The Nerve Magazine - September 2006

The Nerve September 2006 Page

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The Nerve September 2006 Page

CONTENTS

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LEGENDARY SHACK SHAKER

PH OTO: JAY NE

CR EA ME R - 198 3 LO ND ON

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CONTENTS

18 BILLY BR AGG

Features

10 DragonForce

And you thought the Darkness were pushing it.... - Dale De Ruiter

15 Jandek

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part 2.

Sections

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

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, Kristy Sutor Weapons Cleaner (a/k/a Article Editor) Jon Azpiri Surveillance Team (a/k/a Photographers) Devon Cody, Dale De Ruiter, Miss Toby Marie

Don’t even look at him!!! - Allan MacInnis

12 Alcoholic White Trash

The last word on shitting your cunt - Chris Walter

22 Pere Ubu

David Thomas proves to be only slightly ter -rifying - Adrian Mack

22 The Legendary Shack Shakers

Words of comfort for uptown liberal-types

- Devon Cody

The Muscle (a/k/a Staff Writers) AD MADGRAS, Jason Ainsworth, Cowboy TexAss, Chris

Walter, Stephanie Heney, Adam Simpkins, Therese Lanz, Carl Spackler, David Bertrand, Phil Heidenreich, Herman Menervemanana, Ferdy Belland, Dave Von Bentley, Devon Cody, Dale De Ruiter, Derek Bolen, Ethyltron, Johnny Kroll, Andrew Molloy, Boy Howdy, Cameron Gordon, BRock Thiessen, Filmore Mescalito Holmes Plaster Caster (a/k/a Cover Design) Miss Toby Marie Fire Insurance (a/k/a Advertising) Brad Damsgaard, Kristy Sutor advertise@thenervemagazine.com Marketing Manager (a/k/a The Suit) Kristy Sutor The Kid (a/k/a The Intern) INTERNSHIP AVAILABLE (email publisher above) Out-of-town Connections (a/k/a Distro & Street Team) Toronto: Rosina Tassone Calgary: Mike Taylor Edmonton: Freecloud Records, Bob Prodor 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 Š Copyright The Nerve Magazine 2006.

Est. 1999

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La Rocca The 88 The Dictators Billy Bragg The Casualties Old Crow Medicine Show NoMeansNo Syd Barrett R.I.P. Upper Canadian Blues

The Nerve September 2006 Page

CONTENTS

CHEAP SHOTS Keep Them Brilliant Letters Coming!

To youse all, about your NY Dolls article in your most recent issue. First off, Hotel California came out in ’78, but a minor detail it is. Secondly David Johansen should have his head taken Johansen: “Should off for fucking with have head taken off.” the Dolls legacy.

This isn’t what it’s about. Thirdly, Johansen has never been hesitant to trot out a bastard incarnation of the Dolls. In ’75 when the originals broke up he toured Japan with Sylvain and Tony Machine on bass and Blackie Lawless on guitar and God knows who else but no Arthur Kane. I mean, I don’t care if he wants to jerk off for Morrissey but I would avoid these fuckers like the plague. Are you sure they can make it to the microphone on their walkers?

- Rob Robertson Nardwuar Goes for the Lucrative Hallmark Dollar Hey Dummies! Find it hard to remember which day comes between Tuesday and Thursday? Ever found yourself writing March the 73rd on important Welfare documents? Perhaps your midsummer New Years party was a bit of a flop? If these problems are familiar to you, and if you love stinky-ass rock ‘n’ roll and classic punk, Nardwuar the Human Serviette has just the thing. The 2007 Punk Rock Calendar is full of useful information such as the names of months and numbers printed sequentially. Even better, it feature 12 very tasty pictures courtesy of the legendary Bev Davies, including shots of the

Subhumans, Motorhead, Johnny Thunders, the Clash, Pointed Sticks, Adam and the Ants, and much more.

In keeping with Mr. Wuar’s impeccable taste, he promises, “No photos were taken after 1982!” The Evaporators celebrate the release of the calendar with a free show at the Vancouver Public Library, at 1 o’clock on Sunday, September 9th. Mark it on your

calendars!

Oh, wait a minute…

Looking For Comedy in the…

Arthur Lee R.I.P. Comedy World Generally speaking, shit from my ass is more entertaining than the average stand-up comic, but the CanWest Comedy Fest is usually a winner.

This year’s event takes place between September 19-24, during which time Vancouverites won’t be able to leave the house without bumping into some prick with a mullet and his sport jacket sleeves rolled up, mumbling things like, “What’s the deal with airline food, anyway?” If you can avoid that, the ComedyFest also features performances from Fred Armisen, David Cross, and Ahmed Ahmed among others, plus the appearance of an as-yetunannounced “Legend of Comedy”, which better fucking turn out to be either Don Rickles or the late Jack Benny. Best of all, the almost-legendary Jimmie JJ Walker will host three special preview shows at Lafflines, from September 7-9, assuming he hasn’t been shipped off to Gitmo like most black people who make the mistake of screaming the word “Dyno-mite!!!” anywhere in the New York area these days.

Turkish Delight!

Speaking of comedy, the Laugh Gallery has moved to Rime on Commercial Drive, after five years at El Cocal. Host Graham Clark is just one of the reasons to check out the ever popular, Wednesday night alternative comedy showcase. Another reason might be the delightful Turkish cuisine and authentic Turkish hospitality, which, if my last visit to Turkey is any indication, means that you’ll be thrown into a filthy 4’ x 4’ holding cell for 18 years and ass-raped almost constantly by a prison guard by the name of Tabib.

As MTV Turns 25, Publicists and Media Whores Invent Work for Themselves.

According to a Press Release I never asked for, MTV is 25 years old. Original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood is even older. Much, much older. She has a satellite radio program now, and I’m sure it’s just fuckin’ great.

Anyway, it seems that Nina felt moved to reminisce about her time with the pioneering music channel. Shit this sweet maybe happens once Nina prepares to make in a lifetime. Here’s a statement what she says: “MTV

initially had an enormous impact on the record industry, bringing to the public a lot of bands that got exposure in middle-America, like Flock of Seagulls for example! The new groups were virtually in people’s living rooms. It broadened playlists, and more people bought records of artists they never would have heard of otherwise. It was a real shot in the arm for the music industry, which at that time was in a slump.”

Based on these comments - and I’ll even ignore the Flock of Seagulls part - Blackwood is clearly brain-damaged, retarded, and stupid. MTV didn’t “broaden” anything, especially playlists. Up until MTV, radio was awesome and it was free. Now it’s a pile of ass, unless you subscribe to satellite radio, which also requires a fuckin’ mortgage just for the new hardware. Thank you MTV. Blackwood continues, in a squeaky voice and with Rupert Murdoch’s entire head in her butt: “Videos opened doors for creative people in the advertising industry, like producers and directors working on TV commercials who unexpectedly had all these opportunities to work on music clips. They got carte blanche to be creative.”

Well, that’s just absolutely fucking wonderful, Nina Blackwood. The advertising industry found a way of fucking up one more beautiful thing for all time, and you think that’s good.You’re a moron. Why did I get this press release??? Get the fuck out of my inbox, NOW! Pink Floyd to the Rescue You’ve probably heard the recent announcement from NASA: original high definition videotape of the first moon landing has been lost, possibly for all time. The existing footage, which was broadcast around the world, was actually achieved by pointing a camera at a NASA monitor. The high definition version, captured using a proprietary 10 frame per second system exclusive to the Space Agency, is apparently so good that it “shits from a very great height” on the footage that was originally broadcast, according to one foul-mouthed NASA official. Not that we’ll ever see it now. Or will we? Says Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, “David Gilmour is a fucking cunt and an arsehole.” More relevantly, Australian

film producer Peter Clifton, who ordered a 16mm reel of moon shot highlights from NASA in 1979, might be able to help in the search for the lost footage. His 30-minute reel was intended to beef up a documentary about Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. The movie never got off the ground,

but Clifton still has the Apollo11 footage, and documentation from the period might help NASA trace the location of the original. Once found, NASA cheerfully promises that it will never be available for public viewing, adding, “Fuck off, little people.”

The Nerve vs Shakespeare Our fearless Cap’n did it again, another year, another rock n roll boat cruise went off without anyone dying or boat sinkering, despite a fire, a couple fist fights and some rowdy punk chicks that should have gone overboard. Mike Roche of the Gung Hos managed to actually stay sober long enough to not only make it through an entire set singing for the Red Hot Lovers, but rocked so hard the Bard on the

Beach shut down in the Abitibi’s wake. Kudos to the Manvils, SpreadEagle and Crystal Pistol for showin’ up all the other wannabe boat promoters out there that no one throws a party on a boat like The Nerve.

- TexAss Two Out of Three Ain’t Good, Either Meatloaf has announced that Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose will be released October 31st.

According to producer Desmond Child, “Meat Loaf saw a door open to a new style that is the future of Bat Out of Hell. He wears all of his emotions on the outside.” Readers who thought Meatloaf was merely wearing about 300 pounds of fat on the outside, or that he generally has a problem getting through any door were presumably mistaken. As

if we need any more good news, Bat Out of Hell III features contributions from Jim Steinmann (duh…), Jim Steinmann’s accountant, Steve Vai, Brian May, Nikki Sixx, John 5, John 4, and somebody by the name of Marion Ray. Says Child, “She’s mystical, she’s dark; she’s icy but she’s warm; she’s fun but she’s also really deep. She was meant to do it.” He further went on to explain that she has hair, sometimes talks but at other times doesn’t, breathes with her lungs, and likes getting money from contributing to shitty albums. n

Who Gives a Fuck

With Andy Shernoff, of the Dictators What album is currently in your Stereo?

I listen exclusively to my i-Pod, usually on shuffle. Which means classic rock from the ‘60s and ‘70s or some Stax/Volt What book are you currently reading or have most recently read?

The only books I’ve read lately are technical books on wine and the New Yorker.

What was the last movie you watched?

I watched Broadway Danny Rose on cable a few days ago, that was always a favourite of mine. I haven’t seen a new movie I loved in a long time but I adored the last season of The Sopranos even though I know it was controversial with some Sopranos fans.

And I never miss an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

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

Rather than album, book or movie, I would recommend something I have a real passion for like a good bottle of wine. Some of the best I’ve had recently were the Chave Hermitage 2003, a Giacomo Conterno Montortino Barolo 1997 or a Remirez de Ganuza, Rioja 2001. Life’s too short to drink bad wine... treat yourself.

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

Torture yourself with any album from the ‘80s or ‘90s with click track drumming and digital reverb, any movie edited by studio execs from the results of test screenings and a self-help book. And for those I really hate, a California Chardonnay.

What is a recent guilty pleasure?

I don’t feel guilty about my pleasures.

What is your biggest pet peeve?

Hypocrisy - people who preach one thing and do the other.

Name one bad habit you are extremely proud of?

Drinking alcohol.

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

John Lennon or Aristotle.

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

Mmm... maybe have a kid... and if I could be reincarnated I would come back as Hugh Hefner’s penis.

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By the Heart of the Dragon… We Ride!

By Dale De Ruiter

How about an Inhuman Rampage all over my fleecy-haired wang?

E

xperiencing the metal stylings of DragonForce means more than just listening to shitty old power metal as a joke. Nobody’s dabbling in a little trash for good humour, and it isn’t ironic to listen to DragonForce. It’s just awesome.You can stop hating power metal now.

I decided I would piss off the chuckleheads who run The Nerve and call the jetlagged Herman Li long distance, to chew the shit for a good half an hour as he rests in England for five or so days. DragonForce is coming to Vancouver on September 12th, one of only three Canadian stops during its third world tour. But before the tour kicks off on in Los Angeles, the band is enjoying some downtime in the UK. Horse the Band will be opening (along with All That Remains). “I thought they were crazy and in a way stupid, which is kinda cool,” says Li about Horse. “So that’s why we picked them to be on the tour.”

Li is the new guitar God. He can play so fast and wicked it will make your anus pucker. His nickname is “shred”. In 2004 he beat out Shadows Fall and Unearth to win the Dimebag Darrell Best Guitarist prize at the Metal Hammer awards. “I didn’t expect to win it. I was just turning up for party reasons,” Li says. “It was definitely cool because so many people listen to Pantera and Dimebag. I don’t even need to say what kind of influence as a guitar player he’s been,” but he adds, “I don’t really look at the award thing as a lot of people do. I went to the Kerrang

awards yesterday in England, and there was so many people bits (sic) and twisted for not winning, and I was just standing there laughing. Does it really matter? We didn’t win either. We were nominated for best live band and we lost to Muse, and I didn’t really care.”

When someone can brutalize your eardrums like Li can, you’d figure he might dominate his fellow bandmates. The second guitarist in DragonForce, Sam Totman is actually just as badass as Herman, and the two form their signature sound by soloing at the same time.

Check out the video for “Operation Ground and Pound” on YouTube. The second single from latest album Inhuman Rampage is an apocalyptic thriller; a beautiful mix of Iron Maiden, speed metal tempos, soaring choruses, and even (according to the old man who edits this shit), some band from the ‘70s called the Sweet. As an example of the pants-shitting interplay between Totman and Li, it’s a hell of a place to start.

Li and Totman met each other in Demoniac; a black metal band that no one took too seriously.

Totman started Demoniac with his friends while he was in New Zealand for a few kicks. Li was originally hired to assist Totman on stage because he’d be too

drunk to play. After Demoniac released Fire and the Wind, Li and Totman left for DragonForce. These days, Totman merely douses his mic in liquor, which has helped to eliminate pace-killing bar breaks between songs. Demoniac’s vocalist Behemoth also lent his black metal voice to DragonForce, and contributes some backing vocals to Inhuman Rampage, but lead vocal duties go to ZP Theart.

Theart looks like a young, not-pickled Ronnie James Dio. He’s a fuckin’ banshee and I swear to God after hearing this guy sing you’ll stand on your coffee table trying to keep up with your pants around your ankles. That’s a promise. Balls out rock = this guy. Drummer Dave Mackintosh, meanwhile, is of the not seen but heard variety.You’ll pretty much only catch glimpses of this headband. The DragonForce sound is rounded out by the majestic organ of Vadim Pruzhanov. He seems to be entirely influenced by ‘80s fantasy movie soundtracks.

As founding member, Herman Li is in charge of Human Resources, and initially was just looking to sign up people he thought were cool, and who could play at his level. Things were going swimmingly until the release of Sonic Firestorm in 2004, when bassist Adrian Lambert walked, citing his desire “to

You can stop hating power metal now

spend more time with his family.” Li’s take is slightly different. “We’re both happy we’re not together,” he says, flatly. “Let’s leave it at that.” Fred Leclercq was brought in on a temporary basis at the end of the Sonic Firestorm tour. He performed so well that Li asked him to join the band permanently.

Like a few other vanguard metal bands out there right now, DragonForce is connecting with the generation that grew up with 8 bit video games. A quick scour of the internet, and you can actually find videos of Li explaining some of the sounds he gets.

He explains, “Sam and I used to be game geeks back in the old days and we would say, ‘that noise sounds like the ghost from Ghouls and Ghosts (for instance).’

That is how we name the sounds.” Li plans on making some instructional material after numerous requests from magazines to try and teach his craft.

If you’re a decent human being with a half a brain in your head, you’re probably sick of all the other fantasy power metal coming out right now. If you can’t handle one more song about the Lord of the Rings, do yourself a favour and trade up for dragons.

This is power metal with teeth. DragonForce is saving the scene. Irony is dead, Dragons walk the Earth, let’s rock the fuck out.

DragonForce plays the Croatian Cultural Centre in Vancouver Tuesday, Sept. 12th, the Showbox in Seattle Wednesday Sept. 13th, the Docks Concert Theatre in Toronto Sunday, Sept. 24th n

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Crazy Diamond Shining Syd Barrett (1946-2006) RIP

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By Ferdy Belland

yd Barrett, one of the principal architects of British psychedelia and the founding father of one of the UK’s legendary rock bands, sadly shed this mortal coil on July 7th due to complications of Type-II diabetes. Born on 6 January 1946 as Roger Keith Barrett in Cambridge, England, “Syd” (a nickname he acquired in his teens) was musically and artistically encouraged by his parents, and took up guitar around the same time as his childhood chum David Gilmour. While attending architectural college, Syd began playing regularly in a casual student band with a revolving-door lineup that eventually included bassist Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason, and keyboardist Richard Wright. Finally naming themselves Pink Floyd in late 1965 (an abbreviation of two of Syd’s favorite Delta bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council), the group gradually abandoned their creaky early repertoire of ham-fisted R’n’B, skiffle, and Merseybeat covers and turned to the budding songwriting talents of vocalist-guitarist Barrett, who was becoming strongly influenced by the melodic adventurism of the mid-period Beatles and the lyrical whimsy of much of English fantasy/ children’s literature (as well as the growing presence of LSD and marijuana, which the young Barrett took an immediate, and unfortunately voracious liking to).

Studying to become stuffy architects fell by the wayside as Pink Floyd found themselves the darlings of the emerging British underground-rock intelligentsia, and became the de-facto house band of London’s legendary UFO Club. Along with other like-minded UK artists (Soft Machine, the Move, the Nice), Pink Floyd independently birthed the British arm of psychedelia with little or no knowledge of the US Haight-Ashbury scene (Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service) developing simultaneously in San Francisco. By late ‘66 - early ‘67 the band was exclusively performing Barrett material that was utterly unlike anything else being written by any other UK act of the time, and their groundbreaking work in multimedia performance (elaborate stroboscopic coloured-light projections, etc.) also made them one-of-a-kind.

The height of Barrett’s genius is still captured in Pink Floyd’s 1967 debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (named after a chapter in Kenneth Graeme’s The Wind in the Willows), a timeless 11-song collection of bright, fey, pop-inflected guitar-freakouts that stands almost diametrically opposite from the somber, turgid prog-rock albums that made the band’s international legend in the 1970s, under the dour muse of Roger Waters. Piper (which includes early Floyd favorites like “Astronomy Domine,” “Lucifer Sam,” “Interstellar Overdrive,” and “Bike,” and reached #6 on the UK charts) was recorded at Abbey Road Studios at the same time the Beatles were recording Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; the Fab Four dropped in on several of Pink Floyd’s sessions to express their respect and admiration, but by that time the acid was already taking its toll and Barrett was unable to completely appreciate the eager hints for future collaboration given to him point-blank by his beloved hero John Lennon. As Pink Floyd’s early singles (“Arnold Layne,” “See Emily Play”) hit the Top 20 on UK pirate radio and the band toured the US in support of the Jimi Hendrix Experience (with none other than Lemmy Kilmister as roadie), Syd began suffering from a long descent into manicdepression and schizophrenia (a combined result of the growing pressures of fame and his sizeable intake of hallucinogenics) that he never really recovered from.

Live performances became increasingly erratic. At the Fillmore West in San Francisco, Syd thickly smeared his notable afro with gobs of Brylcreem and crushed Mandrax, which melted down his face like a dissolving wax figure under the heat of the stage lights. He once played an entire concert using only one middle-C note, over and over and over again, song after song. Appearances on crucial live TV shows were at turns agonizing and embarrassing.

Syd responded to Pat Boone’s rather harmless questions with catatonic stares. Roger Waters ended up

Won’t you miss me?

Wouldn’t you miss me at all? – Syd Barrett, “Dark Globe”

Nap time lip-synching “See Emily Play” on Top of the Pops while Syd slouched unmoving before the cameras, arms hanging by his sides and his mirror-laden Telecaster untouched. Even the hopefully-stabilizing inclusion of guitarist David Gilmour into the lineup as a brief twin-guitar quintet couldn’t save the crumbling, frail psyche of this mad genius.

Barrett was unceremoniously ousted from Pink Floyd in March 1968 (Roger decided not to go round to Syd’s house while picking up the other members for a rehearsal) during sessions for their second album A Saucerful of Secrets; Barrett’s only track on the record is the unsettling “Jugband Blues.”

Barrett sank deeper into depressive lunacy, and after two fascinating yet sad solo albums recorded under the guiding (guilty?) wings of Waters and Gilmour (The Madcap Laughs, Barrett), he turned his back forever on professional music, locked himself in his mother’s Cambridge basement, blacked out the windows, avoided interviews, and kept it up for the next 35 years as he became older, grayer, fatter, sadder, balder, and blinder - save for occasional moments like his unsettlingly unexpected appearance at Abbey Road in 1975, where he crashed Pink Floyd’s recording sessions for the Wish You Were Here album, much to the shocked dismay of Waters and Co. who initially didn’t recognize him. Ironically enough, “Shine

Upper Canadian Blues I Music notes from in, out and around Toronto, ON

By Cameron Gordon

The Violet Archers

t was a summer of finality in the Toronto music community as some of our best loved acts have split, splintered, imploded or impaled (one another) over the past few months. First and foremost, the sheetkicking duo known as Death From Above 1979 have officially called it a day, to the surprise of absolutely no one. On a message from the band’s website, bassist Jesse Keeler admits, “Over the last 3 years of touring, [drummer] Sebastien [Grainger] and I had grown apart to such an extent that the only real time we spoke was just before we would play and during interviews.”

And since talking to one another is imperative in maintaining that healthy band dynamic, it was probably a sound decision. Look for Keeler to continue with his MSTRKRFT project while Grainger is rumoured to be jamming (in private) with members of Metric and Broken Social Scene… In other news from Splitsville, bassist Tim Vesely and drummer Michael Phillip Wojewoda have left art rock knuckleheads the Rheostatics, throwing the future of the unit into serious doubt. The party line is that remaining members Dave Bidini and Martin Tielli do want to continue playing together, and it’s been suggested new members might be brought in, including multi-instrumentalist Ford Pier and original drummer/kook Dave Clark. There is also talk about one final kiss-off performance at Massey Hall in early 2007, which would no doubt kick some serious “tail’. Stay tuned to this column for more developments and look for Vesely to be “keeping it real” with his new band, the Violet Archers… And last but certainly not least, local pop rockers Show-

On You Crazy Diamond” was written about Barrett.

Legions of Barrett admirers (such as this writer) have since argued endlessly over the merits and what-ifs of the Barrett-era Pink Floyd. It’s difficult to say what Pink Floyd’s future (or overall sound) would’ve held in store had Barrett remained the band’s leader and creative powerhouse, but with the eventual fading of the psychedelic counterculture and the ongoing abrasiveness of Roger Waters, the band probably wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did/ has. As a musician, Barrett’s unique approach to the electric guitar (chordal rhythms, dissonant feedback, minimalist soloing) is certainly echoed in modern post-punk / emo / post-rock stylings, And many tens of thousands of former/current acid-eaters have also suffered bad trips on shitty LSD (although most of them never ended up in the rubber room).

