FREE
Vol. 2 No. 2 March / April 2001
in Vancouver & Victoria, BC Canada: $2.50 USA: US$2.00 Overseas: $3.50 Cdn
A Mag for Fun & Freedom s Sake!
How the
Supersuckers
Are Trying to Free the West Memphis Three An Interview with Eddie Spaghetti
IN THIS ISSUE
Editor’s Blurb What? Already? The only thing about doing another one of these, another issue, that is, is that I gotta stay sober long enough to make sure everybody else does what they are supposed to do and make sure those that don’t are punished appropriately. Can a guy be one of those dominatrix girls? I’d be pretty fuckin’ good at it by now. Hell, sometimes I miss the old days when it was just good ol’ A.D. MADGRAS and Atomick Pete bringin’ in two articles a piece and then we’d throw it up on line, call it a day, then go out and get stinko. But not anymore, baby. We now have a responsibility to thousands upon thousands of people to provide them with quality literature to enliven and enrich their lives. Yep, that’s us… and it keeps getting better. Why, just the other day I had somebody come up to me and say, “Hey, you’re that Nerve guy.” And I said, “Jesus pal, I feel like I’ve known you my whole life.” Now, I know you’ve all been talking about it for the past few months and I am here to tell you that yes, it is true. The next issue is indeed the long awaited !SEX! issue of The Nerve. Now listen, what I ask of all you writers, artists, photographers, circus performers and amateur pornographers, is to send me, the highly respected editor of Vancouver’s most banned magazine, your sex stories, pics, artwork, musings, fantasies, bad experiences or real good ones, videos, smears, lewd pictures of your ex-girlfriends or boyfriends (can’t forget about those) or whatever else you’ve managed to do that might get me all excited (it don’t take much these days, kids). Deadline is April 15th. I thank you in advance. The Editor The Nerve would like to extend a gracious thanks to that punk Jason for helping with distribution last time, to Wendy and Jason at The Cobalt for being so god damn hardcore and helping us keep this rag on the streets, to The Wet Ones, The Chafed and Thought Crime for playing a benefit for The Nerve last month and to Chris for printing those brilliant NO FUN CITY t-shirts (see ad in this issue). If you don’t have one yet, I suggest you get your shit together and pick one up. You can e-mail us at nofuncity@thenerveonline.com or call us at 899-2406 for details.
The Nerve is: General Submission Guidelines from the Editor:
CD reviews: No longer than 150 words with Scan of cover graphic. Live Show Reviews (all kinds): Call us before you submit. Please, I insist. Interviews: I am free after 6:00 p.m. most weekdays. Film Reviews: No longer than 150 words with at least 2 bottles of beer. Columns: I like column people and long walks on the beach. No pets. Call me. 734-1611
A LETTER!
Sir, I must thank y’all for the delightful review in your brassy new format. However I should make some corrections for the sake of journalistic accuracy. Our name is spelled with two M’s at the end (as the old adage goes”...as long as they spell your name right.” And the song quoted in question is entitled “I Kissed All The Girls At The Party” featuring the mantra “ ...and The ‘I Want Your Body Pressed Against Mine Without Complications.’” Thanks ever so! Lil Hamm Canned Hamm Hey Lil Hamm, Thanks. Instead of having to put in another eye-sore errata, I’ll just run your letter! The Editor
Publishers: Pierre Lortie, Bradley C. Damsgaard Editor-in-Chief: Bradley C. Damsgaard Music Editor: Paul Crowley Design and Graphics: Pierre Lortie, Bradley C. Damsgaard Staff Writers: Atomick Pete, A. D. MADGRAS, Liz Wakefield, D. Cat, Billy Tender Flake, Mike O, Brian Lindgreen, Mittens, Jeff Oliver, Matt Prendergast, Michael D. Dammitt, Paul Crowley, Casey Bourque, Jason LeBlanc, Brian Else, Core, Sinister Sam, Matt Whalley, Jason Ainsworth Other Contributors: Dexter R'lyeh, Elizabeth Nolan, Bliss, Rusty, Ronald Barbour Illustration: Mike O Photography: Jessica Laura, Sprout Ad Sales: Mike O Copy Editing::Grace Chin Pre-Press, Printing, Binding:: Horizon Distribution: The Nerve crew in the rippin’ NerveMobile Cover photo: Casey Bourque The Nerve is published bi-monthly by the Nerve Magazine Ltd. (604)899-2406, (604)632-9654 (fax) Circulation: 10 000 in Vancouver, Victoria and via subscriptions. The opinions expressed by the writers and artists do not necessarily reflect those of the Nerve Magazine, its publishesr or editors. First publishing rights only are property of the Nerve Magazine. 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. Copyright 2000 The Nerve Magazine Ltd. Box 88042, China Town PO, Vancouver BC, V6A 4A4
Uncensored - Viewer Discretion Advised
The Supersuckers pp. 10-11
Overperson p. 13
Snatching the Superbowl
Jeff Oliver Attends the Vagina Monulogues p. 5
Crustyp. Records 10
SECTIONS
Live Wires p. 6 Off the Record p. 16 Straight 8 p. 12 Free Energy p. 9 God Has Forsaken Us p. 14 Urban Ink p. 14
COLUMNS Civixen p. 4 Who Else p. 8 Blue Movies p.19
Hey, it’s No Fun City Wear it with Pride!! No Fun City T-shirts
Only $12 tx incl.
Black w. No Fun City logo on front Comes in M / L / XL
Girlie Ts available soon! Get them at
Does Your Mother Know? 2139 W. 4th Ave. Vancouver, BC
or Mail Order
Send Cheque or Money Order to Box 88042 Chinatown PO, Vancouver, BC V6A 4A4 Add $2 for Shipping and Handling.
CIVIXEN
by Leather Twatson
“Lubin’ the Hoop for Trade”
A
tray of orange wedges and a healthy dousing of Gatorade for the returning heroes of Team Canada! Huzzah!! But... what’s this? Said Team Canada isn’t “really” a plucky sports franchise after all, but rather a tired old dog-and-pony show designed to drum up foreign trade, most of it in fact already drummed up many months before.
It makes for a good sound bite and photo op, though (this year, in the novelty tent, see the 12 year-old business whiz! Finally, someone who can expose those sweatshop workers for the underachievers they are!); that seems to be the idea. Remember when they used to just call them “trade delegations”? Did I miss a class? Is this some transparently paper-thin attempt to manufacture the kind of jingoistic support usually reserved for Olympic athletes? Is this illusion that “somewhere there are cheerleaders” meant to provoke in us, the apathetic People of the Beaver, a groundswell of enthusiasm of epic proportions? For “foreign trade”?? I’m here to tell you... that shit is weak. I think it’s damned unseemly in the first place to be whoring our nation’s wares to China - you remember, it’s the country that aims the tank barrels at the people with the shopping bags. Not exactly the right kind of message, when you really think about it. Even though that guy with the bag staring down those tanks didn’t die that day, I guess in the eyes of PM Poutine and his bordello of trade hoes, he has become a martyr... not of democracy, but of consumerism. Consumerism, it seems, is the sweeter pill to swallow and to prescribe. The trade hoes of Team Canada clearly value what might have been in the guy’s bag over the guy himself. What a truly excellent irony it would be if that guy’s bag had contained only his laundry. Is anyone else getting a little nauseated by the shameless licking of chops that goes on whenever “China” and “trade” are mentioned in the same sentence? All you ever hear from the giddy PM and his back-slapping cronies is the rhapsodic cry of “it’s the biggest market in the world, how can you ignore that?” Well, Captain Integrity, you try! Deep down, even Zsa Zsa knows she can’t have everything that sparkles. So you turn your head and you focus on something else. So you defer the pantloads of money you’ve fixated on for your entire sorry life. Despite the whiff of formaldehyde about them, I can assure you, the hard-liners in China won’t actually last forever. The release of the recent Tiananmen Papers shows that reformers are closer than ever to achieving real power in China. Why the fuck should we reward half-stepping?? How about a little dignity? Are we that desperate? Let them come to us ... is that so unheard of ? Let them prove to us that everything’s cool and that everybody’s a Fonzie. I think they know what we expect by now, and if they don’t, that’s our fault. My heart bleeds a shitload more for Johnny Tibet than it does for Little Lord Fauntleroy, the 12 year-old darling of Team Canada. If Canada has to wait another few years for full, open trade with China, maybe Celine & René will sell slightly fewer crappy CDs to an unsuspecting Chinese public (that’s a GOOD thing; why, WHY can’t they see?!?). If Tibet has to wait another few decades for freedom from Chinese rule, if Falun Gong practitioners have to live in abject terror because the government finds their meditation creepy ... well, at least Bombardier got a foot in the door (and before anyone else, too! It’s easy when those pesky morals don’t get in
Team Canada does China
your way).
This much-ballyhooed “engagement” with China seems to consist of nothing more than our trade hoes applying lube to themselves and then bending over so they can take it deeper up the hoop (while across town their daddy is giving a lecture on safe sex). If Team Canada were one of my girlfriends, I’d be telling her to pull up her pants and get her ass on home. And when we got there, I’d be giving her a good shake and a lecture about self-respect. Like a lot of hoes, these ones will tell you they’re the ones in control. But if the big PiMp tells you you’re going to get ass-raped and you’re going to like it, well, sugar, you might as well be inflatable… for all your opinion matters. Take it from Leather, baby, it’s hard to get them to be gentle once they’ve seen in your eyes how badly you want it. So Sam Price & Kate Woznow (having paid their own money, traveled under their own names and having risked their own personal safety) unfurl their principles just as the trade hoes are slipping on their special Chinese knee pads. Sam & Kate, stopped in flagrante moralis, are then HECKLED by several members of Team Canada (if this were hockey, they’d be the enforcers) who may simply have been startled by the bright sunlight so imperceptible to them under the rocks where they make their reptilian homes. That’s right, my homeys were heckled. As in, told to “shut up” and “get their facts straight”. Kate was also criticized for being “unladylike”. Well, how perfectly scandalous for the ole Team (and its bat boy) to have to fuss and bother with all this to-do and carryings-on, in front of company, no less (I’m sorry, but “unladylike”??? Did our entire trade delegation just step out of a fucking Tennessee Williams play?)! Clearly, Team Canada has some stiff competition for Most Valuable Asshole. How convenient, too, that the hecklers managed to find (on short notice, and in a foreign land, no less) a cloak of anonymity big enough to wrap around themselves ... and how gallant of the other Team Canada members to help them get on with it! Hmmm... I wonder why we’re never going to find out who the hecklers were? It seems odd, too, that they are apparently privy to some earth-shattering new facts about Tibet that have eluded the rest of the globe. If the hecklers are so proud of this hard-won knowledge, as their outbursts would suggest, why don’t they now go public with what they know to be the truth? Don’t Sam, Kate and the rest of us (not to mention poor, beleaguered old Johnny Tibet) deserve to have our minds enlightened by these sages? Maybe they just don’t care about us poor ignorant slobs. Then again, maybe the hecklers are just your average cowards, afraid to risk domestic wrath for foreign assholery (and I’m sure that’s an isolated incident). I don’t suppose bullying impassioned co-eds while on foreign business would be the kind of thing that could be explained away with a mere press conference. Team Canada is shaping up to involve quite a little code of silence. How nice that Canadians abroad can maintain omerta, even when the eyes of the world are upon them. So, since unladylike behaviour is right in my office, I’m calling those chicken-ass hecklers out on the mat. I think Canada deserves to know which members of OUR Team behaved like little fuckfaces to Sam & Kate (who were, after all, expressing an opinion a growing number of Canadians share). I’m kind of surprised no one’s thought of sending Sam & Kate to a police sketch artist! We’ll let newspapers with money handle that one, or maybe I’ll just bribe the 12 year-old with a couple of issues of Playboy. If the fuckfaces want to come forward and accept the label of fuckface, it might be easier on them ... because if I have to out them, you just know I’m going to do it gleefully. With apologies to James Carville: it’s about karma, stupid.
...it’s damned unseemly in the first place to be whoring our nation’s wares to China - you remember, it’s the country that aims the tank barrels at the people with the shopping bags.
