Garfath Does Parties: falling down a silly anagram rabbithole with an American Werewolf, and emerging with an answer to a mystery

So a buddy of mine has a projection unit and screen, instead of a TV, and occasionally I go over to watch movies with him. Last night, we took in an old favourite of mine, An American Werewolf in London, which I have owned in VHS, on DVD, and on blu-ray, but never seen on 4K. In fact, I haven't seen it as large as it was last night, or as clear, since I saw it projected first run, when I was a young teenager, making my father take me to it in Vancouver (it was restricted, and in fact the only film, in my teen years, that I tried to get into when underage, back at the Starlight cinema in Maple Ridge. My argument that I had already seen it won me no sympathy at the door). 

It was great to see the film again - and great to see a hundred odd details I'd missed previously, from the blurry but very recognizable poster for Cassavetes' Gloria that my friend spotted in the subway scene...

...to shots of punk graffiti scrawled (often in the same handwriting,  suggesting it was deliberate set decoration, not just a coincidence) on both the walls of the underground and the phone booth that David calls home from - you see the name of the UK Subs more than once, and also can spot the Jam, the Sex Pistols, and others, none of which would have meant anything to me at all when I first saw the film at age 13 or so (I was 13 in 1981, the year of the film's release, and didn't learn about punk rock or hear the Sex Pistols until 1982; certainly I had no clue about the Jam or the UK Subs). 

The biggest mystery revealed is one I did not snap a pic of, but involves the glass on the far side of that phone booth. As we close in on it, we see the words "Garfath does parties." I am not the first blogger to speculate as to the significance of that phrase: Cinesthesiac calls it "one of the most mysterious pieces of background graffiti ever filmed... what the hell did that ever mean?" (That was the first link that came up when I Googled "Garfath does parties" - an article explicitly about An American Werewolf in London - so there's no other "Garfath does parties" out there; there's "She's in Parties" by Bauhaus but the film predates that album, so it seems conspicuously irrelevant). Indeed, Cinesthesiac, what could "Garfath does parties" ever mean?

The phrase is unusual enough that at first I thought it might be an anagram. (Note: this is actually a foolish rabbithole - there's a much easier explanation, which we will get to presently - but it will be more fun if you come down the hole with me first). Sometimes when you are doing anagrams, trying to rearrange the letters of a phrase into a new phrase, you can cheat; when no words suggest themselves, you can make up a name. Let's say you have a phrase like "paradise for the stag," for example (actually backformed out of "Garfath does parties," and not particularly meaningful, but it will serve the purpose here as a let's-pretend starting point). You look for the first word that jumps out at you - let's say you see "parties." (This leaves you with "ad for he stag"). "Parties" is a noun, so - if your aim is to produce a sentence, next you want to try for a verb; maybe "forget," as in, "forget parties," for example? You scratch it out on a piece of paper - it's a promising phrase - but it takes away a few too many letters; you are left with a mere "adhsa" to work with, which isn't much if you want another word or two.  

After a few minutes of rearranging "adhsa," you discover that you find nothing you like. ("Parties forget a dash?" Not very evocative, that), so you decide to scrap "forget" and look in the previous combination of letters ("ad for he stag") for a shorter verb than "forget," so you have more letters to play with in making your anagram. Aha, there's "does!" That's a good, simple verb. So you will now try to fill in the blank on "____ does parties."

I hope you are finding my breaking down the process of coming up with a good anagram interesting.

Sadly, once again, working with "___ does parties," you are stuck with an unworkable tangle of letters, "afrhtag," for the sentence's subject. "Fart-hag does parties?" Well, maybe, but what's a fart-hag? The phrase goes beyond the evocative and mysterious into vulgar obscurantist Dadaism or something. You guess that you could cheat by having a single un-worded letter sticking out - pardon my reference to a homophobic slur, but something like "Artf-g H does parties," say - but that also doesn't appeal - because it's a slur, and because of that wordless, meaningless H, which is a cheat. So we still don't have a good phrase.

 This is how we might arrive at the conclusion that it would be best if it were a name: Garfath! "Garfath" does parties. It's enigmatic, but it has a certain ring to it, and Garfath FEELS like it could be a name - maybe the night janitor at Hogwarts, or something? A minor orc, or dwarf warrior? Why not. 

Anyhow, thinking that Garfath might be exactly this - a name arrived at by working with the letters you are stuck with in the process of creating an anagram - I tried coming up with what MIGHT have been the original phrase, and had no luck. I spent about an hour on the bed with a notepad, patiently writing out "Garfath does parties" and crossing out each letter as I used it. I noticed that there's a "spaghetti" available, so tried that word, working with what was left: "Spaghetti rode as far?" "Safe spaghetti ardor?" "Road spaghetti fears?" Nah, none of those seem like phrases that John Landis might have wanted to code into the graffiti. "Grasp at fad theories?" Also not likely, though I did feel like I was grasping at a theory throughout. The best one I came up with was, "So I farted at grapes," but it doesn't mean much. "A short, rapid gorefest" works, too, but the film, concise and gory though it may be, is neither "rapid" nor a "gorefest."  I was stumped.

Then it hit me that maybe the problem was that I was Googling the whole phrase. The three words "Garfath does parties" may ONLY appear in popular culture in An American Werewolf in London, but - if Garfath is actually a real name, maybe there's information on it? 

And so I arrive at David Garfath, a camera operator on, yes, An American Werewolf in London, and Second-Unit Director on Landis' later film, Spies Like Us. I have no information about the specific nature of the teasing was - was Garfath available for hire at this point to film people's parties? Was that a thing back then? But that "most mysterious" piece of graffiti was apparently some in-joke in the film, the set decorator (or Landis himself?) playfully and obscurely referencing a cameraperson. 

Without that 4K projection, I would never have known any of this - and wouldn't have wasted a couple of hours down this silly rabbithole. But let me just say, dear reader, if at some point in the future you have arrived at this blogpost by your own Googling of "Garfath does parties," that a) you are welcome; b) I am pleased that you are also Googling the phrase - that people will still care enough about An American Werewolf in London, perhaps for years to come, that it would be something anyone Google, and that c) I deeply approve of your quests. Have fun. If you have MORE information than I about the specific kinds of parties that Garfath used to do, or can pass this on to John Landis, wherever he may be, to FULLY clarify this matter, I would be most obliged. 

See you next Wednesday.

Vic Bondi: 11 questions on Bob Mould, Articles of Faith, and The Ghost Dance(s)

Vic Bondi on acoustic guitar, courtesy Vic Bondi

NOTE: since this was published, Vic Bondi has put his solo album, The Ghost Dances, onto bandcamp. 

Did anyone else have the same experience as I did with the film American Hardcore - where you suddenly discovered a half-dozen bands on the soundtrack that you had never heard (or even heard of) before, mostly because their records were ones that you just didn't come across back in your hardcore years? There were a few for me - but the two best songs that I'd had no prior frame of reference for were early west coast hardcore band Middle Class doing "Out of Vogue" and Chicago political punks Articles of Faith doing a song called "Bad Attitude." I would have loved to have stumbled across either band in the mid-1980's. I didn't. But suddenly I discover I have a chance to see Articles of Faith vocalist Vic Bondi - the man who co-wrote "Bad Attitude" back in 1982 - apropos of his upcoming appearance at the Rickshaw, opening for Bob Mould. Bondi lives in Seattle these days, and the two, Bob and Vic, have considerable history together, with Mould having produced the two Articles of Faith LPs, Give Thanks and In This Life). 

