The Nerve Magazine - May 2005

May 8th: Harrow / Holler May 15th: High 5 Drive / Secondstall May 22nd: NERVE SUNDAYS LAUNCH PARTY featuring: Powerclown Wet T-shirt Contest Motley Crue ticket giveaway May 29th: SpreadEagle / Oneyedjacks

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MAY 12

JUNE 13

EARLY SHOW DOORS 6:30PM SHOW 7:30PM

NEW MSI CD “YOU’LL REBEL TO ANYTHING” IN STORES NOW

ALL AGE S FOR ...

REA L!!

MAY 16

CROATIAN CULTURAL CENTRE

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

JUNE 6

ALL AGES!

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

ALL AGES! EARLY SHOW: DOORS 6PM, SHOW 7PM TICKETS ALSO AT ZULU AND SCRATCH

CROWNED KING THE LOVED ONES KANE HODDER EARLY SHOW DOORS 7PM, SHOW 7:30PM

DOORS 7PM SHOW 7:45PM

TICKETS ALSO AT ZULU AND SCRATCH

CROATIAN CULTURAL CENTRE

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 4

MESA LUNA– 1926 W. BROADWAY

TICKETS ALSO AT SCRAPE

COMMODORE BALLROOM

Innards

Cover Story

THE NERVE HIT SQUAD

Mr. Duane Peters discusses his new band, his old band, his other old band and what the kids are up to these days. Our correspondent discusses his erection

The Don (a/k/a Editor-In-Chief and Publisher) Bradley C. Damsgaard editor@thenervemagazine.com Pistol Whipper (a/k/a Music Editor) Adrian Mack mack@thenervemagazine.com Shotgun (a/k/a Film Editor) Michael Mann mann@thenervemagazine.com

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Map and Details (a/k/a Skate Shreditors) D-Rock and Miss Kim Launderer (a/k/a Book Editor) J. Pee Patchez The Henchmen (a/k/a Design & Graphics) Beth Granter, Annie Totalenkrieg, Chris Trudeau Weapons Cleaner (a/k/a Article Editor) Jon Azpiri, Sean Law Surveillance Team (a/k/a Photographers) Laura Murray, Jeremy Van Nieuwkerk, Miss Toby Marie The Muscle (a/k/a Staff Writers) A.D. MADGRAS, Cowboy TexAss, Casey Bourque, Sinister Sam, Chris Walter, Jake Poole, Jason Schreurs, Adam Simpkins, Meghan Dean, Carl Spackler, David Bertrand, Herman Menervemanana, Sean Law The Kids (a/k/a The Interns) Chris Trudeau, The Dr. Girl Friday (a/k/a Subscriptions/Mailouts) Sue Hobler Fire Insurance (a/k/a Advertising/Marketing Dept.)

Brad Damsgaard, Kevin Angel, Kristin Lamont advertise@thenervemagazine.com Mata Hari (a/k/a Cover Design) Miss Toby Marie Out-of-town Connections (a/k/a Distribution and Street Team) Toronto: Rosina Tassone Calgary: Rick Overwater, Mike Taylor.

Edmonton: Freecloud Records, Graeme MacKinnon, Lindsey McNeill.

Winnipeg: Phil at Steel Capped Records, Victoria/Whistler: Jono Jak, Lindsay Seattle/Bellingham: Frank Yahr The Nerve is published monthly by The Nerve Magazine Ltd. The opinions expressed by the writers and artists do not necessarily reflect those of The Nerve Magazine or its editors. The Nerve does not accept responsibility for content in advertisements.

The Nerve reserves the right to refuse any advertisement or submission and accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.

All content © Copyright The Nerve Magazine 2005 Est. 1999

The Nerve Magazine 508 - 825 Granville St. Vancouver, B.C. V6Z 1K9 604.734.1611

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VA N C O U R T L A N D R A N G E R S 13 Vancouver’s ace faces reminisce about growing up in Brighton in the early ‘60s.

T H E R A M O N E S 15

An excerpt from Chris Walter’s forthcoming book, I’m on the Guest List. We should really get Chris to do more for Nerve.

MILLEN CO LIN 9

9 13

One of a select few bands that comes with its own Allan key.

G R A N T H A R T 11

Former Husker Dude, inventor of Dave Grohl, all round original - Spackler pays tribute.

PA P E R L A N T E R N S 14

They love pop, they hate rabbits, one of ‘em wears a hat.

TO K YO E L E C T R O N 14

Being shitty just isn’t good enough for Ryan Wong.

F I L M : W h e n J e s s e W a s B o r n 26 The Nerve: Paving the road to porn for children everywhere.

L E T T E R F R O M S T I N K TO W N 10 I A M . . . A S H A M E D 10

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Off the Record 22 Live Wires 25 Film 24 Books 56 Skate Spot 28 Ainsworth 27 DVD Reviews 27 Crossword/Comics 31 THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 5

C

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CHEAP SHOTZ

Sir Arthur Starring Lina Romay

“...you’ve (your mag, I mean) already got a “buzz” here in town probably ‘cause we’re all a little tired of the NER(D)VE even though we ALL read it.”

The Neo Nasties’ Eric Von Trap, in a letter to Victoria’s Absolute Underground, referring presumably to last month’s Nerve feature on The Neo Nasties.

peek at her rock bottom for her bottomly fans. I think I will tape the sound from the show for a listen in the car where my imagination may wander where the female director’s dared not.

- Randal Dillon

You Are Demented Ok, I have a problem. Everyone in your “rag” looks the same, and that’s they all look like shit. Has anyone who’s ever graced your pages ever heard of a shower? Rock and roll, my ass, you all look like shite! And the reason that I’m bringing this up is that the song’s opening line on my iPod really got to me. “You’re no rock and roll fun” sounded over my headphones, and it struck a chord, somewhere, and I thought, yeah, they’re right as I listened more to the song, Sleater Kinney has it right! Not a lot of people are rock and roll fun. I don’t mean fun in how many lays you can get in an hour and how big that mountain of blow was, but like, fun. Like having fun and smiling when on stage, and not looking like a cock. I mean, you look at bands today, with their glam makeup and serious “man, I’m gonna die any minute” look.

They’re not fun at all. But, go look at The Arcade Fire, who bound over the stage, interacting with the audience and sweating their body weight during every show. Now that looks like fun. But can The Arcade Fire, an indie art band, be rock and roll fun? Fuck yeah; you don’t have to be a skinny little grease bag to be fun, or Rock and Roll. So tell your readers to have a shower, stop thinking it’s cool to dress like the Crue, and get a life, cause there’s more in life than looking like a cock all the time.

- s to the Art Fag r

Goodnight, Ladies Local booking agents are scrambling to find an opening act for every single concert in Vancouver after learning that Ladies Night have called it a day.

According to a report on CNN, the band cancelled its West Coast tour after one member - we can’t say who – failed to provide ID or a drum kit.

Remarked a saddened Jake Goodman, “Nobody likes to be let down.”

Goodnight, Hos The Gung Hos called it quits (probably) in grand style, while onstage at a recent Pub 340 show. Singer and all round living curiosity Mike Roche made it through two whole songs before grabbing his bag and striding out the door.

With some 40 minutes left to fill, a spirited onlooker attempted to fill in but to little effect.

Over at GM Place, U2 breathed a sigh of relief.

Feedback from Another Moron Hey guys, this months skate banter in your mag actually makes sense (kind of). what did you do, smack little miss kim around or some-

on the side. Marcinkus is the former President of the Vatican Bank, and John Paul II’s right hand man. John Paul II wasn’t a stupid as he looked (I refer to the hat) – he knew he had to keep on Marcinkus’ good side, otherwise he’d end up like his predecessor, who was allegedly assassinated when he attempted to reform the church and flush out its corrupt influences. Safely ensconced in Arizona with a handful of known pedophiles, Marcinkus will probably live out his days in relative peace and freedom. On the other hand, at least millions of believers in AIDS ravaged Africa are safe from condoms. who were no doubt from Surrey and listen to Hip-hop, were described by The Dose as “whacky”. This crosses the line: if anybody is going to be irresponsible enough to make light of such a potentially disastrous not to mention illegal situation, it’s The Nerve. Watch out, The Dose, we’re drunker and stupider than you’ll ever be. And kids – if you’re going to steal a Jimmy and smash it into anything, please make it the crowd outside The Plaza.

Fuck Yeah! Alert.

If you have a TV and know how to work it then you’re probably already aware that Bravo and Showcase both offer a little Friday night softcore action for both the discerning onanist and those with a scholarly interest in sexploitation (“My favourite ‘ploitation!” – Brad D. August 2004). Things took a turn for the even better on Friday the 15th with Showcase’s screening of Jess Franco’s epically horny Vampyros Lesbos.

Admittedly, that’s a pretty easy film to find in contrast with about 200 of Franco’s other movies, but one should nonetheless savour the exquisite thrill of waking up from a pot-coma on the couch at 3:30 am to the sight of a naked

Watch out, The Dose, we’re drunker and stupider than you’ll ever be.

Our Man in Abbotsford Adrian, Finally got around to picking up the Drive By Trucker’s concert dvd. What a rock show. These fuckers smoke like Cheech and Chong in a crematorium. A shitpile of originals topped off with a cover of Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died” that makes you wonder if it is not the greatest motherfucker of a rock song ever made. One big quibble however. At their Vancouver appearance one month after the dvd was filmed I took note of bass player Shonna Tucker’s impressive, if expansive, can.

All footage of Shonna’s southern booty was left on the cutting room floor. Not even a wee

thing? Anyways thought i’d let you know that it was readable.

- Scott Readers can contact Skate Spot editors DRock and Miss Kim at: downspace@telus.net

They Were Punks Before The Guy That Was a Punk Before You Were a Punk Was Even a Punk A drunk weirdo informs us that legendary Vancouver punkertons The Subhumans are set to reform with new material and live shows this summer. Look for the original line-up, save for drummer Jim Imagawa who will be replaced by local nobody, Jon Card.

Outclassed Wow – we have to say something about the three news dailies that appeared in Vancouver last month with the implacable speed and penetration of an Angolan Marburg Virus outbreak.

Of the three, Metro and 24 Hours are the Sun and the Province, respectively, but written largely in Toronto and without the intellectual gravitas of either, while the third, Dose is a double-douche doozy. The name couldn’t be more accurate as it appears to be produced by people under the influence. We spend a whole month at The Nerve fucking up Canadian Press Style Standards, raping language and editing mistakes and confusion into otherwise lucid pieces of balanced journalism. The Dose does all that in one night!

Particularly noteworthy was the issue dated Friday, April 15th, with it’s urban-themed history of Grafitti Art, which we suppose appealed to idiots and whiggers everywhere, and a story about some joy-riding teenagers who slammed into three cop cars in a stolen Jimmy. The misadventures of these little assholes,

Soledad Miranda posing in front of a mirror, while Franco’s inimitable electronic jazz bubbles away in the background. Hopefully, Showcase will get round to screening Lulu’s Buttonhole aka Lulu’s Talking Ass, Franco’s moving and puckish fantasy about a garrulous rectum. Why didn’t they call it Verbal Diarrhea?

Lulu is played by Franco’s wife, the incomparable Lina Romay.

Bad Guys Continue to Win Tradition is a very important facet of the Holy Catholic Church. For instance, by electing a new Pope who is an extremist, a crook, and generally speaking a disThe aster for humanitarian causes across the globe, the Church has upheld the tradition of electing Popes who are extremists, crooks and disasters for humanitarian causes across the globe. Benedictus (careful – it’s a fake name) will no doubt further the lizard-people’s project of rolling civilization back into the dark ages.

Benedictus is German, too. This further reflects a historical relationship between Germans and Italians, stretching back to the special rights conferred on Vatican City by noted sane person Benito Mussolini, thereby turning it into a State, not to mention the Vatican’s gleeful laundering of countless billions looted from Jews by the Nazis. Meanwhile, there is a man by the name of Cardinal Marcinkus splashing water on the heads of babies in a church outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Because of the Vatican’s diplomatic immunity, Marcinkus cannot be brought up on charges that range from murder, to more murder, to a sizeable compliment of murder, killings, theft, murder, assassination, theft and a little murder

The Long Arm of Nerve Records What the HELL ever happened to Nerve Records? You are all, no doubt, thinking right this very second. Nerve Recs, we have been told, will be putting out a new live album by The Spitfires because, apparently, the original lineup is reforming. SprëadEagle is currently in the studio of some degenerate Abbotsfordian recording their follow up to the gigantic bomb that was their self-titled debut AND they’ve apparently re-recorded “Bad Motherfucker” with better drums. Phew, what a relief. When asked about the new project, guitarist Donny James Rio simply states: “Dude, no, really… you will SHIT your MIND.” And lastly, and definitely least, Nerve has also just signed the Red Hot Lovers, who seem to have put their differences aside or co-coordinated their lies enough to convince label CEO Badly Damaged that they’ll be finishing their new record entitled, Love Hunter and playing future shows to support it. Uh huh, sure they will... and that’s only some chaffing baby, trust me.

Gang of Jerks The Nerve was very excited to present an interview with the original Gang of 4, which has reformed now that its potent blend of ideologically sound Marxist dance punk has been exhumed by echo boomers (The Futureheads, Bloc Head Party) but sadly, and in spite of assurances from none other than Andy Gill himself, it didn't happen. It's no biggie - we're quite used to being told to fuck off - but we are puzzled by the actions of its grouchy, New York-based PR person who seems untroubled by the fact that she's been hired to promote a band that broke-up twenty years ago, was a cult at best, that never made much of an impact outside of the UK and who is trying to sell tickets in at least three of the markets that The Nerve distributes to. Oh well - it's still our gig of the month. Commodore, May 7th.

Spitfires: Come again?

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Swede Emotion - an interview with Nikola from Millencolin C

rackle crackle. Hissssss. “Hello?

Hello?!!?” Crackle crackle. That, my friends, is the sound of two cell phones engaging in sloppy intercontinental electronic intercourse, whilst a frantic journalist yells into one, hoping desperately to hear the Swedish accent of a true punk rock luminary - Nikola from Millencolin - on the other end. As some of you may or may not know, the employees of a major telecommunications company here in Western Canada are on strike, and have retaliated against The Man by cutting a number of very important cables, including those that supply telephone services to the public. So there I was, desperately praying to whatever Viking gods might be listening, that my cell phone signal would last long enough to get this interview.

Speaking of Vikings, I’ve got this theory about Sweden. That theory is that nothing bad could possibly come out of Sweden, and if anything bad does, the good that comes out of it outweighs and thusly neutralizes it (I am willing to overlook Ace of Base and salty black licorice in exchange for Refused and the Fröjsta coffee table).

Nikola, a most pleasant and articulate ambassador for his nation, only served to reinforce this theory. He even endured the shortcomings of Western Canadian telecommunications infrastructure with surprising patience.

A brief history of Millencolin: in 1992, four young skateboarding lads from Örebro, enamoured with The Descendents and Operation Ivy, form a band and name it after a skateboarding move (the Melancholy); they become first regional and then national successes; Burning Heart and then the mighty Epitaph perk up their ears to the band’s explosive, tight and infectious Scandinavian sounds, Vans make a shoe named after them, and everyone lives happily ever after. Right?

Not always. “It’s something you have to get used to, going from it being a hobby

to it being a job, being in a bus with the guys for 7 weeks at a time. The hardest part is being away from our families,” says Nikola (the proud papa of two children, ages 1 and 3). “After our first CD came out, we started playing more and more shows, till we were playing every other weekend. After our first album, we started going on three-week tours. We’d release an album, then tour. It was very difficult.

Our approach now is more organized; we used to say yes to every offer, but now it’s more planned.”

So how does he feel about the hometown crowd, I ask? “The scene in Sweden is very good,” Nikola asserts between bursts of white noise. “Many Swedish bands are playing and touring, and the live music scene does very well. Lots of people go out to concerts, unlike the record-

career singing in the Swedish language, prefers English for musical purposes. “It’s all you hear in music, it’s the rock’n’roll language. And Swedish is not easy to rhyme in.” (Au contraire—I can think of all kinds of things that rhyme with “Fröjsta”, can’t you?)

Throughout the length of Millencolin’s six-album career (made seven with the recent release of their new album Kingwood), darker undertones have continually surfaced amidst the upbeat pop punk. Producer Lou Giordano, known for his work with Samiam, flew out to work on Millencolin’s 2002 album Home from Home, from New York, on September 11, 2001. “It was a really weird situation,” says Nikola. “As the recording happened, everyone was watching the news. Some of the unfinished songs ended up being about 9/11.” The American tour supporting Home from Home had to be cancelled due to a family tragedy; Nikola’s solo record, Lock-SportKrock, released the year after, reflects a deeply personal, introspective side. Was it an outlet for songs that wouldn’t fit in Millencolin? “Yes. I was hiding them,” Nikola states. “Finally I did it, it was a relief and a satisfaction. People should check it out.”

And what does he have to say about Kingwood? “It’s a fantastic record! It’s a mix between fast punk with more of a rock influence, but no ska. Unlike before, the lyrics are told more from other people’s perspective than my own.”

And finally, I’ve got to ask- what’s fuelling Millencolin’s creative engine these days? Has he heard the new Descendents record? “No.” (Silence) “Right now I’m listening to Like a Prayer, by Madonna.”

Right when I owe the Viking gods a thankyou for answering my prayers.

Coincidence?

Check www.millencolin.com for West Coast tour dates

Music

By Therese Lanz

“Right now I’m listening to Like a Prayer, by Madonna.” selling thing. People won’t buy CDs but they will come to shows.”

There is, of course, one thing I’m dying to know - are the rumours of Swedish government-funded artist subsidies true, or just a vicious rumour circulated by the Gothenburg black-metallers to make everyone else jealous? Nikola assures me that they are, indeed, true.

“There used to be a system where if you had a project, you could fill in the forms, and get support from the government.

Anyone could be a member of [the musician’s] organization, and you could receive forms for studio time, for instruments.

[Millencolin] hasn’t needed to use it in a long time, though.” So basically, the Swedish taxpayers helped fund Opeth?

Great Odin’s Beard! And to think that all mine did was help buy my MP a minklined toilet seat! But despite Sweden’s rich cultural climate, Nikola, who began his

Liive iss a moosterjy, everjoon moost stond aljone....

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 9

Music

Letter From Stink Town I Am... Ashamed Ike Ike Baby - Hangin' with the Former Mr. Tina.

By Rosina Tassone

By Mr. Slats

I

W

hat to say about the man who invented rock’n’roll, although he called it boogie woogie back then? A wife beater, cokehead - yeah, yeah. Disney made a killing on that movie and he says they made him sign some paper that indeed confirmed the events being true, and in turn could not sue for defamation of character after the fact. Shitty deal. And too bad nobody cared about his side when he put out his book.