Leather Twatson
Jeff Oliver attends the Vagina Monologues
Snatching the Superbowl
I
was a major pussy. Too cowardly to break up with my girlfriend, I vanished instead. Poof! My phone went unanswered, e-mails too; my only trace was a string of cryptic phone messages bewailing family emergencies, work deadlines, funerals – all culprits for my absence from your sweet, sweet arms. In short, I pulled a Hoffa.
It bought me about three weeks. Then, one rainy day before Superbowl Sunday, the letter-o-death arrived: We have a date, it read, no excuses. Cue the eerie violin music as two tickets fall from the envelope into my trembling hands: Westside Theatre Presents - The Vagina Monologues, Sunday, January 28, at 7 p.m. Superbowl Sunday. Now granted, I’m not exactly a football fanatic. I love a good game – but this is more than just a game; it is THE game, an athletic zenith, and second to jerking off to cyberporn, the most holy of male rituals. The Superbowl! A celebration of manhood, beer, violence and scantily-clad cheerleaders. To miss the Superbowl for The Vagina Monologues, its estrogenic antithesis, is worse than wrong - it’s sacrilege! But I had to go. She had me cornered - and the anger I felt for her little scheduling mishap might fuel my determination to finally break it off. My buddy Beetle was there for the appropriate advice. “Dude,” he said. “I got dragged to the Monologues too. Roseanne Barr spotted me in the crowd, shoved a microphone in my face and asked if I like the smell of pussy.” “Jesus, what did you do?” “Are you nuts? I told her it’s like a field of lilacs.” Then he paused, shaking his head mournfully. “Now Pauline doesn’t wash.” The Vagina Monologues is a spoken word performance based on over 200 interviews about women’s experiences with their genitalia. Written and originally performance by Eve Ensler, the show was so successful in its first North American tour that anybody-who’s-anybody-with-a-vagina wanted a piece of the show. As a result, Oprah has performed the Vagina Monologues. So has Wynona Ryder, Gloria Steinem, Alanis Morrisette, Nell Carter and (believe it!) Roseanne Barr. Dealing with issues as quirky as bad vibrators and insensitive gynecologists, to heavier issues like sexual abuse and genital mutilation, the monologues are framed by four main questions: If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear? If your vagina could talk, what would it say? What does your vagina look like? What does your vagina smell like? The lobby is abuzz with middle aged women in silk blouses and brooches. They are in circles and they giggle. They seem to be giggling about their vaginas. Young gay men in pink uniforms and pouty lips hand out “Exploring Your Vagina” leaflets. I take one in an attempt to blend in, but am spotted by a grizzly guy in a football jersey who recognizes me as a fellow breeder. “Got screwed out of the Superbowl too, huh?” he says. I nod glumly. “Who you got?” he asked. “Baltimore. By seven. You?” “Giants.” “Ten bucks?” I whisper, looking both ways. “Done.” We shake on it, smile, and then walk in separate directions like two inmates planning a jailbreak. Just then, Genia, my girlfriend, sneaks up from behind me and licks my ear. “Long time no see, boyfriend,” she said hotly, and then pinches my ass. “Hope you’re ready to catch up in the sack later. My vaj is on fire….” Her lasciviousness doesn’t surprise me. But it does disturb me. See, the very reason that I must break up with Genia is that I can’t stand the sex. Now don’t get me wrong - Genia is a very attractive and sensual woman with a lot to offer the right guy. Unfortunately, though, she’s a snorter. That is, during sex, she snorts and grunts hog-wild like Babe in the City. It’s the one thing that I can’t stand. Consequently, I want to steer clear of that excitable area that triggers the horrific snorting: her vagina. This is not an easy thing to tell a woman. But I had a plan.…
Bar none, the best way to break up with a woman is to let them dump you first; just act like complete pond scum, and they’ll do the rest. I believe deeply in this tactic since it protects the egos on both sides and removes the painful face to face ‘let’s be friends’ aspect of breaking up. So, I did what I had to do: I brought a Walkman to the Vagina Monologues. And when the curtain rises and the actresses take the stage, I’m gonna blast the Superbowl as loud as I can! She’ll dust me before intermission.… The theatre darkens. Rows of soft red chairs face an intimate stage with purple velvet drapes folded in the background. A spotlight opens to three women (Lisa Leguillou, Julie Halston and Lois Smith) who sit on leather stools with cue cards and microphones. Leguillou (of NYPD Blue fame) goes first. She wears all black, is barefoot, and her legs are dangerously ajar. “In the beginning there was the word, and the word was vagina!” The crowd giggles off the bat. “It sounds like a medical instrument, doesn’t it: ‘hurry nurse, bring me the vagina!’” More laughter. Some women are already in tears. Slowly, I pull the Walkman out from my coat pocket and ease an earphone into my left ear. I fix the dial to sports central and inch the volume upwards... “...Ravens have the ball at the forty-four yard line, Dilford with call action play… And a straight shot to Johnson down the middle - complete! He goes left, and takes off across the forty, to the thirty….” I smile. Sweet Superbowl XXXV, and any minute now, my girlfriend will also be an X. I raise the volume a bit more to make sure. “Johnson crosses the twenty, to the ten, the five he’s going, going, going.…” But then, something horrible happened. A disaster. My batteries ran out. They sunk and faded until the cheering fans, crunching tackles, the joyful shrieks of the Superbowl sportscasters were barely audible, and all I could hear was: “MY VAGINA IS AN ECCENTRIC TULIP!” It was Julie Halston (of Twister) with the microphone, and she is faking tears. Through the persona of an elderly British woman, she is telling the bitter-sweet story of a masturbation workshop in which she examined her vulva with a hand mirror. “MY VAGINA IS ACUTE AND DEEP; THE SCENT, DELICATE; THE PETALS GENTLE AND STURDY. CRY FOR MY WONDERFUL VAGINA!!!! ” I almost cry too. Despair! My Walkman useless, my plan moot, I plunge my face into my hands. Genia notices and strokes my hair. “I didn’t realize you were so sensitive,” she whispers. Then she puts her hand on my knee and squeezes. “I’ll take care of you, baby.” Snort, snort, snort… With nothing left to do, I watch the Monologues. I watch Lois Smith (from Frasier) perform a piece called “The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy,” and sing a symphony of moaning orgasms; I watch Leguillo perform a horrifying account of a rape survivor in a Bosnian prison camp, and Julie Halston do a six year old Texan girl born without genitals. Granted, the content was at times sentimental, but more often was deeply touching and in many cases educational. For example: did you know that in five states in the US, the sale of vibrators is against the law? The same five states permit the legal sale of handguns. “I never heard of anybody committing mass murder with a vibrator,” Halston says. I had to laugh. And as I continued to watch, the whole idea of the Vagina Monologues made more sense to me. It wasn’t just a petty glorification of the female genitalia, but a unification of the stories that make it perhaps the most interesting and certainly the most political part of the human anatomy. By curtain call they’d won me over. I was a changed man; I was a vagina lover! The lobby was flooded with them. Except for one. “Hey dude,” he said, wagging a ten dollar bill at me. “Ravens won. Here’s your ten-spot!” “It’s not about that!” I said irritably, stomping past. He stood there utterly befuddled, the ten-spot limp in his hand. Genia and I went to dinner. I ordered the oysters. “So,” she said. “What did you think?” “It was unbelievable,” I beamed. I couldn’t contain myself. “The courage those women had to tell their stories. The glory of their self-discovery. The beauty and power of their vaginas….”
If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear? If your vagina could talk, what would it say? What does your vagina look like? What does your vagina smell like?
See Vagina Monologues on p. 18 5
The Causey Way w/ Red Light Sting and Captured By Robots The Piccadilly Pub, Vancouver January 26, 2001
The Causey Way Live at the Pic.
Photo: Casey Bourque
T
he fat, animatronic ape tipped me off: tonight was going to be weird. Captured By Robots, which is one real guy and three or so mechanical bandmates, launched into their set. No shit. The drummer robot actually gripped the sticks in his robot hands and hit the drums. The ape just sat there, putting his two cents in between songs. The human did voices for all the bandmates and played some entertaining Gwar-inspired songs while everyone watched, not quite believing their eyes. The bots were followed by local spazzsters Red Light Sting, who seem to come equipped with their very own set of enthusiastic fans. They barely kept it together through a short but raucous set, adding to a growing reputation for live mayhem. Their style of messy rock made one point clear: these were no machines, but humans, capable of falling down, bumping into one another and screaming quite loudly. By the time the headliners hit the stage the crowd was noticeably agitated for no apparent reason, except that they say trouble has a way of following The Causey Way around. I figured it was just some more press bio bullshit (from a band with more than its share). Their shtick is this: Causey’s their leader and lead singer. He runs a pseudo-religious compound in Florida, his bandmates are among his followers and they travel the land to spread the word of Causey. The Causey Way, you see? I figure this makes anything I hear about them as believable as, say, Diana Ross’ face. But that was before I watched a girl get a glass smashed over her head, before some guy started a fight with Causey while the band was still warming up and before someone hurtled a beer bottle toward the stage that brought their set to a shattering close. Suddenly, the rumours about him pulling a gun on unruly crowds didn’t seem so far fetched. Not quite lost in all the action was the fact that the band brought the house down musically. They are a tight, surf-punk kind of outfit with lots of keyboards. Causey, wearing David Koresh-issue tinted glasses and with scraggly hair, knows how to handle both his guitar and the crowd. His mid-show “sermons” almost made me want to give it all up and join his wacky cult. They all wore white, because that’s cult-like, and the rest of the band made weird hand gestures in the air every once in a while. Anyway, the band is a ton more talented than their carefully-crafted image lets on. Paul Crowley
Culture
at The Commodore, Vancouver Feb. 10, 2001
W
ho were these people standing around me? Did they think they were Hippies? They appeared to be Commercial Drive’s finest, the kind of people you see drumming in circles or reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I couldn’t help but scream in my head: “Shave your beard! You remind of Jesus the Son of God and it’s a fucking bringdown, all right?” It may seem silly but this wasn’t the type of crowd I expected to show-up at a reggae concert. “But Bob Marley is like a Hippie god, isn’t he?” Yes, little Moonbeam, that is correct, but reggae was actually most closely associated with the militant politics of punk. A common desperation created both styles of music back in the mid-70’s, and they were quickly blended. There was Bob Marley’s “Punky Reggae Party,” Dillinger’s “Funky Punk” and Lee “Scratch” Perry’s producing credit on the Clash’s first record. The Clash created the strongest link by taking influences from newspaper headlines and the Culture album “Two Sevens Clash.”
