The Octopus Club Issue
5*
Approved by no one ever anywhere
*published quarterly (theoretically)
MAN MAN
Ali T Bruce Scummy Dan Tattoos
LiĂŠ
Hitch-Hiking Motorbiking Laughing Failing
GAM STUDIO + BOUTIQUE
FB- THE GAM 1 1 0 EAST HASTINGS STREET VANCOUVER, BC.
THEGAMGALLERY - IG HRS. WED+FRI+SAT 1-5PM OR BY APPOINTMENT
Employee of the Month:
Everyone at The Octopus Club could be categorized as a delinquent or a waste case. Who is the delinquentist-waste-case? Angela. Angela Cairns, our new contributer, and employee of the month. This is the first in what we hope to be regular contributions in which Angela does wack y stuf f and writes about it... Now if only she could spell (pg.3) Design Editor-in-Chief Director in Sales Account Manager
Colin Cej Crystal Brown Logan Murray Frank Suzuki
Editors Fredy Mejia Pierce Bowie Writers Angela Cairns Crystal Brown Joshua Smith Max Gabriel Fredy Mejia
Photographers Jd Devries Ryan Bekolay Julia Kreutz (thegamgallery.com) Alisha Weng Joshua Smith Artists Ali T Bruce (AliBruce.com) Scummy Dan (Daniel Thompson) (freshinktattoo.com)
For subscriptions visit theoctopusclub.com -homie 2013 This months ar tist is Ali T Bruce, she’s got the cover and stuff all over this magazine.
v This is really starting to get out of hand. Issue V, spanning the Georgia Strait. The Octopus Club is now available in Victoria and East Vancouver. We now have subscribers (like real people), a website, and a completely maxed out Visa card. What else could you want in a failing business? We gotta chance to talk, work and colaborate with some of our all time favorite artists. Like Ali T Bruce, who currently is
working on some mystical piece for the release party instead of sleeping (pg. 32) and Max Gabriel who is currently paying off a motorbyke that doesn’t work (pg. 12). We also caught up with Honus Honus of MAN MAN, (pg. 30) local Tattoo legend Scummy Dan (pg. 24) and ‘cold punk ’ band Lié outside the Red Gate opening (pg. 43).
Bj andthe B e a r Angela Cairns
Ever walk by a young and able-bodied person laying in a public park who clearly hasn’t showered, looks semi-homeless, and is most likely (you assume) wasted? Ever wonder, “what is this damned kid doing with their life?” Well, chances are it was someone like our young, able-bodied, and wasted young friend, Angela. What is she doing with her life? She’s hitch-hiking across the country and having zany adventures, you boring loser, that’s what! We sure hope that you enjoy your day job.
“Whats the monkeys name?” “Asshole.. thats what I call him anyways.”
I
had traveled acros s nine provinces, coast to coast, in one-hundred n’ one days using only my dazzling personality, thumb, and complete lack of direction. The seventy-fourth day was the one and only time where I had ever thought to myself “I fucked up”. I was in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and was seriously considering the prospect that I might be killed and have my bones made into Christmas ornaments. It was a hot day. I think it would be safe to say that it was around 1,345 degrees. We had been on the side of the road for what had seemed to be an eternity, with no water or cigarettes, and the closest town was at least an hour’s walk in the wrong direction. We sought shade under an overpass, and when this big blue Country Lines semi-truck pulled up we felt like we hit the jackpot. I ran up to the door, the driver said he could take us close to where we needed to go, and hell, it was air conditioned, so we probably would have hopped in no mat-
ter where he was going. He automatically stopped at the next town, bought us coffee and water, and gave us some cigarettes. His name was Blaine “but you can call me BJ” he said. Blaine had been driving truck for too many years now to count, back & forth between British Columbia and Nova Scotia. He’s a simple man who built his own house, which he enjoyed without a television, land line, or the trappings of any other technological nuisance. He had fifty acres that he could call his own until, of course, the hippies showed up. One day he came back from a long haul and found 15 new friends squatting on his property. He didn’t mind though. “What’re you going to do?” he thought to himself. Af ter all, he wasn’t using all fifty acres, so why not share? Years pass, his hippie commune had gotten bigger and bigger, acquiring lots of new members, and one day a girl who went by the name Flower went to town, and came back with a monkey. “A monkey?” you might be thinking? Yep, a monkey. “What’s the monkey’s name?” we inquired. “Asshole. That’s what I call him anyways”.
