end results – I just sort of think – end results – I like to find out about, I’m interested in things that happen before some great result. Backgrounds, the stuff that’s taken for granted. I think it probably has a lot to do, in my young teens, with listening a lot to the Village Green Preservation Society, which probably influenced me, as much as – besides maybe Chuck Berry - as much as any music at all.

Allan: I’m a Kinks fan, but I don’t know that one – I’m more of a Muswell Hillbillies man – Why Village Green?

Tom: I just love that record from when I first – I dunno, when I was 13 or 14 and got a hold of it, because it was out of print and didn’t sell very well, y’know, but the Kinks period, the Ray Davies period, from like 68 to – I think Muswell Hillbillies was the last really, truly great record that he wrote, in my opinion... but I just love the different approaches he has, like, you know, writing about something after its happened, rather than writing about the event happening.

Allan: Can you tie that to a specific song?

Tom: I just like sorta putting together songs like “Alcohol” and “Holiday,” y’know? Like, there’s one song about drinking and there’s another song about going on a holiday, but there’s not a song in-between about a binge, and then having to go on a holiday... Y’know, there’s not like a – the middle ground is left out.

Allan (guessing): They’re kind of slices of life?

Tom: Yeah, and I love that, because, y’know, I wish – I just love that style in approaching songs that way. I think anybody can come up with a better song than, y’know, “My Girl” by Bill Henderson and Chilliwack, y’know, and each and everyone one of us to try to do everything in our power to at least write something that’s not as bad! Cos I mean, I get mad and I have temper tantrums, if I go into a restaurant and order some food and a couple of minutes later someone puts on classic Clear Channel rock, and I just get up and leave because I didn’t pay to hear this, y’know? And I’d love to see more people do that, because I mean, I think I have a perfect right, because f we’re really loud the police come to our door and tell us to turn it down because of the decibel limit, but I think there’s also a bad taste, shit-limit... I mean, a lot of people say, “I just tune it out, it doesn’t really bother me,” but it bothers me because its invasive...

(To be continued...!)

Weapons of Mouse Destruction II: The Battle Continues

As you may recall, my first mammalian kill (not counting the flesh foods I consume daily) was of a mouse that got stuck in a glue trap by my fridge this past summer. One of several little fuckers I saw scampering around that week, I felt quite a bit of guilt over its contorted form - it had suffered for hours in a twisted, grotesque position before I discovered it. What to do to put it out of its misery as quickly as possible? I had an old frying pan at hand. I put the mouse in a newspaper, took it and the frying pan into the alley behind my building, set it on the pavement, and raised the pan high over my head...

The resultant blow, while dramatic, may not have killed the mouse, but I didn't really want to CHECK, dig? I tossed the paper AND the old frying pan in the dumpster and returned upstairs. I had lived in the building for two years without a single mouse. A friend who has lived over by City Hall for several rodent-free years also was reporting mouse activity, and a friend since has said she's been seeing mice: perhaps this is connected to all the gentrification in Vancouver, with mice abandoning demolished old buildings and seeking new, safer homes?

A few weeks later, a second mouse was caught in a snap trap in my "living room" area (that section of the bachelor suite where I entertain, in other words). It wasn't killed; I was sitting at the computer when the trap snapped shut, and it began to squeak in desperate protest, dragging the trap behind it as it crawled along on its forelegs. I worried it had been paralyzed by spinal damage, as I rushed to free it into a trash bin, but it seemed ultimately okay. I took it some blocks away and released it - I didn't want to kill again.

For awhile, I was mouse-free. This winter, its started up again. I returned home from a film to see a fat, apparently pregnant mouse scurrying for safety under my Morris bed area (which I use for storage). I put out more traps - I'd left out a couple of glue traps from the initial summer panic but I didn't want more, since they obviously cause suffering. I put out two humane traps - nicely designed and so far completely useless - and a couple of fresh snap traps. A week ago, I got back from work to find a mouse stiff and dead in a trap in my kitchen. Scoop it up, throw it away, put out a fresh trap.

Today I discovered that one of the glue traps I had had somehow moved. I shone a light into the corner: a mouse was curled inside, apparently in a position of repose, but not, it seemed, dead. How it dragged the trap two feet, while completely stuck, I don't know.

I really had no idea how long it had been in there, and I was out of old frying pans. How to deal?

A hammer. All I've got. I mean, what - a buddy suggested filling a bucket and drowning it, but who wants to be drowned? One swift, decisive blow would be better... but there's a problem: how to protect yourself from being spattered by mouse blood?

Okay: I put the mouse and trap in a plastic bag. I peek inside at the mouse while doing so and make the mistake of inhaling through my nose; I learn that the smell of a dying, scared, shitting mouse is similar to the smell of the sulphur off a lit wooden match. Sharp and unpleasant and given to lingering.

I wrap my hammer's head in plastic bags too, and I double bag the mouse.

But with the mouse in a bag in a bag - how can I know if the mouse is dead? How will I know, even, where to strike?

I get a better idea: suffocation. Less of a panic than drowning, maybe - it takes a bit more time. It's a recommended method of suicide, after all - Jerzy Kosinski killed himself by putting a bag over his head. It's even in the book Final Exit.

I quadruple bag the mouse, and take the package down to the dumpster. None of the terror of drowning, none of the violence or possible human error of a random hammer blow. It's the best I can offer - I am an amateur in matters of death. I don't fish anymore, since I kill so badly.

I throw away my last good glue trap, to be spared such future problems.

Cinema Aspirant Birthday Event March 9th: DEATH WATCH

Some films regularly pop up on my list of favourites because I think they're great works of film art - Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence, say. Others are there because, while I think they are good films, they strike deep and resonant personal chords: Bruce Sweeney's Dirty, for instance, or Bertrand Tavernier's Death Watch (La Mort En Direct). For my 39th birthday event, I'll be showing a rare European cut of that film - with Japanese subtitles and a substantially different ending from the previous North American release - at Blim, at 197 E. 17th avenue at Main. The film starts at 8, and there'll be free sampler CDs on hand for the first 15 or so people who arrive (after last year, when I made a big whack of these for a screening of Love Streams, actually ON my birthday, March 7th - and had two friends attend with me - I am trying to be conservative). The film deals with voyeurism, technology, the responsibility of making images, and male-female relationships; it stars Harvey Keitel, Romy Schneider, Harry Dean Stanton - and, in my favourite of his many roles, Max von Sydow. Hope some folks will attend!

Stuff I Don't Care About; plus apologies for my absence

The Oscars.

Scorsese made one film I truly admire - Who's That Knocking at My Door. Alas, that was his first film, made roughly the year I was born. The Departed, despite some good performances, is crap. The Oscars are crap. Crap is best ignored.

Busy writing this last week, but not on my blog! March will see me with two features in the Nerve Magazine (the New Creation and the Show Business Giants/Tom Holliston), my usual film column in Discorder (on Nic Roeg) and, finally, a concert review (on Phil Minton's Feral Choir and the Time Flies festival). Plus I've submitted pieces on Chris Walter and DOA to Razorcake, and taped interviews for features on a host of other topics. All in all, it's been a busy month - but not for blogging. I'll soon have Chris Towers and Tom Holliston stuff, unused in the Nerve, online here.

That's all I have to say for the moment, tho'.