The artists who owe a sizeable debt to the music and vision of Syd Barrett include David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Robert Smith, the Flaming Lips, John Frusciante, Robyn Hitchcock, Julian Cope, Slint, Cap’n Jazz, Spaceman 3, Mahogany Frog, and every other band out there, young or old, who’ve ever jammed together Farfisa organs, clanging Fenders, and lyrics about toothpaste and shoelaces… topped off with a jug of red wine and an eyedropper of liquid crystal.

Syd, we’ll see you on the other side of the gates. n

room have also packed it in. Known for their lively stage show, love of the Smiths and all things Manc, these guys will be remembered as one of Toronto’s most learned groups in recent memories. Totally unconfirmed, it’s safe to say a life in Academia may soon afflict a member or two… And yet for every break-up, there’s a return… sorta. A new collection of pirate folk tunes on ANTI-, entitled Rogue’s Gallery, featured a contribution from ultra-reclusive Toronto songstress Mary Margaret O’Hara, who still has yet to record a proper follow-up to 1988’s masterstroke Miss America. The track is entitled “The Cry of Man” and O’Hara gives it the kind of loopy one-over that you might expect from this landlubber, all false stops and curdled words. No word yet on any other new material from MMO… Local prog rocker Wilton Said has also returned, albeit from a much shorter lay-off. We don’t see a lot of authentic prog coming out of Toronto these days but luckily, we have folks like Wilton staying true to form, channeling his inner Genesis with all the pretensions and (luckily) some pretty stellar tunes along the way. His latest full-length The View will be released independently this fall… And finally, Jane Siberry, she of “Mimi on the Beach” and When I Was a Boy fame, has official changed her name to Issa (pronounced eeee-sah). Oh yeah, it would appear ol’ Jane-y has lost her marbles as she has apparently sold all her possessions and is now partaking in a nomadic musical existence, armed only with a guitar and a sneer.

Actually, she probably has a perfectly good rationale behind the switch but from the outside, it seems like a bit of an odd move. Best of luck to you, Issa! n

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Victoria’s Dirty Little Secret

ALCOHOLIC WHITE TRASH

By Chris Walter

G l f s S S d

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PHOTO: JEN DODDS

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ictoria has been hiding its unmentionables for decades.You see, the town depends heavily on tourist revenue, and they don’t want Joe Blow and the wife and kids from Little Rock, Arkansas to learn that Alcoholic White Trash are shitting their cunts and screaming for bitches to suck their dicks.

The Tourist Bureau makes no mention of Alcoholic White Trash in their glossy brochures, and gig posters announcing upcoming AWT gigs are quickly torn down lest they offend well-heeled tourists from Germany and Australia. In fact, you’ll find no mention of AWT anywhere but the scummiest of local punk tabloids or maybe on the shitter wall at Logan’s Pub. No doubt,Victoria City Council wishes that Alcoholic White Trash would take the Dayglo Abortions with them and crawl quietly under the rock from whence they came. There is no place in this “quaint, old-time British seaside town” for Alcoholic White Trash and their ilk.

I met drummer Jay Brown several years ago at the Astoria Hotel in Vancouver. Jay is affable and friendly; not at all the person most would expect to find in a band as corrosive as Alcoholic White Trash. I said to him, “You have a beer in each hand. Are you trying to live up to your band name?” “Actually,” he grinned, “I’ve been cutting back lately.” Indeed, it must be tough on the liver to be a member of Alcoholic White Trash. The next time AWT came through town, Jay traded me a shirt for a copy of the book I was launching. Then his band hit the stage and tore us all a new one.

Recently, Alcoholic White Trash released Punk Rock Jihad, a CD offensive enough to give Tipper

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Gore a heart attack. Despite the nasty song titles, or possibly because of them, the CD is receiving a lot of press, much of it surprisingly favourable. Sadly, and just as Alcoholic White Trash seems poised to embarrass the shit out of Victoria, we learn that Jay is losing his fight with cancer. Soon the band will take a hiatus while Jay goes for yet another round of chemotherapy. With this in mind, I asked Jay what made this CD different and if he was surprised at all the press. “We decided that we were going to throw down a bit of money on this album and ship our asses over to Vancouver to Profile studios with Brian Else,” he says.

“We’d all seen the amazing albums that had come out of Profile over the years, and Brian is no slouch.You’ll see that old hippie’s name on many good punk rock albums over the years. We were like little kids when we went in, and we thought we knew it all, but holy crap, did Brian ever put us in our place.

That jaded fucker made us work hard but we got a killer album out of the deal.

I wouldn’t say I’m too surprised: glad definitely, but not surprised. We worked our asses of for this one.”

I’d decided earlier not to mention “I Shit My Cunt” but couldn’t resist. “That song cracks me up,” he says. “We’re all surprised at the attention it’s getting. It took us all of three minutes to write, and Gene-O has tried about a million times to drop it from the set list because he hates playing it, but the crowds love it. The art of shitting one’s cunt requires a cut to be made between the two orifices so that the shit will leak into the hole next door. Not so pleasant when you get the mental image, but a damn offensive subject for a song. Which is, of course, what we’re always looking for.” When I ask him if he really advocates wiping from back to front, he says, “Is there any sort of safe answer to this that won’t give my grandma a heart attack?” Damn, it never occurred to me that Alcoholic White Trash might actually have grandmas.

There was much more I wanted to ask, but that bastard Adrian Mack has me on a short leash. I had to get straight to the point and ask if the Dayglo Abortions taught them how to be offensive, or if it came naturally. “We’re

I think the ‘80s and ‘90s, and a lot of beer and cocaine, helped form us into the upstanding gentlemen we are now.The nastier we get, the more people take notice.

Thank you, GG Allin, for teaching us that lesson.

just a bunch of naturally offensive guys. I think maybe me more so in person, but the shit Gen-O manages to think up is awe-inspiring. Our singer is actually a fairly polite guy unless he is onstage, then he lets it all hang out. Granted you don’t want to be downwind from him when he’s having a bad day. Knuckles is too old and set in his ways to be offensive anymore; he just wants to drink and play with his dog. The Dayglo’s might have helped teach us young kids back in the day, but as we grew up, we figured it out for ourselves. I think the ‘80s and ‘90s, and a lot of beer and cocaine, helped form us into the upstanding gentlemen we are now. The nastier we get, the more people take notice. Thank you, GG Allin, for teaching us that lesson.”

I had to close on a sad note and ask Jay about his health. “My health ain’t so shit hot at the present. I’ve been fighting cancer off and on since 2001. It came back a few months ago and they threw the word ‘terminal’ into the mix. They actually told me I might not even see Christmas. I’ve always liked a good scrap though, and there’s no fucking way I’m going to give up and let this shit win, so fuck them. I’m doing it my way, and there’s no dying involved my way. If we can shrink the tumors down here, I’ll be off to China for some serious proton radiation and surgeries.

If all goes well, I should be back on stage in about six months. As for the band, I made those slackers promise me that if I actually do die, they will keep this fucking thing going. We’ve worked too hard over the years and come too far to let it go because I died. What kind of lame ass legacy would that be?”

A-fucking-men to that, brutha.n

CONTENTS

H

ere’s the thing about the entertainment industry. It’s not what it seems. Once you get to a certain level, you’re serving somebody.

That somebody has an agenda. If you step out of line – bad shit happens. After that, the entire complex closes ranks and pinches out an official story. A good example would be River Phoenix. He stepped out of line big-time. He told Details magazines that he lost his virginity at the age of four while his family was involved with the Children of God cult. Hollywood hates it when you blow the lid on all that weirdness. Phoenix was subsequently assassinated. As one underground newspaper in LA noted at the time, his ‘dealer’ – the guy who gave River Phoenix the drugs that killed him – was back on the street days later.

He’s probably still there. He was protected.

Here’s another example: The Nerve’s Home and Garden Editor Carl Spackler spent Christmas in LA last year, hanging with a mutual friend who works for Axl (Corn) Rose. Anyway – he takes Spackler to some Hollywood party and they bump into Elliot Smith’s old girlfriend. I don’t know what she did, but Spackler figures she’s crazy. He told me, “Everyone down there says she killed him.”

“What?” I gasp, “You mean Elliot Smith didn’t commit suicide by stabbing himself in the heart?

Come on!”

Like I said, the ‘official story’. The truth is a mind-fuck.

Why is any of this relevant to the 88?

Good question – we’ll get to that. The 88 are a splendid band, and certainly the best power pop outfit I’ve heard in a while. They hit all the right marks for me.

Untouchable songwriting, great style, signed to an indie label, opened for the Zombies and Love... Anybody that has pored over Rhino’s Poptopia comps of the ‘90s, or who otherwise views Badfinger, the Raspberries, the Shoes, 20/20 etc as giants – those people will love the 88. Don’t wait. Check out their album Over and Over.

When I talk to keyboardist Adam Merrin at his home in LA, he’s so open and warm that I’m over-

e

come with dread – I know where I want to take this conversation, and it’s going to get bumpy. He didn’t ask for this. But we have some less painful things to discuss first.

“I started figuring out the stuff that I wanted to play by listening to headphones and sitting at the piano. A lot of that was Pink Floyd, the Beatles, the Stones… I know my playing doesn’t sound like that, but it’s how I came to figure out my own type of thing.” Merrin’s type of thing – which I think is one of the 88’s secret weapons – is simple but devastating: the decadent, stride piano flourishes in “All ‘Cause of You”, the ragtime-meets seaside jollies of “Nobody Cares”, the stately grace notes he brings to “Head Cut Off”.

“For me, it’s not about the musicianship. It’s more about melody. And just the sound of the piano in there is the important part for me. It’s something you can sing back” “I think our music style comes from an older time,” he continues, reeling off the usual Kinks, Bowie, T Rex suspects. “That’s the stuff we love. I love modern bands too, but even as far as sound goes, I’m more into the way things were recorded in the old days. It’s just a preference.” Well, I hear you about that, brother. Which brings us nicely to my next question. What the fuck is the deal with power pop, anyway?

Nobody buys it, hipsters usually scoff at it or treat it with grudging respect at best, even though its kinda the ultimate fanboy genre with its attention to the past. But it’s largely ghettoized.You’d be hard pressed to find a power pop millionaire anywhere. Does Merrin agree?

“Yeahhh,” he says at length, “We’ve been really lucky to have our music in so many TV shows and movies, and we’ve gotten all this amazing exposure – it’s surprised us, even. We didn’t think we’d ever appeal to teenagers, and all of a sudden you have a song on The OC, and there’s a million 16 year-old girls that love your band. It’s an interesting situation.”

I don’t love Los Angeles, but we wouldn’t have gotten all this stuff if we hadn’t been from here

PHOTO: JEANEEN LUND

By Herman Menervemanana

With our current technology, we can produce up to 150 L.A. musicians per day Yes it is. The 88 have had their music placed, or have themselves appeared, in the following places: The OC, You, Me, and Dupree, Failure to Launch, countless MTV specials, Craig Ferguson, Carson Daly, Extra, Gray’s Anatomy… the list goes on. The 88 are like the West Coast Fountains of Wayne. Nobody that I know buys the records, but they get some sort of special dispensation from the entertainment industry, and they show up everywhere. It feels like privilege.

Thank God they’re as good as they are, but really, what gives? Merrin doesn’t know.

“We put out the record ourselves, we have our own record label, there’s been no money put into marketing or promoting the band...”

Okay then, I say. Are you Scientologists?

“No,” he answers.

I scream, “WHO ARE YOU SERVING?”

La Rocca

PHOTO: JEN DODDS

e

The 88

Since When Does Talent Get You Anywhere?

with the type of conviction and soul that is generally ignored and even ridiculed in our current climate of metairony, and deep kitsch. When I finally got to see the album art (mine was a blank advance copy), there was Bruce Springsteen’s 1973 album The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle pictured alongside some other stuff, right there on the cover, and everything fell into place.

“Aye, tis a fine Scientology Centre, English” The Boss was in his super-funky hustler days back then. La Rocca is he only reason I gave La Rocca’s debut album The Truth half a chance is because it’s on Danin theirs, right now, though their musical provenance is a little more complex. “Sketches (20 Something gerbird records. I figured that any label savvy Life) starts the album with a pretty unequivocal nod enough to name itself after one of my favourite Neil towards “Born to Run”, but – scattered across its 11 Young songs must have some smarts when it comes exceptional tracks - there are echoes of everything to signing bands, and holy fuck was I ever right (for once). The Truth is magnificent: an uproarious, shamefrom the Replacements, to the Waterboys, and even U2 if U2 could possibly remember what its like to less blast of guitar rock and honest songcraft, played

T

Merrin answers calmly. “I think we don’t fit into this scene. I don’t love Los Angeles, but we wouldn’t have gotten all this stuff if we hadn’t been from here.”

Fair enough then. It’s the ol’ right-place-right-time scenario. I’ll give that answer a pass and offer up my sincere take on this matter: I scanned Andrew Merrin for clues to the nature of the great Octopus, and I think he’s clean. He also gets a million bonus points for being such a tasty musician in a band that contributed to a very good summer.

The 88 play Monday, Sept. 4th at the Commodore in Vancouver,Tuesday, Sept. 5th at Sugar in Victoria, Thursday Sept. 7th at the Powerplant in Edmonton, Friday, Sept. 8th at the Wyckham House in Calgary and Monday Sept. 11th at the West End Cultural Centre in Winnipeg. n

y Hat t s a T a in s d n u Boss So

By Herman Menervemanana

be young, dirty, uppity, and amped to the motherfucking tits (rather than gay). La Rocca has also thrown in its lot and moved to LA, where the Irish four-piece finds itself surrounded by fake boobs (and by ‘fake boobs’ I mean, of course, Dave Navarro).

How are these earnest, and probably very drunk young men coping in the stupidest city on earth?

Bassist Simon Baillie tells The Nerve, “There’s enough mad people here, so it’s grand. We fit in quite well.”

Baillie continues, “We moved to LA because the label is based here, and we always wanted to move to America anyway. We’ve seen so many European bands try and do America in two weeks, or a month, and not be in any way successful.” The crazy thing though is that La Rocca, representing the kind of guilt-free earthiness that would cause most Angelenos to shriek and melt into a pool of silicone, have only been strengthened by the move. As Baillie points out, “We are a gang, and we hang out with each other far too much for it to be healthy.

We like that idea, though.” As a base of operations, furthermore, it allows the band to “take down one city at a time,” as Baillie notes. Did the band do the LA rock tour when it first got there? This is where Dennis Wilson met Charles Manson, this is where Darby Crashed, this is where Linda Ronstadt gave me head… (I made that last one up). Baillie laughs, “When we first were here, we definitely drove around and checked out absolutely everything you could possibly see. But

the Dennis Wilson, Charlie Manson – that’s one we missed out on. It’s very exciting, because of the rock and roll history, and so many pivotal moments have happened around here.”

Fuck knows how The Truth will do out there in the real world, in the meantime. If I had my way, these guys would be all over the place right now, but La Rocca might be trafficking in something that just doesn’t make a big boom anymore, unless – like me – you’re one of those poor saps who still believes rock can save your soul. Baillie is untroubled by these things. “I love playing to a room full of people that haven’t a clue and never heard you before, just trying to turn them on, working for their approval,” he says, adding, “Dangerbird’s a new label, so maybe it’ll be word-of-mouth more than any ad campaign. I don’t like the idea of forcing it anyway. I think it’s one of those albums that will take its time, and hopefully people will just fall into it. People will listen to it and make their own decision, you know?” For sure. Equally, you could go online and check out “This Life”, easily one of the best tracks on an album that barely puts a foot wrong. If you don’t dig it, I’ll eat one of those funky, dirtbag troubadour hats that these dudes wear. Oh yeah – did I forget to mention that La Rocca looks like a million goddammed bucks, too!

La Rocca plays Richard’s On Richards in Vancouver on Tuesday, Sept. 26th and the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle on Wednesday, Sept. 27th. n

There’s enough mad people in LA. We fit in quite well

The Nerve September 2006 Page 13

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Jandek

CONTENTS

He/They Is/Are Coming (but not here. Yet.)

W

By Allan MacInnis

hen I get home, there’s a message on my voicemail from Jandek. Or Corwood Industries. Him, them, it. Whatever. I listen to it, stunned.

I had framed the note he’d sent previously, politely declining an interview and saying that there was nothing as yet planned for Vancouver; it’s in a sort of collage with the envelope, the customs declaration, and a partial photocopy of the DVD cover for Glasgow Sunday, the document of his first live show at the Arches in 2004. Jandek looks to be about 50 in the DVD, which is available from Corwood for $17.60 US postpaid to Canada, or $8.80 apiece as part of a box of 20 or more discs – Corwood always gives a great bulk rate. He is well dressed, and seems quite confident for a man who hasn’t played in front of a large audience before. After years of mystery and speculation, watching him on my TV is very strange.

Hearing him on my voicemail is stranger.

Jandek, for the terminally unhip, is somewhat of a legendary recluse – the Thomas Pynchon or J.D. Salinger of independent music. Beginning in 1978, he has released a whopping 47 albums, producing an ungainly, jangly, but often blues-related music with eccentrically-played instrumentation, uncredited back-up musicians (if any), and often mournful, moaning lyrics about alienation and loss and despair.

Though part of the myth of Jandek is that he has never given an official interview, John Trubee, the man behind the Ugly Janitors of America, actually recorded an interview with him for Spin in 1985 (included in full on the Jandek on Corwood DVD); and more recently, the man chatted off the record about allergies and matters unrelated to music with journalist Katy Vine, when she tracked him down in Houston, Texas. For the longest time, the only way you could interact with Jandek was through the post office box of his label, Corwood Industries. Seth Tisue, the webmaster for the excellent and informative Jandek site, casts some light on the confusion surrounding the man at tisue.net/jankek/discussion.html “Officially, Jandek is not a person. The man from the album covers and live appearances is ‘a representative of Corwood Industries’, and ‘Jandek’ is a musical project which he directs. The trinity of Jandek, Corwood, and ‘the representative’ is both three and one.”

These distinctions became clear only recently, especially when Corwood started negotiating Jandek performances with promoters. But an early hint was that the first Jandek LP was originally credited to “The Units”, a name implying a faceless collective.

Even the recent live releases do not credit individual musicians.

The name of the real individual behind all this is known. He almost always avoids using his name in connection with Corwood or Jandek, but he has never made any great secret of it, either. Written communications from Corwood are signed “Corwood” or not signed at all, and in a further distancing move, he/they always refers to himself/themselves in writing as “we” rather than “I”. This leaves the rest of us in a bit of a quandary how to refer to him/them/it — this Jandek thing. It’s common to just refer to Jandek as “he”, avoiding verbal contortions, but it’s also now common to follow Corwood’s own practice and use “Corwood” in contexts where it makes sense; some even go as far as to use “they” even though everybody knows it’s one person.

Others aren’t bothered by informally using his real first name (including several of the musicians he has performed with, in their published interviews).

Jandek, thus, seems to have inspired a one-man

variation on politically correct speech. I know his name, too. I am not mentioning it here. I have spoken of him as “they,” myself. I feel guilty and confused about it. I am a liberal.

Somehow, though, actually hearing his voice on my voicemail is anticlimactic. He sounds entirely normal.

He is “not sure we should give out information” on other musicians he has played with (I’d requested this in the follow up to his note). Instead, he suggests I contact them over the internet. He helpfully offers me the name of the Toronto promoter, Gary Topp of Topp Notch, as a possible interview. I’m already in touch with Topp – he was the first promoter to win a Toronto Arts Award and has brought many an odd show to town – so the tip doesn’t really amount to much. Corwood neither encourages nor discourages mentioning the possibility of a Vancouver concert.

The message is so polite and ordinary that I end up looking at my framed collage on the wall and wondering what kind of silly asshole I am.

Topp’s company with filmmaker Ron Mann, Filmswelike, distributes the film, Jandek on Corwood.

The 2004 documentary on the enigmatic musician, in which various critics and musicians speculate on the Jandek mystique, appears to have played a role in bringing Jandek out of his post office box, since it was shortly after its release – after 26 years of putting out music without touring – that he began to play live shows. Topp, a Jandek fan himself, tells me, “I have been writing Corwood for about two years. In April 06, he wrote me that they would be in contact with me in early June; they called me June 1st.” Corwood stipulated that he/they would be giving no interviews for the show, which will happen on September 17th at Toronto’s Centre of Gravity.

Jandek will play Korg synthesizers; Toronto based Nilan Perera is on guitar, by Topp’s arrangement.

Pereira, with whom Topp puts me in touch, has been playing in the “improvised/ avantwhatever” scene in Toronto for about 20 years, “starting with the punkfunk harmolodic scene in the late ‘80s early ‘90s. I then went on to more improvised projects with various people like Rainer Wiens, and from there went into dance/ theatre as a sound designer/collaborator. I’ve recently (over the last two-three years) re-integrated into the improv music scene.” He has a solo CD of prepared guitar and electronics out and will soon be putting out a “a mirrorimage CD of remixes” by Canadian avant-heroes John Oswald, Martin Tetreault, Sandro Perri, and others. While he is only a recent convert to Camp Jandek, he admits “a profound admiration for his DIY ethic and his rigorous integrity as an artist.”

I asked Perera how one goes about preparing for a show with an artist this elusive. “There will be a day of meeting and playing before the gig that will determine the music; we’re improvisers and that in itself defines our approach in terms of the depth of palette that we bring. I am bringing some of the best musicians/composers/improvisers to this gig,” including bassist Rob Clutton and drummer Nick Fraser. “The meeting is in the act of creation, and although personality is a factor, the willingness of all to make music is the determining factor; we’ll be making music regardless of the situation. For myself, it’s Jandek’s lyrics and musical phrasing that intrigue me the most and will function as the axis that my collaboration will turn on.”

I buy my ticket for the Toronto show as soon as possible, figuring I can scrape up plane fare by some means – besides, Nomeansno play three gigs in a row in Ontario that week, and Tony Conrad will be doing an hour of drone, too. It is only after my

I think part of the charm of Jandek’s music is his complete disregard for the listener. It’s extremely refreshing

plans are made that I discover from Tisue’s site that Jandek will be performing in Seattle on October 27th.

Andrew Morgan was a liaison between Corwood and the Seattle music venue, On the Boards, getting things in motion and talking to Corwood.