Now don't get me wrong: I greatly enjoyed Mould's last two shows at the Rickshaw, even got to talk to him about the last one, when he was touring Sunshine Rock. (I also blogged an expanded discussion with Mould, here, and a few years prior, wrote a review of his previous show, which, like the upcoming show this Thursday, was a true solo venture, just Mould and his guitar). But with apologies to Bob, I am presently much more excited to be playing catchup with Articles of Faith and Vic Bondi, and his various other projects like Dead Ending and Jones Very - the Wikipedia page on him, with a more detailed list of bands he's recorded in, is here - because this is someone I knew nothing about prior to last week, and whose 1988 solo album The Ghost Dances comes as quite a revelation.. 

I *have* sent some questions to Bob Mould, in case he has time for a brief email interview; who knows if he will get back to me. While we wait, though, take a listen to Vic Bondi's The Ghost Dances yourself and check out the email interview below. (As always, italics are me).

Allan: How did you connect with Bob as producer on the two Articles of Faith LPs? Any stories or memories about Bob's contributions, or Husker Du, or...?

Vic:  I've known Bob for forty years. I can't remember our first introduction, but I do remember the first time I saw him and  Hüsker Dü. It was probably late Nov of '81 at this punk rock dive bar in Chicago called O'Banions. They played on a bill with the Replacements opening up, and it was bitterly cold, and the bar had no heat. This was Land Speed Record era HD. I had never heard them before and they came on and it was pure sonic blur. Just a wall of volume and noise. It took me four or five songs to realize the drummer was singing. It was more performance art than rock and roll, and I was hooked. Fantastic band. I felt like I was honest witness to their evolution into a spectacular rock and roll band because, after that, we played with them many, many times, and they were constantly innovating and resetting the goal posts for what hardcore could be. When they recorded Zen Arcade in California, Chicago was a stop on their way back home, and I will never forget Bob playing that on the stereo of the AoF hardcore house, Big Blue. We all knew it was genius.

Where did the name Articles of Faith come from? (It's a Mormon concept, isn't it?). I gather that a later project of yours, Jones Very, was named for the Unitarians? Why the interest in Christian offshoots? Is it a comment on the "religious" aspects of punk, or your upbringing, or...?

I'm not Mormon and didn't get the connection to Articles of Faith as a religious idea until later. The name came from a song we had written called "Articles of Faith," which was more about how social and political indoctrination became faith. At the time, the band AoF was called "Direct Drive," which was the name of the band guitarist Joe Scruderi and I had formed in college. We had played shows under that name when we moved to Chicago, but we were developing a new sound and wanted a new name to go with it. So we picked the name of that song. In retrospect a good choice because as political as AoF was, it was also a very expressive group. Sometimes people will cite our second album In This Life as a progenitor of emo. So the name reflects that, too.

Jones Very was an actual person, a poet in Emerson's circle, touched with madness. At the time I formed that band I was reading a lot of Transcendentalism and had a completely ridiculous conceit that I could create "transcendentalist rock" - which in retrospect is one of the silliest propositions I've ever come up with. But the name is kind of a good fit for the post-punk sound of that band. There were a bunch of "Jones" bands around that time, though, so I guess I wasn't as clever as I thought.

Have to ask about "Bad Attitude," which is the first song I heard of yours, on the soundtrack to American Hardcore. You repeat the single phrase "bad attitude" so many times that it becomes delightful and kind of ridiculous. I don't recall any other songs that hammer home a two-word chorus as often as that (tho' surely there must have been Ramones songs that did that). Was there a specific inspiration for it?

Growing up, I was told I had a bad attitude enough that it became a mantra for me. Since that is easily the most popular AoF song, I guess it did for a lot of other people, too.

What did you specialize in as a history teacher? Is there an overlap between your career as a professor and your writing an album titled after the Ghost Dance...? Why did you pluralize it to The Ghost Dances...? (Wasn't it one thing, a singular ill-fated religious movement to wish away the white man? I haven't read Bury My Heart in a long time...). 

I took a doctorate in intellectual history from Boston University in 1993. I taught a lot of American history, culture and philosophy for around eight years in Boston and New Hampshire, and yes, the Ghost Dances is deliberately a play on that movement, which in a lot of ways closes an epoch of indigenous culture on the Plains that began with the introduction of horses. It's a sad moment in history, almost an elegy for a world in passing. I had written a cycle of songs on the AoF 1985 tour going through Montana and Wyoming, as the band was ending, I was breaking up with my girlfriend and moving to Boston. I had never been to the Plains before I toured in AoF, and the sky and depth of that place really affected me. So much sky that it crushes you. I recorded the album that winter, at Inner Ear studios in DC with Don Zientara. Since the songs were written and fixed in the Plains, and my personal situation was also changing radically, I borrowed the term.

The record actually came out by happenstance. In the beginning, I just made a cassette of those songs and gave it to friends. But people started copying it and circulated widely with people and eventually Pat Dubar from Uniform Choice--who I didn't know--contacted me and asked if he could put it out as a vinyl record, which he did in 1988. It was probably the first acoustic record that came out of that hardcore scene. There weren't many copies made, but for the people who have that record... a lot of them really take it to heart. It's probably the most deeply felt work I've done, and seems to resonate with people that way. I'll be playing of lot of these songs opening for Bob.

There are a lot of effects on the album- was there a specific inspiration or reason for that? Are you playing everything? The songs & your delivery remind me a bit of Bill Fay, but he's not so well known, so... 

I was trying to write something like Blood on the Tracks or Nebraska with The Ghost Dances--not that it's in that league. It was a great record to record, because Inner Ear was at that time still in Don's basement, and it was just him and me working together. There's actually almost no effects on that record other than us messing with reverb--there was a little synthesizer in the studio, so I threw some ambient stuff in there. But most of the ambient sounds you hear is just my voice or guitar with a lot of reverb.

How old were you when you wrote "Getting Nowhere?" It seems like the sentiment of a younger man, not someone who was fairly accomplished (which you seem to have been by 1988). I can only make out some of the lyrics - is it just about being frustrated with where you were, personally? (Do you actually sing "the chorus just repeats?" That's pretty great. Can you give us the full lyrics to that song?)

 I was 25 when I wrote "Getting Nowhere":

Outside looking in again
Cold northeastern wind
Getting nowhere
Hope beside the iron skin
nothing getting in
Getting nowhere

All my life is waiting by the door...

Nothing gained and nothing spent
returning what was sent
Getting nowhere
Arcs and circles
daisy chains
back to where we came
Getting nowhere

All my life is waiting by the door...

All the days in numbered line
The past that haunts the life
Getting nowhere
All the days in numbered chain
The past that haunts the dream
Getting nowhere
The chorus just repeats
The chorus repeats.

Thanks. It's an amazing song. Um, do I gather you have an unreleased acoustic album - a follow up to this, or precursor? What happened to it? Will we hear any of that...?

I actually have two unreleased acoustic records--In Hope and Fear, which I recorded in Beverly, Mass in 1991, and Across the Bridge, which I recorded in Seattle in 2010. There are also two albums that I recorded with Tom Morello in 1996-97 that have never been released and probably won't be, since Tom reused a lot of the songs he wrote for that project, which he called Weatherman, for Audioslave. 