Sun City Girls' Charles Gocher dies at age 54

Much going on this week - mouse problems, writing projects, a busy week jobwise, and a bit of bookscouting going on. No time to write here, really - tho' I'll have Tom Holliston and New Creation stuff - outtakes from my Nerve Magazine articles - coming up at some point. Just thought I'd mention that Charles Gocher of the Sun City Girls has died, at age 54, after a long fight with cancer. I liked quite a bit of their music (and was, as some of you may recall, suspicious of certain moments/aspects). Anyhow, sad news, but I thought people would want to know.

Nels Cline plays tomorrow night at Richards on Richards, and I don't really know if I can make it, given my schedule - damn, I'm busy. But I really like Nels - as a person as well as as a musician... Well, we'll try to figure something out.

Right now I think I'll take a nap. Maybe I should throw the dead mouse in my kitchen away, first.

Ryan Larkin dies

Canadian animator Ryan Larkin, who had recently returned to making films (and who was the subject of the short film Ryan), has died of lung cancer at age 63.

Performance on DVD - the missing line

I plan to do a detailed comparison at some point of Warner Brothers' new DVD release of Cammell and Roeg's Performance with my Japanese VHS edition, to note any points of difference. Right now, I can only briefly mention one important detail that's already been remarked upon, an odd and disappointing glitch that occurs during the "Memo from Turner" song. At 1:29:50, by my counter, you see the image above (lifted from DVDBeaver, I hope he doesn't mind) and see Mick Jagger's lips move, with no words coming out; he's raising a glass, and should properly be heard to say, "Here's to old England!" The music continues, but the line of dialogue has been removed. This was first reported by Tim Lucas, who speculates it was just a mistake - someone accidentally hitting a mute button - but I wonder... and I don't trust that there aren't other such "errors," tho' the film does have the same runtime as the Japanese video (the best version I've previously seen). Oddly, I feel the same way about the image quality on this one as I did with the Criterion Bad Timing last year; after having grown accustomed to the Japanese VHS versions of these films, the colours seem oddly cool and muted and the image almost too crisp... It'll be an odd adjustment.

Social Housing and the Vancouver Olympics

Anyone notice that things are lookng a lot worse in the downtown eastside lately? More people on the streets, looking damaged and desparate, living out of shopping carts: the Olympics are coming, and the poorest sector of our society is going to pay the most for them. It's like the opposite of the trickle down effect - call it the Money Vacuum, I guess, where a vast machine descends from above to suck up whatever's of value below and turn it into condos. Good article about it here...

Chris Arnett of the Furies - the Full Interview

Chris Arnett in the Shades, June 1979. Photo by Bev Davies

(Pending a few links and pictures!)

Joey “Shithead” Keithley was not yet even in the Skulls – the punk precursor to DOA – when he had the following experience (as recounted in Discorder): “I was just 18 or something like that, in June of ‘77, and they had this big ‘Punk Rock!’ poster on the wall, and it said something like, ‘You Won’t Believe It!’ or ‘We’re Out of Our Fuckin’ Minds,’ and it said, The Furies and The Dishrags. And I was goin’, wow, punk rock! I had heard about the Ramones and the Sex Pistols a little bit, and I thought, wow, this kind of stuff’s in Vancouver, is that ever weird!” Chris Arnett, the leader of the Furies, was perhaps THE man responsible for starting the Vancouver punk scene; and following a ridiculously delightful, ever-expanding wave of Vancouver punk revivals – I’m rooting for a Spores return, myself - he has regrouped the Furies and will open for DOA today at Richards on Richards, with a little help from Carola of Jem Productions (who are putting on some very cool local events, so – thanks, Jem!).

I talked to Chris a couple of weeks ago, as he was preparing for the show; he has an affable, enthusiastic phone manner and sounded really excited about the Furies’ return. Joe put us in touch, and Chris called me early one mornin’ while I saw still recovering from a hard night’s sleep. I made a coffee, ate some toast, and called him back.

Allan: Mornin’.

Chris: Sorry to wake you up!

Allan: It was happenin’ soon anyhow... So: Bill Napier Hemy says that this all resulted from a night of drunken scheming between you and Joe at the Pointed Sticks show. It that accurate?

Chris (laughs): Not really with Joe. It was John Werner, who was the second bass player in the Furies, and I just met him at the gig and he said, “Oh, you know, the woman who put on this show would really like if the Furies played here! Are you into it?” I said, “Well, sure, I guess – why not?” Y’know – 2/3rds of the band were there, so I thought, why not?

Allan: Who do you have on drums?
Chris: Taylor Little. He was the drummer in the Shades – you know Taylor, right?

Allan: He was in the Payolas.

Chris: He was in the Payolas, Poisoned, and all kinds of bands, and it the Shades. He was in the band I was in. I’ve known him for ages. He was in the – he used to hang out in the punk scene. He was just a kid, back then. He immediately kinda hired himself, he said, “I want the gig, man! I want the gig!” – ‘cos I was gonna check with Walker, Jim Walker, who was the original drummer, and he’s in London now. I emailed him and he’s kinda “Nyeeeah,” you know, I mean, he’s in London (laughs).

Allan: He went on do stuff with PiL, right?

Chris: That’s right. After our band broke up in September 1977, he went to England right away, cos the scene here just fell flat. It was just gone, there was nobody around. The Dishrags were too young, and I tried to get a band together, but nothing happened. Anyway, they took off to England and Jim, John, and his brother Simon, with another guy, formed another band called the Pack, which you might have heard of – the singer of the Pack went on to do all kinds of stuff, like Theatre of Hate, and all kinds of projects. And then Jim saw this weird ad in a newspaper over there and just had a feeling it was Johnny Rotten, and auditioned, and he got the gig! And he played four gigs with PiL before he took off – so he played twice as many gigs as the Furies.

Allan: I read that he’d gone over there with the ambition of playing with Johnny Rotten and was on the first PiL single and LP...?

Chris: Yeah, he played on the first PiL album. Awesome record.

Allan: The Furies only ever had eight gigs?

Chris: Nine! (laughs). It was hard finding gigs in those days! It was – I mean, we were a funny band. I guess we played our first gig in May, ’77, at Pumps Art Gallery, opening for – there was a show by Richard Hambleton, also known as Dick Tracy. He was an interesting kind of street artist of the day.

Allan: Hambleton? M-B-L-E?

Chris: Yeah. T-O-N. I think he’s in New York. He was an interesting artist – he’s kinda known for these white outlines of figures on the streets?

Allan: Oh yeah!

Chris: I don’t know if you remember that. But anyway, we played his show, got a great reaction... and then uh... it was funny, like: me and the bass player – the bass player was Malcom Hasman, who is now some big real estate mogul in West Van – we didn’t know much about the music business at all, whereas Jim was a professional musician, and we had sort of coerced him into joining us. Right away, he loved the sound, cos we had a unique, original hard sound, which is what we were into, what we wanted. And he kept wanting to get gigs, you know! And I’d say, “Sure, I’ll get you some gigs.” So I’d get things like the Talent Show at the Blue Horizon Pub (chuckles). And we played there twice, and that was just crazy...

Allan: And there were the two Japanese Hall gigs...

Chris: Yep. And we played a house party in East Van that was really good... And then we played in Seattle, in June!
Allan (surprised): Oh!

Chris: I think we were probably the first Canadian, y’know, punk outfit to play the US.

Allan: What was the venue?