This punk and reggae connection was no where to be found at Culture’s show at the Commodore on Feb. 10. Gray hair and blonde dreadlocks bobbed in the crowed and I could only think of “White Man in Hammersmith Palais.” But Culture brought the heavy rhythms, plain and simple. Joseph Hill, with his eyes rolling back in his head, chanted and stomped as the white Rasta all agreed that life would be better in Zion. A kind of implosion happened at the beginning of some songs, indicating a miscommunication on the band’s part, but things were otherwise smooth. The other two singers in Culture remained stone cool throughout the show, acting as if any response to the music would be taken as a direct challenge to Joseph Hill’s stage presence. It wasn’t a problem because Hill more than filled his duties, doing the James Brown shuffle and stomping his feet. The backing band mostly played it nonchalant, except for the wild guitarist that looked like he’d attempted to dress as a Chinese peasant but wound up looking more like he’d worn his pajamas to work. Despite the curious look, his fuzz-toned, Curtis Mayfield-inspired solos cut through the bass and shined light on his true funkiness. He stepped to the front of the stage and laid out solos while his eyes rolled back in his head and he grimaced liked he’d swallowed his tongue. Hill lead his troops tirelessly through their set of militant reggae, only stopping between songs to give words of wisdom that were heavily distorted by the sound system. When introducing Culture’s tribute to Bob Marley, It sounded like was referring to Marley as “the Skipper”. They sang praise to reggae’s ambassador to the world, which received much approval from the audience. They only departed from their reggae roots once to play a mambo tune, which was kind of strange, but Joseph Hill is famous for having eclectic tastes. After the show ended I found myself lost in dance hall full of the hemp clad and ironically, all I could think of Dillinger toasting “Funky Punk, All Dressed in Junk.” It is strange to think of that old picture of Johnny Rotten staring at the camera while Big Youth laughed beside him and shook his natty dreads. Reggae and Punk have apparently gone their separate ways, but both can reminisce about when the “Two Sevens Clashed.” Matt Whalley
natures testicles; ask anybody) visited our table, spilled a drink, and then made a theatrical display of slamming the rest of his beer before quickly departing, never to be heard from again. There was about an hour or so of solid, well executed 16th notes and enough taste to not scream incessantly. They played an old Pretenders song that was well received. It’s on their new CD. Buy it. As the evening wore on my mind deteriorated ever more into mush, despite my reduced imbibing rate due to the silly “big time bar” prices. GG Dartray and the Spoilers (correct me if I am wrong, Mr. MADGRAS) [Ed. Note: MADGRAS is back in detox and of no help to you now] had the honor of closing the evening. They got off to a powerful start by making their entrance in drag and breaking into a version of Blur’s ‘Boys & Girls’ (if that’s not the name of the song, I bet you know what I’m referring to so shut up!). I wrote something in my notes about gender bending goodness or some such thing (it is hard to tell, as my pink pen had been confiscated by this point and whatever I was using to write with left not lines, but fat orange smears). Then I got some free stuff from the bands (a CD, some stickers, a stick-on facial carpet), got bored, and went home (I love parentheses). Spartacus Jones
The Golers,Alcoholic White Trash, Blem de la Blem
The Cobalt, Vancouver Feb. 17th, 2001
Hissy Fit (CD Release Party) w/ The Status, The Orientals and GG Dartray and the Spoilers The Starfish Room, Vancouver Fri. Feb 9th, 2001
To tell you the truth, I don’t even remember the date of the show. [Ed. note: It’s o.k., I’m used to it from you people] Now it’s crawled up on me like a motorcycle hiding in my blind spot for the past twenty miles. Waiting for my meekest moment, then – wham! – taking initiative on a pass. It was a Friday, I guess, maybe a Saturday. Nope, it was definitely a Friday. I remember, now, because I had gotten off work early (around noon) and had headed straight to the cheapest bar I could find. Six or seven hours later I found myself in The Starfish Room for the illustrious Hissy Fit’s latest CD release party. Hissy Fit have always set a good example of D.I.Y. initiative and dedication and they’ve accomplished more through sheer willpower than many a dedicated artist. Looking now through my notes, I see that The Status opened the show for the evening. I seem to remember them as being... on stage... wearing black.… Now, you have to understand that it was not until after The Status played their set that I was approached by our esteemed editor to cover this gig. At that time, being twenty-four sheets to the wind, I suddenly had a mission. I hastily ran around the bar and scrounged up a pen Hissy Fit’s Gisele Grignet Photo: Tawnya Crowshoe and paper for some notes before the next act began. This same pen and paper came in extremely handy while writing such helpful notes as “git away from me stash!” and “avocados are nature’s testicles.” The Orientals ruled! I haven’t had as much fun without breaking the law for quite some time. I think my “stash” note was inspired by the fact that they, as a band, were 75% mustachioed, and gave away wonderful stick-on facial carpets. After Hissy Fit started, I vaguely remember that A.D. MADGRAS (avocados really are
Golers partying after their show at the Cobalt
Photo: wendythirteen
T
he smell of smoke and booze in the air was thick. Nearly as thick as the mob that thrashed in frenzied abandon in front of the stage at The Cobalt on Saturday night when Blem de la Blem finally got on stage. The band, which originally formed in Victoria but relocated to Vancouver about 10 years ago, dedicated their show to Living Evil guitar player Vlad, a staunch metal supporter who is also dying of cancer. Guitarist and vocalist Jason LeBlanc, bassist Sector and Drummer Keith Neuman blitzed their way through seven songs of hardcore crossover metal, wrenching out gothic-sounding, effectssoaked guitar and then blazing into technical death. Alcoholic White Trash, named after their skinpounder’s 10-year-old, 50-member drinking team, featured Ratboy Roy on vocals, Gino (Ted Bundy Project) on guitar, J. Brown (Boner Dog, ex-Drone) on drums, and Knuckles (The Shivs, ex-Drunktank) on bass. They ripped out 17 high energy tunes of loud, fast, angry New York-based hardcore metal with a set that consisted of mostly original songs with crowd-flooring cover of Sabbath’s N.I.B. thrown in as a bonus. AWT then topped themselves by hitting the beer-addled crowd with the Misfits’ “Die, Die My Darling,” sung in Portuguese! The Golers closed the night, playing all 14 tracks from their ‘99 release South Mountain Style, six new songs and a cover tune. The Vancouver-based quartet blasted through their set like a Panzer division on speed, delivering their hyper-kinetic brand of mountain moshing music to the wildly gesticulating dervishes in the pit. Guitarist and vocalist Walter Mason set the pace with the frenetic punishment he delivered to his guitar, pounding it so hard he was forced to tune up after every song. In a word, their set was powerful... no... more like brutal... wait ... punishing.... total fucking devastation! Yeah... that’s it. These guys are pure adrenaline on stage. Catch them! The venue got another dose of energy when Slayer’s Jeff Hannemann and Kerry King (who are in town recording their next opus), came in to scope out the local action. At a time when most clubs are plying their patrons with sing-along-canned music, it’s great to see that The Cobalt remains one of the best places for hardcore and metal in western Canada. Ronald B. Barbour
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By Brian Else
The Most Annoying Man in Rock
Aaahh… friends and country men. We’ve been busy here in Vancouver. In case you haven’t heard, I’m recording and producing the upcoming punk rawk TROOPER tribute album SHOT SPOTS to be released sometime in April. So far there are around 27 different bands and the recording process has been anything but dull thanx to our fuckin’ awesome friends at R&B Brewing co. (beer gods) for a lot of great memories and some nasty hang-overs (not for me of course, I’m an angel) (Editor’s Note: Yeah, right, push it up someone else’s ass Else). Anyway, some of the more memorable moments so far have been all the happy folks hanging out (how come I didn’t get a lap dance? over the last month, partying doing silly things and havin’ fun watchin’ us try to figure out how to make TROOPER cool again. Hmmmm? D.O.A.: Raise a Little Hell. Denis from Vancouver Custom tattooed their autographs on my arm as they laid down the tracks and everybody got a nice, happy buzz going on while ANI KYD did our first and only (so far) drunkin’ faceplant. Rock ‘n’ fuckin’ Roll. THE REAL MCKENZIES: It’s been a long time and damn, those guys partied all day long then did a great show that night at THE COBALT. LUMMOX: Santa Maria. Quite possibly one of most drunken renditions ever recorded and a damn fine example of how punk rock should be done. Let’s just say they changed some of the words a little. THOR: (he’s baaacckk!!): Mr. Big. After a 16 year hiatus, still has some Satan in him. keep an eye out for his new album out soon. (BUY RAVEN ALE) [Ed. Note.: Hey, no gratuitous plugs!] SNFU: Covered We’re Here For a Good Time and, as usual, kicked some serious ass and drank some serious beer. HUSKAVARNA: Live From the Moon with JOEY SHITHEAD on the chainsaw and GOGO of TROOPER with keys. There is definitely something in the water in Whistler and I want some, fuck acid or mushrooms, drink the water. (hey guys, dude wants his chicken back). CHRIS HOUSTON, JERRY DOUCETTE, STEPHEN DRAKE, and a bunch of others that I can’t remember right now cause I’m drunk! Sorry guys! JP5: $100 000. Made the pizza guy run away screaming in some other language with no money or pizza, what a gas. SEDIMENT: Baby Woncha Please Come Home. With guest LANCE CHALMERS On guitar. (jack of all trades). (BUY RED DEVIL BEER) [Ed. Note: Oh fuck off Else] I MUDDER ACCORDIAN: Werkin’ Like a Dog. Punk and polka go together so nice. GROOVEMONGER: Round Round We Go. And of course there’s a lot of other great bands too many to mention and one’s we’re not done with yet, like: VICTORIAN PORK with SMITTY from TROOPER, MICKEY CHRIST, EXIT THIS SIDE, MUDSLINGER, FACEPULLER, DIRTY BIRD, DAYGLO ABORTIONS, CUCKSOCKER, STAGMUMMER, E VA P O R A T O R S , THE RIPCORDZ, TRANSVESTAMENTALS if I left anybody out or spelt your name wrong or fucked up in any other way… oops! Sorry, I’m drunk so it’s Bradley “Editor Boy” ’s fault so send him the hate mail… fuck it, do that anyway! Hahaha (BUY R&B BREWERS FUCKIN’ BEER) [Last Ed. Note: Um, Brian? Can I see you in the alley for a second?]
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Green Party Benefit Railway Club, Vancouver January 25th, 2001
A
ni Kyd left the stage and Joe “Shithead” Keithley stepped to the mic to tell us we were all a bunch of motherfuckers. He was obviously in his cups but still doing a decent job of MCing the Green Party benefit. After a ten-minute intermission Joey got back on the stage with his acoustic guitar and kicked out his own brand of protest songs. Without turning his back on his roots in punk, Joey Shithead has apparently been able to reshape himself musically in the mold of Woody Guthrie or Leadbelly, a song by whom he began his set with a mildly altered version of. Songs written by dusty wandering minstrels in the depression era translate rather well to Joe Keithley’s vein of interests. He performed a mixture of DOA’s later recordings as well as his own acoustic compositions. He told a story about hitchhiking near Vernon in the dead of winter, declaring his utter mistrust of good honest church folk. He ended his story by stating, “I’d rather reign in Hell, than be a stooge in Heaven”. A somewhat mutated quote from John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” but true to his point none the less. Joey put on a good show proving that just because you play an acoustic guitar, you don’t have to be soft. Joey left and returned to the stage again to call us a bunch of motherfuckers and announce that Burry Greenfeld would be next. A short, round man with a mustache that looked terribly out of place in the crowed rose to the stool on the stage accompanied by a hand drummer and a slide guitar player. This was Burry Greenfeld’s first live performance in twenty years but he appeared to be very comfortable on stage. As a folk musician, Burry Greenfeld had gone in the exact opposite of direction from Keithley. He sounded more like Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell than Leadbelly. He had the same simplicity that Joe Keithley possessed but not the same energy. His song “Landmines” should have been followed by songs entitled “Hostages”, “Whales” or “Pollution”; none of it exactly hit close to home or gave rise to any great emotion. Joey made his final appearance for the evening to tell the crowd that Bob Dog from Dog Eat Dogma was under arrest. Bob Dog eventually showed up at the club with no shoelaces or belt on his pants and a fierce look on his face. “Like I’d hang myself ‘cause of a fifty dollar fine”, he later explained. All his possessions were in a little plastic bag and he seemed to be perspiring nervous energy. He’d been picked up and held for four hours but still made it to the show on time. Dog Eat Dogma played heavy punk rock songs that were only broken up with Bob Dog’s recollections of the evening’s prior events. He cursed a lot then sighed with relief at not being in possession of any marijuana. Bob Dog was pissed off, with good reason, and used it to deliver a great live set. JP5 began setting up their equipment without any fur-
See Green Party on p. 17
The Man Show
aka. It’s A Port Alberni Bush Party December 30th 2000 Thursday’s Tavern, Victoria BC
O
Speedbore,The Shitty’s Pussy Sucka The Cobalt, Vancouver February 19th 2001
P
ussy Sucka... just roll that name around on your tongue... Pussssy Suckaaahhh. It’s magical. It tells it like it is, man. How could a band with a name like that not be a badass gang of muthafuckas straight from the mean streets of some gangsta suburb in California? They were rappin’ and rockin’ and bringin’ the real muthafuckin’ shit on down to the their legions of fans in Vancouver. This is a band that knows how to get things done... they effortlessly took charge of the crowd with their magnetic yet threatening stage presence. Their songs were really intelligent and really made you think about all the fucked up shit in the world. And the beer guzzling contest they hosted was soooo fuckin’ crazy... you shoulda seen those contestants chug back all that Cobalt beer. To sum up, the show was just amazing... everything you could ever want. Pussy Sucka got muthafuckin’ charisma, man... by the lowrider-full. Just kidding. If you hadn’t already guessed, they sucked... really sucked. Anyway, next we had The Shitty’s. It was their first gig together and they must have been pretty pleased to be coming on after the idiotic spectacle (in a bad way) that had been greasing the stage beforehand. The evening could only get better. The Shitty’s are basically the three members of Removal all mixed around, plus another guy. They were loud and they were heavy and they reminded me a bit of Nomeansno. The crowd warmed up to them pretty fast, and they had people wailing around the dance floor for most of the set. I’ve been humming one of their tunes (Anne Drennan is the Fucking AntiChrist) ever since. I want to see them again after they’ve written a few more songs... then I want to buy one of their t-shirts to wear for the next time I visit my girlfriend’s parents. Speedbore was a mixed bag. A local group comprising several members of that fucking first band; they caused me to have an unexpected (and somewhat unwelcome) moment of truth... I really don’t like trios live. I always thought I had, but aside from Motorhead, The Moffats, and other bands of that caliber, I actually tend to find them pretty boring. It’s especially bad when the lead guitarist and singer are the same person (as it was in this case)... it diminishes both aspects. All you end up seeing is a bunch of standing around, and who needs that? On the other hand, I thought Speedbore’s songwriting was really strong and I did enjoy a number of their songs a whole lot. It occurred to me that they would probably go over pretty well on CD, and for all the action I saw from them that night, I might just as well have listening to my stereo. I tried to like them, I really did, and initially they had me hooked, but eventually the lack of anything exciting happening on stage began to wear on me, so I got the hell out of there before they finished their set. Pussy Sucka... Dexter R’lyeh
What is Commin’ Up Atomick Pete’s Picks
So here’s what’s fun comin’ up in No Fun City…
ne thing that has been bugging the shit outta me is the lame-as-hell doofus-fodder that passes for manly culture these days. You ask for Harry Dean Stanton and you get Brad Pitt... you ask for True Detective magazine and you get Maxim. It’s pathetic. With this in mind, the “men” of Victoria’s music scene brewed up a brilliant concept show and staged it at Thursday’s Tavern on the eve of New Year’s Eve. The brainchild of former Timber King and general troublemaker Dave Lang, the idea was to recreate, on stage, an authentic Port Alberni bush party circa 1980. Now, at one time this would have been my worst nightmare realized, but the gestalt has changed and the time was ripe. Dave drummed up the help of such local men as Tolan McNeil (Pigment Vehicle), Garth Johnson (Beach Mutants), Dwayne Strom (Fishing Derby), Hal Hewitt (Huge), Graham Watson (The Smugglers), and John Guliak (The Fixin’s) and put them through lots of man training during the days leading up to the show. Besides a late night armpunching contest (which left several men severely injured), they also built a set that pretty effectively resembled the far end of
That’s about it for major shows. I recommend you check the local
See The Man Show on p. 17
See Previews on p. 18
Hardcore 2001 will feature D.O.A. celebrating their 20th anniversary of punkness, but this show will occur at one of Vancouver’s most unpunk venue, Richards on Richards, on March 29th. The reason for this is that on the same date 20 years ago they played one of Vancouver’s most memorable show with Black Flag and 7 Seconds in the same room, which was then a little punk club called the Laundromat. I wish it still were. Speaking of Vancouver punk veterans that don’t give up the fight, No Means No just kicked off a US tour in support of their new album ‘No One’. When they return from that mostly West Coast trip, they’ll play the Commodore on March 21st. Henry Rollins will be in town for a spoken word performance on Monday April 2nd at the Vogue Theatre. Don’t miss it.