Vic Bondi with Teenage Time Killers, courtesy Vic Bondi

What else do you play during a live set? Are there any Articles of Faith songs, or songs from your career in punk?. I see that you've recorded a couple of cover tunes - "Fortunate Son" and "Complete Control" - do you include them - or any Dead Ending covers?

 I've worked up acoustic versions of songs by all the bands I've been in: AoF, Jones Very, Alloy, Report Suspicious Activity, Dead Ending and my current band Redshift. And Ghost Dances and a couple of new ones. What I play is whatever I feel, and can fit into thirty five minutes each night.

It sounds like you've changed "Complete Control" into a protest song about COVID measures...? (Please feel free to share your point of view on COVID, whatever it may be. I myself am doubly vaxxed, but have good friends who have remained unvaccinated). How have you weathered COVID? 

I'm triple vaxxed and spent the pandemic at the house, like everyone. DE's version of "Complete Control" wasn't specifically about the politics of COVID and definitely wasn't anti-mandates. I recorded it remotely from the rest of the guys, so I thought I would update the lyrics to reflect what we were all going through. I was shooting for a more general "this sucks" and not "mandates suck." God forbid those idiot Truckers would pick it up like that. But you can't control how people interpret songs. Aof was playing a show in Germany, and during "Remain in Memory," which is a break-up song, this guy was in front of me seig-heiling every time I sang the lyrics, "Remember Me!" -- No one could have ever got the intent of a song more wrong.

Any history with Vancouver? When did you move to Seattle, and do you ever come up here? (I hadn't noticed before - sorry!).

AoF played Vancouver once, in 1983, at some bar in Gastown--I don't remember the name. We played for about three people. Ron Reyes from Black Flag had set up that show, and hung out with us at this squat where we stayed. We went out to get beer the night before the show at some bar and on the way back, we got jumped by these three geezers. They were stalking us from behind and keyed on Ron because he was a small guy and they thought he was an easy target. They were wrong--he hauled off and decked the first guy and then it was on, and we put down the beer and started chasing these guys down the street. Halfway down, we looked back, and this other geezer was taking off with the beer. Which is how I learned that Canadians love beer so much they'll take a broken nose in return for a six pack.

Maybe the story will jog Ron's memory - he's still around, though he's been quiet through COVID - I don't think I've seen him take the stage since Chip Kinman played the Rickshaw with the Three O'Clock Train in the spring of 2019. But to come back to it - will you collaborate with Bob at all at the Rickshaw - join him for a song? (Have you shared a bill before, or is this a special event for you?).

Bob asked me to open for him a few times, back in the day, and before the pandemic in Seattle. This is the first time I've been on an extended run with him, and I'm really honored that he would ask. I will say one of the best nights of my life was in 1985 when Hüsker Dü called me onstage at the Paradise in Boston for an encore of "Ticket to Ride."

Rickshaw event page here - still tickets available! 

Creating Your Own Culture: An Anton Newcombe Interview

NOTE: THIS SHOW HAS NOW BEEN CANCELLED.

“When you are compelled to do the right thing, when you live by some internal code, and you don't shy away from standing up to and in the face of adversity or against the mob or the man no matter what that might mean to "your fame or prospects," it's doing the right thing... for some it might be taking a knee, or even a baton or bullet. That's a fire inside you, and it doesn't grow on trees. I create my own culture because it is what I need and what I feel isn't being provided. It doesn't exist unless I participate.” – Anton Newcombe

Photo: Thomas Girard

Anton Newcombe, asked about the feeling of connection that the Brian Jonestown Massacre facilitates among their fans, says that he considers the band "folk music, the people’s music, and I believe in creating culture." 

Most people, of course, would not call the Brian Jonestown Massacre folk music. The band, formed in San Francisco in 1990, combines elements of shoegaze - especially on their first album, 1995's Methodrone - and 60's psychedelia, particularly as follows from the work of Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones, one of the first rock musicians to bring world musics into rock, among other things producing an album by the Master Musicians of Joujouka. Jones' influences on the Stones are most acutely felt on Their Satanic Majesties Request, which the Brian Jonestown Massacre rather brilliantly riffed on with the title of their second album, Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request, which featured their crowd favourite "Anemone" (given as "Anenome" on the CD cover). 

The Brian Jonestown Massacre do come closer to what most people think of as "folk" territory on other recordings, especially their fourth album, Thank God for Mental Illness (1996). But most people have an impoverished concept of what folk music is; all authentic popular music, but especially underground and counterculture music, is a folk phenomenon, music by the people, for the people.  And of course, as Anton adds, it is "very natural for people to bond over shared interests," with music being especially powerful in creating those bonds. 

That doesn't entirely capture how open Newcombe can be with his fans, however, connecting with them online via Dead TV or his Soho radio broadcasts, broadcasting entire tours via the internet, and generally just interacting with his listeners more than one might expect, bringing people together worldwide around their participation in this community - members of which have used the term "family," to talk about the bonds they feel - not just with the band, but between each other. I have plenty of people in my life who I've connected with because of music, but what I've observed (from outside, mind you) of the BJM "family" is actually rather special, perhaps a bit closer-knit than most families of this sort.  

Vancouverites among that family will be heading to the Vogue Theatre on April 15th to see the Brian Jonestown Massacre play live, sharing songs off their 19th studio album, Fire Doesn't Grown on Trees, which comes out on A Recordings, June 24. The opening cut, "The Real," has lyrics that resonate against the quote at the top of this page: “Fight the beast until it dies, raise your sword up to the sky!” In the press release for the record, Anton says:

That line is like fantasyland! ....It’s the little kid in me, full-on St. George shit. It’s as much a declaration of anything that I could ever muster. A lot of the album is about affirmation by just living. Existentially, this time period has felt pretty dark, so it’s about fighting the good fight. I’m singing to empower other people. First of all, I’m getting whatever I need out of it, but I can see it as something other people can identify with... I'm trying to give comfort and support to the listener in a very matter of fact kind of way.

Another new Brian Jonestown Massacre album, The Future is Your Past, is due in October/ November.

Anton took time from his tour preparations to answer a few email interview questions. My questions are in italics, below. 

Will you be broadcasting this tour, so people can see or hear it? (I gather you’ve done that in the past – not sure if it was just to an “inner circle,” or…?). 

I could, but I don’t think so, it’s all I can do to stay healthy.

There are bands that play nearly the same setlist every night, maybe with minimal variations due to time constraints; have you ever been tempted in that direction – or have you always varied sets from night to night? How do you feel about the publication of setlists on websites like Setlist FM - people peeking ahead to get a sense of what is going to be played?

There are no rules, however we try and learn an hours worth of extra songs then switch it up everyday slightly- this tour’s setlist is over half unreleased music, but it is very strong so I don’t think it matters.

Are the videos for “The Real” and “Ineffable Mindfuck” are your work – where are the images coming from? Are there filmmakers whose visual aesthetic we should acknowledge? (“Kenneth Anger Meets Roger Corman?”)  

My friend Mrs Muddles makes all them for us.

​​Do I gather you have recently recovered some stolen instruments, and that some of those are with you on this tour? How does it feel to be playing guitars stolen so long ago? Has getting those guitars back influenced your current music or your setlists…? 