Chris: The Oddfellows’ Hall. I’m not sure of the address, but we played with a group called the Feelings, and another one called the Lewd. And we just blew them off the fuckin’ stage! I mean – the Seattle scene hadn’t quite gelled, and punk was just starting to happen, y’know? The thing about the Furies, we didn’t think of ourselves as a punk band. My feeling about punk is that it was kind of a critical mass thing that was happening in the late 70s. Like, I was really influenced by New York Dolls and Velvet Undeground and Stooges and that kind of stuff. That’s what I listened to in high school. And we just wanted to go out and create musical mayhem. We had no ambition to record, it was the furthest thing from our minds. I mean, it was kinda crazy! We thought, fuck, we’re not gonna get into the rock establishment, we’re just gonna play anywhere and just blast people! We were always dissing popular acts ‘cos we hated them, y’know? Vancouver in those days was sort of a fat, wealthy, lazy city, it was sort of enjoying a big economic boom and there were a lot of self-satisfied 60’s fallout types, that were just kinda happy smokin’ lots of dope and stuff. There was this complacency. And then we started playing, and – I hung out with older musicians too, and they just didn’t understand what we were doing! And all it was, was just, crankin’ the volume and playing lots of bar chords and just rockin’ out! And for some reason, people were just goin’ __________, you know. (Chris makes a sound with his lips pursed. I’m actually not sure whether I should represent it as Ewwwwww or Ooooooooh; they connote different things. In context, the former makes the more sense, but the latter is more Furies-friendly. Take your pick!).

Allan: So there wasn’t even a typical reaction to punk rock on the scene at the time – they didn’t say, “Oh, he’s a punk rocker, I don’t wanna listen to that.”

Chris: Well, that sorta happened later, as the Pistols got more steam and notoriety and the Ramones played Vancouver in June of 77, which really spurred tons of interest... and yeah, it wasn’t, uh, uh, defined or anything. (Swallows a beverage). I’m sorry, what was that question again?

Allan: It’s fine, you answered it – I was askin’ about whether people reacted to you as a punk rocker, or just as this loud noisy weird wildman.

Chris: Yeah, that’s it! They just thought – well, usually we got a great reaction. People danced – you know, we played this Blue Horizon Talent Show, and we just blew them away. People were up dancin’ and stuff... there was this other band, that played Beatles covers, called the Hornets, and they got a great reaction too, so they had a face off the next week, which turned into kind of a disaster.

Allan: Um, like what kind of disaster?

Chris: Well... Jim didn’t show up at the gig, so we had to find and get him, and we were getting behind schedule, and the crowd was gettin’ antsy, and we’re drunk... And then finally we got on, and there was a big table of jocks right in front of us. I’ll never forget it. And they just said – we played a few songs, and they said, “We’re gonna fuckin’ kill you when you finish your set!” And I was goin’ “Ohhh-kay!” And then what we did, after we did our set, these guys are still not leavin’ – they’re gonna go pound us! So we did a 45-minute version of “Sister Ray,” and literally drove everybody out of the whole fuckin’ pub!

Allan: (laughs)

Chris: Cos these guys, they were hangin’ in there. And about 20 minutes into it, I had a solo, and I had the guitar on the floor and I was whackin’ it with my foot and Jim was just pounding away, and – they left, and then most of the pub left, and then, needless to say we didn’t win the contest (laughs). But it was fun! I mean, that’s kinda what we were into, just goin’ out and creating some mayhem... but like the punk scene everywhere, there was this big sort of collective happening, and so we met people who, y’know, wanted to put on gigs, and that’s how the Japanese Hall things happened. People just went ahead and organized it, which was really cool. Kinda like this gig we’re doin’! We just agreed, and all of a sudden I get this thing, you wanna play with DOA and this woman’s just gone out and done all the promotion – it’s awesome! Jem Productions.

Allan: Carola, she’s promoting it?

Chris: Yeah, she’s awesome.

Allan: I’ve met her. I like her. I get a good vibe from her. But it’s amazing – there’s only a month between the planning of the gig and the execution of it! It’s comin’ pretty fast!

Chris: Punk rock, man – fly by the seat of your pants! (Laughs). I had to re-learn all the songs, which was fun. It took me a couple of days.

Allan: Are you doin’ Shades songs as well?

Chris: Nope! It’s all Furies stuff! We had about fifteen original songs that we’re gonna do. I might do some new ones. I mean, it was 30 years ago, but, y’know, I’m continuously songwriting all the time.

Allan: You know, I’ll put in my vote for a 45 minute “Sister Ray” if I can!

Chris (laughs): Well, be careful what you wish for (“heh-heh-heh”).

Allan: I don’t think you’ll clear the place this time...

Chris: No, that’s what’s so great, y’know – cos here it’s 30 years later, and I’ve got a 19 year old kid and a 15 year old kid and they’re both into punk! I mean, my youngest son was a bass player and he’s in a punk band on Salt Spring. And he was playing when he was 12 years old – and they were rockin’ out!

Allan: What were they called?

Chris: Steel Bananas.

Allan (laughs).

Chris (laughs): But they had a killer set, like a three-hour set of Ramones, Pistols covers, Offspring, Nirvana, and some originals, and they played some amazing shows just for kids... and in the pubs. Salt Spring kinda has a loose policy about minors in the bars... So it was great to watch my son rock out while, y’know, I can have beer, and stuff...

Allan: In terms of youthfulness, I saw you at the Vancouver Complication gig, and you liked a little younger than some of the people there, which is a little odd, cos your band is a little older than most of the others... Were you, like, really young when you started...?

Chris: In the Furies? Oh, 20, 21... I’m, like, 50 now!

Allan: Oh... You’ve maintained yourself well...!

Chris: Country livin’, man. You know, none of the stress of the city.

Allan: Where do you live?

Chris: On Salt Spring Island.

Allan: Oh, you live there now.

Chris: Yeah, we’ve lived here about 20 years, moved here ages ago. We started a family in the city and we thought, “Ah, fuck, let’s get out of here!” Sort of the back-to-the-land trip, and our wife and I have made our living there since 1991 as artists. Like, I carve and paint and I’m a writer, too, and I also work with a logging outfit occasionally – you do whatever you can on Salt Spring. It’s not all, like, rarefied yuppies over there, although it’s going that way.

Allan: It’s pretty interesting that you make your living as an artist. You don’t get any royalties from anything Furies-related, do you?

Chris: Actually, I get about $100 a year for that “What Do You Want Me to Be?” song!

Allan: From the Last Call CD?

Chris: Yeah – I don’t know who the hell – it was also released on some singles, like, bootlegs. But yeah, every year - I’m a member of SOCAN, so I get my quarterly distribution, and it adds up to about $100, and it’s for that one song, played on non-commercial radio.

Allan: Do you have anything special you do with that $100?

Chris: I dunno. Pay mortgage! (laughs). Buy food.

Allan: Now, that I know of there are actually two recordings of you performing out there. Am I missing something?

Chris: No, that’s it!

Allan: “What Do You Want Me to Be” and “New Clientele.”

Chris: That one’s by the Shades, and I’ve given it over to Sudden Death to raise money for the food bank, on the Vancouver Complication thing.

Allan: But those are the only two recorded instances of you out there.

Chris: We did two songs as the Furies, and you know, I was sort of dragged in – it was all Jim’s idea. He said, “We gotta record something,” y’know, cos he wanted to show it to the record execs or something, so we went into Ocean Sound. We had fifty bucks, and we went into Ocean Sound in North Van and recorded two songs in about half an hour, mixed it in about a half an hour, and we’re out of there.

Allan: What was the other song?