“There weren’t any stipulations or requests that were too odd,” he tells me, only “things you would assume would be an issue, such as anonymity and the prevention of rumors relating to the show. Corwood wanted a seated, nice venue in a good part of town. That was his only real request... everything else was up to me.”

Morgan has a more-intimate-than-usual history with the Man from Corwood. “Before I moved to Seattle six months ago, I lived in Houston, where Corwood Industries is based. There was a lot to get excited about, there, as a Jandek fan. I worked at a natural grocery store that he frequented. Friends of mine would see him at bookstores, restaurants, and bars. It was fun and harmless.”

I asked Morgan about the whole mythos behind the man – in Jandek on Corwood, music geeks are seen commenting on everything from the possibility that the man has mental health issues to his choice of flip flops for footwear on certain album covers; they show off their own scribbled notes from Corwood, play taped conversations, and speculate for all they’re worth about who Jandek actually might be.

“As far as the mythos goes,” Morgan says, “I don’t feel as if it’s something Corwood has intentionally created. Obviously the dude wants to be left alone, but he’s not completely unavailable. He returns letters and phone calls. I think he just has a certain idea of how he wants to present the music and he’s not going to stray from that. I always think back to the article in Texas Monthly by Katy Vine and how she asked him if there was anything he wanted people to ‘get’ from his music and he simply responded with ‘There’s nothing to get.’ I think part of the charm and magnetism of Jandek’s music is his complete and total disregard for the listener. It’s extremely refreshing.”

Morgan continues. “A friend of mine in Houston and I used to have lengthy conversations about Jandek and Corwood. Together we came to the conclusion that he’s not playing shows to capitalize on his new weird pseudo-celebrity or to try and follow a sort of normal convention of touring or performing live. Since he’s playing all unheard material live and recording every show (both audio and video), these are just new ways of recording records. This is just the next ‘period’ of Jandek. The Live Music phase or something.”

Jandek had played Portland a few weeks previously. For one number, two female backup singers joined the stage, much to the audience’s surprise. Fan descriptions can be found on Tisue’s site. Morgan tells me, “I saw the Portland show and thought it was one of the single most enjoyable live performances I’ve ever seen... which I did not expect. It was extremely accessible and almost rock and roll.Very close to a record like You Walk Alone (my personal favourite).”

I asked Morgan what he thinks the future will hold: will the touring and accelerated activity lead to greater fame for Jandek, or will it crush the mystique and end the saga? ”I wouldn’t be surprised if he stopped doing shows as suddenly as he started. If you’ve heard Jandek’s

music you know that it will not lead to any more fame than already exists. It’s difficult, alienating music.

I think the only thing that the performing will change about the ‘mystique’ will be that people will no longer be distracted by the facelessness of the music and just start focusing on the music itself. Which is good, considering the quality of the recent recordings. They’re so good!”

The Seattle show will probably see Jandek on guitar, since he has requested an amp. Emil Amos, who was the drummer for the show in Portland, says, “I’ve never seen an audience be as patient with improvised songs as his audience was.” Bassist Sam Coomes and Emil had practiced a couple of times before the show, Jandekless, “but we agreed that any preparation probably wouldn’t end up altering what would happen in the performance on an instinctual level.” Once the Corwood rep arrived, “the practicing we did as a band (on the day of the show, for 3 hours) was just to ultimately get comfortable in each other’s presence.”

I asked Emil how it feels to be playing with Corwood yet again, for the Seattle gig. “I’m interested to see what themes will repeat themselves and which ones won’t, considering that this particular backing band seems to have it’s own ‘sound’. But I’m in the dark as much the audience is and it’s cool that way.”

Emil describes Jandek as “one of the most ruthlessly instinctual players I’ve ever heard. In the blues/folk setting that he is often viewed in (as opposed to jazz or noise) I think it was widely accepted that it would be virtually impossible to have that much freedom of instinct.” Wisely, during the Portland experience, Emil managed to simply avoid referring to him by name at all.

By the way, if anyone is planning on going to the Seattle gig, I could use a ride; please email me at ammacinn@hotmail.com.

My continued researches lead me closer to home.

Will there be a Vancouver show? Ironically, there is some slight possibility that an article like this will sour the possibility, so y’all are requested to LEAVE CORWOOD ALONE. Wait. Hum “I’ll Sit Alone and Think a Lot About You” to yourself (from 1988’s On the Way, which, mostly due to the energetic bluesy raveup, “Message to the Clerk,” is my favourite of Jandek’s discs). Watch Jandek on Corwood again. Get a life!

With the exception of Corwoods 0783 and 0785 (which are double CD’s) and the DVD (Corwood 0779), individual CDs are available postpaid to Canada for $8.80 US, or $4.40 US each in a box of 20 or more. Prepaid only; make cheques or money orders out to Corwood Industries, P.O. Box 15375, Houston TX 77220 I would recommend that newbies start out with the range between 0753-0757, which is generally regarded as the most accessible, bluesier, “musical” Jandek period, though I know certain Vancouver Jandek fans really dig 0745, Your Turn to Fall... n

The Nerve September 2006 Page 15

PHOTO: KATRINA DEL MAR

CONTENTS

The Dictators Quality Over Quantity T

here’s no middle ground when it comes to the Dictators. If you’ve heard ‘em (and if you haven’t, fix that right away) you either love ‘em and would go to the mat for them or you’re a humourless geek who thinks that songs about cars, girls, surfing and beer are “immature” or some shit like that. Which is your loss.

The boys (Andy, Richie a.k.a. Handsome Dick, Scott a.k.a. Top Ten, Ross the Boss and original drumer Stu Boy) were barely out of their teens when they released their debut, Dictators Go Girl Crazy, in 1975 and it’s a rock and roll masterpiece.

Why it doesn’t turn up on many of those lame “Best Albums of All Time” lists says more about the “critics” who write those things than anything else. Hell, even the supposedly all-knowing MOJO magazine erroneously referred to them as “San Francisco new wavers” a couple of years ago. For the record the ‘Tators couldn’t possibly be less Frisco (New Yorkouter boroughs) and new wave they certainly ain’t.

But I digress; they made two more just-slightly-lessgreat LPs, Manifest Destiny and Bloodbrothers (‘77 and ‘78) before going on hiatus around ‘79. Never broke up, though, and random shows occurred through the ‘80s and ‘90s (Vancouver ‘91: life-altering). Finally, in 2002, the first full-length in 24 years, D.F.F.D. (Dictators Forever Forever Dictators), is released and damn if it isn’t fucking amazing. A great live album, Viva Dictators (reviewed here a few issues back) followed that, which takes us to the present.

Andy Shernoff, bass playing, songwriting genius and mastermind of the band agreed to answer a few questions regarding the past, present and future of the band. Take it away, Andy!

Nerve: Some friends and I were discussing D.F.F.D. the other day and we agreedthat it may be the ‘Tators best album. Which is no small feat, given that Go Girl Crazy is in all our respective TOP 10s, if not Top 5s, of all time.

We think of the Dictators as the ultimate example of quality over quantity. Are there any new tunes in the works or plans to record and were there any leftovers from those sessions?

Shernoff: When bands take long breaks between

The Nerve September 2006 Page 16

records the new records rarely equal the early records that you fell in love with, so I really appreciate the compliment. I tried to make D.F.F.D. a worthy successor to our first records and I’m a firm believer in quality over quantity. Growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s, I always considered rock and roll to be an art form for teenagers so it was difficult to maintain the lyrical reckless abandon and irreverence I had as a youth, now that I’m an adult.

Regarding new recordings, the only release planned is stuff from the vault... the early demos which were recorded in 1973, a few outtakes, and assorted odds and ends.

Nerve:That’s exciting. How about the Master Plan (Andy’s band w/ members of the Fleshtones etc.)? Loved that album, too.

Who’s idea was it to record the great Eastern Dark tune, “Walking”?

Shernoff: Master Plan is a band that lives in three different cities so it’s difficult to get together to rehearse and record.

However, we have five songs in the can for a new record and six more we are rehearsing. I think the new songs are a step up in quality over the first CD. We’re recording it in my home studio so I’ve had time to finesse it a bit more than the first one.

There’s some really kick-ass stuff so I’m anxious to get it out. The Eastern Dark song was Keith’s (Streng, Fleshtones guitar player) idea. I had never heard the band before. However, when the Dictators toured Australia, the bass player (that’d be Bill Gibson) came to see us and said the Eastern Dark used to cover Dictators songs... that was cool!

Nerve: Are you still producing ?

Shernoff: I don’t do much record production these days. It takes up a lot of time and energy and the type of records I was known for are not made by the big labels these days. I have been doing small projects in my home studio like the new Master

Plan, music for a cartoon on the Cartoon Network and a few local singer/songwriters. The project I’m most excited about is the new Mary Weis (Shangri Las lead singer) record on Norton. I wrote two tunes for that record.

Nerve: Wow, I hadn’t heard of that project.

Okay, I gotta ask you about “Two Tub Man” (from Go Girl Crazy). If I’m not mistaken, it was the first song you ever wrote. While I think I get the general idea of what a “Two Tub Man” is (Handsome Dick in a nutshell?), I wondered if there was any significance to the phrase. Where did it come from?

Shernoff: “Two Tub Man” was the first song I ever wrote. The phrase just popped into my head one day. It has no meaning or reference, it just sounded cool. I must admit I was much more creatively spontaneous in those days. It was written in 1973 and was an attempt to capture my pre-punk rock attitude in a three-minute tune, using Who-like power chords. The problem as I get older is I tend to try and craft my songs more which makes it harder to just spit them out.

Nerve:You were a fanzine pioneer with the Teenage Wasteland Gazette.

Do you keep up on the current ‘zine scene?

Shernoff: Sorry, I’m not up on the latest fanzines.

I would have thought that anyone with a passion would just stick up a website. Who reads papers these days anyway? I get all my news and information from the internet.

Nerve:You guys are huge in Spain and have been over there several times. What do you think makes the Spanish such crazy rock and roll fans? I think of the place as sort of an alternate universe where bands like you guys and the Young Fresh Fellows are stars, which is as it should be.

Shernoff: I can’t explain why Spanish rock and roll

Rock and roll is middle aged, tedious and uninteresting

By Andrew Molloy

fans have such great taste. Maybe their brains are clear because they live a healthier lifestyle than neurotic Americans. Spain is a country where people work to live rather than live to work and everybody takes a siesta from two to five pm everyday. That seems like the right way to live to me. They also worship everything that makes life worth living like food, wine and rock and roll.

Nerve: I wanted to ask you about one of my favourites from Go Girl Crazy which is “Teengenerate”. As far I know, you’ve never played it live (maybe back in the early days?)

Is this just ‘cos it’s one of those songs that’s hard to pull off live?

Shernoff: We did perform it a couple of times over the past few years - the last time was in Australia actually. It certainly made a few fans happy but our live show thrives on energy and “Teengenerate” just didn’t create the live excitement that other songs did.

Nerve: Do you keep in touch with Scott (Top Ten) Kempner at all?

Shernoff: I do keep in touch. Scott is living in L.A. and has a solo record on a Nashville label that will be released in January 2007.

Nerve: Okay, last question Andy. On D.F.F.D. you asked the musical question “Who Will Save Rock and Roll?” Do you think anyone will?

Shernoff: Not a chance. Rock and roll is middle aged, tedious and uninteresting. The rebellion is false and any band with a good song is recycling formulas from the ‘60s or ‘70s. As a kid I was turned on to rock and roll by the British Invasion and as a musician I came up with a lot of greats like the Ramones, Television, Talking Heads and the Clash.

Those were golden days never to be repeated. I don’t feel an allegiance to the modern bands that I feel to the older groups. I might sound like an old curmudgeon but rock and roll’s main purpose these days is to sell cars... and the truth is, rock and roll is only three chords. How many permutations can you run those three chords through before you start repeating yourself ? n

PHOTO: MATT SLOCUM

“Yo, what the fuck did you say about my long term investment plan, mook?”

CONTENTS

Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers

By Devon Cody

PHOTO: MATT SLOCUM

PHOTO: KATRINA DEL MAR

The Colonel Hath Spoken!

“Y

ou know who I am? I’m a psychotic Southern Christian. So that’s the type of music I’m gonna make. There’s not gonna be anything un-authentic about what I do because I embrace that. I’m a skinny white guy from Kentucky and I throw it in people’s faces and I don’t claim to be a cowboy. I don’t claim to be anything but who I am. And I love it when I see someone that just doesn’t give a shit. This is who I am… love me.”

Ladies and gentlemen, consider that a formal introduction to Colonel J.D. Wilkes; head honcho of Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers—a band you must not miss when they bring their carnival of moral carnage to Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina and Winnipeg this month. Now, before you ask, yes… according to his home state of Kentucky he is a real Colonel. And, take one guess at what his favourite meal is. Did I hear chicken? I did, didn’t I? Well… what do you know. The Colonel loves himself a feed of his mom’s fried chicken. Sounds like your average sister-fuckin’, plantation tie wearin’, Southern bumkin, no?

Wrong.

Within minutes of talking with him Wilkes strikes you as wildly sophisticated man. He is simultaneously thoughtful and prone to attention deficiency; a skinny freak who seethes with volatile intelligence. He’s also a man who sticks his tongue into a running box fan at Shack Shakers shows. “I think the wise fool is a great Southern archetype,” says Wilkes while driving to his band’s home base of Nashville, Tennessee.Yes, he and his band are yet another fascinating example of the paradox that is The South.

Th’ Shack Shakers’ music is equally difficult to pin down. It’s born of the same ingenious chemical imbalances as the likes of Tom Waits and Hasil Adkins except revved up on the blood of Christ and rabid rats. If there were any justice in the world today, bands like this would be causing the same uproar that Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis did back in their prime. But alas, there’s a lot more mind-controlling shills and hipster phonies in the world these days; as Wilkes can vehemently attest, “Like alt-country… I

It’s been nigh on 30 years now since old man Fonzarelli last saw his boy, Arthur think it’s a poser genre. I think it’s a lot of coffeeshop cowboys who are all hats, no herd. They could just drop right off the planet and I’d never miss ‘em… even Gram Parsons for that matter. A lot of these people are rich kids that inherited Daddy’s gold card and felt guilty about it so they just started writing all these folk songs and started slumming and drinking PBR, pretending to be all downtrodden.

What the dirty little secret is, is that they’re all on a trust fund. They’re squandering Daddy’s inheritance.”

Oh boy, I can already see our Parsons-loving readers out there at a Kitsilano Starbucks, disrupted from sipping their doubleshot white chai carmel macchiatospressogofuckyerself, stammering with rubber-spined wrath, and steaming from their tear ducts. But wait, you bunch of gaylords, it gets better…

“Even Bruce Springsteen, or Bob Dylan. I mean, I like Bob Dylan but, where’s he from?

Minnesota? He’s a Minnesota Jew masquerading as a sharecropper, hanging out with Woody Guthrie at his dying words and writing every one of them down in these precious notes. But at least he did it his way. He played harmonica terribly. He barely played guitar. He has an awful voice. But he has this poet’s soul that you have to give him credit for. That’s why I like him.”

Even Wilkes’ compliments are paradoxes. If for no other reason than a complete inability to understand what makes this guy tick, you just can’t help but like him. It’s his lunatic consistency and brazen honesty that you have to give him credit for. He’s been touted as “the last great rock and roll front-man”

by Jello Biafra. On stage, he brings to mind Iggy Pop with a skull full of cocaine and Satan’s semen. He’s

been known to spit a lot and, on occasion, toss fistfuls of freshly yanked pubic hair over the crowd.Yet, he maintains that he is Christian. “My preferred flavour, when I’m serious about it and get the time to invest in it, is Catholicism. It’s tough when you’re on the road, but I like the traditions. I like the austerity.

I like the piety, the quietness. I prefer the ritual and the seriousness. I like the seemingly ancient qualities of the Mass. When I have the time to invest, I will complete my Catechism.”

Now, I know what you’re thinking. It’s a shtick.

Maybe it is… but something in the pit of my shitfilled innards tells me it ain’t. Perhaps it’s the simple fact that when talking with Wilkes, he exudes a genuine reverence for the topic. It doesn’t have the hokey nature of, say, Reverend Horton Heat. Or perhaps it’s the cautionary lyrics of most of the Shack Shakers’ songs. They read like they are straight out of the Book of Revelations.

“It’s the same as fire and brimstone preaching,” he explains. “Our songs are concerned less with optimistic rah-rah anthems and love songs and more with delving to the dark heart of humanity. Great art comes out of that. That’s what seems to deal the most hard-hitting, gut-wrenching stuff.You’re getting people’s attention that there’s dire consequences if they don’t change their ways. There’s a positive thing that comes from a cautionary tale. There’s a positive message that you can receive at the end that doesn’t leave you dangling in despair and darkness. Just about every song I write has some sort of little twist of hope at the end. There’s either hope or penance to resolve the dark questions.”

Th’ Shack Shakers’ latest release Pandelirium sees the band stray a touch from their bluesy rockabilly roots and leans occasionally to more vaudevillian

If you lived on a farm you would have to learn to stick your hand up a pigs pussy and pull out the fucking baby.

folk complete with fiddle, organ and oompah beats.

Lyrically however, they still explore these dark questions, inspired by the earthy mysticism of the Southern Gothic and the attitudes born out of the deeply-rooted agrarian struggle to survive.

“Out of that comes a wisdom that urbanized areas can only dream about. Urbanized areas live in the world of ideals and theories and conversations over croissants. Whereas if you lived on a farm you would have to learn to stick your hand up a pig’s pussy and pull out the fuckin’ baby.You had to learn how to skin a squirrel and survive on innards. And because of the lack of police in the rural environment, you had to be your own peacekeeper. So guns are more important. And this sort of an attitude of self-preservation leads to this kind of outlaw rebel identity. Everyone’s sort of out for survival down here. There’re some harsh attitudes, but it’s born out of honesty.”

Wilkes takes a wee moment to breathe, then continues, inspired.

“Like the racial stuff… we slug it out shoulder to shoulder with our black brethren down here. It’s a true melting pot. The agrarian nature down here demands collaboration. So to survive, we have to work together—with ignorant blacks and ignorant whites and ignorant Mexicans. So, you can understand the animosity. But at the end of the day, we make it work. There isn’t that white fear or white guilt like these yuppies that are confronted with street people and they just seize up or turn and run. We’ve learned a certain etiquette where we can jive with them and call them out on it and have a laugh with them and tell them to buzz off. Tell me who’s more racist there.”

You go on Colonel! Tell it like it is. And hey, while you’re at it, would you pass me the chicken?

The Legendary Shack Shakers play at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle on Saturday, Sept. 16th, the Media Club in Vancouver on Sunday, Sept. 17th, Broken City in Calgary Tuesday Sept. 19th, the Sidetrack in Edmonton Wednesday, Sept. 20th and the Pyramid Cabaret in Winnipeg Saturday, Sept. 23rd. n

The Nerve September 2006 Page 17

CONTENTS

Billy BraggNot to be Blunt…

By Adrian Mack

L

ast May, the fascist British National Party took a whopping 12 out of 13 council seats in the Barking/Dagenham area of London, which is traditionally a Labour stronghold. When the The Nerve spoke to Barking native Billy Bragg from his home in the UK, the matter was obviously still very fresh in his mind. Happily, Bragg was also celebrating a significant victory over Myspace, which agreed to change its sketchy terms and conditions for artists posting their material with the social networking giant, after Bragg loudly and publicly drew attention to the issue....

Bragg: I think there’s a chance through making an issue of this, with something as big as Myspace, to just get new artists who are new to this to realize that they don’t have to sign Life of Copyright deals.

I work with guy called Ian McLagan who was the keyboard player in Small Faces. A great, great guy, still playing, still top of his game. Everywhere we go in the UK, we go and stop on the motorway, we find CDs for sale, and there’s always a ‘60s compilation with a Small Faces track on he’s making no money from. And I think that’s outrageous, frankly, that someone like him should have to be in that situation.

And there’s a lesson for all of us in that. And so I wanted to use the Myspace issue to bring that to the fore. And in the last 24 hours, I’ve had a similar resolution with a social networking sight called Bebo.com…. In a couple years, bands will break that don’t have recording contracts. It sounds weird to us old timers, I know, but bands are going to come along that haven’t signed recording contracts, that just have management and promotion and they’re not physically making records, everything’s done through mp3 or whatever succeeds mp3s… And I’m very much in favour of that because I think the record companies, particularly the majors, act as a filter …And they would prefer there to be three big record companies selling five artists who sell 50 million records. Because of the physical nature of making cds and distributing cds physically, they can’t deal with lots of little bands. Well obviously, the long tail of the Internet can do that. I’m really excited. If this shit had been around 20 years ago, 25 years ago when I was starting out, I reckon it would’ve saved me two years of skulking in my bedroom. Walking around…

Nerve: With that amp on your back.

Bragg: “Give me a gig, please give me a gig.” I think it’s brilliant. It has incredible potential. But that potential will only be realized if kids can post stuff on there confident that they will retain ownership of it, that their not going to get ripped off. There’s a very interesting dynamic to this because, the next question is whether or not a site like MySpace is the best place to do that kind of thing.

Nerve: It opens up a whole bunch of questions. But here’s something that I’ve been thinking about recently that sort of tickles me.They forced the switch to CDs on us, in the ‘80s. And it was a scam, basically. But the irony there, in forcing this cultural shift to the digital realm, is that they let the genie out of the bottle because of course they didn’t anticipate the home computer and this revolution that has kind of made them obsolete. It’s kicked them in the ass hasn’t it?

Bragg:Yeah it has. They’ve been very clever over the years. When in the 1960s artists began to start to get bigger and bigger percentages of the takings, they invented cocaine to get money back off artists.

And in the ‘80s when that wore off, they invented videos to get your money back off you. Now the whole kit and kaboodle is moved outside of their control and I think that’s really great. Again, forgive me for sounding like an old geezer, it does feel to me that the kind of rejuvenation that came through the independent music scene, in the UK anyway, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the new media have the potential to do that. To bring in people from outside with original ideas that really blow us away rather than people who are just this week’s version of 50 Cent, Coldplay. Whoever. There are so many Coldplay clones out there now it hurts.

Nerve: It’s horrible. It’s absolutely horrible.

Bragg: All we have to hope is all these guys playing

in their bedrooms, when they finally emerge, don’t all sound like James Blunt clones. That’ll just be the ultimate irony on us. The industry will be sinking but laughing at us, as we’re, like, “Oh no, not another one.”