They are great guitars, and it was a real tragedy when all of our gear was stolen on tour. Fortunately I was able to replace everything and more but at the same time, all of my gear is old and all of it unique. I’m very lucky to get a few things back after 15 years, to be able to write and record these new album then tour with them is fantastic. 

 Anton Newcombe at Richards on Richards by bev davies, Sept. 2006; Bev thinks this is one of the instruments that got stolen in NY on the same tour... 

Do you often pick up instruments while you tour? What are you looking for on the road these days? Do you have places on this tour that you are looking forward to returning to, or shopping at…? (Do you pick up a lot else on the road – records, keepsakes?).  

I do search for deals on old stuff, last tour I shipped 869 kilos of amps and things back, this time I’m searching for a Hammond b3 etc

Do I gather that you have a practice of doing a draw for two tickets to people who donate to Oxfam? How does it work? 

It’s very simple, everyday I ask people to make a donation and show proof, I count the number of donations then pick a winner or sometimes five winners via a random number generator. 

Brian Jonestown Massacre, May 23rd, 2016 at the Commodore, by bev davies

I have experienced from my limited travels that audiences are vastly different from culture to culture. Are there places – audiences in this country or that - that “get” you better than others, that listen to you better than others, that annoy you or confuse you or pleasantly surprise you? Do you have peeves, when it comes to audiences? (Any advice on “How to be a Good Audience Member?”) 

Everyone seems pretty respectful and just enjoying themselves lately - who wants to stand next to some drunk jerk yelling stuff anyway.

Why the cat on the album cover? (It looks a bit like Robyn Hitchcock’s cat, Tubby, except Tubby only has one eye). Are you a cat person – do you have pets?

 Wolfgang [Anton's son] created the album artwork only he doesn’t know yet.

Anton Newcombe, 2007, by bev davies

End that portion of the interview - this is Allan again: My final question was a bit involved - and Anton's answer was extremely concise, but too provocative not to include. Y'see, I have always utterly loved the bandname of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, linking Brian Jones, his death, and the cultish elements of rock and roll. It always reminds me of something Efrim Menuck once observed when I interviewed him about a Richards on Richards show by Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra - we'd been talking about Nina Simone and Phil Ochs, but could as easily have been talking about Brian Jones:

In the personal lives of people who are engaged in this thing of making music, there are no happy endings. There are plenty of, like, cautionary tales, tragically short lives, it’s just…It’s a train wreck. The history of modern popular music is a train wreck. It’s got all these sort of like utopian ideas bubbling everywhere, like a song can make you feel like you’re not alone in the world, that there’s purpose to your life, music has that power... but at the same time, if you dig deep and you look at the story behind it, it’ll just break your heart in 20 million places. It’s like a sucker’s game... So, out of love of music and out of making music, you end up making your own sort of hall of saints and you write your own little, what’s the word, catechisms, the Catholic thing there... those little books that teach you how to pray proper? You write your own little catechisms, if you’re a certain type of personality.

Anton, asked if he has his own "hall of saints," responded that "I respect a lot of people. I don’t idolize anyone in the history of the planet." Fair enough, but would he agree with Menuck about the trainwreck that is popular culture? 

"Most people are fronting," he responded. "It’s ridiculous to create art or music with the goal of making a shitload of money." 

Post-script: almost forgot that I asked Anton about Frank Zappa. He's said publicly that he doesn't like Zappa's music - really really doesn't like it, but Anton seems to have at least a couple of things in common with Zappa, like composing all the music his bands performed, and then teaching the parts to the band so they could perform them.  So what does he have against Zappa, exactly?  

Anton's answer: "I don’t like his music - he was against the anti war movement because his dad sold Agent Orange for a living and that paid for Frank’s goofy ass shit."

Jack Ketchum's Off Season vs. The Hills Have Eyes

Interviewed about the book Off Season - a 1980 survival horror novel about a family menaced by a clan of cannibal killers in Maine (!) - author Jack Ketchum notes that "Off Season had a lot of influences (though it should be said for accuracy that The Hills Have Eyes wasn’t among them – seems Craven and I were working that vein at pretty much the same time)." 

It's an interesting clarification - the only one I can find online; because there is very strong similarity between Ketchum's novel and Wes Craven's film - from the inspiration (the story of Sawney Bean) to the plot, which has a group of out of towners having members abducted,  tormented, killed and eaten by a clan of near-feral humans. Both the movie and the book have characters who escape abduction and must rise to the occasion, embrace their own savagery, and fight for their lives and the lives of their loved ones. (One character in the book observes that "Fighting for your life is a fucking ball. As long as you didn’t get slaughtered.") While there are differences - including a "police to the rescue" angle in Off Season that is absent in the film, where the protagonists are entirely on their own, and a different relationship between the characters in the book (whose familial bonds are looser - two of the women are sisters, but that's it), there is so much that the two stories have in common that it almost feels like they're the same, at times - right down to the detail of a huge man among the cannibal killers in Ketchum's book who is described as being absent all hair, including eyebrows. Hmm, does that sound at all familiar?

Jack Ketchum and Wes Craven, of course, are no longer with us to answer any questions all this might leave one with. I have written Michael Berryman, the "poster boy" for the film, to see if he knows whether perhaps Ketchum did, after he'd discovered The Hills Have Eyes, add at least this detail to the novel, as a tip-of-the-hat to Craven's film, but it's just a Facebook message request from a stranger, and he must get more than his share of those; I'll be surprised if he writes back. I do believe Ketchum, for the record; if he'll acknowledge, as he does, that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was an influence - which also involves a collection of out-of-towners menaced by rural savages - he would surely also give a nod to The Hills Have Eyes, too, if it were relevant. The timelines of the two works argue in Ketchum's favour, too. The Hills Have Eyes came out in 1977, while Off Season was first published in 1980, after a lengthy struggle with Ballantyne books about the violence and gore, much of which was excised, along with various other plot changes, which Ketchum talks about in some detail in the afterword to the "uncut" edition, pictured above. And before that period of negotiations - what in film is called the "post-production" phase; not sure what the literary equivalent is - it  probably took Ketchum a couple of years to write the book. In shore, it is entirely believable that Ketchum was in the process of writing the book while Craven was in the process of making the film, and even if the film did find its way into the world before the book was published, that does not mean that Ketchum stole any of its elements. 

Still, the similarities are enough that, if you're a fan of The Hills Have Eyes, the thing that's marvelous about reading Off Season in it's uncensored edition is that it, um, "fleshes out" sequences that were not just removed from the Ballantyne paperback, but had their equivalents edited out of Craven's film, too. (People are just so damn sensitive about cannibalism). In the commentary track for The Hills Have Eyes, Craven and producer Peter Locke talk about having to constantly trim down violence and gore in order to escape the initial X rating slapped on the film by the MPAA. In the scene around the campfire where Papa Jupiter is gnawing on a cooked human arm, for example, you barely get to see the arm, covered in charred flesh and flopping at the joints in very believable way - a really incredible articulated prop, which I presume they constructed for the film, but which is only glimpsed very briefly. There's no restoring the material that was lost (or it would have been done by now!), so for people who crave such strong medicine - like myself, presently fighting against awful things that have been done "for my own good" to my own body, for whom survival horror and body horror are deeply therapeutic - the loss of such scenes of explicit savagery is quite sad. 

