The Nerve Magazine - July 2006

The Nerve July 2006 Page 2

The Nerve July 2006 Page 3

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CONTENTS

RE

MI G A U

Q

OCKS 13 BUZZC

07 28 29 32 34 36 36 37 38 39

Sections

Cheap Shotz Live Album Reviews DVD Film Books Video Games Ainsworth Crossword Comics

THE NERVE MAGAZINE 508 - 825 Granville St.,Vancouver, B.C.V6Z 1K9 604.734.1611 www.thenervemagazine.com info@thenervemagazine.com The Don (a/k/a Editor-In-Chief and Publisher) Bradley C. Damsgaard editor@thenervemagazine.com Wiseguy (a/k/a Music Editor) Adrian Mack mack@thenervemagazine.com Shotgun (a/k/a Film Editor) Michael Mann mann@thenervemagazine.com Map and Details (a/k/a Skate Shreditors) D-Rock and Miss Kim Launderer (a/k/a Book Editor) Devon Cody cody@thenervemagazine.com The Henchmen (a/k/a Design & Graphics) Dale De Ruiter, Aviva Rotstein Weapons Cleaner (a/k/a Article Editor) Jon Azpiri Surveillance Team (a/k/a Photographers) Devon Cody, Dale De Ruiter, Miss Toby Marie The Muscle (a/k/a Staff Writers) Jason Ainsworth, Cowboy TexAss, Chris Walter, Jason Schreurs, Adam Simpkins, Therese Lanz, Carl Spackler, David Bertrand, Phil Heidenreich, Ferdy Belland, Dave Von Bentley, Devon Cody, Dale De Ruiter, Derek Bolen, Tony Newton, Andrew Molloy, Boy Howdy Plaster Caster (a/k/a Cover Design) Miss Toby Marie Original Cover Photo: Ian Parker Fire Insurance (a/k/a Advertising) Brad Damsgaard advertise@thenervemagazine.com The Kid (a/k/a The Intern) Aviva Rotstein Out-of-town Connections (a/k/a Distro & Street Team) Toronto: Rosina Tassone Calgary: Mike Taylor Edmonton: Freecloud Records, Shauna Sirockman Winnipeg: Margo Voncook Whitehorse: Jordi and Jeremy Jones Victoria/Whistler: Jono Jak, Lindsay Seattle/Bellingham: Frank Yahr The Nerve is published monthly by The Nerve Magazine Ltd. The opinions expressed by the writers and artists do not necessarily reflect those of The Nerve Magazine or its editors. The Nerve does not accept responsibility for content in advertisements. The Nerve reserves the right to refuse any advertisement or submission and accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.

All content © Copyright The Nerve Magazine 2006.

Est. 1999

Features

23

CONTENTS

16 GRANDE MOTHERS

12

FROM FIRST TO LAST

15

ANTI-FLAG

So you’ve bagged yourself a 15 year-old on Myspace. What next? These guys offer some tips. - Derek Bolen Pittsburgh’s finest are back and they are PISSED - Herman Menervemanana

16 GRANDE MOTHERS

Zappa’s old crew are still wiping the floor with everything else - Phil Oates

23

MINISTRY

24

DeCROO

09 11 13 17 18 18 23 23 26 26

ALLEY DUKES CAGE BUZZCOCKS FOND OF TIGERS AGAINST ALL AUTHORITY THE STILLS QUAGMIRE MASTODON THE DAGGERS THE NECKERS

Al Jourgensen tries to convince us that life is better without drugs - Dale De Ruiter The local troubadour has seen some evil in his time... - Adrian Mack

The Nerve June 2006 Page

8.

$ 99

9.

$ 99 Vanna The Search Party Never Came

$

Escape The Fate

Punkorama 10

Unsound

13.

99

...And Out Come the Wolves

The Shape of Punk to Come

Stories & Alibis

14.

Rancid

Refused

Matchbook Romance

$

Various

Various

There’s No Sympathy for...

Offspring Smash

99 From First To Last Heroine

Bouncing Souls

Matchbook Romance Voices

Gold Record

Motion City Soundtrack Commit This to Memory

From First To Last Dear Diary, My Teen Angst..

Look for this sticker: - While supplies last -

Bad Religion The Empire Strikes First www.epitaph.com

The Nerve July 2006 Page

Dropkick Murphys The Warriors Code

NOFX The Greatest Songs Ever...

CONTENTS

Cheap Shotz

Dear Editor, I am a Christian mother of three. I was going through my eldest daughter’s things when I happened upon your magazine. The images and articles contained therein are unethical and not suitable for ANYONE let alone a 14 year-old girl. You should be ashamed at the filth you are putting out. You cannot control who sees your magazine, so you should have the decency to publish educational and useful information.

Ruth, Burnaby The Nerve replies: Is your daughter hot?

Editor,The Nerve

Dear Sirs, As a single parent raising a six-year-old boy, I feel it’s my responsibility to share my feelings about the ‘standards’ you purport to maintain in your ‘magazine’.

In the last few months in particular, I can’t help but notice a marked decrease in the amount of needless smut in the Nerve. When I take my son to the Bread Garden in Kitsilano, how am I supposed to explain to him that the Nerve has seen fit to stop printing reviews of porno movies (his favourite section) or that pictures of human beings engaged in acts of sexual congress – be it C to C, A to M, A to C to M to A, A to A to D to K, D to C, or T to T to BM – are no longer deemed fit for his curious eyes and restless mind? How do I tell him that some faceless Press Baron in his Ivory Tower over on Granville Street would prefer that little Conrad does NOT gleefully colour in a 12 inch hammer as it plunges into the flaming pucker of some fucked-out drug whore with bugs in her cunt? How do I tell him that? I realize that my concerns will probably fall on deaf ears, and that the laughter of children means nothing to you.

Sincerely, Ms. Sandra Whitehouse Nerve Magazine, We are hoping that our advice will solve the grossly disproportionate male to female aspect ratio of your staff and readership. Let’s gussy up your image with some pointers, shall we? In the last issue alone there were approximately 37 mentions of something we like to describe as “below navel gazing.” Yes, references to the writers’ own penises (sometimes referred to in schoolyard terminology as ‘dinks’). Any references to female genitalia were made voyeuristically and with an air of scorned wonder.Your half-hearted concessions to so called “indie rock” made for alot of mopey bearded hoboes peering out at us from the news racks.

At least the dailies have the good taste to run their Crime Stoppers ads inside their issues. Not that such indie darlings would commit any crimes other than getting high while finding that elusive “sweet drum sound.” If you could find it in your shallow company coffers to get razors and smiles (helpful household hint: smiles are free) for these * ahem * musicians, there is a new technologically advanced version of the five bladed variety on the market. Perhaps you could work a contra deal of free razors in exchange for advertising. It would be wonderful to see some nice fresh, smooth faces on your magazine. Whisker rubs remind many women of times that they have shared with their creepy uncles. Those usually aren’t good memories. Let’s take a moment away from dwelling on the bad. Congratulations are in order for no longer regularly running pornographic (or ‘blue’) movie reviews. Many women we have talked to do not prefer having their partner remove his cock from her pussy to simply jizz all over her face. Endless banal

T

here are a lot of stupid reasons to start your own music label. Running a label is a great way to create an archive of music you love to ensure that it’ll last for future generations to enjoy.

Also, musicians know where to get the best drugs and are wicked fun to party with as long as you’re paying the bill. And, of course, telling people you run a label is a phenomenal pick up line that will get you laid. If you want to make shit loads of money, however, a music label is not for you. An adjective hasn’t been coined that does justice to describe the rapid rate at which you’ll piss through cash if you decide to start a label.You won’t see any return on your investment, ever. But even if you defy the odds and stumble across a band that has some selling potential, people with more money who are better at running a label will probably steal them from you.

So go to business school if you want to make money.

That said, Nic Hughes might have found a loophole. He runs a CD-R only label called Isolated

yet blatant descriptions of video documentation of this said act, now twice removed, incite a similarly unenthusiastic response from them. So congrats on having the good sense to discontinue those particular pieces of flowery prose. Another way to get more women involved is for all of your staff writers and freelancers (that is, if they are even paid in anything besides beer, do the non drinkers on staff get free Tab?) to not wear black tees in Summer when they’re out hob nobbing with the public. Black absorbs heat and can cause one to sweat and smell poorly. This results in a poor representation of your periodical in the realm of at least two human senses. Use these tips and maybe a larger iota of half the population will feel involved.

Signed, Sir Edmund Hillary and his Wife (who would have made it to the top if given a chance) Ainsworth!!!

That dirty Jason Ainsworth has brought his traveling art show to the Petri Dish, 2406 Main St. Among other colourful tapestries is “My Phone Number

Made from Loveless Promiscuity”, where the artist’s ten telephone digits are shaped by ecstatic nudes, pink cocks, and mermaids (some with cocks). Why? According to Ainsworth, “Nothing else seems to work.” Ladies, this is a golden opportunity. Also featured: Ric Flair (circa 1979), and nipples.

Stoner Rock Summer Smash!

For those of us who can’t swallow enough highoctane, sub-octave, post-Sabbath doom-o-rifferama dealing with such internationally-imperative topics as pouting chicks with way too much eye makeup, roaring pickups with lift kits and glasspack mufflers, 8packs of blood-warm malt liquor, the glory of Norse mythology, and the Rings of Saturn… here comes the Stoner Rock Summer Smash, to be held Thursday August 11th at the uber-rad (and underused) Tiki Lounge of East Vancouver’s under-the-hipster-radar Waldorf Hotel. Bands featured at the SRSS include Calgary’s Hypnopilot, Kamloops’ The Next Hundred Years, Vancouver’s MMF (featuring Jonas of Imperial Dragon and the sadly-departed Sir Hedgehog), and local heroes Hezzakya (the alltime favorites of the Nerve’s own Carl Spackler). We have no idea why the Waldorf isn’t in better promotional hands for local bands, but while we figure it out, you should treat yourself to a suprisingly good time with surprisingly good bands in a suprisingly good venue through suprisingly thunderous volume... which should come as no surprise at all. Get your asses out and start boogying to the eternal power chords of the outer cosmos.

Who gives a fuck?

Rivers Cuomo is a fag over onto my back, tears filling my eyes.” This is so faggy and objectionable that I can barely type. It’s bad enough that America’s elites can silver spoon their degenerate progeny through the August Halls of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton with nary a fucking entrance exam or even – in the case of, say, the Bush family – anything approaching cognitive function, but do we have to coddle yesterday’s “troubled” indie rock cry-babies through an apparently meaningless “education” too? What the fuck??? They give him A’s for writing about his wet dreams and porn addiction but when I write about MY porn addiction and wet dreams, I get sacked by my old lady and ridiculed by her family. But at least I understand why Weezer’s last album was such a piece of shit: Cuomo evidently left most of his Chi dripping from the underside of his dorm room desk, that speccy little fuckwit.

Our Music Waste Review The final installment of Vancouver’s Music Waste festival was 100% stolen by the unscheduled appearance of local psych-rock purveyors the Book Of Lists, who performed their masterpiece “Pacifist Revolt” (one song only) at the end of the Anemones set at The Columbia. Perturbed by this guerilla maneuver, a number of Music Waste co-coordinators set their own beards on fire in protest (including the girls). Reportedly The Only magazine will be running a scathing editorial about the incident, entirely in lower case letters. Asked for comment about the unplanned chain of events, local sax-man Shane Krause stated that “touring with They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? totally sucked.” Bruce Allen was unavailable for comment.

- Nerve Book of Lists News Team

Cock Weezer Rivers Cuomo of Weezer recently graduated from Harvard with a paper describing his pathetic life as a porn addict and a simpering description of his first ever wet dream (liar) that goes like this: “I even had my first night time accident, waking up and rolling

Book of Lists makes a surprise appearance!

Now Waves and doesn’t really care about making money. So he gets all the benefits of running a label without the aforementioned crippling financial burden. Isolated Now Waves has put out over 100 albums by local noise acts like N.213, Shearing Pinx, Lioncunt, Channels 2 & 3, Channels 3 & 4, and Mutators, in runs as small as four copies (we think he might be a member of at least half of these groups). He’s subverting the corporate control of the music industry one poorly recorded and cheaply made release at a time. But at the same time, the fact that he’s selling something for $6 in a store that you wouldn’t use for a coaster makes him the best capitalist in Vancouver.

Nerve: How do you explain the miniexplosion of CD-R labels?

CD-Rs are so user friendly and easy. Although a lot of them are shitty as well. I’m always hearing people complain that the CDs I give them don’t work in their CD Players.

Nerve: Do you see the cheapness and availability of CD-Rs as leveling the playing field?

Yeah, I just think it’s really a lot easier to do it at home. But I find it pretty hard to get rid of them and always have to give them away. I don’t care, I just want to get it out there. I’m not really at a point where I can expect to sell all these CDs. I gotta start somewhere even if it’s just to stay sane. I’m obviously aspiring to make this more than a nobudget CD-R label.

Nerve: What makes a label a label as opposed to some guy who’s friends with a lot of bands and has a CD burner?

Good question.

Nic can’t even afford to shell out for website but you can contact him at Isolatednowwaves@yahoo.ca or myspace.com/isolatednowwaves. Or you could go to Zulu records.

- Michael Mann

This month, Little Jimmy Urine of Mindless Self Indulgence What album is currently in your Stereo?

Seeing as I don’t have a stereo and I don’t buy records – ever – the question should be, what are you ripping off of Lime Wire? In which case the last thing I downloaded was a song that Mr. T recorded from some sort of infomercial about loving your mother, or something.

What book are you currently reading or have most recently read?

Honestly, the last ‘book’ I bought was a copy of Mad Magazine, on E- bay, it’s on the bus – I brought it with me. It’s from 1980. The movie parody is Moonraker, but I bought it because Sergio Aragones is in it. I love him.

What was the last movie you watched?

We usually go on Bit Torrent and rip ‘em off. The last one that we ripped off was X-Men 3, and the best thing about it was that it was free.

Name one album, movie or book you consistently recommend to friends.

First off, I don’t really recommend too much music, because being in the music industry will really make you hate music. I feel like I’m some guy that works at the stock market. When I turn on MTV, I’m, like, “buy, sell, buy, buy. sell…” The last movie that I recommended to someone was that one with the guy from Lord of the Rings and the horse… Hidalgo. It’s fun.

I liked it. I wanna get a horse now.

Name one album, movie or book you would recommend to an enemy?

Hildago would be one I’d recommend to an enemy.

And X Men 3. Fall Out Boy. My Chemical Romance.

What is a recent guilty pleasure?

I jerked off in the bunk last night. But nobody heard me.

What is your biggest pet peeve?

Well, I’m a pretty easygoing guy. On tour, it’s that there’s no place to shit before the show. Before you go on stage – I don’t care who the hell you are. Mariah Carey, whoever - you gotta take a big ass dump right before you go on stage. Think about that, people, when you’re watching Christina Aguilera or Britney Spears, they’ve probably just taken their biggest dump of the day. Mariah Carey shits gold. They follow her around with a bucket.

Name one bad habit you are extremely proud of?

Masturbating. All the time. Every single night. Blowing my nose and wiping it on people – I don’t do that enough.

If you could hang out with any one person throughout history who would it be?

Theo Roosevelt, the rough riding motherfucker. I like a president who shoots bears, and does shit.

What is one thing you want to get done before you die?

Jeez – I wanna make a ton of money for nothing, but I’d like it to be, like, not right before I die.

See Mindless Self Indulgence at the Croatian Cultural Centre, July 4th

isolated now waves

The Nerve July 2006 Page

The Nerve July 2006 Page

CONTENTS

Anus Rockabilius

By Adrian Mack

I

n his review of Northern Rednecks, Sean Law quite with thin skin, and we tend rightly notes that if the Nerve was a rockabilly to do the same thing. band, it would be the Alley Dukes. He writes, Nerve:There are a lot of “Not recommended for the politically correct humourless people out amongst us, the subject matter on this debut platthere. ter includes: fuckin’, drinkin’, fuckin’,VD, ass fuckin’, Especially in the rockabilly masturbation, and rockin’. Did I mention fuckin’? … scene (laughs).You can’t this disc will appeal more to the earthy, greasy types please everyone and it’s not out there.” Exactly. Speaking to guitarist Zack Duke even worth trying. from his home in Montreal, I’m pleased to discover Nerve: People confuse that behind the transgressive hijinks he’s articulate, David Allan Coe with knowledgeable, and level-headed. This is where the Johnny Rebel, who Nerve/Alley Dukes comparison breaks down of recorded openly racist course, since everybody here - except for me and music in the early ‘60s. maybe Adam Simpkins – is a fucking moron with no Johnny Rebel’s real name class. was Clarence Pee Wee Nerve: I woke up this morning and Marty Trahan, and he’s famous for Robbins was on the radio, and there he is in a lot of racist country songs your CD gatefold. Weird!!! but the funny thing is, before Marty Robbins, let’s see, Ray Condo. Black Sabbath that, he was recording rockabilly as Jericho Jones. (laughs), Blue Cheer is in there too. We’re all a We actually cover one of his songs, “Black Magic”, bunch of eclectic people. and the first thing about Nerve: Have you him is he was a session heard David Allan musician at Excello Coe’s new album Records, which was THE with Dimebag and Louisiana blues label, and Vinnie Paul? he played with Lightning Yeah. It’s not the David Slim, Slim Harpo… and in Allan Coe I grew up interviews he said, “Hey listening to, but it’s probman, I was never a racist. ably gonna turn a lot of This is what sold. People people on to him, so it’s wanted to hear this shit, a good thing. so I did it.” … It’s sort of Nerve: Where does a ridiculous to call these new listener start with Coe? people racists when they were working shoulder-toGood question. He wrote a lot of great hits for shoulder with black musicians. mainstream country singers. Everyone from Willie Nerve:You guys cover Hasil Adkins, but tell us Nelson to Charlie Pride, but I guess what he’s about somebody that didn’t even get Adkins’ mostly know for is his obscene material, which has infinitesimal amount of attention but should Epitaph_Unseen_Nerve_Half 26/6/06 18:31 Page 1 gotten him a pretty mixed reputation... I really dig have.

David Allan Coe cause he seems to offend people A great unsung name in rock ‘n’ roll is Bobby Fuller.

I really dig David Allan Coe cause he seems to offend people with thin skin, and we tend to do the same thing.

This guy was keeping rock ‘n’ roll alive in the States in the ‘60s, when everybody said it was dead and the only good music comes from England. Who needs the Beatles when you have Bobby Fuller, the Sonics, the Wailers, and all these guys? In fact, there was so much great music going on – all this garage punk, surf, and these hillbillies that never realized rockabilly was over. A rockabilly guy, who I think is fantastic, and just a brilliant songwriter but never got his due is Benny Joy from Florida. Even in the rockabilly crowd, a lot of people don’t know who he is.

Nerve: Whaddya make of the horrorbilly thing?

It’s not for me but as long as it brings more people to the scene – great. A lot of these guys graduate from the Misfits to psychobilly. I came from the other direction. I played in punk bands when I was a teenager, but my real love is ‘30s and ‘40s r’n’b, pre‘60s blues, and old country stuff.

Nerve:The Horrorpops are huge in Vancouver.

I guess they have no rough edges to alienate people

with. I know a lot of people dump on bands like that, but it’s all good. It drives kids to the scene, and maybe they’ll find something else that they’ll like. It’s a normal process, but if you talk to people in the rockabilly scene, they act like the end of the world is comin’. The Horrorpops!! A 16-year-old with the same haircut as me!!

Nerve:You’ve been pretty vocal about the scene, complaining that the iconography – Bettie Page, Cadillacs, blah blah – diminishes the music.

Sure. Originally it was wild, crazy shit. It was modern, it was new, it was a fusion of things that were forbidden. Black music wasn’t really accessible to white teenagers in the ‘50s – it was supposed to strike fear into the hearts of parents, teachers, and clergymen, you know? It wasn’t supposed to be an oldies act.

Nerve: What exactly is ‘analbilly’?

That’s just a slang term we came up with to describe certain people we know that are kinda anal about their rockabilly.You know. If you’re in a rockabilly band you have to shop for 50-year-old pants on eBay, and play this type guitar… we like to have a laugh sometimes at their expense.

Nerve:You guys have an obvious feel for anal sex, but is there another form of unconventional sex you’d like to tout? Shrimping? Cow nostril? The “Spatula”?

I’m not at liberty to discuss that.

Nerve:Your Myspace page made me horny.

We already got kicked off Myspace once already, last year, cause of some of the photos we put on there.

Danny gets all that stuff in the mail, on a pretty regular basis.

Nerve: What does he have that you and I don’t have?

Well, I guess you have to see him on stage to really understand. He’s an entertainer with a capital E. Girls, you can all get yer tits out for Danny and co when the Alley Dukes headline this year’s Zombie Night in Canada, at the Lamplighter, July 25. n

CANADIAN TOUR

LIVE JULY 21st @ Cobalt

ALSO APPEARING:

July 14 in Winnipeg @ WECC July 15 in Regina @ Exchange July 16 in Saskatoon @ Louis Pub July 18 in Edmonton @ Starlite July 19 in Calgary @ Underground

Specially Priced

The Nerve July 2006 Page

The Nerve July 2006 Page 10

CONTENTS

Cage

Drugs, Rap & Natural Selection

A

ny skeptics of evolution or advocates of intelligent design should refer to the following subject: Cage. Not that cacophonous washed up heavy metal band from San Diego… Cage Kennylz, underground emcee from New York. Once a macabre rapper whose shocking obsession with death and suicide gave people the willies, Cage was more like the Insane Clown Posse back then. Now, he’s a cathartic, provocative, and alluring artist who has reenacted his dramatic life story on the album Hell’s Winter - in my opinion, the best rap album of 2005. Since I’ve yet to hear anything of equal or better quality, it’s currently also the best of 2006.

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution proposes that desired and inheritable traits arise in a species to help that organism reproduce in greater numbers. In the case of Cage, his gimmicky novelty raps about “fucking your mom backwards” were inhibiting his evolution as an artist, so he changed his genetic code in order to progress. Frequent reproduction was just a profitable byproduct of abandoning misogynistic lyrics.

When I first dialed Cage’s number I got his voicemail - very typical of the rappers I’ve interviewed

By Omar Mouallem

So much so that actor Shia LeBeauf (from Disney’s Holes and the upcoming Transformers movie) is in the process of producing his story for a feature film.