Chris: It was “What Do You Want Me to Be” and – aw, fuck, what was it? I think it was called “Eleanor is a Bitch.” It was a shitty song, anyways! But... we had good songs, and you’ll hear them. We had an awesome, brutal practice yesterday at the Rock Space. If these guys can get into shape, we’re gonna rock!

Allan: Practicing in Vancouver?

Chris: Yeah, and it’s sounding really good, actually. Both Werner and Taylor, you know, they’re like pro-fes-sion-al musicians, so they pick stuff up really fast.

Allan: What’s Taylor been up to?

Chris: He’s been in Bughouse Five, and he works as a hairdresser – regular gig as a hairdresser downtown on Howe Street somewhere, and every second Saturday he hosts the jam at the Railway Club, so he’s kind of a constant feature there. They just released a new record, the Bughouse Five, and they’re playing for the Blasters this February, so they keep active. Bughouse is sort of a country –

Allan: - rockabilly, kinda -

Chris: Yeah. I like ‘em, I like Butch...

Allan: And Simon, what’s he been up to?

Chris: You mean John.

Allan: Oh. John Werner.

Chris: Yeah, there’s two brothers, actually, who were both in the punk scene. I don’t know where Simon is now, but John’s been very active – he works in the film industry, doin’ some darn thing, and plays constantly. I mean, he’s played with Linda McRae – sort of the country scene. That’s sorta his schtick. He was in England for a bunch of years and came back here in 97 with his wife Lynn, and she also works in the local TV industry... Yeah, he’s got his chops! I was in his basement, he’s got tons of gear. It’s amazing.

Allan: Have you been playing music in the interim? I mean, you were at the Complication gig. What was the last time you played live before that?

Chris: On Salt Spring Island. I play occasional gigs there. Like, when we moved there in the late 80s and started a family, I kinda lost a whole decade of contemporary music. Just when Nirvana was happening, I was sorta following it, but, y’know, you’re raising kids, you’re living on a farm, you’re just struggling to make ends meet, but... I really got into playing locally, with local musicians – I mean, there’s tons of them on Salt Spring, but mostly acoustic sorta bluegrass and country, and I really got into that – and I have a huge catalogue of songs in that vein, y’know, sorta, acoustic shit. But we also had rock bands there. You know, we had one called Stump, in the 90’s, and we played this local place called the Beaver Point Hall, which usually just hosts these sorta hippie concerts, and we were like, the loudest band to ever play there. We just shook the place, this 1920’s building, but it was a great show. Then there was a pub that closed down on the island, and I played there a few years ago with my son, a gig – sorta like impromptu things, and jam nights at local bars. Not too much, but I’ve kept most of my chops, yeah!

Allan: Cool – because, I mean, I don’t want to offend you, but I was at the Complication gig, and I was havin’ the impression that you were havin’ a great deal of difficulty keeping your instrument in control? It looked like it was – I dunno if it was feeding back or cutting out –

Chris: No, what it was, was, I’d jumped up and I’d stomped my guitar cord, so it broke! (laughs). I’m gonna have to watch that! Cos musically, when you play live, it’s like an ecstatic experience, y’know, which is what I think real rock and roll should be. You kinda get caught up in the moment. But I’ve gotta control that.

Allan: Don’t! Don’t! It was great – it was like – my reaction was like – (adopts awed tone) “this guy can barely play that instrument, but FUCK he’s goin’ for it!” (Laughs).

Chris (laughs): Wait til you hear me when I’m up and running! I mean, fuck... I’ve still got the same guitar I had, my Les Paul custom special – it’s an awesome rock weapon, that thing.

Allan: The same guitar from the Furies, back in the day?

Chris: Yeah!

Allan: Wow. Listen, there’s a little historical note I gotta take care of. What’s the deal with the first single? Who pressed it, and what was the run on it?

Chris: It was never pressed! It was never released! Like I said, when we were in the Furies, the furthest thing from our mind was makin’ a record. Like, we were really openly against it – I mean, I was, just because of, like, an attitude thing about the rock industry, and how, you know, it’s all geared towards making this product and selling it. We’d go, “Fuck that, we’re not into that.” We drove the drummer insane, cos he was a pro, but we weren’t, we were just punks that wanted to do this musical mayhem and had fun doing it. Like, playin’ live was the thing, but it was hard to get gigs –

Allan: Because the scene didn’t exist.

Chris: Yeah!

Allan: Well, that takes care of my question. I’m also talking with Tim Ray, and it’s taken as a given by a bunch of people that he released the first punk/new wave/indy single in the Vancouver scene. But I’d read somewhere, and Joe agreed, that you guys were first. But it was recorded, never released. So Tim’s was first!

Chris: Yeah, it was Tim, definitely. We recorded that June of 77, never released it, you know?

Allan: So was there a Shades EP, or anything?

Chris: Nope. The Shades – we were sorta thinking about recording, but, y’know, it just all fell apart, too. It might’ve been me – I mean, it was just – playing live was the fun thing, just the whole event. And...

Allan: Were there ever live recordings made of you guys?

Chris: Oh yeah, actually, um – this is really interesting, the bass player for the Shades, Raycevik - we did a gig at Gary Taylor’s, a Battle of the Bands thing, in July 79, and they did a four track off the board, and they got our whole set, and so Raycevik - he knew they were recording, I didn’t know they were were recording – so he went in there and stole the reel, and he kept it for years! I remember hearing it once in the 80s and thinking, “Oh, this is kinda interesting!” And then we got back together to do that gig, I went – “Whatever happened to that tape?” And he looked and looked and said, “Oh fuck, I’ve lost it. Ah, well.” And then just recently, he found it, and it’s been remastered digitally, and we may release it! It’s really good!

Allan: Any plans on selling it on CDR at the gig?

Chris: Well, this isn’t a Shades gig, so I dunno. Also, the Furies, we did two – there was a live recording done at the Blue Horizon, which was really good, and there was another one recorded at a party. We sound like the bloody Stooges on it! But I gave both the tapes to John Werner, when he replaced the other bass player, and then when Walker took off to England, he absconded with the tapes! He still has them, and he’s bein’ funny about it – he won’t kinda give them up. He’s very, y’know – he’s sorta a bigwig in London. He’s doing a movie or something. He’s working on post-production on a movie that he’s been doing for years, and he’s very protective of his history. We email back and forth and he just sorta plays cat-and-mouse about it. But anyway, it’s out there. And there’s also a recording we did in a practice studio that somehow ended up in Trent University’s Culture Studies section, so eventually there’ll be some Furies stuff from the 70’s out.

Allan: I would love to hear that live. I would buy it in a minute.

Chris: I’ll email Jim and see if he bites.

Allan: I’m really excited. It was down to you and the Dishrags, for the best show of that night!

The Dishrags supporting Bill Napier Hemy in a version of the Pointed Sticks' "Marching Song" at the Vancouver Complication gig. Photo provided by Bill Napier Hemy.

Chris: Yeah! Jade, she’s my cousin. The Japanese Hall gigs with them were really quite extraordinary, when I think back – the promotion and stuff, you know, we’d spraypaint huge billboards and stuff – and we got a great crowd, and it was just a rockin’ gig.

Allan: They were really young girls, and you were like a 20 year old guy... were you attracted to them.

Chris (assumes astonished tone): It was my cousin and her friends! I taught her how to play guitar, and stuff, and got her into the punk scene.

Allan: So your cousin’s friends are off limits? You’re very moral, for a punk.

Chris: I had my own girlfriend, man! In fact, that’s the only reason I got into music was to meet chicks, and I met one right away, and I’m still married to her! That kinda affected the dynamic of the band, too, cos I had this gorgeous woman... It was a rock and roll dream, but it happened, like, so quick... Didn’t get the money, but I got the chick!