So not only did this guy save us from the burning pits that are side-of-the-road Nova Scotia, but he also had in his possession a commune, a monkey, and barrels of moonshine just waiting to be drank. So, what did we do? Why, dear reader, we did what anyone else would do! We asked to see the monkey, we got his name & number, and told him we’d call him in a week ’s time. The plan was to catch a ride from Halifax to the hippie squat in British Columbia in five days, and see if this shit was for real or not. Six days and approximately thirty-two brass monkeys later, we had reconnected with the third member of our strange traveling trio somehow, on the opposite end of the country from where we had started. Cheap beer & hot sun had made Julia lose her sense of time. “Dude, I’ve got to be back in victoria in twelve days, what the fuck am I going to do!” She was panic stricken. I told her not to worry, and that we had it
“beggars can’t be choosers”
under control, and made sure to mention the monkey when I told her about the trucker that would take us back to BC, where she could just carry on to Victoria. That night Matteo made the phone call, and set it all up so that the next day we would head out to an Enfield truck stop and meet up with our new friend for a shor t five day jaunt across the country. He arrived as promised at 10:00 pm, right on time. We grabbed our packs, mandolin & accordion and hopped into the truck. “You, sit in the front,” was the first thing that was said to me. I instantly felt a knot in my stomach, and promptly sat on his bed in the back with Julia, then was instructed once again that I had to sit in the front. clue #1 (that shit was going to be less awesome than we had expected). I wasn’t going to argue, this was a wicked five day ride we were get ting. You know the old saying “beggars can’t be choosers”. We start driving in the wrong direction. clue #2 because apparently we need to head to Lunenburg, drop off the load in the truck, and pick up the new one. It was only supposed to be a three to four hour delay, then we would be on our way to BC. Lunenburg was just over an hour’s drive
south of where we were, and we were getting close to the loading station at about 11:30pm, when Blaine pulls over the truck on a deser ted road and tells us that it’s illegal to pick up hitchhikers and could lose his job if he were caught. In order to make this trip, he would need someone to come to the drop off station and fill out some paperwork that would give them clearance to be in his vehicle across the country. This person would have to sit in the front seat the entire time, because that’s where the one extra seat belt in his truck was located. This all made sense until he said that it had to be ME to go with him, because the weigh station that we had driven past a week prior took my picture. clue #3 I called bullshit, like any reasonable young lady would do, and insisted there was no way there was a photo of me in this truck. However, Matteo seemed convinced that it might actually be true. This is when Blaine started to get insistent and told us all how this would be going down: My two travel partners would hide whatever they needed to hide in the closets in the back of the semi, but make sure to take their sleeping bags, because they would have to stay there in the middle of no-where, on a deserted road in Lunenburg. He would
take me, and only me to the station to get clearance. We all just looked at each other, I had everyone in that truck staring into my eyes, trying to telepathically tell me what choice I should make. Matteo was not going to give me up to some strange man at 11:30 at night in the middle of nowhere. This was not an option, of course, till I uttered the words “It’s only three to four hours, fuck, whatever, I’ll just go”. Saying goodbye to my friends was the most surreal feeling. I crawled down from that big-rig to give them a hug goodbye, then scrambled back up alone, shutting the door and heading off into the darkness, leaving the only two people that could protect me on the side of the road. We had just started to drive down the road when he looked at me and told me to get into the back and hide because “security could see me”. Of course thoughts like “Why am I hiding? I thought I was getting clearance? Isn’t someone going to see me when I go inside to fill out the paper work?” This had all happened way too fast, and suddenly I was sitting in the bed of a semi-truck with a strange man at 11:30 at night, peeking out of the emergency door crack as we sped along to god knows where. Then we slowed to a stop
“Is that you shaking? There’s no reason to be scared. I’m not a murderer, I’m not going to rape you, I’m not going to bite, you can trust me” and I could see lights and another semi. This is when I send my warning text to a few people: truck #646, blue Country Lines semi-truck, Blaine’s telephone number… Now, just to be clear to all those unfamiliar with the hitch hiker’s guide to not getting killed, when you feel the need to send out a warning text, you should probably exit the vehicle, but I was instructed to stay in the back and avoid drawing attention because I didn’t have clearance yet. He then told me to get comfortable, take off my boots, and have a sleep, because if security does come and check out the truck, they’re not allowed to check the back/bed area if the trucker’s girlfriend is asleep. GIRLFRIEND!? This set off some warning bells… I had gone from sitting in the front seat and filling out some paper work to posing as this guy’s girlfriend. I curled into a tightly wound ball in the opposite corner of the bed, and told him I wasn’t going to fall
asleep. I also made it ver y clear that my boots were never coming off. Blaine then told me that not only did I have to hide in his bed, but I had to curl up behind him so his body could act like a shield in another attempt to make sure that security did not see me (Clue # fucking 4 that you are going to die a horrible truck-stop death). So, there I was. Little ol’ Angela, alone in bed with some fifty-five year old man that I had just met, who lured me in with the promise of a monkey and some moonshine. My friends were back on some deserted road, and I was so fucking unbelievably scared that I was convulsing. This was not how I had intended on spending my Sunday night, and for the last seventy-four days leading up to this day, I never once had to take out my knife as a form of protection, and at this point my nails were dug into the metal handle, all I could think about is how I did this to myself, I let this happen. “Is that you shaking?” Blaine asked. “There’s no reason to be scared. I’m not a murderer, I’m not going to rape you, I’m not going to bite…you can trust me.” He clearly felt that he had to try to make things okay, make me comfortable. He laid on his back, he told me that his name was Blaine, that he was fifty-five years old, and 6’4”.