So spending a few days with Ike and the Kings was very eventful but still a rough road to travel. My cell phone rings Friday night and its their agent who is basically telling me, Houston we have a problem… Ike and his band are being held at customs. Granted, we all know Ike’s deal - customs agent probably was a Tina lover or was just on the rag or maybe she realized that very day that she was an ugly fat cow and couldn’t help it. Regardless, I’m on the phone with Ike as I jump in a cab and head to the airport. The other members had rap sheets but nothing like murder or rape, for fuck sakes. Two of the guys are older than Ike, who is a vibrant 74, and they all had minister’s pardons. So Ike’s not too impressed at this point, standing in his adidas, wanting to turn around and fly home. Luckily I convinced him otherwise. Can you believe the fucking nerve of this officer getting me all the way out to Brampton on a friday night for no other reason than to scold me on procedure and tell me, as the promoter, to dot my i’s and cross my t’s.... and she doesn’t even give me a reason other than, she doesn’t HAVE to do anything…

Power tripping shit cow!!!! Because of this 3 hour delay, Ike’s car has left so he decided to bribe one of the airporter buses with $150 to drive him and the band downtown. I humbly ask if I can catch a ride, since I was in the middle of nowhere and had already spent $45 to get there.

So, now I am riding the bus with Ike Turner, Ike Junior, Audrey Madison and the all star cast he calls his Kings Of Rhythm. What a ride.

We basically got the 25 cent tour of Toronto. I was forced to cancel and rebook hotels that weren’t up to their standards. I think it was in Chinatown when Ike screamed, “Turn this bus around sir, we ain’t even going inside! That man looks like he’s got more skid marks than a stop sign, ha ha ha!!!” Then he comments about “that bitch in customs,” growling, “I’ve been clean since ‘89, isn’t that right Junior? No wait. I was in jail in ‘90. Anyways, that bitch was cold and I’ve been clean since ‘91.” Okay so which is it? The conversation turned to nightlife and Toronto hotspots... We finally parted ways at the Holiday Inn as I mentally prepare for the historical musical event the next day.

When the band arrived for sound check, everything was pretty much smooth sailing and

I finally put my slutty past behind me. they started to feel comfortable in a House of Blues kind of way. Their opening jam was an interesting rendition of Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed”. Oh… kay… Weird, but cool.

I smoked a few joints with the band before they took the stage to a packed house then hung out and chatted with singer Audrey Madison while she curled her hair, pushed up her bra and waited for her cue. I asked, “How did you land this gig?”

Audrey responded with a grin. “Well, I used to hang out with these really slutty girls and so they called me up one night to say that we were going out with Ike Junior and a few boys. I eventually met Ike Senior and sang him a song.

We’ve been together ever since. Don’t really see them sluts much anymore.” We waited for her cue which was this real hokey country blues song and I walked her to the stage to the awaiting audience. As I ‘m snapping pictures during their encore, Ike calls me up to accompany the band and become a real live Ikette. Now that was cool.

After the show the back room was full of press, photo opportunists and party types.

Taking a deep breath, I approached Ike with the question I’d been dying to ask. “I hope you don’t mind me asking,” I started, “but do you still see Tina or talk to her?” He responded quietly, “ No, no I do not see her or talk to her ever.” And that was the last of Ike and Audrey. They were off to get pastrami sandwiches at Subway and prepare for their upcoming European dates.

As for the rest of the band, most of them said their goodbyes and went their own way except for their horn players Erin and Paul.

They had a few more hours to kill so I decided to feed them pot cookies and take them to the fetish Masquerade across the road. We ditched a few crazed groupies, smoked a big fatty, and ogled a few asses. They could not believe their eyes and ears as the slapping and moaning in the spanking room was sometimes too loud to speak over. Fun times.

At 3:45 am I finally put them in a cab and bid them farewell.

“That man looks like he’s got more skid marks than a stop sign, ha ha ha!!!”

Ike with Chuck Berry’s date.

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 10

Black History Afternoon in Canadog Master T

think it might have been Maestro Fresh Wes. Black History Month in Where do I even start?

March but I’m not really “Wes”? “Fresh”? Good God. sure for two reasons. Reason What the hell?!? Did Master T one: because there are only help name this guy or what? I a couple hundred real Black don’t even need to be Black to people in Canada, Black be embarrassed about this History Month is condensed one. The fact that, next to down to Black History Snow, this guy is the most Afternoon. This year it hapsuccessful rapper in pened to fall on the same day Canadian history makes me I had my first appointment just plain want to throw up. with sedation dentistry. This Often confused with the guy is where they hop ya up on who played BLT on Degrassi.

Halcion at the dentist’s office My homies, Chip and Scooter, Wes. Wes! Wes? What hapand the next thing you know tell me this is a pretty rough pened to Black folk naming yer waking up curled into the neighbourhood, eh. their kids Leroy, Leon, fetal position in the corner of Freddy, Jimmy… Abubeka? yer bathroom with a brand spanking new toothOnly in Canada do you find Black guys with the brush stuck in your pocket, a somewhat quesname Wes. And yeah, yeah, yeah… now yer tionable feeling of looseness around the assgonna get all, “Well what about WESley hole, and not a single memory of the preceding Snipes?” Did I say Wesley Snipes is cool? eight hours. And the other reason I missed Obviously the dude must be Canadian.

Black History Afternoon is coz I ain’t Black. And I remember hanging out at Calgary’s long if I was - Canadog is the last place on Earth I’d defunct underground showplace, The Westward wanna be Black in.

Club, a few days before Christmas in the early The States get Huey Newton, Eldridge nineties when into the bar walked Andrew Cleaver, Miles Davis, Sly Stone, and Jimmy Thorpe resplendent in Bootsauce tour jacket Hendrix. We get Master T, Wild T, Maestro and afghan scarf. No doubt he was awaiting the Fresh Wes and the singer from Bootsauce. adulation and congratulations from his fellow And one of our guys isn’t even really Black! I’ll Calgarians on the success of his Red Hot give you a clue as to the identity of Canada’s Neutered Funk combo Bootsauce in Montreal. most famous negro imposter: for years he Not a single person approached him despite the embarrassed the living shit out of this country fact his band was riding high on MuchMusic with with his speech impeded rallying cry of, “Hey ptheir sacrilegious remake of Hot Chocolate’s varty p-veople!”. It was hard not to wanna jump “Everyone’s A Winner”. He stood there in the into your television set with a Buff Puff to try middle of the bar, drink in hand and within minand rub the brown shit off Master T’s face to utes began to take pot shots to the back of his expose the white man underneath, especially head with lemon wedges and ice cubes. He had when he’d pepper interviews with hardcore nowleft the backwater that is Calgary several years time rappers like earlier to get a Snoop Dogg with “real” band outdated Black together after getcolloquialisms ting the boot from like “jammin”, an early line-up of “dope” and s k a t e r o c k “fresh”. It still metal/Punk piobaffles me how neers Beyond Master T didn’t Possession. end up strangled Bootsauce (his with his own gay “real” band) hair extensions ended up being a by members of Black man ripping Canada’s Black off a white band community as he (Chili Peppers) emasculated it that ripped off one “Hey p-varty Black bands. p-veople” at a Even the hicks in time. By the the Stampede way... does anyCity of Caltucky one know if that knew a phony was a mousBlack man when tache or a long they saw one. black birthmark?

By the way... the Just like if you blinked you missed Black bastard slipped out the door of The Westward History Afternoon, the same fate awaited you in only seconds before I closed in on him and took terms of taking notice of the career of a swipe at the side of his face with the Buff Puff Canadog’s Wild T and The Spirit. Like so much that was in my back pocket. Not convinced that other god-awful Can Con shite of the late eightone’s really Black either. I mean come on! ies, Wild T and The Spirit were non-entities one Besides the singer from Hirax, how many week and Juno nominees being slobbered all Blackmen fronted speedmetal acts? Next to over by Terry David Mulligan on MuchMusic the trucker rock and the likes of Savoy Brown, there next. The fact that there was already one Black is no more honky music than speedmetal my national embarrassment in the Canadian enterfriends. tainment biz using the surname “T” obviously Now what about Canada’s female black did nothing to sway Wild from utilizing the same artists yer probably wonderin’ ? What about “jammin” tag. Then again this Canadian poor ‘em? There ain’t any. Oh wait... yeah there is! man’s Hendrix also employed a similar mop of Michie Mee! You know what? Don’t even get hair extensions as p-varty p-verson Master T. me started on that shit coz my blood pressure is Despite the fact that they both have such spechigh enough already just thinking about that tacularly retarded last names and the same lid homo from Bootsauce in his kaftan. of ropes, it never crossed my mind until now that So there ya go. There’s my essential recap perhaps these two Black bozos are kin. Only of Black History Afternoon in Canadog, just in one sure way to find out. The next time Wild T case you are like me and missed it because you plays the hotel tavern in your town can you do were drugged and being molested by your denme a favour? Rush the stage and scour his face tist and his x-ray technician. with a Buff Puff as well. Somethin’ tells me that’s Colin James under all that kohl.

Now what about Canada’s female black artists yer probably wonderin’ ? What about ‘em? There ain’t any.

Oh wait... yeah there is!

Michie Mee! You know what? Don’t even get me started on that shit coz my blood pressure is high enough already just thinking about that homo from Bootsauce in his kaftan.

H

Hart-ly Getting Over It

T

here are many things that can give a man hope in this - if you don’t mind a quote from the movie Network “demented slaughterhouse of a world”. And just as many king sized bummers lobbed at you by the great forces beyond our comprehension. You, me, we are in constant flux but one thing I’ve always had to hang my hat on is music. Sometimes the song, those sounds, that voice, resonates right through my whole fucking frame and the endorphins pop in my skull like a dropped can of soda. Put on “Standing by the Sea” on Husker Du’s Zen Arcade. Put it on loud and hear that voice. It’s man vs. nature at it’s most primal. It howls, it wails, it fucking screams, “I’m here motherfucker! I’m making my mark! Fuck you, dying light! I’m ridin’ this train all the way!”

Bittersweet? Hell yeah. Real? Too real. The man who wrote and sang that song, and many, many other fine numbers, Grant Hart, is coming to town. I recently had a chance to talk with him.

Nerve: Last time I saw you was with Nova Mob, in the prairies, that big festival with The Ramones called Infest.

Grant: Small festival, it was just wide open spaces.

Nerve: And what’s bringing you to town this time?

Grant : A career.

Nerve: Are you touring in support of a record or are you just coming out?

Grant: You know, whatever people wanna hear is pretty much fair game. Some things don’t make the transition to one man presentation very well, some of the more repetitious things where they might have relied on production or solos or jamming.

Nerve: So you don’t mind dipping into the back catalogue?

Grant: Well, since I’m up there alone it’s not like I’m insulting anybody. A live thing with Nova Mob kind of commemorated the first redipping into any of the old Husker, live in Seattle at the Crocodile Café… it was actually the first time I’d played guitar… I was playing drums for Nova Mob having lost a drummer whilst on the tour. I’ve been told that I have a tendency for having a high expectation for drummers, or at least knowing enough about the craft that I don’t let em get away with bullshit.

Nerve: Is it hard because you look over and you go, I can play that better, or, I hear it this way?

Grant: Well, without drudging up specific arguments - more dynamic things, more just artfulness, you know? The joy of drumming, making music with it rather than being just a stone box back there.

Nerve: They say a band is only as good as its drummer.

Grant: Well, Husker was a great band. [laughs] It had a combination of forceful personalities, and Greg (Norton) who didn’t push that much. I wonder how long it would have lasted if Greg was as much of a prick as me and Bob (Mould) were.

Nerve: Does SST owe you guys just a ton of money?

Grant: Oh, imperial tonnes! Metric tonnes!

Nerve: And they’re still putting out

your records - still pressing them?

Grant: Yep. Nerve: You should be getting a royalty from Dave Grohl!

Grant: Oh, for what?

Nerve: For that song that he imitates your singing on! [“Learn to Fly”? – Music Ed.] Grant: Well, Dave acknowledges every debt, ya know? You wonder why they made it back in ’92. Whatever Cobain was up to, Dave Grohl knows how to work a room very professionally.

Whether it’s the kids in the wheelchairs at the meet and greet or label people - every fan, every person, the masseuse…

I’ve seen that guy vacuum up more dressing rooms than anybody else in showbiz. He likes a clean place and rather than bitching about it or fetching somebody else, he’ll tackle it.

Nerve: I’m looking here at a picture of you and Bob Mould on stage not that long ago, at the benefit concert for Karl Mueller from Soul Asylum – Rock for Karl.

Music

By Carl Spackler

unannounced… I put a call on Bob’s cell phone. I’d been talking to a fellow that works with Bob and got his number, although me and Bob had not been overly conversant, and I left a message and he called back shortly after and I said, well, are you in the mood for a little shock and awe? And he said, what, you wanna come up and play a song? And I said, well, protocol is two songs, one of yours and one of mine. And he said, I was never talking to you again but, la la la la. So I get over there and things are already in second gear at the place. Westerberg was fucking seventeen sheets to fucking Sunday. Me and Bob hung out until the time for him to go on and I stealthed the guitar in with another person that came in a couple of minutes after me.

And he made his signal to the monitor guy, get Grant! He knew what the cues were gonna be.

Unfortunately, with the exception of the cubicle assigned to Bob, there was not a clear or

“As soon as Westerberg saw me with Bob - and you can be on or off the record with this - let’s say a number of people assert that he attempted to walk on stage with his pants around his ankles.”

Grant: Yeah, that was very interesting. Let’s put it this way - we surprised absolutely everybody. There was one person besides Bob and myself that knew it was gonna happen. It seems that, erm, I’m speculating that there had been tension going on for a few hours at least between the other acknowledged rock stars that were on the bill, a possible exReplacement and a possible ex-Husker, and I think Bob was really in the mood for stealing the fucking show and putting the fucking town in its place.

Nerve: So it’s still competitive with the old gang?

Grant: You know what? It really seemed to be that night. It’s not necessarily the individuals but the collective rock star wives and rock stars.

The people that have hung with the rock stars for thirty years, the ones that are the true nobility in the city’s music scene, the people who don’t actually play, but fuck the people that play, have their children... It’s really too bad that everyone’s the biggest fucking rock star at a fucking benefit because there’s nothing down on a contract. Everybody’s, like, giving. So three of the bands were like, oh man, we gotta play last because our guitar player’s gonna be on the airplane until like eleven o’clock and he won’t be able to be here from the airplane until eleven thirty. Meanwhile, the guy’s hitting the buffet at seven thirty! Everybody’s like, well why can’t I put a bunch of people on the guestlist? (But) there was a lot of real kindness that was extended, a great outpouring of affection for Karl, which was really great. I love Karl. It’s cool that things are working out and it’s a nice jolt of mortality.

Nerve: People have been asking for a Husker Du reunion for a long time, and probably offering lots of money too.

Grant: Yeah, for a long time, I guess. There’s a lot of good that needs to be done in the world. I’d hate to squander an opportunity for mere lucre. This other thing - I mean, it was

clean or convenient common area to actually put your guitar on and be aware of the proceedings so that you can make your timed entrance and things like that. And also the secrecy of things… as soon as Westerberg saw me with Bob - and you can be on or off the record with this - let’s say a number of people assert that he attempted to walk on stage with his pants around his ankles.

Nerve: While you guys were up there?

Grant: Before I walked out on stage. Which I, I dunno, I’d been talking to him earlier and I’d say he was lucid. Not very much to talk about but, yeah, his drummer Michael Bland and his girlfriend all of a sudden had to restrain him from doing something. So it was asserted by a number of people.

Nerve: He just played here.

Grant: How was it?

Nerve: It was really good, and then he seemed to kind of get mad about having to play the old songs. Sometimes he just seemed very resentful that the loudest cheers would be for “I Will Dare” or something.

Grant: How fucking much posturing? I mean do you think that’s the first time he was ever in that situation?

Nerve: I doubt it.

Grant: Well, he has to write the songs that will make ‘em forget “I Will Dare”, I guess. Either that or join Guns ‘n’ Roses. Chris Mars is keeping stum. I haven’t heard much about him.

Nerve: I heard Tommy was playing in Bellingham just the other night but I had a free ticket to Motorhead.

Grant: Duty calls.

Nerve: And I watched Lemmy buy $400 worth of speed right before the show backstage.

Grant: Yeah, he treats his crew pretty well.

Nerve: I think a lot of it was for him.

Grant: How old is he now? He’s gotta be 60.

Nerve: He looks like Doc Holliday.

Grant: Good for him, somebody’s gotta! I mean it’s too bad I never found any real attraction to their music because it’d be nice being a fan of Doc Holliday. I’ve actually hung around with him a couple of times and he’s a charming motherfucker, which most motorcycle guys, particularly British motorcycle guys, are.

Nerve: He seems like a cowboy from another time.

Grant: There’s no fucking friend on this planet like a Hell’s Angel. There were these cats that ran this Rock City in Nottingham, England and they were the most helpful, almost subservient backstage crew. Almost all of them security, these big fierce awesome dudes, you know, with the colours tattoo’d on their backs.

It was funny with the Robin Hood parallels, like the Sherwood Forest chapter of the Hell’s Angels.

Nerve: I play in a band and there’s a lot of Hell’s Angels-owned clubs in Canada, and they’re always very sweet, very polite. It’s only the prospects that you have to kind of watch out for a little bit, and not so much with the band because they kind of put you on a pedestal - you’re there to entertain, but, we’ve seen a lot of guys trying to get into the club, just thumping the hell out of people.

Grant: Yeah I’ve seen some of the wildest violence in Canada, but violence with some kind of integrity. Not this like frontin’ kind of bullshit where one cat pulls out a fuckin’ gun. Not to get fucking creepy. I dunno - maybe it’s a Doc Holliday thing, huh?

Nerve: How is your country these days?

Grant: Hard to tell. Presidents have been attacking the judiciary for years. It’s so contrived - Bin Laden turns up on friday, the weekend before the election, so throws it over by one and a half percent and a week later he couldn’t have gotten it, two weeks later he definitely wouldn’t have gotten it. See, it’s only the day of the election that counts! It’s the freaks that go to these industrial warehouse Baptist churches down in the south that hold 50,000 people in the congregation that are fucking up this country… Everybody has a yellow ribbon sticker on the back of their car that says Support our Troops in, like, little feminine handwriting and it’s like, no, that doesn’t represent shit… In this country, any hyperactive child, starting in the grade schools, it’s been an issue for years that the school and the pharmacist get this kid on Ritalin… eight out of the last nine school shooters have been on Ritalin but it’s just shipped out… There’s not going to be any counter-culture because all of their minds are being sucked into this conformity drug, just all these different things that when they add up, the whole moral code is being re-written by these people who say that they’re the most moral. In fact, there’s many more people in the world that are starving to death than there are that are being oppressed by any Saddam Hussein or anything like that, but is that something that we address with 287 billion dollars? But yeah, aside from that everything’s fine!

The legendary Grant Hart hits western Canada this month, check www.granthart.com for details THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 11

All pics Jen Dodds

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 12

The Van Courtland Rangers

Music

Don’ t Look Now, it’ s a Mod Revival!