(By the by, I'm also kind of fixated on The Island of Dr. Moreau, at the moment, and actually really enjoyed the Frankenheimer director's cut - which I highly recommend, in conjunction with the Severin Lost Soul documentary, as therapy for anyone who finds themselves with hairy tongues or other bizarre, surgically-induced disfigurements. Might also be a good time for me to revisit Sssssss and Rituals too!). 

But if the goriest bits of Craven's film are lost forever, that's not the case with the uncut version of Ketchum's book, where you not only get detailed descriptions of cannibalism, you get what Ketchum, in his afterword, calls "recipes"  (they're really just descriptions of how his feral humans prepare meals - stews, jerkies, and so forth). There apparently was an even more extreme manuscript that got thrown in the trash by Ketchum after the initial round of edits, but trust me, what's in the restored edition published by Dorchester in 2011 is plenty extreme enough, and amply aided by the fact that things like this are all actually quite a bit more disgusting to read than they would be to see on screen; as a fan of zombie cinema, I've long grown inured to seeing human flesh eaten, but there are certain passages in the book that are impressively stomach-churning, even for me, as when one character is described eating a "slippery pile of intestine" raw: "One hand worked its contents down, while with the other, he fed the long grey tube into his mouth and chewed" (p. 174). 

There's some real black humour in the book, too, like a scene where the novel's cops discover a campfire where a human has been cooked, and the sheriff - who would have been a perfect role for the late Michael Parks, had Off Season made it to the screen - thinks to himself that what he's seeing is not burns, but barbeque. I have no idea if that line was cut from the Ballantyne edition, but I'm enjoying the restored version enough that I might just pick up the 1980 version, if I ever see it around, for the sake of comparison.

If you, like me, are going through a bit of an ordeal of late - of if you've wondered what a completely uncut version of the 1977 The Hills Have Eyes might play like - you might want to check this book out, too. Best horror novel I've read in years. Wish I'd read it back when Jack Ketchum was still with us, so I could express my appreciation! RIP, Jack. RIP, Wes. Thanks for the medicine - it helps. 

Karen Moe: Interview with a Fierce Survivor - plus a brief MIZMO memory!

The event page for Karen Moe's book launch at Massy Arts - taking place April 2nd, at 23 East Pender - has a pretty compelling opening paragraph: 

Imagine being a carefree, independent young woman enjoying life. Your bold, adventurous spirit pulls you to travel to distant locales. Then out of nowhere, you’re abducted, assaulted, and raped. That is the terror-filled experience that Karen Moe survived almost thirty years ago.

Not only did Karen survive the experience, she managed to turn the tables on her abductor (a serial rapist), not just getting free but setting in motion the process of his capture, having the wherewithal and concern for others to get his license plate number. In the process, she was transformed - which becomes the subject of her first book, Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor.

In the interest of honesty, I must here admit that I have not read Karen's book, but have known her for some time, and have even seen some of her past performance art, Lethe, which, like her writing and art criticism, "focuses on systemic violence in patriarchy: be it gender, race, the environment or speciesism" (quote from her artist's bio). I vividly recall watching video with her in the breakroom of a dayjob we shared of a performance piece she did themed around Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, wherein she was bound in police tape, trying to free herself while, as I recall, sounds sampled from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre soundtrack played in the background. No horror burlesque, it was a somewhat grim and uncomfortable piece, showing Moe's willingness to break boundaries and make herself vulnerable in her work. Talking with her about it afterwards revealed her to be an incisively smart and funny woman, with whom I had more in common than I expected. 

With the help of an audio refresher courtesy of Co-Op Radio - I felt qualified to ask Karen a few questions about her book and the experiences that informed it. 

Karen Moe by Stasia Garraway

Allan: How did you feel when your abductor died in prison in 2016? How did you come to be aware of that? Were you working on the memoir at that point? How did his death affect you?

John Lennihan died in prison in California in August 2016. I found this out because, yes, I had started to write the book. Just started. I wrote the first sentence for Victim in November 2016. This is a sentence I am incredibly proud of. For me, with writing, it’s all about the first sentence. It’s a gift. A miracle. Once I have the first sentence, the book or essay is destined. The rest is a foreshadow waiting to be filled in. This sentence is: “I have lost the mustard yellow suede jacket from that time.” With that, the book began to pour out. And, very soon after that revelation of the first sentence, I came upon the ending. I just realized that I can’t tell you the rest of what I was going to tell you … because it will spoil the ending of the book, an ending that I am very proud of. Mostly because it was so fun to write. Agents and other publishers have said I should scrap the ending. But I refused. But I will tell you, perhaps enigmatically, when I found out that Lennihan was dead, I felt how an artist feels. To quote myself: “It was time to perform an autopsy on my twenty-eight-year-old psyche.” However, like all art, what ended up happening in real life was meant to be and added to the literary play of the book.

I don’t know if you get into it in your book, but what were you like before the abduction? Where were you in terms of being a feminist and activist? Would it be fair to say that the experience “transformed” you? Was there anything lost that you miss, now? What is the most valuable thing you gained?

To get into the meat of your question right away: I have no idea what I would miss that I lost.

As I say in the book, “[l]ike all sexual assault victims, it’s impossible to know what we were like before it happened. It is from then on always after.” (Victim 163). And, not only does that not have to be a bad thing, it is unrealistic to think you will be ‘the same’ again once you have lived through extreme violence. How can a rupture never have happened?

But yes, it would be fair to say the event transformed me. You have hit the manifesto jugular, so to speak, of the book:

 

One of the main effects of my personal victimization has been an acute awareness of injustice, especially regarding sexual assault. Whenever I watch or see or read or hear about rape, prostitution, or pornography, I feel like I am being raped all over again. But, the interesting thing is, it’s not personal anymore; it’s not just about me. And, it may sound strange: it’s not all bad. It is as though, through an experience that is perceived as—and is—horrifying, there is more to it than that. Instead of being weak, passive, and defeated, my experience as a victim kicked me in the ass. It made me start doing something about it. (Victim 144-45).

During the ordeal, was there anything – life experiences, literature, film, etc from the “before” that helped you deal with the experience, that provided you resources to draw on or helped keep you alive… or were you mostly improvising?

While I was tied up in the back of the van you mean? Are you asking me if I was thinking about literature and film, then? No. My “[e]yes [were] widened almost to unblinking, adrenalin pumping, heart pounding, spinning webs of get-away strategies.” (Victim 18)

Okay, let me rephrase the question - what resources did you have to draw on? Did you have past encounters with male violence, self-defense training, anything in your kitbag that you could rely on to help you survive your ordeal?

I actually relied on nothing. I wasn't thinking of literature or movies and I have never taken a self-defense class and I psychologically overpowered him. I guess I was improvising. Adrenlalin. Survival instinct. However, maybe I have street smarts. Maybe I'm talented with the proverbial poker face. I don't know. I just became obsessed with getting away.

I understand if you don’t want to go into detail here – “read the book” is a fair answer! – but can you say anything here about how you psychologically overpowered your abductor? Did you learn anything in so doing that you could apply in later life, or principles that could help others? (I am assuming that helping others is a huge impetus for writing this book).