He was a painter, a traveler, and loved to help people in need. This is when he pulled out his BlackBerry and asked me if I would like to see Flower, the girl who owned the monkey and his favorite of the girls who lived on his land. He said Flower would let him paint her all the time, and that he was like a father to her. He eventually pulled up the photo of the painting he did of Flower. Flower didn’t look a day over twenty, had flawless skin, beautiful luscious brown locks, and her nipple pierced. How would I know her nipple was pierced? She was half nude in the photo, which he then zoomed in as far as he could directly on her nipple. So now, I’m in bed with this questionable man, staring at a half nude girl, and thinking, I did this to myself, I let this happen. Af ter what seemed to be ten minutes of staring at a close-up of a painting of some young girl’s pierced nipple made by her “father,” I awkwardly say “Yep That’s a boob. It’s pierced. I get it.” Blaine then turned off the phone, rolled out of bed, lit up a cigarette, and made a phone call. When he returned to the bed he laid down and told me that I should really just take off my boots and get comfortable, because this three to four hour unloading process was
now going to take seven to eight hours, till morning at least. Morning? It already is morning. Time passed slowly – I was checking my phone every thirty five seconds, keeping in constant contact with Matteo and Julia, glued to the wall because if he made a move, I needed to be far enough away to plant my blade somewhere good, hop over this body who is blocking me from
fuck this. fuuck. this. no, i’m done. i’m out. this is too weird, i’m out. you know this is weird right? you have to!
the outside world, and run for my fucking life. Blaine continues to tell me that he’s never had a girl reac t like this to him in his truck, they’re always so relaxed, and don’t mind cuddling up to him because he’s just like a big teddy bear, like a grandpa. I’ve never been close with my grandpa, and I fucking hate stuffed animals. After four hours of being in complete fear, I’m exhausted. I somehow fell asleep… I wake up twenty minutes later with this man’s hand on my shoulder and him breathing heavily down my neck. At this point I
started to scream. “Fuck this. Fuuck. This. No, I’m done. I’m out. This is too weird, I’m out. You know this is weird right? You have to!” After I let out everything that I had been holding back for the past four hours, this man looks into my eyes and asks “What would make you more comfortable? You’re making me feel guilty, my intention isn’t to make you this uncomfortable, would you be better off if I took you back to your friends?” When I heard “if I took you back to your friends” I lost it. “Are you kidding
me? This is what I wanted from square one!” So he hopped out of the truck, detached the trailer, and let me know that this is the point of no return for me if I didn’t get clearance, because without it I could be kicked out of his truck at any time and I would be without a ride. At this point I’m A-fucking-okay with that. He drove me back to that road in the middle of nowhere Lunenburg, where I called Matteo and told him to fucking come get me and I’d explain later. Matteo and Julia ran up
from a gravel road, grabbed our packs, and Blaine let us know he would still take us across the country, and that he would call us in the morning when his truck had been unloaded & reloaded. Matteo, Julia and I walked down the gravel path to a dock where I laid down my sleeping bag, and stared into the cloudless sky, unbelievably happy to be star gazing in-bet ween my two best friends.
That should have been the last I saw of Blaine, but three to four hours turned into the next morning, the next morning turned into another day. By the third day of being dicked around and taken in the wrong direc tion by some crazy jack-wagon, we see this familiar blue Country Lines truck pass us on the highway, Matteo and I just look at each other, we were running low on time, and patience. We gave our old buddy BJ a call. He agreed to pick us up down the road, everything seems ok in the daylight, and I began to think that maybe I had just been paranoid. Before we could get an hour down the road I find myself, just for a moment, alone in his truck again. He saw his opportunity and took it. Ten seconds after Matteo shut the door he turned to me and asked if he could ask me a personal question, which isn’t actually a question. He offered me $3,000.00 to get naked in his truck so that he could take just one photo. The rules were that I can’t tell my friends, and the plan was to get them to hit a convenience store, while he snapped a quick picture. He promised it would be quick and that I’d have the money in my hand by Toronto. I have to admit that before the obvious answer of “no, and fuck you, by the way,” came out of my mouth
before the obvious answer of “no, and fuck you, by the way,” came out of my mouth I briefly considered that 3000.00 dollars was a lot of money, I briefly considered that 3000.00 dollars was a lot of money, maybe even enough to buy my own monkey, but in the end reason won out. After a long and awkward ride to Fredericton, we were once again left on the side of the road, but this time it was all three of us. We watched him drive off, at which point I screamed, I laughed, I’m pretty sure I had a fraction of a brain aneurism. I told my friends that I refused, REFUSED, to get into that truck again. We all got to BC without needing to call Blaine, alive and well. After this all went down, I found out some information that made all of this even stranger: Blaine, in fac t does not live in BC. He live in a small city outside of Fredericton NB, called Woodstock. He doesn’t have a fifty acre plot of land that hippies squat on, and there is no monkey. What there is though, is a television show that aired from 1979-1981
called BJ & the Bear, about a young man who drives truck across the country with his best friend Bear, who is a monkey. The entire show is about BJ & Bear saving the day and rescuing young, attractive women in their big rig. Blaine had told us the exact plot line to a television show that I was too young to know about, so of course I didn’t get the joke when he opened the door and quipped “I’m Blaine, but you can call me BJ.” I was just a puppet in his monkey-girl wank fantasy. Now whenever I tell people that I hitchhiked across Canada and back and people ask, as they invariably do, if I met any real whack jobs, I get to respond with “Have you ever seen BJ & the Bear?”