That story begins in the mid ‘70s, when Cage was born Christian Palko to an American soldier stationed in Germany by the name of Bill Murray (not the actor… the junkie). After Murray was dishonourably discharged for selling heroin, his family was sent back to New York where his homelife deteriorated even more. On “Too Heavy for Cherubs”, Cage recalls assisting his father shoot up by tying a rubber snake around his arm.

Murray finally bounced when Cage was eight. “As far as my memory, I can only recount seeing his face like four times,” he says.

“He was a gnarly junkie.”

The very last time he saw his face was during a police standoff at his grandparent’s house.

Then his mother did the impossible and hooked up with someone even worse: Frank - the inspiration for the song “Shoot Frank” - who knocked Christian around until the age of 16.

A violent and aggressive Cage had his mother in a bind. She was convinced that he was insane. Not knowing what else to do with him, Mrs. Palko had him institutionalized at New York’s Stoney Lodge

ALL PHOTOS: Nairobi Morgan

How many songs can I make about fucking and being high while doing it?

- but what made his redeemable was a hilarious impression of Hunter S. Thompson. “You’ve reached the new voicemail of Chris Palko. It’s a damn shame man, the girls are crazy out there.” I wanted to leave a message mimicking Dr. Gonzo, but I couldn’t. His mailbox was full. I guess the girls are crazy.

It wasn’t till much later that I finally did get a hold of him. As he perused the Virgin Megastore in Times Square, I typed frantically, trying to compile his tangents into coherent and accurate quotes. With Cage there is no topic that is off limits. While some rappers would get protective when asked who’s going to be on their next album, Cage instead chooses to tell me about the last time he saw his father.

To that end, Cage has lived a life fit for a movie.

Hospital.

It was there that Cage was used as a test subject during dawn of the Prozac age. It was only supposed to be a two-week psychiatric evaluation.

Eighteen months later, Cage exited even less stable than before. “The first time I felt euphoria was at a needle injection in Stoney Lodge,” he recalls. “First time I tried anything but marijuana.” He now had an insatiable craving for hallucinogenics. “I was a crazy 18 year old kid on acid and PCP.” Aside from chasing a wicked high, Cage also started to pursue a rap career - a skill he taught himself at Stoney Lodge, or what he calls “Rap College”. The opportunity came when he was offered a deal through a subdivision of Columbia records,

a chance he frittered because he was too high to record anything worth releasing.

His peers, meanwhile, dubbed him Alex, as in Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange. “My life parallels his, with the test research,” he explains. “When I came home a lot of people started calling me that.

I made one song and a lot of people wanted me to run with that.” The song he refers to, “Agent Orange”, includes a sharp, looped sample from the opening score of the Kubrick film, and a psychotic Cage reciting every unimaginable act he could use to offend you: “Sit with a smirk, plus I be disturbed/ Fucked the first two bitches like dogs, and I jacked off on the third.” It was an underground hit.

“Right after ‘Agent Orange’, people were coming up to me, like (insert English accent here), ‘Yo Alex, right-right?’ It was awful. I don’t have any association with the movie. I’m not your high priest of Stanley Kubrick films.” Cage takes a moment to catch his breath. “I let that go real quick.”

It’s a bit of a lie because, although he dropped the Alex thing, he continued with the deranged elements that gave him a fan base. Like Nicholas Coppola, Christian then changed his name to Cage, and released Movies For The Blind on Eastern Conference Records.

The drug abuse got worse, and Cage concurrently released a few more side projects for E.C. Unhappy with the executive decisions made by the label, he eventually left for longtime friend El-P’s company, Definitive Jux. As an official Def Jukie, Cage was open to record anything he wanted. An ensemble of avant-garde rappers, there is only one rule with Def Jux: be original.

Finally the inevitable happened, and Cage sobered up. “When I got off drugs I looked at myself in the fucking mirror: a white dude with an edge, perpetuating black stereotypes,” he sighs, referring to his former dress code. Jeans low enough to be an

extension of his boxer shorts. XXL jackets, Timberland boots, teeth grilled with some sort of alloy, and of course, what’s a rapper without a ball cap tilted 20 degrees? “Seven years ago, a 50-something black guy came up to me, and told me ‘They’re laughing at you.You’re not black.You’re never gonna be back.’

Seven years later, I’m still reflecting on those string of words.”

With his new clan of dignified artists, Cage finally released Hell’s Winter, one of the most personal rap albums ever. Confronting his skeletons, nothing was left unspoken. When asked if he could have recorded it inebriated, Cage replies, “No. It took me years of saying “I quit” and [quitting] for months and doing it again, and not doing it, and beating myself up, and doing it again. I felt like I was going completely mad.

I still wanted to do drugs but they were done with me.”

The new, decent persona left some fans in the dark. “It’s not like I turned my back on them. After I got off the drugs, the music I had made was fucking stupid. How many songs can I make about fucking and being high while doing it? They just wanted a soundtrack to their mishaps.”

He pans the goods at Virgin Megastore and continues, “As we speak I’m looking at a wall of CDs that represents every walk of life. I don’t want to imitate these motherfuckers anymore. It’s about progression. If you’re not progressing, what the fuck are you doing?”

If a species doesn’t progress and evolve it will eventually become extinct. In the current climate of hip hop, the intelligent listeners are leaning towards honesty and integrity - in search of empathy.

Through natural selection, Cage has adapted to this changing environment.

Cage is currently undertaking a belated tour of the Hell’s Winter and will be popping by Vancouver on July 15th, at Richard’s on Richards. n

The Nerve July 2006 Page 11

CONTENTS

By Derek Bolen

What Did He Just Say?

The Nerve July 2006 Page 12

ALL PHOTOS: Ragnore Popcore

I

hate referencing Myspace. I really do. Sure, I have a profile (www.myspace.com/kingoftheposers, for those of you that want to send hatemail, stalk me, and/or bear my children), like everyone else.

But let’s face it, the site manages to be a veritable smorgasbord for Internet predators, an Internet popularity contest that transcends high school, and a medium for Rupert Murdoch to beam advertisements directly in to our brain all at the same time.

I’m happy to report that some good can come out of the site (other than it serving as an outlet to meet ridiculously easy girls with low self-esteem), which was evidenced when From First To Last used Myspace to recruit lead singer Sonny Moore at the tender age of 15, in the midst of recording of its debut album. That album, Dear Diary: My Teen Angst Has a Body Count immediately set the band apart from its peers in the teeming post-hardcore genre and went on to sell over 100,000 copies. The band never looked back.

This year found FFTL continue to develop its own sound, with the new album, Heroine. While the album garnered plenty of attention (peaking at #25 on Billboard), some of the bands’ rabid fan base has been alienated by it. “I think the reaction is kind of mixed,” said drummer Derek Bloom, speaking to me from the band’s Warped Tour stop in Kansas City, Missouri (I know, I thought it was in Kansas too…those wacky Americans!). “There’s a strong faction of our fan base that has received the record and really opened up to it, and there’s another large group of fans that haven’t accepted it yet. I don’t think they wanted to hear as drastic a difference from Dear Diary as it was. We all felt it was necessary to take a step and try something new; to push the envelope a little bit.”

Despite their desire to break new ground musically and crafting songs that are generally a hell of a lot harder than your average Fall Out Boy ditty, the boys in FFTL have found themselves lumped in with the anti-emo backlash, but they don’t let it bother them. “We try to take ourselves outside of the ‘emo genre’…outside of ANY genre, actually’. We don’t try to fit in to a sub categorization of a subcategory.

Everything is so specific - it has to be ‘post’ this or ‘pre’ that. I don’t think genres matter to anybody except people who feel the need to categorize everything.” The band employed this philosophy by embarking on a tour with Fall Out Boy, the AllAmerican Rejects and Hawthorne Heights, emo-lite bands which couldn’t be any more different from the aggressive sounds of From First To Last on this past Spring’s Black Clouds and Underdogs Tour. “A lot of those shows almost had more of a turnout than we’ve seen on Warped Tour so far this year. We had never really done a tour of that scale before, and it was a growing, learning experience. It was good

because we were getting out to a crowd that would otherwise never really know we existed. We felt we were well received. We’re really competitive and we were having a merch sales competition with the other bands and found that we were neck-and neck with Hawthorne Heights a lot of nights, so that was a good sign we were getting out to people.”

The more mature sound may be helping.

Heroine, despite bothering some fans of the band’s previous work, is still an impressive display of musical development. “I don’t really think there’s any comparison between this album and Dear Di-

ary,” says Bloom. “It’s more of a complete record, everyone’s proud of it. We got to spend a lot of time writing and working on the songs after they were written, making sure everything was exactly the way

all of this year’s summer dates, prompting speculation he may be a full time member, but Bloom states that is not the case. “He’s got his own obligations right now. We’re not trying to force him to choose or pick a side or anything, we just respect the fact that he has a life outside of our band. We’re in no position to tell him that he has to make a choice, though we’d love him to be a full time member. He has his own band called Black Light Burns that, if everything goes according to plan, we’ll be taking on tour with us in the fall.”

The band’s explosive popularity also fueled interest from a couple of major labels, resulting in a bidding war between Capitol and Warners, but the band maintained a down-to-earth approach throughout the attention. “You kind of have to take these things with a grain of salt, because a lot of people will tell you what you want to hear with no intention of ever delivering. We put out the deal we wanted and wouldn’t negotiate… we felt if someone wanted to take it, great, and if not, we were happy on Epitaph. But we’re really stoked about signing with Capitol. They’ve been extremely helpful so far with Heroine without stepping on Epitaph’s toes. We haven’t really got a chance to get our hands dirty yet, but I think once we start pre-production for the next album they’re going to be really supportive.”

From First to Last will be in Vancouver for the July 18th Warped Tour stop at Thunderbird Stadium, where Bloom assures me they’ll be bringing as much energy to the stage as every show he plays. “With the creative side of music kind of in the toilet, the performance part of being a musician takes on more importance. When I think of great musicians and people that I admire, in addition to being incredible creative writers and thinkers, they also have a presence on stage - whether it was going crazy or being very theatrical - they made it impossible to take your eyes away. We try to give people something they can’t get anywhere else.” When pressed for bands that fit that description appearing on this year’s Warped Tour, Bloom is able to name a few.

“Every Time I Die always brings a high energy show and we’re looking forward to seeing AFI.” Take it from the masters of high-energy shows and be sure to check out all of these bands at your local Warped Tour date. Or don’t. It’s not like I give a shit personally. I’m just an unpaid writer. n

With the creative side of music kind of in the toilet, the performance part of being a musician takes on more importance. We try to give people something they can’t get anywhere else we wanted it. That wasn’t a luxury we had with our first record…Dear Diary was written really fast and in an unorganized, chaotic state of mind. We didn’t really know what we were doing, there was a lot of pressure because the label wanted to see results and we wanted to see results we didn’t want to be wasting anybody’s time. With Heroine, I felt it was more us making a statement and the rest of the stuff was taken care of before.”

Heroine featured production from heavyweight producer Ross Robinson (Korn, Slipknot, Sepultura) who, in turn, brought in his friend Wes Borland (of Limp Bizkit fame) when the band found themselves without a bassist.

“Wes was great… he gave the record a completely different feeling. A lot of bass players are so rigid in the way they play, but Wes had a natural groove that you can definitely hear in the music. Plus, he has years of experience in the music industry, so he offers pretty much the best advice you can get.”

Borland is currently appearing with the band on

CONTENTS

Seniors Going Steady

The Buzzcocks

ALL PHOTOS: Paul Madden

T

hey might not have been the biggest, the baddest, or the ballsiest group of the original punk movement, but in the eyes of many observers, they were unequivocally the best of a far-from-bad lot. Manchester’s Buzzcocks recently celebrated their 30th year in business and their affable leader Pete Shelley only has one regret. “If I knew it was going to last this long,” he quips with a smile, “I would have learned to play the guitar a bit better.”

2006’s Flat-Pack Philosophy is the band’s latest full-length and – being packed to the gills with trademark wit and hooks a plenty - the disc is a supersized helping of Manc angst that easily recalls the band’s finest moment.You’d think after so much time that sneer would have straightened and, at very least, Shelley would’ve gone straight and pulled a Feargal Sharkey. But alas, old habits die hard and the band’s interest in short, sharp pop-punk songs remains to this day.

“It’s the type of music we’ve always liked,’ says Shelley. “Personally, I grew up in the 1960s and used to listen to a lot of the pirate stations on my old transistor radio. That was the music of the time: lots of short, catchy songs with great melodies. A lot of 1960s music was pretty similar to what later became punk, in terms of keep things fun and simple.”

Guitarist Steve Diggle is the other original Buzzcock still kicking around with Tony Barber (bass) and Danny Farrant (drums) rounding out the foursome. Farrant is a relative newcomer - he joined the unit this spring, around the time the band announced they’d be playing some dates the 2006 edition of the Warped Tour. As for Barber, he joined in 1993, after cornering Shelley at a Manic Street Preachers gig and essentially forcing himself into the band (the move paid off after Barber nailed a series of Buzzcocks classics at his later audition).

The roots of the Buzzcocks lie not only with Shelley but with Howard Devoto, a four-eyed limey who went on to form art rock outfit Magazine and currently makes his living as a photo archivist. Shelley and Devoto hatched their band concept over coffee in February of 1976 and soon found themselves London-bound, in search of this feisty band of buggers they had just read about in the NME, the Sex Pistols.

As Shelley recalls, “The very first review I ever read of the Pistols had this great quote from the band, saying they weren’t into music but they were into chaos. Well, that right there really appealed to Howard and I, and we decided that we just had to seek this band out for ourselves.”

The duo managed to track down the Pistols’ erstwhile manager Malcolm McLaren and before you could say “you fucking rotter”, the Pistols were heading north to make their Manchester debut.

Shelley had to scramble a bit to a find a venue willing to take a chance on these leathery loons but he would soon secure a room willing to play host.

“The Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester was typically a big orchestral room. I believe it’s a hotel today. In any case, the manager agreed to rent us the upstairs room for this gig. It couldn’t have held more than three or four hundred people. The whole rental only cost us 32 pounds and Malcolm arranged for the band to come up, and that was it. Originally, I had hoped that our band would be available to open but we were still finalizing our roster so I ended up collecting tickets instead.”

In the audience that evening were future members of Joy Division and New Order, Mick Hucknall from Simply Red, and a teenage Morrissey, who no doubt spent the gig at the back of the room, sobbing. Within days of the show, punk rock was blanketing the streets of Manchester and the landscape of music in the city was changed forever, thanks in large part to the efforts of Shelley and Devoto.

Says the former, “That show really broke the ice for punk in the north of England and more importantly, brought all these people into the very same room. There was less than 50 people at the gig but being such a small community of people interested

in this type of music and this type of art, you began to recognize faces around the city and things became a lot more organized from that point on.”

While Shelley had hoped to have his band up and running for that Pistols gig, it wasn’t meant to be and the Buzzcocks didn’t make their live debut until a few months later. Luckily, their reputation had preceded them and Shelley says there were no shortage of Mancunians lining up to work with this ambitious young rock band.

“We were approached very early on by [future Joy Division and New Order producer] Martin Hannett, who was trying to make a go as a music agent at the time. Somehow, he convinced us that he could produce our first EP and that’s how Spiral Scratch first came together.

The sleeve is credited to Martin Zero though - as in those days changing your last name was a very ‘punk’

“If I knew it was going to last this long, I would have learned to play guitar a bit better.”

thing to do - I don’t think it was for tax purposes.”

Shelley continues, “The tracks for the first EP were actually voted on by the band. We figured we might never get another chance to put something out so we should decide democratically what made the album and what didn’t. Ironically, the song that just missed the cut, “Orgasm Addict”, went on to become one of our best-known songs. Luckily, we managed to later release that one as our next single.”

Indeed, “Orgasm Addict” did become not only the band’s next single but an anthem for little masturbators worldwide. The Buzzcocks were a band willing to sing not only about societal taboos but also the banality of mid-1970s England. Before long, the band found their audience, composed primarily of punk and new wave fans too snide and sardonic to adopt the requisite bondage gear of their contemporaries.

Devoto left very early on, and the Buzzcocks eventually recorded and released three proper fulllengths: Another Music in a Different Kitchen (1978), Love Bites (1978), and A Different Kind of Tension (1980). The band splintered in 1981 but their fanbase didn’t, much to the surprise of Shelley.

“When I left the band in March of 1981, I never

By Cameron Gordon

for a moment thought people would still be listening to the records a year later, much less 20 years later. But sure enough, there was always a steady interest in the band throughout much of the 1980s. It was actually [legendary US booking agent] Ian Copeland who put out the first offer of a reunion, when we got back together in 1989. He offered a three-week tour of the US and everybody accepted so we gave it a whirl. And really, the band has pretty much been going strong since.”

The Buzzcocks picked up a new generation of fans in the 1990s and beyond, especially when younger, uglier acts like the Doughboys, Green Day, and Billy Talent started singing their praises. And meanwhile back in England, the band has assumed something of an elder statesmen role. After legendary BBC DJ John Peel passed in late 2004, it was Shelley who was one of the first artists to record a tribute, in the form of a less-pissy rendition of the Buzzcocks classic “Ever Fallen In Love”. Some of the rock royalty who guested on the record included David Gilmour, Roger Daltrey and the lumpy Elton John, all of whom expressed a strong admiration for both the song and the songwriter.

“I actually ran into Elton at an award banquet recently for Mojo Magazine,” says Shelley. “He was receiving some kind of lifetime achievement awared and Elt told me how much he enjoyed participating in that project and how much he loved the song.

It was very flattering, even though the song was recorded in a very trans-Atlantic fashion, with none of us in the room at the same time.”

The enduring quality of that song is not unlike the enduring quality of the Buzzcocks themselves… and all timeless rock ‘n’ roll, for that matter. Clever lyrics and catchy melodies never go out of style and with that in mind, Shelley feels fortunate that his band will never be tied to one ideal, one fashion or one era.

“The Buzzcocks were never true to any one time - we didn’t have that strong visual image that a band like the Sex Pistols or Siouxsie and the Banshees had. But as the years have gone by, I think a lot of people soon came to realize how much they liked our music and as a result, it’s allowed us to keep touring and keep recording.” n

The Nerve July 2006 Page 13

The Nerve July 2006 Page 14

Ant i Fla g A

nti Flag’s new album For Blood and Empire is an unequivocal howl of rage at our dire and deepening world crisis. It’s aimed squarely at America’s insane foreign policy objectives, the unregulated vampire of corporatism, and a “democracy” that has been reduced to mind-controlled pundits calling each other names on TV. Maybe you’ve noticed: the free press has been well and truly gassed, and Paris Hilton – the most pointless person that ever lived, EVER - tops the Billboard Hot 100!

Meanwhile, these Pittsburgh straight-edgers have been knocked for signing with RCA – a division of Sony – but the critics ought to take a look at what’s going on here. For Blood and Empire includes essays by the likes of Greg Palast, Dahr Jamil, and John Perkins. The album addresses a raft of issues that are completely verboten in the mainstream media: the truth about Iraq (clue: it’s certainly not about Democracy, and oil is only part of the picture); the CIA’s ongoing efforts to destabilize and exploit infant economies; the ruthless actions of the Monsanto corporation who are determined to own the earth’s entire food supply; the ongoing scandal of depleted uranium, which will eventually poison all of us... there’s no let up to the amount of corruption, venality, and criminality currently undertaken by our governments (and that includes ours), and there’s no let up on the album, either. Some of us around here even feel that we’re approaching the endgame, where any dissent is good dissent, no matter how it’s delivered, and Anti-Flag has nestled itself in the bosom of the enemy in order to get its message to you, Rudy.

Drummer Pat Thetic, calling from a Warped Tour stop in Nashville, explains further.

Nerve: The album is refreshingly direct with its targets. I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve actually seen the Project for a New American Century called out in any kind of mainstream venue.

Well exactly, and the song “Depleted Uranium is a War Crime”, to get a seated member of Congress to be on a punk rock record talking about how depleted uranium is killing people in Iraq, you know, these are things that we should be talking about everyday.

Nerve: How did RCA react to the lyrics, and the extra content in the CD booklet?

We told them from the beginning, there’s no point working with anybody who’s going to change any of the things we say. And we handed the record in, and they accepted it. As I navigate the major label world a little bit more, I realize how much of a huge win that is. A couple of them have said that, ‘You guys are saying shit that they won’t let us say.’

Nerve: Getting back to PNAC. Some feel that there’s a connection between its stated desire for “a new Pearl Harbour,” and the subsequent events of 9/11. Even though 9/11 Truth has been badly poisoned by disinformation - especially crazy theories concerning missiles, and holograms etc - I really feel it’s the key issue of our time, because it could potentially unravel everything about your government and mine. What’s your take on the 9/11 “Omission” Report?

My take is that our government is a bunch of scumbags that will stop at nothing to retain power.

Having said that, I don’t know what happened on 9/11. I watched it on TV like everybody else, and was aghast, but you say these are “crazy theories”; I look at the COINTEL program and the Bush wiretap program, and I think these people will stop at nothing.

Obviously, I don’t think that they can orchestrate an attack, but then, they can take out a president like Kennedy, so… I think there’s a lot of people around the world who do hate us, and do see us as Satan, trying to destroy their way of life, and I can see that

CONTENTS

Welcome to Germany, 1936 frustration and anger coming back at the US, but I also don’t see it as outside the realm of possibility that the American government uses something like 9/11 to control the population. When they have those events, they can get things passed, like the Patriot Act. They can get their foreign policy – like the Project for a New American Century – off the drawing board.

Nerve: Just to be clear, I’ll go you one further and admit that I’m a LIHOP (“Let it Happen on Purpose”) believer. I think unprovable science fiction stories derail the investigation, though.They exist for precisely that reason.

I agree. And you never know whether it’s reality or not. With Pearl Harbour, they said, ‘How could the Japanese come so close to a military installation in Hawaii, and not be detected or stopped?’ Obviously, they needed some event to get them into WW2, and we needed some event to get into fighting ‘terrorists’, as they say. I don’t have any answers, but it’s interesting: as we’re having this conversation, two big B1 transport planes are flying over me right now.

That was the main thing that was so scary to me, on September 11, after the carnage and destruction, was the realization about how fragile our myth of democracy and myth of freedom is… we really have no protection from power. If they choose to take you out, or ruin your life, they can do it and there’s nothing that’s going to stop them. That’s a very scary thing, because you grow up, your whole life, with the First Amendment, Freedom of Speech, Habeas Corpus… and when shit goes down it’s all a myth and they will do whatever they choose.

Nerve: Isn’t it interesting that General Hayden – the man behind the domestic wiretapping program – has been appointed as Director of the CIA? Exactly. And the amazing thing is there’s no embarrassment in the Bush administration for these things.