---

Thanks to Chris for the great interview. As I write this, note that there ARE STILL TICKETS LEFT FOR THE DOA/FURIES GIG TODAY AT RICHARDS ON RICHARDS! Waaah!

Chris Arnett Pending! - Go see the Furies on Saturday with DOA

Chris Arnett, pictured at the Vancouver Complication gig, above, during one of those rare moments when he's not leaping about like a wildman, will be performing Saturday with one of our EARLIEST, most primal punk bands, the Furies - two shows, opening for the ever-energetic DOA, at Richards on Richards (the afternoon show is all ages, starts at 3, see Sudden Death for more). For those of you who came here lookin' to read "the text of my full interview" with him, as promised in Discorder, it will be up by Saturday early AM, maybe sooner - I haven't had time to transcribe the tape yet! For those of you who haven't read the Discorder thing yet - it's here. Should be a great gig - I loved what Chris did at the Complication with the Shades; his performance was my second-favourite of the lengthy night, comin' in just slightly after the Dishrags...! (Family ties there, btw - Chris is Jade's cousin).

In other news:

Q: What's worse than seeing a mouse scuttling across the floor of your apartment when you walk in the door?

A: Seeing a pregnant mouse scuttling across the floor of your apartment when you walk in the door.

Mutual Appreciation on DVD

There was absolutely nothing I didn't like about this film: Mutual Appreciation, directed by Andrew Bujalski, now on DVD (but I bought the only copy Scratch got in, so don't go lookin' for it there just yet). It's edgy, funny, unafraid to induce a squirming tension in its audience, perceptive as all heck about the precarious position o' being young, horny, ambitious, angst-ridden and abundantly confused, AND it features some great songs performed by star Justin Rice (of Bishop Allen, not to be confused with Alan Bishop). Tho' I 'fess up to not having seen the director's previous Funny Ha Ha, based on this film, I'm actually not wild about the Cassavetes comparisons that get made about him. There is certainly a debt to Cassavetes, particularly in Bujalski's willingness to thrust his characters, and thus his audience, into embarrassing situations, but this is a much lighter, sweeter, and safer film than even Minnie and Moskowitz (Cassavetes' lightest, sweetest, and safest, but still recognizably Cassavetean, film); and what indy filmmaker currently at work in America doesn't owe something of a debt to Cassavetes? ...But that's not to say it's not a really fun film, though, and well worth your time - it's grittier, more honest, and more cringingly familar than a host of other good/great movies about the travails of the youthful (I liked it more, say, than Whit Stillman's Metropolitan, Steve Buscemi's Lonesome Jim, or Alexandre Rockwell's In the Soup, to choose films that it has very little in common with save that all are fun, perceptive, and have characters who are young-ish in them, struggling to find themselves)... Anyhow, rent it or buy it or see it, already! 'Nuff said.

Phil Minton's Feral Choir - FREE on Feb 7th

Ohmigosh - thanks to Ken Pickering, I now know that there will be a FREE Phil Minton event on Wednesday the 7th. which I'd previously missed. It's described here, thus: "Time Flies artist Phil Minton will perform with members of the downtown eastside community in this Feral Choir. Feral = in a natural state after escape from captivity." An MP3 of a Feral Choir performance in Melbourne is here.

...And apparently Mr. Minton will be playing every night of the festival...! Festival pass (three nights of improvised music!) is $27, to be had either at Coastal Jazz and Blues' offices or at the door of the Ironworks).

You know that story about that South American fish...?

...the one that wriggles up the urethra of urinating humans?

Here's the full story.

Phil Minton is Coming! (Plus John Butcher and More - Ironworks Feb 8-10

Coastal Jazz and Blues is putting on the 19th annual Time Flies improvised music festival at the Ironworks starting February 8th. Dates are a little unclear on their website, but there are a couple of standout improvisers from the UK coming - most excitingly for me, Phil Minton!!!!! (That's his official site - Ubu Web samples of him performing are here). To the anointed, Minton is (to be cute about it) the Elvis of vocal improv: he's recorded with Fred Frith, Bob Ostertag, Maggie Nichols (whose website is momentarily eluding me), the Dedication Orchestra (who have no website), and performed with fellow improvisers Jaap Blonk, Koichi Makigami, David Moss, and Canada's Paul Dutton (another favourite of mine). It's a very, very strange genre of music, straddling the boundaries of improvised music and sound poetry, mostly involving people making, well, weird sounds with their mouths; since Vancouver New Music's Vox Festival, a couple of years back (described here by Alex Varty), I've been hooked on it, particularly when I get a chance to see it performed live. Minton is among the most passionate of the form's practitioners, physical, expressive, and, one suspects, possessed of a sharp wit and somewhat perverse sense of humour. I was a little too intimidated to confess my fandom when last he was here, to be honest, and am glad of another chance. John Butcher, a fellow Emanem recording artist and saxophone player, will also be in attendance at this festival, possibly even performing with Mr. Minton. Anyone who wants to see some truly adventurous musical exploration should definitely make it down to the Ironworks... just not sure which nights yet.

Blogger is buggy at the moment - I'm having no luck accessing my past writing on Maggie Nichols or Mr. Minton - so this will have to suffice. (Funny - the last time Minton was in town I actually had to sneak out early to make a Subhumans show at the Brickyard; now it seems like he may well be playing the same night as the Furies/DOA double bill, February 10th!).

Show Business Giants, Nomeansno - Vancouver shows

Photo by John Chedsey

Nomeansno fans ahoy: Nomeanswhatever webmaster Monsieur le Chedsey, last seen hereabouts in referee duds for the recent Hanson Brothers show, announced today that an April 4th Nomeansno gig is confirmed at a yet undisclosed venue for Vancouver, just before the band heads off to Europe. Fans should also note, if they've somehow missed it, that there will soon be a gig by the rarely-seen, playful-as-all-heck Show Business Giants, led by Nomeansno guitarist Tom Holliston (pictured above) and featuring John Wright on drums (and Ford Pier and Scott Henderson for this show). They'll be playing the Anza Club on March 17th. I'm rooting for Tom to do a few songs from his solo albums and workin' on getting an interview with him; those unfamiliar with his work outside Nomeansno may want to trundle down to Red Cat, where copies can still be found (I'm partial to his solo projects more than the Show Business Giants stuff, but he's a very perceptive, quirky, and entertaining songwriter, in either form - he has, as le Chedsey has put it, "the soul of a self-depracating frontman." I'm quite stoked to see what he does as leader!)

My enthusiasm for Nomeansno, of course, is boundless - the smartest and most musically adventurous of North American punk bands. If, somehow, you've missed it, part of my interview with Rob Wright is here; the rest of the same, very lengthy conversation made it into Skyscraper #23. See you at the shows...