-bitch 2013
-Jered Devries
It seems like only last issue The Octopus Club Magazine wasn’t even in East Vancouver, and now look, people are just lining up to stare at us, secretly gloating at all the plums they have that we don’t have.
Watch out Victoria people, East Van is full of plum hoarding monsters. Here are a selection of photographs from some East Van photographers that despite their awesomeness we haven’t printed yet.
This fine gentlemen put me to shame this day by showing way more enthusiasm and having far more fun than anyone else.
and fatherhood, all the while obser ving ground humping, strip push ups, and frightened children.
Strolling in on a flat black rat rod of a bicycle with a weird Alph stuffed animal strapped to the front of his bike, he gently but creepily asked if he may sit down with us. Noticing a collection of various scars and what seemed to be a bulbous hemmorage sticking out of his stomach, we of course, said yes. For the next twenty minutes we learned about life, drugs,
At least he had the decency to ask us before he gently stroked both of our legs, while telling us he’s not gay, just bi-sexual and he doesn’t give a fuck! Oh yea, for the record; This dude doesn’t do drugs... only mushrooms. .. oh yeah, and cocaine. ... and likes to drink .. a lot -JD
I bet you thought it was pretty funny. ‘Fuck it I’ ll just terrify that dude with a camera, hey it’s not like he works for a magazine and I’ ll be immortalized in print or anything.’ Wrong again bucko! The worst part is you actually
get the last laugh because only a few hours after our little meeting I woke up in a field full of grasshoppers rocking a horrific sun burn, gasping for water in the afternoon heat with cum on the inside of my pants.
There were so many good looking people at BASSCOAST that we could run a few photos in ever y magazine for the next billion trillion years and still have enough photos lef t over to make a photo album bigger than the internet. How about we went to inter view this r ad r aver c hic k , and we’re like what’s you name, are you a volunteer and she is like “I do lots of stuff make sure everything is running, just help out, have fun, you know nothing too stressful, my name is Liz!”
And we are like “Liz as in one of the founders of the festival, which is the best festival ever!?” and she’s all chill and is just like, “well yea, I guess I’m a founder, its no big deal though.” That makes you the coolest person ever. That would be like if Neil Armstrong got out of the space ship and was just like, ‘yea I guess I did walk on the moon... But whatever you could do it too if you wanted bro, like easily.’
Ryan Bekolay - sweet baby me
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ALAS KA Well, Almost Max Gabriel.
I
’ve been a lot of places for a lot of different reasons. I’ve been a tourist, a vacationer, a backpacker, a person living abroad...Recently, I embarked on a trip the likes of which I had never attempted before! It required almost a year of planning, preparing, and practicing. I put more money into it than anything else I’d ever done. I slaved for eleven months at work, picking up ever y shif t, sucking up
whenever possible, just to be able to get the month off I needed. And, when it was all said and done, it was a disastrous failure. Whenever I tell people that, they invariably respond with something along the lines of: “Noooo! Don’t say that! Everything happens for a reason! Think of it as an adventure. You must have enjoyed some of it.” Look, I’ve had adventures.
And yes, there were a lot of things on this trip that I enjoyed, but had I known how it would have turned out, I wouldn’t have gone in the first place. The degree of adventure enjoyed did not justif y the cost. What’s wrong with admit ting that you failed? Nothing, in my book, while the reverse comes with a slew of nega-
tives. Really, if less people tried to look at everything as a success, we’d all be a lot wiser. Now, what was this failure of mine? The trip was Phoenix, Arizona to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and back - by motorcycle. That was my goal. That was my only goal, though of course, I hoped to see beautiful things
on the way. My route took me on a ‘greatest hits of North Western America’ tour, but with the distance I wanted to cover and the limited time I had, available time for sight-seeing would be next to nothing. Before I left, my dad asked me, “You won’t have time to do any thing, see any thing! What kind of vacation is that?” In short: it isn’t one. The Alaska run was to be a very clearly defined, goal-oriented adventure mission. All the way to Alaska’s northern coast and back in less than a month. It was to be a challenge, not a holiday. The first eight days went well. My partner on the journey and I made it almost 3000 miles in that time, passing through the mountains of Colorado, the huge valleys of Wyoming, the plains of Montana that are so wide open they’ll swallow you whole, the stretching farmland of Alber ta, and the forests of British Columbia. We rode through Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, and Jasper National Parks. Glacier, in particular, stands out because of its “Road to the Sun,” a narrow road, barely wide
The trip was Phoenix, Arizona to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and back - by motorcycle. That was my goal.