There is a funny part during a terrible part where I am thinking very seriously about getting the gun. Being from Canada, where there is a lot of paperwork for a hunter to get a hunting rifle, I reasoned with myself: “Look, let’s be realistic here. Even if you got the gun, you wouldn’t know how to use it. There is that big silencer that you aren’t even sure is a silencer, and have you heard of something called ‘a safety’?”(Victim 42). Maybe if I had known how to use a gun (I knew where it was), I would have gone with my idea of getting the gun (I had the opportunity, a pretty grim opportunity, but an opportunity nonetheless). However, because I had no idea of how to use the gun, I opted for psychologically overpowering him.

I don’t know if I learned anything about how strong and smart I was that I could apply later in life. (I learned what a power drug adrenaline is, though). I have been told, for example, in one endorsement that I survived the unthinkable and another that I took what would break most people and turned it into triumph. I don’t know if that’s true. I am not another person. I was lucky in that I don’t think the serial rapist who happened to abduct me had killed yet. But he did leave the victim after me (his final victim) for dead and I found out 28 years later that, along with the gun, he’d had brass knuckles in the vehicle. But for some reason, he didn’t use them on me.

However, what I did learn or gain or acquire is an embodied and psychic awareness and knowledge of a system based on exploitation. You can know that theoretically; however, once you have lived through it, you know acutely what needs to be revolutionized. Yes, perhaps ironically, I became a revolutionary after the abduction. However, this is not uncommon. Many people who have survived and embodied extreme violence end up committing their lives to helping others and dismantling a top down way of being (hierarchy) that needs to exploit in order to exist. The same ideological system of greed and taking that has raped me in my life (the abduction was not the only time) also rapes the earth through an extraction economy.

However, I also state in the book, “I certainly wouldn’t wish my particular form of initiation into the realm of righteous anger on anyone else, but this is a good anger, a healthy anger, an anger that motivates.” (Victim 145)

Tell me about the “hero” award. I haven’t heard about that before…?

Yes, I will be presented with “Ellie Liston Hero of the Year Award” on the last stop of my US tour in Ventura, California on April 28th when I read and present during National Crime Victims’ Week. Ventura is where the trial was held in 1996 and John Lennihan was given a life sentence. Even though I was the one who caught him (not in terms of a net or a leg hold trap or running up behind him and bonking him over the head which I definitely would have liked to have been able to do), I never had my own trial. I was the key witness in two other victims’ trials, the main case being for the woman he left for dead. Because of the extremity of what he did to her, the case became homicide. If it had only been about what he did to me (merely numerous rapes, strangling, being hit and threatened with a deadly weapon), he may not have even been convicted. In the 90s, my ‘complaint’ may very well have been proclaimed ‘unfounded’ as so many others were and still are. I write about this (I don’t think I leave anything out) and any potential cracks in my arguments are sealed up with over 270 endnotes.

Are you able to win over most people to the idea that, as you use it, the term “victim” can be one of empowerment? Have you encountered any particularly defensive, hostile, challenging or otherwise interesting reactions to that idea?

I have definitely encountered defensive and hostile reactions to the use of the term/reality ‘victim’ and especially as the title for the book. The title has always been Victim, ever since I started thinking of making something out of the story. This is because victimization in patriarchal hierarchy—which guarantees exploitation—is inevitable. 

One woman every 17 minutes is raped in Canada, one woman every 2 minutes in the US, and one woman every 18 seconds in Mexico—and it’s been estimated that a good 50% go unreported... and this is ‘just’ talking about rapes of women. What about the sexual abuse of men and predominantly boy-children? It has been estimated that 1 in 33 men has experienced an attempted or complete rape in their lifetime and studies between 1996 and 2005 found that 14.2-16.4% and 64% of females had been sexually abused before the age of 18. The majority of sexual assault and abuse are of still women and girls; however, we cannot leave out the men and especially the boys. Regardless of sex or gender, the motive for rape is always the exploitation of another human.

Victim is a reality, and the exploitation and power abuse extends beyond the human. It cannot be denied, so we have to look at it. And, as I argue in the book, because—especially according to the statistic that 64% of females had been sexually abused before the age of 18 from 1996-2005—the majority of females and many men already have an embodied knowledge of injustice and, in that sense, we are all already warriors. We already have the majority.

I also talk about experiences and things I have learned in Mexico about victimization, vigilance and not forgetting that which victimized us so that it won’t happen again. I say: “I must not attempt to erase the scars of my victimization: I must have the strength to honour them. So that they won’t happen again.” (Victim 144)

‘Victim’ is not as simple as mere empowerment. It is more like reality. And I don’t really like the word ‘empowerment.’ It reminds me of superficial self-help books that don’t go into any detail of what we are empowering ourselves from or against or to be. Without deep understanding, empowerment can support the enemy. If we think of what Koa Beck designates as ‘white feminists’ (even though my skin is white, I found out, thankfully, a quarter of a way into her book by the same name, that I am not one), white feminists (and the woman doesn’t have to be ‘white’ to be one) empower themselves by striving for what ‘successful’ men in patriarchy have: the ability to abuse power and individually profit. The ability to victimize.

I am complicating the term and reality of "victim." And, those who resist my title—and many will—I really hope will read the book. I challenge them to.

However, as I say in the book, regardless if the ubiquitous reality of victimization and guarantee of exploitation in Western patriarchal hierarchy: “we don’t have to be abducted and raped to know this: we just have to look around and care for others beyond ourselves.” (Victim 36). What is needed is an ideological revolution from individualism to empathy. It is obvious that this system doesn’t work if we care to look around and feel and get beyond ourselves. I said in a recent interview with Massy Arts, the rape of a child you know and the rape of a child you don’t are equally unforgiveable. And, I would add, it is worth raging about and fighting against the fact that these atrocities are happening all of the time, especially in the so-called third world where children are sold to first world men for $3000 because they haven’t been violated—read "raped"—yet, and their as of yet unsullied state and innocence is perhaps the ultimate act of power abuse. After their young bodies have been used, their value in the sex tourism market progressively decreases. By the time they are a young woman, they are worth sometimes as low as $3 per rape. This happens. Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho writes a lot about this from her investigations.

You and I share an interest in rape-revenge films and horror films – as a feminist, do you have a favourite? Rape revenge films are often regarded as a kind of morally dubious/ suspect/ exploitive genre – do you agree with that? What would you like to see in a horror movie about patriarchy? (If your story were made into a film, what do you worry might get changed or altered?).

So you know, I am not interested in horror films. I am not interested in any form of gratuitous violence. Even though it’s what I fight against, I am not interested in violence. I wish I didn’t have to pay any attention to it at all. I also find horror films boring because you know how they are going to end even before they start: a group of naïve soon-to-be victims are soon-to-be brutalized usually by being sliced up in some way. The soon-to-be victims typically have little to no character development so the viewer doesn’t connect to them and, therefore, we don’t mind much that they are brutalized by the charismatic serial killer anti-hero. Who is talked about and remains a part of popular culture? The serial killer. ‘Freddy’ comes to mind. Do we remember any of his victims? I have never heard anyone talk about them. Because of the centralization of that which brutalizes and murders (in horror films and in Western patriarchy), this tendency reinforces exploitation and violence. Perhaps I am not an expert in the horror genre—I did research Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original) for my Lethe project years ago, and that certainly was a part of the pattern I just described. Also all of the other mainstream horror movies—maybe there is more to it and the cult, underground films actually deconstruct themselves. However, those in the mainstream, which have the largest audiences and ideological influence, reinforce everything that I fight against.