Nerve: James Blunt - doesn’t he come from a very prominent family?

Bragg: He does. He’s hyphenated. His actual name is Blount. I think he was a captain in the Cavalry. But I don’t really care about that.You know what pissed me off? He went and got two singer/songwriters from California to write the album with him.

That’s what’s false about him. The charge sheet for James Blunt is quite long, but that tops it for me.

Particularly because I was also in the Cavalry. I don’t know if you know, I was a trooper. I’ve already got a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to Blunty.

Nerve: But on to more important matters…

Bragg: In Barking and Dagenham where I come from, the British National Party won 12 seats on the local council last May. The fascist BNP in my hometown... and these are all Labour voters who are voting for the BNP, there ain’t no Conservative voters in Barking and Dagenham. It’s a real shock to the body politic that the BMP was able to do so well there. If they’d have put up a full slate, they’d have won the council. Undoubtedly.

Nerve:You gotta wonder, where is the financing coming from for the BNP? They need money to do what they do.

Bragg: But if they just focus on one place where they think they can make a big splash, it does so good for them. I think even they were surprised at the way it went. I don’t think anyone really checked for how betrayed and abandoned the white working class felt by the Labour Party in Dagenham. These people are really, really pissed off.

Nerve: I remember Red Wedge very well.

What’s your take on your condition of the Labour Party these days?

Bragg: It hasn’t changed from the days of Red Wedge.

I support them when I can and I criticize them when I have to. I’ve always been that way. I opposed them on the Iraq war. I opposed them on the privatization of health service and education. But it’s getting even weirder now in this country. The new Conservative leader Cameron is a Blair clone. For people who believe in a more right wing politics or left wing politics, there aren’t those choices there any more.

Voting participation has collapsed. It went to 59

My identity as a Londoner is being torn apart at one end by fascists and on the other end by suicide bombers percent in 2001, which is a real shock. And that’s when the fascists move in. They attempt to exploit that. That’s what Hitler did. That’s what the BNP did.

Nerve: What do you make of George Galloway?

Bragg: I’ve always thought he was a bit shifty, Galloway. I’ve never really trusted him, I’ll be perfectly honest with you. I think he’s a bit of a flake and bit of a chancer, really. Scottish firebrand representing a Muslim community? I think there’s something not quite right about that… I have to fess up, and say that I did do, during the election campaign, a gig for Oona King who was trying to hold on to that seat, and George roundly condemned me in his acceptance speech, which I’m quite proud of. If an election comes by in which the Socialist Workers Party doesn’t call me a scab or a traitor, I don’t really feel I’ve done my job, really. Not much has changed since Red Wedge.

Nerve: Well you’ve always been the gentleman of the left haven’t you?

Bragg: Everything in moderation. A part of the

problem we have at the moment is that the media is drawn to extreme voices.

No one wants to hear about moderate Muslims. No one wants to hear about moderate American opinion. No one wants to hear about people who live moderate lives.

Everyone wants to hear about extreme this and extreme that, and that kind of behaviour is encouraged. The majority of people live ordinary moderate lives, and do their best to sort of get on, and it’s easy to be extreme. It’s playing to the gallery. It’s so much harder to be considerate. To be respectful of other people.

We don’t live in a society that encourages moderation of behaviour. We live in a society that encourages extreme behaviour and that’s somehow become the mainstream of TV talk shows and reality television. It’s unfortunate, because I think we all recognize what a circus all that shit is. But when that is put into politics and it becomes the most extreme person – whether it’s Pat Buchanan or George Galloway, or some totally unrepresentative Imam who happens to be saying terrible things they’re the ones that get the headlines. I did write, in “Between the Wars”, Sweet moderation / Heart of this nation, and got castigated for it at the time, I’m proud to say. But I’m still in that sort of moderate realm. I’ve become so moderate, I’ve written a book.

I sweated blood, I’ll have you know on this very desk. I sweated blood. And if you want to know how painful and how tortuous that was I’ll go upstairs and wake my wife up and get her to come down and tell you.

Nerve: No, no, that’s quite alright. I’d hate for you to have to do that. I write for a living so I kind of know. I’d rather make money being a musician.

Bragg: I can make money and I’m very pleased that I can still come to Vancouver and people want to see me play. But when the British National Party win 12 seats in your hometown, you kind of have to put your guitar down and think, “Fuck, this deserves a bit of a more considered response.”

And that was really how the book came about.

That shock of that and the 7/7 bombings. My identity as a Londoner, who supported the idea of a multicultural society, is being torn apart at one end by fascists and on the other end by suicide bombers. I couldn’t really just write a few songs about that. It seemed it needed something more than that. That’s how I ended up putting pen to paper.

Nerve: Are you aware of the fairly recent revelation that MI5 at one time was plotting to kill (former British Prime Minister) Harold Wilson?

Bragg: Well allegedly, yeah. He always thought so. And they were plotting to kill him because he was so much of a socialist. That’s the joke. That’s the fucking joke. They weren’t plotting to kill him because he was a nutter. “The Prime Minister is a nutter. Let’s kill him!” I guess that goes to show how fucked up the security services are that they think Harold Wilson… actually, they thought he was a communist plant, didn’t they?

Nerve:Yes they did.The best quote that I read about MI5 and I think it holds to this day and it holds about the CIA: they exist to ensure that the left fails.

Bragg: They exist to ensure that establishment stays where it is and nothing changes. That’s why we had to chop the King’s head off that time. Sometimes you have to do that.

Nerve: Well wasn’t Mountbatten, wasn’t the Royal family actually implicated in this plot?

And if that’s the case, why are heads not being chopped off at this point? That is an astounding revelation if it’s true.

Bragg: I must wonder that at least once a year. Why we’re not chopping off their heads.

Nerve: Any right thinking man would.

Bragg: I’ve eventually come to the conclusion that we live in a multi-cultural society, and as part of that I have to accept other people’s ideas of culture and there is a sizable minority in this country, as I’m sure there is in yours, who like to see the Queen on the 20 buck note. But you know what? I was in Canada when the Queen Mother died, and I spent the week saying to people in coffee shops and restaurants as I paid them my 20 buck note over the counter, cuz they knew we were English so they would often say, “Oh I’m very sorry about Queen Mother.” I didn’t want to offend anybody for fuck’s sake, they’re only trying to empathize with me about the death of this hundred year old woman, as if I knew her. I’d just say to them, “Well you know what this means, don’t you? That Prince Charles is one step nearer being on the 20 buck note.” And they’d look at me like, “You’re joking, he’s going to be on the 20 buck note?” “Of course he is. Think about it! He’s next on the 20 buck note.” “That is appalling. That is appalling.” Most Canadians I’m pleased to say were utterly appalled at the prospect of old Chucky being on the 20 buck note. So I have great hopes for Canada.

Nerve: you know who guarded the Queen Mother’s body when she was lying in state don’t you?

Bragg: I do.

Nerve: Who? Bragg: Fucking Blunty, didn’t he? Bastard. That’s what he was doing. At least we know what he was doing that week. While some of us are going around Canada stirring up Republicanism, Blunty was standing by the old girl. The more you know about him, the more appalling… And the people of this country take this as a plus! That’s the really sad thing.

“Oh it’s great, it’s wonderful!”

Nerve: I was just sort of shocked that they would leave it with somebody who seemed so slight. Wouldn’t they get a bigger man to take care of her corpse?

Bragg: So weedy.

Billy Bragg plays the Music Hall Theatre in Toronto Sunday, Sept. 24th, the Venue (Ramada) in Winnipeg Tuesday, Sept. 26th, the Knox United Church in Calgary on Wednesday Sept. 27th, the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver on Friday, Sept. 29th and the Kane Lecture Hall in Seattle Saturday, Sept. 30th. n

The Nerve September 2006 Page 18

n

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n

CONTENTS

The Casualties Listen Up, Punks!

By Cameron Gordon

N

ew York City might be a lot of things in 2006 but a mecca of modern punk? Not so much. Luckily, the Casualties continue to fly the loud-and-fast flag in the stinkiest town on the Eastern Seaboard. The band formed in NYC circa 1990 and have been gigging steadily since, playing to audiences worldwide while maintaining the look and feel of the Exploited, GBH and other street-level saviours. The Nerve caught up with the band’s guitarist Jake mere days after the release of their latest full-length, Under Attack on SideOneDummy Records.

It’s a pissy twelve-pack of molten punk goodness and Jake was happy to discuss its relative merits, the band’s exploits on the Warped Tour and the finer points of the punk lifestyle.

Nerve:You guys are one of the few touring bands we hear about coming out of NYC these days. What the hell is going on there, punk-wise?

Not a whole lot, to be honest. The New York punk scene is pretty dry at the moment: there aren’t many new bands coming up and the people who were involved at one point are moving on to other, moretrendy types of music. At this stage in our career, we tour so much that we don’t hang out within that community as much anymore so it’s hard to really keep track of what’s happening from week-to-week.

Nerve: Bummer… aren’t Agnostic Front still touring at least?

Yeah, they’re still going but they’re in the same position as us: they’re on the road for most of the year and aren’t tied as closely to New York as they once were. Same goes for us. We put out records, we tour like crazy. When I’m home, I just want to chill out, hang with my girlfriend, play with my dog.

None of us are out in the clubs like we once were.

Nerve: When, where, why and how was Under Attack recorded? It’s a pretty intense listen.

It was recorded in April of this year in Fort Collins, Colorado. We recorded with Bill Stevenson, who used to be in Black Flag and the Descendents and some other bands. It only took us about three weeks from front to back and working with Bill was amazing. He “gets” the Casualties because he was in a punk band. It felt right, he understood us. It wasn’t like recording with some dude from LA who worked on the last Journey record.

Nerve: How did that relationship with Bill come together in the first place?

Joe Sib, who helps run our label, knew that Bill had recorded before with the Suicide Machines and he thought it would be a good fit. Plus he hadn’t done a lot of recording recently so we figured he’d be ready to go into the studio again. And of course, being fans of his bands from way back, we knew this was a guy we wanted to meet up with and record with. It worked out perfect.

Nerve:The Casualties are primarily a live band. How do you know when it’s time to go back into the studio and record?

Well, hopefully our records are sounding pretty close to the live shows but yeah, we’re definitely a live band first off. We record when the album and the show has run its course… we just take it as it comes. In an average year, we’ll play 200 shows. In years we don’t have something new out, we’re still out there but we’re also writing and trying to relax during that time too. It’s a cycle.

For sure, we normally hit Europe at least a couple of times a year. We play mainly the squats and clubs… all the regular spots of a punk touring schedule.

Nerve: For people in North America, the concept of playing a squat has really been mythologized as a “rite of passage” for a punk band touring Europe.They sound pretty gnarly for the most part. Has that changed in recent years?

Oh yeah, it’s a lot more structured than most people think. Early on, this band called Antidote, from Holland, helped us out a lot but now, we go through an agency and it’s all planned out ahead of time. But still, playing the squats is how you earn respect within the community: playing those cheap shows and connecting with the fans, letting them see what you’re made of. It’s the for-punks, by-punks concepts.

You’d be surprised though - most of these squats are a lot nicer looking than the clubs. There’s a real pride for the people who run them and they really try to create a safe, quality space for bands like us to play.

Nerve: Does your typically squat audience differ much from one you’d see in a club?

Not really, the squats are a bit more liberal but it’s basically the same.You play a little longer, have a little more fun and get to mix it up with the crowd a bit more.

Nerve:The Casualties have played the Warped Tour another time. I’m guessing the band has Sigh... “It’s been ages since I had an Inhuman taken a lot of flack for “selling out” or whatever, get paid decently, hang out with a lot of cool bands because of that association? and tour in relative comfort for the summer. Plus it’s Well, if people don’t like it, don’t fucking go. The exposed us to a lot of new fans. Who wouldn’t want Warped Tour does get slammed a lot but we really to tour like that?!? don’t care at this point. It’s not going away so people Nerve: Unfortunately, there’s always been that tendency in the punk community to slag something the second it become successful or gets a bit of attention.

It’s true and my reaction to that kind of attitude is “Fine, feel that way but do something about it if you want a change.” It’s pretty hard to respect that kind of opinion when it’s coming from the type of people who go to shows or read the magazine just to knock people down. It ain’t constructive and really, I could care less at this point.

You can still be a punk band and be playing meaningful music without cheating your audience and cheating yourself.

Nerve: Do the Casualties have much of a following overseas? Is there still that strong appetite for hardcore in Europe?

should deal with it and move on.You’re still seeing a ton of killer bands and the tickets are still pretty affordable for everybody. At least it’s not Ozzfest that’s not fucking cool and they’re charging twice as much. For me when people say shit about Warped, it’s either jealousy or people with too much time on their hands. For us, it’s a good time, a chance to

Nerve: Especially right now, the Casualties have been around since the early 1990’s and are now a veteran touring act, I guess. Did you ever think the band would last this long?

I always hoped it would but nah, none of us ever thought it would last this long. It’s pretty amazing to realize that we’re more popular now than we’ve ever been and this is what we do for a living. The real turning point was when we were able to quit our day jobs to concentrate on the band full-time.

Rampage on my wang...”

That’s when we knew that this was turning into something important.

Nerve:You’ve now been in the band for over 10 years and been playing punk your whole life. What does “punk” mean to you in the year 2006?

I’d really like to see the concept of “punk” change.

The Casualties are trying to change that attitude towards punks where you’re not authentic if you’re not living like shit and hanging out in the ghetto.

The concept of trying to stay at that street level is ridiculous and the goal of any band should be to break out and reach lots of new fans and have fun with it and play as many shows as possible. It doesn’t make sense why anyone would want to play in a band and try to avoid success.You can still be a punk band and be playing meaningful music without cheating your audience and cheating yourself. We’ve playing in basements and played in cheap apartments and at this point, I don’t want to go back to that.

The Casualties play at the Reverb in Toronto Tuesday, Sept. 5th, at The Venue in Winnipeg, Friday, Sept. 8th, at the Starlite Theatre in Edmonton, Monday, Sept. 11th, at the Underground in Calgary on Tuesday, Sept. 12th, at the W.I.S.E. Hall in Vancouver Thursday, Sept. 14th, at El Corazon in Seattle, Saturday, Sept. 16th. n

The Nerve September 2006 Page 19

WITH GUESTS

*

* ALL SHOWS EXCEPT VANCOUVER AND VICTORIA

2 SHOWS!

SEPTEMBER 17 SEPTEMBER 20 SEPTEMBER 29 & 30 OCTOBER 2

WINNIPEG CONVENTION CENTRE PRAIRIELAND PARK – SASKATOON MACEWAN HALL – CALGARY SHAW CONFERENCE CENTRE EDMONTON

OCTOBER 4

LEGENDS – VICTORIA

OCTOBER 5

CROATIAN CULTURAL CENTRE VANCOUVER

THEONLYBANDEVER.COM

OCTOBER 3

CROATIAN CULTURAL CENTRE

(2 SHOWS: EARLY ALL AGES, LATE LICENSED)

ALL AGES

OCTOBER 4

COMMMODORE BALLROOM LICENSED SHOW (19+)

TICKETS ALSO AT ZULU AND SCRATCH

OCTOBER 12

DOORS 8:00PM, SHOW 9:00PM

OCTOBER 16

OCTOBER 24

CROATIAN CULTURAL CENTRE TICKETS ALSO AT SCRAPE, ZULU, AND SCRATCH

ALL AGES DOORS 6PM SHOW 7PM

TICKETS ALSO AT ZULU AND SCRATCH

RICHARD’S ON RICHARDS

TICKETS ALSO AT ZULU AND SCRATCH

RICHARD’S ON RICHARDS

OCTOBER 22

ALL AGES

LICENSED SHOW

19+

NOVEMBER 10

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

THE TYDE SEPTEMBER 14

SEPTEMBER 14

CROATIAN CULTURAL CENTRE

COMMODORE BALLROOM

UNDEROATH

The Nerve September 2006 Page 20

moe.

SEPTEMBER 28

ASOBI SEKSU THE MEDIA CLUB

TICKETS ALSO AT ZULU AND RED CAT

CROATIAN CULTURAL CENTRE TICKETS ALSO AT ZULU, SCRATCH, AND SCRAPE

RICHARD’S ON RICHARDS

SEPTEMBER 21

MEDESKI, MARTIN AND WOOD COMMODORE BALLROOM

OCTOBER 15

KASABIAN COMMODORE BALLROOM

OCTOBER 17 & 18

GOV’T MULE & DONAVON FRANKENREITER COMMODORE BALLROOM

the new studio album

KISS OF DEATH in stores now! go to www.motorhead.com for all tour dates

Sanctuary_MotoĚˆrhead_Nerve.indd 1

The Nerve September 2006 21 25/8/06 Page 17:51:04

Why We Love Pere Ubu D avid Thomas has been bending rock music to his will for over 30 years now, as a journalist in the ‘70s, and as the eminence grise behind (and in front of) Pere Ubu and Rocket from the Tombs. Pere Ubu’s newest album, Why I Hate Women, is as powerful as almost anything in its looooong catalogue. When David Thomas spoke to The Nerve from his hotel room in Chicago, some of the topics we covered included his opinion of Brian Wilson (“One of the three great American geniuses of the last whatever years”) Smile (“Well, it’s sort of a complex issue…”), an album of remixes, Why I Remix Women, that he’s very pleased with, and many other fascinating things that didn’t make it into this article. I also mentioned that in 1988, him and Thurston Moore publicly denounced a video I made on English TV (it’s a long story). It was great television, I said, but it also broke my heart.

He sneered, “Yeah, well, life’s tough. Get over it.”

Nerve: When I was preparing for this I read tons of old press, mostly English, from the ‘70s and ‘80s.They really hammered on Devo back then, for one thing, and Pere Ubu sure inspired a lot of great writing from these guys, at the NME, Melody Maker etc.

Thomas:Yeah. A lot of those guys waxed eloquent with us.Yeah. I liked Devo but they never moved me. I found it difficult with them, because I knew them from the very beginning. They had a couple of songs that were sort of heartfelt and touching in a weird sort of way, and they abandoned them really very quickly to settle into what they were, and I thought that was a loss, that they were cutting something off of themselves.

Nerve: I thought it was cool that they actually re-grouped to record the Swiffer commercial.

Thomas.Yeah. Okay.

Nerve: It seemed that no matter what any writer said about your band back then, you consistently told them they were wrong.

Thomas:Yeah. Well, they generally are. Even in this fulsome praise that they dump at you, you go, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

Nerve: Well, did anybody get it right?

Thomas: I dunno. I think the main people more or less got things right, like (Ian) Penman, and, uh…

I don’t even remember their names. I mean, the one thing they got right was the fact that this had no predecessor, and it had no peer, and it had no successor, you know? And – to quote an English beer commercial – it reached parts of the brain that other beers don’t, and that’s sort of a theme that runs through a lot of their stuff, and I think that’s accurate. They always had problems with the whole industrial thing. They could never understand, and most people who don’t come from a steel town don’t really understand it, but to us, the (Cleveland) Flats was a museum. It was like an art museum.

There’d be powerful perspectives, and powerful visions in which you could see behind the curtain of reality, or the fabric of the Universe, you know?

Cracks and seams of the world. And we didn’t consider it a bleak, industrial wasteland. It was a place of mystery and power. This is one thing they never got right… In Cleveland we knew all the back pathways, and one of the big things when we were young – not to encourage this sort of activity – we’d just get stoned out of our heads, and we’d drive down to the Flats and get lost. In those days, you could drive right by the blast furnace doors, and you could get into places that would just be unthinkable these days, if they still exist. Most of the mills are closed. Cleveland had a real end-of-the-world, furthest-point-you-could-reach feeling to it. The only way I’ve ever been able to explain it to anybody, is if you ever saw that movie Journey to the Centre of the Earth, where they get down to the centre of the Earth and there’s this great, silent, still sea there, and there’s a stone ceiling, and that, of any image you can see, is what Cleveland felt like.

Nerve:You’ve said, we all come from a generation when B-movie sci-fi had a very strong voice in American culture…

Thomas: Absolutely… Well, what was so good about those, which I may have alluded to in the same thing that you’re quoting, the people that were doing it were doing it on crummy budgets, and there was no continuity, and usually those things were like one person’s vision, and often-times totally off the wall sort of stuff, but there was plenty of wiggle-room for personal interpretation. There’s fantastic ideas or images. One of the most powerful films I ever saw as a kid: it was really unbearably tedious, but it was about time travel into some sort of dystopian future, with mad scientists trying to warp the fabric of time, and it was reeeally – I can’t express how tedious it was, but the last two minutes was brilliant.

Somehow these mad scientists from the future had broken time, and then the whole movie began

Nerve:The biggest thing in Cleveland was Ghoulardi…

Thomas: At the time, yeah! He was bigger than Jim Brown. I’m a huge Jim Brown fan, he makes a big part of my life when I was a child, but Ghoulardi – he introduced phrases and sayings that are still in the Cleveland vocabulary to this day…

Nerve: “Stay Sick” Thomas: “Stay Sick” “Turn Blue” “Ova Day”, you know, just tons of stuff…

Nerve: I saw Sky Saxon last year with his new Seeds, and his thing seemed to be inviting girls on stage and groping them…

Thomas:Yeah. That’s Sky for you.

Nerve:You have expressed in the past that you think Sky Saxon will be remembered long

“I think I can see an Arby’s” to loop, from beginning-to-end, over and over and over, faster and faster and faster, until it just kind of went into a white blur and the screen popped and that was the end of the movie… Now that’s a brilliant idea! There’s all these images that kids were getting. Especially (from) Ghoulardi – it’s really hard to explain how radical and corrupting he was, in terms of the media. I’ve tried to explain this any number of times. Really, if you want to know what the Cleveland music scene derived from in the ‘70s, it was Ghoulardi. We were kids when we were watching that, at a particular age, he was on, like, ’65 to ’67 or something, and we were very young. I was 10 years old or something. He really screwed our heads up in terms of our understanding of the media, and our understanding of the narrative technique, all that sort of stuff. He was devastating the media, and the media good and holy types at the time. And he was doing these weird narrative things where he’d pop in and out of movies, using primitive bluescreen stuff, and really with this bolshi attitude… if you talk to the Cleveland bands like the Eels, or the Mirrors, I think they would all at some point credit that. The Cramps… the reason the Cramps, in Cleveland, when they came out, were so dismissed, was that they were just copping wholeheartedly the Ghoulardi thing, and everybody in Cleveland was going ‘Oh, jeez.You can’t do that!’ It’s almost something hard to talk to outsiders about. It’s such a powerful experience. He was the biggest thing in Cleveland. He was huge.

after the Beatles have been forgotten…

Thomas:Yeah, I think I was stretching things (laughs).