But, we never got there. On the edge of the Yukon Territory, with only 1800 miles between us and new tires in Fairbanks, it dawned on us that there was the potential our now ragged tires wouldn’t make the distance. To blow a tire in the Yukon would be tragic, possibly even fatal, especially since passerby are rare and bears aren’t. We determined to head west toward the coast, where we could take a ferry north to Anchorage and re-equip before proceeding to Prudhoe Bay. It was on the way there that things went ver y bad for me and my bike.
enough for two compact cars, that winds up the side of a valley toward Logan Pass. On our left: a sheer rock face punctuated by glacier melt waterfalls. On our right: a deep, three-armed valley with a thickly forested floor. We hit that road at 70 or 80 miles per hour, relishing the serpentine course up the mountain.
We saw elk, porcupine, buf falo, eagles, black bears, a grizzly bear, and even a timber wolf. We walked on glaciers, camped in abandoned rock quarries alongside half eaten deer carcasses, and got lost in fields of yellow flowers. We passed ever yone that shared the road with us, and were never passed. On and off road, we raced north toward Alaska..
My KTM 690 broke down about 200 miles east of Prince Rupert Island. Because it is a sophisticated, new-model bike, most mechanics can’t work on it. They need a special computer program just to identify what the thing’s problem is. So, I towed it 120 miles to Terrace. At 1:30 in the morning I paid the tow truck drivers $560 to drop me off in the KTM dealer’s parking lot in rain that was becoming sleet, which slowly evolved to full on snow. With no better options, my friend and I strung a tarp between our bikes and slept on the cold asphalt, both of us wearing our helmets, both of us fearing hypothermia. It was the worst night of my life.
The spirits of travel didn’t put any value on the suffering I’d endured. Starting from the moment that my bike broke down things got worse and worse. I thought my bike was fixed, but then it died again 45 miles fur ther on. I managed to hitchhike it to Prince Rupert and get it on a ferry headed south to Vancouver Island, hitchhiked it about three quar ters of the way down toward Victoria and basically pushed and coasted it through the middle of the night the rest of the way. It was with mechanics in Victoria for a week, during which time I crossed the strait to Vancouver and stayed with the editor of this fine periodical, Colin Cej. I met Colin five years ago at a bonfire party in northern Thailand, believe it or not. My stay in Vancouver was a much needed five day carefree interlude - concerts, galler y openings, beach days, bicycling and beers, of course - before I returned to Vic toria and my woes resumed. That stopover turned out to be the highlight of the entire misadventure. There is nothing like reuniting with friends. From Victoria, thinking my motorcycle was cured of its ills, I made it another 500 miles or so before it died, this time somewhere in lower Oregon on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway. At this point, I was broke,
demoralized, angry as hell, and I decided to say “fuck it.” Another expensive tow got me to a U-Haul dealership where I loaded the cursed machine up and drove the rest of the way to Arizona, where the damn thing is still at the shop. I set out to get to the northern shore of Alaska, and I didn’t. I didn’t even get to Alaska, which would have been my 50th and final state, and at one point I was only a few miles away. That’s a clear cut failure in my book. Even though I am a steadfast atheist, I was aching to believe in God so I’d have someone to blame for everything that kept going wrong. I learned something valuable about travel, a lesson which I mostly already knew, but I needed this last punctuation mark to complete the lesson: Don’t ever travel with any thing you can’t leave behind. In all the places I’ve been, all the hair y spots I’ve gotten myself into, I never had to worr y about anything but me. Well, and my passport, but that becomes par t of you. On this disastrous misadventure, I was shackled by a 450lbs. dead weight, on which I’d still have to make payments even if I threw the son-of-a-bitch in the ocean, a solution I debated more than once. On a positive note, I’ve dodged at least
one major issues in failing this time around, because everyone knows that the problem with attaining a goal is there’s all this pressure to make a new one. I can go to bed with the same familiar, cozy goal I’ve had for a while, secure in the knowledge that I’ll try again and, because I failed once, I’ll be better equipped to succeed the next time.
From Victoria, thinking my motorcycle was cured of its ills, I made it another 500 miles or so before it died
Sound check with Man Man photos by Alisha Weng
So Ryan (Honus Honus, the Man Man lead) is not returning my text messages, I’m offering to bring him some pizza from that terrible pizza by the slice joint across the street. Fine, we slam back our coffees and beer at the Brixton Café and head down to the Fortune Sound whatever it’s called to catch sound check and snag an interview. From the few scattered interviews I’ve read online, I’m actually a little scared the guys going to be a despondent dick anyways… So we get the OK to take a few pictures, Ryan greets me warmly and says he’ll need another 10 for sound check. His second cousins who live in Surrey are there. Man Man will play a few songs, just for them. This doesn’t exactly sound like a despondent dick move… Not even a little bit. Finaly we get to sit down with mr Honus. Ryan is apologetic, he is also curious why we have two photographers, truth be told we all wanted to see the show and couldn’t af ford the price of a ticket. This makes him laugh. Octopus Club - So, a decade of touring, straight... Honus Honus - Yes, unfortunetly.