KANDY LUV 2 The Players: B|i5S/Bliss=me the narrator T/Tom=my boyfriend Skinnee T/Trevor=Trevor our good friend Saturday night I dragged Tom (kicking and screaming) and Skinnee T (not so kicking and sceaming) out to: KANDY LUV 2 PRESENTED BY: Kandy Family & Yo Yo Productions DJ’S: Emotion, Nemesis, Dizzee D, Astroglide, High C, Psilocin, Wyatt, Kyomi(ireland), Mykee, Precise, Ill-esha, E-man, Ty, Skyles “On January 27th, 2001 be prepared to get kandied! This party is our second year anniversary. Our goal will be to generate an old school vibe with improvements in production of sound, lighting and disk jockeys. This party is located at a new and very exciting venue. There will be a chill area, coaches, balloons and decorations, and big puffy mascots running around all night. Theme for the night: KANDY. Hope to see you party kids there.” Now I am a HUGE fan of cheese. What are the most cheesiest people of the rave scene today? Hey! Don’t get me wrong, I think Kandy Kids are the cutest things ever to walk this earth! I mean they are living breathing Japanime! I myself am a self-proclaimed “Kandy-Goth” coined by Aura.
The ceiling were 30 feet high in the back 2 sections where there was couches, mattresses, chairs, cushions etc. as a chill space. Many kids lounged in there. The section beside was where the porta potties were. (yuck) The corridor was dimly lit with blue lights. The other 2 sections is where the techno and dancers were. The ceilings were a lot lower. The whole place was sweating. The floors were very slimy. There was 100’s and 100’s of party peeps there. I ran into some of my co-workers @ my new job. That was creepy. heh. On one side of this wall dividing the 2 sections with a door through the middle of it was where the trance was coming from. It was Emotion already playing. We got there fairly late. 2:00am. Tom ran into her boyfriend Dan (Karizma). They spent her whole set hanging out and talking. Trevor and I went and tripped around. Me in full gear: spikes and kandy, black phat pants and shirt, harness and wings, tigger packpack. Trevor clutched my big, cuddly Pika to himself as we wandered around talking to people, buying water. I made some kandy bracelets @ the kandy table. I found Arpy and talked with him for a bit. He was in a cuddle puddle by the concession stand. Everyone was super nice and seemed to be enjoying themselves. The Sketch Factor was incredibly low. All I saw was a buncha cute kids hanging out and
“Ahhhh you’ve already popped tonight haven’t ya?” he smiles like he’s onto something. “Nope.” I reply. Again I am presented with that amazed look on his face, “No??? You gonna pop later??” Again, “Nope.” smiling still, bopping to the techno behind me. “MAN! How are you going to have ANY fun tonight?!” he shakes his head @ me like a mother chastising her child for eating all the cookies and getting a tummy ache. I almost churf the water I was drinking out my nose. I remain calm though and say, “I’ll manage somehow. Thanks though.” I signal the end of our conversation by turning forward and facing the porta potties. He mutters to his friend about how I’ll never be able to stay up and I’ll burn out in a couple hours and I should have bought some of his faboo E. Glowstick boy is fairly gooned and very agreeable, he nods the whole time drug pusher boy talks about me burning out while waving his glowsticks gently and boping around to the beat. I chuckle to myself as they walk away and try not to think dark thoughts about how I bet those pills were filled mostly with jib and how that boy was younger than my brother and I shoulda turned him over my knee and spanked him and sent him home to bed where he should be! Selling drugs @ 16!?!? Live and let live Bliss....
Now I am a HUGE fan of cheese. What are the most cheesiest people of the rave scene today? Hey! Don’t get me wrong, I think Kandy Kids are the cutest things ever to walk this earth! I mean they are living breathing Japanime!
Kandy Kids are just so adorable. They’re so sweet and nice. They’re so positive and just downright V-I-B-E-Y. I love being one and I love hanging out with them. I just HAD to go hang out with all my fellow Kandy-ers. So on Friday I went to FF and bought tickets.
T was quite hesitant @ first. “Kandy Bad...KANDY BAD!” then he found out some of his ol’ skoo’ Calgary crew was going to be playing there. Emotion (spinning) and her boyfriend Karizma (was to spin @ the ill-fated REALM @ the Plaza of Nations that got cancelled the eve before). He relented soon enough and we all piled into the Skinnee T’s cute car. Off we went to Surrey listening to Slayer, Ron D. Core and some cd with some acidy-diva techno. It was a neat adventure to find the place but with the help of the “interweb” before hand we got all the directions to a place called the Colorwalk?? heh weird name. Well we found the place without too much of a hassle. We park and wander in. Upon entering we were quickly searched and ushered inside. The concession and kandy making table were the only things in the room besides numerous kandy kids. I was quickly bombarded by several of my kandied out friends. Ebbomega, Inkster, Leopard Grrl, LoveKat and his boyfriend and MesseJesse. Hugs and kisses exchanged all around while we giddily admired Leopard Grrl’s cute new cat outfit with phat pants, slinky flowy top, ears and a tail all in leopard print. I exchanged some of my kandy with MesseJesse and Leopard grrrly. Into the fray.... “WOW! HOLY SHITE!!! LOOK @ THIS FUCKING VENUE MATES!!”, was what I thinkin’. It was an old warehouse that had paintball going on in it most of the time. It had a jungle motif. Trees and such painted everywhere. It was all one huge room with 5 distinct sections split into 4 with a long corridor part in the middle, 2 sections on either side. Trés Days of Yore.
dancing and enjoying each others’ company. Love was in the air tonight! Couples were pairing off everywhere, quietly kissing. It was sweet. We found T in the Jungle area. He was getting down funky time. I like to watch him dance. He’s got this neat flow, rarely flails. Kinda electro-liquid. Hard to explain. Machine Gel. We take him and friend Dan to the other room where we commence to give praise to Jah. Then Emotion’s (Breeanne) set ends and they leave. I decide I have to go to the bathroom.… Doo dee dooo. I’m standing there waiting for a porta potty to open. Several others are too. I talk to a girl beside me. She recognizes me from work. Then a young boy of about 16 approaches me. “Hey, sup?” “Nothing much...waiting for a bathroom. What’s up with you?” I reply. Ignores my question, “Need any weed tonight?” I smile, “Nope.” “No? No weed?” he seems amazed. I wonder, do I reak? Then another boy who clearly has not gone through puberty yet, comes up behind drug pusher boy. Soother in mouth, dressed entirely in white reebok/adidas type clothing waving blue glowsticks in the air around him he smiles @ me. “Sup??” “Not much.” I smile back. He nods and places his soother back in his mouth and starts to boogey a bit. Clearly, he is having a good time. “That’s my friend. He’s on my E tonight. You need E tonight? I’ve got some GREEEAT E!” drug pusher boy is grinning like a cheshire cat. I chuckle. “Naaa I’m good. Thanks though.” I’m smiling still.
After doin’ my business and the potties not being so yuckay, I run into Vince and his grrly Carla. Vince works with my boi Tom. We hang out a bit. Listening to the half assed techno. That was one distinct thing about Kandy Luv 2. The music was mediocre all night. I was let down. We traveled from one room to the other room and back again frequently. The music was never AMAZING. Kudos to Astroglide though playing some happycore and Ill-esha was good too. There was this other dj, doing some insane shit. He had weird red hair and a yellow hoodie. He played some neat fukt shit. I kept getting dripped on from the ceiling. YUCKY! It put a gross human sweat blotch on my shirt. We ran into Geoff and his friend later on that night and we celebrated 4:20 with him. Then it was the 5 of us for the rest of the night. I people watched a lot. There was this SWEET little kandy raver in pink and blue fun fur phat pants, white fairy wings, little toys hanging off of her belt, pants, wallet chains, she had blinky antennae on her head. She danced so cute. I was in kandy raver heaven. Everywhere there were friendly faces and happy people going off. It was soooo uber cheese!! They played Dead or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round”! I laughed and sang along: You spin me right round, baby right round like a record, baby Right round round round You spin me right round, baby Right round like a record, baby Right round round round We all boinged around till about 6 am. Then it was time to leave. I wasn’t ready to go. I wanted to stay. Next time I will. I’ll just stay and take transit home. Came home and had warm drinks and Jah herb whilst watching Bruce Lee in The Chinese Connection with the sound off while hardcore played on the stereo. Then sleeeepy sleep. disclaimer: yes I deliberately tried to type KANDY as much as possible without being too incredibly annoying. Thank you and goodnight! B|i5S
CHEW THE CRUST
How the
The Nerve pulls up to the table with Crusty Records’ Dave Crusty
ple of the local punk scene, Dave Crusty reveals the deal behind his D.I.Y. label and talks about his latest release, The Acrustic Age. Just don’t ask him if “Crusty” is his real name.