Like making John Bolton – a guy who’s been trying to get the US out of the UN – the ambassador to the UN.

Nerve: At the very least, John Bolton appears to be certifiably insane I was thinking about this the other day, and obviously, I’m paranoid, but what happens in the next two years, if Bush decides not to leave office? We might think that’s funny, and that would never happen, but when Bush got elected, we thought, this is funny: maybe he’ll invade Iraq, just like his dad. Two and a half years later, he did.

Nerve: I’m probably more paranoid than you, and I find that most of the progressive blogs (forget the press) are merely gatekeeping for the counterfeit left, and not addressing anything real – they’re cheerleading for the Democrats which is utterly pointless since

By Herman Menervemanana

that party has basically the same agenda as its opponent… i.e. War. Exactly. There’s no dissent from the Democratic Party. It’s just, ‘Vote for us.’ What the fuck? Offer us some alternative, and we might be able to vote for you…

Nerve: In order to maintain the illusion of Democracy, you also maintain the illusion of debate, but the “debate” has carefully prescribed limits.

I used to believe in freedom, man, and I used to believe in due process, and innocence till proven guilty.

And in the last eight years I’ve realized that none of those things actually exist. I think there’s a very real possibility, if there’s another terrorist attack, that Bush will declare martial law, retain his presidency, and I think the American population will go along with it, and I think people like me – commie faggots – are gonna get their asses kicked. (laughs) Nerve: In May, George Bush called the passenger revolt on hijacked flight 93 the “first counter-attack to World War III”. I’d say come on up to Canada, but…

I used to think so, but I think with the long arm of the US government, Canada’s not gonna be a safe place to hide.

Nerve: A couple weeks ago, CSIS and the RCMP busted up an alleged terrorist cell in Toronto, and it was pretty much the only news we got for a few days. It’s been claimed that they intended to decapitate our Prime Minister. Not a bad idea on paper, but the story is full of holes and getting more suspicious by the day.

That’s the thing. How do we know any different? They put it in the news, and we’re like, ‘Alright, those guys are bad guys. It says so in the news.’

Who told us? The people in power! So what do we do? We fall in line. That’s the problem when we don’t have a real media that’s a watchdog of the powerful.

It’s embarrassing how bad it is, even after we’ve learnt there were no WMDs and they’d been lying the whole time. It’s incredible.

Nerve: Even then, I think the whole “Bush is incompetent” thing is part of the problem, because it seems to me that the Iraq war has so far been a raging success in terms of fulfilling their real goals, such as a long-term military presence in the Middle East. And Afghanistan, of course, has yielded a pipeline, a fake president with strong ties to the oil industry, and the resurgence of Afghanistan as a narco-state, thereby nourishing America’s other phony conflict – the War on Drugs.

I agree with you. The problem is, why don’t more people understand what’s going on? People ask, ‘Why did you sign to a major label?’ And our answer is that everyday we are getting propaganda shoved down our throats on TV, radio, print, everywhere, and… we need to have some type of foothold so we can at least tell people there’s other options out there and that this isn’t the only way, and that’s the unfortunate part about being in the US: everyone sees it as ‘the only way.’ ‘There’s terrorists everywhere and we have to blow everybody up.’ That’s not gonna work and there’s no way you can possibly do that.

Nerve: How about the big Al-Zarqawi gore

fest? The Pentagon admitted they made him up*, but I guess CNN didn’t get the memo.

The US media is all over it. It’s like the NFL draft.

Who’s next? It’s a very diffuse thing, and nobody knows who the bad guys are, and everybody there hates us – the American people should be, like, get the fuck out! But what they’re saying is there’s this one bad guy. Once we defeat this one bad guy, it’ll be all better. And okay, we got one bad guy but that didn’t have an impact, so, he’s got a buddy, and he’s number two, and we have to find him now.

Nerve: I was reading about Ron Suskind’s new book, The One Percent Doctrine, which reveals that when Al-Zabudayah was captured – he was Al Qaeda’s reputed “Chief of Operations” - he turned out to be a gibbering loon.

The Bush administration evidently didn’t see this as an impediment, and extracted confessions under torture anyway (water-boarding for instance). It also claims that Bush is deliberately kept out of the information loop in order to give him ‘plausible deniability.’

It worked for Reagan, it worked for Bush Sr, and it’ll work for Bush Jr. I have a degree in psychology, and one of things you learn is that under torture, people will tell you anything you want to hear. And they’ll believe it. It’s the same in jury systems, and with witnesses. They want to make the people around them happy, and they’ll agree with or say whatever you want them to say, and it’s a very ineffective way to get information. Obviously, it’s just another example of what happens when evil people are in power.

They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want. It’s what happened at Abu Ghraib, it’s what’s happening in Guantanamo, and it’s what’s happening in all the other prison camps around the world that we’re not privy to yet.

Nerve: Why was Karl Rove not indicted?

The reality is, much like the NSA scandal, you can’t investigate Rove cause they’re not gonna give you the information you need to investigate him. And it goes against my belief structure, that you are innocent until proven guilty, however, some people are just so evil that it wouldn’t surprise me if, 50 years from now - and I do fantasize about this - when all the books come out about this time in history, we’re gonna be, like, ‘Son of a bitch! I knew that’s what was going on!’ And they told us it wasn’t. But sooner or later it’s all gonna come out, when all the players are dead. And I’ll probably be dead. It’s like the assassination of JFK. Now we pretty much know.

There’s two things I’ll leave you with. One is the new Al Gore movie and how great it is. The tragedy and the underlying message for me is, if he was in the White House for eight years, and was not able to do anything to stop these catastrophes from happening, it either means the executive branch is utterly powerless, or he doesn’t really care – I like to think he does. Also, we have a thing called Military Free Zone.

In the States, if a school receives federal funding they have to hand over the student’s records to the military for recruitment purpose. And we started a program called Military Free Zone to combat that, cause A) we think it’s an invasion of privacy, but also, we think that it’s another step in the militarization of our culture. The other thing we’re working on this year is depleted uranium - and you have Canadian troops in Afghanistan right now, and I’m sure they’re using ammo tipped with depleted uranium – so what we’re trying to do is make people aware of the problem with DU, and hopefully, as more people are aware of it, they’ll stand up and tell their governments not to use it. And it’s not only a problem for the soldiers, but it’s also a problem for people who have to live in that environment, as we drop tons of weapons, and there’s all that depleted uranium, with a half life of four and half billion years. It’s very difficult to grow crops and live a normal life when you’ve got radioactive soil. Those are two things we’re working on this year. *For a good overview of the al Zarqawi boondoggle, google: “Michel Chossudovsky: Who was Abu Musab al Zarqawi?” n

I think there’s a very real possibility that Bush will declare martial law, and people like me – commie faggots – are gonna get their asses kicked.

The Nerve July 2006 Page 15

CONTENTS

The Grande Mothers F rank Zappa’s The Mothers Of Invention were way ahead of the pack between 1965 and 1969.

The debut double LP Freak Out!, Absolutely Free, We’re Only In It For The Money, Lumpy Gravy, Uncle Meat, were unlike any other music at the time and Roy Estrada was there through it all (Did you know they came to Vancouver in 1968 and played the Kerrisdale Arena?) After leaving Frank in late ’69 Roy went on to form Little Feat with Lowell George and helped make their first two albums. Then he joined Captain Beefheart for Clear Spot and Spotlight Kid! Quite a track record.

These days he, along with another original Mother Don Preston and Napoleon Murphy Brock from Zappa’s mid-to-late ‘70s Mothers, are touring the world as the Grande Mothers and keeping Zappa’s music alive. They were here at the Folk Festival last year and due to public demand are returning!

Believe me, if you ever dug Zappa you don’t want to miss these guys. They’re fun and fuuuunnny. They’re wicked musicians and they blew a few minds last summer there on Jericho Beach, my own included.

Ladies and gentlemen, Roy Estrada!

Nerve:You’ve been at times labeled as a tribute band, which is unfair since some of you were there from the beginning…

We helped make that man, you know what I’m sayin’. We were there! When Don Preston and Bunk Gardner and Jimmy Carl Black got the Grande Mothers together when Frank was alive… see I wanted to change the name of the group when I joined. I heard they were doing some stuff onstage… well I don’t blame Frank for getting upset. My outlook is I wanna go out there and keep his music alive and at the same time play the music the audience wants to hear. I don’t want to be boasting but I can remember in ’69 was the last tour I did with Frank.

I quit and Frank didn’t want me to quit. Soon after I quit, he disband the group.

Nerve: Why’d you quit?

Several things, financial reasons. I’m not complaining, I enjoyed playing with Frank but it took me away… I should have made more time for myself. Frank kept us pretty busy. On the last tour, Lowell George went on tour with us. I don’t know how that came about but around 1970 I formed Little Feat with him.

Nerve: Credit to you. I know I’m not alone thinking the first version of the Mothers is my favourite and the first two Little Feat albums

the original mothers circa 1968 we’re not a cover band.

Nerve: One thing I like about the early Mothers is the sound was garage-y, a bit of a racket.

It was more earthy, not plastic, not sterilized.

Nerve: Frank’s later stuff got too clean for me, too perfect…

Perfect musicians (laughing). Robots. He wanted to have them play what he was hearing in his mind.

Nerve: Frank was notorious for not liking drugs and was strict about it with his band.

I remember one time, it was our first show outside of home, in Hawaii, we’d just finished a record and Frank was real happy. Frank did one toke. That was the only time I remember that happening. And from that one toke he was up for days! From that point on he never did it again!

Nerve: Was he having a good time?

He was down at the beach. I don’t know if he was trippin’ or if he wrote any music from that. He didn’t have a bad trip out of it, but he didn’t need it.

this year’s model

are the ones I prefer.

A lot of people tell me that too. Around ’72 in Los Angeles the smog was really bad and Don Van Vliet – Captain Beefheart - approached me and he was living in Trinidad, near Eureka in Northern California, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get out of L.A. for a while, away from the smog and the drugs and all that and that was the next thing that I did. I didn’t realize it then but looking back all those bands were connected with Frank. Anyways I have all that behind me and that should at least warrant that

The Nerve July 2006 Page 16

By Phil Oats

Nerve: Some people don’t.

Some people don’t. But what got to him was the cigarettes and espresso, that’s what gave him cancer of the prostrate.

Nerve: We could use him today. He’d be right on the front lines for us.

Oh yeah! He’s why the rappers can say what they want now ‘cause he fought for freedom of speech.

It’s in the constitution. We still have to do that.

Nerve: He talked of running for president.

You know what happens when somebody strong like

that gets going, something happens to you without you even knowing.You start saying things outta line, they come at you without you even knowing.

The twin towers? I don’t think it was people on the other side, I think it was our own people. A reason to go over there and get that oil.

Nerve:You’re not alone.The Mothers were right on top of their surroundings, making comments as all the ‘60s stuff was starting to explode.

Every time something positive happened there you always get people who would hide behind it and come out and ruin it.

So Frank started punning a lot of the hippies…

Nerve:They weren’t as cool as they thought they were…

The hippies were messing up the whole thing by trying too hard to be hippies. They were just bad people, you know, so Frank had some fun with it, we had songs like “Hey Punk Where You Going with That Flower in Your Hand” (laughs). Just because you’re a hippie doesn’t make you ‘in’.You gotta stand for something. We were going along with the events of that period. The first Mothers, we were right for that time! I don’t know if you could say about the bands he had later if they were right for that time, the tone was more about ‘Look at how bad we are’. I can remember when we first started playing at the Garrick Theatre, that whole Greenwich Village seemed… deserted. We were playing there for a while and within about a three week period they had to close off the street, the place got packed, people were coming into our concerts and everything was going on in that block! It was just a movement that was happening in that time period.

We were in the theatre on top and below us was the Café Au Go-Go that had Paul Butterfield, all the guys that became Blood Sweat & Tears. Jazz bands too. Gary Burton… all those guys were just starting.

Nerve:The Fugs.

Oh the Fugs were just around the corner. And Beefheart, the Safe As Milk album. Strange album! It was after they took acid, they just changed everything.

If you listen to his lyrics, artistic poems telling you what’s going on in life, but in his own way. I haven’t seen him in years… I’ve been trying to find out how to get hold of him. I don’t know how Don’s doing.

I’ve heard he’s quite ailing.

Nerve: Frank has always had this singular vision, did you just go along with it or did it make sense to you?

Speaking for myself, I was in agreement with everything he talked about. He and I would talk a lot about things that were going on. I knew what he wanted onstage, crazy stuff. I was in agreement with everything.

Nerve: I know Frank would always think that

his newest work was his best, but I have to think he knew in his heart of hearts – though he didn’t have much time for nostalgia – that you guys, his earliest group were the most collaborative and fun.That later years he was the boss and the band was hired.Ya think?

In so many ways, yeah, I don’t think he had as much fun later on, although he might’ve a few times. But you know, it goes along with getting more mature, ageing, life gets more serious. I heard later… I think that’s why he didn’t want me to quit, keep me around to make him laugh, I guess. Who knows?

The way it came out was meant to be, I guess. But the band now, we touch on different eras and though Napoleon was in the band that had different arrangements of what we did early on, we’re trying to do the original arrangements. And we’ll have some surprises, we’ll be doing some different stuff than we did last year up there.

Nerve: How did you like playing the festival here last year?

Oh it was great! I’m kinda happy they called us back. I heard people were calling the festival left and right asking to get us back and some who missed us. Some didn’t know we were gonna be there. We haven’t played the Seattle area yet and I think a lot of people are coming up to Vancouver to see us play.

Nerve:You don’t think of the Mothers as folk music… (laughing) They had the same problem back then, they didn’t know where to put us!

Nerve: Speaking of festivals, you guys played some famous rock festivals back in the day.

Back at the Garrick Theater is where Hendrix first sat in with us and that’s where Frank first saw a wah-wah pedal. Next time we saw him we were on the bill at a big festival, Miami Pop Festival in ’69, I think, a big baseball stadium, might’ve been around 60,000 people.

Nerve: Good times?

Oh yeah, they flew Jimi in in a helicopter (laughing).

Nerve: Frank was never too generous in kind words of other bands around back then, but he must’ve liked some, there must have been some times, maybe at a festival or somewhere where Frank would’ve turned to you and said, “Man these guys are great!”

No (laughing) I don’t remember him ever saying that! (more laughter) He would always scratch his head and wonder why their stuff was getting played and his stuff wasn’t.

Nerve: Do you think Frank would bless what you’re doing now?

I think he would.You mean if he was around and wasn’t able to perform? I think he probably would have got behind us. n

Frank did one toke.

That was the only time I remember that happening. And he was up for days!

CONTENTS

Fond Ti gers Burning Brightof with Fearful Symmetry

By Ferdy Belland

well as those whose tastes lean towards the daring and the dangerous (Sun Ra without the lame I-comefrom-Saturn! bullshit). The CD release party occurs Thursday July 13th at the Media Club, with guests DarkNewWorld and Carsick.

“That’ll be about it for the summertime,” says Lyons. “And the thought of how we could ever possibly tour Canada is a mystery to me. I’ve spoken with Jesse about exploring European audiences and Euro-Jazz festivals and such. There’s just a different feel for music and culture over there… We definitely wish to do more with Fond of Tigers, but it’s a chore to divide one’s energies between the creative process and the logistical process.” The conversation weaves into everybody’s favourite pastime: bitching out Vancouver’s vastly talented yet endearingly dysfunctional indie-rock scene. However, what Stephen Lyons has to say ends up as some of the most succinct observations ever on the work that’s needed around here.

I don’t know why everyone’s wearing trucker hats. Or buying brand new T-shirts that look like the ones you can’t find at thrift stores anymore.

I don’t understand how these people can see themselves as part of any kind of counterculture.

“Whenever I hear about a new buzz band, more often than not, I end up disappointed. It’s frustrating that a lot of bands that become popular around here are fairly derivative, and draw on 1970s rock stuff. I just don’t get it. They’re just not trying. I go to see bands like that, and I don’t understand why they’re doing what they’re doing when that stuff already exists, probably in a better form for the most part. They’re adding just another carbon-copy example of something that’s not that great to begin with. I guess it’s a different way of thinking about music, something I just don’t relate to.

It’s just my opinion. I sound very negative right now,” he laughs, but adds, “I can relate to someone like (Karen Foster guitarist-vocalist) Chad MacQuarrie. I like a lot of his musical ideas and appreciate his sometimes caustic, always constructive response to my music. How he relates to it makes sense to me, and I can relate to him on the same level, at times. He works with unusual forms and structures, and he’s trying, and he’s doing a good job of it. Unfortunately, no one seems to really care that much.

He works harder than he should have to – people like him should be supported more, and they’re just not.”

Lyons continues: “I’ve talked about this elsewhere: there’s obviously not much of an infrastructure for creative music here. What little coverage there is for local music in weekly arts papers is not critical enough.

There’s hardly anywhere to play.

And nobody cares - unless you’re

a goodtime party band. These things are interdependent. As a group of people who are experiencing culture, many people around here don’t seem willing to see something and interact with it in any way. A lot of audience members make up this blasé tableau, where they’re all looking at each other to see if there’s agreement that ’this is good’ or ‘this is bad.’

It’s upsetting. Our experience is now primarily and overwhelmingly mediated. It seems that everything has to be reviewed in Pitchfork before it gets the stamp of validation. The dominant-culture values of centralization and standardization have found a comfortable home in the consumerist indie-rock scene... everything has to be merchandised to be valid, and we’ve lost our ability to experience, interact, and judge for ourselves.

“You prepare for a show, and if the focus is not on the social aspect, there’s nobody there. There’s a small number of people that will take a chance on music – that don’t just want to be conservative hipsters wearing clothes that state they’re interested in a certain type of music without actually having to live these things in any true sense... they’re just stating that they’re involved in some sort of counterculture... a counterculture that’s unfortunately

been entirely predetermined by... I don’t know who.

I don’t know why everyone’s wearing trucker hats.

Or buying brand new T-shirts that look like the ones you can’t find at thrift stores anymore. I don’t understand how these people can see themselves as part of any kind of counterculture.You can’t purchase your ‘counterculture lifestyle kit.’ It makes no sense... but it seems like that’s what people have done... you need to have a beard, and a trucker hat, and a fake retro shirt, and a pair of Converse All-Stars... it’s disheartening to see that people need to have all these elements in order to perceive themselves as being a unique member of this pseudo-counterculture.”

These are the sort of life-altering proclamations usually issued forth from within burning bushes, but Stephen Lyons harbours no such pretension.

“The best thing about music is when all those things are forgotten: debt, your job, or - not just what you’re wearing - but the fact that clothes exist at all... the fact that anything exists at all, it all disappears and is replaced by this ideal sonic environment. It’s disheartening when music is treated as just another accessory - just like a trucker hat - because it’s not that. It’s a way to get beyond everything, and not get weighed down by all this nonsense.” n

PHOTO: Paul Goertzen

T

hese days it seems that one of the latest trends/fads/crazes involving every indie band out there is the penchant for band-names with the word ‘Wolf’ in it: We Are Wolves, Raised

By Wolves, Wolfmother, AIDS Wolf, Guitar Wolf, and probably Shit Wolf...and every OTHER band has the name ‘Tiger’ in it: Tiger Army, Pride Tyger, Go Ghetto Tiger, possibly some obscure punk band named Tiger Shit, and even Vancouver’s unique seven-piece post-rock / avant-jazz instrumental favourites has the T-word in its band-name as well: Fond of Tigers.

And why not? Most of us are fond of tigers, no?

While not gathering as much long-term National Geographic press time as the lion, the breathtakingly beautiful tiger is equal in grace and power and subtle killer instinct, is far more colorful in pelt, and covers far more ground… which might describe the breadth and depth of the compositions created by the group.

Benignly coordinated by guitarist Stephen Lyons, after several years of determined attempts, our own Fond of Tigers will finally grace the lineup for this year’s prestigious Vancouver Jazz Festival with a mid-afternoon Canada Day appearance (that’s Saturday July 1st for the unpatriotic commie pinkos out there) at David Lam Park, along the gentrified steeland-glass shoreline of False Creek here in Funcouver.

“In previous years we submitted our application entries and stated our interest in playing the Vancouver Jazzfest,” explains Lyons on FOT’s triumphant acceptance into this year’s lineup, “And even though we were denied, we kept hopefully re-submitting our packages. I felt that we were finally going to get accepted this year, but it was still surprising when it actually happened. They’re definitely featuring more diverse, more rock-fusion sort of artists this year; NoMeansNo, Nels Cline, Jim Black, Zu... I was surprised that they chose the park for our appearance,” he remarks. “One usually sees good-time music there on that outdoor stage... stuff you can dance with your children to. And Fond of Tigers is more off-time than good-time!”

Fond of Tigers steady septet remains Lyons (who also leads the 7-piece Heartwarmongering), the Buttless Chaps’ barrelhouse-fusion pianist Morgan McDonald, the Inhabitants’ trumpeter / electronican JP Carter, bassist Shanto Bhattacharya (of Field and Deadpan), violinist extraordinaire Jesse Zubot (of renowned avant-garde fusion duo Zubot and Dawson), and the tandem percussive delights of dual drummers Dan Gaucher and Skye Brooks. “Seven bandmembers is kind of a lot, and it’s taken awhile to develop a working rapport between us... We understand each other in such an unspoken way that it would be frustrating for anyone else to jump into.

There are lots of great players here in Vancouver, but I don’t know if we really need any other instruments to improve our sound.”

Lyons goes on to explain how the FOT members actually use a floating, spoken system of alphanumerics to communicate musical ideas, rhythms, and themes to each other while improvising live in a rehearsal situation – a not-uncommon yet uniquely personal phenomenon among musicians which isn’t that far removed from the percussive-phonetic ‘konnakol’ language used by Indian tabla drummers to pass polyrhythms back and forth to each other in mid-flight.

Fond of Tigers’ latest album, A Thing to Live With, is to be released on Jesse Zubot’s Drip Audio label, and features all the winning hallmark compositional characteristics the band stands for: lengthy, quasiatonal instrumental swoops through post-melodic time and space which place them in the same thrilling league as any of the numerous subdivision-bands of Godspeed You Black Emperor! Fans of mid-‘70s prog/fusion will also have much to latch on to, as

The Nerve July 2006 Page 17

CONTENTS

The Pill Head Confessions!