All pics Jen Dodds

By Chris Walter Nowadays, picking up a vintage Vespa isn’t inexpensive anymore. Since we’re all working class, we can’t afford to ride the scooters.

Nerve: You guys look suspiciously like some dudes I saw playing punk rock in a boozecan a long time ago. Have you always been mods?

Ken: Back in the day, I played the boozecans with The Insipids. That’s where I first crossed paths with Ash Wednesday, who was playing with Piss Queen. The whole boozecan scene is pretty hazy to me right now. It was all pretty crazy. There are no boozecans around anymore, at least no punk ones. I figure it’s all about the gentrification of punk. Now that it’s on the radio and in the stadiums, it doesn’t need to be underground anymore.

Ash Wednesday- from a Vespa to a scream Ash: Punk rock isn’t what it used to be. I don’t like metal, and I don’t want to hear some whiny t’s Saturday night at the Asbalt Hotel. The Weller’s new album, Studio 150, it’s pretty brat singing, “Do you wanna hold my lunch pail”. usual crew is outside on the sidewalk, smokfuckin’ good.

There are a few cool punk bands, Submission ing cigarettes and looking tough in mohawks, Ken: I guess I’ve been into the punk thing for a Hold for example, but for the most part, I couldchains, and black leather. Mist rises from the long time now. I remember the first punk album n’t give less of a fuck about the state of Punk wet concrete and drifts slowly across the sideI bought was MDC’s Millions of Dead Cops, and Rock Inc. walk like nerve gas. A scabby hooker stumbles it really changed my life. It was exciting, it was Nerve: Well, that certainly isn’t going to from the adjoining hotel and pauses to fix her dangerous - it was different. Punk rock allowed endear you to the average Nerve reader. I makeup before teetering off down the street. me to assert myself musically and socially in a like it! Tell me, do mods have sex like everyThis is a punk bar - all others need not apply. way I felt good about, that was on the fringe. one else? Or does the act have to be perThe door swings open and a burst of music The straight crowd just didn’t get it, and it pissed formed on a moving Vespa while hopped up escapes onto the street. But it on leapers? isn’t the raucous punk rock one Ash: I think it’s the same as Nerve: Tell me, do mods have sex like everyone would expect, but rather music everyone else. 10-15 times a else? Or are does the act have to be performed on day? Howling like animals? Minds of a slightly different breed. A saxophone cuts through the blown on serotonin overload? a moving Vespa while hopped up on leapers? smoky air, and a closer inspecRaw sex in the streets? Yeah, the tion reveals that the five young same, I think. men on stage are dressed Ken: Let’s just say we don’t take Ash: I think it’ s the same as everyone else.

10-15 rather nattily in pork pie hats and our pants off one leg at a time. matching suits and ties. This is times a day? Howling like animals? Minds blown on Nerve: What do mod girls have no punk rock band, and the that other girls don’t have? Are serotonin overload? Raw sex in the streets? Yeah, music they are playing is defithere any mod girls? I haven’t nitely not punk rock, so what in seen any around. Are they hot, the same I think. the name of Darby Crash are or do they wear those big they doing here? green parkas?

The bristles, studs, and acne Ash: Come on out to one of our boys on the dance floor don’t shows, there are always mod know what to make of this girls in attendance. Well, maybe melodic beast. They glance at not at certain “journalist’s” book each other nervously, unsure of launches, but usually. The idea is the strange, new noise. What to have some fun. do those red and blue circle Ken: Both me and Ash have insignias mean? They look like asked our girlfriends to wear mini targets. Wait - aren’t these guys skirts and go-go boots to our dressed like the kids in that old shows, but they’ve both told us to movie Quadrophenia? Maybe fuck off. They laugh at our they’re mods, or odds, or somepegged pants, tell us we’re thing. The punks drink beer and wrecking our suits wearing them do not move away, but they to the bar, and overall think the don’t slam either. No sir - they mod fashion thing is pretty stupid. aren’t sure about this at all.

In other words, I don’t know what Still, I’m curious. A mod mod girls are all about. them off. Today punk has become the band- Nerve: I heard that Fat Mike wanted to sign revival? What does it all mean? After the show, wagon. I remember seeing Green Day playing you guys to Fat Wreck Chords but you I fire a few questions at these freaks while they at the Cruel Elephant. Now I’d have to pay turned him down. What’s with that? drag their gear from the stage. The Van $60.00 to see them play GM Place. Punk is on Ash: Fat Mike signed The Real McKenzies and Courtland Rangers are: the radio, and it’s on TV. Punk rock is part of pop our old drummer plays with them. What’s with Ash Wednesday - Vox Pipes culture now. When me and Ash first started talk- that?

Ken Insipid - Bass ing about getting The Van Courtland Rangers Ken: He said he’d sign us, but only if we gave Rupert Piranha - Guitars together, we realized that in order to keep our up the suits and started wearing baggy pants, Shane “Night Train” Krause - Sax “punk” credibility in this day and age, we had no toques, and big wallet chains. I even hated that Ernie Goodguy – Drums choice but to be mods. We raise more eye- style when I was punk. That shit helped bring it brows now playing an Otis Redding cover than all down.

Nerve: No one can accuse you guys of hopwe would covering the Sex Pistols. A suit is Nerve: What’s the name of that kid who ping on any bandwagons. What’s with the more dangerous than spiked leather. mod music? Don’t you know that Paul plays pinball in Quadrophenia?

Nerve: Does anyone in this band own a Ken: I think it was Sting, wasn’t it? Yeah, it was Weller sells vacuum cleaners nowadays?

Vespa? Why do mods drive such funny little Sting. I hear his band, The Police, are starting to Ash: We decided we wanted to explore the true motorcycles? essence of rebellion without the phony sneers do very well for themselves.

Ash: You can find the answer to that question at Ash: Jimmy the Bitch. and dirty clothes. We feel rock ‘n’ roll was at its www.vancourtlandrangers.com. most important and lethal in the early 60’s, Ken: The thing about being in a band is that it’s when Dave Davies put a hole in his speaker to The Van Courtland Rangers will be appearing create distortion. Before rock got bloated and pretty hard to haul your gear on the back of a May 12 @ the Waldorf. The show will be simulstupid. That said, this is probably the most polit- scooter. Seriously, I think historically the mods cast live on CITR 101.9 FM. Go to www.vanical material I’ve ever written. Everyday tri- rode scooters because they were inexpensive courtlandrangers.com for more info. umphs of the modern world. And check out and were easy to ride around the city.

I

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 13

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 14

I plan on showing Ryan my “b-movie collection”, if you know what I mean, on Friday May 13th, when Tokyo Electron plays Pub 340 with Federation X, the Jolts, and Das Pussyhound. I am much more charming in person.

guess I might as well do it [laughs].

Nerve: Have you ever been to Vancouver before? Any preconceived notions about what goes on up here?

Wong: I’ve never been there. I guess the main one is the prostitutes… and the weed smoking.

Nerve: Do either of those sound particularly interesting to you?

Wong: Uh… [laughs] not really. I mean... no.

Nerve: Sorry, I was really just trying to ask if you wanted me to pick you up some pot for the show.

Wong: [laughs] I don’t really smoke the stuff. Thanks, though.

Nerve: What were you into as a kid?

My guess is that you enjoyed Mike Post theme songs and that movie War Games. Does any pop culture from your youth come through in your music?

Wong: A little bit, I guess. I used to skateboard a lot. I liked b-movies and comic books, you know.

Nerve: I usually just end up downloading that out-of-print shit ‘cause I can’t afford it.

Wong: Yeah, I can understand maybe payin’ a lot for a really old, obscure record. But not something that just came out last year! [laughs] Nerve: I’m assuming you’ve seen some crazy shit in your travels… what’s the most fucked-up thing you’ve seen inserted into a human orifice at a show?

Wong: The best one was the first

Reatards tour. Things goin’ into Jay… many different things.

Nerve: Uh huh.

Wong: Especially the Corona bottle up the butt... the beer enema. And my drumstick.

Nerve: Up his butt? Or up yours?

Wong: I ain’t stickin’ anything up my butt! [laughs] Nerve: What pisses you off while touring and playing shows? For example, I hate it when the mics smell like ass, and when we don’t get any beer.

Wong: Yeah. [laughs] I’d agree.

Nerve: Any more?

Wong: As long as there’s free booze…

I’m happy.

Nerve: Beer or hard liquor? For future reference, that is.

Wong: Uh, I’m a hard liquor person.

Nerve: You’ve mentioned in another interview that you, “kind of got bored of [Tokyo Electron]”: what made you get back into it, put out the second seven-inch, go on tour, and start a whole band around it?

Wong: I dunno, I made up some new songs that I liked… when I first did [Tokyo Electron], it was actually a band.

Some of the other guys kinda sucked.

That made me not want to play anymore… but I’ve found some good guys now. People wanna put out this stuff, so I

By Brown Velvet

Records, Ryan packed it up and moved to Memphis, where he joined legendary punk rock shitdisturbers The Reatards on drums. He’s since toured with nightmarish synth-punk band the Lost Sounds, as well as his own Destruction Unit, and Digital Leather.

These days, Ryan’s back in Arizona, recording in his bedroom for obscure vinyl labels and home-job CD-rs. Record nerds cream their jeans over this shit.

Tokyo Electron, one of Ryan’s most

Most people think pop punk is like Trix cereal, only for kids.

Fuck that. I hate that stupid bunny.

I ain’t stickin’ anything up my butt!

Gander out of The Hive studios.

“Recording with Jesse was awesome. He has extensive knowledge of music, could see the influences we were drawing from and the direction that we were leaning. Definitely knows his stuff. He possibly has some of the unhealthiest dietary habits I’ve ever encountered, but then again, so do I.” The band has had several comparisons by journalists to the legendary Screeching Weasel sound. But this isn’t the case with the majority of the tracks found on Love.

“We used to get a lot of comparisons to Screeching Weasel when we first started out, namely due to the fact that I was singing from my nasal regions (a la Ben Weasel), and yes, we had some songs that sounded like Weasel tunes. And shit man, I LOVE SCREECHING WEASEL. Ben Weasel writes great songs, and they are undeniably one of our influences.

However, our song writing and influences are diverse. Did Screeching Weasel ever use a minor seventh chord, or put glockenspiel on their album? No. Our songs blend Weasel, Green Day, Mtx, Weezer, Jawbreaker, The Beatles, The Platters and a plethora of others.”

I asked Andrew about the upcoming tour.

“We’re heading down the West Coast in the Paper Van-tern in mid August to play various shows which are yet to be organized.

Touring is awesome. The all ages scene in Vancouver (and particularly in towns outside of Vancouver, like Langley and North Van) seems to be particularly receptive to our style of pop punk. I think it’s because younger kids are drawn to music that inspires movement and dancing, and Paper Lanterns hit that vein. They also haven’t been exposed to the indie music stigma that is pop punk. People hate pop punk.

Hate it. I think most people think it’s like Trix cereal, only for kids. Fuck that. I hate that stupid bunny. And most people who got into any indie music owe it to pop punk bands like Green Day. They’re just afraid to own up to their past. A lot of fools out there consider pop punk to be a dead, non-progressive genre, and sometimes you can’t blame them. There are countless Screeching Weasel and NOFX rip off bands, and I think a lot of people are predisposed to think that ALL new bands with the words pop and punk in their description are going to be treading over trampled ground. But this simply isn’t true. The time for evolution is here!”

R

I

could write about how amazing it is that pop punk is making a comeback in Vancouver; with bands like Fun 100, Chuck Norris, The Spinoffs, The Badamps, and Paper Lanterns leading the pack. Or I could write a story about wizards riding dragons, invading from another dimension, and shooting bolts of lightning from their asses. Pop punk is not the hot item it was in the ‘90s when landing a Lookout Records deal was considered selling out. Today’s popular rock music is all about poseur sophistication, dreamy synth solos and big hair. Unless you’re in the genre of bands like Blink182, Sum 41 or Billy Tallent, your chances of making it big time playing power chord love songs appear limited. But guess what, if you’re playing in pop punk band, it’s probably because you don’t give a fuck, and that’s rad.

Paper Lanterns deserve recognition beyond the fact that they just released a new album entitled Love, Paper Lanterns, on Throttle Style Records. Andrew Candela, Dan Lyth, Squam Tea and Bart Newman deserve recognition because their album is good (No small feat in pop punk’s sea of crap). The lyrics are primarily about the quest for love, or tales of broken hearts, but they’re good lyrics. Lines like, “You’re bright, my soviet satellite.” Or, “I can’t wait till the end of winter, I hope my heart can thaw,” are particularly poetic, if not ridiculously cheesy. Hand me any other genre of music that tries to pull of lyrics like those and I’ll likely throw up my hands in disgust. Andrew expands on his band’s writing process: “I’m usually pretty dissatisfied or depressed when I do most of my songwriting, and I think a lot my creative drive comes from the need to alleviate whatever negative tendencies I’m dealing with at the moment; songwriting is a way of cheering myself up. A song comes into fruition when I’m sitting on my stoop, mindlessly strumming and humming something.

Eventually, I’ll conjure a really appealing vocal melody and guitar chord progression. If I can think of equally appealing combinations, I’ll piece them together like a puzzle, and viola! A two to four minute song comes alive. My goal is to write catchy, melodic songs that take little deviations from the traditional punk/rock/pop song formula. Emotional sincerity is very important to me as well, and I think that despite some of the cheese and foolery in our songs, we come across as sincere.”

Paper Lanterns, like 90% of the punk bands in Vancouver, opted to record with Jesse

always go for too much. What do you think of that whole “collector scum” practice of hoarding those short-run items, only to sell them off at an inflated price? Does that piss you off?

Wong: Well, yeah and no… I usually just give ‘em away. I think it’s kinda funny that someone will pay that much. I don’t understand it, but…

Paper Lanterns - finally figuring out the band’s direction

recent projects, is a violent mash-up of his trademark unpredictable primal beats, distorted punk-n-roll riffs, and the kind of soulful screaming that seems to only grow where it’s hot and dry. I can definitely shake my ass to this. On Tokyo Electron’s two seven-inch releases to date (both of which are now sold-out), Ryan has preferred to work alone, playing all of the instruments himself. Not that it shows: it sounds raw enough to be live. I gave him a call as he and his newly recruited band mates were preparing to take off on their upcoming West Coast tour. I fucking HATE talking on the telephone, and I’m guessing Ryan does too.

Nerve: First off, would you mind explaining exactly what is Tokyo Electron? Your releases are pretty limited, not everyone reading this will be familiar with you.

Wong: Um, the first two Tokyo Electron records are just me, by myself. We’re a band now, with three other guys. We’re gonna start playing shows now, recording more records as a full band.

Nerve: Your seven-inches so far have sold out rather quickly. Once in a while I see that shit on EBay, but they

photo: Jesse Dixon

by Tony Newton

yan Wong’s been around.

His first band, The Wongs, started up in his hometown of Yuma, Arizona, when he was just a pissed-off youngster. After creating such instant classics as “Jerkin’ It to the Trashwomen” and releasing an LP on San Francisco’s notorious Rip Off

Paper Lanterns Love Pop

Just Plain Wong: Tokyo Electron Deny Use of Drugs and Hookers

Music

If Loving You is Wong, I Don’t Wanna be White.

Music

Photo: Ron Kirsch

Gimme Gimme Brain Damage

The Ramones at Winnipeg’s Playhouse Theatre, 1983.

By Chris Walter

E

ager fans packed the Playhouse Theater to capacity. Bolstered with booze and bleary from countless reefers, the kids were all revved up and ready to go. I stood crammed in with all the other punks in front of the stage and waited on needles and pins. Tonight we would witness an event that had never before happened in Winnipeg, an event that would never happen again. Tonight we were in for a sonic treat, a blitzkrieg bop, a cretin hop, a mind-blowing blast of unadulterated power. Energy popped and sizzled, and adrenaline levels were off the charts. We were ready to go mental.

In fact, I was so pleased to be here that I wasn’t even upset about paying for the privilege. To afford the ticket, I had woken up early to collect the empty beer bottles before anyone else had a chance.

Still short, I stole three bricks of Rat Trap Cheddar and sold them to my roommate Jet at a greatly reduced price. Of all the bands I loved, this band was the only one I loved enough to tattoo their name on my arm. Today, though hard to spot for all the other ink around it, that first tattoo is still there.

“HEY HO, LET’S GO! HEY HO, LET’S GO!” we shouted at the tops of our lungs.

Sweaty and bruised from slamming to the opening acts, I elbowed Sikbee Stretchmark in the ribs as I vied for the best position. Such an act was not about to go unpunished, and Sik immediately rammed his shoulder into my chest.

When I got my wind back, I decided to let the matter drop. Of all the other slam dancers, it was he and Norm from The Unwanted that you had to watch out for.

“HEY HO, LET’S GO! HEY HO, LET’S GO!” Now the excitement had reached a fever pitch, and the chant shook the building and trembled the timbers. How much longer were they going to make us wait? The pressure was unbearable.

“HEY HO, LET’S GO! HEY HO, LET’S G––” The mantra stopped short as an emcee walked out onto the stage. Taking

a deep breath, he shouted into a microphone. “Laydeez and gentlemen, from New York City, THE RAMONES!” The crescendo of noise from the audience was deafening. I pounded on the stage and yelled with delight. It was finally happening.

Four shaggy young men with black leather jackets and ripped blue jeans rushed onto the stage. In seconds, they had plugged in their guitars and were ready to go. The tallest of the shaggy men leaned forward on an extra-long mic stand. “Awright Winnipeg! Let’s go! Take it, Dee.”

away like a human being lawnmower.

The music hammered us like a physical thing, relentless and unstoppable. There was nowhere else in the world that I wanted to be more than right here, right now. This was it.

The Ramones powered from “Let’s Dance” into “Commando” without a pause. Joey sang the verse and reached the chorus we were waiting for: “First rule, IS!” sang Joey, and he pointed the mic out at us.

“OUR LOVE FOR GERMANY!” screamed six hundred voices strong and pure.

Every so often, a stage diver would slip through and soar over our heads like a studded, wingless bird.

I fought for survival as the boots, fists, sweat, and blood rained down a shit tsunami of epic proportions.

The dance floor was like Dunkirk revisited.

“1-2-3-4!” shouted the bass player.

The sound blasted from the speakers and hit us like a wave. Instantly the pit boiled with thrashing bodies, and I almost lost my footing when a kid I’d never seen before hit me broadside. I struggled to regain my balance, careened away from the stage and into the thick of the action.

The last time I’d seen the Ramones, Vancouver, 1980, I’d been too afraid to mix it up in the pit, but now I was more than ready. My heart pumped huge volumes of blood through my body as I swung my elbows and heels, chopping

“Second rule…IS!” “BE NICE TO MOMMY!” The theater trembled and quaked.

“Third rule…IS!” “DON’T TALK TO COMMIES!” We yelled, holding three fingers high above our heads. If you didn’t know these rules, you weren’t even human, really.