A.D. MADGRAS: So, who’s on Crusty Records right now? Dave Crusty: Let’s see… Off Day broke up… that was one. The living roster right now, I’d have to say, is three. We just signed… well, we didn’t really sign them, we verbally agreed with Vancouver Shame to work together and just see what the hell happens. So far they’re beating Kiss on how fast they can put out CDs; Kiss could do two a year but these guys did two CDs in two weeks. A.D.: I’ll have to listen to these. Crusty: Yeah, then there’s the Chick Magnets who just went back into the studio to record more and will probably have new stuff coming out this year. Then, of course, there’s been the Acrustic compage. A.D.: So you’ve put out two Crusty Comps, one and two. Crusty.: Two punk rock compilations, yes. A.D.: So is Acrustic Age the third? Crusty: Well. Yes and no; it’s a compilation, so you could call it volume three, but the thing is, it’s a completely different route that we’re going. It’s the Acrustic Compilation. A.D.: What made you decide to have punk rockers pick up acoustic guitars? Crusty: More for the sake of… I’ll talk in the third person here… Mr. Plow is, you know, anti-folk punk rock, to a degree, acoustic punk really; while I was travelling across Canada with JP5, I met a man named Johnny Sizzle who does the exact same thing as Mr. Plow, and he introduced me to all these other individuals who also do the same thing. And when you’re in, like, Buttfuck, Ontario, and you have a good eight, nine more days of travelling to do and you are from Vancouver, you have a lot of open time on the road to think about new things you want to try when you get back to town. This just totally grabbed me by the throat and the balls and said, “just give ‘er.” A.D.: What was the initial response from individuals when you put the word out that you wanted to this kind of record? Crusty: It seems that I’d just bring it up with people, and they’d be totally stoked on it. A.D.: So it was easy to get people involved? Crusty: …Yeah, everybody was just more than a hundred percent go and I didn’t really have to go after anybody for their submissions. I’m already in the planning stages for doing the next one because I’m really happy with the way this one turned out. A.D.: Did you have to reject a lot of the submissions? Crusty: No, because after a select point I stopped it and said, “that’s it”. Now it’s time to start volume two. A.D.: Where will people be able to pick this up? Crusty: By the time this issue goes to press, it’ll be available at HMV, all the indie stores, Zulu, Scratch, pretty much everywhere. I’m
10
even going to go to – because we’re more on the acoustic side with this one – High Life Records. A.D.: So when’s the release party, Dave? Crusty: Yeah, I’m in the stages of just trying to figure out where I want to do this. I want to have a huge blow out in March sometime. I want to get five or six artists who could come up and do four or five songs. But the thing is, most of these guys in Vancouver aren’t really solo acoustic acts; they’re used to having the band behind them. But they still want to come out and do four or five songs. It’ll be a learning experience for everyone. A.D.: Hey, no gear, so you could easily fit in half a dozen guys during the night. Crusty: Yeah, it’d be a sound guy’s dream. He could just set levels and then go drink. A.D.: This album is quite diverse…. Crusty: As the hieroglyphics state at the bottom of the back of the cd cover. In English, it means “difficult to decipher.” (laughs) You know, if you have a CD of 24 musicians all playing punk rock acoustic, 1-2-3-4, raw raw raw, 1-2-3-4, you’re going to go “click” and put something else on by track four. But if you have 24 acoustic tracks where some are punk, some are mellow, some are garage folk, some are this, some are that, it’s easier to listen to. A.D.: You’ve even included a piano track. Crusty: Yeah, I did my research and piano is actually considered an acoustic instrument, to a degree, anyways. And this song was just so fitting because it’s about a punk rock girl with a punk rock lifestyle getting sent to a boarding school. It’s a nice piece by Tall, Dark, and Lonesome called “Helicopter Hands”. He’s from Texas. Yeah, I’m pretty proud of everybody on this record. A.D.: On my first listen, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s not a bunch of punks just playing their songs fast on an acoustic guitar. I mean, the Man of Death’s track, “Lyin’ in a Ditch, is brilliant…. Crusty: Yeah, that’s an amazing piece of work. He spent a lot of time in the studio doing that one. A.D.: Another one, “Rock Star” by Mr. Plow.… Crusty: ‘Rock Star’! Yeah, it’s a very demeaning song toward regular Joes who are musicians, who have the attitude of “hey man, I’m a fucking god.” In the rock ‘n’ roll world. I’ve witnessed it myself. People who are able to bring out a hundred people to [their] show. Whoa! I’m a fucking star! But they need to realize that, hey, you’re playing The Brickyard. You’re not a fucking star. You’ve got dishpan hands. A.D.: Anything else? Crusty: Crusty Records is a label that has a lot of different beliefs … beliefs in the whole punk rock D.I.Y., not Y.D.I; “you do it”, but “do it yourself ”. I believe that there are a lot of exceptional punk rock artists out there. That’s why I prefer to do the compilations rather than go out and sign ten bands and put ten CDs out and be flat broke, then watch nine of the ten bands break up. I’d much rather take a 72-minute CD and fill it to the nines. The first Crusty comp has 28 bands on it, the second has 32 bands on it. Thirty two bands for eight or nine bucks. That’s pretty good, in my opinion.
Eddie Spaghetti sets the record straight about the WM3
T
he Supersuckers have been doing their thing for over ten years now. Known primarily for their songs about “Liquor, Women, Drugs and Killing”, as well as being a don’t-miss live act, any depth to their character and music has always been obscured by their one-dimensional cartoon character image. Living it up, kicking ass and not giving a shit about much else has been their main calling card since their first full length album Smoke of Hell was released in 1992. Well, kids, it seems something’s been going on in Supersuckerland
over the last few years. Growing up is very unpunk, but the band never called themselves punk rock anyway. “Shit-ass Rock and Roll” was how they seemed to most describe their thing. Shit-ass has given way to getting their shit together, and after an ill-advised flirtation with Major Label runaround, they’ve emerged as an independent, dues paid in full Rock and Roll Machine. Label owners, even. Eddie Spaghetti himself is actually a husband and father now. Whoa. That label, Aces & Eights – distributed by Koch Entertainment – is in the process of becoming a full fledged business entity. “It’s a label that we started with some friends of mine,” says frontman Eddie Spaghetti. “Basically, some people who know what they’re doing a lot more than I do.
Photo by Casey Bourque
C
onceived on the spot in a studio while recording a record for Off Day because someone asked him, “Hey, what label you guys doing this for?”, Crusty Records has recently celebrated the release of it’s 10th record. A soldier for indie music and a sta-
A.D. MADGRAS
Kickin’ Shit at Richard’s on Richards in Vancouver
Became the Band to Help Save the West Memphis Three
The Heathman
Eddie Spaghetti
Dancing Eagle
Dan ‘Thunder’ Bolton
Photo: Grove Pashley I’m just sort of a spiritual advisor; I like to work on projects and help with the fun parts of being body’s done something by now’. But it turned out nobody had, involved in a record label. The other guys handle the ins and outs and the real nitty gritty of getting really. I mean, there’s the support group Justice League, and of stuff out. I think the next thing we’re going to put out is Zeke’s new record, which is amazing, it’s course the film has helped. That’s how I found out about it. And just a motherfucker. We’ll do another West Memphis Three benefit and try to be like a real label. there’s a second film, Revelations: Paradise Lost 2. And Aces & Get a few things out, try to get our feet wet and not make what other labels make. I’m sure that’s Eights decided to make a CD for these guys because these kids are every cool label’s goal at first. Just us and the rock and roll community should show some be believers in what you sign. Do Then you see it and realize whoa, these sort of something for these guys. You can’t turn your back records for bands we dig and treat your fans, or your fellow freaks. Just because you have kids aren’t sick and twisted at all. These on everybody right”. a weird book in your closet, or you watch a weird movie, The big news out of Aces kids are just like me or any of my friends, or you listen to crazy music doesn’t make you a murderer.” & Eights in 2001 is the release of The CD Free the West Memphis Three is in stores soon, if and I think they got railroaded. “Free the West Memphis Three” – a not already, and has such heavy hitters as the Murder City compilation to raise awareness and money for the defense fund of Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Devils, Rocket From the Crypt, Zeke, Tom Waits, Nashville Pussy and Jason Baldwin, convicted of the 1993 triple murder of eight year olds Christopher Byers, Steve and Steve Earle as well as the Supersuckers all standing up for what Branch and Michael Moore. they believe in. For more information on the case go to www.wm3. “It started real slowly,” Spaghetti says of his getting involved in the case. “Seeing the org or www.supersuckers.com. movie Paradise Lost –- I just rented it offhand because it looked like something I would be inter- And what about the Supersuckers themselves? ested in. “Satanic Ritual! Heavy Metal Killing!” Y’know, I was like ‘Right On! These kids are sick “We’re just doing some weekend shows here and there and twisted motherfuckers! I wanna see it!’’ Then you see it and realize whoa, these kids aren’t sick and writing a new record that will be out by the end of the year. I and twisted at all. These kids are just like me or any of my friends, and I think they got railroaded. hope to work with Evil Powers Of Rock and Roll producer, Kurt They’re 24 and 25-ish now. It’s funny because I still always think of them as kids, the boys, and Bloch, again. I think perhaps it was our finest moment. It’s a they’re men now.” pretty sweet feeling to have your finest moment ten years into the For those unfamiliar with the story, there was no physical evidence connecting any of the game. So, I’m hoping.” three who were convicted to the crime. Evidence that could have absolved them – like the adultsized bite marks on one of the victims, when the alleged killers were all teenagers – was ignored. Mike O Most of the real evidence was destroyed, lost or mishandled. Damien Echols was fingered by photo right: Sprout authorities because he was “weird” and “sinister”. Meaning he wore a Metallica t-shirt. Said t-shirt was actually used as “evidence” of his sinisterness. As was his reading of Stephen King novels. “Like many things in life that you see are wrong,” Eddie said, “you think ‘I’m sure some-
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Straight 8
Smell-O-Vision:
Aromatherapy for the Artistically Under-privileged
A
sk local artist David Yonge where his tag name “Yellowboy” comes from and you could hear any story - it depends on how he feels and what he can come up with at the moment.