A

fter struggling in Montreal with about a hundred different acts ranging from a ska group to a Metallica cover band, Tim Fletcher has finally found out what musical success tastes like as front man for the Stills. With the release of their second album, Without Feathers, and in the midst of a massive North American tour, Tim made sure to take a detour, canceling shows all along the West Coast just to have an opportunity to talk to the smartest man in rock ‘n’ roll history – yours truly. So buckle up and prepare to be dazzled!

Nerve: Back in the ‘90s you were writing songs about your ‘80s ghetto blaster (with the Undercovers) and now you’re writing songs that some say belong on an ‘80s ghetto

Stills

blaster. Sum up what has happened in the last 10 years.

We grew up listening to bands like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and U2 and, I don’t know, the progression is long. We got into reggae and stuff and we’ve been through every genre of music that you could go through… I won’t speak for the other members of the band, but if you look at the song writing (for Feathers), it’s still based in a Beatles style of song writing. It’s just the production ended up being a little more post-punky if you will. But there are still pop songs.

Nerve: So are you happier with this album, or with Logic?

I think we’re more satisfied with this album because

By Seth Fischer this is the band we felt we needed to be.

The changes had to happen. Dave needed to be singing. By the end of the recording of Logic Will Break Your Heart, he didn’t want to be playing drums and he wanted to be playing guitar. He wanted to be up front. He writes a lot of the tunes and I don’t want to be singing someone else’s tunes. Also, Greg left the band and we got a new drummer and all kinds of things shifted.

Nerve: What’s it like having two lead singers now?

I think it adds depth to things, you know?

There’s two different voices - literally and physically - but it’s also two different ways of putting things across, so I think that it adds another layer to the world that we’re trying to create. I mean, if you look at Fleetwood Mac or the Clash or the Beatles, they’re all bands with multiple singers and it’s like, “Oh cool, this is a Mick Jones song.”

Nerve:The new album is fairly piano influenced. Was this planned all along, or did the original concept change when Liam became a permanent member?

The thing is, when the first album was recorded and written and stuff, we asked our old friend Liam, “Come help us out, help us arrange the songs, sing a little bit in the studio, and come out on tour with us.” But a lot of the lines were already written for him. When we started working on new stuff - he’s such a phenomenal musician - that it was only natural that he was able to offer us so much more musically. And plus we grew up really into organs and piano and stuff and I guess our ultimate goal is to present things in a soulful way and there’s nothing more soulful than that.

Nerve: Since you’re on Vice Records, what are your biggest vices?

Well, being on tour, it’s hard not to have a few drinks every night.You drink a lot on tour. None of us in

the Stills do drugs. None of us. The biggest drug that any of us does is Xanax on a night when you can’t sleep, and that’s few and far between. Our vice is our neurosis.

Nerve: Have you guys put any thought into the direction you may go for the next album?

Not yet but we’re gonna probably push ourselves to do something different. I feel that now we’re a bit more settled in our band dynamics, so maybe it won’t be such a radical departure.

The Stills play with Sam Roberts and Broken Social Scene July 25th at Deer Lake Park n

A Punk Band That Most Certainly Does Not Suck

A

Against All Authority

s a scumbag rock journalist, a great many CDs cross my desk every year. Not all of them are great.Yes, that is the understatement of the year. In fact, many of these CDs are absolutely worthless, as I already have more coasters than I can use. Once in a while though, something truly exciting will come along to restore my faith in punk rock. The Restoration of Chaos and Order by Against All Authority is one such disc. I popped it into the deck and knew at once that a major player had stepped up to plate.

This four-piece from Miami, Florida has it all in spades: hard-hitting songs with great lyrics you can actually hear, a bottom end that will take your head off, and trumpet that doesn’t suck. I played the shit out of this baby so much that I might very well have to buy a copy.

I asked bassist and lead vocalist Danny Lores what his first memories of punk were, and what made him want to become a part of it. From a tour bus somewhere In the USA, he responded, “My first show was the Bad Brains in Miami at the Cameo Theatre in 1986. I found punk rock through skateboarding. Back then, skating and punk went hand in hand. I got my ass kicked by Nazi skinheads at the show. It was the best night of my life. I’d have to say that bands like the Dead Kennedys and the Subhumans helped make me who I am today. I was never inspired or challenged by teachers or anyone like that. The first people to open my eyes to a whole new world were people like Jello Biafra

and bands that had a message. I was really into the punk scene and it inspired me to be creative and to do something.”

We moved on, and I wanted to know if he thought that music could change the world or make it a better place. “Yes I do. A few years back, I had some kid come up to me at a gig and showed me his tattoo-sleeved arms.

He asked me if I could tell they were cover-ups. I said no. He said good, because they’re covering up swastikas. He told me that our music helped him to see that we’re all the same. He told me that we made him take a look at himself and how he fit into the world.

He also said that the lyrics to our song ‘No Reason’ made him realize why he was so fucked up and that he should think for himself and make a change.”

Against All Authority has been at it 14 years, which is a very long time for a band to stay together.

I wanted to know what kept them going. “The biggest challenge would have to be the rise of so many genres. Back then, everyone came out to the shows. It didn’t matter if you were a hardcore kid, a rude boy, a crusty punk; we were all in it together and the shows were a place to go to get away from the shitty world. The kids keep us going. We love playing music and if we have one kid a year tell us that our music helped him through a rough time in his life then it’s all worth it. That’s what my favourite bands have done for me. If I can pass that along, I feel that I’m doing something worthwhile. We’ve

Punk will always be a valid form of rebellion.

Sure, it’s commercial and going through a fashion trend right now, but there will always be kids that are inspired by punk rock

The Nerve July 2006 Page 18

had a few members move on to different things like raising families and getting married, but we’ve pretty much held true to what we’ve started. We know what we’re trying to accomplish with this band and as long as it’s making us happy, we’ll be touring and putting out new records.”

When asked if punk is still a valid form of rebellion: “Punk will always be a valid form of rebellion.

Sure, it’s commercial and going through a fashion trend right now, but there will always be kids that are inspired by punk rock. There will always be kids that find that there is more to it than just music and fashion. Those kids will go on to form bands, labels, and zines, put on shows.”

By Chris Walter

I wanted to know if he thought that bands like Anti-Flag were sell-outs. “It’s hard to watch bands that you love and respect move into the mainstream.

When they’re in the underground, they’re so approachable. But I do think that it’s important to have bands like Bad Religion and Anti-Flag in the mainstream. I think it’s important to have their thoughts and ideas presented to that faction of society that would have never even thought about checking out a punk band.”

“Get out there and do something. Don’t be a spectator. Get on the streets when there’s a protest and speak your mind. Start a band, a label, a zine. We can change things, one mind at a time.” n

The Nerve July 2006 Page 19

WITH SPECIAL GUE

STS

EDMONTON

VANCOUVER

JULY 31

AUGUST 3

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WITH WITH SPECIAL SPECIAL GUESTS GUESTS AND AND

THE STRAYS

THE ADORED

SEPTEMBER 3

JULY 20 JULY 21 JULY 22 JULY 23 JULY 25

BURTON CUMMINGS THEATRE – WINNIPEG GENERAL ADMISSION ORCHESTRA/RESERVED BALCONY PRAIRIELAND PARK – SASKATOON GENERAL ADMISSION MACEWAN HALL – CALGARY GENERAL ADMISSION

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THE RED ROOM

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The Nerve July 2006 Page 21

The Nerve July 2006 Page 22

CONTENTS

Al Jourgensen A Clean Cock

By Dale De Ruiter

I

was starting to think that meeting one of my main idols from back when I was a teenager, Al Jourgensen, might never happen. Then I would have to crawl with my tail between my legs and take back all the bragging I had done. I took every chance I had to rub it in the faces of friends and strangers alike that I was going to meet the industrial god and thus was twice as awesome as they would ever be.

I sat in the alley just off Granville and Robson, picking paint off of a telephone pole for fuck near forever. I was finally led through the maze that is the bowels of the Commodore Ballroom by tour manager of the Master-Ba-Tour. We passed the stage complete with mic stands adorned with pieces of cow skeletons and headed to the band room where Al Jourgensen and the rest of the Ministry and Revolting Cocks crew sat in preparation for their highly anticipated concert.

The first Revolting cocks album in 10 years (Cocked and Loaded) was released in March. Ministry is at a new peak of productivity, releasing its best material since the mid ‘90s. What do these two thing have in common? Both of these splendid happenings are thanks to Al Jourgensen and the fact that

after 21 years of heroin addiction, he’d had enough.

“I don’t hate drugs, and I would never say don’t do drugs but for me it doesn’t work. We’re survivors of 15 to 20 years of decadence and we realized it doesn’t work for us. It may work for other people and initially it worked for me, and then it became really disgusting.” He adds, “We’re no longer on dealer standard time. I can live my own life.You can see the progression of the addiction like with the Ministry albums on Wax Trax… then there’s Cocks… then Lard… then some other side projects and then all of a sudden it’s three years between albums. But now

were back on top.”

With such a high level of output, two albums and two videos in the last year alone, one could only wonder about the legendary side project legacy of Jourgensen (including: Pailhead with Ian McKaye, P with Johnny Depp and Gibby Haynes, Lard with Jello Biafra, and 1000 Homo DJs with Trent Reznor).

Could that too become as fever paced as the ‘90s? His reply: “Right now I have the three headed monster, Ministry, Revolting Cocks and Lard. In the future there is another project coming up which is basically Raven’s project, but I am going to throw my hat in the ring. It’s called Mob Research. I am still working on my goddamn Buck Satan record but I want to end my career with that, so the last record I will ever put out will be Buck Satan and the 666 Shooters.”

For Jourgensen, who has worked with everyone from Neil Young to members of Cheap Trick, the person at the top of the list for future collaborations is Tom Waits. The two haven’t talked and it’s more of a wish situation shared by us all, I’m sure. Jorgensen’s outlook on the situation is “If it is meant to happen it will happen.”

Iggy Pop has a writing credit on the first track of Cocked and Loaded, “Fire Engine”. It’s his only involvement in the album, so I asked Jourgensen exactly what that meant. “I wrote the music and Iggy wrote the lyrics in nineteen hundred and eighty three. [That Year] in Boston me and Iggy went to the studio. This is an outtake that sat on the shelf for a long time and we just re-recorded it. It is a song

about how Iggy couldn’t get a cab, couldn’t get a ride to score dope in the lower east side in New York, so he eventually hopped a fire engine to go get it.”

After all the nostalgia, I was burning to hear something from a man who has had the opportunity to make politically inspired music through the Presidency of not one, but two Bushes. I can’t even imagine being socially conscious through both eras, since I was a pre-teen when Herbert Walker tooled around the oval office. So which one is worse? “This one, without a doubt. Without a doubt,” Al Jourgensen immediately replied. But what would make this Bush worse? After all, they do have pretty much the same cabinet? “The absolute incompetence, stupidity and arrogance. The arrogance mostly comes from the people who prop him up, the Rumsfelds, the Cheneys, the Wolfowitzes. The stupidity is a factor that even his dad didn’t have. His dad had the arrogance, the corruption and the greed, but add in the stupidity factor and it is like throwing gasoline on a fucking fire. Sometimes he actually thinks he’s the president.”

After all the gloomy political bitching I thought it would be good to end with something positive so I asked Mr. Jourgensen what he would say the overall message that his body of work should convey.

“Think for yourself,” he smiles. “That is what the lyrics are about…Wear steel-toed boots to shows, and never drink wine without a cork. Stay away from the cardboard kegs and the twists-offs, and you will be OK in life.” n

I don’t hate drugs, and I would never say don’t do drugs, but for me it doesn’t work.

Quagmire Hillbilly Hardcore

By Phil Heidenreich

I

n literal terms, a quagmire is basically described as a really fucked up situation. I first saw the band Quagmire play about a year and a half ago and thought I had the band all figured out. I had missed them play at a couple of house parties and actually caught their set by accident by stumbling into the Albert after knocking back a case of Standard. I gained a few bruises and found myself singing along without knowing any words, and though a great time was had, I couldn’t help thinking, “Albert drinking band = let’s see if they’re still around in two months.” Well, the months kept passing by, and by now - having seen them sober more often than not - it seems a fair assertion that Quagmire is best live band in Winnipeg… maybe in years. Combining a blood-shedding, ear-splitting live show with a sonic attack that blends punk rock, hardcore, and southern rock, Quagmire

thrives on unpredictability, both in its songs and live shows as a whole. When I asked the band why they thought Winnipeg has such a long-standing tradition of spawning so many on the edge, chaotic punk rock bands, guitarist Chris Gervais likened it to Winnipeg’s commensurate reputation as the murder capital of Canada. “Being holed up indoors for eight months of the year tends to make you a little restless,” he suggests. “Add too much alcohol and you’ve got the makings of a good rock ‘n’ roll band.” Jon Henderson of long-running Winnipeg HC outfit Reality’s End once described Quagmire as “those guys you see in classic ‘80s movies that crash the party and all hell breaks loose.” Adding to the uniqueness is that three-quarters of the band hail from rural Manitoba, and Quagmire makes no qualms about making country living a major component of its

If it ain’t from Anola, it ain’t shit!

Mastodon

M

astodon is the most thoroughly appreciated metal band around. Nit-picky old-timers love ‘em. The kids are ape. Lazy rock journalists, like me, name-drop Mastodon incessantly. After two mammoth albums for Relapse,

lyrical content. Singer Shane Haywood emphasizes the country pride when he exclaims, “Born, bred, and rarely bathe in the heart of the hillbilly outback of Manitoba, and couldn’t be happier about it! All I got to say is: If it ain’t from Anola, it ain’t shit!” After about two years together, Quagmire is ready to offer its first full-length CD, the recording process of which is described by bassist Kalyn Hanuschuk as unforgettable. “Four days of partying, greasy eggs, and making music!” The sensational One For The Ditch CD is right up there with classic Winnipeg punk rock records by the likes of Personailty Crisis, Stretch Marks, or the Horribles, and while Quagmire’s backgound is in the back-

woods of Manitoba, its future appears to be going far, far, beyond.

Quagmire will be joined by the Ruffnecks and the Knockarounds at its CD release party at the Royal Albert, Winnipeg, on July 14th. Look for a further, all-ages show at the West End Cultural Centre on Sept. 29th, and the Royal Albert on the Sept. 30th. n

The Gentle Wisdom of the Cycloptic Yeti

2002’s Remission and 2004’s Leviathan, plus the odds’n’sods compilation Call of the Mastodon and a DVD, the boys – Brent Hinds (guitar/vocals), Brann Dailor (drums), Bill Kelliher (guitar/vocals), and Troy Sanders (bass/vocals) – are bigger than Metal Jesus.

Blood Mountain, Mastodon’s first big label (Warner) release, hits stores in August. Expectations are staggering – if it isn’t the Thriller of beastly metal, it’ll probably be a disappointment.

So wariness kicks in slightly when Troy, on the phone from Dallas, says to expect a repeat: “We were really happy with Leviathan – the engineer, the studio, the songs, the themes, the art – and kind of wanted to just duplicate that one more time. We went to Seattle and worked with Matt Bayles, and then to New York and mixed it with Rich Costey (Mars Volta). Our method wasn’t broken so we

didn’t fix it.” So no giant leaps, but as Troy rightly notes, “We’ve always done our own thing, and whatever success has come our way, it’s come honestly and naturally and from the heart.”

Some of that success is due to the phenomenally behemoth artwork of Paul Ramano. His tragic, vibrant, mystical album sleeves have become a calling card for the band – making everything, even Leviathan’s Moby Dick theme, seem impossibly cool. Why adapt the classic sea battle?

Troy: “Brann was actually reading it on a flight, and got off the plane totally drunk and ranting on about having to do something related to Moby Dick.” Once they found the reference to a ‘sea-salt mastodon’, there was no turning back.

Any monster tales this time around? “Yeah,” Troy reveals, “Blood Mountain is threaded together with a storyline, and we tied in some mythical beasts, some prehistoric creatures; we tapped into fact and fiction.

Some parts are straight-up, some are quite a mindfuck. “The Siberian Divide” is a song about being trapped in the snow and then you go crazy and your

By David Bertand

brain freezes and then you start to eat your own flesh to see if there’s any warmth in your blood. We have a song called “Circle of Cysquatch”, which is about an encounter with a one-eyed Sasquatch. And at first we fear for our lives, but in turn they’re there to give us guidance.”

It’s been noted that “Mastodon” is the single most appropriate band name ever.

Big, ancient, muscular, threatening. It sounds... correct. Apparently, “Wooly Mammoth” was already taken. “We called Scott Kelly from Neurosis,” recalls Troy, “and said, ‘Scott, here’s our new band name, yes or no... MASTODON.’” Scott said, “Sounds good to me, lemme ask my son... Damon, come here! What do you think about this name?” Damon says, “Cool Dad.” And that’s how it’s done.

Mastodon arrives in Vancouver on July 13th, with Slayer, Lamb of God, Children of Bodom, and the rest of the Unholy Alliance Tour. We predict: a tusk in your ass n

We have a song about an encounter with a one-eyed Sasquatch.

At first we fear for our lives, but they’re there to give us guidance.

The Nerve July 2006 Page 23

Rodney DeCroo

CONTENTS

American Psyche

T

his article was supposed to be about Rodney DeCroo’s second album, War Torn Man, which was released by Northern Electric last March.

It’s a live record taken from the soundboard at the Sidetrack in Edmonton. I’d heard that DeCroo made his band play an entirely new set that night, which struck me as perverse and idiotic. I needed to talk to him about this. Speaking to me on his cell phone from the other side of a table we share at the Railway Club, DeCroo grapples manfully with the question of whether he’s perverse and idiotic.

“It was kinda crazy,” he concedes, stroking his Malamute sized beard. “We’re at the Sidetrack. It’s

definitely up the alley of the retirement home where I live. But hearing War Torn Man was a revelation because before that I’d only ever heard DeCroo in a club, when I was drunk and more often than not focused on stealing his ubiquitous grey sports jacket with the western piping (I love a caper!) War Torn Man revealed to me just how strong DeCroo’s songwriting can be, especially the more mysterious and lost sounding numbers like “Black Smoke”, “Peruvian Waltz”, “Sheltering Sky”, “Wide Open Heart” (It doesn’t hurt that the band - Jon Wood, Linda McRae, and Ed Goodine – brings such empathy to these songs). But putting all that aside – yeah, he’s great,

By Adrian Mack

states. “An ancient America,” according to Levenda, “That lurks beneath the threshold of our collective, corn-fed consciousness… It is a kind of Bermuda Triangle of death and depravity… “ DeCroo grew up in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, which borders our Bermuda Triangle of death and depravity. He had three fathers; one he never met, one who adopted him upon his return from Vietnam, and a third – also a vet – who was bestial and alcoholic.

“He wouldn’t drink all week,” DeCroo remembers.

“Friday he’d go get himself a whack load of beer, and get a video, like Hamburger Hill. And this is a guy who – you mention Vietnam and he’s go nuts, right?

He’d sit there, drinkin’, watching Hamburger Hill, and by 10:30 he’s out in the parking lot of the fuckin’ apartment complex in his underwear waving a .22 around. If he wasn’t doing that, he was beating up my mom. Fuckin’ crazy.”

DeCroo’s expression changes when we start talking about the madness in those hills. He’s felt it, quite intimately, impinging on the religious dementia that his southern Baptist family employed in its defence. The young DeCroo was caught in the crossfire. “I couldn’t even watch the Smurfs,” he says. “Because they were invented by wizards. Backmasking was a real thing. Every lunatic fucking Christian fear out there was in my home.”

Outside of the home, things were weirder.

“I remember looking out one day and seeing this little pink bicycle, through my bedroom window.

Three, four, five days, a week later, and that bike is still there. It had this creepy vibe. So we’re walking down the street and there’s all these windows along the basement, and there’s this fuckin’ stench - we’re just gagging. We pushed open the window and see a body. They had kidnapped this 12-year-old girl – she’d run a way from home on her little bicycle – they took her down there, they raped her, they burned her whole body with cigarette butts, tied her up. And she died because they gagged her with rags doused with kerosene, and they just left her down there to rot. It was summertime. I was 12 or 13 at that point.” DeCroo says the only other place he’s felt the same intrinsic malevolence is Thunder Bay. War Torn Man is dedicated to Al, who adopted him. When DeCroo was five, Al moved the family to Canada, setting himself up as a trapper. DeCroo’s mom couldn’t stand living in the woods. She took the kids back to Pennsylvania when Al’s buddy Marty – another vet – warned her that Al was losing it.

Marty told her, “Get the kids, go into town, don’t stay with Al, because Al’s crazy.”

Back in Pennyslvania, DeCroo became a major badass. At 16, he had to leave Pittsburgh cause the cops were looking for him. Crazy Al couldn’t leave Canada because he was a deserter. They hooked up again, at the Newton Inn in Surrey, which Al was managing. “That’s where I landed,” Decroo guffaws.

The arrangement didn’t last long. “He decided he was gonna be a gold miner. He built a sluice box in our living room. They’re easy enough to make.

But he’s building this shit in our living room, when he’s not at the Newton Inn looking at strippers, and getting into fights. That was his big thing: getting into fights. So we went up to Wells, BC… My job was to get up everyday at six in the morning, and stand in the freezing cold fuckin’ water, and take the big rocks out of the sluice box as the water ran through.

We found a few nuggets one day cleaning up the sluice box. We went to the Jack of Clubs hotel, and just got liquored. I was 16, and then we got into a fight; we were in a brawl with these other miners, outside the place. I woke up the next morning on the floor with a big shiner, my dad’s all bruised, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, it was a good night.” I’m like, ‘Oh, my head hurts, I need breakfast,’ and he’s like, ‘No, we got to go back to camp. We got no money.’ And all we had at the camp was SPAM. I ate SPAM for three fuckin’ months. He could eat that shit forever. Like, what did he eat in Vietnam? Beetles?”

Al and Rodney decamped to Quesnel next. “That was the only place I liked when I was teenager,”

he says. He was 17, coaching the 16 and under football team, until Al got itchy again. “So I got in the car,” DeCroo sighs, “And we drove to Trail, BC. He managed the Crown Point Hotel. All these little towns have alcoholic bars, and that was his specialty, because he could be the big man, right? Now, I don’t care what anybody says… that town should be Nuked. NUKED. I hate that town. The people there are deranged. There’s something in the water.

They’re vicious. I fought every single day, going to high school.”

I mention that Trail has been poisoned by the upriver mining company Teck Cominco. “That would make sense because they’re all one-step above mongoloid there,” he says, shaking his head. “They’re violent, nasty, freakin’ people. I HATED that place.