Must see: Our Daily Bread at the Vancity Theatre

After Old Joy, this was my second favourite film at the last Vancouver International Film Festival: Our Daily Bread, a beautifully and carefully composed documentary described on the official site as "a wide-screen tableau of a feast which isn’t always easy to digest - and in which we all take part." It shows, without commentary or narration, the realities of the industrial production of food, from fish being gutted by machines to salt miners at work to the sorting and packaging of tomatoes on long conveyer belts. Though the film doesn't flinch from slaughterhouse sequences, which may upset some, it's no PETA piece; remarkably, it takes just enough of an aesthetic distance from its subject matter to allow you to form your own opinions and to perceive the film in more than one way. For me, this made it all the more unsettling: though eating is one of the most intimate and nurturing of experiences, we are so sheltered/estranged from the processes by which our food is produced that at various times I felt like I was watching life on a technologically-fetishistic, thoroughly alien planet. (I dimily recall that Kurt Vonnegut once wrote of an alternate world where the porn was comprised of images of people eating; in such a world, this would be the Boogie Nights.) Fans of Manufactured Landscapes would find this a worthy companion piece. Til Thursday at the Vancity Theatre, at Seymour and Davie - strongly, strongly recommended.

Hold the Chikowski, but throw in some extra Nels Cline

Hm. Chikowski piece is stalled, nevermind that last. Will update when/where it'll see print.

Nels Cline-wise, it surprises me to see that my interview with him in Discorder from seven months ago is still, in fact, up (wow, that seems really long ago)! There'll still be a short piece on him in the Nerve Magazine, comin' up. This is a must-see show for anyone who likes ANY sort of intense guitar - jazz, rock, improv, what-have-you: February 22nd at Richards on Richards (moved from the Red Room, where the Bughouse Five and the Blasters are gonna play that night instead. With all due respect to the Blasters, y'all should come to Richards on Richards...

JEM Gallery Lowdown on Lowbrow

Haven't made it out to the JEM Gallery yet, but this show looks like a must-see!

Upcoming gigs and articles: the Furies, DOA, Terry Chikowski, Nels Cline

I'm excited: Chris Arnett of the Furies, one of Vancouver's first and most energetic punk bands, will be putting the group back together for a Vancouver show, opening for DOA on February 10th. Anyone who saw Arnett with his second group, the Shades, at the Vancouver Complication gig knows that this is one not to be missed. I'll have an interview with Arnett up in the next little while, to correspond with something on the Furies/DOA show I've done for Discorder. Meantime, next month, make sure to check out the Terry Chikowski interview in Nerve Magazine - he was the security guard injured in the Litton Industries blast, back in the days of the so-called Squamish Five. There'll also be a brief piece on Nels Cline (in town Feb. 22, at a gig relocated from the Red Room to Richards on Richards).

Meantime, transcribing my Joey Shithead interview for the above article (and also for a longer piece I'm doin' for Razorcake), I made a fascinating discovery. To capture the flavours of Joe's speech - rich and earthy and charming - I was writing fuckin', as an adjective - not fucking, but fuckin' - and my spellcheck wasn't recognizing it. Not surprising - anytime you drop the "g" to give a more "spoken" feeling to an -ing word, the spellcheck balks and underlines it in red. The thing was, in the list of "alternatives" they suggested - I checked, for the hell of it - "fucking" was not among them! SPELLCHECKS DO NOT OFFER PROFANE SUGGESTIONS! I guess they don't want to scare old grannies who disapprove of such language by it popping up on a list of options. The discovery has prompted whole minutes of fun. If you render "asshole" as "ashole," it also does not suggest "asshole" as a possible spelling (even though it recognizes "asshole" as a word). "Ashore," yes, but not "asshole!" Next I tried writing, "I like your titts," with two T's, and got as a list of suggestions "tats, tilts, tints, tots" and "twits" - NO TITS!!!! There's a George Carlin routine in this somewhere...

A Nice Night at the Theatre with the Hanson Brothers

Is that a geoduck in your jockstrap, or are you happy to see me?

The Shittys are the perfect opening act for the Hanson Brothers. Nevermind that they share a member: they play self-consciously stooopid songs (all about "shit and living in Vancouver"), and take themselves none too seriously (bassist Craig Bougie only had two strings on his bass, and both were E's.) The thing is that, almost despite themselves, they play credibly enough that they had an enthusiastic moshpit going on (including two drunks in their apparent 30s and what John Chedsey said looked like a Megadeth fan, swinging his long blond hair to the music). Too bad my favourite tune by them was actually by the Dayglo Abortions ("Acting Like Black Sabbath" - hilarious: quoth the singer, "Quit applauding, we didn't write that one"). They're one of the few bands out there where chucking stuff at them onstage is a sign that you're on the same page with them.

The more ridiculous elements of the rock experience are also foregrounded for the Hanson Brothers: it takes very, very intelligent people to be so good at being morons. What's most amazing is that, somewhat (um) unlike the Shittys, they end up making REALLY POTENT MUSIC at the same time, perfectly distilled, tight, fast, and funny punk-pop numbers worthy of the Ramones they emulate. But it might as well be live theatre. Dig: Johnny Hanson spent most of the time between songs pretending to scream at the audience about what a moron Tommy Hanson was, or occasionally asking people if they liked cabbage, or promoting the "brand new album released three years ago." The pelvic thrusts he offered when singing "Comatose" put a definite new spin on the lyrics, too ("Yeah my baby's comatose, cos I gave my baby an overdose" - thrust thrust). Tommy mostly drooled, and had to be led offstage by referee Chedsey. Drummer Ernie Hanson stole Robbie's bass at one point, playing the riff from "Stickboy" (emblazoned on the back of his jersey. Get it - "Stickboy," for a drummer? Hahahaha!); he pouted when he had to give it back. And Robbie - well, he had the show stealer: he wore baggy jeans, with soiled white longjohns under them, and a fat jockstrap over them. His pants kept falling down, despite ref. Chedsey's earnest attempts to make them stay up, and by the end of the night he was just playing in his longjohns and jockstrap (and jersey and hockey mask, of course - that's Robbie pictured a few posts back, btw). Suddenly, something long and fleshy popped out and was dangling from his jockstrap, almost a foot down his thighs. It was disgusting and tapered and subhuman, with a brown tip. He waggled it at Johnny and the audience and continued to play his bass with the thing hanging there. Finally, he dug it out - it was a geoduck, pictured above, but few people knew this - and he tore chunks of it and threw them into the audience, including the long dangly bit, which was still on the floor after I left. It STUNK! Even the band was surprised by that one...

Anyhow, the Hanson Brothers are fuckin' hoot to listen to, ALMOST as much fun as they are to watch. I just wish I'd been able to get drunk. Five rum and cokes was enough to give me a hangover today... It should have worked better.

Tommy Hanson, aka Tom Holliston, will have a Show Business Giants show on March 17th at the selfsame venue, the Anza Club. More to come; see also the Nomeanswhatever forum.

Alice Coltrane, RIP

Jeez. First Robert Anton Wilson and now Alice Coltrane - a bad month for artists I admire dying. If you don't know her work, check out A Journey in Satchidananda - a unique fusion of jazz, Indian music, and maybe just the slightest smidgen of early 70's rhythmic rock/funk. Her piano on later Coltrane, after Tyner left, is really quite lovely, too. I haven't followed her recent work closely, but I'm sure there's much to admire.

Archive of obscure RAW essays online

Those unfamiliar with the work of the newly-late Robert Anton Wilson are suggested to check this here stuff out...

Pan's Labyrinth

If anyone's curious, I found Guillermo del Toro's new film, Pan's Labyrinth, delightful and moving - it's large-scale commercial filmmaking that Jean Cocteau would approve of, if you can dig it (and a dark cousin to Miyazaki Hayao's Spirited Away). It's marvellous to see del Toro hitting his stride (I confess that I quite enjoyed Hellboy, as well, and am looking forward to its sequel). I have nothing substantial to add to the buzz the film has already received; a very pleasant surprise that it's in Spanish with subtitles! See it theatrically.