That was a bit extreme.

Nerve: I thought so, but is he one of the three American geniuses you mentioned earlier?

Thomas: No, of course not, come on. I usually say… certainly Don Van Vliet will be remembered long after the Beatles. The Beatles are a transitory thing, you know, it’s like that guy that Mozart was in competition with, Salierei or whoever, who was huge at the time and Mozart was nothing. Well, nobody remembers the other guy now. It’s the same with the Beatles. They’ll remember Brian Wilson, they’ll remember Don Van Vliet, and a few others, but they won’t remember the Beatles. It’ll be an obscure footnote, like, ‘How many hit singles did somebody have in the ‘60s?’ You know, it’ll be one of those Trivial Pursuit questions that’s really annoying in 50 years time.

Nerve: Is Don Rickles a great American genius?

Thomas: No. Nerve: I love the new record.

Thomas: Good.

Nerve: I’ve always liked how Pere Ubu uses its rhythm section, but it doesn’t get discussed very much.

Thomas: No, they don’t get really top marks. The rhythm section has always been really distinctive in Pere Ubu. I’m particularly happy with Steve and Michelle. They’ve been together now in Pere Ubu for 10 or more years, and they’ve played together before then. Steve is really very central to things.

He knows all the lyrics, which I don’t. He has this

I do everything in alphabetical order. I think it’s one of the greatest innovations I’ve come up with

CONTENTS

OH

By Adrian Mack

W

encyclopedic memory… I keep having to ask him where I come in and all that sort of stuff, and how I sing that part, or whatever. The wonderful thing about Michelle is that she’s not a bass player, she’s a guitarist. And so she has no ego-involvement in playing the bass. Which makes a big difference, in just simple things like, ‘Turn down.” You know, she goes, ‘Oh, okay!’ Or ‘Play simpler.’ ‘Oh, okay!’ With an ego-invested bass player, you tell ‘em those things and it’s just a nightmare. I have a great time listening to them. Except for the fact that Steve is louder than the entire band without any kind of amplification at all. And it’s the most brutally loud… his hands are just so beaten up every night. Just unbelievable bloody pulps, and I keep saying to him, ‘Why don’t you just not hit it so hard?’

Nerve: And he says…

Thomas: Well, he says, ‘That’s what I do.’

Nerve: He was outstanding when Rocket From the Tombs came through here a few years ago.

Thomas:Yeah, he’s great. But at the end of the show, he’s just a mess. And that’s all fine if it’s only a week, but when you’re out for three or four weeks and you just resent having to feel sorry for him, you know, it’s like, ‘Too bad!’ It just gets a bit wearing, you know? (whimpers) ‘Oh, my hands!!’ And he’s back there begging me not to do some fast song towards the end of the set. He’s just like, ‘Please David, please don’t play that, please don’t call that one!’

Nerve: And then you call it.

Thomas:Yeah, of course.You gotta do it! The point is, at the end of the set you need the fast song.You can’t call for some slow song as your finale. It just doesn’t work that way.

We always end up with “Wheel House” because it’s a ‘W’, and we always do our sets in alphabetical order, and you notice we do the album in alphabetical order…

Nerve: I hadn’t noticed.

Thomas:Yeah, well, the only thing is I didn’t like the number two. Alpha-numerically, numbers come before letters but I didn’t like the look of two as a number so I spelled it out, but otherwise, you will notice that it’s alphabetical. I think it’s one of the greatest innovations I’ve come up with. I do everything in alphabetical order. Nobody’s ever complained about our set orders, or anything. It saves all that sweating and consternation at how to order the set and how to, you know, ‘Here we’re gonna speed it down, and slow it up, and get weird…’ All that’s gone! This is the set. Here.

Nerve: Sounds like a good idea.

Thomas: Well try it. It works.

Nerve: In ‘77 you said, “My job is to try to be the talking that goes on inside your brains…”

And I don’t think there’s a better illustration of that - in your entire catalogue, maybe – than in “Flames Over Nebraska”, which shows a pretty remarkable continuity to your vision, if you wanna call it that…

Thomas: It’s also cause I’ve always been obsessed with trying to re-write “Heartbreak Hotel” which is one of the great songs of all time. In fact, I was talking to Greil Marcus about this, and it really defines the rock narrative voice in that the star of the song is the Bellhop, whose watching this all happen in this detached way, and so I think “Flames…” is probably the second, third, fourth time I’ve dealt with that story. It’s a very rich story. It’s endlessly fascinating, you know, just a few lines in a pop song, from 30 years ago, survived so intensely.

At least to me.

Nerve: I think I’m probably responding more to the quality of your voice, the meter… I’m hard pressed to describe it but, I also don’t need to describe it.

Thomas: No, you don’t need to describe it.

Nerve: Well, I’ve been a fan for a long time, and there have been things that I haven’t liked, but this is hell of a record.

Thomas: I think it’s very special, and will undoubtedly be ignored, just like everything else we do. But I think that it’s an important record. Not to be terribly pretentious, but I think it’s special. n

t t i s i t h w t s K t c

o h a s t u b f a p W s

s h t w f a t “

The Nerve September 2006 Page 22

n

CONTENTS

Old Crow Medicine Show Honourary Canadians

By Devon Cody

W

e call ourselves the land of the free and the home of the brave. And while we don’t generally beat our chests with the same hotshot patriotism as our neighbours to the south, generally speaking, the average Canadian is a pretty proud motherfucker. For good reason, I suppose. We’re quality people. Our Prime Minister is a regular ol’ Mother Teresa when it comes to the poor, sick and less fortunate. Everybody loves a humanitarian. And if that’s not enough, keep in mind we graced the world with the genius of Avril Lavigne, the beauty of Pamela Anderson (with the help of a surgeon or two), and the masterful performances of Keanu Reeves. Still, of all our treasures, it’s strange that Old Crower Ketch Secor prizes our gifts of corn liquor, Nintendo tapes and the Toonie above all.

You see back around 1998 Secor was looking to dash north from his home in Ithaca, New York after a break-up with his highschool sweetheart. To pull himself from this rut, he formed a plan to round up some musician friends, start a band, and fuck off north to hobo from buttfuck nowhere to buttfuck anywhere; living like gypsies and playing music to earn their keep.

Whether out of idealism or desperation, these boys set out to make Guthrie and Kerouac proud. But… “We got kicked out of every border,” Secor says as if he’s still in the van doing that U-turn back home. “We tried four times to get across. Everyone turned us down… every fuckin’ one of them! Until we got up to Akwesasene [Indian Reserve]. We found out all you had to do was pay off an Indian and you were an honourary Canadian.” He pauses, then recalls with a tone that seems almost homesick, “They said, ‘Come on man, come right through man.

We’ll sell you Nintendo tapes, man. We’ll bring you corn liquor man. Go up there and fuckin’ scare those fuckers.’ That was our welcome wagon right there… corn liquor and Nintendo tapes. And then once we were in, man! Two dollar coinage?! People want to throw change. People don’t want to throw bills. Bills are for service. Musicians are bums.

But in Canada, thank God… they made the Toonie. It made it all possible.”

Much in the spirit of the very music they make, Old Crow Medicine Show took an “old-time” approach to getting heard. The odds that they’d get radio play were about as good as getting Stephen Harper to show up for an AIDS conference and old-time stringband ditties that “bring back the voices of wise and dead men” weren’t exactly hot on CMT. So, in a fashion that pre-dates internet downloading, mass distribution, and even radio for that matter, these guys just got their asses out there to play on the street corners of any and every tiny town, one hand out for spare change and the other gripping the wild and flailing reins of destiny. Not only is this a refreshing indifference for the institutions of the music biz but it also hard proof that the fellas in OCMS are both resilient and gifted with Santa-sized sacks o’ balls. It’s this gutsy quality that must spawn so many of the perplexing punk comparisons they get in the press.

While one can argue this is just a trendy selling point for publicists and lazy journalists targeting younger audiences, there’s no doubt that the heart of this band beats at that same reckless pace.

The Toonie made it all possible!

Whatever you want to call it, reckless success or destiny, it’s obvious that things are working out like a dream for the Medicine Show. They have just released Big Iron World, their second album on Nettwerk Records, to continuing critical acclaim and they will be wandering through Vancouver on a tour in support of it on September 15th at the Commodore. Not bad for a bunch of guys who hit the road without any specific direction or much semblance of a plan. From his tone, I get the impression Secor believes it’s destiny.

“The only plan was to entertain and cajole with as many people as possible. So from the conception we were playing to the people that walk around the streets in those towns: teenage girls in Dokken shirts, dead-end looking junkie-types, endless Indians

and women with furs on their head and men in mooshkas and women carrying fowl. We played to everybody and it’s no less true today.” Of course OCMS no longer need to busk for their dinner, and they are more likely to be found playing at the Ryman as opposed to a street corner in Cornwall, Ontario, but Secor insists that it really isn’t much different. “When you’re playing kind of a variation on all the roots music of North America then everybody’s connected to that music that you’re playing. The music is rooted on our continent. It belongs to everybody regardless of class, creed, or ethnicity.”

Old Crow Medicine Show play the Showbox in Seattle, Tuesday, Sept. 12th, the Commodore in Vancouver, Friday, Sept. 15th and the Mod Club in Toronto on Sunday, Nov. 12th. n

The Nerve September 2006 Page 23

n

CONTENTS

NoMeansNo

Is There Anything These Goombahs Can’t Do? (Part 2)

In last month’s issue, drummer-vocalist John Wright of Vancouver’s legendary prog-punk power trio NoMeansNo filled us in on his band’s upcoming North American and European tours, in support of their latest album All Roads Lead to Ausfahrt.

E

urope is the home to NoMeansNo’s largest fan base; during the alternative-rock explosion of the early ‘90s, the band’s stature among European rock fans was dwarfed only by Fugazi and Bad Religion, and hasn’t faded since. “We’ll be playing at least two more European tours, for sure, possibly three tours, depending on how far afield there is to do for us over there. In Europe, there are always a lot of shows for us to play. It’s not too much trouble for us to fill up 70 or 80 dates. This is great for us! Our fan base has been built mostly on continual touring.You play good shows time and again, and your audience grows, which is common sense. But we’ll have a lot of work to do over there, for sure. We always head out to Eastern Europe.

You never know what sorts of opportunities arise.

We’ve had some interest in flying into Moscow to play some Russian shows. There’s been talk about getting down to Greece, where we’ve never been before…maybe touring down through the Balkans to get there, which is interesting! We play regularly in (the Slovenian capital) Ljubljana and we’ve played Zagreb (Croatia) several times. We finally made it to Belgrade, as well, which was a great time…over 800 people! We’ve always had a lot of fans in the Balkans, asking us to come out and play. And you can keep touring south through Macedonia, too. There are places to play there, believe it or not.”

NoMeansNo’s European tours are still handled by the same Dutch company the band has worked with since the early ‘90s. “Gijs Davit from SMOEFF has his own company with his partner. They’ve got a pretty good business going with 10 backlines and three vans, taking bands out or just renting out vans and gear. It’s a lot easier to do over there than here. There are far more foreign bands traveling to Europe to play, as opposed to coming over here to

The Nerve September 2006 Page 24

do it. It would seem there’s not much of an appetite for foreign music in North America. Rock and roll is very ‘North American-centric.’ There are lots of great bands in Europe, but it’s difficult for them to make an impression over here. Touring here is very hard the first few times around, as many of us know.

“Europe has more of a tradition of looking after musicians, and the liquor laws make it easier for people to promote shows and make a little money.

There’s more government support for youth centres and stuff like that. It’s a little easier for things to happen there, and over here it’s more of a total cutthroat-business bar scene…bands don’t get paid too well, perks are fewer and farther between…but you know, having said all that, things have changed for the better over here. Since the 1980s, when a lot of indie bands traveled to Europe to tour, they came back with their eyes opened a little wider…just little things like being firm about food being on the rider.

How about a place to stay? Bands realized that they should, and could, be treated a bit better. People have grown up more. There’s less of the ‘Old Guard,’ and more people with more awareness. Even back in the ‘80s it was weird when the promoter would give you money so you could buy some supper!

“For us, we have a long history now with certain promoters, and of course we’ve built a good and strong reputation, and it’s not nearly as hard. Tom (Holliston, NoMeansNo’s trusty guitarist since founding member Andy Kerr jumped ship in 1992) has been booking our shows, and the headaches he went through to book the Hanson Brothers, compared to NoMeansNo, is night and day. Booking a NoMeansNo tour isn’t nearly as difficult as it used to be. Also, now things are different because there’s a lot more

places to play than there ever used to be.”

John goes on: “We still keeping finding new places, new towns and new cities to tour into and play shows. Even in the States, different places open up here and there. There’s a whole other new generation of people out there now who know what’s going on, even in the smaller towns. Back in the ‘80s, you couldn’t just go play 100 Mile House or Red Deer. There was nobody to put on shows and only a small handful of interested people to play to. The scenes for alternative music were very much based primarily in the smaller clubs in the larger cities. If you were a big band, like the Clash, you could tour all the big towns. I’ve found over the years that there are definitely a lot more little towns that’ve opened up, and a lot more little clubs. The scene goes up and down from city to city.”

The topic of online communication brings out more positive remarks from John Wright.

“And now with the Internet being so much more prevalent, people are talking to each other from all over the globe. On the NoMeansNo chat room, you’ve got people from all over the States and Europe exchanging stories, so people become a lot more aware of what’s going on. We’re certainly not the only band who has websites and chat rooms! The Internet’s benefited all bands to some degree. Any kid with a computer can get online and find out about music, and bands, and where they are. And you always have that one individual who’s motivated enough to say: ‘Well, I want to put some shows on, and I want this band to come play in my town!’ And that one guy or girl who has the gumption to track down a band or a manager and get some details and try to make something happen. Quite often you might only play

Even back in the ‘80s it was weird when the promoter would give you money so you could buy some supper!

By Ferdy Belland

this town once; they might promote a few shows and it might not be always great, or it doesn’t last, but the Internet has certainly made it all much, much easier to locate and contact bands, and to hear music. All the iTunes and e-music and stuff now…you put something up, it’s guaranteed that someone out there is going to download it and listen to it.

“I believe that’s good for music. I believe that’s good for small bands. All the negative arguments come from the big publishing houses who are crying the blues because they’re no longer in control of all the music and all the money. I’m not walking around with a T-shirt that reads: ‘Home Taping is Killing the Music Industry.’ Absolutely not. But bands also have to realize that if you want to be a ‘rock star’ and a ‘pop star’ and make millions of dollars, you’ve got to write the kind of music that sells like that, and you’ve got to work for a company that knows how to sell it. But if you like playing your music and don’t expect any huge financial rewards, at least not straight away, then Internet exposure and online networking is great. It’s all about having as many people as possible listening to your music. And I find when I talk about this with people, if they download something they like, generally they’ll go out looking and buy it. People still like to buy music and albums and CDs. They want the whole artistic package. They want the CD and they want the cover and the liner notes and everything else, and often downloading something leads to them buying it. Now that’s not to say that there aren’t tons of people who just fill up their iPods, but they’re not necessarily the type of people who’re going to buy your CD anyway.”

After over a quarter-century’s worth of rocking shows, lengthy tours, long discographies, and winning smiles, John is asked: if Lemmy can still front Motorhead at age 60 and take himself seriously, can we expect to see NoMeansNo shows over the next 15 years? John laughs and answers, “Well, if we’re still having fun and people are having fun and want to come and see us, I’m sure we’ll still be playing shows.” n

CONTENTS MUSIC

reviews Live29

The Accused, Golers, Mass Grave /The Feelers, Rat Fancy, Ladies Night,Vapid / Hezzakya, Next 100 Years, MMF, Hypnopilot / Magnolia Electric Co., Ladyhawk / Pride Tiger, Lions in the Street / Darkest Hour, Misery Signals

Album26

The Adored, AFI, Alcoholic White Trash, All Time Low, The Beige, Les Breastfeeders, Archie Bronson Outfit, The Bronx, Bronwen, Comets on Fire, Cursive, The Dears, Dirty Pretty Things, The Ditty Bops, Steve Earle, Alec Empire, Headlights, Fish Karma, The Futureheads, Gadget, Adam Green, Jenny Piccolo, Last of the Bad Men, Left Alone, The Living End, Malpractice, The Marble Index, Mars Volta, Mastodon, Mercy Killers, Misery Index, Lisa Monique, Oneida, Pere Ubu, The Rosewood Thieves, Seemless, Silversun Pickups, Skinless, Slayer, The Sleepy Jackson, The Strange, Theresa Sokyrka, Subhumans, Supersysrem, Chad VanGaalen, plus the return of Worst CD...

)

dvd30 The Dudesons make Steve-O and Bam look like pussies, plus Marvin Gaye’s world of guns, drugs, and S&M porn.

Book33

Never blow into a woman’s vagina, be careful what you do with that Taco, and squeegee your godammed third eye!

f

games34

Rogue Trooper, Dead Rising: Zombies, the Mall, unlimited weapons.... is this the ultimate game?

The Nerve September 2006 Page 25

CONTENTS The Adored A New Language V2 For me, there are two basic schools of punk these days; there’s the fanatical, political school headed up by labels like Alternative Tentacles, Epitaph, and Fat Wreck Chords, and there’s retro pseudo pop/dance punk pap like Franz Ferdinand and all the crap left on MuchMusic in the wake of Blink 182. While I am a big supporter of the former, the Adored fall squarely in the latter category. This LA quartet hasn’t forgotten the Buzzcocks and they’ll be damned if you’re going to. The trouble there is, if you’ve already got the Buzzcocks, why do you need the Adored?

- Filmore Mescalito Holmes AFI December Underground Interscope AFI has been on the slippery slope to softness ever since 2000’s The Art of Drowning, and it seems that the fire inside of Davy Havok gets a little less oxygen with each new album. December Underground continues the evolution apparent in Sing the Sorrow (2003), with higher production values and increased technique. Somehow - even though the album sounds softer than the last efforts – December Underground features more screaming. Broadly, it’s a little less punky and more arty. AFI needs to let go of its old self, fully finish evolving into

something new and stop trying to recapture what it had eight years ago. Davy Havok is one of those guys who is just starting his descent into madness, and I predict he will release a bunch of uninspired and mediocre music for the next six years, and then blow all of our minds with some crazy shit we never thought was possible. If only there was some sort of time machine so we didn’t have to put up with his crappy RuPaul antics until that opus is created.

- Dale DeRuiter

style, have been playing gigs at high schools to garner some attention from the teen market.

It confuses me that this is being labelled as punk. It’s clearly just power pop with clean production and catchy yet instantly forgettable melodies. Kids take note: guitars and spikey hair do not a punk band make. There is no creativity here, simply a Blink 182 rip off, and despite good musicianship, All Time Low’s best hope is snapping up all the Avril Lavigne fans, once she takes the Sheryl Crow route.

- Stephanie Heney The Beige 01 Independent The Beige couldn’t have picked a more suitable name. Their debut album is inoffensive, delicate, sophisticated and sedative. I know… everything that you would expect us folks at The Nerve to absolutely detest. But the Beige have managed to work their mellowing magic on me. I’m finding it very difficult to shit all over them. Lyrically they are thoughtful and sincere. Musically, it’s an unwavering balance of rootsy and urban, equal parts adventurous and unpretentious. In fact, if there was one thing to be critical of, it’s that the record is a bit too balanced, too monochrome, indeed very beige.

Considering the name again, I can only assume that this was their goal. The Beige’s songs might fit nicely in a playlist along with more spirited tunes, but as an entire album, 01 gets a little bland and eventually just fades into very good background music.

- Devon Cody Les Breastfeeders Les Matins De Grand Soirs Blow the Fuse Hailing from Montreal, Les Breastfeeders squirt out 14 sneaky rock songs on this latest release without an ounce of dribble anywhere. The fact that I don’t understand any of the French lyrics makes it all the better to snap, shimmy and shake to. It makes me want to fill my tiny apartment with as many humans as possible, get a keg, and crank the player and mad dance all over the place. It is fun-splattered whizzedup whip-rock that possesses core body parts without any notice and renders you a slave to the sound. If you were to remain motionless when listening to this, I would seriously check your fucking pulse. Chances are you’re dead.

- Ethyltron Archie Bronson Outfit Derdang Derdang Domino When I hear the words “bluesy-rock” I often envision some type of foul bar band like Blues Hammer and quickly run for cover. Now, these Archie Bronson fellows have me questioning all this by making a pretty damn good record full of some good ol’ boogie ballin’ that thankfully

torso. That’s right. They don’t fuck around with the little bits and pieces. These motherfuckers go right for where the guts are, and there’s no doubt in my mind that they get off on the sound of breaking bones. Even the slow songs are lethal, full of venom and deception. The menacing (love?) song “Dirty Leaves” inspires a sense of both pity and dread.You can’t help but think it was written while brooding over a sharp fuckin’ blade and you wonder if that blade was intended for the lover, or the loved. Dense, dark, and dangerous, the Bronx definitely lives up to their namesake with the best fuckin’ rock album I’ve heard all year!

FUCK! - Devon Cody Bronwen Silent Victim Fat Chance How the fuck am I supposed to review a CD by a recording artist that lives a stones throw away from me? This is the stuff you hear on Commercial Drive where no one wants to tell the girl she is a shitty singer because they are scared that would make them someone who was holding back a budding female artist, and thus they would become an evil woman hater. Which is the biggest fear on Commercial Drive. But since I am way over here in downtown - I can do it. Bronwen, you need to change the way you sing. There is some weird noise that you finish every line with that makes want me kill myself. Oh and this can double for everyone else: stop mic’ing your fucking Ovation acoustic guitars.You all sound like pretentious douches.

- Dale DeRuiter Comets on Fire Avatar Sub Pop Let me address this to the one person out there who reads everything I write: Mom, remember a couple of years ago when I gave

doesn’t suck. This is mostly due to this UK band’s guitar work - which the kids often refer to as “totally wicked”- and the bad-ass production of Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Kings Of Leon). Derdang Derdang just has enough psych, soul and post-punk leanings mixed into the fold to keep this high-strung record interesting and save it from being lost in the clutter of all that rock revivalist stuff clogging your record collection. So, if you hear the grooves of your Black and Pink Mountaintops wearing thin, perhaps you should give the ABO a try.