We were there six months, then dad said we’re moving to Cranbrook to run the Treehouse Motel, which burned down. That was a creepy place. Wrong side of the tracks… it used to be a hospital, then it was a nunnery, and it was reputed that the nuns had killed babies in the basement or something, and I had to live there and go to high school. I was drinkin’ bad. I get his key to the bar, and get it copied and I steal the booze like crazy. I had keys to all the rooms, so I was breaking into everybody’s rooms and robbing the residents.

It was out of control.

So I come home from school one day, and my dad’s all loaded up, and I’m like, ‘What’s going on?’

And he goes, ‘We’re moving,’ and I’m like, ‘Where are we going?’ And he goes, ‘Well, you’re not going anywhere. I’m going back to Wells.’ So he left, and I was standing outside the Treehouse Inn in Cranbrook, going ‘What do I do now?’

The new manager of the Treehouse felt sorry for DeCroo, and gave him a room and a stool at the bar. DeCroo returned the favour by going apeshit one day. “I drank all these shooters and I just lost it,” he says. “I grabbed a pool cue and went over and just whacked this guy full on in the back of the head with it, and then just went totally ballistic and started attacking everybody in the bar. So they finally

ALL PHOTOS: Dale De ruiter

I was drunk and crazy, and I’d also done a couple hits of acid that day too. I think that’s why I went over the edge

the first time we’re headlining, and instead of playing the old tried and true stuff, I put all new songs in the set list for that night because I was bored of the old stuff. This was near the end of the tour, and everybody was really in the pocket together. I had no intention of doing an album,” he adds.

The soundman handed Decroo a tape at the end of the night. When Richard Chapman at Northern Electric heard it he shrieked “Eureka,” leapt naked from his Jacuzzi and declared, “You got an album here!”

“Why not?” Asks DeCroo. “It’s kind of a cocky thing to do, but – yeah!”

War Torn Man learned me a few things about DeCroo. I’ve seen him around here for years now, and always enjoyed what he did: his music comes from the same place as ‘70s Dylan, Kristofferson, John Prine… pretty and masculine at the same time.

Hard-nosed but sensitive. Sonically, he thrives in a mid-tempo, vistavision country soul pocket, so it’s

The Nerve July 2006 Page 24

the band smokes, and there’s no overdubs which means War Torn Man is already better than Kiss Alive – putting all that aside, I’m about to learn that there’s a good reason for the ever-so-slightly dark and unsettling vibe that bubbles underneath War Torn Man, in spite of its prettiness. In fact, by the time DeCroo has finished explaining himself to me, it’ll take a few good men to lift my jaw off the floor.

In his book Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft, occult investigator Peter Levenda pinpoints a nexus of ancient evil in the Eastern States of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio.

This is where burial mounds dating back over 2000 years sit implacably and unnoticed right in the middle of various towns, some of them apparently housing the remains of a race of giants. American historians, no doubt fearing that they would be drummed out of academia for even mentioning ancient giants, have chosen to ignore this. But something lived, or still lives, in those forbidding eastern

CONTENTS subdued me, and he took me to his room, laid me out on his bed and said, ‘Alright, you stay here, sleep this off,’ and he went back to the bar. And I don’t know… this is bad. He had this china cabinet, full of all this china that had been passed down through his family for generations, and I was drunk and crazy.

And I’d also done a couple hits of acid that day too.

I think that’s why I went over the edge. So I snapped and I destroyed his entire apartment and I broke every single piece of china, and then I destroyed the cabinet. Then I ran back to the bar, and I went nuts.

I had a bat or something. Then the cops were called, and they threw me in the psych ward for a while. I wasn’t welcome back at the hotel.”

do crazy shit with their hats), worked at Terminal City and even as a stock promoter. “I was making tons of dough,” he chuckles. He wrote an article for the Sun on how to be a “scummy stock promoter and rip off everybody you know. I went from street level thug to singer/songwriter. But the funny thing is I always knew I was gonna do this. I started playing guitar when I was 33. I got kicked out of the choir for being a little shit. But I always knew.”

So at 33 years of age, Rodney DeCroo started to learn guitar, which really got on his wife’s tits. “If you wanna know what a cretin I was,” he suggests, “Just ask my ex-wife. She’ll tell you a million and one horrible things about me. She hates my guts.”

Decroo took the Greyhound to Vancouver. “I carried on for several years,” he explains. “Lived in boarding house and continued to fuck up left right and centre for quite few years.” He was working at an Italian restaurant, blowing his nose into people’s pizzas and filling the pepper grinder with baked cockroaches, when DeCroo finally started to emerge from his blighted adolescence.

“I got fired and went totally out of my mind.

Back then I was drinking all the time. So I went to this party with two bottles of Polar Ice that I stole, cause I wanted to go with one of the waitresses.

She was connected to all these biker dudes, and my girlfriend had left me so I was drinking and doing lots of blow…”

Proving once again that vodka, blow, bikers, and Rodney DeCroo just don’t mix, our hero went nuts one more time. When the cops arrived, he decided to kick the shit out of their car. Then the cops kicked the shit out of Rodney. “They brought me back to the drunk tank though and when I woke up in the morning I was beaten to a pulp. So I decided I needed to change my life. I convinced my dad, who was managing an apartment building in Coquitlam, to let me stay at one of the vacant apartments. And I went to Langara College.”

DeCroo was 20, and he talked the admissions officer at Langara to take him on as a mature student.

He developed an interest in student politics – “It saved my life,” he claims - and he commenced to make the administration at Langara as miserable as he could. He studied acting at Langara’s Studio 58, did some work in crap like The Hat Squad (legendary Cannell production about cops who fight crime and

“I had all these songs about my bad life,” he continues, “And a friend of mine convinced me to go down to the Marine Club when Chris Houston used to have his Cattle Call on Sunday nights.” After a while, a band formed around him. Then a debut album “which I’m fuckin’ trying to destroy all copies of. There’s still some out there.”

Now, a few years down the line, DeCroo is getting breathless praise from the UK press, breathless praise from me, and he’s on the label of his dreams.

“I pinch myself, “ he says of Northern Electric. “The Chic Geezer Boutique for Connoisseurs of Crap.

There isn’t a bad record on that label.” Praise the Lord.

By now, I’m not entirely sure who I’m talking to anymore, but DeCroo shrugs. “All that drama that was played out in my home became who I was,” he says. “I fight with the fact that – I’m in remission – but I’m drug addict, I’m an alcoholic, I’ve done a lot of things I’m ashamed of and it’s no secret that there was a time in my life when I was a very violent person. I’ve always had to wrestle with my own dark side, because I inherited that somehow.” It’s jarring to hear this from someone who has always come across – to me – as nothing but a gent. On stage at the Railway, meanwhile, soundcheck has begun. My tape is inaudible from this point. For the record, I can make out the words “apple fritters” and something about Rodney’s mom catching him with his todger in a canteloupe.

June also saw the release of DeCroo’s latest, Truckers Memorial - a collaboration with Rae Spoon. Look for DeCroo and Spoon on tour, starting July 7 at the Marine Club in Vancouver. n

The Nerve July 2006 Page 25

CONTENTS

Right Between the Thighs H

the new person to play on it. The absolute original line up wrote about half the songs on the CD, so it goes back that far.

After a number of changes, the band has finally

PHOTO: Kristy Frizzell

aving just released their second full-length on Sloth Records, the Daggers have put their innumerable line-up changes behind them, and started to cash in on the considerable reputation they’ve built over the last eight years. With a western Canadian tour in the works, the band is also completely DRUNK on power. And also booze.

Nerve: So tell me about the new album, Tear It To Pieces.

It took, what, three years to finish?

Paul: It took a long time, but it’s something we’re glad to do, and we couldn’t have done it any better!

Brad: We knew it was taking way too long, but every time we replaced a member, we wanted

An Evening with the Daggers settled on a hot new lineup, including original members Brad (Spaz) Paffe and Paul Charlton, as well as new additions Chris (Cobra) Walsh on rhythm and lead guitars, and bassist Troy Zak. Nerve: How’s Troy working out?

Brad: Well, he doesn’t talk much. He farts a lot. But he plays a hell of a bass guitar, and he’s one handsome dude. Just look at him. Troy joined about six months ago and he’s working out great!

Nerve: And how does everyone feel about Chris Cobra, while he’s not here to defend himself?

Troy: We love him. He’s the greatest guitar player for the Daggers, ever. He’s the one.

Brad: I wanna fuck him.

Troy: They had to fucking skim the top off the cream of the best musicians in Canada, and look what they got… sour milk.

Brad: They say the cream always rises to the top, but who wants that? We want the very bottom.

Paul: It’s a new band. I like the lineup right now. I hope it stays this way for a long time.

Nerve: How do you guys stay so… energetic?

Is it Viagra?

Brad: No, but I never thought of that… We just love

Gettin’ Fresh with the Neckers A n older gentleman was watching the Neckers at a promotional photo shoot and pointed to front man Bil Hetherington. With his other finger placed thoughtfully on his chin, he said, “That guy’s gotta be the songwriter, he looks broody.” At this point, everyone politely tried to suppress their laughter, some faring better than others. After a

long night of rock and rolling, Hetherington was still waking up. After the photo shoot, guitarist and cosongwriter Jim Blood giggled, “Yeah, real broody - we write songs about girls, cars and love.”

Blood may joke, but in the world of rock recordings, the Neckers have really stretched out on their third release, Love and Infection. Hetherington, Blood,

By Kelly Archibald

to play our music, so it’s not even an effort to be energetic. Like I’ve said before, it’s a thrill to play, so it should be a thrill to watch!

Troy: As a fan first, I can say that it’s because they gotta be a bunch of fucking drunks.

Nerve: Are you going to be playing some out of town dates?

Brad: We don’t have anything lined up now, but we’re trying to put a late summer or fall tour together.

Troy: Hopefully it’ll be with some of our Vancouver friends, but we’ll see what happens.

Paul: But we don’t have any friends, anywhere.

Troy: The truth is, the Daggers have no friends.You can’t love the Daggers. We’re just gonna break your heart.

Nerve: So is there going to be a new album within the next three years?

Troy: Absolutely. There’s gonna be another really good album coming out in the next year, guaranteed.

We’re writing new songs right now.

For details on the band’s history, sexually explicit photos, and to order Tear it to Pieces, check out the Daggers’ newly revamped website at www.thedaggers.com n

By Aubrey McInnis

Steve Elaschuk (bass) and Brendan Tincher (drums) have crafted a sophisticated rock album that rambunctiously barrels forward with endless energetic hooks. Hetherington’s vocal range has broadened and the boys behind him are still dead set on blasting out a soundtrack fit for that kid who crashes your house party bringing 50 of his friends. The spirit is the same, but it has been a long time since the quartet began deafening cafeteria audiences at Calgary’s Henry Wisewood High School.

Blood (who grew up writing jingles with his sister) and Tincher had been noodling around with guitars and writing songs since junior high. They had been bonding over Theresa Roncon, Motley Crue, and Metallica for years when Hetherington - reluctantly - came into the picture.

“Those guys were bangers, I didn’t even like them at first. I thought Brendan was totally weird… I thought he was ugly with a bad hairdo wearing Skin Barn t-shirts.

Then I met some other guy in Grade 11 that was a really funny guy, he was in their

band. He brought me over to their corner of the lunchroom…

“Brendan was like, ‘hey Billy Bones.’ I was so unimpressed with him, I was like, ‘hey Brendan Bone,’” says Hetherington with a smile on his face, affectedly hamming it up for comedic value. Skin Barn tees and all, the trio quickly clicked as best pals and rallied Elaschuk to join a few years later.

Now in their 10th year as a band, the Neckers are sounding comfortable in their skin, climbing campus radio charts and churning out rock as strong as the Smugglers in their prime. Trying their best to pump out hits without rehearsing much, they’ve risen to the top of bands to call when you want to have an instant dance party.

“Most bands just sort of lack in being fun to pay attention to,” explains Elaschuk. “They’re too serious or just too pretentious. It’s too much time being clever and not enough time being good.”

“It’s definitely supposed to be fun,” underscores Blood. “We’re not really there to make anybody think. There’s dumb party music and there’s smart party music - I’d rather be a party band that smart people can get into too.” n

We’re not really there to make anybody think.

Upper Music notesCanadian from in, out, andBlues around Toronto, ON W ith a stellar pedigree and membership counting five, Dearly Beloved is the latest supergroup to emerge from our city’s piss-poor shores. Featuring ex-members of Change of Heart, Danko Jones and Doctor (no, I’ve never heard of Doctor either), the band used a recent North By Northeast appearance as a springboard to a summer of sweaty, stinky activity.

The band’s debut LP You Are the Jaguar streets on July 11th and a Maritimes tour takes them through Simcoe Day and beyond. Unlike that other supergroup Blind Faith, the Dearlies opted NOT to feature a topless ‘tween on their album cover. Good call…. The Controller.controller gravy train keeps on rolling, shedding lipids at every stop. The funky punkers recently opened a number of Canadian dates for the reconstituted Cult and otherwise are still touring strong behind 2005’s X-Amounts.

The disc received a US release this spring and the Yank reaction has been solid. Just check out this recent posting on the band’s message board: “I’m a portugeuse (sic) guy, and I just want to say that you’re the best band I’ve heard in my entire life.” You just can’t buy kudos like those!!… Toronto metal growlers Anvil are still going strong (believe it or not) and by the time you read this, the group will

The Nerve July 2006 Page 26

have wrapped up an early summer tour of Europe..

In other Anvil news, a documentary on the band is currently being filmed by Sacha Gervasi, best known for writing the Steven Spielberg airport flick, The Terminal. Gervasi and Anvil’s vocalist Lips apparently organized the odd quilting bee together back in the 1980s. Or something… The Two Bears recently died. The band, who were a popular live act and at times described as “eclectic” and “experimental, played their last show ever at El Amigo’s, flanked by other mammals of various shapes, sizes and smells.

Incidentally, the man now booking El Amigo’s is none other than Serge Slipache, ex-Wintary vocalist and current 100% Wool friend and founder. And if you’re keeping score, another ex-Wintary member, bassist Peter Denes, is now playing guitar with cutesy folk rockers Mal De Mer. So there… In other break-up news, the door might have slammed on indie faves Supergarage for the final time. For over 10 years, the outfit thrilled and thawed Toronto audiences and while they never quite dented the mainstream, they did firmly entrench themselves between the milky thighs of Queen Street. And now the band is on hiatus. Indefinitely. Frontman Marco DiFelice will now concentrate on a solo disc. And his bandmates will concentrate on, well, some other stuff… And finally

for you historians and carcass pickers in the readership, longtime T-Dot iconoclast Nash the Slash has updated his official homepage with a new photo section, dedicated to legendary Toronto concert venue, the Rock Pile. The building later became the Concert Hall and in present, houses the MTV Canada studios, but in the late 1960s, the venue was Toronto’s stab at psychedelic revelry.

Accordingly, the space lasted just over a year before doors were bolted shut. Featuring classic images of Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa and dozens of other performers, Nash’s gallery is a great primer for Toronto concert-goers who were born several years too late. Check out www. nashtheslash.com for the particulars. n

By Cameron Gordon

Dearly Beloved

CONTENTS MUSIC

reviews Live28

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july 18th at thunderbird stdium (vans Warped tour)

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games36 Elite Sniper: shooten Natzees in dem grillz

The Nerve July 2006 Page 27

CONTENTS alternate action

ALL PHOTOS: Jen Dodds

the business

Alternate Action / Raised by Wolves / Run Runner / Igniters Pub 340,Vancouver, BC Saturday, June 10, 2006 My name is Ed, and Chris Walter gave me 10 bucks and a bottle of rice wine to write this review for him. If that tattooed freak would rather stay home and sip near beer than go to the bar, that’s just fine with me. Anyway, I was a bit late because I had to get boozed up first. The first band, the Manthonies, or the Igniters, whatever they’re called, were almost finished when I arrived. I’m no ponce rock critic but they sounded pretty fuckin’ good to me. They had the bass player from the Draft and that drummer from the Emergency. Man, that guy hits harder than those pigs in Stanley Park! The Igniters might blow out your eardrums, but at least they won’t leave you bleeding in the dark. Rum Runner was up next and I was pleasantly surprised. These kids have plenty of fire, and again, I’m no rock critic, but if I had to give it a name, I’d call it methamphetamine Celtic. They even had a fucking banjo! It was a short but energetic set and blah blah blah. I guess I was catching a buzz at this point, because I pinched the ass of a punk rock girl and she broke a beer bottle over my head. Then Raised by Wolves came on and I managed to get away from the bitch. Raised by Wolves sounds like 50’s drive-in greaser music to me, with a side dish of sleaze. Man, the singer had a nice old Gibson.

I bet I could get fiddy bucks for it down at the San Francisco Pawnshop. That girl on the organ was mighty fine, too. The 10 bucks Chris gave me was gone, so I had to steal drinks off tables. Alternate Action came on and ripped shit up good with their crunchy brand of Oi! They’ve got the singer from the Lancaster, plus some big crippled guy on guitar.

The bass player looked familiar too. Didn’t I see him in a Jackie Chan movie once? Anyway, a bunch of bald guys on the dance floor started punching each other and the shit really hit the fan. It made for a nice diversion, and I swooped up four drinks and two beers. I hope no one had anything contagious.

Anyway, Alternate Action played some more after the fighting stopped, and a rowdy, smashing time was had by all. I tried to steal the new Alternate Action 7” on my way out, but the merch guys smacked me in the head. Still, if Chris wants to pay me for more reviews, I’m down for the job.

- Ed the Bum Les Claypool / Rasputina Commodore Ballroom,Vancouver, BC Monday, June 5th, 2006 An unexpected opening delight, Rasputina was two classically trained Victorian dolls – celloists – plus some bearded hippy on drums, sipping booze. The between-song banter was preachy pre-planned intellectual balderdash, but the songs themselves were pretty good. Those cellos roared! Metallic crunch! Announcing “an allegorical song about fish,” Rasputina attacked Heart’s “Barracuda”. Later, the hippy went ape on the cowbell while the gals (sort of) played the Twilight Zone theme. The show concluded with a stirring opus, multiple suites long.

Lead mouthpiece Melora is a huge talent, her fingers creeping over that fretless shaft like a tarantula. A few upper-register howls too many though. As for Senor Claypool, it was off to a rocky start when

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someone hurled a pint glass at D.W. the techie.

That’s correct! Beer was served in real glasses instead of the Commodore’s usual shitty plastic cup; presumably someone forgot this was a rock show. Les was a real cranky puss after this, but the evening’s bass-driven boogie jam continued, extended soloing for your pleasure. Almost a Satriani gig, really, except no guitar, more funk, a saxophone, an extra percussionist/xylophonist, and a cute lil’ sitar-struttin’ Oriental thing with feathery pink puffs.

The band was rag tags from previous Claypool projects (Holy Mackerel, Flying Frog Brigade, etc.) plus a few newbies. Same with the strictly non-Primus song selection. Skerik, saxophone lunatic extraordinaire - he of the silly devil cap and come-punch-me underbite - had a distortion effect that exactly replicated screeching guitar heroics. Drummer Paulo Baldi was a human metronome. And the duels! Bass vs. sax. Sax vs. xylophone. Bass vs. sitar. Drums vs. drums. Drums vs. triangle (!!!). At one point Les, in a monkey mask, brought out some home-made string-stick with a depressible plunger for instant roaring monkey action. Oddly, the pit was full of female apes, bitch heels and drunken elbows a-flailin’.Yikes.

- Dave Bertrand

LIVE

The Business / Brain Failure / Rat City Riot El Corazon, Seattle, WA Wednesday, June 7, 2006 Oh, man, the Business. My favourite band. The band that got me listening to punk back in ’83. I’ve never been to Seattle before, but this gig made me brave the border pigs. We made it to the bar halfway through Rat City Riot’s set. These guys from San

the business

Diego were good enough that I bought their CD. Some catchy songs, making me regret I only caught the last three. El Corazon had its shit together and Brain Failure was on stage within 15 minutes. Their infectious enthusiasm got the circle pit going several times, to ska/punk straight from China. With songs like “I Don’t Know Where to Take My Girlfriend To”, and “Holy Bullshit”, Brain Failure meshes ESL and punk flawlessly. At last, the Business blasted into “Suburban Rebels” and all the old hits. Despite being down to one original member - vocalist Micky Fitz - they put on a hell of show. Everybody was singing along and smashing into each other, right to the last song, the classic, “Drinking and Driving”. It was an early show so we got a tour of downtown Seattle in the back of a pickup to the next bar. A few Irish car bombs, a street fight courtesy of Alternate Action and a broken leg later, it was back to Canada. Oi Oi Oi! - Jen Dodds The Mountain Goats Rick’s on Ricks,Vancouver, BC Tuesday, June 8, 2006 There are so many different ways I could start this review. I personally love Mountain Goats and used to delight myself (not sexually) by watching them lick salt off the road on the way to Banff. My good friend even pissed on a sleeping Mountain Goat once. What a jolly good time. I could sit and write about Mountain Goats for hours, I love their hair, and the baaaa-ing, and the way they don’t move off the road for nothing. The fact that the first band was called Cloudsplitter was kinda silly and I instantly hated them due to the fact that the Vancouver clouds decided to split like fucking crazy all over me on my walk to the show. Sorry. Cloudsplitter had a minimal set up with a keyboardist, a fiddle, maybe, a girl... Christ, I’m bored just writing about it. Luckily there was a drunken teenager - maybe drunk for the first time - right in front of me talking loudly about haircuts and Christmas Eve. She gave me something to think about until they were done. Sorry guys.

When the Mountain Goats took the stage (just that one dude and a bass player) everyone was awestruck. The guy dressed like Steve from 90210, with a tucked in striped dress shirt and ill fitting jeans. They went into their first song and just watching his odd, almost rehearsed facial movements and bizarre remarks put me in a very strange space. And I’m not the only one; lots of folks felt that way too.

John Darnielle, the only real Mountain Goat, lead us through a series of bitter sweet moments of life seen through the eyes of a weirdo. Not as weird as Daniel Johnston, but kinda just as endearing. They

finished with a nice version of “The Best Ever Death Metal Band Outta Denton” and I got a small music boner that only a pixie could see.

- Waltergeist Rich Hope w/ The Goose Bowen Island Pub, Bowen Island, BC Saturday, June 3rd, 2006 Y’all know Rich Hope and his Boogaloo-Blues-Tearin’-It-Up-Rawkin’-Porch-Shakin’-Stage-Explosion, so there ain’t nothin’ I can tell you that you haven’t seen, heard, read or MySpaced.Vancouver’s oldest kid, recently back from a UK tour, brought his pal the Goose, on drums, to tear the Bowen Island Pub a new one. With his legendary cavalcade of guitars, a pair of boots and a shiny new left hip (More! Swiveling! Action!), Rich provided a good chunk of the night’s entertainment, no small feat when you’re in a room full of a small island’s weirdest and wackiest.