He can’t even think of what his favorite story is, since there are so many of them, but he’s not Asian and it has nothing to do with the popular carbine rifle of the same name. If you can get Yellowboy really, really drunk, you might get to hear the real story: something about an out-of-body experience and ghosts. Try pigeonholing Yellowboy’s shows into any type of genre and you’ll have similar difficulties. His productions are less art exhibits than full blown multi-media Art Events, which in the past have included a Rock & Roll Carnival and Variety Show, “A Peculiar Evening at the Cinema” and a B.Y.O. lobster cook-off David “Yellowboy” Yonge and karaoke night. A Yellowboy event typically incorporates sounds with visuals like film and paintings, comes with an “abstract glossary” of terms pertaining to the night’s audio and visual elements, and may include pyrotechnics. The night that Yellowboy hosted karaoke at the Piccadilly Pub saw him sing “Strangers in the Night” every time it was his turn, and ended with him being kicked out after initiating a strip tease, not to be invited back. So what’s next? Well, in his upcoming show at The Blinding Light!! Cinema, Yellowboy has decided to revisit an episode of moviegoing history that reportedly caused audience members to run out of theatres screaming – that’s right, it’s Smell-O-Vision. The idea of having real smells incorporated into film has been around at least since Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, but no one actually tried doing it until the 50s, when television started to leach viewers out of the movie houses. Desperate for ways
to keep consumers in the theatre, studios came out with gimmicks such as 3D movies. Smell-OVision, where hundreds of different scents were injected into the theatre by individual boxes under each seat, debuted in 1959 with Scent of Mystery. Produced by Michael Todd Jr. and featuring cameos by Elizabeth Taylor and Peter Lorre, it was supposed to be the next big thing and instead became one of history’s little jokes. Infamous sicko John Waters also experimented with smell and film with Polyester in 1981. Audience members were given scratch & sniff cards to use at key moments; being John Waters, of course, the smells were all of things like vomit and shit. Don’t worry about this happening at the Smell-O-Vision show, however: while Yellowboy admits that he’d probably include all the bad smells if he was 16, the mature Yellowboy wants the audience to stay in the theatre and maybe even enjoy the experience. As it stands, he has “no idea who’s going to come or what people are expecting”. Part of the idea behind the Smell-O-Vision show is acknowledging and celebrating the gimmick aspect. Yellowboy also favours an interactive and participatory type event, one where audience members experience visuals, sounds, and in this case smells, instead of just witnessing them. His concern is with exploring ideas rather than packing in the people, but at the same time he wants to make the night “really, really good” even if only 10 people show up. This means including interesting smells, like those of a cooking show and a brewery. Yellowboy himself will be at the front of the theatre producing the smells with heat and air, using a hot-plate, aerosol cans, and fans. The smells will relate to film clips about five minutes in length, hopefully giving enough time for the fans to dissipate them. The plan is to edit the clips into some kind of “cohesive narrative”. And being a Yellowboy event, there will be plenty of other stimulants to keep you happy, including a grand finale, 70s-type- rock show with a surprise ending. How does 70s glam rock relate to a movie gimmick from the 50s? You could also ask what a lobster cook-off has to do with karaoke. Or why Yellowboy’s own description of his art is of “minimalist colour fields, kind of even less than a Mark Rothco”, but what he sends to The Nerve is pornographic screen prints. It’s all part of the split, but fused personas, that make up Yellowboy and his relationship with the Arts. Aspects like the 70s rock finale allow humour to enter the world of Art, something that Yellowboy finds important even though he wants someday to be recognized as a “serious painter”. Smell-O-Vision itself is proposed to be a night of fun, rather than high concept. As Yellowboy said to me, “I don’t know if Smell-O-Vision is going to work – it could be a complete disaster. I hope people are aware of that”. Yellowboy’s next performance (plus some very special guests) is at The Blinding Light!! Cinema, 36 Powell St., Gastown, Friday, March 23rd at 8:30 p.m. (Editor’s note: look for Mr. Yonge’s wonderful screen prints in our May/June sex issue) Elizabeth Nolan
Cannibal Films
T
he “cannibal” genre is still the most sought after of all the Eurogenres. Almost all of the films that make up the genres in the 70s are over-the-top
combinations of gore, sleaze, and brutal human torture. The genre erupted out of Italy thanks to the talents of Umberto Lenzi. From there, the film type was taken to new extremes by Lenzi himself and other genre greats/gods, such as Ruggero Deodato. The films are often stomach churning and almost ALL of them were, or are, still banned around the world for their graphic depictions of animal killing, gut munching, and castrations (which the ratings boards always love to see). The Italian sub-genre was officially started in 1972 with prolific giallo and crime film director Umberto Lenzi’s MAN FROM DEEP RIVER. The film stars Ivan Rassimov and portrays the age-old story of a man stuck in the jungle to fend off and/or co-exist with cannibal tribes. The film was the first to display graphic cannibal flesh-eating, among numerous torture scenes. The film’s other main “quality” is the usage of real animal killings to spice things up. The scenes are definitely an acquired taste. From there, Lenzi went on to direct EATEN ALIVE (1980), which pitted a “Jonestown” type cult in the jungle against surrounding cannibal tribes. The differences between the cult’s strange acts and the cannibals’ chow downs are few and far between. Cult gang rape or cannibal tit eating - which is harsher? It’s up to you. To top things off, Lenzi gave us the infamous CANNIBAL FEROX / MAKE THEM DIE SLOWLY (1981), which really pushes the limits of taste. A menagerie of castration, animal killings and breast hook torture, among other things, the film was banned in 30 countries for the longest time. Amazingly, the film is now legal in North America and is available on VHS and on DVD at most indie video stores. Another director took his turn at the genre in 1976 with the underrated JUNGLE HOLOCAUST. Ruggero Deodato took some new angles at the jungle romp story, mixing real life adventure with cannibal adventure and, of course, much blood and gore. Lenzi actually stole a couple of scenes from JUNGLE to supplement EATEN ALIVE (basically, the whole “Me
see Cannibal Films on p. 18
OVERPERSON Y
4 Local Boys Mess Up Minds: Experimenting With Phenomenology
ou may recognize the image below or you may not. For those of you who do, it might bring the calm of familiarity or a cultural resonance that is comforting … but then again, considering its lack of concrete association, you might find it a source of agitation. And for those who’ve never experienced the OVERPERSON, welcome. I recently sat down with Chris Ruffatto, Damien McCombs, James Nizam and Trent Larson, the four young guerilla/ installation artists responsible for the image. As I turned on my handheld taperecorder and started drinking (their) imported beer, I wondered how I could attempt to piece together some semblance of meaning to the icon which, even in Nizam’s living room, stared at us from the wall. Though I hadn’t seen their previous guerilla art displays on the UBC campus, I’d definitely heard about them. They completely wiped out all the advertising on that huge wall in the bus loop, I overheard someone say. Hmm, interesting. So when I received the invite to go to their show, to experience what they had installed in the basement gallery of UBC’s Main Library, I made it a point to show up. On the drive out there I remember my female companion commenting, “Hey, at least if it’s no good, they did mention free beer and wine.” Indeed “Creating an environment is what it they had. Well, I thought, at least they’re not without a sense of class. means to me,” offers Larson. “It’s not about hung art to look at… When I entered the gallery, my first impression was shock. Hundreds of it’s the sum of the whole. All these things come together to create an environment and coloured posters covered every inch of the walls and ceiling of the gallery’s three large it’s about the viewers’ experience within that, rather than what they think of a particurooms. The floor of one room was covered with black and red notebooks, scattered lar piece of it.” They were quick to define the difference between what they are doing randomly. I picked one up a flipped through. Then I picked up another. And another. and the traditional practice of displaying art in a designated room.. “As opposed to a Every-single-page of every-single-book was stamped with a red image of their icon. painting hanging by itself against a white wall, or a bunch of them loosely tied togethOver a dozen Overperson robots raced randomly across the floor, constantly bumping er by a theme,” explains Ruffatto, “in an installation, every part of the room directly into walls and people. A slide projector flashed the icon on the wall, in a different oriworks together.” entation once every second. Another room was filled with large black wooden cut outs Did the people who came to the show get it? “No, most people had no idea of the icon, attached to the ceiling and what it was,” comments Nizam. “But everyfloor, that spun around when you In societies where modern conditions of producbody seemed to leave with a smile on their face, touched them. though,” adds Larson. “I mean, some people tion prevail, all of life presents itself as an “We’d been postering and grafwere confused … they didn’t really understand fiti-ing since about September. But not immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything why we were doing it…[but] when I talked specifically for the show,” comments about it with [most people] they were on the that was directly lived has moved away into a Ruffatto. “We treated outside gallery right track when they said what they were works the same way we treated the inside representation. thinking.” of the gallery. The gallery wasn’t the “It’s so overwhelming [that] sometimes it Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle end point of for it, it was just another just blanks out,” reflects McCombs as he sips step along the way.” Christ, I thought, on his beer. “You need time to reflect back. on the way to what? “The poster campaign started before the show was even enviThen when you leave, maybe a day later you might go, ‘Wow, I couldn’t stand still in sioned,” adds Larson. “It is basically a controlled experiment that we did on campus,” there, it was driving me nuts’… like Warhol on crack or something.” says Nizam, “trying to take an image and see how we could [infuse] it into how people “The best accomplishment, I think,” comments Larson, “is that we are attractthink… basically, mess with people’s heads.” ing people who don’t usually get out, who are not used to looking at art. [The show is] Their main artistic/philosophical influences are situationism, a movement easier for them to get out and enjoy than a gallery of [individual] paintings.” spearheaded by French artists in the 1960’s; phenomenology, a method of philosophical So, what’s next for the OVERPERSON? They wouldn’t tell me, but they did enquiry that defines truth through examining the nature and content of consciousness, mention they’d “let me know.” They hinted at less “legitimate” venues for their next originally developed by German philosopher Edmund Husserl; and, of course, installation, but also that I probably shouldn’t quote them on that. Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the Overman. The show at UBC opened Feb 12 th and ran for about a week. “Nietzsche’s idea of the Overperson plays in so nicely,” says McCombs. “Because his idea of the Overperson was that human beings were so bogged down and overperson@ziplip.com Bradley C. Damsgaard creatively blocked by religion and tradition, and the Overperson was someone who was beyond that, and could be creative. [They] played together so nicely, [we] decided to mix them together.” According to the group, a good place to start – as far as understanding how situationist theory has influenced their work – is a book called The Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord. “Basically the [movement] tried to bring back the wonderment and fantasy of everyday life,” explains Ruffatto. “Trying to make life not spectacular in the sense of commercial imagery, but trying to make life more political and more fun. Basically the idea [they had] was that your mind should always be stimulated. What we’ve tried to do here is create an icon that wasn’t necessarily definable to a product, so that people would start questioning and thinking again.” They admit taking inspiration for their experiment from Andre the Giant has a Posse, the Obeygiant (www.obeygiant.com) phenomenon propagated by San Diego artist Shepard Fairey. Though Fairey’s efforts mainly involve a massive sticker campaign, their idea of just getting an image “out there” is the same. On his web site, Fairey lists German theorist Martin Heidegger’s definition of phenomenology, “the process of letting things manifest themselves,” as an authority. Fairey then adds, “phenomenology attempts to enable people to see clearly something that is right before their eyes but obscured; things that are so taken for granted that they are muted by abstract observation.” Letting the Overperson “out” has meant observing manifestations of their icon on stop signs, bus shelters, t-shirts, in alleys and, most recently, on my fridge.