“Fourth rule…IS!” “EAT KOSHER SALAMI!” The roar was loud enough to make Lemmy sit up and take notice. Somewhere in hell, Elvis rolled over.

On a pre-arranged cue, Johnny and

Dee Dee moved forward, and they were so close I could see the sweat as it ran off the end of Dee Dee’s nose like water from a spigot. Several kids crushed up against the stage tried to get their hands in the rips at the knees of Dee Dee’s jeans, but he just smirked at them and moved effortlessly out of reach. Now the heat was really coming down, and since there were no plexiglas security barriers, the security goons worked frantically to keep kids off the stage. Every so often, a stage diver would slip through and soar over our heads like a studded, wingless bird. I fought for survival as the boots, fists, sweat, and blood rained down - a shit tsunami of epic proportions. The dance floor was like Dunkirk revisited.

“C’mon! Gabba gabba hey!” shouted Joey, punching the air. A roadie wearing a pinhead costume walked onto the stage holding the GABBA GABBA HEY sign. The pit went insane, and it was amazing how The Ramones could make something as silly as a pinhead costume seem so very serious. As disciples worshiping at the altar, we were utterly firm in our belief that The Ramones were the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world, and nothing would ever change our minds. It was in the Ramones favour that they had never had a hit on the radio.

The heat of the pit was horrendous, and I felt as if I would pass out, but still the band played on. Fortunately, many of the other slam dancers were as exhausted as I was, and it was almost as if were holding each other up. I finally gave up trying to slam and clung to the edge of the stage for support. Dee Dee stood with his legs splayed wide, and I could see that the toe of one sneaker was slightly melted. The Ramones smashed out a final barrage and left the stage. I pounded on the stage with both hands, and along with six hundred other fans, screamed for an encore.

Part of my brain still wondered how Dee Dee had melted his sneaker.

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 15

The House of Blues Concerts logo and trademarks are under license from House of Blues Brands Corp. (USA).

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 16

The Duane Peters GUNFIGHT

By Chris Walter

S

he’s a punk rock goddess, an Amazonian covered with tattoos, wearing only a chain mail halter-top and a tiny scrap of leather for a skirt. I’m trying not to stare, but I can’t help myself. My eyes keep straying, and there doesn’t seem to be a damn thing I can do about it. Fortunately for me, the bar is crowded and the goddess is unaware of my furtive glances, my thinly veiled lust. It sucks to be at the mercy of my testicles.

Why can’t I be in charge, just for once?

The band comes on, and I’m trying to pay attention. It’s not their fault that I can’t concentrate. They flail and gyrate, but instead of losing myself to the music, I find myself searching the dance floor for the amazon goddess. And she isn’t hard to find.

Standing a full foot taller than the kids around her, she is like some beautiful alien sent down to mingle with us earthlings. I want her to take me away in her spaceship.

Soon the gig is over and I escape the sweaty bar for the cool night air. I lean against the wall to catch my breath, and that’s when I see the amazon walking towards me. Damn, what could she possibly want? What am I going to say!

“Hello,” she says, in a voice just as sultry as I had imagined. “I saw the way you were staring at me all night. Don’t think I didn’t notice.” Her eyes gleam like fire in the yellow light of the streetlamps.

“Uh, you did?” I squeak. “It’s just that you remind me so much of an old girlfriend.

I kept thinking how much you look like her.”

I’m a fucking liar, and a bad one at that.

Now she’s smiling, and I’m sure that she knows I’m full of shit. “Do you still see

your old girlfriend any more?” Is this some kind of trap? I’m sweating again.

“Uh, no. She died in a tragic accident.

Mike Bullard fell on her before he went on his diet. That’s why I kept staring at you. It’s like seeing a ghost.”

The goddess moves so close she is only inches from my face. Her arms slide around my neck. “Why don’t you just forget all about her?” she says, and her lips glisten wetly. “After all, I’m here now.” Her lips meet mine in a lusty kiss, and––– RING! I wake up with a start. There is a tent pole in my jeans. I’ve fallen asleep on the

bucket of water to immerse the phone in.

“Slats was supposed to do an interview with Duane Peters, but he has been unexpectedly called away to help feed the starving children in Afghanistan.”

“Afghanistan? But I thought they wanted to hang him!”

“They say there are willing to overlook his crimes if he agrees to help them dig a few wells. But never mind that: I need someone to do the Duane Peters interview.

Are you up for the job?

I’m thinking. “You already have so much of my stuff in this issue that you should just call the magazine Chris. Can’t

“That’s what I love about Punk Rock: there are no fucking rules, and when I get bored, I’ll just put another band together. Hey, you know how to write songs? Great, let’s put out a record.” couch.

RING! It’s the gawdamn phone. I reach over and answer the infernal instrument. This had better be good.

“Hello.”

“Chris? Man, am I glad you’re home,” says a voice I recognize as belonging to Adrian Mack, music editor of Nerve.

“Why? Do I owe you money?” The goddess is gone, faded away into the recesses of my mind. I can still remember how silky her lips felt. And now I’m talking to Adrian Mack? Kill me now.

“Listen” says Adrian, as I look for a

you get someone else?” Now if Mack looked like the amazon, maybe we could make a deal.

“That’s just it!” cries Mack, and now I can hear the desperation in his voice.

“Everyone else is tied up on other stuff!”

“Even Spackler?”

Silence. Then, “Spackler is under heavy sedation. The doctors have ordered him to get plenty of rest.”

I don’t even want to go there. “I dunno…” I say slowly.

Mack sighs. “Well, I guess I’ll have to go with Plan B and run Billy Idol as the feature story. It’s a shame really …”

“BILLY IDOL!” I say, almost swallowing my tongue. “No, don’t do that! I’ll be right there. You’ve got your man!”

“Excellent,” says Mack, and I can almost see him rubbing his hands together.

I put on my boots and walk out the door, still thinking about the amazon.

Twenty minutes later, at Nerve headquarters, I get on the blower with punk and skateboard legend Duane Peters. It’s a damn good thing I’m a fan.

Nerve: First of all, how did a grizzled old pirate like you end up with an amazon, er, bombshell like Corey Parks?

Duane: Aw, fuck, I have no idea, man! I question that all the time. She’s unreal…

Nerve: Can I have her phone number if you break up?

Duane: It’s the same as mine, man! I’ll be right there to pound your face in! I’m very protective of her. I love her to death, man…

Nerve: [laughs nervously] So, what’s it like being a dad?

Duane: It’s fuckin’ unreal. I’m already a dad.

I have a twenty-year old, an eighteen-year old, and now a five-month old baby. He’s a great kid. I love him.

Nerve: The touring thing. How’s that going to work?

Duane: We’re gonna take him on the road, man. He’ll have his first show in about a month. We’re gonna have an overnighter in… We don’t know how we’re gonna do it yet, but we’re gonna take him on the road.

Nerve: I know this band called Submission Hold who takes their kid on the road. They put those big ear protectors over the kid’s ears and put him on stage with a plastic guitar. continues on page 19

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 17

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THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 18

Duane: That’s fucking great! Eventually, I wanna give our guy a song to sing, maybe when he’s, like, three. Right now, the only time we’ll need a baby-sitter is when we’re playing. That’s all we gotta figure out, you know…

Nerve: It’ll work out. But moving on, you’re a guy with a lot of spoons in the pot, so to speak. Which do you like best: skateboarding or music?

Duane: They’re equally important. When I get tired of one, I’ve got the other to jump back to. It’s like bands. When I get tired of this one, I’ll jump into another one.

Nerve: That way you never get bored, huh?

Duane: That way you keep it kinda spicy.

When I get tired of touring, then I can come home and just skate. And because there are so many skate parks, I can skate while I’m on the road.

Nerve: If you’ve got the time…

Duane: You always find the time for at least two or three good sessions a week. You end up in a city early, and guaranteed there’s gonna be a skate park or a swimming pool.

Nerve: I was going to ask you about whichever subject you liked best, but since you like them equally, I’ll just ask you about music. You’ve got how many bands going? You’ve got the Die Hunns…are the US Bombs going to play again? I read somewhere that you’re kinda sick of each other.

Duane: Aw, we’ve been sick of each other forever. We’ve known each other for almost thirty years. But we just got back from Europe, and it went really good. They want us to go back in about a month for all the festivals, but I dunno… I’ve been over there too many times, and I’m starting to get burnt. We’re trying to put together an Old Scars & Upstarts tour with the Bombs, ‘cause they haven’t done the States in three or four years. I wanna get this tour together. There are no Punk Rock tours; it’s all emo, or this fucking candy-coated shit. I just want to take three or four really punk rock bands to back up this yearly comp that I do. I’m gonna be writing a Hunns record over the next two months, and the Hunns are going to do some shows in May, and the Gunfight are going to do some shows in June. You know, I just jump from camp to camp, writing Bombs and Hunns records at the same time. It’s not a smart thing to do, but…

Nerve: But those bands are not far apart musically.

Duane: No, they’re not that far apart. It’s just coming up with words without repeating yourself. After so many records, it’s kinda

hard not to do that…

Nerve: Tell me a little bit about the Duane Peters Gunfight. That’s your latest project, right?

Duane: Yeah, it’s six guys with three guitars…

Nerve: Three guitars?

Duane: With three guitars, you can do what you do in a studio, you know? Guitars doing different things. One guy is doing power chords, with one guy doing melodies, and then you have another guy doing chunky rhythms and leads. I’ve got two really good lead guitarists in that band, so they switch back and forth. It’s not really that far from the Bombs or the Hunns, either.

Nerve: With three guitars, you can create studio overdubs live.

Duane: Exactly. It gives us a really tight live show. That’s what I love about punk rock: there are no fucking rules, and when I get bored, I’ll just put another band together.

Hey, you know how to write songs? Great,

and that’s why I want her to sing half of the next record. She sings really well.

Nerve: It provides a nice contrast.

Corey’s singing and your gravel.

Duane: Yeah, it’s like Beauty and the Beast.

Nerve: Okay, what else have we got? I guess we could drop some dirt on Nashville Pussy, but we won’t do that.

Duane: Naw, Corey has let that go. They still field questions about her at every show.

Nerve: Yeah, like WHERE’S COREY! Duane: Yeah, and I think that’s enough torment for them. Corey had a drug problem, and they just kinda sent her off to the weeds and didn’t give her anything. The band generated a lot of money, and they didn’t give her any kind of kickback or residuals or anything. Nashville Pussy were kind of like a family. I’ve never known anything like that. I’ve always been in a band for about a year, and then we’d kick the fuck out of each other, then move to another band. You know, until the Bombs, and that’s the longest I’ve ever been in a band. But

“I’ve always been in a band for about a year, and then we’d kick the fuck out of each other, then move to another band.

You know, until the Bombs, and that’s the longest I’ve ever been in a band.” let’s put out a record.

Nerve: Heh, I’ve got enough writing projects as it is. Anyway, I was listening to the Die Hunn’s version of “Time Has Come Today”, and your voice sounds like ten miles of gravel road. Have you been eating broken glass again?

Duane: Oh, fuck, I know! The thing about me is that I don’t care if my voice is blown out from a live show. If I have to do vocals the next day, I’ll just go out and do them. It’s too much trouble to worry about my voice, too much maintenance. I wasn’t even able to talk when I was on my way to the studio that day.

Nerve: Then you did pretty good, considering.

Duane: My voice is just complete gravel.

Nerve: I heard that song and I thought ‘holy fuck!’

Duane: [laughs] Yeah, that’s me, dying. My voice sounds a little better live, when it’s not all blown out.

Nerve: That gravel sound is cool anyway. It’s not like you’re trying to hit those Robert Plant notes.

Duane: No, no! But I do rely a lot on Corey,

the concept of a family is so far beyond me.

In the Hunns, Corey kinda monitors the shit talk. On the road, all there is to do is shit talk each other, but Corey is from another world. She teaches me a lot, but it’s amazing how slow I learn.

Nerve: There’s that contrast again.

Duane: Yeah…

Nerve: Now let’s get into some skate stuff. What do you think about new guys like Danny Way? That shit is more like Evil Knievel, don’t you think? Are you down with that?

Duane: Absolutely. Oh, fuck yeah. That stuff he’s doing is way beyond his years. He’s a little jockey, he’s from a different world. Just like the new punk rockers. You know, guys like Lars. He’s a great frontman, a great guy, but he’s like a commander. I liked the Pistols because they didn’t communicate with the audience unless they felt like it, rather than, Okay, let’s get a circle pit together. I’m not from that world. And so, a lot of these skaters are like commanders.

Brian Pats, you know, it’s almost like you’d think they were on a football team. With a lot of the punk rockers, it’s like they were on

the football team but got kicked off.

Nerve: So there’s two different camps.

Old school and new style?

Duane: Yeah, and you just have to accept it. To me, style is a lot in skateboarding, and I’m not a huge fan of Danny Way’s style, not a huge fan of the stuff he does. You know, the helicopter and everything, the twenty-footers. That’s insane shit, man.

Gnarly!

Nerve: What next? Jet packs? Snake Canyon?

Duane: He just wants to do more. I’m like, gawdamn, more power to ya. But I think that outweighs his style, cause he’s doing such gnarly shit.

Nerve: You visit a lot of skate parks.

Have you been to any good ones up in Canada?

Duane: Yeah, fuckin’, that one with the pipe…

Nerve: Which city?

Duane: Starts with a ‘C’, I think. I skated in it. It’s got a thirty-foot pipe…

Nerve: But which city is it in?

Duane: It starts with a ‘C’. It’s like right in the middle and down at the bottom…

Nerve: Calgary?

Duane: Yeah, that’s it! They got a cool crew up there. A lot of punk rock going on…

Nerve: Are you still a member of the Jak’s Skate Team?

Duane: Yeah, I’m an honorary member. I’ve got my colours on right now.

Nerve: Are they as crazy down there as they are up here?

Duane: Yeah, but it’s kinda like there’s a whole younger crew now. All the original Jaks, there’s like three or four left. It’s cool it’s like a biker club, but with skateboards instead of motorcycles. They used to run San Francisco. You’d go to the I Beam, there’d be Jaks at the door and you’d give them your skateboard. They’d take special care of the skaters. When I moved up to San Francisco, they fuckin’ lived, breathed, and ate on their skateboards, and they’re all punk rockers. I fuckin’ love it. We’d play hockey and have bar-b-ques and drink. The new Jaks are just young, and they’re stoked to be Jaks, you know…

Nerve: But they’re following the same traditions?

Duane: Yeah, but nothing is the same as it was, and you can just grow old and bitter and sit on that, or you can go, Oh, it’s not the same as it was, but it’s still pretty fuckin’ cool.

Nerve: Like punk rock.

Duane: Exactly, like skateboarding and punk rock.

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 19

Off The Record

photo: Peter Ritchie

C R AC K W H O R E

C

rackwhore bassist MisterNasty asked me to include the band’s website address in this article. I said no. When I got home that night, there was a chicken foot hanging from my front door and a tooth, human I think, lodged in the mail slot. You can learn more about crackwhore at www.crackwhore.ca.

Nerve: Tell us about the making of your album. Was it a difficult birth?

Offal Connor: When all the cogs fit together, and the machines a hummin’: sharp, oiled… poised… there ain’t nothing gonna stand in the way of that, man. Know what I mean? It was like we were four little Charlies, only playing grind in Vancouver. And Rockall was there diggin’ too. But he’s not very Charlie, he’s more Lopez.

Nerve: Right. Do you know the model on the album cover and are there any outtakes from the session that we can use in Cheap Shotz?

Offal: Somebody warned me you might be a cop, and I ain’t talking about the cover or her, no way, no how, ya dig? Or will I be digging?

We’re pretty sure that she enjoyed every drawn out and painful fucking second of it though. Tee hee, the pizza wheel was the besss… I’m not talking about this.

Nerve: There are a lot of rumours going around about Robert Pickton – the involvement of organized crime, the actual number of bodies as opposed to the official number – do you have any comment on this?

Offal: Coppy Cop Cop Snog… What rumours, pig? Free Willie… we’re all suffering (and patiently waiting) with ya, brother!

Nerve: Apparently Violater is a lapsed Christian. Will he ever return to the loving arms of God? Offal: The Violator actually believes that he is on some kinda holy crusade from God, y’know, to cleanse the earth with a rain of purifying blood. In his mind, which is, despite all of his physical allure, twisted and deceiving, he is but an angel of anger, the pope of pestilence… a cherub with a sawed-off.

Everything, to him, is repentable. Bathe in the blood of the sinned, and be reborn pure. It kinda makes sense a little, but the dude freaks all of us out a bit y’know. God’s in a lot of places, but he’s not here, man. Not ever.

Nerve: Aside from Pickton – what THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 20

other serial killers do you admire?

Offal: BitchSlapper has always had this kind of Chikatilo air about him, kinda smells like talcum powder. He’s also got a muscle thing. Always flexing, posing, watching. And though he preaches like a bitch, Violator is a smooth Ted Bundy kinda guy. Quick with the ladies, but don’t leave your windows open. Bundy, incidentally, bought my mom lunch once! No shit! MisterNasty is best described as a tall, ugly Charles Manson trapped in Jim Jones’ body with Bob Marley’s hair and Pedro Lopez goals. I’ve always liked my hometown heavy hitters. Bernardo, Olsen, Bundy, Bianchi, Butler and Ridgeway. Root, root, root for the home team!

Nerve: What was the deal with that kilted moocow that attacked you at the Cobalt last year?

Offal: First off, that was at the Underwear Farm, not the Co or Asbalt! You’re not a very good cop, cop. I ain’t no fucking bigot! And she accused me of being a racist (which would be difficult with a mulatto drummer!) and grabbed my hair like a bitch.

Then my wife jumped on her; her friend punched out Ruddy, show over. Young drunk punk rockers think they’re pretty fucking smart. Crackwhore - not Crass, ya’ pooh-plaited bitch! One rainy night… I’ll be there. Fatty.

Nerve: What kind of cheese grater does Crackwhore recommend?

Offal: Wusthof Trident makes a great grater. Reliable. Trusty. Sharp. But I get all my blades hand made in Japan by Watanabe himself. No shit.

Nerve: Did the release of Crackwhore’s Inner Piece somehow cause the death of Andrea Dworkin, or is that just serendipity?

Offal: Believe it or not, Crackwhore are HUGE fans of Andrea and all her work!

She was in some of the sickest and most humiliating pornos I’ve ever seen.

Ass to mouth, puke enemas, dvdado AND both hands. I even seen her do a Freddy Mercury and that’s damn near impossible for a bitch to do, y’know. So, no. I hope we didn’t ironically kill one of the most smoking hotsluts around with our humor and sense of duty. How’d she die by the way? Choking on load?

Or just fat and flabby self-loathing suicide? Stupid, lonely bitches. Haha.