The night quickly descended into a cocktail of Jim Beam, non-stop dancing, pickled-egg eating contests, disco ball spinnin’, a fierce lashing of 3-chord-blues, and girls from the country who aren’t afraid to bite.

Rich whipped out some favourites: “Boxcar”, “My Love Is A Bullet” and his cover of Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody”, which seems to have an aphrodisiac effect on ladies over 40, causing a booze-fueled, gyrating wave of menopausal angst across the dance floor. In the right light, it’s sexier than it sounds.

We’ve all seen Rich play before, but to the Islanders who don’t make it to the mainland, this was a night to discover something new. They were Lynchian in their idiosyncracies; a rock’n’roll Twin Peaks played out before our eyes. The Swiss Carpenter, clad in bizarro-lederhosen, The 50-Year-Old Effeminate Rapper, Bowen Island’s Only Black Guy and The Mysterious Goblin. They didn’t hesitate to yell out their show reviews, or any random thoughts in real time, whether Rich was playin’ or not.

“Don’t drink the water!”

“If I could bottle you, I’d make you into a cologne and call it One Man Army!”

“Einem was f¸r groflen Felsen - und - Erscheinen rollen!”

I’d say you had to be there, but there is opportunity for redemption. Rich will make his triumphant return to Bowen on July 15th. And remember, they’re not afraid to bite. Don’t say you weren’t warned...

- The Man From K.U.R.T.I.S. The Walkmen / Mazarin Richard’s on Richards,Vancouver, BC Saturday, June 10th, 2006 More often than not, the most entertaining shows are those in which the bands performing have something desperate to prove – and the more urgent, the better. Philadelphia’s Mazarin, which has been releasing critically acclaimed albums since 2000, opened tonight’s show with a degree of confidence that is rarely achieved by acts with a far greater fanbase. While most of Mazarin’s recorded material has a strong psychedelic-pop presence, tonight the band tailored its act to the Saturday night crowd and limited its set to the more audience pleasing numbers (highlighted by the should-be hit “New American Apathy” and the recently covered by the Walkmen “Another One Goes By). This, of course, didn’t adequately represent Mazarin’s full scope to the newcomers, but at least it kept the heads nodding and fists pounding. So that was good – well done, gents; yet it still managed to pale in comparison to the headlining act. Though New York’s Walkmen have performed in Vancouver more often than some local bands, the boys are still determined to make every show sound like it could be their last. Slowly building its set with openers “All Hands and the Cook” and “Danny’s at the Wedding” (both grabbed from the soon-to-be sleeper hit A Hundred Miles Off) the band spared no expense in giving the crowd one of its best shows yet. Keeping in Walkmen tradition, they kept things heavy on the nonchalant front, even borderlining on stiff, but that has always been part of their act and it’s this brewing kinetic energy of the band that makes their shows so engaging.

Lead vocalist Hamilton Leithauser stares off into the dark corners of the bar one minute, the next howling front and centre like a younger, less jaded Dylan, while the rest of the band follows suit – often attacking their vintage instruments or becoming absorbed in them like science experiments. Saving the best for the last, that being their biggest hits “The Rat” and “We’ve Been Had”, the band left on a spectacular high. Regardless of some recent press warning that the Walkmen’s days at the top are numbered, it certainly wasn’t evident tonight.

- Adam Simpkins

MUSICCONTENTS REVIEWS GG Allin and Antiseen Murder Junkies TKO Ha ha, I should give this a shitty review, just to piss off my loyal fans. That would teach them for trusting me. But this is GG, so how could I do that? Yes, years after his death, the shit-smeared miscreant is back to regale us with pleasant little ditties such as “Rape, Torture, Terminate & Fuck” and “I Wanna Fuck the Shit Out Of You”.

Actually, Murder Junkies is a re-release from ’91, with Antiseen providing the murderous background noise for Mr. Allin’s obscene rants.

It comes with new artwork and a sick little booklet featuring a blood and shit covered GG doing what he does best. I just dare you to slip into the nearest high school and play this over the PA. In fact, I double-dog dare you! I miss GG, so let’s dig him up for another tour. What the world needs now.

- Chris Walter Angels & Airwaves We Don’t Need to Whisper Geffen Angels and Airwaves is the new band led by Tom Delonge, formerly of Blink 182 and shockingly, it isn’t what I predicted would be the worst group in the history of music. However, don’t get this expecting the same juvenile sense of humour or even anything close to the same style of “punk” as Blink (who are about as punk as my bar mitzvah was). The only thing familiar is Tom’s voice, which has enough rock star power to sell about anything. This is basically what the kids today call emo. Bitching and whining with keyboards and boring guitar. The lyrics aren’t anything special with every song being about losing love, or your best friend’s love, or dreaming about love, or metaphors for love or paying for love (oh wait, that’s one of my songs). It may be crap, but for the most part, it’s quality crap as they do the unoriginal “let’s sound like whatever everyone else sounds like” thing pretty well. Does that mean I recommend it? Well that depends on whether or not you would enjoy listening to Blink 182 shoot morphine and then talk to a marriage counselor for an hour.

- Seth Fischer Spencer Bates Goodnight Rosebud Independent If someone told me this was a collection of songs from Rent, I wouldn’t question it. Goodnight Rosebud is a camped up musical theatre soundtrack, without the actual show to go with it. Heartfelt emotional lyrics accompany dramatic arrangements and an amazing lack of irony. Where Ben Folds is tongue in cheek ‘quirky’, Spencer Bates is just melodramatically cheesy. Unfortunately, this is more high school drama club production than it is Evita, but Bates’ Elton John leanings could lead to a career in scoring musicals. The best track is “What’s So Bad”, which, with the right production, could be a big chart hit. It has the requisite nice melody, witty lyrics and self-deprecating musings about why a certain girl doesn’t love him. All in all, it would be easier for someone to write a show to fit these songs as a package, rather than sell them as an album.

- Stephanie Heaney Adrian Belew Side Three Sanctuary Belew is an ace guitarist and composer – he’s boogied with Zappa, Bowie, the Talking Heads, King Crimson, NIN – and Side Three concludes his 2005-2006 trio of solo albums, and he handles almost every instrument, plus vocals, ‘80s-style minimalist art, loops and programming. On “Incompetence Indifference”, Belew imitates a bellowing negro voice – triply funny as Adrian is quite possibly the whitest man alive, aside from Wayne Gretzky. Les Claypool (Primus) and Danny Carey (Tool) – returning guests from Side One – pump the funk into “Whatever”, while “Men in Helicopters v4.0” riffs directly off McCartney’s thickly-orchestrated bouncy-but-sombre cabaret routine (imagine “Eleanor Rigby” as an environmentalist tirade).

To add closure, Side One’s “Beat Box Guitar” is rehashed into “Beat Box Car”, while “&” repeats the trilogy’s blazing intro, “Ampersand”. Unfortunately, much like the opening/closing “It’s No Game” variations from Bowie’s Scary Monsters, the wilder originals definitely prevail. Side One is thoroughly solid, Two is dark’n’creepy, Three is fun but not entirely climactic. A good bonus disc.

- Dave Bertrand

your meantime cock teaser. Excluding the title track from Crimes, there are two unreleased cuts, two alternate versions, a Gang Of Four remix, and a live recording of “Love Rhymes With Hideous Car Wreck,” which sounds like what would’ve happened if AC/DC went emo.

I dig the organ sound which features more prominently in the alt. versions; it makes their 30-years-late-for-punk sound more authentically contemplative. As such, it’s the best Blood Brothers release I’ve heard yet, but they still ain’t Gang Of Four.

- Filmore Mescalito Holmes Bullets And Octane In the Mouth of the Young RCA Yeah… I am not fortunate enough to pick out the stuff I want to review, so usually I’m just scavenging through the leftovers that no one else wanted to touch. Usually there’s a reason that nobody takes the other stuff, because it’s all crap. But every now and then something slips through the cracks, as is the case with this little gem.Yeah, straight up rock ‘n’ roll - a flashback to Motley Crue circa Girls Girls Girls - mixed with more modern stuff like Nashville Pussy and Gas Huffer. Straight up guitar, drums and raspy vocals make songs like “Signed in Alcohol” and “ Bathroom Floor” even better than the titles would suggest. Screw all you other reviewers who passed up on this. I won’t even burn you a copy, fuckers.

- Seth Fischer The Creepshow Sell Your Soul Stereo Dynamite The Creepshow must hate comparisons to the Horrorpops, but with the female singer and all, such comparisons are inevitable. If anything, singer Jen Hellcat has a better voice than the HP vocalist, as sweet and pure as a mountain stream. In fact, it might be just a wee bit too sweet and pure. Better put that girl on a diet of bourbon and unfiltered cigarettes for a while. I have no complaints with Sell Your Soul; it’s good ear candy and does what it should do, but despite an appearance from Hooch of Matadors fame, the CD doesn’t really stand out. I’m going to give it a few more spins and give the songs a chance to sink in. Maybe you should too.

- Chris Walter Drive-By Truckers A Blessing and a Curse New West As the story goes, the Truckers were dropped off at the studio immediately after completing the leg of a tour to record A Blessing and a Curse. While recording, they approached their craft with more spontaneity and introspection than ever before in hopes of capturing something totally new, liberating, and cohesive. While the resulting product lacks a bit of the rich narrative of albums they’ve previously written specifically from the Southern demographic, the personal nature of the songs on A Blessing and a Curse make this the easiest for the average Northern Joe to identify with. Despite it being convenient to interpret the album’s lyrics as

you’re about to secretly masturbate to your parents’ honeymoon video. Just as devastating as that moment, Gadget’s tragic name shouldn’t turn off all you incest lovers and grindcore advocates. It beats you with a wretched display of metal from “Choked” all the way too “Tingens Föbannelse”. Luckily, you get a song like “Everyday Ritual” to give you a couple of minutes to recover from the urine and blood dipped feces that decorates your room after such a devastating barrage. But the bloody shit flies again as soon as the crunchy cum explosion of “Day of the Vulture” erupts again. From start to finish you get 17 tracks that are usually less than two minutes long and abuse the senses to such a degree you can’t help but feel proud that you survived actually listening to it. Get this if you’re brave, into grindcore or blood covered stools.

- David Von Bentley Godsmack IV Republic/Universal The thing about post grunge: it’s either extremely shitty or it’s just palatable. So many of us have had our fare share of the former that we’ve abandoned the genre altogether.

Godsmack has been together for over 10 years now and it’s a wonder that they haven’t tried to retool themselves in all that time, to get away from that atrocious sound. That whole Nickledisturded-theory-of-a-puddle-of-shit-fuck-scene has almost driven most of us to homicide. This fourth album by Godsmack is a little bit above that, and is at least tolerable. But that’s as far as I am willing to go with it. The thought of the radio playing Sully Erna’s Alice in Chains influenced throaty gargle instead of Chad Kroeger’s satan warble is almost enough to make me not want to kill people… almost.

- Dale De Ruiter Good Riddance My Republic Fat Wreck Chords This is I think Good Riddance’s 42nd album (actually only 8th. Seems like more) and it’s been as steady a band as any throughout this whole pop punk bonanza. The same speedy drums, the same blistering guitar solos and yes, even the same biting social lyrical commentary from Russ Rankin. After more than 10 years in the scene, Good Riddance has finally proven their legitimacy to me with this fine piece of work.

Fourteen slabs of meat that would turn even the most hardcore of vegans into carnivores.

- Seth Fischer Grandaddy Just Like The Fambly Cat V2 Well, this is probably the end for Grandaddy.

The band has yet to state plans for a Fambly Cat tour and it looks like it’s going to stay that way. Apparently the band didn’t exactly support lyricist Jason Lytle’s commitment to boycotting major label attention and Clear “Lee Evil” Channel/Ticketmasturbator venues. Since Lytle writes and produces every song, though, I’m a little confused as to how Grandaddy could break up. How could Matt Good dissolve the Matt Good Band? Well, he did, and then immediately followed it up with his best album, 2003’s Avalanche. I could only hope the same for Jason. Like the final MGB album, a lot of Just Like The Fambly Cat sounds like it was recorded under stress and duress. The usual Grandaddy mix of esotericism, white synths, indie guitars, and introverted words appear split with the ominous spirit of The NeverEnding Story, except for the strained, somewhat out of place punk of “50%.” It’s a uniquely sad end for Grandaddy and a hopeful new beginning for Jay. Best of luck, man.

- Filmore Mescalito Holmes

just makes your parents wish they used contraceptives. I’m gonna go pawn this for transit fare and get myself kicked off the bus.

- Simon Illrote Hostage Life Walking Papers Underground Operations At first, I didn’t know what to think about this, the follow up to 2004’s Sing for the Enemy EP. What had felt too simple upon first listen is much better understood after the third spin.

Walking Papers is an experiment in balance. It combines catchy hooks with short, fast bursts of energy and balances an acceptance of a society’s problems with the frustration that accompanies that acceptance. The result is a consistent serving of upbeat, melodic punk rock.

The three tracks that clock in at under a minute keep the energy high and the tone angry, making a 37 minute record feel like 30. Now I understand why this record wasn’t love at first listen – something this strong is rarely so subtle.

- Jeremy Black Joan Jett Sinner Blackheart Joan Jett could kick your ass, make no mistake.

Before writing her off as a has-been, don’t forget that if it wasn’t for her booting the door in, bands like Hole, L7 and the whole slew of Riot Grrls might never have been. And instead of going all lame like Suzi Quatro and drug addled like Courtney, our Joan has gone… soft rock. Well, kind of a bit more gentle than we remember. She still rocks, but with a poppy edge, and sounding very much like Pink. Some of the tracks on this album appeared a few years ago on a Japanese only import called Naked, and the result of including them again here makes for a disparate collection, with some very weak filler.

However, the stand out moments really kick it and tracks “A.C.D.C.” and “Change the World” are as feisty and foot on the monitor as if it was 1981 all over again and those leather trousers still fit. Derek Smalls would approve.

- Stephanie Heney Ka-nives Get Duped Lance Rock I had the distinct pleasure recently of hitting Nanaimo for what was easily the best, most ragin’ in-store performance I’ve ever experienced.

The band was the Ka-nives, out of Houston, Texas, and the occasion was the release of its new BLACK VINYL LP on the Hub City’s own Lance Rock Records. My friends and I agreed that it was the kind of set that left you thinking that any kind of “rock” music that “aspired” to anything more than three chords and a cloud of dust was just kinda... lame and missing the point.You know what I mean. So I picked up the record and of course it does not disappoint.

The name of the game is lo-fi (the good kind), raunchy garage rock in the grand tradition of the Mummies and the Rip-Offs. There really isn’t enough of this noise going around in this frequently sad-assed millenium. Pick this platter up, buy some cheap beer (we chose Pabst Blue Ribbon) and dance. Oh, and when you’re planning your next bachelor party, consider the Ka-nives.

- Andrew Molloy Kilbourne Fashion Police Brutality No List A little over a year after its last effort, Measure of Health, Kilbourne has given us a new disc, and it’s the better of the two. Fashion Police Brutality is more accomplished, and further removed from the typical girl in a band thing. Trezzy’s screams are awesome, and are backed up by some nice guitar/bass work on the part of Dan and Franni. The album might be a lot better, however, if Kilbourne didn’t stick to such clichéd established causes. Fashion shows and the beauty myth are bad things for little girls? Well, I had no idea. Oh shit - child labour is out now, too?” Then again, it’s always a relief to encounter a band that doesn’t make music based on its lady lumps, and Kilbourne’s message is naturally directed at its younger audience; many of whom probably haven’t quite wrestled with questions of beauty and disenfranchisement, yet.

- Dale De Ruiter

it’s that uncanny. Then I got to thinking, what if I was going to buy the Ladyhawk cd and he was there and saw me looking like him with his cd in my hand? Probably would have blown his mind. I don’t know him, but I’m assuming he’s exactly like me and my mind gets blown ever so easily. Anyway, this cd is really good. This band is the tops in Vancouver.You can really tell that Jason Molina (songs:ohia, Magnolia Electric Co.) has been a big influence and that makes sense because Jagjaguwar is Secretly Canadian’s sister company and Magnolia is on SC and Molina got them their deal with Jagjaguwar I believe, anyway. Another reason to buy this cd is because of the naked girl on the front. Red pubes are so in this year.

- Waltergeist Leo37 Summer PPF House As a result of the May 4th shooting at Richard’s on Richards, two of the three bands scheduled to play the following Monday at the Lamplighter canceled their tour, leaving poor Leo37 to play before a lame crowd of less than 20. But fuck it, this four-piece instrumental hip-hop group didn’t bus all the way here from Toronto to mope; they came to promote the funky

abstractions of Summer. The album, I assume, is titled after the feel of their music - which is like wearing sandals on a sunny day and going to a picnic with shirtless acid-droppers and girls in flowery dresses.Very nice, in other words. If you hate people - knowing our readers, that’s very likely - Leo37 probably isn’t for you. But if you occasionally like to smile, then stick this in your discman and watch in amazement as a spring invades your step.

- Omar Mouallem Less Than Jake In With The Out Crowd Sire Less Than Jake has been together for 14 years, so these guys must mean what they’re doing, or at least really enjoy it. Famous for a mainstream-friendly ska-punk-pop sound, this new full length (their first studio one since 2003’s highly successful Anthem) doesn’t vary much from that formula. Cleanly produced MTV maximum rotation - bound jumpy tunes just in time for summer. More poppy than ska in places, tracks “Fall Apart” and “Soundtrack of My Life” could be the big single releases, eaten up by the teens who long to jump up and down to the next Green Day clone.You can tell the band liked punk once, but has taken too many record industry major label steps away from Rocket From the Crypt to be proper gritty rock ‘n’ roll and instead have opted for the Billboard success route.

- Stephanie Heney The Matadors Horrorbilly 9000 Stereo Dynamite The kings of horrorbilly are back with yet another demonic release. The Matadors, for all their sinning, certainly seem to have a punishing work ethic. Back and forth across the country, popping out albums like trailer trash have babies, the Matadors are busy devils. Horrorbilly 9000 is at least as good as 2005’s superlative release, and I might even like it more. In a genre that is rapidly reaching the saturation point, the Matadors manage to bring something evil and rotting to the table each time. Sadly, my girl done left me for good this time, took off with Creepin’ Jeff in a ’49 Woody. I’m warning you, Jeff, SHE CAN’T COOK! SHE CAN’T COOK! - Chris Walter

ALBUM

Blood Brothers Love Rhymes With Hideous Car Wreck EP V2 These Seattle spazzcore speed freaks are currently busy working on their fifth album in as many years (hence my speed freaks assumption).

For those who can’t wait till fall for that, here’s

rather bleak, one can’t help but sense a sort of reckless hope in lines like “I’ve been falling so long it’s like gravity’s gone and I’m just floating.”

And there are many of them. It’s not evident until you sit back and really pay attention to these lyrics that you notice the invigorating irony implied by the title. Combine this with the personally emotive nature of the songs and you have the Truckers’ most poignant album to date.

- Devon Cody

Gadget The Funeral March Relapse The first words you will say after you put on this record are “Holy Fucking Cunt” and by the time you finish saying that you’re on track three.

This is grindcore at its most dumbfoundingly brutal, stop-and-go best. It smashes your baby maker to dust so fast that you don’t notice until

Hellrazor Feel the Sting Independent I know we’re only halfway through it, but this will be the worst record of the year unless Scott Stapp and Fred Durst decide to collaborate. I take that back, this would still be worse. Nothing is lamer than 17 year-old Guns ‘n’ Roses wannabes. Guys, you can’t sing about hookers and blow until you’ve actually done them.You can’t pretend you’re worn out by years of touring and truckstop debauchery with scores of sluts named Candy until YOU HAVE ACTUALLY TOURED, AND GOT YOUR DICK DIRTY IN THE ASS OF A HOOKER THAT COSTS LESS THAN A PACK OF SMOKES. It’s in the rules of rock ‘n’ roll. I bet my little sister could drink these clowns under the table.

Pretentiously, the insert lists all their gear, as if they were sponsored. Hey shitheads, you aren’t fooling anyone... we know your record was SELF-PRODUCED for a reason. And adopting “rock ‘n’ roll” monikers like “Danny E. Rail” and “Kasey Haze” doesn’t make you look cool, it

Ladyhawk s/t Jagjaguwar/Storyboard I was on my way to Scratch Records to buy this cd (that’s right, I bought it. It’s called support), when I realized that I was wearing a bandana around my neck like a bandit. I also realized that I am about 30 lbs overweight and have an amazing beard. Then it hit me, I am the lead singer of Ladyhawk, Duffy’s exact doppelganger. I could use his passport to cause overseas conflicts,

Milky Ways S/T Alive Including a handful of members from such venerable Montreal mod/garage acts as the Spaceshits, Del-Gators and Sexareenos, Milky Ways are a greatest hits of retro-lovin’, lo-fi recordin’, striped-shirt wearin’ Francophone purists damned if they want anything but to have a good time (on a dime). Recorded straight

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CONTENTS onto a 4-track, with the help of some cheap mics and cheaper tape, Milky Ways sounds like it was hatched 40 years ago – which could have been intentional for aesthetic purposes, or maybe just financial; either way, it ends up sounding on the level. Of course, that’s only if you like your garage raw and unadulterated; but even so, by the time you get half-way through the record you’ll forget all about those fancy modern conveniences like “overdubs” and “high-fidelity”.

- Adam Simpkins The Neckers Love and Infection Independent I used to live in Calgary and it’s not a total shithole. There are fun bars and cool people, but cold weather and jocks drove me to the homoerotic wasteland that is Vancouver. A very good friend of mine - we’ll call him ‘Anders’ - got super drunk at that horrid bike courier bar called The Castle. He met the lead singer of the Neckers and ended up passed out naked in his bathtub. So, this gives you a little insight into the band. (No it doesn’t – Music Ed.)This album is pretty fucking good. Garage rocky, rockabillyish, garagabilly (I made that one up) and a good ole foot stomping, half decent time. I was cleaning my kitchen while I was listening to it and it turned into that Swiffer Sweeper commercial, me dancing around all sexy, acting like Mick Jagger. “Steal That Car” and “Angelie” got my booty shaking the sexiest.Yeah, so go see these guys if they come to town or if you’re in Calgary, get drunk and pass out naked in their tub. Don’t do coke though, because then you’d just be an asshole now, wouldn’t you? They also give a shout out to the Night Gallery, which used to rock.