- BRock Thiessen

The Dears Gang of Losers MapleMusic Originally planned as the third instalment to a trilogy loosely based around “hope and despair”, starting with 2000’s End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story and followed up with No Cities Left in 2004, Gang of Losers seems to snip off all the dangling strings and art school melodrama thus making a straightforward and honest rock record. With some audacious vocal and musical influences mined from Bends-era Radiohead and post-Britpop Blur, GOL almost works best without the borrowed clothes – especially heart-on-sleeve tracks like “There Goes My Outfit” and “Whites Only Party” which successfully highlight Murray Lightburns’ bona fide vocals. But the record certainly rollicks along with the uplifting lead-track “Ticket To Immorality” and gritty “Death Or Life We Want You” and things don’t quell until the midway point, which doesn’t hinder the proceedings. And while the Dears may be “too real” or brooding for some, GOL proves to be a powerhouse of a record and a respectable closer to this chapter of their career.

- Adam Simpkins

expect to find on the dash of Clifford Olsen’s van, the Ditty Bops are sure to appeal to children and weirdos alike. Moon Over the Freeway scoots cheerfully through genres; from folk to jazz, bluegrass to ragtime and around the bend and back again with many of the songs resembling old Broadway show tunes.

You may even find this album playing at a burlesque workshop near you! While it draws heavily from sounds of the ‘20s and ‘30s, it is neither stale nor cheesy, neither old-fashioned nor artsy fartsy. One can’t help but use lots of cutesy words that end in “Y” when describing this music. Spunky, quirky, cheeky, nutty, dainty, even sexy… I could go on, but I’m starting to feel pretty gay. I’m sure I’m gonna take some heat for this one. But I’m tellin’ ya, buy this album, listen to it, and just go ahead and try to cast the first stone. Before you know it, we’ll be holding hands and skipping down Denman together. Just you wait and see…

- Devon Cody Steve Earle Live At Montreux 2005 Eagle Now, it hurts me to slag anything by an artist who I really like, but such are the pitfalls of this glorious and ridiculously lucrative job as a music reviewer for The Nerve Magazine. Duty calls. Sometimes asses need to be kicked - as is the case with Eagle Records’ Live At Montreux 2005. This is lukewarm and unimpressive at best. From with the cheap, Walmart bargain bin

Dirty Pretty Things Waterloo to Anywhere Vertigo Ah sweet Britain. Where would we be without your vast musical talent, innovation and legacy? Rock ‘n’ roll certainly thrives upon

Alcoholic White Trash Punk Rock Jihad Crusty Street punk? Alcoholic White Trash is more like gravel road punk. Seriously, this shit will break your fucking eardrums. Actually, there are a few metallic breakdowns here as well, but the pace and attitude is fast, furious punk. Aside from the infamous “I Shit My Cunt,” there are 12 other tracks here that never slow long enough for you to catch your breath. From start to finish, Punk Rock Jihad is a fiery slam-fest of wailing guitars and crashing drums. Fans of Millencolin stay the fuck away.

- Chris Walter All Time Low Put Up Or Shut Up Hopeless There are seven tracks on this CD, what the hell is that? An album or an EP? Turns out this

theology is quite ambitious, it’s unfortunately in the delivery and instrumentation that Happy Hollow falls rather flat. Regrettably, Cursive has become very pop-oriented here, ditching most of its aggressive and dissonant qualities for some pretty flaccid indie-rock moves. Instead of jagged guitars, Kasher’s roaring yowl, and that big dark cello from The Ugly Organ, we now have accordions, some feeble vocalizing, a big fancy brass section and even gospel singers.

There are a few moments that aren’t so bad, but it is extremely unlikely that Happy Hollow will dethrone your already favourite Cursive album.

- BRock Thiessen

Comets on Fire a score of one million out of ten for the Blue Cathedral album? Well, Avatar is actually better than Blue Cathedral. This might the first time a masterpiece has been trumped by its sequel since Godfather II. The similarities don’t end there. Remember when they kill Fredo in the boat? Avatar has relatively serene moments, like “Jaybird” and “Lucifer’s Memory”, the latter giving Ethan Miller the chance to croon a little. When the psychotic echoplex stormfront of Blue Cathedral returns, as it does for most of Avatar, the Comets manage to somehow exercise even more control over their endlessly busy imaginations, which should be impossible. How does it all hold together?

In a nutshell: HOLY FUCK! - Adrian Mack

insert design, to the under-enthusiastic crowd and Earle’s thinly captured solo performance, just about everything about this release is proof that - even with one of today’s most gifted and charismatic songwriters in its corner - a record company can find a way to fuck things up when on the hunt for a quick cash grab. Speaking of people fucking things up, perhaps the only moment on the album that really rises above lukewarm comes at the end of “Condi Condi” (a song inspired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) when Earle shouts out “I love that bitch!”

- Devon Cody

your shores. Unfortunately, the rules of said industry state quite clearly that a doped up loser with a supermodel skank girlfriend will get far more media attention than a talented musician and songwriter. And so it goes for poor old Carl Barat, former member of the Libertines and bandmate of Pete Doherty.

What an irony that Waterloo… is a masterpiece of jangly guitar pogo punk tunes that are raw and fresh; reminiscent of the Jam’s greatest moments. Who cares? He’s not throwing things at journalists or going into rehab. Well, music lovers, you should care. This is British talent at its finest: rebellious, innovative and real (best track by far is “You F*ckin Love it”). Perhaps when Pete finally overdoses and (hopefully) takes Kate with him in the process, Carl will at least vicariously get some press interest.

- Stephanie Heney

Alec Empire Futurist Digital Hardcore Say, remember when Alec Empire was a force to be reckoned with? When Atari Teenage Riot’s rabble-rousing actually awakened our suppressed fears and passions? OK, think way back then. No? Nothing? Well, I’m sure there was a time – a long time ago, kids. Empire has since ditched the Riot and the trigger-happy drum machines for a more organic, punk rock approach, but he’s still growling about, um, let’s see here: corruption (bad!), violence (only if necessary!), capitalism (not on my watch!), false idols (yo momma!), etc etc. But still, as dated and clichéd as it seems, Futurist isn’t really a bad album after all. It’s genuinely refreshing hearing Empire’s material toned down for a minute, even if his rants sound like my diary from junior high… if I had lived in war-torn Berlin.

- Adam Simpkins

The Ditty Bops Moon Over the Freeway Warners While it’s not exactly the kind of album you’d

Headlights Kill Them With Kindness Polyvinyl Sometimes a nice big break-up can be the

ALBUM

is a record company ‘special’ EP to showcase a forthcoming album. It contains a few new tracks, and a bunch from All Time Low’s first full-length. All Time Low is a Fall Out Boy clone, with big marketing bucks behind it.

The band have all just graduated and, Tiffany-

The Bronx The Bronx II Island Crank this fucker up, strap on your shaheed vest, and run headlong screaming toward rock and roll jihad! The Bronx is back with more music to detonate bombs to! Bloody hell this some good shit! These fuckers have it down.

Their sophomore album is intelligent, ferocious, and cruising just under the stagnant surface of the mainstream like a goddamn great white on a mission to take a big fuckin’ hunk outta your

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Cursive Happy Hollow Saddle Creek Well, Tim Kasher’s Cursive has finally pulled itself together again to follow up the highly praised Ugly Organ LP. Like most Cursive records, the new one is some kind of concept album, which this time revolves around uncovering the absurdity surrounding that Jesus guy and basically Christianity. While Kasher’s sermon full of holy wars and false

MUSICCONTENTS REVIEWS best thing that ever happens to someone. Not everyone likes to agree, but at least this seems to be the case with Polyvinyl’s latest darlings, Headlights. After the dissolution of their old band, Absinthe Blind, these Champaign, Illinois natives picked themselves back up again and started anew as Headlights. Now on their first full-length, Kill Them With Kindness, this trio has released a fine array of wistful boy-girl pop songs, with a few entirely addictive rock numbers thrown in, like the anthemic “Put Us Back Together Right” and “Lions.” Resembling their peers Human Television and Love is All, the band also draws heavily from a lot of British indie-pop and then piles on layers of electronics and jumping synth lines. Thankfully, enough hooks and clever song ideas are here to save Headlight’s strong debut from being filed under either derivative or mundane.

- BRock Thiessen Fish Karma The Theory Of Intelligent Design Alternative Tentacles Fish Karma is a perfect fit for Jello Biafra’s label.

Comedian/songwriter Terry Owen’s lyrics hit all the hot button political topics surrounding the sheer havoc the American Christian right is inflicting on their own country and the world. His vocals come off as both tongue-incheek and tongue-a-flyin’ over a bizarre set of tunes wandering back and forth between Bob Dylan-esque jangles and early ‘90s metal (ooh, a tribute to Ronnie James Dio!). The opening Schwarzenegger saviour track “Fifty Calibre Christ” is worth the price of admission alone.

See? The revolution doesn’t have to be boring.

- Filmore Mescalito Holmes The Futureheads News and Tributes 679 News and Tributes is full of all the toe-tapping goodness of their previous album but with a bigger glossier sound. At first I found the more complex song writing a bit of a deterrent but then welcomed the change as the band is

evolving into something bigger than its past self.

Perfect timing too, because we all totally hate angular dance rock now. For fucksakes it’s been almost two years – that shit is tired.

- Dale DeRuiter 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 with a wretched display of metal from “Choked” all the way to “Tingens Föbannelse”. Luckily, you get a song like “Everyday Ritual” to give you a couple of minutes to recover, though the bloody shit flies again with the crunchy cum explosion of “Day of the Vulture”. From start to finish you get 17 tracks that are mostly less than two minutes long and abuse the senses to such a degree, you can’t but help but feel proud that you survived listening to it.

- David Von Bentley

past seven years.

- Devon Cody

Green himself says, “How many drugs does it take to find something to say?” Well, obviously more then you took Adam.

- BRock Thiessen Jenny Piccolo S/T Three One G Power violence pioneers Jenny Piccolo had a short-lived career banging out ridiculously efficient songs which occasionally proved that epic ain’t always better. Their first (and final) cd contains every recording put to tape by the band (2 EP’s, an LP, a split 5” with the Locust and a split 10” with Asterisk*) – that’s 52 tracks in a measly 36 minutes: it doesn’t take a Will Hunting to figure out how economical the bulk of these tracks are. So what you get is an arsenal of heavy bass, speed/doom metal explosions which work on occasion (like the lengthier-ish “Have You Seen My Tanks” and “Cyanide Inhaler”), but more often than not, the lump of material on this discography is simple, random noise bursts without much substance. Though purists will no doubt revel in this collection, those with an untamed ear and new to the PV scene might want to start with something a little less intense.

- Adam Simpkins The Last of the Bad Men Nowhere is Safe DHD The kick ass combo of Radio Birdman’s Dennis Tek, and the Godoy boys of Exploding Fuck Dolls fame is back again, this time as the Last of the Bad Men. Along with Troy Zak (bass) and Danny Creadon (vocals), they bring forth an offering of apocalyptic punk rock that is fuelled by adrenaline and delivered with necessity.

Built from a blueprint of influences that seems to scan decades, all of it amalgamated in a foundation of solid talent, Nowhere Is Safe – despite the name - provides a last bastion for punk in these prefabricated and manufactured times. Without any signs of slowing down, Dennis Tek’s guitar playing screams authenticity, leaving room for lyrics that feel like little slap in the face wake up calls wrapped in well warranted attitude.You would be doing yourself a real disservice if you didn’t sear these songs into your brain and make them a way of life. We would all be better off for it if you did.

- Ethyltron Left Alone Dead American Radio Hellcat This is straightforward and very fucking catchy streetpunk with a saxophone, pedal steel player, and an organist thrown in for good measure. Despite these little flourishes, Dead American Radio remains very honest sounding and genuine. What sets this apart from, say, the Mercy Killers? The vocals mostly; they’ve got heart and aren’t wimpy. The songs stuck in my head after just one listen, and I can tell this will go into heavy rotation as I sit here in front of the computer, trying to make sense of a world that defies logic.

- Chris Walter

Malpractice Deviation From the Flow Spinefarm I gotta be honest here: the only reason I listened to this CD was because I love the Faith No More song “Malpractice”. If you go to YouTube, you gotta check out Mike Patton performing “Malpractice” with Dillinger Escape Plan live. OK, now that the good part is over, we are off to the land of progressive Finlandian metal, with its soaring vocals, shiny bright epic riffs, and Wagnerian solos. I just wretch at these bands, yes I said wretch! I hate sad men making music for old men who go to music stores looking for album art with futuristic space backgrounds. Malpractice is no different from the rest of ‘em, doing the more mature Iron Maiden sound without any of the fun (ie. Eddy, and long hair with short bangs, as perfected

by Bruce Dickinson for the Somewhere in

Time tour). From the song “Assembly Line” to “Fragile Pages”, Deviation From the Flow offers anything but. Each number is a painful repeat of the one that precedes it, with maybe a different tempo, or an occasional polyrhythmic riff thrown in to spice up the life of the balding old men with pony tails who make up Malpractice’s target audience.

- David Von Bentley

They incontestably have their own sound, synthesized from a ton of influences, and buried under big mounds of curly black hair (but not those curly black hairs). But still - is it just me, or is this sound old already, a mere three albums in?

- David Von Bentley

cockles.

- David Von Bentley

Mastodon Blood Mountain Warner Music Your old friends Brent, Brann, Bill, and Troy are back with a kick in the sac for every track. With their previous full length works (2002’s Remission and 2004’s Levithan) setting the magical scepter pretty fucking high in this humble mortal’s opinion, I didn’t think Mastodon would be able to climb those mountain peaks yet again. But these feisty cock cutters - with their brutal riffs, groovy jams, and tripped out album art by Paul Ramano - are a band apart. They continually improve their product with each release, this time utilizing the three vocalist dynamic far more frequently and with better range, while the clean-but-dirty production keeps improving, too. The tranquil sludge of “Sleeping Giant”, or “Colony of Birchman” (which features Josh Homme) – with its grinding groove - define a bridge of new school/old school metal as filtered through the brain pan of a skateboarding Cysquatch. Mythical Monsters rejoice, because finally you have bards to sing your praises with class.

- David Von Bentley Mercy Killers Bloodlove Hellcat Hmm… not sure about this one. At first listen, Bloodlove sounds like the slickly produced punk rock one would expect from the good folks at Hellcat, but I’m waiting to see if any of these tunes will stick in my memory. I just went over to turn it up, not down, so that’s a good sign.

Lise Monique and the Wintermitts Alouette E.P. Red Riot Very nice indeed. Just a lil’ duo (no drums?), guided by Monique’s guitar and soothing, husky, ponderous croon. The clincher for me, though – having seen them live (with drums) – is David Manzl on acoustic bass, accordion, harmonica, and glockenspiel. That xylophone-in-a-box in particular really warms the cockles. “Que Toi”, a dark polka circus waltz, is heavy on the accordion and sung in French. As a rule, I think it’s an awful idea to sing in French. Even when it’s your native language. But the Wintermitts squeak by – and not just because their CD comes wrapped in a gorgeous screen-printed felt tea cozy; I suppose dreams can speak in any language. FRANCAIS INCLUS. “Late Night Riot” – the gentlest riot in history – manages a dab of hot’n’snarky ‘tude, but mostly Alouette is a big sleepy electrode-free acoustic burn-out... full of druggy, druggy xylophones. Soooo.... druggy. Aaaahhh.. um aha... eeeeeee. I like.

- Dave Bertrand Oneida Happy New Year Jagjaguar Fast on the heels of last year’s The Wedding, Oneida have somehow already managed to spit out another brilliantly eclectic, yet remarkably coherent, album full of pure psych goodness.

However, not all was well for the band during the sessions that would become Happy New Year, and this is quite evident in the album’s somber atmosphere and lyrics. The boys purposefully recorded their album knowing their Brooklyn-based studio would soon be bulldozed (and now is) to make way for some trendy new housing development. This

The Marble Index Watch Your Candles,Watch Your Knives Maple Music If the Strokes were a power trio from Hamilton, they would be called the Marble Index. In order to get that reference, be sure to factor in the influence of growing up

Now I can hear that this CD is tight and catchy but somewhat commercial sounding; perfect for aging punk rockers such as me but not as good for fans of GG Allin or, say, Toxic Narcotic.

Uh, oh, the kiss of death…

- Chris Walter Misery Index Discordia

listening to Can-rock and the well-publicised Canuck predilection for cleanliness. Said cleanliness is manifested here in the form of sparkling production, which works much to the detriment of singer Brad “Julian” Germain’s less than spectacular vocal capabilities, thus made obvious. I like to support Canadian artists and all, but I have to give this a meh.

- Filmore Mescalito Holmes

profiteering has left an overly sad and anxious tone, as well as a great deal of depth, all over Oneida’s own brand of kraut-influenced hymns.

While this record might not make you want to slash your wrists, it’s not going to crack any smiles either. When Oneida finally joins its recently deceased studio in rock heaven, this will be remembered as one of their strongest and most vital records.

- BRock Thiessen Pere Ubu Why I Hate Women Smog Veil I confess utter ignorance to Pere Ubu’s 30 years as avante-garde rock monoliths. But while busing home from work, crammed in past capacity, body-heat festering and this creepy weirdness polluting my ears, I got so sick I nearly puked all over a Pakistani gentleman.

And yet I just couldn’t turn it off. Singer and only remaining founding member David Thomas suits his burger’n’fries namesake (he’s obese), and blabbers indecipherable poetic genius like a drooling paraplegic. The band spurts and bops with heavy bass guitar, ODs on theremin and faulty electronics, out space-rocks Hawkwind, out arty-weirds the Velvets... it’s like LSD made from a child’s broken dreams. “Blue Velvet” knocks out Badalemanti’s own spooky greasebar cool, while “Texas Overture” spends six minutes describing great things to eat in the Lonestar State. One particular stormer of a tune has Thomas howling (I think) “Canned Heat” over and over again. In the movie of my life, if it were to end with me sprawled out in a crummy city playground littered with needles and broken condoms, dizzy under a sparkling crescent moon, vomiting up a handful of mushrooms and red wine and roast turkey carcass and dying ungracefully, and this scene was meant to be awkwardly funny – here’s the soundtrack.

- Dave Bertrand

REVIEWS

Adam Green Jacket Full of Danger Rough Trade Well, aren’t we lucky? Mr. Adam Green has again stepped up to crap out his second stinker in a row. I believe at this point, it is safe to say that Green’s pool of creativity has completely run itself dry. Don’t get me wrong here; I totally loved Friends of Mine, but this album is just brimming with bad ideas. With Jacket Full of Danger Green has made the bad choice to rough up his crooner-like vocals and somehow forgot how to write a decent hook or melody.

Also, all the wit, intelligence and good taste that made him great to begin with have completely vanished here, having been replaced by horribly boring lyrics and songs that sound like some crappy Led Zeppelin leftovers. Like

The Living End State of Emergency Adeline I’ve always thought the Living End were a little overrated. Mind you, I’ve only listened to one of their albums prior to this and from the bit of homework I’ve done, that album (Modern Artillery) seems to be the one that even diehard fans are critical of. This follow up seems to be making up for things, as most of the reviews I’ve read have been very positive. While the album didn’t really knock my socks off, it does shake the foundation of my indifference toward the band. Production is super slick and the songs lend themselves to redundant radio play. Something I find both a blessing and a curse. The gritty kick-in-the-teeth intensity of “What’s On Your Radio?” is a little lacking throughout the album, but I’ll gladly take all these songs over Panic Channel or any of the shit the Chili Peppers have squirted out in the

The Mars Volta Amputechture Universal Smoking weed makes a lot of things seem far better than they are when you’re straight.

When does Clash of Titans seem like a good rental, for instance? After you smoked a fat blunt, that’s when. Being stone cold sober these days, I find myself listening to the Mars Volta’s Amputechure with mixed emotions, feeling pleased and unsatisfied in about equal measure.You see, when I hear songs like “Tetragrammaton” or “Day of the Baphomets” running on with grooves and weird fucking jamming sporadically placed between nonsensical noise, I can’t help but think, ‘If I was high I’d love this’. That’s my problem. I’m a sober addict and need to be on a different plane to appreciate this completely. I don’t, however, need to be as high as Christian Slater during a game of random grab-ass to appreciate – on a technical level - the musical genius of MV masterminds Omar and Cedric.

Relapse Four dudes from Washington and Baltimore, Misery Index has produced an intense, unusually satisfying album, built on old influences drawn from the most breakneck genres of music. With speed and screaming being forefront, the band also establishes a cool groove with an almost melodic feel between the hemorrhoidal blast beat explosions. I think Misery Index would do well to serve its ball-smackery with a few more breakdown riffs, like in the song “Discordia”, just to give the audience a few more moment to digest the vomit spewed at them everywhere else, but all and all, this is one of the better cunt kicking albums I’ve heard in recent times. When someone loves what they do, it comes through, and the sausage suckers in Misery Index clearly love the sonic discharges flying from their

The Rosewood Thieves From The Decker House EP V2 John Lennon moved to New York City.

The Nerve September 2006 Page 27

CONTENTS - David Von Bentley

The Rosewood Thieves moved to New York City. The similarities don’t stop there. Given the benefit of 26 years, the Thieves do tap into newer styles of rock, as one would expect, and so this EP is basically a Lennon voice singing through a broken mic over six modern indie takes on Abbey Road tracks. For a debut, there’s definitely some promise, but they really need to find their own voice. The one they have now is blatantly borrowed.

- Filmore Mescalito Holmes Seemless What Have We Become Equal Vision If you already have plenty of Trivium and Corrosion of Conformity albums then you won’t need this, because it is simply going to inundate your record collection with more of the same, making you look one dimensional and a bit too much into hard rock. If you don’t have lots of hard rock albums, then don’t buy this, buy Black Sabbath’s greatest hits to fill that void. Either way, there is nothing new here. Melodic emo vocals juxtapose with hardcore guitars and occasional screeching. Sound familiar? As if the market wasn’t already flooded completely with this sort of thing, the record company are pushing this as Seemless’ ‘breakthrough’ album, having already released a first album of much of the same. Do we really need any more ‘nu’ metal/rock/grunge acts? Especially ones that are simply a pastiche of what’s been done a million times already? Great album artwork though.