Dworkin. Hahahaha. I knew a chick on main that looked just like her once…

- Mack

Crackwhore Inner Piece Independent This was released on more or less the day that arch feminist Andrea Dworkin went tits up and ascended to the great matriarchy in the sky. You might surmise that Crackwhore somehow killed her through the sheer psychic payload of Inner Piece, which is surely a milestone in feminist baiting. Excluding the objections of wimmin and anyone with a sense of decency, though, Inner Piece is criticism-proof. It’s an album length variation on one idea but that one idea is fleshed out with painstaking care, and then executed with astounding skill. What else can you say, other than it aims low and achieves high? Much like the first Guinea Pig flick, Flower of Flesh and Blood, you can’t help but admire its flawless depiction of evil, it’s technical genius and its overall verisimilitude, even as your girlfriend is packing her things and waving goodbye. A sample from American Psycho points toward Crackwhore’s possibly satirical intent but, really, why even bring that up? A late eighties screed about consumerism is hardly relevant here - except that it was widely misunderstood and I don’t think Crackwhore are worried about that. The whole thing sounds like a slaughterhouse, but track one, “Ripped For Her Pleasure”, manages to condense the album into a 57 second overture, taking in all the pig-squealing, killer dog barking and baleful sounds that Offal Connor somehow manages to emit from whatever organ makes him sound like that. BitchSlapper proves to be not human – unless this thing is pro-tooled to death, which I doubt. DJ Rockall deserves a lot of credit for martialling Crackwhore’s meat plate of disturbing noises and insane, funhouse syncopation into something so comprehensible. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 samples are also welcome – that film is underrated. Some questions remain: why have seven strings on your guitar? Violator, in keeping with the tradition, has one tone throughout the album and I know in my heart that you don’t need a seventh string to make a guitar sound like a man with a neck injury shitting out rubber duckies. You can make that sound with one string. Or maybe I’m wrong.

Album of the month, for me, was either this or Fischerspooner’s Odyssey.

Being a champion of stuff I don’t get, I thought I’d give Crackwhore a little diplomatic PR. Sadly, as you will see in our interview, they’re on to me and it is time to change cities once again. Oh well – Inner Piece is absolutely bloody.

And absolutely bloody amazing. All Rights Reserved it says on the back cover. Ha! All rights except the victims’ – right?

- Mack

Cadeaux Physical City Sound Document It’s a good thing that rug-cutting has become cool again because Cadeaux have made a solid album of danceable post-punk that will tear the seams of your too-tight jeans and put pit-stains in your $90 tshirts. Fronted by vocalists Dani Vachon and Katie Lapi, and rounded out by a collective of experienced Vancouver musicians, Cadeaux waste no time on Physical City with the caustic “Cashing In”, followed by the chilling “I Can Wait” which is executed with eerie backing howls.

And while the album suffers in the midsection from a series of similar sounding tracks, the closing “Fiction and Blues”, with its marching drum beat and hypnotic vocals, ends the procession on a high note.

- Adam Simpkins

exit. A huge gaping hole through the back wall, more likely. And it wasn’t just leader Kirk Fisher’s unnerving howl that made Buzzoven so damn ugly sounding; sublevel riffs dragging lakes for dead bodies and that jackhammer-to-skull drums/bass combo that just wouldn’t let up. So, no big surprise that someone finally clued in and re-released the band’s pre-Roadrunner output, most of which is pulled from long ago releases on John Yates’ ill-fated Allied Records. Alternative Tentacles has stepped up to the piss and blood stained urinal, as they are prone to do, and unleashed this warped batch of songs on the unsuspecting public once again. And it’s the end of the world as we know it, all over again. But I feel fine. (Did I just sorta quote an REM song in a Buzzoven review? Fuck, look at the time…)

- Jason Schreurs

American Head Charge The Feeding DRT Entertainment When AHC guitarist Bryan Ottoson died last month from an “apparent” drug overdose, the news made little noise in the music community. Not to say that Bryan wasn’t a swell guy, it’s just that his band is indistinguishable from the throngs of other nümetal bands that you find in used cd stores and cut-out bins across the Americas (Yes, Static-X, we’re talking about you). The Feeding has all the trademark qualities of the angrier-than-thou sect: Pro Tools enhanced guitars, creepy vocals and every other trick that has already been done to death. And before you erroneously label me an elitist, I’ll have you know that I gushed over Slipknot’s last album, have actually paid money for Korn records, and consider The Deftones one of my favourite groups of all time. So even though AHC vow to continue spreading the rawk sans Ottoson, they certainly won’t find a home in my guilty pleasure collection.

- Adam Simpkins

Fantomas Suspended Animation Ipecac Hello Kitty pornogrind? Mickey Mouse in an acid bath? Another convulsion pops out the Ipecac funnel, the fourth from the mighty and disturbingly whimsical Fantomas.

Round three (2004’s Delerium Cordia) was a tuneless back-ofcerebrum haunting, but this latest is a flat-out mindrape. The usual suspects: Mike Patton on throat aerobics and toybox, Trevor Dunn on bass-oon, Buzz Osborne on steely axe, and Dave Lombardo on the hitting of skins. The theme is the month of April, a song per day, each a celebration of sorts for obscure and irreverent worldly holidays. Not an easy listen, even for adherents of the wonky Patton canon, as total song alterations occur every 1.7 seconds (approx) and the mass sampling of babies and baby-ish things uncomfortably jitters the soul.

Still, well worth the loot and cranial damage, especially as it’s wrapped in an outrageously cool, strictly limited glossy booklet/calendar from Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara.

Really, the best CD packaging of all time. You should see.

- Dave Bertrand

Antigama Discomfort Selfmadegod Life never ceases to amaze. And bands like Antigama never cease to rip heads off shoulders. Trudging through the hidden corridors of the same mechanic-grind factory as Nasum and Rotten Sound, by way of the crustpunk sewers, this Polish outfit is about as ugly and menacing as noise/music gets. Gurgling, indecipherable, and downright weird vocal work from Lucas gives the band something to grind around; and grind with emphasis, I might add. By the time the fourth piece of chaos, “Who Is My Enemy?” spurts to life, it’s pretty clear this CD wants to drag you back down into that marshy underworld and pound the back of your head against the nearest piece of heavy machinery. Man, this is some fucked up, demented shit. I’m too freaked out to view the included multimedia track, but I’ll let you know when I work up the guts.

- Jason Schreurs Buzzoven Welcome to Violence Alternative Tentacles Talk about a scary band. Buzzoven were the kind of dudes that would roll into town in their stinky fucking van, caked-on dirt and junkie sweat clinging to their leathery skin, and proceed to tear whatever shithole they happened to play at a new fire

Civet Massacre Disaster Holy shit, a whole band of Brodies!

These babes are fast, loud, and snotty, much like the aforementioned Distillers used to be. I just have to get behind a band that rocks this hard and looks this hot. This CD will undoubtedly get them noticed, and then they will go on to make a series of albums that get progressively more commercial. For now however, Civet is kicking out the jams with passion and fury, so get in there while the gittin’ is good.

- Chris Walter Cephalic Carnage Anomalies Relapse Records Metal School 2005. Round up the children and the hosers popping out of a twelve-year bender. Toss out all that Slipknot nonsense and Converge & the hardcore kings and Swedish melodies and Meshuggah polyrhythmics and even the Metallica/Slayer golden years, and just assign this CD to everyone trying to play catch-up. Death metal is the meat & potatoes, but these guys seem to have absorbed every surestep in metallic history into one big black hashball and smoked it. Barely

Off The Record human blast-beat grind, atonal freak-outs, thickly smoked Entombed death ‘n’ roll, and an epic finale via Isis at their moodiest. With impressive vocal spasmatics beyond Lenzig Leal’s regular upchucked larynx. A real joy this is, bleeding my ears with extremists who aren’t selfabsorbed dog-fucking music nazis, throttling away the vitality of their choice niche into steamy ass-juice.

Anomalies is a one-band sample disc. Maybe not a revolution, but the textbook on everything so far.

- Dave Bertrand Chris Alexander Even Insects Have Souls Meridian Music Modern North American seventiesstyle Italian horror themes. Every creaky noise splurt a zombie apocalypse or cannibal feast or bloodybreasted grue-fest for the mind’s eye. Unfortunate technicalities aside - tinny recording quality and a few CD play issues – this is Chris’ best yet. “Insect” is especially vicious, an electronic Bolero from drone to monstrous end, and “Don’t Open the Window” confirms my idolatry of the Eurotrash Golden Age: years ago I would’ve considered that track’s unabashedly 80’s electro-beat cause enough to see the whole album fit for dismissal. Now I’m all a-groove, welcoming a break from the more choking hellscapes like “Almost Human” that entrail (ouch) much of Alexander’s work. Unless you’ve got a time machine and can kidnap Fabio Frizzi or Claudio Simonetti circa Italy 1975-79, gore-crazy classico horror-o-phile filmmakers should really be checking this out.

The last house on dead end street is www.meridian-music.com. You heard it from me.

- Dave Bertrand Converge When Forever Comes Crashing Petitioning the Empty Sky Equal Vision Since 1990, Converge has been creating works of art that are unparalleled by any newer hardcore acts.

The long-awaited remixed, remastered, repackaged versions of Petitioning The Empty Sky (1997) and When Forever Comes Crashing (1998) are both special treats. For one thing, guitarist Kurt Ballou has finally justified the sound of PTES, while WFCC is enhanced with a previously unreleased demo version of “Bitter And Then Some”, which eventually landed on 2001’s Jane Doe, plus an enhanced CD ROM containing the promotional video clip for WFCC and new artwork (by Aaron Turner of Isis). Meanwhile, Exclaim! Writer Chris Gramlich reflects on the old days in the liner notes which, aggravatingly, are stretched over both re-issues. Not that these albums are a cash grab, even as You Fail Me tops the charts worldwide and Converge sit on every magazine cover in the land.

More accurately, Converge has parlayed its success into redressing the inequities of its past – something that is done purely out of respect for itself and the listener.

- CFP Corrosion of Conformity In the Eyes of God Sanctuary First opus in five years from the band every self-respecting metal child from the late ‘80s/early ‘90s holds a dear place in their heart for.

I’ve also been partial to Corrosion of

Conformity’s earlier crossover hardcore output. I used to crank my COC (and DRI, and The Accused, and Slayer) morning, day, and night, back when I was a pimply teenager with a skateboard under one arm and a ghetto blaster under the other.

The latter COC stuff always kinda bummed me out. Too rock and roll, too Southern fried boogie by way of Metallica (ever notice how Pepper sometimes sounds exactly like Hetfield?)… But, as the years roll on, I’ve learned to appreciate all things COC. And this new one, In the Eyes of God, only helps to plead the merits of their later-era material.

While the past few albums have flirted a bit too much with mainstream rock, here we get a nice mix of boogie and political stomp metal, complete with a mind-blowing guest drummer in jazz/funk guy Stanton Moore. It might be the state of the world today, but something’s got these guys back on track.

- Jason Schreurs Dropkick Murphys Singles Collection Volume 2 1998 – 2004 Hellcat Holy Fuck, the Murphys have put out nothing but quality east coast music, ranging from hardcore to Celtic by way of Massachusetts kick you in the balls kinda rock since ‘97 and when you’ve been around 8 years and have nothing but quality music recorded you can justify a 2nd singles and B-sides collection. This collection has all the good shit that started in 1997, like the historic Dropkick and Agnostic Front split 7” “Unity” and everything else in between. Singles Collection fires me up enough to get that tingly Herpes feel on my balls in anticipation of their new album due out in June.

- CFP Hard Skin Same Meat Different Gravy TKO According to the press release (which I actually read this time), Hard Skin is a satirical Oi! band in the same vein as Manic Hispanic or Crucial Youth. The problem is, I must be missing the joke. To me, it just sounds like exuberant, booze-fuelled Oi! music. Judging from the lyrics, these lads don’t take themselves seriously, which is a good. I’m just kinda tired of the boots ‘n’ braces thing, kinda tired of trying to figure out what the different coloured laces mean (yes, I know they don’t mean anything anymore). Still, I can’t say anything bad about Hard Skin. If you’re into Oi! then you can’t go wrong with Same Meat Different Gravy. Not that long ago, I would have been a 100% down with this.

- Chris Walter Millencolin Kingwood Epitaph The first track sucked me in and by the time I got to track three, “Cash or Clash”, it reminded me of Nerve issue #41 from 2004 - cover had that hot chick all oiled up in a pirate bikini, with her head cut off, and a pigeon shitting on her shoulder where Cheap Shotz had the balls to put a ™ around the words “punk rock”. Now I see why this was done.

That being said, the 4th track then brings it back to the old days (circa 97 – no offense Chris Walter) when punk was good. The rest go from good and fast to medium paced and almost dull. That being said, you'll

definitely and rightly hear this on your favourite local radio station while I have deftly avoided both a libel action and a blank space in our reviews section.

- CFP Ruffnecks s/t Dysfunctional So there I was, lonesome on the range with only the new Ruffnecks CD for company.

Yessiree, I sure could have used some toilet paper or some food, but at least I had this disc of stompin’ yeehaw country punk. I slapped it into my discman and kept warm by skankin’ around in the dark, hoping that the wolves would keep their distance if I made enough noise. With song titles like “Haybale Bastard” and “City Folk Cowboy”, you can kinda figure out where these guys are coming from. If you like a bit of Hank Williams with your GG Allin, then this stellar new release is for you. Why does so much good stuff come from Winnipeg? I guess the answer will remain one of life’s little mysteries…

- Chris Walter

SNUFF

T

he Nerve recently caught up with Duncan from Snuff. We found him in Japan. What the bloke was doing there, well, no one really knows.

Duncan was patient enough to answer my prodding, fan-boy-like questions about the new Snuff double CD on Fat Wreck Chords.

Nerve: Are you happy with how the double CD turned out?

Duncan: Yes I am happy but, to be honest, the running order I would have used would have been slightly different. This isn’t really a problem, it’s just that everyone had a different idea and this list reflects the songs that got the most votes.

Nerve: Disc two is a bit of a mishmash. More of a collector’s thing, innit?

Duncan: Yes, really this is for collectors and for fans that may not have certain songs released in different parts of the world.

Nerve: What’s your vote for best ever Snuff song?

Duncan: Sorry, but I really can’t answer that one. There have been so many

Snuff Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other Fat Wreck Chords Ah, Snuff. Methinks there won’t be another band quite like them for a long, long time. On this double CD retrospect, the pop-punk genius of this UK group is collected on 50 tracks and, three years after their break-up and almost 20 after their inception, Snuff has never sounded better.

They wrote the book on the kind of melodic punk that made lesser bands stinking bloody rich. Soaring vocal melodies, thick guitar riffs, some trombone and organ (but not how you’d think), and an unmatched live show volume; that was Snuff. Geez, my ears are still ringing from an early ‘90s show in Vancouver at the infamous Cruel Elephant. In fact, I’ve always thought it was this band or Steel Pole Bathtub (granted, a totally different sound) who shredded my eardrums beyond repair. This was back in my rebellious, pre-earplug days. So, yeah, wear earplugs! Back to Snuff.

It’s so nice to hear this band’s best material collected onto the first disc.

I mean, really, a “greatest hits” of Snuff is what dreams are made of.

Unfortunately, as is the case with most double CD anthology thingiebobs, the second disc doesn’t fare quite as well. Rarities, b-sides, and demos with bad sound quality. Blah.

But Snuff completists, if they’re still out there somewhere, will be riding sky high over this double CD set.

- Jason Schreurs Neaera The Rising Tide of Oblivion Metal Blade Ho-hum, another melodic thrash band from Europe to work those horse gallop shred parts and timetested breakdowns. We’ve all heard

songs over the years I have really enjoyed playing that I can’t really pick just one.

Nerve: Snuff was known for its obscenely loud live shows (I’m still deaf from a show in the early ‘90s).

How did you guys manage to play so bloody loud?

Duncan: It’s good to play loud live as it feels good onstage, but what the audience hears is down to the soundman, so I guess you should blame him for your deafness.

Nerve: You guys always seemed happier than pigs in shit when playing in Snuff. You ever miss those days?

Duncan: Yes, I have always enjoyed playing live and I don’t miss it so much as I am currently playing live with my side project, Billy No Mates.

Nerve: Any plans for a Snuff reunion?

Fuckin’ please?

Duncan: Right now Snuff is sleeping and there are no plans to tour or record right now, but I`m sure one of these mornings the alarm bell will ring and we will be off again.

- Jason Schreurs

this band a million times the past few years; all things post-At the Gates wearing painfully thin. But, wait a second! What’s this Benny singer dude doing? Is he actually emoting? It sounds like real, honestto-goodness feelings pouring out of the guy. So instead of having to listen to some pumped-up dude shit into a microphone, we get a guy pouring his heart out, spilling his feelings all over the studio. I know, sounds a bit flakey, but it’s kept me from sticking Neaera into the, “eh, whatever” pile. And don’t worry, meatheads, Mr. Benny likes to work the death metal growl too, but he spends most of this CD sobbing, crying, and whining. Awesome!

Metal needs more sensitivity! Now excuse me as I go do a fruity little dance.

- Jason Schreurs Roger Miret and the Disasters 1984 Hellcat Anthemic tough-guy punk‘n’roll from

NYC. As advertised, it is indeed fist pumping stuff, full of sing-a-long choruses and huge catchy riffs. I’m actually a bigger fan of this than I am of newer Agnostic Front, which is too metallic for my tastes. No slow or boring songs here, just full-throttle straight-up street rock, with Roger Miret’s distinctive vocals leading the way. It’s pretty fuckin’ cool that a guy who has been around as long as Roger can still put out a CD that kicks ass this hard. It’s even more amazing that he isn’t dead or rotting away in jail somewhere. Ah, the power of rock ‘n’ roll...

- Chris Walter Righteous Jams Rage of Discipline Kung Fu Records Most likely the least value for your money that you will get all year. Ten tracks in just over thirteen minutes from this young Boston straightedge group. The good news is: not a second is wasted. Each track has its own flavour and edge reminiscent of THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 21

Off The Record Minor Threat and Slap Shot. And while efficiency works in such songs as “Invasion”, with its lone couplet being “Invasion used to be this band, but now we’re playing Righteous Jams”, the majority of tracks could benefit from being extended past the minute mark.

More often than not, these great songs get going at the same time they end. For some bands, this can be a good thing as it leaves the listener wanting more, but in this case it’s just frustrating.

- Adam Simpkins Picastro Metal Cares Polyvinyl Despite Picastro’s embarrassing and pretentious choice for a band name, Metal Cares is an outstanding release from this Toronto four-piece led by the enigmatic Liz Hysen, and completed by an impressive rhythm section. Haunting and somber, each song has the tendency to get under your skin with sparse, yet insidious arrangements.

Matching the intensity of Dirty Three with the melancholic nature of Cat Power, Metal Cares is the perfect soundtrack for your next suicide attempt, art-school film or interpretive dance of Guernica. While some of these tracks teeter on grating and might have you running for the knife drawer, it’s still a fine collection of rainy-day/end your life music.