Go to the Hifi Club instead, Sarmad throws the raddest after-parties.

- Waltergeist None More Black This is Satire Fat Wreck Chords In the three years since releasing its debut on Fat, None More Black has put out a EP on Sabot, which now seems like an attempt to bridge the gap between full length releases. This is Satire is a much more Fat-friendly release, meaning the production is a lot cleaner and the songs a lot less all over the place. The record is strong at both ends, but loses its grip on your throat during tracks seven through nine, as if they were hiding the second paragraph of a high school paper. Songs like “10 Ton Jiggawatts” and “You Suck! But Your Peanut Butter’s OK” should be reason enough to include this record in your collection, and if it weren’t for that errant second paragraph, this record would even have been fridge magnet worthy.

- Jeremy Black Opposition Party Zombified Pulverised Opposition Party is 19 years old? Good lord.

I’ve met founder/ring-leader Francis Frightful and I’d swear he’s only 30, tops. OP was actually Singapore’s first punk band (?!?!), but decades of aggression have molded a rather ruthless thrash-core frenzy – thick crunch rhythms, speed metal headbangery, wildly gargled choruses about zombies and political seediness; midway up the creek between Destruction and the Exploited, with nothing particularly subtle or... Singaporean, about it. FF barks the choruses/song titles on repeat, chugging away, second guitarist Lee thickens the mix, Kazz’s bass work is prominent, galloping and loopy, even funky at times (“Brain Fucked”). The album art is stylish, but – as it was handled by a Swede – resembles generic Swedish metal: a Photoshop collage, reds and browns, evil screaming face. Just a brief but brutalizing 27 minutes – the same as Reign in Blood – Zombified closes in style with “As Good As Dead”’s 1m 46s of mayhem.

Expect shattered ribs.

- Dave Bertrand

manages to stay solidly in the realm of rock. The lyrics on the album are kind of trite and I don’t know why they chose “If You Talk Too Much (My Head Will Explode)” as the single – it’s weakest track on the disc - but those are my only real criticisms. As Far as the Eye Can See could quite possibly find it’s way into my favourites of 2006.

- Devon Cody Plain White T’s Hey There Delilah Fearless This is an enhanced EP to showcase a track from the Plain White T’s ‘breakout’ album All that We Needed. The song, “Hey There Delilah” is a romantic acoustic number with clever lyrics, which asks us to believe that all boys in bands spend the whole time on tour missing their girlfriends and writing songs about them. And you could be that special girl. No wonder a trillion

girls download this everyday; it’s quite the marketing ploy fantasy. Later, we get to hear 1,000 of said girls singing live to the song. The other tracks are actually better, in a Squeeze meets ‘80s chart rock kind of a way. “Losing Myself” is a power pop summer driving anthem, which is unbearably tuneful. There are three music videos also included, very artistically shot and slick. Perhaps they should rename themselves The Plain White T’s from The Gap. - Stephanie Heney Planningtorock Have It All Chicks On Speed I don’t know what’s in the water in Germany, but it’s gotta be something fierce. While Janine Rostron –the one-woman extravaganza known as Planningtorock– is originally from Bolton, you can sure hear a lot of Berlin in her debut album.

Have It All rambles through ramshackle cabaret punk with the odd sleazy guitar, overdramatic strings, and gloomy brass covered in Rostron’s androgynous vocals that fluctuate between her native and found tongues. It’s pretty bizarre, yeah, but it sure is memorable. This is what the ‘80s should have been.

- Filmore Mescalito Holmes Portastatic Who Loves the Sun Merge Who Loves The Sun marks the second journey into the soundtrack world for Mac McCaughan’s non-Superchunk project, Portastatic. Strangely

Pointed Sticks Waiting for the Real Thing Sudden Death Most of us are probably too young to really remember Pointed Sticks – we hear their name referenced alongside seminal Vancouver punk bands like D.O.A or The Subhumans, or regularly endorsed by Nardwuar, yet the band is about due to receive full credit for its impressive body of work recorded between 1978 – 1980. Waiting for the Real Thing is an odds and sods collection from the bands’ career highs and lows.

Including power-pop staples “What Do You Want Me To Do?” and “Lies”, as well as some rare, unreleased songs including four spirited, albeit uncharacteristically sloppy tracks taken from a radio session from Rohan’s Pub back in ‘79. Waiting is a varied compendium to the classic LP, Perfect Youth or a good starting point for John and Jane come-lately, but will likely be met with the dismissive “not punk enough/not pop enough” aphorism that persistently dogged the Sticks up until their breakup.

- Adam Simpkins

Raised Fist Sound Of The Republic Burning Heat Lifting its name from a Rage Against The Machine lyric – I’m assuming Bulls on Parade was already taken by a RATM tribute act in Hamburg – Raised Fist dangerously straddle the line between early nü-metal and East Coast hardcore; sometimes inventive and dynamic, other times… a bit embarrassing, really.Vocalist Alle Rajkovik barks out snappy rants behind thundering arrangements, which are effective on roughly half of Republic’s tracks (that being the relatively strong closing tracks). But for the most part, the record unfortunately sounds only marginally better than the likes of Static-X and Powerman 5000 (main offenders being the single “Perfectly Broken” and the title track).

And while Raised Fist deserves some credit for trying to broaden its sound and throwing in some vocal and musical twists, there are just far too many tedious and awkward moments to make this an enjoyable or captivating album.

- Adam Simpkins

Pony Up Make Love To The Judges With Your Eyes Dim Mak Comparisons to Sleater-Kinney are bound to arise when talking about Pony Up, this industrious Montreal foursome that knows its way around indie-rock hooks and nuances. However, the flat harmonies and monotone vocals are about the only thing these two bands have in common - the ladies of SK would most likely pummel this lot in a tour de force if one should ever come up. Pony Up take a more introspective and coy approach when tackling their songs: obviously born out of bitterness and frustration, but the girls still handle their subjects with kid gloves. All this makes for a pleasant and innocuous album, but also an instantly forgettable one.

-Adam Simpkins

Reducers SF Raise Your Hackles TKO Bah, Spackler would probably call this “tenth generation gutter punk” but fuck that guy. I love this shit, love the way the growling vocals and supercharged guitars wash over me. Reducers SF draw from classic bands such as Stiff Little Fingers, Cocksparrer, and the Swingin’ Utters but add enough originality to make this a compelling listen. Raise Your Hackles is Reducers SF first full-length release since 2002 and well worth the wait. Ah, fuck, it does get a bit thin at times, but mostly it’s a strong release. Does that sound ambivalent?

- Chris Walter

Psapp The Only Thing I Ever Wanted Domino Psapp’s new album sounds very much as if it was engineered by some geeky toddlers who have turned a studio into their own personal play pen. The Only Thing... is a record made by, and for, those who appreciate the odd and wacky noises that can be found around you.

This London-based duo mixes quirky samples of toys, bells, and found sounds with glitchy electronics to create some cute and cuddly arrangements. Footsteps on creaky floorboards are converted into beats; a squeeze toy takes a solo; and kitchen utensils are no longer just for eating. Unfortunately, at the half way point, something disastrous happens. For some ridiculous reason, Psapp opts for vocals and more traditional instrumentation, meaning a string of dull and ultimately boring tracks that sound like something you might hear in Starbucks. So, if you turn it off around mid-way you can have yourself a nice little EP. - BRock Thiessen The Raconteurs Broken Soldier Boy V2 I’ve never been to Detroit. It’s got a pretty rough reputation, for sure, but that may change if more projects like this develop. The Raconteurs is a genuine Motor City indie super group. Its membership consists most notably of White Stripes retro guitarist Jack White and singer-songwriter prodigy Brendan Benson, a multi-instrumentalist from Blanche and a Greenhorne being less notable. Michael Moore has been showing the harsh side of Detroit for years, but damn if these label colleagues don’t make it all seem worth it… on a second though, no. But their brand of AM radio revival rock –seeing Jack’s ‘50s love melding with the more contemporary Benson to leave us somewhere in the ‘70s – obviously shows you there’s something brilliant and true going on in the state of Michigan.

- Filmore Mescalito Holmes

The Smokes Fields and Factory Floors Sealbait For all the cheap laughs in last month’s careerthreatening booze-bag of an interview, I totally neglected to mention that the Smokes are actually a rip-roaringly rad rock band. Foot-stompin’, story-tellin’, beer-swillin’ – sorta like Ol’ Shaky wrestling a Newfie pirate. Nods to Fredericton are everywhere (but no kilt-n-fiddle, thank heavens...), vocal harmonies abound, Kalvin Olafson strums his acoustic like a rabid grizzly motherfucker. Of course there are minor missteps: “Steel Train” is a stormer on stage, here it’s just average, despite the bonus trumpet. But c’mon! FAFF is the Smoke’s first album – see young Jimi drummer’s crayon cover art for proof. “Old Wilsey” and the epic “Mountain Tree” have shout-along choruses catchier than baseballs. “Microphone” is a soaring eagle finale.

Jeff Myrfield (the Stumbler’s Inn) even chips in a wicked keyboard coda on “Bones” straight outta Zep’s “Trampled Under Foot”. Dude, it’s like the best summer camp ever.

- Dave Bertrand Sonic Youth Rather Ripped Geffen When Jim O’Rourke – Sonic Youth’s supposed Brian Eno and the man credited as reviving this old rock machine – gave word that he would no longer be working with the band, every hornrimmed hipster must have let loose a broken sigh of grief. How could New York’s finest ever fill those big shoes of O’Rourke’s? Well, by not even trying to. SY has completely dropped the dense and complex nature of its last couple of albums, wisely deciding to go small instead of big. Rather Ripped must be the most stripped

The Robot Ate Me Good World 5 Rue Christine Ryland Bouchard, aka the Robot Ate Me, isn’t the type of guy to stick to conventions.

Throughout his career he has repeatedly made albums that barely connect in direction or sound. We once again find Bouchard playing mind games with Good World, which clocks in at about 20 minutes over 17 tracks, making the notion of whether this is an LP, EP or some kind of mini-album up for debate. For better or worse, this is also apparently one of those con-

down and direct SY record to date. It’s also by far the most melodic and, dare I say, catchy. SY has therefore managed to stay interesting by delivering some kind of twisted pop album, and the suits at Geffen must have done some serious head-scratching over this one.

- BRock Thiessen

cept albums in which the concept is really only known to the artist, which I honestly prefer to something like the Who’s Tommy. Bouchard tells his vague tale through his own brand of artsy pop, relying mainly on some scattered drums and horns, which actually make for a very addicting listen. In the silence that quickly follows Good World, the desire to once again press down on that play button feels strong.

- BRock Thiessen The Screaming Eagles Enemy Gold Independent Instrumental bands are usually a tricky lot to review, especially if their sound is limited to a certain style (post-rock) or genre (indie rock) – which is why I held some minor trepidation when sitting down with this Vancouver threesome’s debut record. Within minutes (two), my initial fears were subdued: opening track “Futureball” could be mistaken for a Shellac throwaway, sure, but once the summer breeze of “Doo Doo Doo Doo” smacks the sun in your face, the clouds soon part and it’s smooth sailing here on in. The Eagles don’t settle for a single sound or dynamic, which is abetted by guest players thrown in to fully maximize a handful of tracks here. This is evident on the Money Mark meets Lynyrd Skynyrd jam “Prom Song (California Raisin Remix)” – a track which initially seems like a train wreck but manages to pull itself together with the sum of its parts.

And that, shucks, is the inherent magic of this band. My crystal ball sees great things for these so-called Screaming Eagles.

- Adam Simpkins

The Spinoffs Street Rock Stars Black Market When I saw the Spinoffs play Vancouver a year ago, the collective clientele looked like they were attending a Ramones convention, and with an album of 16 songs at a total running time of 23 minutes, you can’t say fairer than ‘onetwothreefour!’ The music itself sounds much more like early Buzzcocks than anything else, especially the track “Takeout Boy” with its girly camp harmonizing. This is all fast paced punky riffs (their drummer must be either super fit or permanently knackered) and rock ‘n’ roll in its purest form - short on tunes but high on energy and attitude. When something emulates early punk music so well, you have to wonder, do we really need this? But for those of us too young to say we were there (and even those who were), it’s a great second best. Just don’t expect anything new.

- Stephanie Heney

REVIEWS

People In Planes As Far as the Eye Can See Wind-up This reminds me of an album most people expected Radiohead to make after OK Computer.

The comparisons are bound to both help and hamper this band. Singer Gareth Jones’ voice is what makes the comparisons so easy - he has the same timbre and range of Thom Yorke, perhaps with a bit more pop sensibility and warmth. Despite this, I think People in Planes take the best tendencies of not only Radiohead, but bands like Portishead and At the Drive-In, wrap it in a surprisingly pop-friendly package and make it very much their own. Included are also songs that show this band’s ability to escape comparison. Like the opener “Barracuda” - obviously inspired by a blues lick, but resembling nothing of a blues song - or “Narcoleptic”, a jazzy, meandering composition that somehow

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enough, both of these scores have been for Canadian films, the first being 2001’s Looking For Leonard. However, unlike that effort, Who Loves the Sun is much more orchestral in nature and sways further away from the guitar-based songs McCaughan usually rips out. Instead, he uses piles of strings, flutes, oboes and pianos making for a purely instrumental soundtrack that sounds much more like, well, a soundtrack.

Resembling other scores on Merge released by Stephin Merritt and Eric Bachmann, the songs found here – though pretty - barely ever go past the two minute mark. Regrettably, this makes it hard to ever really get into them since they are chopped so quickly.

- BRock Thiessen

Radiokill Honest Brutality Rockdog My hackles went up the second I put this on.

You see, the headbangers that I spent most of my youth trying to avoid listened to music just like this.You know, cheesy Megadeth-cum Metallica riffs, punctuated with plenty of boring breakdowns and the occasional foray into Nicklebackland. Man, at least those ‘bangers who lived in their parents basements and dated poodle-haired girls listened to the real thing.

Radiokill is a poor man’s Metallica, and I’m being charitable here. Great, now I’m going to have to look out for the boys in the band. I can almost see them yelling at me from the windows of a souped-up Camaro, mullets blowing in the wind.

And I don’t run so fast no more…

- Chris Walter

SSM S/T Alive You may remember Szymanski, Shettler and Morris (SSM, respectively) from such notable Detroit garage acts as the Hentchmen, Paybacks and the Sights, but this new project knocks these bands right back to the minor leagues.

And this isn’t some Jack White-endorsed motor-city revivalist group, either. SSM has its feet grounded in tradition, but its roots only serve as a reference point. Playing fuzzed-up glam on the recent single “Sick” to carnival oompah-pah (“Candy Loving”), culminating with the stomping space odyssey “2012” - and that’s only in the first 20 minutes! The remainder of the record is equally as unpredictable: bouncing between straight-up rock to the more spacey, drugged-out moments (“You’re Next”, “Seer”).

It’s hard to find fault with such an ambitious and well-rounded record – let’s just hope these

MUSICCONTENTS REVIEWS belong: I’m pale, I have some scabs that I haven’t eaten, and Jesus Jones knows that I’d take any fat girl in the sack. I went from hate to near lust for this band, a condition that persisted right up to the new album. To that end, opening track and single “Vicarious” is classic Tool but almost more rockin’ then past efforts. This rest is tedious. It builds so fucking slow (even for Tool).

Out of 11 tracks we have eight that are over six minutes long and two tracks over 11 minutes.

It’s just too much. I’m sorry, this is the first Tool album in six years and it’s the best they can do?

The Fonz might have jumped the shark, but Tool has sucked it off.

- David Von Bentley

gems fall into the right hands, lest it become an overlooked, lost classic.

- Adam Simpkins The Stitches 8 X 12” Vinyl Dog This is more of what Spackler would refer to as “tenth generation gutter punk.” I hate to admit it, but he just might be right this time around.

The riffs aren’t bad and there isn’t anything about 8 X 12” that I hate, but you can’t escape the conclusion that it’s all been done before, and by better bands. A pox on you, Spackler!

- Chris Walter The Stills Without Feathers Vice This is a complete 180 from their breakthrough album Logic Will Break Your Heart and many fans will probably be turned off by the change. I loved Logic and was really caught off guard by the new stuff, but that was then. Now I want to marry and have babies with it. I want to grow old with it and have a cheap, fulfilling affair on it. This album trades in the dark, guitar driven songs for more happy, retro piano-driven tunes.

Catchy has become deep while the opening song, “In the Beginning”, is the closest this album gets to a pop song. Having two lead singers also adds an extra dimension to the Stills as both have similar yet very distinctive voices. This allows Without Feathers to drift off in two different directions without losing its overall aura.

Clearly this band does not care about anything

but stretching their musical abilities, and that is a positive sign in an otherwise apathetic music scene. Kudos to the Stills for what I already predict will be one of the most underrated albums of the year.

- Seth Fischer Tool 10,000 Days Volcano/Zomba In high school I noticed Tool shared something in common with its fans: the name ‘Tool.’ To say the least, I hated Tool back then - and its quasireligious cult of sad, pale skinned scab eaters and fat girls - but as my cock and balls grew, so did my heart. I gained an appreciation for Tool’s ability to be heavy and weird, all the while filling stadiums that Bon Jovi couldn’t. I realized I

V/A Anti-Disco League Vol 1 Templecombe Of course, they could have called this The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but then ol’ Clint might have come looking for them, which wouldn’t be good. Whatcha got here is an international compilation of various bonehead groups, from the well-known (Templars, Crashed Out) to the almost obscure (Haircut). Overall, I’d say that this is a quality release, but if you dig the White Stripes and the Artic Monkeys, then Anti-Disco League Vol 1 probably isn’t for you. I can only take Oi! in relatively small doses, but there are some standouts here, my favourites being Stomper 98, Templars, Retaliator, Southpaw Manners (!), and On-File. Anti-Disco League Vol 1 might not win over any new converts to the skinhead way of life, but I’m going to give it four cracked skulls out of five.

- Chris Walter

Standout Tracks for me include Tiger Army’s “Swift Silent Deadly”, Unseen’s “Act The Part”, and Lard Frederikson and the Bastards’ “The Kids Aren’t Quiet on Sharmon Palms”, while the stinkers shall remain nameless. If you know Hellcat Records then you should know what to expect and therefore should be out picking this up. The dude abides!

- Seth Fischer Versus The Mirror Home Equal Vision Versus The Mirror is the latest pop-hardcore band to come along, employing the same litescreaming vocals and complex guitar riffage of its peers in the Bled and the Format. The album sounds remarkably slick, considering it was recorded entirely using vintage equipment and no ProTools influence whatsoever. Should be popular with fans of the Bled, From Autumn to Ashes and Hopesfall, but the band will most likely suffer from its inability to distinguish itself from the bands it strives to emulate.

- Derek Bolen Whiskey & Co Leaving the Nightlife No Idea This band is aptly named. Every single song on this album is littered with alcohol references, and it would make a fun game in a long car journey to spot them all. As the first track kicks in, I’m really struck by how much the singer sounds like Natalie Merchant, uncannily so in fact. Maybe to hide this, the vocals aren’t turned

V/A Give Em The Boot V Hellcat Records The thing about compilations is this; occasionally you get some unreleased tracks, but usually whatever is on a comp can be found on some other album. The other problem is inconsistency. Take this one for example. Ska songs sandwiched between punk, reggae and/or good ol rock ‘n’ roll. Sure, all of these styles stem from the same musical place and they all happen to be featured on Hellcat (duh), but it’s hard to give a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. So fuck consistency, all you should be looking for is whether or not the good tracks outweigh the bad. And fortunately in this case, good prevails.

up high enough. Anyway, Whiskey & Co.’s trad country is sans the darkness that makes Cash so intoxicating – there is no alt in their country.

This is the kind of music that your dad taps his foot to and harps on about real tunes and today’s lack of. If you dream of a bar where everyone drunkenly sings along to nice, samey tunes then this is for you. All in all, it’s a bit boring, except for “How I Wish” - a wistful, lonely, small town Americana lament. Makes you wish the band stayed off the booze more often.

- Stephanie Heney Wishbone Ash Clan Destiny Eagle Good lord... I never thought this was possible.

This may be the first time that I have heard an album where each song is literally five times shittier than the song before it. The consistency of crap is impeccable. They just try to do too much and it ends up a big pile of garbage. It sounds like three bums and a crack whore fighting with a Vietnamese grandma. Without sounding rude, I don’t want to write anymore because I don’t think it would be fair to readers if they had to read more than two lines on this pile of crap. Bonafide ear cancer.

- Seth Fischer Witch s/t Tee Pee Witch starts in stoner territory but is too jumped up and sunshiney to stay there. Like Comets on Fire’s masterful Blue Cathedral, it explores plenty of retro metal angles but is so fully formed that it doesn’t even require the mandatory Sabbath reference, nor does it seem all that necessary to mention that J. Mascis is the drummer. Among its many and varied moods: awesome, wow, and peckish.Vocalist Kyle Thomas (Feathers) sings like a mouseketeer, and I declare that’s a good thing, especially with the silly black magick lyrical bent.

- Adrian Mack

86?6C2= >@E@CD A=246 H 2F8FDE ## A6?8C@HE9 D255=65@>6 H 2F8FDE #% CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR TICKET INFORMATION IN YOUR CITY Limit 8 tickets per person. All dates, acts and ticket prices are subject to change without notice. All tickets are subject to applicable taxes and service and handling charges.

The Nerve July 2006 Page 31

CONTENTS Boys Night Out Dude You Need to Stop Dancing Ferret Records Boys Night Out, those lovable emo scamps from Burlington, have released the requisite live show/music video DVD, with an added ‘bonus’ thrown in for the hardcorest of hardcore fans.

The bulk of the DVD is comprised of a 52 minute ‘mockumentary’ depicting the band as a bunch of in-fighting prima donnas on the brink of breaking up. It’s a decent premise, but it’s so poorly executed it’s enough to make you wish

the band really DID hate each other’s guts. The mock rivalry between lead singer Connor Lovat-Fraser and guitarist Jeff Davis is exaggerated so much it kills any humorous intent the band may have had, especially after nearly an hour. The high point of the exercise is drummer Brian Southall, who shows a surprising grasp of comedy for a drummer. If you manage to actually watch the entire DVD in one sitting, you’re an inspiration to us all. Only whatever the complete opposite of ‘inspiration’ is.