How do you keep this awesome live show happening?? By this points it’s not a ‘stint’. Yea, well, fool hardiness, Mark Hanker says its my reckless confidence. I have also worked through a lot of people, you know, I just chew up people’s youths. what do you actually do in your day while touring? Well, there is this new fan dangled thing, the internet. But in the van, well, stupid stuff, you read, buy stupid stuff, eat stupid things. Lately I’ve been doing this thing where I buy these disgusting things and then eat one and share the rest with the band… The albums seem like they are progressing towards something… What!?
Has your writing process changed? My process has unfortunately always been the same, I write through repetition, which is pretty awful and not prolific. The new record I worked with Chris for the most par t. Usually I just write and bring it to the band but Chris had a lot of great ideas musically. At this point we move into this strange backroom thing that fortune sound club has for… I can only assume really awesome parties that I’ve never been invited to. Honus Honus - this room is where you buy illegal arms and go gambling with them…. certain people have never heard of man man, or youYea, that fucking sucks.
I’m always working towards writing the per fec t pop song… I’ve really been doing that since day one. Yea, I mean we are progressing, and if it’s at the price of our hardcore fans? Well, good. I don’t mean to be rude but, if you want us to make that album you loved from ten years ago, why don’t you just listen to that album. We need progression, its good to challenge yourself.
But other people, think you are the end all fucking be all, the only relevent band… so quazi famous, can you walk down the street? Yep, it has no effect at all, no one bothers me, no one knows who I am. It’s hard being in a band that has flown below the radar
for so long. Its very disheartening actually. How about when you opened up for Modest Mouse? That was great, but that was 7 years ago or something Shit, sorry. Yea It’s ok , it’s strange it doesn’t make me want to stop making music but it can be frustrating. I think with this new record it could change things though, get some different people in… It’s a nice and warm on the hook. It’s got some nice juicy bits ya know. Under the radar because of the state of music in general? Well we live in an A.D.D, universe. Chris and I talk about it all the time. Bands that were around when we were star ting up either got huge or broke up. But you never know, and we have a very supportive fan base that seems to keep regenerating. Well you keep playing sold out shows Is this sold out?
It’s not like the crazy goes away, you just get better at containing and hiding it. It will be. You think so?? We like Vancouver it’s…. crittery. We used to play at Dicks on Dicks when we were in down. That was awesome. Man Man play’s Dicks on Dicks. What about before music, did you have a day job? Were you once a normal person? Well, I’m still a normal person. Really the only way I can keep doing Man Man all these years, is because I live out of a duffle bag.. If I had a steady place, then I just couldn’t keep doing it. you don’t have a limousine full of money?? No no not at all, I was a barista, for a time, and I waited tables. I get that, I do that. I do that You are a barista? I was one for the first 6 years of Man Man! And also waited tables, I was a cocktail waitress. In a margareta bar. Everyone loved me because I would
do pratfalls, you know. We would all be working these terrible 13 hour shifts and I would take a dive with my tray full of drinks… People would love that. Back to the subject, I’m really sikked about the new record. If you think you know what this band is about, I don’t really think you do. It’s more than a 1 dimensional tag. Well like you said before if you want that album we did ten years ago, listen to that album. Yea, totally. And I’ve learned that as you get older it’s not like the crazy goes away, you just get better at containing and hiding it. Because after a while, if you’re just someone who screams all the time, no ones going to listen to you. You know, no one wants to hear that. It’s more interesting if you can see the screaming behind someones eyes... At this point Ryan went and played some ukelele for a few hours and proceeded to perform an amazing set to a sold out Fortune Sound Club, while the crowd sang along to every word. At least in Vancouver people know the name Honus Honus.
DAn
SCUMMY
D
aniel Thompson (aka Scummy Dan) first caught the eye of the Octopus Club when we saw his tattoos and illustrations which are, frankly, fucking amazing. We got in touch with him, and he invited us to the tattoo shop he’s running, “Fresh Ink”, way out in Surrey. Yes, we were afraid to travel so far from East Vancouver into such a strange and foreign land, but in the end it proved to be well worth it. Dan was kind enough shoot the shit with us over a couple frosty Budweisers and let us see his sketches, art, and tattoo guns - I mean, machines. Dan hates people using the word tattoo gun, because after all, it’s not a fucking gun. The man has been tattooing for 8 years, starting at the tender age of 19, but by that time he was already a pretty gnarly looking inked up kid with full sleeves. “When the rest of my class went on field trips, I’ d skip out and end up hanging around the local tattoo shop. Af ter first getting into it [tattooing] I tried my hand at welding, but I couldn’t really do it, early mornings with a boss breathing down my neck didn’t really work for me.” Dan started his apprenticeship under Trev Mckay at Osmosis Tattoo in Richmond.