- Stephanie Heney Silversun Pickups Carnavas Dangerbird Should we be excited or horrified that not only are we already in the midst of a full-blown ‘90s alternative rock revival but that it may have already reached its saturation point? On first listen, this debut from Silversun Pickups offers nothing new or original for the listener. The fuzzedout bass line courtesy of Nikki Monninger on “Little Lover’s So Polite” lindicates that this band might be fantastic live, but the studio production is too slick, and grittiness is sorely absent. “Three Seed” has the androgynous voice of lead singer/guitarist Brian Aubert bringing forth visions of Billy Corgan and the Pumpkins in Seattle, rocking it out with Alice in Chains and the cast of Singles, but the likes of Dinosaur Jr. or Veruca Salt already did this album, and they did it so much better.

- Caren Tereschak Skinless Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead Relapse This band is awesome! First of all - look at the cover art.

It’s some dude in a gas mask with a shotgun, in a postapocalyptic world, with the cheesy Skinless logo, which consists of bones and dripping flesh spelling out their name. Then “Overlord” starts things off with a sample from

Slayer Christ Illusion American Slayer: hardcore motherfuckers who compromise for no one, spewing hateful lyrics about anything controversial and then serving it to you on your mother’s yeast infected cunt. Christ Illusion continues the tradition, with songs about the sham of organized religion, and whatever happens to be the most tender topic in the public’s mind currently; in this case, the September 11th themed “Jihad”. Fans have been looking forward to the return of drummer Dave Lombardo to pound the skins harder than I beat the meat after being in a sweaty man filled Slayer mosh pit, arguing that the creativity dipped after he departed the band after 1990’s Seasons in the Abyss. But I say those fools need to take a pill filled with the cum of Satan. The drummer in a band like this is far more important than most, but ain’t nobody gonna change the writing style of Kerry King, ya dig.

I can say that if you’re a fan you won’t be disappointed with this mostly King written album. But don’t expect Seasons 2: More Abyss.

- David Von Bentley The Sleepy Jackson Personality Virgin When Lovers came out in 2003, Luke Steele, aka the Sleepy Jackson, was crowned a genius by the press and hailed as the next coming of Brian Wilson. Whether this was rightly deserved or just another product of hype is a matter of opinion. With Personality Steele still pays tribute to his influences, which makes this a mixture of John Lennon, Prince and later-era Mercury Rev (Dave Fridmann was to produce this, but it regrettably didn’t happen). Where Personality is significantly different to its predecessor is that the eclectic nature of Lovers has given away to uniformity, which isn’t actually so bad. The problem is you can really hear Steele using way too many studio hours striving to make this record greater than it ever possibly could be.

Nothing here is even close to Lovers’ “Good Dancers” or “Rain Falls For Wind.” I’m sorry to say, but the sophomore slump has hit again.

- BRock Thiessen The Strange s/t Strangemusic Please no. Stop now. Ok, I have heard enough. Skip a Track.

Sounds the same. Skip a track. Sounds the same. The lead singer is such a Jeff Buckley wanna be, I am sure the Mr. Buckleys (Sr. & Jr.) are trying to resurrect themselves from the dead just to come back and kick this guy’s ass. Please make it stop now. Oh wait - there is a bit of fuzz box guitar.

Must be the climax of the (yawn) record. Although I just can’t get the time back, at least this record is forgettable.

Whiny fucks.

- Ethyltron Theresa Sokyrka Something is Expected MapleMusic Notable for coming second in Canadian Idol’s season two, this is the second album from Saskatoon-native-withUkranian-roots Sokyrka (pronounced SO-CARE-KA, before it drives you insane thinking about it). Her first post-Idol album of standards and covers went gold in Canada and earned her a Juno Award. This is the ‘difficult’ second album, all self-penned, and self-funded. Sounding (and looking) a little like Lisa Loeb, Sokyrka writes songs that are bluesy, laid back and heartfelt; real coffee shop background players.

Her vocal style is irritatingly Nelly Furtado-esque and she often comes across like a Jewel tribute act. True, she is a very accomplished singer and musician, it’s just unfortunate that her ‘thing’ has been done a million times before. It would have been a really smart move to team up with a good songwriter rather than do it herself, as the songs are unmemorable and ultimately, pale into insignificance when compared to the acts she imitates.

- Stephanie Heney Subhumans (Canada) New Dark Age Parade G7 Welcoming Committee I am no longer surprised to see punk bands that I listened to in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s reunite and release new albums. I am surprised when the band in question has almost all the original members and makes a record that sounds just

one of the Planet of the Apes movies (I have no idea which one), and some simian yelling about letting the human bastards blow themselves up with nukes. That’s the cue for Skinless to blow your atoms away with old school death metal boasting less than minimal amounts of progression and tons of gut chucking vocals. Designed to fuel your bloodlust, Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead says so much with so little. Basically, it says “Kill!” This is Jason Keyser’s first stab at vocals after Sherwood Webber’s departure, and he delivers all the ggrr/rrawr!!! that your momma can handle in the nasty sack. These murder crusaders even do a cover of Black Sabbath’s “Wicked World” with some success (more than you can say for most death metal interpretations of the big B.S.). Skinless is mindless, careless, and meaningless. And it’s the best.

years, not decades, apart from the last album. Indeed, this record sounds so much like their earlier work that it is hard

to believe that 26 years have passed since the Subhumans released Incorrect Thoughts. Jon Card kicks off New Dark Age Parade with a percussive blast and the pace never lets up once. Jon is the only non-original member here, but as the powerhouse behind the legendary Personality Crisis, he is uniquely qualified for the job. One of the advantages of having so many original members is that the new songs sound very much like the old ones and are every bit as angry.

All three principals pen songs here and, unsurprisingly, the subject matter is largely political. I’ve always liked how the Subhumans can make political statements without preaching, and the fact that the lyrics are easy to hear. Brian (Wimpy Roy) Gobles has many dark observations of the world we live in, and it’s easy to see how working as an outreach worker on the Downtown Eastside has affected his song writing. Let’s just say that it’s extremely unlikely that he voted for Gordon Campbell in the last BC election. But enough talk of politics lest we scare the kids away. If you choose not to listen to the message, there is enough adrenaline and supercharged guitar to keep even the most brain-dead punk happy. Welcome back, boys. Please don’t make us wait another 26 years for the next album.

- Chris Walter Supersystem A Million Microphones Touch and Go Continuing forth from its weirdly wonderful days as El Guapo, the newly christened Supersystem has created, without a doubt, its finest work to date with A Million Microphones. By taking elements of disco-punk, organic electro and worldbeat (but not in that affected, David Byrne/Peter Gabriel kind of way), the 11 tracks here are significantly disparate from the next, yet still manage to coalesce for the greater good of the album. Not only that, but lyrically AMM is miles ahead of its rock cum dance peers (!!!, the Rapture or the Faint) with its use of rich imagery and unconventional turns of phrase. A richly layered and textured record that becomes more engrossing with each successive listen, this is a definite contender for album of the year.

- Adam Simpkins Chad VanGaalen Skelliconnection Sub Pop Chad VanGaalen’s music can stir some rather strange emotions sometimes. It’s a bit skewed, a bit left-of-center, and even a bit foreign, yet it originates from some dusty basement situated deep under the desert that is Calgary, Alberta. His new album, Skelliconnection, now quickly picks up where his Sub-Pop debut left off and follows in his tradition of surreal song-craft. Like its predecessor, there is still a handful of restless ballads, the odd broken beat circling some synths and even some full-on rock numbers like the superb “Dead Ends,” which prove that you don’t need 10 people in your band to create something that’s sonically big. Throughout all the genre-jumping,VanGaalen’s tales of pterodactyls, headless corpses, and broken hearts are always held in check by his potent voice, and it never feels fractured or disjointed. Overall, Skelliconnection is an entirely rewarding record, which should give Albertans a reason to hold their heads a little higher.

- BRock Thiessen

WORST CD OF THE MONTH Jamie Kennedy & Stu Stone Blowin’ Up JKSS Any sane man nearing his fifth decade may face this transitional time with some fearful trepidation: the glaring realization that youth is a thing for the young, getting food on the table is ultimately more pressing than fabricating poon fables and maybe, just maybe, it’s time to, like, grow up. Thankfully for us nearing the “prime of our life”, with our receding hairlines and unavoidable beer guts, 36-year old Jamie Kennedy is here to bring out our inner 12-year old. Wasting no time on this album of upper-echelon, urbane comedic savvy, JK and DJ/producer pal Stu Stone coo over the wonders of those tasty milk-secreting, glandular organs found on the chests of womankind (“Circle Circle Dot Dot”) – you know, boobies. I’m finding it difficult to type this as I’m actually in stitches thinking about them, but I digest. If that track is a little too Bloodhound Gang-gauche for you, fret not. Bob Saget comes to the rescue next for the single (!) aptly called “Rollin’ w/ Saget” – because you know nothing is cooler than hitting the clubs with a 50-year old never-was who currently makes a living cracking wise about finger-banging Kimmy Gibbler. And somehow I made it through this whole album without grinning once (OK, I have to admit, earlier I was shamefully exercising the absolute lowest form of wit: sarcasm).

These two boobs make Weird Al and Jeff Foxworthy seem like Stephen Leacock and Lucian. However, if you’ve got the sense of humour of a retarded chimp and are amused by songs about lisping gays, Kennedy’s bent cock, feigned beefs directed at Colin Farrell and Ashton Kutcher, and the typical self-confident tirades about, well, blowin’ up, this piece of ear-shit might be right up your alley.

- Adam Simpkins

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The Accüsed / Golers / Mass Grave The Cobalt,Vancouver, BC Friday, August 4th, 2006 Considering the guys in Mass Grave play like fucking lunatics, it surprised me that the crowd responded with about as much energy as the vegetables who went to see Tanya Tucker the night before in Richmond. I mean really… it looked like these guys would spontaneously rupture every goddamn blood vessel from the shoulders up whenever they screamed into the mics! And the crowd just sat around like Sam Sullivan on a throat-load of valium?! For god’s sakes people, show these boys some love! You know, sometimes all it takes is a simple hug. I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys went and stuck cinnamon toothpicks into the eyes of little puppies after the set to vent their frustration. Poor sweet little puppies.

The Golers took the stage while puppy eyes were being poked and fucked up. Well, I should say the drummer fucked up. Apparently, he had had a few too many wobbly pops before the show and couldn’t keep with the blitzkrieg pace of their music. They tried a couple songs, in vain, before the drummer lumbered off stage and out the door. Singer Charlie Goler was obviously pissed at the shenanigans so I’m sure there was a good scrap later back at the Goler pad with plenty of ferocious hair and beard pulling.

Speaking of shenanigans… I’m surprised no one got hurt during the Accüsed set. For chrissakes, there were skaters doing bomb drops off the stage into a pit full of fuckin’ maniacs you would swear were amped up on PCP and craving human flesh. The fact that no one got carted out with a set of trucks implanted into their skull and nobody was victim to some random act of cannibalism is a small miracle. Due to the skepticism toward the new line up, the Accüsed had some work to do to. And while I must admit they played like raving motherfuckers, putting on a show that would send nuns into seizures, I did miss Blaine Cook’s vocals.

“Psychomania” in particular revealed that the new singer doesn’t have the same range.

Rather than sounding like a wounded beast from hell with electrodes on his testicles, he just sounded like a wounded beast from hell.

Poor sweet little beast from hell.

- Devon Cody The Feelers / Rat Fancy / Ladies Night / Vapid Pub 340,Vancouver, BC Friday, Aug 18th, 2006 While a whole lot of you rock’n’rollers were chugging beer with The Nerve staff on the high seas, those of us on dry land and in the know were at Pub 340 spazzin’ out to the distorted filth of the Feelers, a six piece punk outfit from Columbus, Ohio... Well, we would have been but they never made it across the damn border! Add one more fuckin’ thing to the growing list of things you can’t travel with - the Feelers. Bastards.

But of course we don’t find this out until we’ve forked over our seven dollar cover and are milling about the bar waiting for the first opening band to... ah... stop. But with gin’n’tonic in hand my mood perks up with the news that Seattle’s Rat Fancy somehow made it up into Canada and are busy getting into the swing of things – ‘things’ being the free bar tab. The night is startin’ to look up. And as Rat Fancy takes to the stage I know the gathering crowd is about to be splattered in a sticky pile of trash-punk.

With members hailing from such killer bands as Tractor Sex Fatality, Intelligence, Flying Dutchmen, and the Sultanas, it’s no wonder that two songs in I’m charmed by the frontman’s gruff snarls, the antics of the “headless” drummer and the awesome female guitarist.

A great set and perfect introduction for the phenomenal wastoid blaring punk confusion that is Vancouver’s Ladies Night.

Always a show to see, the boys of Ladies Night did not disappoint, in fact this is the best I’ve seen them. Front man Levon seems to have settled even further into his arrogant charisma; rocketing a wooden chair through the crowd and battling his way against dancing bodies in the most fucked up delightful blaze of distorted punk. Fantastic. In the end the bar was covered in typical Ladies Night destruction: shattered glass, a broken chair, sprayed beer and a happily destroyed crowd. Not too bad for a local headliner.

- Jenny C. Hezzakya / Next 100 Years / MMF / Hypnopilot Waldorf Hotel,Vancouver, BC Friday, August 11th, 2006 I’ve never seen the Waldorf this crowded with eagerly excitable longhairs and strutting hotties. The specially-rented PA system rivalled that of the Cobalt, and given the theme of the night, SPM’s uber-promoter Sean McKay made a (dare I say) sound decision. MMF wasted no

The Accused

BOTH PHOTOS: DEVON CODY

s k s s s, s s y. e e g, y e n s n s e r e r

LIVE MUSICCONTENTS REVIEWS

Hezzakya time in kicking the event off on a boom-crashbang note, as Jonas (Sir Hedgehog / Imperial Dragon vocalist) flailed away behind the drumkit in his best Ginger Baker / Bill Ward manner.

He was accompanied by a raven-haired beauty named Anna, standing long-legged in knee-high black boots, dealing out triumphant pre-’73 Iommi-style riffs with the stoner rock weapon of choice, the Gibson SG. The Next 100 Years are as much adventurous psychedelia as Sabbathon rifferama. They’re unafraid to unveil electric violins within carefully-paced instrumental ascensions - which is effective, and certainly not a lame gimmick.

While they appeared somewhat reserved, N100Y were tight as a drum and nicely elevated the electricity of the room.

Carl Spackler will be happy to know that it was Hezzakya’s night by a long chalk. With new vocalist Rob’s thrilling Cornellian vocal swordsmanship, the Mark-II lineup of Vancouver’s finest stoner-rock ensemble sees Hezzakya coming of age. Older material from their debut album Drug Metal has been kicked up a notch, while the brace of new songs is stronger than ever. And they know it, too.

Hezzakya could have played for hours and I would have loved it, but then we wouldn’t have heard Hypnopilot, who drove in from Calgary to show us what wheatfed stoner rock sounds like east of the Rockies. Hezzakya was a tough act to follow, but the plucky young power trio dove into it and kept the crowd rolling along.

While not possessing the instrumental flash of Next 100 Years, the sturm-und-drang overlord power of Hezzakya, or visual magnetism of MMF, Hypnopilot wasn’t substandard by any stretch. A criminally overlooked hard-rock subgenre received a moment of supernova glory on a very fine Waldorf Friday night indeed.

- Ferdy Belland

taken aback so I had to backtrack quickly, I was already losing them. “There are two types of fruity,” I explained. “One type is the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy with the nose, being all ironic and snotty fruity. That is the bad kind.

The good kind is the kind you can smoke a joint with and watch some Snipes shit on Spike TV for – like - hours. Like a black guy that likes Broken Social Scene or a white dude into crunk. There is a good and bad in everything.

Magnolia is the good kind of fruity, emotional yet intense, with a beautiful sincerity.This lead me to a great title for this review and I promised myself that I’d use it if the show sucked.

Which it did. Just jokes. But, I thought that the show sucking was almost inevitable when I showed up to Rick’s on Ricks and that little girl from Blood Meridian said that the show was cancelled due to flooding. At that point I was flooded with the feeling that I could use my review title. Then she ruined it all by saying that they were playing a secret show at the Marine Club. A secret show. That doesn’t suck. That isn’t horrible. Jesus. How can I write my review without the night sucking. I got nothing.

Panicking, we ran outta Rick’s and headed up to the Marine club, alongside a slew of bikes that were portaging their way down the streets, and a stampede of vans slip ons and tight plaid shirts and even tighter jeans. Pointy shoes. Is it me or is the ranch hand look getting out of control? Still no one has the balls to rock the Cowboy hat.

We get to the Marine Club and there is a line-up like old Jesus to get a drink. We decide to payoff some dudes to buy us drinks and head to the front. Ladyhawk takes the stage and rocks the joint with a “jazzy” (their words,not mine) 20 minute set that was really good.They were all pretty drunk which always helps. They played their standard hits which drove the crowd of young girls in front of me wild. Big hits with the ladies I guess.

As Jason Molina and Electric Co were preparing, I decided that I didn’t want to miss any of it, so I bought way too many beers and was drinking at a Nolte-like pace. The band I’d waited a year to see started. They played “Hammer Down” and a few other goodies from What Comes After The Blues and a really good nine-minuter from Trails and Errors which was fantastic. The only problem is when every song is seven minutes and your set is only 20, that’s like three or four songs right?

After the show was over I decided that I was gonna fucking blow my editor away with a killer Magnolia interview, so I made my way to the stage. Jason looked at me kindly and said that he’d love to answer a few questions but, alas, the Nolte-pace of the night screwed me.

All I could ask was, “Are you from Indiana?”

“Chicago”, he replied.

“Oh,” I slurred and lurched away.

“Hey,” Molina said. I turned around hopefully, and he motioned towards my neckerchief.

“I like that thing around your neck,” he said.

“I like yours too,” and I stumbled away into the night.

So, my two cheaply retarded friends didn’t come and the show didn’t suck and I couldn’t use my super funny title for the review, so I guess it sorta sucked for me. WAIT! JUST WAIT A MINUTE! - waltergeist Pride Tiger / Lions in the Streets / The Pumas / Cougartown / The Plain Old House Cats The Cobalt,Vancouver, BC Saturday, August 19th, 2006 Okay, so there really wasn’t a feline themed party going on at the Cobalt on August 19th, despite Wendy 13 calling me a pussy. What there was however was a totally paw-tapping good time. I missed the first act and, sorry to say, don’t know who they were. But the lead singer was a bit tubby, which is fucking awesome. I always like seeing guys who are a bit tubby, like myself. Next time I see him, it’s a hearty back slap for that guy. His band is clearly amazing.

After soaking my shoes in the urine that was spilling up from the drain in the guys bathroom, the Lions took the stage. They were great. What can I say - they blasted a set that was circa Them or even Thin Lizzy at their best, a little bit Exile on Main Street, a little bit stoner rock, with just a dash of cock rock. I almost creamed my jeans when they broke out the acoustic for a few rock ballads. Genius.

So what’s the deal with the older guy? Is that somebody’s Dad making sure the kids don’t get into trouble? If so, that dad should be reported because I believe that one or maybe more of these little kittens were having drinks. Still, despite the guy with the jewfro’s hat, this band was exceptional.

After a short break to discuss Stanley Kubrick over joints with a certain editor, which totally blew me out of the water, I went back in to see Pride Tiger. These guys were pretty sweet. Kinda like Kyuss. Lots of changes. It got a bit much towards the end, but overall was rewarding. I hear that these dudes threw a huge party right down the street from my house.

Thanks for the invite assholes.

Anyway, I guess to sum it up, Lions are better then Tigers. Everyone knows that. Look at the Thundercats. That head dude was a Lion. He kicked ass. And that lady cat chick, fuck did she

LIVE

Fagnolia Gaylectric Blow / Ladycock Ricks on Ricks,Vancouver, BC Sunday, July 30th, 2006 I have these two friends and I’m not exactly sure yet if they are fucking retarded or just cheap. They profess to love live music but instead of going to see shows, they buy a sixer of Old Mil and download 10 second clips of the new Dylan album which I’m sure is just another Dylan wank. Every time I say, “Hey, lets go see this band”, they start huffing and puffing like a Puffin, a creature that presumaly puffs. I mean, they are called Puffins so if they didn’t puff, then... (this goes on for, like, pages). So then they ask the same old question, “What’s the band like?” When they asked this question about the Magnolia Electric Co./Ladyhawk show, my answer was: kinda fruity. They were

have some tits on her. Sorry about all the cat references. It’s just that I’m a shitty writer.

- Walt Waltergeist Darkest Hour / Misery Signals / From a Second Story Window Richard’s on Richards,Vancouver, BC Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 I first caught Darkest Hour waaaaay back at Ozzfest 2004, where they made everyone else look old, shitty, and fat. A year later, after a gig at Mesa Luna, Darkest Hour and myself somehow ended up at the Drink Nightclub on International Dance Party Night. A DJ shouted, “Hey white people, make some noise!” And all nine of us took a shit.

Not the most original songwriters in the world, Darkest Hour plays straight-up top-shelf melodic Swedish thrash (think: At the Gates, Arch Enemy, the Crown...), and are often mislabeled ‘hardcore’ because – I dunno – DH are intelligent, literate, politically concerned Americans? But it’s blatantly Scandinavian, and nothing new. Thing is, they fucking RULE live. Unparalleled thrash metal mayhem.

Ryan Parrish is the most wildly entertaining stoned-out ADD drummer since Animal.

Frontman/growler John Henry has the nicest, nerdiest, most endearing disposition, while the Mike Schleibaum/Kris Norris/Paul Burnette guitar’n’bass wall’o’riff is pretty much... perfect?

DH is happy to throw a party – no standing around pouting and farting and belching out frustrated machismo.

Interesting note: guitarist Schleibaum looks suspiciously like actor Treat Williams, co-star (along with ape-man Joe Piscopo) of the amazing 1987 action/zombie/comedy Dead Heat.

And while Kris Norris remains king of the ultra-tight guitar chops, Schleibaum seems to have given up his trademark highkicks and frantic seizure freak-outs, and looked noticeably pudgy. Was the Richard’s stage too small? Are there health problems? Am I a cunt? Darkest Hour is 110% metal awesome. Look for them around Vanshitty next year, recording the follow-up to Undoing Ruin with ol’ skullet-head Devin Townsend!

Other stuff – of the four bands,Versus the Mirror never made it; I missed From A Second Story Window completely; and Edmonton’s Misery Signals – questionably billed as co-headliners – really did nothing for me. Their extremely usual sub-Anselmo frontman, thrashy Meshuggah/Yankee/core, and well-coiffed haircut powergroove added up to another competent, but limp, post-millennial hodge-podge with a weary-ass moniker.