- Adam Simpkins Sweatshop Union United We Fall Battle Axe Records/EMI Sweatshop Union have achieved a sizeable success in the past few years: a Juno nomination here, a tour with Black Eyed Peas there, but United We Fall could quite possibly make them a household name. With a nearperfect production and a handful of single-worthy tracks, we may have another Swollen Members on our hands, but the two groups couldn’t be any more different.

The Union play with a variety of styles: from the playful, Ugly Duckling-esque “Broken Record” to the darker, psychedelic “Never Enough”, each track stands strongly on its own merits. Never ones to parade bravado or boast about their rhyming skills, the group pushes a positive message with socio-political tracks that are

more self-deprecating than preachy. Score another point for Vancouver Hip-hop.

-Adam Simpkins Smoke or Fire Above the City Fat Wreck Chords I was prepared to hate this, because “gritty post-hardcore” is not the stuff that makes my world go around. Actually, and while I didn’t totally love this at first listen, the riffs are catchy and the vocals aren’t overly whiny. Above the City goes fast and it doesn’t suck the bag as bad as I thought it would, but you just know that George Stromboulopoulos will be creaming his jeans to put Smoke or Fire on the “Punk” Show. Or is he too busy running his news show nowadays?

- Chris Walter Samael Reign of Light Nuclear Blast In an alarming trend sweeping the Scandinavian countryside, great and mighty former black and death metal upstarts are mutating into prissy pop princesses, catchy Casio keyboards all ablaze. Cue Samael: sounding like a solo Rob Zombie minus the cheese ball horror obsession and any shred of humour (basically all that makes later-day Zombie worthwhile). A gridlock of pomposity and retardation. VORPH and XY are the masterminds behind this mistake, stage names apparently ripped from the Klingon dictionary and/or D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Essentially electronic peaches n’ cream pop n’ roll with a mildly spooky Swedish lisp for a mouthpiece, these boys seem convinced they’ve got the magical Eye of Horus lodged in their collective colon. NO! Just as weighty as a viewing of Jason Takes Manhattan and about as amusing. That should guide your tastes. Dancing queens (and kings) with a jagged edge might feel so inclined.

- Dave Bertrand Screeching Weasel Boogada Boogada Boogada / My Brain Hurts Re-release Asian Man Boogada Boogada Boogada, was originally released in 1988 on Lookout Records, back when all I

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 22

cared about in life was a dime bag, my skateboard, sunshine summers and a pizza pop with a Pepsi to wash the fake bacon parts down. 3 years later came My Brain Hurts which was very good but nowhere close to 1988.

Asian Man has licensed these from Lookout: it’s nice of them to look out for the smaller indie labels who haven’t quite found their Kerplunk, yet. The remastering job loses some of the grittiness but these albums still bring back those carefree summers.

Perfect, now that the sun is here, or pop in the originals if you still have them.

- CFP Spitalfield Stop Doing Bad Things Victory Records Another emotional Pop-punk album from a non-descript Midwestern band: Big guitars crashing, sing-along choruses, heart-on-sleeve lyrics and a glossy production. Where have I heard this before? Oh right, on every other Pop-punk album released in the past five years.

Even the author of Spitalfield’s press-release couldn’t come up with anything profound to say about this band other than a few glib comparisons to Hey Mercedes and Foo Fighters. If that doesn’t tell you how bland and derivative this album is, I don’t know what will. A couple of tracks on Stop Doing Bad Things stand out, like the catchy “What Were You Thinking?” and the stomping “Tampa Bum Blues”, but the rest of the record passes by without making much of an impact. It wouldn’t be so bad if we hadn’t heard it all before, but, you know, we have.

-Adam Simpkins The Red Death External Frames of Reference Metal Blade Like fellow eastcoasterians Darkest Hour, The Red Death freely yank bucketfuls from the thunderbrew of Scandinavian thrash melodies. And while I can’t say that TRD hold limitless dominion over all, the truth is people that I’m a total whore for this stuff, innovative or not. The feel-good vibe underneath all that hate just seeps into my bones.

Slow it down, keep the chord changes but cut out the distortion

The Dan Band Live SideOneDummy Talk about a waste of plastic and aluminum! Supposed funny guy Dan Finnerty and his Dan Band are best known for their appearances in Hollywood fodder Old School and Starsky and Hutch, in which they do their own little versions of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and Roberta Flack’s “Feel Like Making Love,” uh, respectively. The shtick here is Dan croons to pop songs we’ve all heard way too many times in our lives.

Yep, we’re talking those annoying songs that make life a hateful existence when stuck in a public place, forced to listen to them. The

and aggression, replace the unashamedly Thomas Lindbergian vocal lurch with lullabies and I’d bet you’d have a winning collection of children’s tunes.

This would be pleasing on the scale of a Jester Race or a Slaughter of the Soul if it were 1995. A gaggle of Danes named Autumn Leaves used to specialize in almost this exact same thing, but they’re long-since defunct and probably out of print… so TRD it is I guess. Just wait until the end of track 3. Holy Hiroshima that’s HEAVY. - Dave Bertrand Various Artists The Power of Music Underground Operations It’s good to know at least 40 bands in Canada feel strongly enough about poverty issues to gather together on this compilation to benefit the Ontario Coalition against Poverty. And while some of the names might surprise and confound (The Marble Index, Death from Above 1979, Bucket Truck, Controller Controller), others are a given when it comes to political music (The Weakerthans, Closet Monster, Che Chapter 127, Bedouin Soundclash). But besides all of these Canuck punk, indie, and melodic hardcore bands showing solidarity for a common cause, the other really notable thing about The Power of Music is the sheer volume of pretty damn decent lesser-known bands here to go along with the mainstays. Sure, like all compilations (especially double ones), there’s a lot here to slog through, but for those who have the time, what better way to spend it than with these 40 bands?

- Jason Schreurs Mars Volta Frances The Mute Universal We’re afraid to review this CD because too many respectable music journalists are heralding Mars Volta as the most important band of the millennium. Could someone send us another copy of the new Theory of a Deadman CD instead, please?

- Phat Mike

punchline? Well, Dan laces this shit-schlock with ample profanities, which is supposed to make us laugh, but just makes me wonder if the dude has tourettes. Adding the word “fuck” into key moments of songs by TLC and Alanis Morrisette isn’t really that funny; it just makes me feel jaded and angry at mainstream music (like I needed another excuse). I’m obviously missing the joke here, but who would willingly sit and listen to this CD? Sure, it might garner a snicker or two from drunk jocks at a frat party, but for anyone with a semblance of brainpower, it’s the purest form of torture available on the market today. Oh, okay, this just in:

Supposedly the frat boys love this shit! No surprise there. This whole extravaganza of lame started when Finnerty got really drunk one night at a Toronto karaoke bar, which only furthers my theory that karaoke is music’s worst enemy. If any fucking moron can get up and sing, and if any fucking moron can put out a CD, what does that say about the current state of things? Just what the world needs: More royalties paid out for these horrid, horrid songs.

- Jason Schreurs Dan declined our request for an interview.

Live Wires

C.O.C.’s Pepper backstage at the Commodore, just before Spackler tried to drink him.

Motorhead/Corrosion of Conformity/Three Inches of Blood/Damn 13 Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver Thursday, April 14th, 2005

S

howtime. I meet Spackler out front and we go inside. This is my first date with the erratic musician, and I’m slightly nervous.

Maybe I should have done my hair differently. I buy Spackler a beer because I want him to be my bitch, but he won’t have any part of it.

Badly Damaged shows up and pinches Spackler’s bum. A fight ensues.

Damn 13 start up. They are noisy and enthusiastic, but the singer uses the word “Vancouver” literally dozens of times, as if trying to remind himself where he is. This is straightforward hard rock, with all of the microphone swinging you might expect.

Spackler comments that the lead guitarist looks like he should have

his own fishing show. Nice tattoos on the rest of the band.

Damn 13 finishes, and a pretty girl next to me starts up a conversation.

Spackler pretends he’s not jealous.

Three Inches of Blood hits the stage, and not a moment too soon. Metal singers like the guys in TIOB are the reasons I got into punk, but I cannot help but be impressed with this band. They display a muscular ferocity: a well-oiled and tightly knit attack that cannot be denied. Now I’m a believer.

Spackler gets his own beer, but sulks. What does he think I am, a money machine? Corrosion of Conformity starts up, and I’m into it.

Once again. I’m not the biggest metal fan, but I can dig where these guys are coming from. This is punishing and heavy shit. As I watch COC, however, I feel an old resentment build. Back in the mid-eighties, it was crossover metal like COC, DRI, and Anthrax that dealt the final blow to the mortally wounded hardcore punk scene. Luckily for them, they finish before I find something to

Death From Above 1979/Controller.

Controller/Elizabeth The Red Room, Vancouver, BC Friday, April 1st, 2005 After two previously disappointing attempts to see DFA 79 (once at the Commodore with Metric and Billy Talent, where drunk 20 year olds chanted “We want Billy Talent!” the whole time they played; and another at Mesa Luna, where I was dead on my feet with strep throat), I was geeked to finally see them under more rocking circumstances. As predicted, it was the usual hipster fashion show, and practically all the same people from that week’s Bloc Party and Stars/ Feist shows turned up. Plus, like, a million exes. Can’t they all just die already?

Anyway. We arrived right at the end of Elizabeth’s set, and in the gayness of trying to get a drink, take a pee and have a smoke (God bless the Red Room for letting me smoke indoors!), I missed them entirely. The snippets I did manage to catch sounded like every other time I’ve seen them, which is good, if you’re into that kind of thing. You know what I mean.

Then came the much-hyped Controller.Controller. Maybe my expectations were a bit high or something, but I just couldn’t get into them. The music was good and dancey, but the singer’s vocals got on my tits.

Imagine Grace Jones fronting for The Rapture.

No thanks. Finally, the boys hit the stage, and it was everything I knew it could be: dirty and sexy, sweaty and screamy, with the crowd actually getting down for once. Everyone around me seemed super-horned-up, mostly due to freaking-out-and-shirtless drummer Sebastien Grainger, I’m sure. Especially horned-up was my boyfriend, who got so hot that he had to go to the bathroom and “take care of it” during my favourite song (“Blood on our Hands”, if you care). True story.

- Meghan Dean Foster Kare / Raking Bombs / Karen Foster Waldorf Hotel, Vancouver, BC Friday April 22nd, 2005

throw.

Now Spackler is drunk and we get separated. There will be a lot less pot in Vancouver tomorrow, because much of it is being smoked tonight. The place is packed tighter than Three Inches of Blood’s rhythm section, and I get wedged between two massive Hells Angels and a squad of punk rockers. I look around for Spackler, but he is nowhere to be found.

The lights go dim, and Motorhead strolls onto the stage. But where is Lemmy? I’m looking and looking, but then I see that instead of the legendary bassist, his giant mole will be performing for us tonight. I’m disappointed, but only until the band kicks in like an exploding oil truck.

That mole may be SEVENTY-FIVE FUCKING YEARS OLD, BUT WILL IT TURN THE MUSIC DOWN EVEN A LITTLE? Not on your life. The band lays down a barrage loud enough to hear in Jim Morrison’s graveyard, and Lemmy’s giant mole leads the way, stubby neck craned upwards at a forty-five degree angle.

Mixed with songs from the new album, all the old hits are here.

“Overkill”, “No Class”, “Stay Clean”, “Love Me Like a Reptile”, and of course, “The Ace of Spades” - all laid down with a precise and devastating fury. Lemmy may be tired, but his mole has more energy than ever.

Long live Motorhead!

The show ends, but still no sign of Spackler. Maybe next time I’ll get to first base.

- Chris Walter

Metal Q&A with Carl Spackler

I’m escorted by a couple of goons who reek like whiskey, diesel and sweat, up the stairs and cinderblocks and through the stage area.

Lemmy’s bass sits in front of a wall of amps, sparkling like a machine gun after a good cleaning. Lemmy is sitting down and looking rather nonplussed.

Hasting’s finest Waldorf Hotel was excreting a helluva racket as I hobbled back from Delphi’s Steak & Pizza with bag of grease in hand. I’d been warned: Raking Bombs had lost their drummer and with my buddy Dave switching guitar for skins detail, they’d devolved into a pure noise collective. No discernible tunes at all, mostly speckled bass notes plus twiddling of electronic artifacts in a kit-crashing screech-o lobotomy. But then those techno rhythms kicked in. An interesting turn, I thought. But wait! The bitter oaf behind the bar, ill amused at RB’s general unpleasantness, had cranked the PA and ordered his SS brute of a lackey to storm the stage, tearing at patch cords and drumsticks, fuck offs spilling from his brownnosing lips. Everyone keeps saying the Waldorf is on the mend, but I’ve been to Hell and I tell you it’s a pink stucco hotel bar of neon palm trees and red velvet curtains and Dance Mix ’91 to infinity. No chance eyeballing the much ballyhooed Foster Kare after that, good blokes that they are, having chosen inter-band solidarity over following the Raking Bombs fiasco.

Opening earlier as Karen Foster (different sound, different name, same band as FK), they’d been a little more indie-safe than I’d anticipated, but with a masterful focus and impeccable sound clarity I’d gotten semi-lusty for their heavier, punkier, smurkier sequel as Foster Kare. Unfortunately we were swarmed by a plague of douche.

- Dave Bertrand Dizzee Rascal/DJ Wonder At The Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC Wednesday, March 30th, 2005 Since I’m such a diligent reporter, I showed up at the Commodore Ballroom just under an hour after the doors had opened. Seeing as this was a Dizzee Rascal show, I was hoping to see some real-life thugs and multiple stabbings.

What I got instead was barren room with a resident DJ spinning some extremely loud and at times annoying Drum n’ bass. Which wouldn’t be so bad if the place were packed, but there

“Excellent, Mack,” I say, “Let’s get his attention. Start at the top.”

“Mr. Lemmy?” Mack whispers.

The warted one raises his bellicose eyes, growls and stomps off. Alright then. Let’s go talk to C.O.C. Things here are much friendlier: riders are being consumed and refreshments are offered to the hardworking and thirsty journo. These are true southern gents, although Mike Dean seems to take an instant dislike to me. Probably has something to hide and I make him nervous.

Nerve: Are there any good metal bands left?

Pepper: Sure! Mastodon and High on Fire. That’s about it.

Nerve: What’s the best ZZ Top record?

Pepper: The first three or four.

Nerve: I said the best!

Pepper: Rio Grande Mud. Mike Dean: The first one.

Nerve: No. Tres Hombres. Ok. Are there any great, unknown southern bands?

Pepper: Sure, lots.

Nerve: Old ones – like a Skynyrd or Allman style boogie band? A lost classic?

Pepper: Ummmm. No. Nerve: Mike – what is your favourite crossover record?

Mike: [bristling] That is a contradiction in terms. Crossover was a marketing tool used by Metal Blade Records to sell LPs. Nerve: Whaddya mean? Punk crossed with metal! That’s what it was!

Mike: Guttural bellowing and some nimble musicianship.

Nerve: You don’t like that stuff?

Mike: I listened to Crucifix recently.

Bad Brains are cool.

Nerve: What about DRI’s Dealing With It? Mike: I’m not gonna speak to that.

Nerve: Come on! It’s a classic!

Mike: Felix is a kick ass drummer.

That’s all I’m gonna say.

Nerve: What is the greatest car film ever made?

Pepper: Two Lane Blacktop.

were only about 40 people in attendance and I could barely exchange my usual whimsical japes with my cameraman without screaming.

The place starting filling up slowly and an hour later DJ Wonder hit the stage and played a fine selection of grime/garage/electro or whatever the kids are calling it these days. But it wasn’t easy warming this crowd up. Not surprising since it was the Wednesday after an extra long weekend and most of these punters probably had miniscule amounts of energy left in their systems. So after an hour long set, and a nice closing spin of General Levy’s “Incredible”, it was only a matter of time before East London’s brightest would hit the stage. But in typical Commodore fashion, it was more waiting and more of the first DJ playing Dizzee Rascal tunes. What? Can’t we just wait for the real thing? By this point, I’m getting a bit irked by the whole situation, but at 11:15pm, Dizzee arrived on stage with his co-MC and DJ in a bare-bones set up and worked his way into “Sittin’ Here” from his Boy in da Corner LP and pretty much slammed his way through the highlights of his two albums. And with plenty of requests for the placement of our hands in the air, not to mention numerous compliments to Vancouver’s fine female contingent, Dizzee’s show pretty much went off without a hitch. A couple of mic problems here and there, a few confused glances, but all was forgotten with the bangin’ finale of “Fix Up Look Smart”. The crowd was satisfied, no punch-ups, no shootings, this town is far too easy to please.

-Adam Simpkins Big John Bates/The Hitchers/The Stag Reels/UltraVixens Peepshow At The Brickyard, Vancouver, BC Saturday, April 9th, 2005 We started boozing in Mount Pleasant and continued on the way downtown (I love drinking in public). We caught the Vancouver debut of The Hitchers, a neo-rockabilly band from Middlesborough England. (Neo-rockabilly started in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s: modernized

Nerve: I was going to ask, what is the best Monte Hellman movie ever? Some people think Cockfighter is better.

Pepper: I’ve actually met Monte Hellman.

Nerve: No way! Cool! Let’s have another beer!

(Ten minutes later, having been removed from C.O.C.’s dressing room, Spackler corner’s Damn 13’s Adam Sewell.)

Nerve: [slurring] What’s the best Motorhead song? [hiccup] Adam: “Shine”.

Nerve: What about the song “Motorhead”? Do they ever play that one?

Adam: No. Never.

Nerve: Well fuck them! Have you heard Primal Scream’s version?

It’s really grooooovy!

Adam: Umm. Nerve: What’s the best car movie?

Adam: Bullitt Nerve: Wrong! That’s a good one, but wrong answer.

Adam: How is it wrong?

Nerve: It just is.

Adam: Why does Vancouver hate Toronto?

Nerve: Cos you’re all gay?

Adam: I’m gay? Your magazine gave my band a bad review. You said we copy Motorhead too much. Right around the time you put Me First and the Gimme Gimmes on the cover.

Nerve: Don’t pin that shit on me!

I’d rather drink Drano than see one of those fat jews in a fez!

Adam: You smell like you’ve been drinking gasoline.

Nerve: [mumbles] Cockfighter?

Adam: What?

Nerve: Cockfighter! Cockfighter!

Adam: No thanks.

Nerve: What is the best ZZ Top song?

Adam: Oh – I won’t go there. I don’t speak to ZZ Top. Nerve: [yelling] This interview is over!

rockabilly for the new wave set - psychobilly came shortly afterwards). Listening to them playing I heard elements of The Stray Cats, Tenpole Tudor, and The Living End in their sound. The singer obviously has a Brian Setzer fixation as evidenced by his huge blond quiff, fat Gretsch guitar and Stray Cats tattoos. Since the success of Tiger Army, The Nekromantix, HorrorPops etc., it’s evident that an unknown neo-rockabilly band from Middlesborough can now be viewed as a hot commodity: they’re going to be on this years Warped Tour. (I love neo-rockabilly.)