The lovely Megan Leigh Van Male. One of the perks of dating an awesome tattoo artist? Awesome tattoos
“Trev was a long time friend of mine and the big brother I never had, he’s also responsible for my arms. After I put in a few years in at Osmosis my social life started crossing the border where I met Jason Kunz at Triumph Tattoo in Burlington. Even though Triumph Tattoo was only an hour from the Canadian border I could not believe the difference in style and attitude from the shops back in Vancouver. Mr Kunz put a proper machine in my hand and showed me the way. To this day I haven’t met another dude who can tattoo as hard as that guy. He pumps out tattoos like crazy! I tattoo the way I do today because of him. “If the tattoo doesn’t have black then it’s wack!” “How do you manage living in the states like that with the visas?” “Well… you don’t. The States was great, I was tattooing, playing in a band, learning lots. But I was still going between my Canada life and my US life. Eventually I had to choose, ‘cause the whole living illegally and jumping borders thing wasn’t working. Thankfully I landed a job in a small shop in Kits where I thought I could start my new life. Not even a month later Dave Green, the owner of Sacred Heart Tattoo, called me up at work and of fered me a job on
the spot. He took a big chance on me, a young kid with not a lot of experience. He gave me a huge opportunity, and I stayed around for a couple years and got to learn from the best. From there I got another amazing opportunity and worked with Clint Danroth at his shop in White Rock ‘Craftsman Tattoo’. That’s where I found my style and my place in the industry”. After Craftsman I travelled while doing my own thing for a
while and now I’m here.” “Here” is Fresh Ink, in Surrey, where some old friends asked Dan to be the head artist in their combined business venture. Currently it’s just him and his apprentice Kyle, and most of the people coming in are Dan’s client base, which is fine by him, as it’s getting the ball rolling. Dan is plugging in some serious hours at the shop, 6 days a week, ten hour days. As far as I can tell
he would like to work more hours if he didn’t have to sleep - the guy is addic ted. “There is just never a moment when I don’t want to tattoo. It still trips me out. I’m tattooing and I think: man, this is my job. That never gets old. Expressing yourself through your work? Who could ask for anything else, right?” “It’s neo-traditional, or illustrative traditional. I love the Victorian style portraits with a darker twist. That being said, when I do American style tattoos I keep it traditional. My East-Van clientele, they don’t got a lotta’ money, and they want these traditional bangers, which is fine. I love those tried, tested, and true tattoos. They’re always going to look great. That style is classic, and I don’t mess with it. I haven’t really been known to do Japanese style tattoos, but working out in Surrey a lot more people are after that. I love working in a Japanese style and would like to get better known for that style” Is there anything that you don’t wanna tattoo? “Well, I hate tribal, but fuck, who doesn’t?” Would you do a tattoo of some guys dog?
“Well, I hate tribal, but fuck, who doesn’t?”
“Yea, but it would be MY style of dog tattoo. In this day and age it AMA ZES me people are still settling for cheap low quality tattoos. There are so many good ar tists in Vancouver. The industry is constantly pushing to better itself. There are so many artists and so much more information. Before getting ink, go online, look at what makes a good artist, what makes a good tattoo. Look for structure in the drawing, look at portfolios. Honestly if you’re gonna cheap out then you deserve a crappy tattoo.”
What do you think about stick and poke tattoos? “Well, we have to talk about YOUR stick and poke. Because that article was amazing. I broke my hand and wasn’t tattooing for almost a month, but I did get the pleasure of reading that ar ticle and laughing my head off. I’m not going to promote stick and pokes, but if you’re doing it on yourself or your friend, I would recommend getting some advice from a tattoo artist on shit like
‘how do I NOT get a blood born disease?’. I don’t see anything wrong with it, sounds like a good bonding experience.” It was, for the record. Dan would like to give a shout out to all the people mentioned above, and all the others who have helped him along the vway. Stop into Fresh Ink for bookings. More info and shots of Dan’s work available on our site, and theirs www.freshinktattoo.com
Andrea Hooge
Andrew Young
Ed Chee
Sunny Shah
L
ittle Jumbo embodies everything that Shawn has worked for since first getting behind the wood years ago. It is a culmination of his experiences, inspiration, and personal touch, garnered over decades. From a medical standpoint, however, what he went through to get this restaurant open on time would be considered utterly insane, and definitely unhealthy. It takes a very particular sort of person to undertake something like this, and see it done. If the phrase “you get what you give,” is in any way accurate, Lit tle Jumbo should reap the rewards for years to come. -Nate Caudle, Executive Barkeep- Little Jumbo When I originally found out that Mr. Soole’s fabled ‘Lit tle Jumbo,’ would indeed be opening, and would in fac t be in a little cubby hole off Wharf Street in downtown Victoria, I thought, man, that ‘lil-jimbo jambo dumbo place is gonna be awesome!’ ...and it is. It’s the new super restaurant of Victoria. It’s as if some master-mind of the industry (Soole) plotted how to create the best establishment, as if he had plotted for years, in a dark secluded part of Victoria, then seized his moment, assembling the place by hand, using sweat as a mor tar.
Soole enlisted some of the most talented people in the industry (Nate, formerly of Clive’s and Adam, formerly of Ulla’s) to man the place. He even got Joseph (formerly of the Black Hat) in the kitchen, who is generally considered to be one of the tallest chef ’s in town. If you feel like a second opinion on Sean, how about when I asked Robyn Gray, bar manager at PiDGiN who the best bar tender is in Vancouver was. His reply was, ‘Sean Soole, even if he doesn’t live here.’