RIP Robert Anton Wilson

Robert Anton Wilson's final blog entries (and many comments sending him off) here.

Modernettes, Pointed Sticks - Vancouver reunions at Richards on Richards

Photos by Cindy Horie

I'm a bit overwhelmed with other writing projects (just finished talkin' with Nel Cline on the phone about his Feb 22 concert at the Red Room and other things, from punk nostalgia to why I owe Willie Nelson a second chance; have promised to phone Tim Ray soonish; and am pitching around a No Neck Blues Band interview... among other things). I have thus committed a grievous omission: I have not written here about EITHER the Modernettes gig the other week, or the Pointed Sticks two shows on the 6th. It's not that I wasn't there! All this will be amended - I'll be doing a concert review in Discorder and hope to speak to members of both bands sometime soon - but there's only so much I can juggle. The Pointed Sticks show was amazing. The Modernettes show, there were a few rough moments, but it was great to see Buck back in action! Thanks to ace photographer Cindy Horie for documenting both nights!

Roeg and Cammell's Performance, January 19th

Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell's 1970 film Performance is finally set for North American distribution on DVD in mid-February, via Warner Brothers. Since previous versions of the film available here looked utterly lousy, had scenes cut, and, I'm told tho' do not personally recall, had a few voices re-dubbed, people have been a little uncertain what to expect, though I'm told the runtime of the announced disc (105 minutes) corresponds with the runtime of the most complete version previously available. Thing is, there WAS an excellent version of the film - in widescreen format, with colours much deeper and richer than the North American VHS -- issued in Japan (also running 105 minutes) on VHS some time ago. I'm interested in looking at that again, to set the standard of comparison for the upcoming DVD. Those interested should join me on January 19th.

Hanson Brothers January 20th Anza Club

Attention, Nomeansno fans: a limited number of tickets are currently on sale at the usual Vancouver venues for a Hanson Brothers gig at the Anza Club on January 20th! Believe it or not, I'm only a recent convert to their fandom; while Sudden Death and My Game were fun, it wasn't until I heard Gross Misconduct just a few months ago that I really fell in love with these guys (their single of "Brad" is pretty special, too). This will be my first (and I suspect my only) time to see them play live! Yay!

Thanks to John Chedsey for providing the photograph!

Words Against the Darkness - a visit from an Al of Yore

Welcome to post 500 on Alienated in Vancouver (noise of party favours blaring in the background, over loud group cheers and the thump of distant music).

...so I was digging through a box of old writings today. Damn, there's everything in it, jumbled with little regard for when it was composed. There's a letter of reference from a 7-11 I worked at in 1989. Spelling workbooks from kindergarten. A comic strip in which I illustrated my attempts to quit smoking. Some doodles I did on acid in my mid-20's - not many of those have survived! Pages from magazines I saved. And lots of handwritten and typewritten scribble, from the days when I was a confused young man, deeply introverted and scared, romanticizing a self-indulgent, protracted suburban adolescence by writing about it, hoping to make it seem more important than it really was. Whatta loser I was! And how fond I now feel of said loser, on contemplation.

I cannot but give you a sample. The following rant was found, typewritten and undated, on a sheet of lined and holepunched notebook paper, presented, as below, in one big block, which I have considerately broken in two. Based on surrounding strata, I would guess, if forced, to place it around age 25 - circa 1995, when (I am not particularly embarrassed now to admit) I was still a virgin, probably unemployed, a drop out from school, and quite possibly given to occasional drug use. That's just the kinda guy I was.

Note: for the most part, the ellipses are in the original, and though they are sometimes awkward, I have preserved them (I must have been reading Celine or something). I have occasionally repaired the grammar.


Words Against the Darkness

The danger of art, as told by a man who has sought all his life redemption through it, is that it cultivates capacities for meaning not necessarily fulfillable in the realm of the actual; as long as the desires for communication that it awakens can further be sated by art, that isn’t necessarily a problem, and life would certainly be INTOLERABLE without recourse to the realm of the aesthetic... but should one arrive at a place where one desires to live in real worlds... REAL worlds, so to speak, with real people in them – the fabled land of unmediated experience... the knowledge of the POTENTIAL of human communication can only act to sabotage those interactions which, by and large, fall short of said potential... isolating one from those one would most desire to contact and making all others seem impossible freaks, mediocrities. Safely placed, at the all-important critical distance (necessary to aesthetic contemplation), one paces in dissatisfaction, desiring the Grail or at least a sip of the blood, and granted, as the reward for vision, endless welfare mothers pushing babies in carts to the mouth of Moloch; drunken crude and insecure men thrusting their phalluses out further than their beerbellies; the endless neon buzz of the vacuous, all-pervasive marketplace; and legions of pain and fear that serve no transcendental purpose, NEEDLESS pain and fear that teaches the sufferers nothing, save perhaps that the world is not a safe place for desire...

...such that those who desire no less are branded as freaks and outcasts, staggering stoned along the pavement, masturbating in the men’s room of suburban shopping malls, or, trapped like rats in cages, pacing the too-secure walls of the art-womb, built to insulate us against outer dark and now turned into a prison from which, to all appearances, there is no escape – raging in impotent fury against the abyss, which, now that it has descended, seems like to never leave... which, when one comes to recognize it, in the space between the dead dream homes of murdered businessmen and their subservient suburban wives, in the frightened eyes of those who perpetually hide from themselves, in the spaces inside where one can yet remember once being alive, now filled with nicotine or grass or just a swirling vacuum, those black spaces, those emptinesses which, when they are recognized for what they are, when one looks into the true face of this death, are suddenly seeable everywhere, surrounding us now in our desperation, sliding between the hungry eyes of lovers, threatening even now to pull them apart from each other and then to rend what’s left, demanding some act of defiance which one may no longer have strength for, pacing the empty streets at night praying for a moment’s respite, even to be delivered finally of desire so that one might rest. It is death. The world is dead, the human world, and only we freaks and outcasts retain our humanity, a flame carried through dark times, forever and amen, the blackest of times in which we burn now, brighter for the darkness around us, but so alone, so afraid, so far apart.

--

(So dramatic, so angst-ridden, so intense, so YOUNG! "Raging in impotent fury against the abyss!" ...tho' hey, that line about Moloch is kinda inspired; for awhile, I had the words "Moloch in whom I sat lonely," from Howl, typed out and tacked to my bedroom wall, back in Maple fuckin' Ridge). I have about six more boxes of such stuff to weed through, with no guarantee that I'll find what I'm looking for, and no doubt that I'll fail to be entertained when I deign to read what I've written. There is MUCH, MUCH more where that came from, folks; I'll be wincing and smiling and straining to remember: good God almighty, was that really ME?

Damn, it WAS.

Iraqis on the Execution of Saddam Hussein

Another Iraqi speaks out about Saddam Hussein's undeserved "martyrdom" here - one who had been jailed for his opposition to Baathist rule. Riverbend on the "sordid lynching" here. Must-reads (Dec 31).

Old Joy again - go see it this week!

Ten reasons to see Old Joy at the Vancity (that's the official site; details here), in no particular order:

1. This is the third time I’ve reviewed it (first was for Discorder, before the film festival; next was on my blog, when it played the fest.) Any film I recommend THREE TIMES in writing has got to have something to it. (As of tonight, I’ve actually seen it four times, and plan to see it again on Sunday).