Entertainment between bands was provided by the UltraVixens Peepshow, a local burlesque troupe that provides burlesque scenarios set to a background of rock and punk songs. The troupe consists of some extremely hot women. (I love hot women.) There’s no actual nudity in burlesque: lingerie and titpasties are the limit, but apparently not enough glue was being used - a few pasties popped off, resulting in some 3-D boobage.

B.J.Bates take their cues from The Cramps (for the sexy visual aspect) and The Reverend Horton Heat (for the sound). They’ve gone through numerous line-up changes over the years (particularly in the drums and burlesque dancers department). The current line-up has toured together, so they were tight tonight.

Bates was using one of his 22 Gretsch electrics: a new Black Falcon model. He’s an accomplished player, and pens good original material for his band, and they mix in some interesting covers too, including “Tainted Love” and “White Wedding”. He’s never less than entertaining and the crowd was rocking. A huge bottle of Jager got passed around onstage. The UltraVixens came on to do Kitten With a Whip and others. More popped pasties.

Booze, tits and rock’n’roll: all in all, a successful night out.

- Sean Law

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 23

Film

SHORT ENDS

Smaller and not as funny as Cheap Shotz

LUDA-CRASH Ludacris will be playing a bit part in a movie called Crash that opens on May 6. Just the excuse we needed to stick a black dude you’ve never heard of in the film section once again.

Just in case anyone didn’t notice the month’s cover, we’ve illustrated it for Dear Nerve Magazine I was ecstatic to see you finally got off your asses and put some decent content in the film section aside from Vincent Gallo’s wang and an article on the new GTA game... that was obviously only written because Rockstar sent you a free game. I love Todd Solondz, all of his movies and all that he stands for in American independent cinema. Solondz is the epitome of all that is The Nerve. BUT YOU BLEW IT AND SPELLED HIS FUCKING NAME WRONG ON THE COVER. Keep up the good work and I find your articles to be both informative and entertaining.

Sincerely, Michael Mann

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 24

pled when an evil chick boxer from Eastern Europe punches her in the back of the head after the bell. A bunch of her body parts need to get amputated and then Clint Eastwood kills her, putting her out of her misery. There.

Movie pic this month is Swingers.

We’re gonna spend half the night driving around the Hills looking for this party and then leave cause it sucks. Then we’re gonna look for While we’re on the this other party you heard about. topic of Crash. The But, Trent, all the parties and bars, guy who did the they all suck. I spend half the Crash movie also night trying to talk to some girl wrote Million Dollar who’s eyes are darting around to Baby. Fuck, is that see if there’s someone else she movie ever a piece should be talking to. And it’s of shit. Don’t even like I’m supposed to be waste your time all happy cause she’s downloading it. wearing a backpack.

The acting, typo on last Half of them are writing, you all above. nasty skanks who premise are wouldn’t be shit if all completethey weren’t surly shit. I’m going to quickly summarize rounded by a bunch it here for you so you don’t have to sufof drunken horny assfer through it like I did. Hillary Swank is holes. I’m not gonna a redneck wannabe boxer with no coach. be one of those assClint Eastwood is an aging boxing coach holes. It’s fucking who doesn’t think women should box depressing. and certainly won’t coach Some skank Swank. Eastwood eventuwho isn’t ally overcomes his Wanna half the prejudice and begins get get woman coaching Swank. my girlSwank gets really friend is is gonna good and gets a front me? It makes title shot. In the big match, Hillary Consummate method actor, Hillary me want to puke.

Swank gets cripSwank.

go platinum? I’m who you should get get get.

The 5 directors who convinced the crazy 8's people to give them cash and professional gear will be screening their work on June 4 at the Vogue. Tickets are $12 www.crazy8s.cc

s r

Film

GORE

Yellow Bastard Has Nards

KILL ALL BITCHES - SLASH ‘EM IN THE WELL LIT DARKNESS

A brief overview of genital mutilation in modern cinema

By Michael Mann

By Sinister Sam

B

latant themes of misogyny were ever present in a column that I wrote a couple of issues back with the determination of the trash “classics” entitled none other than the simply unbelievable THEY DON’T CUT THE GRASS HERE ANYMORE and the politically “explosive” (embrace the pun) THE RAVAGER. Horror films, especially the ones that fall into the slasher catacombs have always had the ideal and obvious/dubious woman hating nature that culminates these days into some “amazing” viewing experiences that push the taste envelope. I’ve spoken of these topics before in earlier columns, but this month is VERY special as I finally got around to watching a title that has been sniffing around under my feet for the last while. The film in question is Roman Niwicki’s FANTOM KILER (1998) Let me say that I have always embraced the likes of Lucio Fulci’s NEW YORK RIPPER (1982), but many see this film as his worst horror entry.

I see NEW YORK RIPPER as his contribution to the Giallo genre fresh after the attack of zombie gore films that again, pushed the limits of horrordom, eyeball violence, and the seemingly endless amounts of this new spaghetti atmosphere of Italy’s golden age of gore/horror (although the TRUE golden age has to be attributed to the 60s with Riccardo Freda et al).

The arguments over the Fulci masterwork the RIPPER have stamped this film as heavily controversial as it even manages to step away from Fulci’s “responsible” and “classy” murder mystery efforts of the 70s like DON’T TORTURE A

Another unsuccessful Nerve internship. cessfully meshed the commercial possibilities of the soft-core “erotic” film and merged the genre with the almighty Giallo style slasher film order. The plot is easy enough to follow as women are stalked and slashed in basic murder sequences that are long and articulate. The woman is displayed in the majestic nature of the porn star in revealing clothes, fake tits, the whole fucking show, until they unfortunately wander into the woods and systematically begin to lose their clothing due to branches reaching out at their shirt or the inopportune fence that impedes their stretching under/over the fence, thus the mini skirt must come off.

After the women are greased (?) and naked, the murderer (in classic Giallo killer garb – black fedora, black overcoat, black gloves, knife) presents himself to the woman in question and proceeds to stimulate them with fear and vulgarities until he finally kills them in very bloody (bloody – not gory) fashion complete with targets that make the viewing experience all the more uncomfortable to sit through. The murder scenario is rarely broken up… well one is when a women bets a janitor that he can’t pull a stick out of her ass. The killings are more and more over the top and explicit even featuring many open shots of female genitilia and even more suggestible killing routines – such as a chisel end that is almost hammered into a woman’s ass as she reaches for an eternity to grab her shorts that fell under the car(?). Just seeing the point of the chisel in the woman’s asshole is BRUTAL. The film is misogynistic as hell, but it has such a ridiculous and abstracted quality to it via the straight ahead and overly digitally stylized tendencies of the filmmaking, that the film goes beyond any true sense of horror movie making and almost into the avenue of experimental films. What is on display here is a perpetual ULTRA sense of the Giallo slasher film that even goes beyond the simplistic nature of Montero’s classic favourite SO SWEET SO DEAD (1972). Overall, FANTOM KILER (and it’s continuing series – parts 2 and 3) is an example of tastelessness that has to be witnessed to fully understand what the genre is capable of. Fuck – now if only I can find someone who has SO SWEET, SO DEAD with the XXX inserts entitled PENETRATION.

Just seeing the point of the chisel in the woman’s asshole is BRUTAL.

DUCKLING and the ever popular (but a little too pysch for me) LIZARD IN A WOMAN’S SKIN. The NEW YORK RIPPER is nothing though compared to the atrocity spectacle of Mario Landi’s still highly unseen GIALLO A VENEZIA (1979) and the BRUTAL obsession and true story antics of Camille Teti’s THE KILLER IS STILL AMONG US. FANTOM KILER (1998) is the ultimate of erotica (?), stalking (?), and slashing (?).

Remember when you’re trying to watch porn on satellite or something and you stumble upon the softcore antics of the Playboy channel or something of the like? Well, Niwicki has suc-

S

in City is actually a pretty good movie.

It's not the effects, writing, acting or direction that make it enjoyable. No, what makes this movie good is that it climaxes with the yellow guy's cock getting ripped off by Bruce Willis' bare hands. I climaxed in almost the exact same way one time, except the guy doing the yanking wasn't nearly as attractive as Bruce Willis and was a bit older. Genital mutilation has a long, hard and immaculately sculpted history in cinema. And I think the wang ripping in Sin City is up there with the greats. I can't remember the dates of any of my family member’s birthday, but I can remember every movie I've ever seen where someone's nuts get assaulted. Perhaps this is proof that men do think with their dinks. Here are some of the highlights.

A Clockwork Orange 1971 In one of the odder scenes, Alex has a chat with his parole officer Mr. Deltoid about the direction his life is taking while in his underwear. Deltoid declares he's "the one man in this sore and sick community who wants to save you from yourself," then violently grabs Alex's package.

Robocop is on the scene to save the day.

Robocop fires a precision shot through the damsel's dress to take out the bad guy. As an added bonus for taking down the bad guy, we see a bloody stain on the perp's crotch that lets us know that Robocop has also castrated the man.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country 1991 Kirk and Bones are framed for murder and thrown in a Klingon prison on an ice planet.

One of the gigantic prisoner aliens takes exception to Kirk and they get into a fight. Over matched, Kirk kicks the alien in the knee and he goes down. It is later revealed that this particular race of alien have their genitals on their knees. Once again, the almighty sacking proves to be the great equalizer.

Tune in next month for a retrospective of movies that use the word poop.

The Jerk 1979 Steve Martin lets his business partners know that "you are talking to a nigger" and regulates everyone. The last guy standing presents a problem and Martin hurts his foot when trying to unload on the man's nuts. In the next scene, his wife reveals to Martin that his name was Iron Balls McGinty.

Monster Squad 1987 The lovable fat kid is face-to-face with the wolfman. His friends urge him to kick the wolfman in the nards. But does the wolfman have nards? Unsure, fatty goes through with the diabolical plan to unload a vicious kick to his attacker's groin. The wolfman keels over and the world learns that he does, in fact, have nards.

Robocop 1987 1987 was a great year for people getting canned. There's a damsel in distress and

There's Something About Mary 1998 A very ambitious and relentless movie when it comes to genital mutilation. While peeing, Ben Stiller is also watching Cameron Diaz change. He gets busted and quickly pulls up his fly only to discover his nuts are caught in his zipper.

You'd think it would stop there but it doesn't. We also get a dog on speed attacking Stiller and latching onto his testicles. Diaz also puts some jizz in her hair because she thinks it's gel. Not too closely related to genital mutilation but, shit, was that ever funny.

Old School 2003 Those who'd like to join the frat must participate in a trust exercise. The pledges have a 20-foot rope with a cement brick on one end and their dicks on the other end. Hilarity ensues.

The Brown Bunny 2004 I know we said we were done talking about this movie, but c'mon, Chloë Sevigny goes to town on Gallo's tool. Is pleasure and pain really all that far apart?

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 25

Film

D

When Jesse reaches his destination, the tits on the opposite page, he’ll be disapointed to discover they yield silicone not milk.

When Jesse Was Born

By Chris Walter

T

his may come as a shock to you, but I’m really not an arthouse movie kind of guy. I know you’re wondering what you’re going to do with the veggie dip and all those crackers, but I’m sorry. I just hate those arty little films where a bunch of wine sipping twats have to prove how smart they are by acting as if the pretentious piece of shit they just watched actually made sense. I have better things to do than attend cliquey and boring little film openings.

Besides, I never get invited anyway.

Or, at least, not until recently when a guy at one of my cliquey and boring readings invited me to attend the premier of When Jesse Was Born. I sensed he wasn’t your typical artcore shill, but still wasn’t convinced that the movie would be anything more than a relatively painless waste of time. I certainly didn’t expect that the movie would have a plot I could follow, or that I might totally love it, but I was dead wrong on both counts.

Now, about the movie. Jesse is a newborn, so he doesn’t have much of a role at all, but his father Harold Ferrell (Ryan Robbins) is a fuckup who can’t stay out of jail. Harold loves his wife and three sons ferociously, and claims that he only robs and steals so he can feed his family. It is hard not admire a guy with such a strong work ethic, but his wife Laura (Erica Carroll) is an exceedingly bad sport about it all.

His oldest son, 14 year-old Danny, played magnificently by Calum Worthy, is shy and withdrawn, but finds the courage to stand up to his father. He falls in love with a hip neighbourhood girl, and his efforts to get together with her are excruciating to watch. Were any of us ever so sincere and innocent?

It isn’t just Jesse’s family that is extremely dysfunctional, but the entire world around him.

Like an episode of Trailer Park Boys set in the late 70’s, there is enough white trash here to start a truck pull derby. And Danny can’t quite stay out of trouble. Fighting with the boy next

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 26

door, he remembers the advice of his father: “Stick your thumb in his eye!” When the boy’s father breaks up the fight, Harold comes along to settle things violently while dispensing valuable nuggets of wisdom. Twisted though his methods may be, one cannot deny Harold’s love for his family. You will both love and hate him, often in the span of a few seconds. All of the actors here are very powerful.

The sets, the clothing, and especially the stubby beer bottles bring back memories of my own highly dysfunctional childhood, and a backyard bar-b-que scene is so realistic that I could swear I had traveled back in time. There are laughs aplenty along the way, and I wish I could spoil the ending for you, but I can only say that it is unexpected and unforgettable. If

80’s shit and should be the cheapest for set decoration and clothes. It turns out I was wrong; the costumes and art departments were just wicked at their jobs. They even found a kickass old puke green stove on the side of the road by where we were shooting and Dustin, our designer, swiped it and put it in the kitchen.

Nerve: Where did you find the stubby beer bottles?

Petry: The STUBBIES! It’s funny. The first thing most people say after they see the show is “Dude! The stubbies rule!” The stubbies do rule. Dustin again was on the hunt for them–––we had to have them. Our producer Kaleena just happened to have an old case in her basement. Don’t know why, but glad she did.

Nerve: What was the most difficult part about making this movie?

Petry: Watching my debt rise above my head and swallow me like a giant tar pit of death! you get a chance to see this movie, don’t pass it up.

Curious to know more about When Jesse Was Born, I stalked writer/director Chris Petry until he agreed to answer a few questions.

Nerve: When Jesse Was Born could have taken place any time. Why did you decide to set it in the 70’s?

Chris Petry: I pulled about 80% of the story from personal childhood experiences, so it just felt right to go with that era and stay genuine to the stories. That’s the cool answer. The lame answer is that I also thought it would be easier for our art department and costume folk. All of the thrift/salvation army stuff is old 70’s and

Nerve: Did your dad ever go to jail?

Petry: My dad has been to the clink a few times. He’s a great guy though, and I did base the main character on him. I wanted to try and get across the complexity of that kind of character, like how you could love and hate him all in the same minute. After my little brother watched the movie, he turned to me as soon as it was finished and said, “Are you gonna show this to dad?” Then we started laughing. I don’t know if I succeeded, but I’m very proud of the actor, Ryan Robbins, who played him and I think he brought the character to places I couldn’t have imagined.

Nerve: Do you like the 70’s a lot? Have you ever owned a Malibu?

Petry: The 70’s rule! I never had a Malibu. But

we did have a giant green Cougar. The coolest car I ever had was a ‘66 Valiant that I bought from Kristen of Billy and the Lost Boys a couple years ago when I first moved to Vancouver.

Now I drive an ‘89 Nissan Stanza, pay taxes, and dodge air care like a chump.

Nerve: What was the most difficult part about making this movie?

Petry: Watching my debt rise above my head and swallow me like a giant tar pit of death!

Nerve: Is okay to do armed robberies if you need to feed your family?

Petry: [laughs] Like Harold says to his son in the movie, “I would do anything for you boys and your mother. If you were starving, I would reach into a bucket of shit and pull out an apple and clean it off so that you had something to eat!”

Nerve: Anything else you want to add?

Petry: If I had anything to add, it would be just to thank and credit anyone who was involved in the project. Like I said, I get a lot of the credit because I get the director title, but really it’s such a team effort and any “style” that might come from the end product is purely a result of the people you have surrounding you as a director, and I had an awesome team of awesome people who 90% of worked for free. We have a great community of entertainers (film and music) in this city. We make the majority of our money in the film community by providing our services to large companies south of the border, and that’s wicked... pays my rent and allows me to learn from experienced directors and filmmakers. But we can also utilize these awesome facilities and amazing people to create and establish our own voices and art by telling our own stories. Its not out of reach, its at our fingertips. We just have to get off our asses and do it. Myself included. whenjessewasborn.com

Ainsworth

DVD Reviews

Eighteen Visions

My Chemical Romance

.

I should really be doing my taxes

Dillinger

Drillin’er

Burning Angel.Com: The Movie First of all, I hate to blow my cover here, but I’m somewhat of a porn novice. I’ve seen probably a dozen porno films in my life. I know what you’re thinking, “What? Blasphemous! And this guy writes for The Nerve?” So now that I’ve fessed up, I should also make it clear I have frequented a little website called Burning Angel (www.burningangel.com) more than a few times since I discovered it a year or so ago.

Run by self-proclaimed pervert Joanna Angel, this website takes the Suicide Girls approach (punk rock and nude babes) one step further with hardcore video clips and fully nude photo shoots with tattooed and pierced punk girls.

Burning Angel.Com: The Movie brings the online sexcapades to your living room (unless you’re computer’s already in your living room, in which case, well, forget that) and onto the surprisingly porn-friendly DVD format. Yep, no rewinding those key scenes. With the miracle of technology, that money-shot can be watched repeatedly, paused, zoomed, and much more.

Ew. Featuring a half-dozen hardcore sex scenes and some one-dimensional band interviews with the likes of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Shadows Fall, and Eighteen Visions, this DVD tries desperately to appeal to punk/hardcore fans who also like porn. And those who just want to see a bunch of punk rockers getting it on shouldn’t be disappointed, but don’t expect any storylines here – just a lot of fucking and sucking. Included are Joanna’s first anal scene, another scene with her and some other girl utilizing a huge glass dildo, some jock-looking dude taking it to a tattooed punkette, and more slurping oral scenes than you can shake a phallus at.

- Jason Schreurs X – The Unheard Music Image Entertainment Thankfully available again after a long time missing, The Unheard Music is the corrective we need now that the standard rockumentary has devolved into a 90 minute commercial, techno-edited with machine gun etiquette and rendered meaningless by airheads at VH-1.

This is how it should be done – filmed during the first half of the ‘80s with scant financial support, The Unheard Music is artful, intelligent and catches a great band at the height of its powers.

X doesn’t get the same attention as some of its California peers – suggesting that our sensation-driven culture is more interested in extreme behaviour than good music – but anyone that cares will be blown away by the depth of this band. That each member (even the notterribly-musical Exene Cervenka) possesses an urgent love of traditional American music is clear from the get-go: Billy Zoom performs a flawless version of “Stardust” on the clarinet, D.J. Bonebrake channels Lionel Hampton on the vibes and we’re invited into John Doe and Exene’s home, where they sit around singing Hank Williams’ songs together.