However, yes, I do enjoy rape revenge. It’s my favorite genre! But not all. I don’t enjoy gratuitous violence and over-simplified, reductionist, characters (in that sense, the selection is quite small). The 2017 movie Revenge by Coralie Fargeat is a rape revenge film, although I read somewhere that the director doesn’t think of it as such. She was going more for the over-the-top special effects a la Tarantino with blood spurting like a hose (hoses probably were used) that it’s so outrageous and virtually baroque (so it’s kind of beautiful in a way). We do not connect with the main character, she who wields semi-automatic revenge at the end—or I didn’t anyway. And she is incredibly hot so objectified once again as her physical feminine perfection is sexy and sullied with mud and little to no clothing. This film gets nowhere in terms of revolutionizing the victim, and I don’t think the Fargeat cared if it did. Even though the men are idiots and we don’t mind them being killed, it is pure sensationalism.

However, the rape revenge film that is in my opinion pure rape revenge is Emerald Fennel’s Promising Young Woman. I say it’s pure rape revenge because it’s real. It is taken from reality. Yes, I very much admire I Spit on your Grave, and the main character Jennifer Hills is a well-developed, complex character (which all victims are. We are all human and, therefore, complex). However, it is fantasy in the sense that she is able to kill all four men who gang raped her. Unfortunately, I don’t think this would ever happen. However, the story of Promising Young Woman could. The main character Cassie, played by Carey Mulligan, is absolutely developed. We love her. Fennell’s film complexifies the whole reality of rape and privilege in patriarchy (the power to rape and the impunity of rapists, especially those of the upper classes). It talks about victim-blaming, internalized victim-blaming where the victim blames herself. It talks about PTSD and, it is not an all-out ‘happy ending’ in terms of the woman getting absolute revenge. It is a real ending, loaded with contradiction and ambivalence. After I saw Promising Young Woman in 2019, even though my book was finished, I added a part on rape revenge.

Chanel Miller’s book Know My Name is also rape revenge. As is my story. Both of our stories are taken from absolute lived experiences. There is revenge. The victims do win. But the triumph is interrogated, as nothing is ever one-dimensional. And this is not only interesting, it’s also important. As I say in my book, “neither side was going to claim absolute victory. Damage would be taken on both sides, and roles would be switched as this real-life game progressed. But, in the end, one would lose more than the other, even though the winner definitely lost a lot and, paradoxically, gained a lot too.” (Victim 44-45)

The ultimate revenge, is revolution: eradicating, dismantling rape culture. Even though I fall into the category of ‘radical’ feminist, I call myself a Logical Feminist. Even though revolutionizing ideology is far from simple, the reason for it is: anything that has anything to do with exploitation is wrong.

How did the book come to be published…? I do not know Vigilance Press or Vigilance Magazine, but looking at some of the articles - there's something you wrote on the logging at Fairy Creek - and the fact that some of the site is in Spanish - knowing you divide your time between Vancouver and Mexico - makes me wonder if you are not just being published by them, but involved more deeply…?

How the book came to be published is a book in itself. When I first started submitting Victim to ‘dream’ agencies in NY and London, I found a website that said: “Oh, you think writing your book was hard!” For me writing a book is not hard—it’s not easy of course, it requires great discipline—but that great discipline is not hard to have when the writing, when art, is a joy. All artists are happiest when they are making art. When I have days or weeks or (be still my beating heart) months or years when ‘all’ I have to do is write and make art, I definitely don’t have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. I awaken with a light heart. That said, yes, the writing part is easy because it's a joy. The publishing part was hell. I almost had at least three nervous breakdowns. But I believe in the power of never giving up. And, here you go: Victim lives.

Vigilance Press is new indie press and an imprint of Vigilance Fierce Feminisms Magazine. Yes, it is a bilingual magazine (English and Spanish). I write a lot for Vigilance because I spend so much time in Mexico. Vigilance Fierce Feminisms Magazine is ‘for people who believe in the power of never giving up,’ the same as I do. It’s a perfect fit. Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor is Vigilance Press’ debut publication.

Anything I should say about the booklaunch? It sounds like there will be music? (I recognize Soressa’s name, anyhow). What is planned for the night?

The Vancouver book launch and US Tour kick-off for Sexual Assault Awareness Month at Massy Arts is full. There is a 40 person capacity and I have 41 (I had to ask for one more for a good friend who was late signing up!). Yes, Soressa Gardner is playing. However, there will be more events in Vancouver in May and June (the Canada Tour will begin in late June). If people would like to keep up on events, interviews, podcasts etc, they can sign up for the newsletter at www.karenmoeauthor.com. You also get the first 21-page preview when you sign up. And, books are on sale on all online booksellers now! They will be available in select bookstores like People’s Coop Bookstore, Massy Books, Spartacus, Western Sky Books in Vancouver; Two Friends (Arkansas); Bookman’s (Arizona); and Café Con Libros and Bank of Books in California (to start). [See the end of the interview for news about an eBook discount, if that's your preferred format]

Since this is a blog read primarily by local music geeks, there are possibly people out there who know MIZMO, if you are game to talk about the band. Who was in the band? Do you talk about MIZMO in the book? Did you write any songs about these experiences? Ever think of putting those demos out into the world, or revisiting that material?

Yes, the first thing I did when I got home to Vancouver after the abduction in 1994 was start a Rock & Roll band, MIZMO. I was traumatized but I also had a lot of knowledge about violence from that trauma and I was able to write songs so easily. And I had the rock 'n roll rage that was so potent in the 90s with Grrl Power. Ironically, this was one of the happiest times of my life … being on stage especially. Yes, I talk about MIZMO in the book. And about the lead guitar player who is now dead. He was the only person who was really there for me when I got back, traumatized, with all of the complexities of that, from Arizona in 1994.

I did have PTSD. I didn’t actually realize that until writing the book. I was a mess. But Rock & Roll loves it when people are messed up. The messed up rock star is very romantic and charismatic. But then I lost everything. I crashed. I have nothing from this time. It is the only regret of my life breaking up the band when tensions began between players. I thought I could do it again. But you never can. We had magic and I didn’t value it enough. Because I didn’t value myself. I thrashed around not caring about anything. I don’t even have a photo. I had a CD of a few unmastered recordings. Really bad quality. But I cherished it. I had it before I moved to Mexico City in 2015. Now I can’t even find that anymore. Maybe it’s in my very chaotic storage locker! When you told me you saw a MIZMO poster in the rubble of a demolished house, Allan [actually it was glued to a wall that was coming down, around the Woodwards building demolition/ renovations], that made me happy and sad. Did you take a picture? I know you didn’t go in and get it. Maybe I’ll write a story about that. The poster in the rubble. All we have is what happened. And, in the end, even loss and regret are interesting.

Karen Moe at the book launch on March 30th in Lantzville BC - the "I Wrote Half My Book Here" launch. You can hear more from Karen Moe and the book, Victim: A Feminist Manifesto from a Fierce Survivor, on this podcast. There is also a streaming link for her booklaunch (which I believe is sold out). eBooks of Victim will be on sale from April 4th to 6th on Amazon for $1.99! 

Return to Central City: a fine night of music with David M. (and many, many others)

So Erika and I went to see David M. at the Central City Taphouse and Kitchen - a short walk from Surrey Central Station - when he played there last month, marking a triumphant return to the old stomping grounds of NO FUN, the Beatles of Surrey. 