2. The film is a two men and a doggy film. The doggy, Lucy, actually gets third billing, after the two men and before the other people. Her name really is Lucy, so onscreen, when the credits roll, it reads, “Lucy.........Herself.” The dog doesn’t do anything in the movie but be a dog, following two friends on a camping venture, and that’s remarkable enough, that the dog is a dog and the landscape is the landscape and that almost nothing in this film STANDS for anything. No: being a dog is important enough, and sometimes the camera spends time on her to acknowledge that. You get to like her, and get to know a bit about what kind of dog she is, and you like that the film thinks she’s important enough to give her a minute. Or two. Or three. A dog could probably enjoy watching this movie alongside its owners, if they let dogs in theatres. The shots outside the car window of the landscape passing – what dog doesn’t stick its head out and watch?


3. And, oh, the landscape is lovely – similar to that of BC, and filmed in such a way that you both feel despair and pain at the ugliness of it, when it’s ugly (the suburbs), and an aching joyous desire and awe and wonder at the beauty of it, when it’s beautiful ( the forest - tho’ very little of the forest is shown without some trace of human presence – garbage, roads, wires. There's a reason why that is). And the experience of going from the suburbs to the forest - the feelings you have en route - and the reasons for doing it– they’re in this film, they’re central. When did you last see a film centered around something so real? The film does for you exactly what it does for the characters in it. It has a deep, deep integrity.

4. I’m not sure what role Yo La Tengo played in scoring the film, compared to Smokey Hormel, who also gets credit, but the music is – well, look: frankly it reminds me of Jerry Garcia’s guitar solo in Zabriskie Point, and say what you will, I think that’s one of the most lovely uses of music in a film score ever. Or, well, think of Wim Wenders’ soundtrack to Im Lauf der Zeit (Kings of the Road). Damn, was a CD ever released of that? (Holy shit! YES THERE IS!) Is there a score for Old Joy? More stuff I wanna buy: damn. In any event, the beauty of the music and the beauty of the landscape and how it is photographed go together perfectly. If I have a complaint about the film, the contrast the music sets with the talk radio stuff in the suburban scenes is a little obvious, formally, but only after you see the film twice. And then you stop noticing the fact of it, which is momentarily a bit distracting, and start paying attention to how it interacts with the film thematically. Then it’s okay again.

5. There are observations made that express quiet and real truths, sometimes painful, and sometimes simply just sweetly familiar, about the life we now lead, that we often don’t stop to consider, but will resonate with you, reminding you of things that you have considered and maybe not dwelled on that much. The way that sometimes a perfectly obvious thing suddenly becomes profound and revelatory and surprising when you really start to think about what it means - when you’ve been smoking pot, say. This is fitting, because many of these observations are issued through the mouth of the film’s aging pothead main character, Kurt, played so perfectly by Will Oldham that I kinda want to talk to him and find out if he smokes a lot of pot himself (cf the “liner notes” to Superwolf, my favourite of his albums). He may well. Some of these observations include: “You can’t get real quiet anymore.” Or that the forest and the city aren’t as different as they used to be: now there are trees in the city and there’s garbage in the forest. The sort of thing you don’t notice so often unless maybe you're high, but that really rings true. At some point, his monologues become utter poetry, as they play against the rest of the film - when viewed from the right angle. You notice how I’m not going to tell you them here.

6. And the thing about it: you won’t even identify with Kurt, probably. I mean, people like Kurt would probably like this film – because it’s Kurt’s film in many ways; the film gives the Kurts of this world their due, sadly aware that they’re being beaten into marginalization and isolation and shame – in North America, anyhow. So much so that it’s far more likely that your life will resemble that of Mark, the other main character, because there are a lot more of him around. I certainly can identify with him more than Kurt. And I can tell you, even though he maybe doesn’t know it himself, Mark needs Kurt. He needs the trip that he and Kurt go on far more than Kurt does. Kurt is the man who gives something away in this film; Kurt is the one who stands to lose. What Mark stands to lose, he’s already almost lost, which is, perhaps, his problem. And though Kurt would sure like things from Mark that he doesn't really get, he doesn't, ultimately, begrudge him. We see him struggling. We get closer to him than we might be comfortable with, even – particularly if we hold our own personal Kurts at arm’s distance, since he’ll likely remind you of someone you’ve known... but we have to acknowledge him. This one’s for Kurt.

7. And though the landscape is the landscape and the dog is the dog, Kurt is not just Kurt. He represents the dreams of a different, more innocent, more poetic and passionate time, that allowed people like him briefly to have a toehold in the culture. He’s somewhat of the last gasp of the 1960s. Or something like that. I think the title of the film ties in with this...

8. And that’s why Old Joy almost seems almost like a ritual, to me; like a church service aimed to impart something to it's congregation that might just be needed. It’s a movie, that, like Kurt, sees how tense and worried and hung up we all are, and is briefly, quietly generous to us, asking very, very little for itself. It thought about its audience with tears in its eyes, and about how it was almost too late to give us anything at all, and then it made up its mind. And we’ll receive it, if we have the capacity to meet it, to see the film with an open heart, and we might not even notice that we've received it, but it'll be good for us. Which makes it a pretty moral film experience, really. I can’t recall the last time I’ve described a film as “moral.”

9. And the best reason to see it at least once is because then you’ll have the option of seeing it again. In my opinion, like a piece of great poetry or a supremely evocative short story – or a beautiful piece of music – the film is bottomless and rewarding, even moreso each time you see it. With great simplicity of form, it achieves amazing depth.

10. Finally, it’s paired this week with Andrew Bujalski’s terrific little film, Mutual Appreciation, which I also loved, but don’t need to say anything about. The less I say, the better off you’ll be. I think Mutual Appreciation would be better seen second, on a double bill, frankly - it's less subtle, less quiet: better to work up to it than try to come down off it to tune into Old Joy.

Old Joy is the finest piece of American cinema I have seen in years.

Eugene Chadbourne Returns ... in June

Dr. Chad checks the piano at the Western Front. Photo by Allan MacInnis

Okay, so here's LOTS of advance notice for discriminating freaks: Eugene Chadbourne, the Doctor Himself, is returning to Vancouver to do a tenure at the VCMI as part of the next jazz festival, in, uh, the summer. Certain dates seem tentative but see the House of Chadula site for more! Dr. Chad is known for determinedly veering all about a musical map that extends from whacked-out (but often strangely lyrical) avant-garde banjo explorations and/or Bach interpretations (again for banjo) to covers of popular songs that range from the unquestionably sincere (Tim Buckley, or Phil Ochs' "Knock on the Door," say) to the more irreverent-seeming (Michael Jackson's "Beat It," for instance, done live when he was last in town... or, dig, download Shockabilly doing "Are you Experienced?" or "A Hard Day's Night.") I am not sure where to locate the Johnny Paycheck, Roger Miller, and Merle Haggard covers on the sincere-to-irreverent-seeming spectrum and at some point you just gotta stop and enjoy it, 'cos he clearly is. And he claims he isn't an ironist, so... uh... Anyhow, some serious psychedelic guitar murk - "soup" -- tends to swirl up out of the delirium, too, often accompanied by a vocal style that owes at least a little to Looney Tunes. Documentary about him as a younger man on Youtube, here, plus -- ooh! -- footage of him playing in Warsaw in 2006, using what appears to be the same guitar seen above! I must check this out! (Oh, hey, there's a song I don't even know - "Feelgood music for fucked up people?" Indeed! Oh, wait, there's SHOCKABILLY FOOTAGE!) LOTS of Dr. Chad on Youtube. Must investigate.

Excuse me.