I’m not going to write a full review of the restaurant, I think it suf fices to say, go check it out, like today. Sean has put his hear t into this place, and it shows. Nate and Adam were also kind enough to throw in a couple lucid Absinthe based cocktails on the following page.
LITTLE
JUMB I’m Cumin for ya (place into a perlini and force carbonate, garnish with lime twist) (glass - Large Coupe) 1oz (30mL) Pisco 1/2 oz (15mL) Lucid Absinthe 1/2 oz (15mL) Lemon Juice 1/2 oz (15mL) Lime Juice 1/2 oz (15mL) Cumin Syrup 1/3 oz (10mL) Giffard Vanilla
O
Absinthe Flip (shake hard w/ice and double strain. add nutmeg garnish) (glass - Fizz/Sour gls) 1 ½ (45mL) Lucid Absinthe 1 ½ (45mL) Elderflower Cordial 1 egg
ali t bruce A
li T Bruce is awesome. TOC loves this stuff. We managed to snag some of her time last Saturday just before they tossed us all out of St Augustine’s at last call. If you have never had the pleasure of drinking with Ali, you should. It’s fun.
-Null-Telerobot 2013
-Memeraine 2013
-Morning 2013
people are saying stuff like, ‘Oh, you’re so awesome’ and I just stand there thinking…‘I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m totally fucking scared.’
In Alie’s year or so on the Vancouver arts scene, Ali has been super prolific. A combination of hard work, style, and debaucher y has made her something of an East Vancouver golden child. “The best artists out there are the people who have their style that shows through in any medium. I’m super hyped on doing more and more shows. All these opportunities keep coming and people are saying stuff like, ‘Oh, you’re so awesome’ and I just stand there thinking…‘I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m totally fucking scared.’ I have been making art for years, but I’ve never been this ‘working-artist’.” We twisted Ali’s arm and got her a shot, and she talked with us about how long it took her to get this iconic wavy style she now works in. She spent years at Emily Carr, working in a million different styles
and mediums, and now she is still working on it, everyday. “I’m always writing stuff, always drawing, always thinking about art. I’m a total psycho…. I always said, ‘Oh Ali, if you’re going to get into the ar t world, no more long crazy nights… you know, try your best.’” Drunk, sober, or wasted, Ali is at the top of her game right now; she is someone to be watching in the Vancouver arts scene, and a great person to get a beer with.
Gore-vision 2013
Lié E F
rom dive bars to critical acclaim, then back to dive bars, then dive venues and then to opening for Black Flag. Lié is pretty much what any person would want in a band; talent, looks, power. The best part is it’s all wrapped up in this ‘fuck that shit’ disclaimer, that kind of makes everyone else with a guitar look less legit, and kind of scared our camera guy. I caught up with them right after they played a show at the Red Gate opening, around midnight. Surprisingly, it was raining in Vancouver, but Katie, Britt and Ashley came out onto Hastings street for a quick Q/A. “So, how was opening for Black-Flag!?” Brit … good, great show, met one of my childhood idols, Greg Grinn, which was great, until he started hitting on me. It all went downhill from there, crushing all my hopes and dreams. Ashley
met one of my childhood idols, Greg Grinn, which was great, until he started hitting on me.
yeah, (laughs). Brit doesn’t want to play music anymore. She is basically out of the band. The show, which happened way back in January, was probably the most anticipated punk/ hardcore show in Van in a long time. The reviews of the show range from ‘best show of my life’ to ‘made me feel cheap and used’ with most people expressing sentiments more like the lat ter. Lié has mixed feelings about the show, but overall they seem to side with the masses. Brit the show was exciting, the crowd was big and really young for us, which was a lot of fun. Seeing kids come from the suburbs to see us and seeing them getting into it was awesome. I remember what it was like. I remember going to The Distillers when I was 14 and was like Oh MY GOD!!
Ashley You like The Distillers?? I didn’t think you’d be into that shit!!! Brit Well, yeah! in high school I loved that shit. As far as local talent goes, they all agree that the Cowards are where it’s at. Ashley Also, the band Mutators was a huge influence, on a developmental level. They are an amazing band and Lief is the most amazing vocalist Vancouver has ever seen… Brit Also Woman Kind are one of my favorite Vancouver bands. On a larger scale, Katie and Ashlee agree on how awesome/influential the Wipers have been on them, whereas Brits points to Nirvana/Black Flag for the inspiration to pick up a guitar. Even if Greg Ginn creeped her out. Lié have a 7” that they are hoping will get picked up, and oddly enough, a full length that has been picked up, which hasn’t been entirely written yet. More information about them is on the interweb.
-Galaxy 2013
Well, I guess thats all the paper we can really af ford to waste this time. I would like to thank ever yone who helped us out on this one, and our printers... Who put up with so much stupidity. So much. I would also like to thank Cariboo for sponsoring our little release party and Viridian for sending us that absinthe. Check out the lovely
Kelly Wiggins making a sazerac cocktail on our site. I would also like to personnaly thank Michal from Geist and Katie from SADMAG for all your advice and kind words. Until next time you beautiful, beautiful west coast people!
THE OCTOPUS CLUB ISSUE V
vol 5.not to be read backwards
FREE