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God Has Forsaken You Vancouver’s Galleries ROB SMITS: BLACK METAL TATTOOIST, ARTIST, MUSICIAN AND REALLY NICE GUY. When I think about Black Metal, I think of satanic skins playing intensely aggressive music in an absolute fit of uncontrollable anger while intoxicated on massive amounts of alcohol and drugs. I think of big fights and bloody massacres where women run screaming from the train of destruction unleashing itself upon anyone crazy or naive enough to get in its way. I remembered seeing Rob hanging with a train one day so when I saw him sitting alone in the Cobalt for a couple of hours without saying a word or drinking a beer, I was sure he was there to kick the fuck outta someone. When we were introduced at his apartment, my first question to him was “why weren’t you drinking at the bar the other night?” He replied that he was broke and didn’t like to hassle his bro’s for beer. Amazed at how off base I had been, I got down to business (or whatever it is I do) and as Hot Rod started taking pictures of some of the tattoos Rob has been doing lately, him and I shot the shit about his scene. I borrowed a pen and piece of paper and started by asking him how to spell his last name. “Shits with an m” was his answer (more evidence of my off baseness). As an up and coming tattooist in Vancouver, Rob began to establish himself as a pioneer in the world of black metal tattoo’s about five years ago. Working out of his art soaked East Van apartment, he refers to the hand drawn “Danse Macabre” poster hanging on the wall. “That’s what I’m calling my shop, It’s dedicated to being totally underground, brutal, dark satanic horror. I want to be a master of the black and gray. Pure black art” (Whoa, that’s hardcore.) Rob’s main influences include Paul Booth, Jay Wheeler, and Shortsy Goreman. “But my greatest mentor is Dennis at Anarchy ink, he’s taught me a lot.” Rob doesn’t just support the black metal scene with his art, he is also an active member in the black metal scene as a musician. His band NEKROMANTIK KURSE is currently preparing to record an album and I can’t see it being any less focused than Rob himself. I asked Rob if there was anything he would like to add to the interview and he simply stated that as far as he knew he was the only Black Metal tattooist in town and that ALL BLACK SATANIC SHIT RULES!!! So the next time you see a black metal satanic skinhead walking towards you on a dark night in the East side, remember it might be Rob Smits and everything’s gonna be just fine... Thanx Rob. Jason LeBlanc
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H
oly Jesus, there was a bucketful of things to see this last little while, God strike me down if I lie. Ladies wrestling, now who would imagine it? There it was, right in the front window of the Helen Pitt Gallery, (see shots top right) God strike me down if I lie. Inside, things became a little sad. I’m sorry to announce that after all this wrestling out there in the front, all that rolling and kicking and screaming and hurting, rolling, biting, falling over, after all of that, the pictures on the wall went all conceptual. Typical. I mean, really, what’s the point? If anyone tells you, “hey, a conceptualist approach to draftsmanship at the present time could very easily open up new avenues in the juxtaposition of the image itself with the reproduction of the image vis-à-vis the static object to be viewed” …. Well, if any bastard says that to you, just tell them to go fiddle. And that’s swearing. Little Diablo won, but it was a fix. Travesty! Speaking of slogging off the conceptual/minimalist approach to boring people, the show at the Douglas Udell Gallery in Kitsilano nicely illustrates why no one, not even the Pope, has any interest in painting anymore. Dean Drever is a sculptor, and one must confess that he had something going on with his series of baseball bats inscribed with elusive messages. Well executed, clever idea, not terribly exciting, no match for the auto trader, but not bad. But what annoyed the buggery out of me were these fucking hot rod-style, flame thing paintings. He did them with fancy, shimmering, expensive paint and they were shiny. That’s it. I can’t abide anything to do with those fucking, fucking bastard stupid son-of-a-bastard bitch-whore hot rod paintings that float around lowbrow galleries like a bloody bastard movable, embracable bastard virus. But when you take the imagery, which is strong, and conceptualize until paralysis and death, well, why not burn in hell with Hitler. Now, I don’t want to play favorites, but the Tart Gallery is effing all right with me. All of last month they’ve had a canny good show up… Quantity not Quality. The scrumptious red walls were covered with paintings. Hundreds, can you believe it? It was a visual explosion, with many charming nuances supplied by regular exhibitors. Intense work from Braineater, odd doings from 12 midnight and something I don’t understand from the superb Owen Plummer. Very nice job. Up now, Lariats and Petticoats. All girls, all western. Go. At 1869, West 4th Avenue. Jason Ainsworth photos: J. Ainsworthand courtesy of Helen (back) Gallery
15
Another Joe Plasti-Scene
Cocksparrer Live: Runnin’ Riot Across The U.S.A. LP
Smallman Records Y’know, this is actually the best thing I’ve heard from NOFX in a long time. I mean they haven’t really mixed things up too much as far their sound goes but hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Fast, with lots of harmonies and those vocals that are so distinctly Fat Mike. Cheers to NOFX! Another great release. Rusty
Blitz The Complete Blitz Singles Collection LP Get Back Records Though the glory days of Blitz ended eons ago, it’s clear that a resurrection of their early material is well deserved even a good eighteen years after the fact. Along with The Partisans, Infa Riot, and One Way System, Blitz played classic English “leather, bristles, boots and braces” mid-paced, dirty-sounding punk that still kicks ass and blows a good portion of today’s shit straight out of the water. Side A of this release compiles the band’s singles from ’81 to ’83, prior to their more progressive later period. Anthems such as “Someone’s Gonna Die,” “Never Surrender,” Razors In The Night” and “Voice of a Generation” on countless other releases can be found on this side. The flipside starts with a song called “Fatigue” that shows the band going in a slightly more musical direction with some piano S not a bad thing, really S followed by a remix of an older tune called “Bleed” in which only change from the original is a delay effect added to the vocals that causes them to repeat throughout the song. It’s quite an annoying waste of time. The rest of the album is filled with later-period synthesizer and drum machine-filled drivel that shows the band trying hard to be Joy Division but failing miserably. When compared to the earlier stuff, it makes it obvious that the time was right for them to throw in the towel. Aaronoid
TKO Records
Seemingly one of England’s oldest bands, Cocksparrer formed before the term “punk” was even coined back in the mid 70’s. Reading the band’s biography, I learned that Sex Pistols manager Malcolm Mclaren actually once approached them after a gig and offered to turn them into the next big thing. They declined. In 1980 the band had a track featured on Oi! The Record, a compilation put together by British music writer Gary Bushell that was responsible for the term “Oi!”. It wasn’t until a few years later the band released the high impact full-length Shock Troops. With big time gaps between albums, it occurred to that the band was more or less a bunch of mates who got together every five years or so to record. Last winter, San Francisco’s TKO records flew them in from London to play four sold out shows in SF, New York, Boston and LA, the first two of which were recorded for this release. “We have to be careful because our drummer has a tendency to pass out during overheated conditions,” explains singer Colin McFaul at one point. What really makes this release shine is the crowd, who chant and sing along with these classics, even though most weren’t born at the time of their original release! Before doing one song, Colin encouragingly states “This is one you can sing along to because you can do it better than I can.” A brilliant and worthwhile release for both newcomers and completists. Aaronoid
The Acrustic Age Compilation Crusty Records This is the 3rd comp we’ve seen from Crusty Records. But this one’s a little different. This one contains 24 tracks by punks done on acoustic instruments. Buy this record. It’s fucking brilliant. The Man of Death conjurers up a vivid drunken vision in “Layin’ in a Ditch” that I’ve never heard so sweetly expressed. The record also contains a refreshing version of “Manbreasts” by JP5’s Gerry-Jenn Wilson and other gems like “Love You Like I Love Beer” by Ryan Thomson, “My Ass, Your Face” by the appropriately named Vancouver’s Shame, “Sorry So Horny” by Mike Ill and the Coprophilia anthem ‘C U L8TER Masterbator’ by Nipples Arcola. This record is raw, but isn’t what you’re probably thinking: “24 songs by punks on Acoustic guitars? Who the fuck could sit through that?” Ah, but you haven’t heard this comp. Yet. Dave Crusty has wisely chosen these tracks and even more wisely arranged them in an order that will keep it in your rotation. Coming home to your apartment drunk at 5 a.m. has never had a better soundtrack. But why he included ‘Rockstar’ by Mr. Plow I just can’t figure… a prime example of the diversity found on this record. The Acrustic Age ends with a track called ‘Stranger Things’ by Ani Kyd and well, a local punk comp just wouldn’t be right any other way. A.D. MADGRAS The Fuzz Zamboni to the Moon Sticky Records The Fuzz is what you could call a duosolo project by Nathan Bird and Jerome Steegmans, the guitarist and bassist, respectively, in Free Coke for Supermodels. If Free Coke gets, well, free coke and supermodels, I’m guessing The Fuzz gets their hash from the Yukon and the girls from Mexican border towns. The sound of this project varies greatly. “Millionaire in Tijuana” presents us with the dilemma of having too much money in a Mexican border town. I don’t think these boys would have any problems there. The title track, “Zamboni to the Moon”, conjures up some weird imagery and I’m not sure I really got it. The funky acoustic guitar present throughout this record is often carried by tightly woven electronic beats. Track 5 (of 7), titled “Wrap the Cable in Your Strap”, starts with a bass line that’s a combination of the one at the beginning of ABBA’s “Does Your Mother Know?” and The Doors’ “5 to 1.” Make any sense yet? A.D. MADGRAS
Guy Smiley Alkaline Smallman Records I saw these guys open for the Misfits a few years back and I thought they were boring. It’s good to see that not much has changed: they still make dull-as-dishwater, by-the-numbers watered-down hardcore. Or something. It seemed like they were trying to be a hardcore band when I saw them, but to be honest I was probably busy drinking or doing my taxes or whatever. The production on this album really works against them too, ‘cause it has no balls. It’s fitting that the cover features a big smiling robot because this is the type of music I could envision being played and sung by a bunch of robots in the not-so-distant future. In that case, they ought to build some type of robot to listen to it as well. Rusty
Various The Hostage Situation CD Hostage Records
From the label that introduced the street-punk sounds of the mighty Bonecrusher and recent early American hardcore-sounding acts like Smogtown, The Decline and the Pushers, comes this 14 band comp. The biggest standout on this disc is The Decline doing a great cover of The Clash’s “I’m So Bored With the U.S.A.” Everything on this release is well-produced and, as far as I know, it will have a wider distribution than the hand-numbered, limited edition 7” material put out by this label. Aaronoid
Something About Reptiles From Instanbul to Orangeville Independent I picked up this record from Burcu Ozdemir herself at her clothing shop (Burcu’s Angels) on Main St. “We recorded this in 11 hours,” she told me. No shit? “Yeah,” she said. “On Gabriola Island last October.” The disc contains 13 tracks of original and traditional arrangements of Turkish folk songs, often sung in Turkish. Accordion prevails, accompanied by guitars, clarinets, a darbuka and upright bass. Track two, “Bosvermisim (I Give Empty)” contains the lyrics: “I don’t give a fuck! If you want to stop your crying, you wouldn’t give a fuck anymore too!” Yeah! Laugher and voices between tracks give this record a raw finish and a sense of the good times being had during this marathon recording session. Great winedrinking music. You can pick up your own copy at Burcu’s Angels or by contacting the band at somethingaboutreptiles@bigfoot. com. A.D. MADGRAS
Worker Demonstration I saw these guys at the Cobalt in the midst of a drunken stupor. Y’see, for some reason they had a bottle of Wild Turkey at the bar instead of the usual rotgut swill you get for a buck and a half, and I took it upon myself to down three quarters of it before someone realized the mistake. At some point Worker played and I had a good time. I think they were from San Francisco or something. Imagine my surprise when I should come upon their album, and lo and behold it’s good. There’s some serious anti-capitalism, commie propaganda-looking stuff going on with the lyrics and cover art, etc. Maybe that’s why the CD looks all cheap and demoy. It’s all part of a political statement, y’see. Hell, I like to make money. I don’t, but I’d like to. I’d like to drive a car if I had one and pump it full of Shell gasoline and drive it to the store two blocks away to buy red meat and Kathie Lee sweatshop clothes from K-Mart and fruits and vegetables picked in small South American countries by small South American children, wrapped in non-biodegradable Styrofoam containers (the food, not the children) but hey, it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it. I give it a 7. Rusty
Green Party... from p. 8 ther banter from Shithead. Maybe he’d passed out or taken off S either way there was still two bands left to play. Geri-Jen, the nicely primped lead singer, daintily moved the empty glasses from one table in front of the stage to another so she could stand on it. How wonderfully spontaneous. She sung a fast ode to punk rock, which included references to all sorts of punk rock icons. The leather jacket-clad mid-thirties soft cocks ogled her as she made an effort to be out of control. Despite her play-acting, the vocals stood out as the one thing holding the audience’s attention. They went on to resurrect seventies rock with both Trooper and AC/ DC covers. After JP5 cleared out, Hounds of Buskerville played some traditional ska. The Railway Club had begun to empty by then, but dancers still filled the front of the stage. A liquored-up Green Party member appeared to be attempting the twist without bending his knees, which fit right in with the epileptic ska fans. Large, intoxicated women began asking journalists to dance. It was a fitting end to a very eventful evening at the Railway club. Before disappearing Joe Keithley had thanked the Railway Club for providing a place for live music to be performed for the last twenty years; its importance had been made obvious by the two generations of punks that had just performed together. Matt Whalley
The Man Show... from p. 8 some dirt road, way off in the middle of nowhere... complete with a campfire, fake moon, trees, foliage, and a cardboard camper. The first, low-key set had them drinking some beers (Kenadian, of course), trading off original songs, hammering together the occasional bench and generally acting like a bunch of guys enjoying a camping evening away from the pulp mill and the womenfolk. The second set involved chain saws and other power tools, as they constructed a three-foot high drum riser on the stage... and drank more beer. The third and final set was devoted to kickin’ ass, as they “fired up the generator,” strapped on the electrified instruments and got down to some serious boogie rock. All of the most hackneyed, CFOX, older-brother’s-recordcollection songs that you’d never want to hear again were played with a spirit they probably haven’t seen in decades. “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Hair of the Dog,” “Ramblin’ Man” and “Tush” were just some of the chestnuts that once again saw the light of day. There was a whole lotta man energy in the room, and some of the audience couldn’t be restrained from flailing wildly, pumping their fists in the air, pulling the trees off of the stage and dancing with them and finally destroying the cardboard camper. It was like spending a night wallowing in the primordial soup, except that this soup was made of beer and gasoline and tasted like victory. Dexter R’lyeh
Books & Zines
Copious Magazine Issue #1 $5
COPIOUS is a new bi-monthly magazine, published and edited by local writer/poet Andrea Grant. It’s 36 pages are printed in black and white, chap book style, with a glossy cover. The theme of this issue is “The Vixen” and contents include poetry exclusively by Ms. Grant accompanied by reproductions of old vixen pulp novel covers and gothy/campesque photos. The poetry is thematically strong and consistent; though drawing from old school imagery of the genre, it avoids the cliches. As for the title of one of the reprinted 25-cent book covers, “I’ll Get You Yet”, which is subtitled “All She Had to Offer Was Trouble,” – well, we can only hope. There is an open call for submissions on the back page. The contact address is listed as copious_zine@hotmail.com. and the webside www. copiousmagazine.com A.D. MADGRAS
Public Works Issue #1 Free Public Works is a brilliantly done, new local culture jammer zine. Ten pages, stitched, photocopied in black and white. Contents include coverage of their own culture jamming activities like laying sod over a parking spot on Commercial Drive, complete with lawn chair and pink flamingos, as an exercise in how to “reclaim a bit of road space for pedestrians.” Also included are detailed instructions on how to open those Zoom Ad things, found in bathrooms, without damaging them (so you can mess with the ad, of course). The boldest part of this first issue of Public Works is the “10% OFF” coupon insert for The Bay, featuring the picture of a 17 year-old sweatshop worker making cloths to be sold at the department store. According to the publisher, it can be found at Spartacus Books, hidden in shelves at a couple of local Chapters bookstores, and at a few other places around town. If you can’t find it, you can contact them at publicworks@britneyspearsmail. com A.D. MADGRAS
Canibbal Films... from p.12
Vagina Monologues... from p. 5
Previews... from p. 8
Me Lay” eating scene). Deodato’s CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1979) is widely known the world over as the definitive cannibal film. The film is a visceral gut punch that brings the worlds of reality and violent fantasy uncomfortably close together. One of the inspirations for THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, the plot of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST involves the discovery of the film reels of a group of documentary filmmakers that ventured into the jungle. The film subjects us to the most vile, hand held, realistic gore images ever on celluloid; the ending sequence, where the crew gets brutally mangled and eaten alive, is still a hard watch. Of course, many other Euro directors tried their hand at the genre. One of the most popular films is cult fave Joe D’Amato’s TRAP THEM AND KILL THEM / EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS (1977). The film has an overabundance of sleaze, which is expected from the Laura Gemser/ D’Amato team, but it also mixes in ultra gory scenes of mutilation that really push the limits of exploitation (just ask actress Susan Scott if she can remember where ALL of her crotch latex went). Other memorable classics include Jess Franco’s WHITE CANNIBAL QUEEN (1979), which includes very long, slo-mo gut-ripping scenes mixed with A LOT of sex. The Spanish CANNIBAL TERROR, which is the most unknown of the lot, has incredibly gut wrenching scenes of chest-hollowing mixed with some very sweet acting. Unfortunately, most of the films mentioned above are not available for rent (unless the video store is REALLY on it), leaving most of the films to be found in the “jungle” of public domain video companies.