- Derek Bolen

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Whitey From Rags to Rags Infinite Bombay The key to pulling off a “mockumentary” is knowing when to stop. What Whitey and writer/ director Owen Korbeld have created is an entertaining film for the most part, but holy shit does it go on. Aside from being the perfect joke for their friends and family, the premise of this film is basically to pseudo-hype the band’s non-existent fame, expose their inner complexities and conflicts, propose a level of seriousness that isn’t there AND to give the world a long and exhaustive look into the little world of Whitey - an independent, small-time “rock with horns” band from Chilliwack, B.C. The film isn’t entirely scripted or fictionalized; the band interviews contain real information about how the band met, and their thoughts on Whitey’s heavyish, ska rock sound. The fact that this film constantly repeats itself is perhaps an attempt to portray a depth that maybe these boys in their late teens and early 20’s feel - and you do believe it in the end - but other than being charming, who really cares? Aside from the overkill, the film certainly benefits from its amazing production quality (a lot of time was spent on editing in all the “funny clips” and stylizing interview backdrops). The live clips are cool, the studio clips are neat, the backstage/alley antics are funny, the road shots are... well, you get the picture.

Is anyone not familiar with Whitey – I assume there’s a few of you - going to like this DVD? Young bands should watch it - the part about promoters and the

realities of money on tour is educational, I suppose, and driving across Canada in a van and not showering for days (mentioned a good half dozen times) sure looks like a blast.

Even with its flaws, From Rags to Rags is the best dvd release from any independent band I’ve seen.

Plus, some kid gets his face lit on fire. bombaymediahouse.com - A.D. MADGRAS

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CONTENTS

Short Ends

smaller and not as funny as cheap shotz

comment. When we asked about Xenu they hung up on us, then sprinted all the way to the Nerve office with reading material for us.

Cinematheque A touring retrospective of Peter Whitehead’s films that depicted ‘60s London counterculture will be making its only North American stop at the Pacific Cinematheque July 14-24. www.cinematheque.bc.ca Perez Hilton’s Penis It’s online. Just do a Google search and it’ll come up.

Opening this month in one line July 7 A Scanner Darkly They sent us advanced screening passes to give away to readers but the staff took them all so you lose.

Strangers With Candy The big screen adaptation of the greatest televison

Scientology News John Roecker, director of Live Freaky! Die Freaky! (Nerve Feb 06) was taking a stroll down the block. Minding his own business and wearing a shirt that read “Scientology is gay” and a picture of Tom Cruise on it. All of a sudden he hears someone say, “Hey, man, you’re making fun of my religion.” He turns and it’s Jenna Elfman from Dharma and Greg with her husband Bodhi Elfman. According to Roecker, he started making fun of Xenu the alien overlord while Bodhi looked like he was about to take a swing at him as Jenna screamed, “Have you ever raped a baby?”

There was an unidentified young male with the couple who Jenna and Bodhi yelled at to cover his ears and run away every time Roecker mentioned Xenu. We called all our friends at the local church Scientology for

The Nerve July 2006 Page 34

show of all time starring Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert.

July 21 Clerks 2 Kevin Smith continues his mediocre downward spiral.

July 28 Miami Vice There better be some motherfuckin’ Jann Hammer in the

opening credits.

Video Pick Mouth to Mouth Mouth to Mouth is a part of Mongrel Media’s Canadian Festvial Collection and is a nice mixture of Todd Haynes Safe and Larry Clarke’s Kids (but not as gross). Starring Ellen Page–famous for hacking off a guy’s wang in Hard Candy– this film follows a young teenage runaway who hooks up with a bizarre street youth empowerment group and tours around Europe with them. However, the more time she spends with them, the more it seems like the group is actually a cult that wants to brainwash and control the teenage runaways they take under their wing. n

CONTENTS

TV PARTY: Glenn’s World! Party Time! Excellent!

By Michael Mann

Y

ou’re a writer-type guy with bad teeth who knows lots of musicians and artists.You’re fucking hilarious when you get a few drinks in you and all your friends say you should have your own television show. So you have this amazing idea to start a video podcast where you interview your friends while you all get drunk and smoke pot. It’ll be revolutionary. Sadly, while you may think you’re doing something mind blowingly original, Glenn O’Brien was doing this in New York in the late 70’s on public access television.

So put down mom’s video camera and don’t start sending us press releases. Maybe consider giving up writing as well cuz you’ll never earn enough money for braces doing that.

Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party was on the air sporadically from 1978-1982 and it featured a ridiculous cast of characters. O’Brien’s Ed McMahon was Chris Stein, the guitarist from Blondie. Graffiti artist Fab Five Freddy was the “token black guy” who sometimes worked the camera. Occasionally popping in for a visit were David Byrne, David Bowie, Mick Jones, Deborah Harry and Andy Warhol (O’Brien was editing Warhol’s Interview Magazine at the time). The show was loosely based on Hef ’s Playboy Penthouse, where a bunch of glamourous people would mingle like it’s a cocktail party and get interviewed by Hugh Hefner. Except this was has a bunch of dirty skids sitting around smoking pot listening to a house band that featured a guy using a copy of the New Yorker as a drum. To say TV Party looks like a television show that was made by New York hipsters who knew nothing about making a television show is an understatement. Random people were given the task of operating the cameras so this is exactly what TV Party looks like. And hey, the show looks like it’s made by amateurs so why not get Jean-Michel Basquiat to come in and randomly type stuff like “you are a racist” on the screen with an oh so analog character generator from the studio. Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut (or Outsider Art) while looking at the paintings made by crazies in an insane asylum. But he might as well have been

watching this show.

Considering edgy public access shows in New York get snapped up by MTV a week after their first episode, perhaps the most shocking thing about this show is that it took so long for these tapes to get unearthed. Danny Vinik (too old to tell me his age, too young to have seen TV Party on the air) runs a media company that builds websites for famous people and produced the movie Spun. So Glenn O’Brien came to him with a technical problem that only someone who made Velvet Revolver’s website could solve. “They were just laying around.

80 hours of 3/4 inch rotting footage. Glenn would pull them out for different occasions to show, and I think suddenly he had a realization that they were rotting away. This is how we heard of them. We were called in to give some advice on restoring them; on making dupes of them,” explains Vinik. “Once we started looking at them we said, ‘Hey, there’s something here. Maybe we should do some kind of a documentary and go back and talk to people.’ That was the impetus.” Vinik did more than make some kind of documentary, He made a documentary.TV Party the documentary! And yes, he did go back and talk to people. People like Glenn O’Brien, Chris Stein, Deborah Harry, and Fab Five Freddy. They have stuff to say too and oddly don’t seem jaded, a rarity for ex-scenesters, some of whom are “still flat broke and living the punk rock life,” adds Vinik.

TV Party the documentary is an interesting watch if only to see all these people who helped shape popular culture when they were broke. But really, it’s 2006 why should we give a shit about a public access show from the late 70’s in New York? Vinik has the

answer, “it was groundbreaking in its carelessness and freedom and in its challenging of what you could put on television. There was always the talk show with Letterman or Carson, but these guys got nutso.

And I think some of nutso-ery talk shows owe more to TV Party than they do to Carson in ‘just a how crazy can we get?’ way.”

Nusto-ery isn’t a word. I don’t think nutso is either but I let it slide this time because I’m a nice guy.

It should also be added that Letterman once said Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party was his favourite television show. Something that’s nutso-ery-ererer than that is O’Brien labeling TV Party as, “the show that’s a cocktail party but could also be a political party.” There’s a picture of Mao hanging up in the background so it must be political, right?

The rest of the people involved disagree and think it was just a bunch of people acting like jackasses while getting stoned on live television. So what is it? “I definitely think that Glenn felt he was doing a political thing. I definitely think the political context was more than just a fashion statement. I just think that Glenn’s brand of being political is an anarchistic statement. Be free; free yourself from the bonds of politics. Like he says, be polite, but do what you want to do. Be tolerant and polite is his brand of politics. People just need to drink more cocktails… and yeah, I buy into that.

I think that part of its polticalness was saying let’s not be so serious. I think that’s a political statement in and of itself.” So basically you can sit around and get drunk and do whatever you want. Doing anything against the norm is an inherently subversive and political act. Glenn O’Brien’s idea of politics is a tempting one and we’ll let him have that one because we’re too lazy to protest and it justifies this

“People were getting strung out.That stuff peaks...They peaked.

Once you peak it’s hard to get back to it.”

magazine’s existence.

Aside from O’Brien sitting on these tapes for so long, another reason why many aren’t aware of this show is because TV Party had a rather anti-climatic ending. Just as it seemed like TV Party was going to take over the world, everyone got bored and moved onto something else. O’Brien wrote a movie called New York Beat that starred Basquiat. Chris Stein got horribly sick with a rare genetic disease and everyone thought he had AIDS (don’t feel too bad, Blondie’s album Parallel Lines sold like 20 million copies). Everyone else was on drugs. Cool and powerful New York drugs that you’ve never heard of and couldn’t even pronounce. “People were getting strung out. That stuff peaks... They peaked. Once you peak it’s hard to get back to it. The downtown lower eastside art scene and the rock ‘n’ roll scene, all those things kind of peaked. They may survive in different realms but you can look and point out when they were at their fevered pitch.”

With the release of this doc to DVD as well as the planned release of notable episodes, it seems inevitable that some jackass will try to imitate Glenn O’Brien’s novel concept. Can you imagine a TV show where dance acts, rappers, new wavers, punkers, rockers and artists all get together and party? Yeah, that’s like a two-pronged cock with serrated metal edges: difficult to wrap your lips around, let alone swallow. But Vinik believes despite the hyper target marketed world we live in, a show like this could happen again. “People have been talking about it a little bit. Like could we try it again? And what would it take to recreate it? Could we find the youthful energy that they had and combine it with a Hugh Hefner gentleman-after-dark kind of feeling? If it involved Glenn and Chris it would be something else entirely. It might be sponsored by Virgin Airways and be on television. If it were in the spirit of the show, yeah it might be a podcast and some viral Internet thing.” But if someone on the Internet does do something like this, ignore them. Giving people attention on the Internet only encourages them and you wouldn’t want to do that. n

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CONTENTS

Sniper Elite Developer: Rebellion Publisher: Namco Hometek, Inc. Usually, within this column space, your senses are regaled with reviews of two games and I usually only review games that I have completed… but not this month. This month is dedicated entirely to the free time black hole known as Sniper Elite.

This face-exploding WWII-based game has made Rogers video fall in love with me. I have probably spent over a hundred dollars in re-rentals and late fees and way too much of my free time on this title.

Who wants to go outside when you can shoot not only German but also Russian crotches with bloody exploding gore and slow-mo replay? Well I’ll tell you who... a communist, that’s who, and we ain’t no reds, are we kiddies? We hate the reds. We shoot the reds and then we complete the mission and get bonus points for killing two at once.

If you’re worried about wasting too many of your precious beach hours this summer thus becoming a hermit, you can ease the pain and drag someone else down with you. This game is co-op, which means you can bring in some help to make sure atomic technology does not fall into the wrong hands. When you’re not too busy arguing over med packs you can outflank your enemy and squeeze off a lucky shot that hits a grenade on their belt blowing off their mortal coil and giving you bonus points.

You get to crawl around in the bomb crater mud through destroyed buildings and shit your pants every time you hear footsteps, just like a real soldier.

The best part of most shooter games is when you get that sniper rifle, crawl to some ridge and shoot the hapless enemy in the head, and it is with

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great pleasure that I am able to report that this is pretty much the majority of Sniper Elite.Your main weapon is a sniper rifle and you can accent your armoury with machines guns, pistols, TNT, even time bombs and trip wire grenades.You can also search corpses and take German stick grenades off their lifeless husks.

The game is designed to realistically simulate all the challenges of long-distance shooting, accounting for wind speed, elevation, breathing, and even heart rate. What this means is that the wind carries your bullet on your football field and a half headshot so that it misses and then the dude runs away, gets backup and you soon die. Sniper Elite is comprised of 28 non-linear levels designed to challenge gamers to figure out the best way to accomplish their objectives.You can either run around machine gunning everyone and get shot in the ass as they unload on you or you have the option of taking the time to sneak up and get covert kills.

Since this game has sucked up so much of my time and money you have probably guessed that I like it, which would be an understatement. This game is like that hot girl in high school that you never hooked up with. Well actually it is nothing like that girl but damn if I could go back in time I would try to hook up with that girl and justify my existence.

Or I would just fail again and become miserable and not be able to look women in the eye for fear that they will become attached and just hurt my heart and make me sad. Then I could play Sniper Elite and be happy again because Sniper Elite will never ever leave me no matter how many times Rogers video threatens my life.

- Dale De Ruiter

CONTENTS

This Bank Robber’s Life

By Patrick “Paddy” Mitchell Available at www.paddymitchell.com We all have a destiny. I believe this. I think that all of us are great at something and the major dilemma for most of us is whether or not we choose to harness the talents that separate us from the rest of the pack. In Patrick “Paddy” Mitchell’s case, this talent just so happened to be robbing banks. Now he wasn’t just any old crook, this dude was like the Wayne Gretzky of thieves. In This Bank Robber’s Life he lets loose with a tell-all tale of criminal activity and life on the lam. It begins with a charming description of Mitchell’s first criminal act. While attending Catholic elementary school, he and his classmates donated money to a charity that his teachers claimed would help souls get to heaven.

When his teacher informed him that the person

he donated to could not get into heaven because he was Jewish, Mitchell took it upon himself to steal the charity money back and teach the bigots a lesson. The book quickly escalates to describe his grander schemes.

One of which happens to be the biggest gold heist in Canadian history. It was a feat Mitchell pulled off with two other gents: Stephen Reid and Lionel Wright. The trio would later be dubbed “The Stopwatch Gang” after they busted out of the clink in Ontario and went on a tear robbing banks throughout the States with each gig being completed in less than two minutes. Eventually, Reid and Wright were arrested but Mitchell continued robbing banks on his own for another 10 years! He got remarried under an alias in the Philippines, started a new family and tried living a normal life.

Meanwhile back in the States, he was featured on shows like America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries--shows that eventually aided in his capture in 1994. This Bank Robber’s Life is raw and gentle and chock full of great adventures that will have you rooting for a crook who would have shoved a gun in your face had you been in his way. He’ll be the first to tell you he’s not the most skilled writer, but he has led an amazing life and he speaks from his soul. He puts his heart on each page and when you put the book down, you’ll feel like you know him.

His writing has a humanity about it that will make you appreciate his passion for life.You’ll find yourself admiring the excuses he brews up for his crimes and you’ll laugh at his cavalier recount of the more humorous moments of his escapades. Most people already harbour some kind of romantic idea about robbing banks. This book caters to that. Here is the story of a Canadian who is as polite and charismatic as he is cunning. Here is a man who always leaves the first two chambers of his gun empty so no accidents happen during the heist. As summed up best in his own words Paddy says, “I’d be lying if I said I had remorse for robbing all those banks and stealing all that money. I am sorry that I frightened some innocent people by shoving guns in their faces–that wasn’t very nice of me.” How do you not root for him?

- Christopher Petry

Put the Book Back on the Shelf: A Belle $ Sebastian Anthology Various Image Comics I was a bit of a fucker when I was a kid. I’d yell and scream like an unstoppable dynamo.

On one occasion, I was being a brat to my Grandpa. He was a stern old guy with a heart of gold. He said, “Waltergeist, I’ll kick your ass if you don’t stop it right this second.”

My response was typical for a little prick, so I stuck my ass out in an open invitation, spreading my cheeks just a bit. Well, he booted me right square in the raison. But, that wasn’t the worst part. I shit my pants in front of the whole family. Needless to say, I was a beautiful little angel for the rest of the week. It turned out to be a very important life lesson for me, and a warning sign that I was fucking up.

When I bought the Belle & Sebastian comic book - that’s right, it’s a comic book - I was so super excited that I ran home giggling and read the whole thing in, like, 10 seconds, pondering its beautiful illustrations and wonderful tales of Scottish urbanity. Then, a lot of things came rushing home. I bought a comic book. I ‘pondered’ things. Tales of horrible old Scotland thrilled me. This was the shitting of my pants of my late 20s and the scare I needed to change my life.

I now only listen to Judas Priest, hang out at super macho clubs like the Pump Jack, and chill strictly with men, because I’m straight goddamn it!

So, if you hate Belle and Sebastian, hate comics, but have a crush on a cute girl that works at the

typewriter store on Main St., buy this and you’ll get a date. If you love Belle and Sebastian and love comics, then chances are you’re gay and don’t need a date because all gay men get laid all the time. It’s true. Either way, buy this or don’t. What are you asking me for anyway?

- Waltergeist.

CONTENTS

The Man That Matters

By Jason Ainsworth AINSWORTH AINSWORTH AINSWORTH On Incest, Reincarnation, and Those Fucking Painted Bears.

S

orry, was supposed to review the Music Waste Festival. I fucked it up I was seeing ghosts and things that weren’t there, freaking out like an oral caress from mother. Turns out, according to a shrink, that this MAYBE can be diagnosed as early onset cocaine psychosis. I didn’t believe a word she (yes, SHE) said. Its early onset DIABETES, that’s what I got. If one can’t maintain or achieve an erection, that has nothing to do with drugs, or girth, but the inability of the thyroidian artery to produce enough insulin or maybe too much insulin. So that’s what I got. Whew! Talk about relief.

Those Montessori guys can suck it.

Shah.

Now, speaking of incest, everyone has heard of top-ten total awesome action three in a bed crooner Michael Buble, right? Course you have!

But nobody remembers his legendary namesake Phillip Buble. A brave man now forgotten. A brave man beaten.

Cast aside from society like a soiled sponge simple for the “crime” of having a meaningful, interspecies consensual loving…. Um, sexual relationship, with his own legally owned pet.

What I’m trying to say here is that it doesn’t matter about… the form, the physical form. that “romance, uh, takes, that in the eyes, I guess, up there…. oh fuck it.

It’s interesting, whenever they catch a fellow licking out a dog’s vagina that they always mention the breed of dog. “ Jason A. was caught cunninlingiling a German Shepard, or Alsatian named Rudy” It always appears that way in the newspaper. They never mention race in cases of incest, though. This is a double or possibly a triple standard. Personally, I will never forget my own brush with incest, years ago. It shakes me up to this day. I will never until I die stop feeling this pain. “Oh, uncle daddy, oh stop uncle daddy,” she said to me, as she molested me twice in my car. Fuck, I don’t know what to say, she said she was… a certain age I can’t remember. We were not exactly related. This is actually none of your business. Anyway, because of my issues, I decided to go back to that woman shrink. She said, why not go to a hypnotist. I said, okay, and it turned out I had lots of past lives. More than most people, he said.

Here’s the list: Stillborn, Stillborn.

Stillborn, Died unnamed, Stillborn, Stillborn, Died unnamed, Peasant, Stillborn, Died unnamed, Died unnamed, Peasant, Soldier! Awesome!, Stillborn, Stillborn, Stillborn, Stillborn.

Some guy that met Jesus, Died unnamed, Stillborn, Girl, Died unnamed, Died unnamed, Peasant, Loser,

Peasant, Idiot, Peasant, Peasant, Executed homosexual, Peasant, Loser, Loser peasant, Miner, Stillborn, Peasant, John F Kennedy.

So, that’s the way reincarnation works, I guess.

Most people are like this. But everyone thinks they were fucking Cleopatra or the female Buffalo Bill Cody.

And, I’m sorry, I don’t want to be a complaining Nellie here, but I want to see the city worker that approved of those fucking painted Bears you see everywhere severely punished.

SEVERLY punished, okay. I have been told reliably that there are two hundred of these bastards around this molested little city.

Enough of this nonsense PLEASE. I always feel really embarrassed for Indians whenever I see Indian art. It’s so tacky. The Haida stuff is the worst, O my god.

This particular “spirit bear” fiercely rips off notorious drunken lunatic order of Canada recipient Norval Morriseau, who accidentally set himself on fire in a downtown eastside hotel room back in the seventies. Thank god I’m English and Protestant. This time, anyways.

Fucking fucking fucking spirit bears. Screw off Vancouver faggots.

Thanks for reading. n

And, I’m sorry, I don’t want to be a complaining Nellie here, but I want to see the city worker that approved of those fucking painted Bears you see everywhere severely punished.

SEVERLY punished...

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CONTENTS

By Dan Scum

Across 1. Ghettoes 6. Consumed 9. Stomach muscles 12. Rocky & Bullwinkle staple “_____ Fables” 14. Zilch 15. Type of smear 16. GUITAR played by Angus Young of AC/ DC 20. Sharon of “Basic Instinct” 21. Zappa ______ 22. Kinko’s product 25. Ohio holy city 28. Certain sports cars 29. Rock containing metal 30. Christian Rap group 31. Chinese meat 32. Superlative level (abbrev) 33. Shitty 35. Another name for “Frosh” 37. Zappa’s apprentice 38. Zit juice 39. Boy pharaoh 40. GUITAR played by Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin 42. A double star system 45. Common misspelling of “poi” 46. A woman’s is broad 47. Media censors 48. Rest In Peace 49. “The Truth and Lies of 9-11’s” Mike ___pert 50. Speaker 52.Vipers 53. Theatre Cineplex 55. Pro and Pro II GUITARS and BASSES 57. BASS GUITAR played by Steve Harris of Iron Maiden 63. Herpes, A.I.D.S.,e.g 64. Aid 65. Heavier than Hrock 66. Notes to follow sew 67. Attention getting word 68. Don’t blink Down 1. Droop 2. Hawaiian necklace 3. Computer port 4. Like the north side of a tree 5. Generic dog name

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6. Winged, haloed ghost 7. Facial twitch 8. Letter after kay 9. Lhasa _____ 10. 4,5,6 string, fretless, or upright 11. Spit and stuff 13. Stuck-up 17. White Jamaican Rapper 18. Un-electric GUITAR 19. Players in a play 22. Band with a lot of ANIMOSITY 23. #4 Bobby ____ 24. Classic Peavey tube amp 26. Fucks up 27. A female deer 30. Gibson knock-off 34. Ma’s mates 35. Beauti_____ 36. Atilla e.g.

38. Stage after larva 40. Most raucous 41. Atmosphere 42. Warlock, or Mockingbird GUITAR maker 43. Tear 44. In “Boogie Nights” the opposite of mp’s 45. University teacher 47. Shout on a golf course 51. Late 52. Money in the bank 54.Vegas calculations 56. Goals 58. College sports cheer 59. Clown’s projectile 60. Country beside FRA 61. Rower’s paddle 62. National League East Last Issue’s Answers

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