I'd been rooting for M. to get a new venue, and Central City was an exciting one to see him in. The venue had probably the best sound I've heard at one of his shows - certainly better than the Heritage Grill's backroom, where there used to frequently be some "systemic cracklings" to be heard (and often competing bluesrock riffs from the front). I'm sure the Princeton has a fine sound system - it's been awhile since I've been there - but they also occasionally have noisy drunks, clacking pool balls and passing trains (one time M. had to compete with a tableful of arguing Italians). I don't think I've ever heard M. sound better than at Central City, and I've heard him a bunch.

Some old No Fun fans came out, including Ken Nermo, AKA "Ned," the man who wrote "Old," the less-well-remembered of the two NO FUN songs that appear on the Vancouver Complication (the other being, of course, "Mindless Aggression"). David M. performed "Old" in Ken's honour, and also broke out "If I Was a Bat," apropos of Erika and I celebrating our fifth anniversary (the song was first performed at our wedding, with M. setting to music a lyric I'd originally written when riding my three-wheeled bicycle through the backroads of Japan, being swooped by bats, but with the two of us repurposing it to be about my anxieties at having my first tongue surgery, a week before we got married. Bats aren't known for their conversational skills - hence the chorus - "If I was a bat, girl, would you still love me?") I, uh, "played" the bat, and joined in on a few background eeps, which is about all I am publicly fit to sing these days, as my tongue cancer story progresses. Other members of the NO FUN posse were present, with Pete Campbell relegated to tambourine duties for the night - he'll be back on second guitar next time, I'm told - and David Dedrick of the Sneaky Dragon podcast holding the scroll for David's sea shanty, "The Ship Called the Anna Maria," so we could sing along. Arr! 

David also, at my request, covered the NO FUN classic "Oh to Be on Heroin," from Tape One of Snivel, but rewrote the lyrics to be about "COVID Vaccination," introducing the song with an explanation that completely effaced the Sugarcane Harris anecdote I'd posted here in favour of telling people that I was worried that the lyric might be a bit edgy for the room. Of course, with no mention of heroin appearing whatsoever in the song as it was performed that night, his comment was completely and utterly incomprehensible to anyone who a) did not know the original song, b) had not read my blogpost about my request, and c) was not privy to my privately telling David of my concern that songs about heroin might not go over so well. I am pretty sure that this means that David's joke was incomprehensible to anyone but me, possibly even conferring to everyone else NOT in on the joke (or "everyone else," in short) that I had some sort of fear of COVID vaccines. But then, he also did a couple of ads for NO FUN's corporate sponsor Gorgo, which hasn't been found in a candy aisle since the 1980's, so... if you object to the gnomic, he's probably not the man for you, anyhow. 

In fact, everything about the Central City Taphouse that we experienced was great, including the food. Erika (doing keto at that point, hence the absence of potatoes) ordered a steak that was Keg-quality at least, but at half the price...

I opted for a chicken wrap that, with my tongue in its current state, was a little hard for me to chew, ultimately - even after I'd picked the kale out - but was utterly delicious, so unless you have had tongue cancer surgery recently, I highly recommend it...

And we generally enjoyed the ambience of the space - a clean and efficiently-run room with great service, great music, a fun view and no cover charge, and no age restriction to get in, since it is more of a restaurant than a bar. For those who missed it, David will be performing again at the end of April - his 67th birthday show, in fact, of which he says, "It will be the best 67th birthday show I have ever done, maybe the best 67th birthday show anyone has ever done. Also, maybe, the worst."

There is much else to report coming up at the Central City Taphouse. I do not know tonight's act well - Jimmy Baldwin - but I greatly enjoyed his recent contributions to the 2022 Bowie Ball. Enrico Renz of Red Herring - interviewed at length here - will perform there on April 2nd (sadly, I have other commitments). You can hear him playing solo here - like M., Enrico is one of my very favourite people on the Vancouver music scene, and Red Herring were the band from the Vancouver music scene I was most excited to see reunite - featuring, of course, the great Stephen Nikleva on guitar. Of course, Red Herring are also doing their own thing at the Princeton on Mondays, for a couple of weeks yet, but in an unusual configuration - the "Red Herring collective," with some members being absent and maybe some guests present. They're kind of building up to something, I'm told - so it's kind of a unique time to see them.

You can keep track of other things happening at the Central City Taphouse on the Dancing Sawhorse Facebook page. There are many people whose music I have yet to encounter, and can say little about - I'll let you do your own research into Leah Barley, Joseph Blood, and Shiloh Lindsay - but Bowie Ball regulars might be curious to check out Danny Echo, whose playful adaptation of Van Morrison's "Here Comes the Night" has been a standout moment two Bowie Balls in a row. And people who follow Vancouver music from way back might want to check out Ron Scott's project Ladies and Gentlemen, also featuring Vancouver's best-dressed bassist, Bob Petterson, on bass (only Vancouver musician I can recall asking, "Is that a Nudie suit?"). Ron's involvement in the local scene stretches back to the days of Insex performing at Hardcore 81. He also regularly plays with Mike Van Eyes - the Jerry Lee Lewis of Vancouver, doing Saturday afternoon gigs at LanaLou's, of late, also with Bob on bass - and has also performed with Howard Rix, Herald Nix, Paul Hyde, Colin James, Mac Pontiac and Phil Smith and Corsage, to name only a few of the bands he's been in!

Finally, speaking of birthday parties, the day before David M's birthday bash, Orchard Pinkish will be hosting his own - "a Possibly Post-Pandemic Pirthday Party" - though he is shyer than M. about saying how old he is turning. I have interviewed Orchard a couple of times - see here and here, for example - and seen him in at least a half dozen bands, including the Little Guitar Army, the Strugglers, Orchard Pinkish and his Horny Hands, the Old Canadians, the Wasted Strays, and Daddy Issues. Orchard shares with David M. the distinction of having one of the finest potshots at the Georgia Straight ever to make it into song, which even Mike Usinger was amused by - compare Orchard's "Wasting Time" with David M's "40 Years," of his Christmas album, Five Wenceslases and 27 Other Contemporary NO FUN Christmas Classics. Orchard also has the best stage-name-based-on-an-anagram that I am aware of. 

That's a lot to take in, and it's not even a complete list - Ford Pier (interviewed at length by me for the Georgia Straight, back when) will be doing a set in early May, which I believe will be his first post-pandemic gig. I could be wrong about that. Maybe if I'm up to the task, I will ask Ford to break down the lyrical references, puns, and so forth in "Ponce De Leon Vs. the Risible Shuck of Authenticity" by way of pre-show publicity? I can think of no more densely-witted, wordplay-rich lyric in Vancouver music history, and to my knowledge, the song has the only use of the word "cloaca" in a rock lyric. 

I am only now discovering that the line that I thought was "I've never been Dennes Boon" is actually "I never bent any spoons." (Me, I've only bent spoons by sticking them in too-frozen ice cream. I don't think that's what Ford is getting at though). This is a singularly strange thing to discover on D. Boon's birthday. I have pointed it out on FB to Mike Watt (for whom I have seen Ford Pier open) and Ford. 

Anyhoo... maybe I will see some of you at Central City sometime? I mean, who the heck needs to commute into Vancouver when there are shows this good in the other direction? 

For more show listings at Central City Taphouse, see here!