There are countless moments that elevate The Unheard Music – its intimacy with the subject matter is total, and it captures all sides of the band. Director JT Morgan is ambitious: a silent film pastiche set to “Because I Do” predates Guy Maddin; in an extraordinary sequence, the film’s title track plays while a house is transported through the deserted streets of LA in the dead of night. It might have come from a Michael Mann film - the view from inside, as streetlights glide past a window, is like the cover of Under the Big Black Sun come to life. An interview with then head of MCA Records Al Bergamo is inter-cut with Slash founder Bob Briggs. Bergamo dismisses the commercial potential of X and then breathlessly plugs MCA’s newest concern – Point Blank. Remember them? Me neither, but they look like regular assholes. Producer Ray Manzarek jumps onstage with the band for a run through The Doors “Soul Kitchen” and he looks lanky and uncomfortable, with his t-shirt tucked into his chinos. Best of all, probably, is the furious montage that accompanies “We’re Desperate” – it’s made up of flyers, zine-clippings, photos and other ephemera from the short but sweet period when punk exploded in LA, and is a cluster bomb of bitchin’ punk rock style. Most touching is a scene in which Exene, leading the viewer on a tour through the abandoned Whiskey A Go Go, points to a pile of broken glass that commemorates her late sister’s death. It could be cloying but it isn’t - the artists on both sides of the camera make it work.

No extras, no commentary, no nothing – but who gives a fuck? It’s essential.

- Mack

The Bloody Road to Death Why is Prostitution so ….. Expensive?

By J. Ainsworth

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oots! The trials, tribulations and confusions of prostitution just never seem to end! I spent four thousand dollars on assorted acts of prostitution last week, and do I regret it? Hoots, no! It was great! Of course it was great!!! Why in hell’s name would a wealthy fellow spend great frothy heaps of gelt on lewd, Oh GOD such lewd, LEWD LEWD acts if it wasn’t great!???

What a great feeling it is, when you’re all a-twitching like you got an autistic child in your slacks!!!! Oh my god, four thousand dollars, its not that much, one lady said for one thousand dollars I could do whatever I wanted in between her knees and sternum! I didn’t even make it across the room until it went off. The things you can get modern, liberated he-she streetladies to do for four thousand dollars would melt your packet, I swear to god. Actually, come to think of it, twenty-five dollars of that I spent on the new Flashman novel. It’s called Flashman on the March, and is set in Abyssinia. WHICH I BET, I JUST BET is full of professional ladies four thousand dollars richer maybe because of what they let you do to them.

Oh, God. Whew! It reminds me of minimalism. I, as a civilized white man, prefer the tactile feel of thick paint on a flat surface. I like the feeel of it, do you get it?

The feeeelllll.. ! It’s this relentless pursuit of a minimalist ideal in contemporary art that ticks everyone off. This is why you can’t sell your pictures, petal. Come on, you Petals!!

Fortunately, a recent trend has emerged, recently, which has been referred to by Modern Painters magazine as “the New Rococo”. In essence, a work that abandons, forcefully, the last fifty years of mainstream aesthetic discord.

A return, if I might be so bold, to the horror vacuiaiea. A new patterning. A rejection of the abstract. Do we see a future return of genre painting? Possibly, in Germany, and the Leipzig School of Fine Art where the photo-based documentary style of neo-neo expressionistic painting typified by Gerhard Richter can be found.

Mama Mia! Oh my god, I swear as I am writing this, I just went out to get a package of cigarettes, and I saw….

Slow down. Concentrate. I saw a young girl.

She wore a shirt…. No! Accuracy, sir… she wore a blouse, sleeveless, but with strange… “cupping” devices, I can only describe it as that…. Sewn into the fabric, one for each breast. Low cut. She was adjusting the fabric over her breast as I watched,.. She… she adjusted it too much. Her nipples were exposed. For a beautiful moment, her nipples

were… there, really.

I almost died. I felt…. not Christ-like, per se; Christ didn’t notice women’s nips even when they were PRACTICALLY LEAPING INTO HIS MOUTH on the street. No, not Christ-like at all. I felt like a very tall man. I think that’s the best way to describe it. Her nipples, lovely pink shamrocks, they practically leapt into my eyes like the pink nose of a Jack Russell. They were filled with life.

Oh, my God. Her breasts, now remember if you can see the nipple, well, that’s half the battle right there. In effect, because her shirt was descending, like the lark, I filled my eyes with more than half of her actually breastage. It was a miracle. I can’t believe I was so lucky to have been there at that time!

Ironically, I’ve actually given up smoking, but because this academic article was a bitch to write I simply needed a puff. My GOD! I almost missed it! It makes me think of all the other nipple exposures I’ve missed over the years, because of not staring at ladies like a horrible creep. To hell with it! From now on, I’m going to be a creep! Anything to see more nipples. Holy Fuck I’ve often wondered what it must be like to have breasts. And I’ve decided it must be nice.

That being said, If I were a woman, and I’m not, but if I were I would guard my breasts, under many layers, so no nipple could be seen. Also I’d be a tease. Those were a lovely set of nipples. By Gad, it seems that summer fashions are set accentuate the breasts and ergo nipples this year. Nipples really are half the battle.

Anyway, one of the more interesting developments in this “New Rococo” is a possible reinterpretation of the work of the neglected French painter Edouard Vuilllard. Generally referred to in historical terms as a post-impressionist. I’ve always held that his approach to patterning belied a … sorry, I’ve reached my word count. Thanks for Reading!

The things you can get modern, liberated he-she streetladies to do for four thousand dollars would melt your packet...

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 27

EVE FEAVER, RDS

PHOTO: ROB NURMI

Shreditorial: Popepourri

GORDON FAULKNER, RDS

Papal Puff That lil’ puff o’ smoke outta the Vatican means so much more than just a room full of hotboxing Bishops - it means we have a German pope. I think we all saw that coming when we heard of the Vatican’s plan to invade Poland. I kid, I kid. Folks ‘round the globe were overjoyed by the new Pope Benedict Arnold XVI, even those who lost their lunch money on the Terri Schiavo/ Pope John Paul feeding tube betting pool. Word has it even Africa sent accolaids.

Second Coming of the Impossible No, not the Apostle, the second coming of Chris...Haslam.

The impossible and other weird creative tricks, once only practiced by aging freestylers and thirtysomething Rodney Mullen/ Sal Barbier wannabes, are seeing a resurrection among the youth. Chris de colisse’s regular RDS visits mean grom disciples are radly mulling dork tricks like impossibles and Primo slides, creating an Army of Dorkness. Christ came to town on an ass, and Chris sometimes ends up on his; Christ was nailed to rails, and Chris nails rails. Both look good on the wood. Chris is also a beardo, most likely a Sinceredo, which brings us to...

PHOTO: ROB NURMI

Beardos: Hipster or Homeless?

Beardos are hitting the scene like macrame turds and making the shopping cart a hot fashion accessory. Beardo fashion icons include Andy Gibb, Chewbacca, and Charles Manson (check his Rolling Stones collaboration “Gimme Skelter”). Stereo is the most prominent beardo company, and Jason Lee may have been the original beardo; rent “Mallrats” for details. The new Zero video premiered at both RDS and antisocial, begging certain beardo-related questions: Is Chris Cole a naked Beardo or simply a neo-protoRamone? If Jamie Thomas is a beardo, should the company be called “Zeardo”? Is local Zero am Sheldon Meleshinski a beardless beardo or simply a one-eyed plank pirate? Why walk the plank when you can ride it? Beardos are adding a certain Fleetwood Mac-ness to the scene, and why not? It takes a lot of athletic talent to grow one, and it’s a great excuse to quit skating and start wearing scarves.

Beardo subspecies include:

Premieres PD of Skull Skates’ “Skateboarding in Vancouver” exhibit is becoming a book released through Concrete Wave, and there’ll be a book launch and Skull Skims video premiere “Wild in the Streams” on May 29. George Faulkner’s new Seylynn documentary is due out in September, and lock up your liquor and lock down your amps ‘cuz S.T.R.E.E.T.S’ new album makes those chimps sound like champs.

NEWS FLASH>>>>> April 29.05 We here at the Skate Spot have just heard that China Creek skatepark, at Clark and Broadway, could be up for destruction, and possibly very soon. Apparently the City has been reconsidering the placement/existence of China Creek for the last year, but not much of this news has reached the skateboarding community. We attended a public meeting last week (Wednesday, April 27.05) where 3 schemes were proposed to ‘upgrade’ the park, 2 of which included the complete removal of the bowls. The meetings were open to the public, with Parks Board members, at the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House, at 800 East Broadway, (604.879.8208), but not very many skaters were in attendance, possibly because of the poor publicity of the event. If you want to have your say in keeping or even upgrading China Creek, you should come out to the next meeting and bring friends. The next meeting with the Parks Board will happen in the next 2 weeks, but the meeting time has yet to be announced. (Makes it hard to plan to lobby for keeping the park alive...) We will be in touch with the city over the following week, and will post the next meeting time on this page, as soon as we find out.

Or check the Parks Board site at: http://city.vancouver.bc.ca/parks/ You can also contact: The Parks Board at: 604.257.8400 or Parks Board Commissioner Lyndsay Poaps at: lyndsay_poaps@city.vancouver.bc.ca or email: michel_desrochers@city.vancouver.bc.ca In less serious news,Coastlongboarding.com is presenting “Attack of Danger Bay IV”, Sunday, May 22 on Francis Peninsula, Pender Harbour. For more info, check the website or contact Bricin Lyons at coastlongboarding@shaw.ca. The race is free, and we hear there will also be a Mohawk stylist for all those brave and willing, plus punk bands like Cambridge & Side Sixty Seven, Sunday evening at Madeira Park Community Hall.

Miss KIm & D-Rock.

To contribute, send chocolate or just contact Skate Spot: downspace@telus.net

PHOTO: SCOTTY MYERS

PHOTO: MARIDE ANDERSON

TREVOR - LEE RALPH GRINDER

BEARDO DREAM HOME

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 28

Sinceredo: This beardo just likes having a beard. The most likeable of the beardos, these are also the most likely to actually make some art. Makes up about 10% of the beardo population.

Careerdo: Only grew a beard to advance hipster credentials. Looked like Eminem last year. Accounts for a good 85% of beardos.

Queerdo: Grew one to blend into fuzzy crowds of “skater/artists” and thus nest in some pantalons. The Decepticon of snuggle banditry, the Optimus Prime of primal urges, the Queerdo’s 70’s forerunner is the faux cop from the Village People.

Beerdo: This beardo cares about nothing and is often found at China Creek or Hastings marinating in a pool of their own juices. Hobbies include breaking stuff and hurting selves.

Like a wet Saint Bernard, a Beerdo is cute and flea-ridden, may carry brandy, and will lick you in the face if there’s an art grant in it for them.

Let’s Play SKATE Sk8 It Up and Underworld had a big game of SKATE at the fountain side of the Vancouver Art Gallery on Sunday, May 1. It hadn’t gone down by press time but check www.underworld-shop.com or this column next month for details.

Whoever won on the Black Russian-sponsored Blast Ramp has a good chance of becoming the next John A. Grigley and likely received a dangling cross earring and Smiths box set for their efforts.

DEEMA, TSAWASSEN, KICKFLIP

PHOTO: JEFF COLE-CHILLIN’

Smoked Am: Deema

Gnart o’ the Month: Lords of Dogtown Exhibit Friday April 22 saw the opening of the Lords of Dogtown art collection at the Vancouver Museum, consisting of holy relics and convincing film replicas from the OG Venice scene. Much of the collection came from Ray Flores, with the rest from Jim Muir, Wes Humpston, Wynn Miller, Craig Stecyk III, and Skip Engblom. Sony rep Cec Annett is touring the show to Whistler, Denver, LA, Minneapolis, SF, and NYC to promote the buzzworthy film of the same name. The show was presented by ex-Hurley designer Lian Murray’s Aqua VI line of surf-inspired clothing, with proceeds going to Boarding for Breast Cancer.

The coolest thing we saw was the second or third Dogtown board ever made, which was handmade by Jim Muir, with art done by Stecyk in the backseat of Humpston’s VW on the way to skate the Fireman pool in the San Fernando Valley. You can see the crudeness in the shaping, the lettering, everything, all done by hand before production boards. Super analog. Then there was the Ray Flores handmade Dogtown board by Humpston, then the original and re-created first Dogtown production boards with Muir’s graphics and Humpston’s Dogtown script, then the pro models for Paul Constantineau, Muir, Bob Biniak, Humpston, and Shogo Kubo. You can see the pro-

gression from prototype to product, and the connection between early board shaping and the oneoff production of Jeff Ho’s handmade Zephyr surfboards. Plus there are original blue Zephyr Competition Team shirts.

There were some interesting Wynn Miller photos of Tony Alva and Dave Hackett among the fullpipes of “Nukeland” in Camp Pendleton, California, and of T.A. frontside airing over flaming coping at “Gonzo’s pool” in South Santa Monica.

There was film set designer J. Andre Chaintreuil’s blueprints for the re-creation of the now-defunct Dog Bowl, site of the first frontside air. The replica pool was constructed under Alva’s supervision and then skated for a mere 3 weeks before being redestroyed. Film set designer Scott Herbertson’s Pacific Ocean Pier demolition set was reminiscent of the deconstructed work of some avant-garde LA architects like Eric Owen Moss and early Frank O. Gehry, and made me wonder if the romantic ghetto destruction of Venice’s Pacific Ocean Pier influenced this type of cultural expression. Most of all, the exhibit made us yearn for short shorts, headbands, and the inevitable new school Logan Earth Ski revival.

-D-Rock and Miss Kim

This Tsawwasen local is quite the little ripster. While we don’t know much about this young pirate, what we do know, we like. One, he’s just a kid, but his kickflips are a foot higher than yours, old man.

Get off that lardy ass, and start in on the kickflip trainer. This kid’s coming up. He rides for Vital, last we heard...Word!

D-Rock + Miss Kim

Radkins Diet: Ghetto Biscotti When those Duffins day-olds turn into month-olds, use this ancient Roman recipe - get out the table saw, rip ‘em into 3/4” strips, and dunk ‘em into a styro-cup of tepid Folgers for that true Roman Holiday Inn flavour. Due to its brevity and low quality, this week’s Radkins Diet also features a bonus Donut-o-scope, boldly stolen from the new Dose daily “Pisces: Hitchhiking around the world while being sponsored by two different donut companies is pretty sweet, but eat some veggies too.” So dig in and enjoy those teeth while you can.

-D-Rock and Miss Kim

JOHN IRVINE ROCK2FAKIE BONSOR “There’s a naked skier comin’ down the hill” With skate season back in a big way I figured I should tell you about a day I spent surrounded by hippies. It all started when I was offered a ride to some free concert at Whistler’s Telus Ski and Snowboard Festival. I accepted. The band, called The String Cheese Incident, were pretty fun, but the real story is that I happened, by sheer luck, to stand behind one of the most entertaining guys ever. I’ve rarely been so glad to have psilocybin and whiskey in my system. Imagine an effeminate Prince Valiant in standard hippie attire… sort of like that fruity prince from the Holy Grail. My first impression was, “now this is the gayest human being I’ve ever seen”. His expression was especially hilarious; a look of gaping, slackjawed wonder that lasted the whole show. And the dance moves! When I first took note of him, he was doing this thing with his hands where he looked like he was trying to contain some invisible force that was trying its damndest to bust loose.

His hands would spread apart... he’d force them back closer together... they’d spread apart... he’d force them together… his entire body was vibrat-

ing. I think what happened from there was that he managed to contain said force and send it back to the band by clasping his hands together, extending his arms, and pointing his fingers at the band. He held that position for quite some time, all the while his body convulsing as if he was having a seizure. I snuck off a few photos but, sadly, they just didn’t capture the essence. Great fun though, hippies are.

- Jeff Chan Jeff will be ripping the rad down under next month with the Mansion locals, including but not limited to East Van pirates, Trevor and Dana; expect a full update on all things drunken and skateable in the next issue.

Correction - Our apologies to Jeff for fucking up and not putting his name on that brilliant tome, Jake Fuckin’ Brown! Dude, you’re slippin’. And one more thing Cory - that photo was taken by Michael TSE, not TEE. Not TEE, not TEE, not TEE. That’s right, rub our noses in it.

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 29

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 30

Comics

CROSSWORD

Finish this crossword and you win 2 TICKETS to the BELVEDERE show at PUB 340 in Van. Saturday May 14th, so there.

Bring your completed puzzles in person:to The Nerve office weekdays between 12- 5pm or you can mail them to:The Nerve 508-825 Granville St. Vancouver, BC V6Z-1K9

-by Dan Scum

Episode 12

Across 1. ___ Sawyer 4. Ride a Board 9. Skateboarding legend Tony 13. Mr. Christie bestseller 15. Skateboard “Spanky” Long’s first name 16. Duty 17. North Van Skaters (MacKay,etc.)

19. Bro’s counterpart 20. Latino term 21. PGA champion David 22. Kiwi Sk8r Robertson 24. Vocal solo 25. Active ingredient in pot 28. Pester 30. Pressure meas.

31. Local Computer Networks 34. College cheer 35. Old Skool Kaupas 37. Shy 38. DiFranco or Kyd 39. ___ Chi 40. Pig leg 41. Prisoner 42. Gump Worsely’s real name 44. Internet Service Provider 45. Korean car company 46. Not near 47. Team Toke Mess 49. Utmost degree 50. An STD 52. Jizz 54. NERVE editor 55. Film workers union 59. Digits

60. Skater on Jackass 65. L x W 66. Standing upright 67. Burn slightly 68. West Coast Sk8 Team 69. Postpone 70. Hotmail provider

dered his ex-girlfriend’s friend (Mark) 30. Krylon 32. Roll without pushing 33. A Beauty personifying nature 36. Tobacco by-product 42. Lick up 43. Et cetera 46. Trend 48. Mike who sang, “Possessed to Skate” 51. 33 down companions 53. Thrasher, Transworld, etc.

54. Afghanistan region, Tora ____ 56. Abound 57. Mexican Missuses 58. Merit through hard work 59. ___ Mahal 60. Sleep place 61. ___ you experienced 62. Name of 2 of the Spice Girls 63. 1/3 of The Beastie Boys 64. Steel building builder

Down 1. Ripped 2. Mine finds 3. Rx Pills 4. Style of The Specials or Reel Big Fish 5. Beer vat 6. Pet doctor’s org. (US) 7. Sardines packaging 8. Danny Way has 2 9. Old skooler doing hard time in Hawaii for smuggling Crystal Meth 10. The Search for ______ _____ (Pioneer Sk8 vid, dumbass!)

11. Sissy 12. Lick it up band (abrv.)

14. Ocean Data Acquisition System Last Issue’s Solution: 18. Sheckler or Nyquist 21. Three prefix 23. Person with an X and a Y Chromosome 24. Butt 25. Song on a CD 26. Ho Chi Min city 27. Teacup and Tub in East Van 29. Depraved skater who raped and mur-

THE NERVE MAY 2005 PAGE 31

available May 24