“I didn’t really like it,” she said with a cursory wave of her fork. “You what?!” “I was bored. I would’ve rather watched the Superbowl.…” My eyes were bulged. “You brute!” I declared. “What?” “How could you be so insensitive?! I mean, you didn’t even try?! You didn’t even try to understand what those women have gone through!” “But I didn’t mean to…” “I’m sorry Genia, I-I just can’t believe you! And I certainly can’t go on with this relationship. It’s over.” “Wait!” she said, but it was too late. “Goodbye, Genia.” I threw my folded napkin on the table and stormed out of the restaurant.
listings regularly for the many smaller gigs happening around town. You don’t have to look too far since there’s only a couple venues left for that kind of shit. If you’re into music that’s not for pussies, The Cobalt is definitely the place to go. You’ll catch tons of good heavy bands, a few bad ones, and it won’t cost you your shirt, arms and legs to obtain a drink. Another good spot is the Pic where you can also catch some bigger touring bands once in awhile.
Sinister Sam
In the streets, a cool breeze caressed my face. I wandered aimlessly through the city in a trance of vaginal sensitivity. When dawn came, and the morning sun streaked across the shimmering skyline, I found myself across from a large billboard advertising the Superbowl. There was a football in the design that extended beyond its frame. I studied it: its oval shape, the leather folds, the stitching and soft edges... Epiphany! IT WAS A VAGINA! The football was a large, beautiful and inviting vagina! I got so excited that I called out to the billboard. “You’re a vagina!” I yelled. And when it didn’t answer, I drew closer until I was right there in front of it, heatedly illustrating the commonalties between a football and the vagina. Football, like the vagina, is complex and deserves a forum for discussion. It was all so clear! And so, as the news of the Superbowl spread across the city, and the women at the Western Theatre got ready to perform again, I began my own Vagina Monologue - and maybe, did a little bit to unite two celebrated events. Jeff Oliver
On a less positive note, Vancouver city council has refused the bid by the Pic to stay open ‘till 1a.m., proving that No Fun City will not enjoy the few improvements of the new BC liquor regulations. That same week though, the same bunch awarded an identical extension to the Royal Hotel, part of the Granville privileged clique. This shows, without a doubt, that political favoritism to a few club owners is rampant in Vancouver. Contrary to the rumors circulating before New Year’s, the Brickyard is still putting on some live shows but seems to be searching for a new identity. They alter the format almost as often as most people change underwear and by the looks of it, their most recent format is to book the bands that played the Cobalt a couple weeks before. At least it’s not another fuckin’ dance club… until its time to change underwear again, that is. Last but not least, people that want to have fun are setting up an interest group called “Fun is Not A Crime Coalition.” It’s at the drafting stage right now, but the goal is to promote fun and fight the many measures, policies and regulations that impairs this city and province. For more information about this, contact me (Atomick Pete) at Atomickpete@thenerveonline.com. It’s not by staying at home smokin’ pot and whining that will get stuff done. Kill the tube, go out check out some bands, drink some beers and help get this town rockin’ again. Atomick Pete
Something Old, Something New. Something Borrowed, Something Blue... movies, that is!
La Blue Girl 4 (The Perverted World Of The Haunted Sword) Anime 18 English Version: 1995 Running Time: 45min Executive Producer: Rusher Ikeda Director: Rin’oh Yanagikaze Original Author: Toshio Maeda
The latest in the ongoing saga of the Miroku ninja sex-warriors. Miko and Yaku are still fresh from their escape from Kamiri and Kugutsumen’s last scheme. This time the evil doers have raped their way through a village using a punishment rod, a disciplinary device shaped like a phallus but studded with vicious spikes. All this in order to obtain a treasure of the Miroku clan, a magic sword named Zipang. Zipang turns out to be a malevolent force bent on destruction. Of course we don’t find this out until Kamiri has spent the better part of the film fellating and tit-fucking this mystical weapon. It used to be “rub the lamp”; now it’s ”fellate the sword”. Zipang, of course, becomes a giant monster with snaky arms that intrude upon the female ninja’s every orifice. But if you watch enough Anime, you’ll know that this is a common thing. At the end of the video is a preview of about 18 other titles from the same company. Almost every preview contained a scene where a struggling girl was invaded by a multitude of snaky arms. Now, at the start of this video there is an introduction to Anime. Sort of an explanation of why the girls all have huge eyes, school uniforms and hair reminiscent of Jem and the Holograms. Strangely enough, it doesn’t mention any sort of preoccupation with snaky arms intruding upon young girls. The girls have special ninja powers, and of course special ninja sex powers taught to them by their grandmothers. Yaku even turns into a werewolf. GRRR!! They also have a little ninja sidekick that kind of reminds me of an Ewok. It’s fast paced, action packed, violent, funny, bloody and erotic. What more could you ask for? Well, the subtitles can be a little distracting, but what are you going to do? I wouldn’t recommend it for masturbatory purposes but it’s entertaining none the less. I’ll give this one 4 out of 5 snaky arms. For info or a catalogue, call 1-800-626-4277 or surf over to www.centralparkmedia.com.
BLUE MOVIES
never get to see her face. See, contrary to the box cover which says “UNCENSORED”, every time (at least five times) this person is in the shot, her face is covered by digital fogging. Why must they turn my porn store into a den of lies? My guess is she refused to sign the waivers necessary to have this released publicly. For those who don’t know, Janine is a former Penthouse Pet. She also won an XRCO (X-Rated Critics Organization) award for best girl-girl scene in 1993. Anyways, there are some pretty scenic helicopter views of the island, but that’s not why you watch this sort of thing. As the tape rolls we get to see Janine doing a little spelunking, (the real kind) and see Vince getting head from the mystery guest in a cave. Something happens and he doesn’t get to finish. Crue-us interruptus! He does get to go through his comedy routines on the beach and on the bed, where dressed in baggy briefs, he flops around and pretends to be from Iowa. The real funny bit is where Janine rips the undies off of him, snagging his tackle in the process. Ouch! Now as far as the sex is concerned, they hit all the bases. Head, 69, a little missionary, which by the way gives you a great shot of the “USDA CHOICE” tattoo on Vince’s rear. Now Janine is pretty hot, if you’re into that bleach blonde, fake breasts and stripper tan lines thing (ugh! How vile!). On occasion she looks the camera right in the eye and works it like it was real porn. The mystery girl gets in there to help out but it looks more like she just has her thumb up Vince’s ass. Then something happens and Vince doesn’t get to finish. The tape comes to a close with Vince manning the camera (all those rock videos and he still manages to get his foot in the shot) while the friend gets Janine off with a couple of vibrators. The final scene shows Janine expressing her love for the vibrator. Which means after all that humping, Vince doesn’t cum and she still prefers the mechanical to the animal. Throughout this entire video I kept expecting Nikki to pop in with that gum-chewing smirk of his and say something like “Ten Seconds To Love!” Maybe Vince and Tommy should combine their tapes and put a M.C. score in the background, cause the only thing this video made me want to do was play “Shout At The Devil”. Which I did. Definitely not stroker material but as a party tape, by all means, enjoy.
A young man named John (Tony Tedeshi) is abducted by two leather girls (Militia & Ember), and after a three-way romp in a van wakes up in locked room. Welcome to Leather World, a high tech amusement park that employs androids. Or so we find out as the plot unfolds. There are two models, the old RUR 14 and the new RUR 15. The place is run by someone named The Hostess (Chloe). When she lays out the rules for our young rebel, he tells her to “kiss my ass from a moving car!” But wait, this isn’t the only zinger in this flick. In one scene The Hostess tells one of her slaves, “your smile is like an appendix scar.” Chloe gets top billing in this movie, not because of her one liners but probably because she has such a huge clit. Big enough that her piercing looks like a frenum. Or it could be that every scene she’s in, she happily takes it up the ass. And really sells it too, with her eyes rolling back in her head and more “oh my god!”s than I could count. She also does a shaving scene in a gorgeous, three person, black Jacuzzi tub with chrome waterfall taps and marble steps. But I digress. I liked this movie. It’s not the hottest I’ve ever seen but I enjoyed the creativity of the story and of the props. Especially in the Technician’s (John Decker) workshop, where he surprises Thundra (Lauren Montgomery) with his money shot because she hasn’t been programmed to know what cum is yet. She’s only an RUR 14 but she still manages to program herself and the leather girls so that they can have a lesbian three-way. Strap-on and all! Our story ends with John and The Hostess in an eye rolling, “oh god”-ing, butt-banging extravaganza. Afterwards John is informed that he is in fact an android. An RUR 15 to be exact. The new breed. Never saw that coming! John’s reaction (another zinger): “You’re fuckin nuts! Absolutely stark raving fruit loops. Fuck you, and fuck your dog!” He puts on his clothes and leaves. Or does he? As I said before, I like this flick. Stuff like the never ending hallway that John is running down while trying to make his escape is noticeably low budget, but very creative for your average porn. I give this 3 out of 5 “oh my god!”s. Michael D. Dammitt
On nostalgia alone I give this one 3 out of 5 Children Of The Beast.
Michael D. Dammitt
Michael D. Dammitt
Janine & Vince Neil – Hardcore & Leather World Uncensored Vivid & IEG 1998 Running Time: 75min
This little piece of hard rock, handy-cam candy comes to us straight from Hawaii. Shot supposedly on or around May 21st, 1993, it wasn’t released until 1998. It’s basically footage of Vince, Janine and a mystery friend on holiday. I say mystery, because we
Sterling Pictures & Mile High Video 1998 Running Time: 75min Director: Steve Austin Writer/Director: Phil M. Noir Starring: Chloe, Lauren Montgomery, Militia, Ember, Dolly, Tony Tedeshi, John Decker, Michael J. Coxx, Paul Coxx, Mark
slave - The other black and blue meat (with permission, of course.)