– David Bertrand

The Nerve September 2006 Page 29

CONTENTS

FILM

Short Ends SHORTER AND NOT AS FUNNY AS CHEAP SHOTZ you might enjoy:

Hsoi: Hey if you’re looking to score I take novelty cheques Paramount recently ended their 14 year career with Why don’t you draw yourself a new face, ugly Tom Cruise’s production company Cruise/Wagner Suicide is Painless Productions.Viacom chairman, Hey kids, do you often find yourself saying “I really whose company owns Paramount wish someone would make an avant-garde film with is quoted as saying, “It’s nothing lots of weird animations about suicide. Oh and get to do with his acting ability, he’s a Trey Spruance from Faith No More/Mr. Bungle/Seterrific actor... But we don’t think cret Chiefs 3 to score it.”? Well your dreams have that someone who effectuates been answered as The Anna Cabrini Chronicles is comcreative suicide and costs the ing to town. The screening will take place on Tuesday company revenue should be on September 26 at the Pacific Cinematheque (1131 the lot.”

Howe) at 7pm. It’s $10 at the door and there will be a Q&A with the filmmaker Tawd b. Dorenfeld folVIFF lowing the showing. He’s really weird about showing The VIFF is coming. It runs from his face for some reason. Is it cuz someone threw September 28 - October 13, acid on him? Or was he was just just born ugly and 2006 but unfortunately they don’t is really insecure about it? Go to the screening to announce the full list of films till find out. after we go to print. But they And now for something completely different... sent us a list of films that they’ve confirmed that you might enjoy some Tom Cruise news

The Nerve September 2006 Page 30

Big Bang Love, Juvenile A (Takashi Miike) Japan Japan’s shockmaster is back again at the festival this year. Set in the future, two detectives try to uncover a murder at an all-boys juvenile detention facility. Apparently there’s loads of homosexual tension which I know you can’t get enough of.

Tales of the Rat Fink (Ron Mann) Canada A mixture animation, archival footage and hotrods, this film tells the story of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, car builder and creator of the Rat Fink cartoon. He died in 2001 and this explores his lasting impact on popular culture, which is presumably more than a bunch of shitty tattoos people regret getting.

Opening this month September 1 The Wickerman In the Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbours’ Neil LaBute is inexplicably given the task of remaking the hippy horror classic. We’re betting he’ll do a great job of burning Nicholas Cage alive. Oh, you haven’t seen the original? Sorry for giving away the ending.

Sept 15 Gridiron Gang Okay, I’m not making this up.You know the Rock? Like the guy from wrestling who does the thing with his eyebrow.

He’s doing a feel-good drama where he goes to a juvenile detention camp and teaches a bunch of troubled youths to play football. Once again, not making this up.

Sept 22 The Science of Sleep

He’ll beat a man with his hands and impale a woman with his dink

Hey, it’s a match made in heaven: actor Gael Garcia Bernal and director Michel Gondry. Expect mind blowingly original visual trickery. n

CONTENTS

DVD REVIEWS

Marvin Gaye What’s Going On – The Life & Death of Marvin Gaye Eagle Vision As far as I know, there aren’t that many Marvin Gaye documentaries out there, or not on my desk at any rate. So I’m gonna go ahead and give this the ol’ thumbs up, using the index created by Jelly Belly Roger Ebert Beans as an index of filmic quality.

What we have here is the life of a man – nay, a genius man, and a Troubleman – with a gigglesome last name that he changed because people took the piss. He changed it from Gay to Gaye. What the fuck? It still means the same thing (“you’re gaye”).

Why didn’t he change it to Marvin Balls, or Marvin Hammer? Oh well. That was the least of his worries.

Far worse was the fact that Marvin Gaye was fucked up beyond repair as the chilling interview portions

Rising Son: The Legend of Skateboarder Christian Hosoi (Cesario Montaño) USA Tells the tale of skateboarder Christian Hsoi who was thrown in jail in 2000 for peddling drugs. he got out in 2004 and has since dedicated his life to skateboarding and being a good dad. Or at least that’s what he wants us to

believe. Okay, he’s clean now and I just added that last line to make it seem more interesting.

with the man himself indicate. By the time we get to the last years of his life, Gaye is one dead-eyed motherfucker who, as one talking head puts it, pretty much committed suicide by provoking his father into shooting him. Marvin even gave him the gun.

What’s Going On becomes increasingly difficult to watch, especially as Gaye’s second marriage starts to crumble, and he’s recording albums by court order in order to pay off his first wife, who happened to be the sister of Motown honcho Berry Gordy.

What’s Going On (the album) would be his peak.

A record, “that would touch the souls of men, a masterpiece made with the help of God,” as Gaye put it, it’s still untouchable. Berry Gordy cheerfully admits that Motown insiders ridiculed and “trashed” Gaye while he fevered away at his masterpiece, and then states, “It’s the greatest piece of work Motown ever put out.” After that, the decline was inevitable.

Gaye’s bizarre family life - principally the behaviour of his fulminating, jealous, cross-dressing preacher dad - provided the kind of inescapable nightmare narrative that seems to blight so many public lives, and titillate so many of the rest of us. Gaye bottomed out in the late ‘70s, and moved to a trailer in Hawaii. A British promoter tracked him down through his coke dealer. Moving to Belgium shortly after, Gaye’s biographer recalls finding him pouring obsessively over S&M porn. From that, we get “Sexual Healing” and Gaye’s last moment of glory.

The tour that followed is represented by devastating footage of a man who has truly unraveled. One still in particular shows Gaye stripped to his bikini briefs, onstage, puffy and pathetic, covered in shame…

What’s Going On (the DVD) features some amazing performance footage, authoritative interviews, and a small treasure of home movie clips. It also sinks into hot cheese at the very end, with a truly pointless reenactment of the murder. The extras are stunning: Marvin Gaye live, beautiful and perfect. Who else ever sounded like this?

- Herman Menervemanana

The Dudesons Movie DVD Destroy Entertainment It’s becoming more and more apparent that everything good America has to offer has already been done somewhere else. With the recent release of The Dudesons, it turns out reality extreme stunt comedy is no exception. The Dudesons were up to their shenanigans in Finland long before Jackass. Typically, this would mean that Jackass is bigger and more extravagant, but it’s not the case with this gem. Where CKY and Jackass give us bored middle class kids with cameras, hitting each other for yucks, the Dudesons go one further by being hicks from a ranch who light each other on fire. The stunts are bigger, badder and, rest assured, you will see bones break.

In any event, there is definitely something inherently hilarious about people doing stupid shit and hurting themselves. I’m pretty sure it’s the most popular thing people search the internet for; right behind porn and aliens, and holy fuck do the Dudesons ever know how to hurt themselves.

Jarppi, the chubby one who lets people play darts on his stomach, lost a thumb while wrestling a wild arctic bear. His official quote about the whole thing is “Who needs a thumb anyway?”

Jukka, the most hyperactive and frenzied Dudeson, impresses the ladies by running around bare-assed. He has broken his spine twice, and after one of these injuries couldn’t feel his balls for a week. Worse than that; the other Dudesons brought some feeling back with a baseball bat to the nuts. On another occasion he stuck his nuts in a mousetrap.

Yes, he stuck his nuts in a mousetrap.

Jarno’s motto is “Pain is momentary, video is eternal.” Since Jarno never really gets pissed off at anything, the other guys went on a mission to intentionally get under his skin. They finally succeeded by lighting him on fire while he was asleep. He woke up screaming and chased them with a chainsaw.

HP is a snowboarder and has broken so many bones that he can’t get insurance in Finland anymore.

He’s the one who breaks his leg after a failed motorbike jump in into the lake.

This DVD is a hoot and recommended to anyone with an interest at all in this sort of thing.

The downside: you have to listen to that retard Steve-o (he makes a guest appearance). Plus, the whole movie feels like it’s merely an introduction to the boys, as if it’s an ad for the series. And they don’t show the bear wrestling stunt that Jarpi lost his thumb doing. Be sure to check out the 25 minutes of bonus footage - there are some hidden gems in there, as well.

- Dale De Ruiter

CONTENTS

Midnight Movies: How Coprophagia Became Commonplace

D

ivine eating a poodle turd in Pink Flamingos sums up the era of midnight movies for me. Stuart Samuels, director of the documentary Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream, thinks there’s more to it. A former film professor, Samuels chronicles the era of midnight movies from 1970-77 by talking to the heavy hitters of time: El Topo’s Alejandro Jodorowsky, Night of the Living Dead’s George A. Romero, Pink Flamingos’ John Waters, The Harder They Come’s Perry Henzell, Erasrerhead’s David Lynch, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s Richard O’Brien. I just wanted to talk about zombies, surreal spaghetti westerns, shit-eating, reggae, weird chicken things and transvestites.

Sadly, a more intelligent discussion ensued.

What got you into sick, twisted and disturbing movies?

When I first started, it wasn’t necessarily that they were sick and disturbing. They represented a new departure in film at that time. I became interested in them because they were around me. My students told me “hey, you gotta go see these things.” So I actually ended up going to see these movies at night.

What struck me about them was not so much that they represented a departure from b-movies that had been around for a while. These were the only movies that were making a critique of the society at the time. They were representing an alternative vision, an alternative view of reality. To me, that was the most intriguing part. They were also done very well. All the directors had a knowledge of film and they used it. They understood how they were making a personal vision. They were an antiHollywood vision without being avant-garde. The earlier movement of independents was mostly avant-garde. This was more of an engagement with a young audience at an entertaining level.

What is the quintessential midnight movie moment to you?

The key to a midnight movie is when the audience is actually involved in the creation of the film itself.

By the way you respond to it, by the way it makes you respond and allows you to interact with it.

You don’t sit passively and watch these movies.

You either totally embrace them or you kind of attack them. They’re all kind of transgressive.

By Michael Mann

They’re all against whatever is acceptable in society whether it be social values, sexual morays, political statements, anything that’s accepted as the norm.

Anti-cleanliness. Gross is good. The bizarre was better. These were kind of a whole new vision that came about in the 1970s cuz it was an alternative both to the counter-culture of the 60s—which was much more optimistic, upbeat and peace, love an harmony—and also to traditional conservative values American life at that time. Don’t forget, this was the period of Nixon coming into power. This is the period when America was closing down and becoming more censored.

Why is this era of midnight movies so important to the way we watch films today?

I think they are because the audience isn’t just there as some number that gets clicked by a register. Every week audiences are numbered. “Okay, this film made $10 million. This film made $20 million.” This has nothing to do with the films, it all has to do with how popular they are. These films were rituals. I think this is something that the filmmakers of today are desperately trying to get back to and, in some ways, tremendously missing. This was a way people came together to share some kind of point of view about reality. There were very few other places you could do this. Today it’s easier. Today there are so many diversions where people can represent the alternative. Especially on the Internet. In that time, this was one of the only places around university campuses that you could guarantee you’d get that kind experience. I think people hunger for that same kind of communal experience of watching movies together. It’s not there anymore in multiplexes.

People go to movies because that’s my selection.

There is no communal experience when they go to movies. These movies represented that. Hollywood movies are in trouble because it just depends the films gathers enough people to go every week based on its stars or remake value or its hype on the Internet. It has nothing to do with what they’re trying to communicate.

Is such a scene possible nowadays? All these movies grew so organically by word of mouth and you brought up the Internet where word of mouth is someone hitting a button and

immediately thousands of people know about something.

I think that the other part of it was when you went to these movies you were immersed in it. They almost surrounded you. Even if you’d seen them before. They weren’t narrative driven, they were about image and music and violence and symbolism.

They were big. Today, there is a need to find some kind of experience where you can immerse yourself into something larger than your picture and your screen. Today, there are these alternatives that are sucking away at people’s interest. [Someone needs to] find a way to migrate the images and the interest that people generate on the Internet into a film making experience that’s larger than life…I don’t know whether it can be done there are so many different alternatives today that sap that kind of energy and disperse it.You really can’t have a huge movement that people gravitate to.

What do you think about readymade cult films?

Like Donnie Darko? The problem there is the discovery of these films have been on the Internet, not in the theatres. It’s so expensive to open a movie, so, as a result, if you have a cult film, it’s probably going to be discovered on the Internet or DVD. There’s one that has an opportunity, this political film Loose Change. It’s the film that talks about the conspiracy of 9/11. That’s sort of interesting because I’ve heard they’re going to go on to the big screen on September 11th. So it’s going to be one of the first film that’s successful on

the Internet that will be in movie theatres. I think that might be an interesting thing to watch to see if there’s an alternative trend to that.

What brought the death of midnight movies?

Was it simply Hollywood catching on and coopting them coupled with VHS? One thing is the filmmakers themselves. No one wanted to be just make midnight movies.You don’t make any money making midnight movies. Lynch and Waters, their thing was to try and make more mainstream movies. That was part of it.VHS was obviously a thing because the first wave of VHS was movies that were alternatives. The studios did not give right to have these put out onto the market. So the idea of VHS was that you could have it in your home any time you wanted to. The third thing was that other places became an alternative to gathering people together. Disco, coffee houses, more communal experiences that were absent in this particular period. They gave people another to connect and come together other than in the movies theatres. Also, after Star Wars—the greatest cult film ever made where you could go five or six times—that experience which was reserved for the midnight movie experience now was found in mainstream Hollywood. Now you didn’t have to wait till Friday or Saturday at midnight.You could go every day.

Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream is currently playing on some fancy cable channel you can’t afford. n

A Match Made in Heaven: We Jam Econo in We Print Econo

T

he Minutemen have everything I want in a band: a fat guy on guitar, a flannel wearing beardo on bass and a drummer with a faggy haircut. That’s all I care about. Others really liked them because they were working class Joes from San Pedro who wrote wickedly impressionistic and political punk songs. Their songs even had great names like “Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing” and “Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs.”

What makes the Minutemen better: their comical appearance or their music is debatable. What’s not debatable is, 20 years after their demise, someone

decided to finally make a movie about them.

We Jam Econo:The Story of the Minutemen is the brainchild of director Tim Irwin and producer Keith Schieron. The two met in high school and conveniently discovered the Minutemen on the same day in 1989. Schieron, while reading through his older brothers back issues of Spin and Irwin, while watching a Santa Cruz skate video, Streets on Fire, where the Minutemen appeared on the soundtrack.

Next day in video class, Irwin was watching the video again and Schieron overheard the music and

the two began talking. Even though the Minutemen had already disbanded, discussions began about making a movie on them. “The Minutemen were so inspiring to Keith and I. They taught us to do our own thing. Our hope behind making the film was if people knew the band already, we wanted them to remember that inspiration they felt the first time they heard that music,” explains Irwin.

Three years in the making, the documentary starts with Mike Watt and D. Boon meeting and ends with D. Boon’s untimely death in 1985. Along the way you get an insane parade of punk rockers cameos all singing the praise of the Minutemen (The amount of cameos in We Jam Econo almost dwarfs the amount on Watt’s Ballhog or Tugboat album). The film also features loads of recently unearthed interviews with the band and rare live performances.You’d assume this stuff was all this stuff was sitting in a box in Mike Watt’s basement gathering dust. Of course, you’d be incorrect as “none of it came from Watt but he was totally instrumental in helping it get to us. We kind of approached Watt and he gave us the greenlight to do the film. Then he sent out an email to everyone he knew saying if anyone had any footage to give it to these guys. People just started coming out of the woodwork at that point. We were really fortunate in that way.” One particularly amazing video of note is the Acoustic Blowout performance recorded on

By Michael Mann

public access television which you can watch in full on the DVD. Although mainly made for fans, the film serves as a good primer for anyone who’s interested in learning about the band, who, to be fair, are most likely to know the Minutemen as the band who wrote the theme for Jackasss—undeniably the greatest television show of all time. Curiously, there’s no mention of this in the film as, ”We didn’t feel like we needed to validate them in any way. We felt that what they’d done was valid enough. If people didn’t already know that was a Minutemen song, they’d be able to make the connection once they saw the film.

That was enough for us.”

“D. Boon died and it sucked.”

The one detail that’s impossible to omit from a film on the Minutemen is how they ended in 1985 when D. Boon died in a car accident. Refreshingly though, no attempt is made to turn We Jam Econo into an Errol Morris and Nick Broomfield film. “We didn’t want it to be like investigative journalism or full of conspiracy theories. D. Boon died and it sucked. It came on suddenly and that’s how treated it in the film. All the sudden D. Boon is dead. That was kind of the way we wanted to treat it. We didn’t want to make Behind the Music with all this big drama and big building tension. That was the way it happened and it sucked.“ And besides, what would be the point of delving into conspiracy theory, we all know Zionists arranged his murder anyways. n

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The Nerve September 2006 Page 32

CONTENTS

Sex with the Lights On

By Ducky Doolittle Carroll & Graf When I come across a spelling mistake in a book I am baffled. Books must be read and reread a gazillion times before being sent to print. How does an editor miss the b at the beginning of but? Perhaps the editor was too preoccupied with the sexual matter of the book? Or maybe he was overwhelm-

ingly pleased to find out that “with a little attention and patience most people find their erections again”.

Yes, there are some shocking facts presented in this book. Did you know that oral sex (hetero and homo) is against the law in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia and Washington DC? ORAL SEX! Where have these people been? In many of these states it is also illegal for a man to show his erection through his pants. I shudder to think of what they must do to gay people!

Also, thanks to Sex With the Lights On, I now know that one should not, under any circumstances, blow air into a woman’s vagina! Take note people. In rare cases, blowing air into a woman’s vaginal opening can cause embolism (air forced into the bloodstream) and it might actually kill her. I can see the headlines now.

Something you can do for your girlfriend is go down on her with a menthol cough drop in your mouth. Just remember to “use only sugar free cough drops because you’ll want to avoid getting sugar in her vagina. This may throw off her natural ecology and lead to infection”. If she has a five-inch clitoris, like the one reported in 1824 by some French doctor, you might want to use two cough drops.

Sure I’ve discovered some bizarre sexual facts and I know a bit more about the male prostate.

But I other than that, I found that Sex with the Lights On was vague. The whole point of the book was to answer 200 sex-related questions that had actually been asked by people the author had met. However, the answer to all of them was basically that everyone is different, so talk to your lover and find out what they want. I knew that. Thanks Ducky. So… take my advice, now that you know the more interesting bits, don’t go and waste $15.95 on a book that will tell you how to have sex. Just fuck.

-J.Dives

High school. Calling all drama weirdos, band geeks, book nerds, sci-fi freaks, cheerleader sluts, and jock assholes. Everyone who has ever attended high school, even if it was for just one year, has to give this book a read. I know you all can, ‘cause if you made it to high school, it means that you can read—at least at a grade 9 level, and that’s all you need. Trust me. Totally an easy read. Sat down, had ‘er done in a day.

The novel is written in a style that is best suited for everyone, including people who barely have enough time to shit. Now you can drop the Cosbys off at the pool, read at the exact same time, and not worry about having to stop in the middle of a long chapter, because the book is written as journal entries. But believe me, you will probably extend your stay on the throne to find out what happens the next day in Marlie’s troubled teens.

Marlie is the writer of the diary. She would be considered an extreme music lover—with all of her favourite tunes being ones that could serve as theme-songs to TV shows like the L Word. That’s right, she is a Joan Jett, Pretenders, lesbo-rock fanatic. Music and sexual struggles are the themes of the book. Marlie really wanted to be in a rock band, and really wanted to know what satisfied her sexually—the street meat, or the taco stand. From almost getting laughed off stage at the first show with her band School Bus(t) to landing the gig of a lifetime, from her growing appetite for the supreme fully loaded taco to her continuing reliance on the trusty old dog, like every teenager, Marlie struggled to fit in and find herself.

Then, finally, she said fuck it and embraced the grunge scene like any sane teen

would have back in the early 90’s. Between juggling her band, her friends, her family and a boyfriend almost twice her age, she made it to the top of her world, living the dream of every teenage girl. Somehow she managed to do it for quite a while too, until it all crashed down on top of her, like a 300-pound adrenaline-pumped waste-case on a botched stagedive. Set off by a conflict with her asshole boyfriend, Marlie realized that all she wanted was the taco.

Even though street meat has an appealing aroma, it always left her with gut rot and the worst case of the shits.

-Heather O’Brien

Pick up any of the titles reviewed here at duthiebooks.com

What Would Bill Hicks Say? Edited by Ben Mack and Kristin Pulkkinen Soft Skull Press I played a Bill Hicks album to my 20 year-old sisterin-law a couple weeks back and she hated it. Fair enough—most of the references were lost on her.

Rodney King, gays in the US military, Waco, Rush Limbaugh’s sex life (it requires Barbara Bush to unfurl her prodigious labia–“like some ball-less scrotum”–and shit in his mouth before Limbaugh can raise a feeble little halfer. Then a bubble forms on the end of his dink, containing a maggot, which subsequently joins a Pro-Life group.)

Hicks died in 1994 from pancreatic cancer, which is as likely as the findings of the Warren Commission (another of Hicks’ favourite obsessions.) He was extremely dangerous. He pissed off everybody. He WAS a genius. Since his passing, what have we got? Dane Cook? For fuck’s sake… I guess he’s funny. But he’s also completely empty and useless.

We live in a truly horrible world where scatology, obscenity, and cynicism form the dominant cultural language for people under 35, and that might be the last little brick in the wall for those evil motherfuckers behind the big curtain (“The 12 industrialist, capitalist scumfucks,” is the phrase Hicks used, I believe), who have gradually and with great stealth created the world they always wanted. People are stupider, more mindless, and happier to suck it all up with a big, stupid, Spring Break shit-swallowing grin than ever before—hurrah! A mere 12 years ago, Bill Hicks employed scatology, obscenity and cynicism to point out that everything is fucked, tyranny is all around, and it’s only getting worse. And he actually named names. What was especially brilliant about the fearless Mr. Hicks was his apprehension that any left/right divide is bullshit. His contempt for Bush Sr. should surprise no one, but he also hated Clinton, nailing him for the bloodsucking piece of walking human shit that he really is. He also urged everybody to take mushrooms, putting his own vision down to psychedelics. “Squeegee your third eye!” he’d implore. He said that watching television was like putting black paint on your eyeballs. We can only imagine what he’d make of the world he left behind, which has become so much worse in such a short span of time.

What Would Bill Hicks Say? is the result of web-

Grrrl

By Jennifer Whiteford Gorsky Press

based ‘experiment’ that proceeds from that very idea. Folks contributed Hicksian rants on current events. Some of them are beautiful. “Untitled” by A.L. Kennedy starts in on Abu Ghraib: “Those pyramids of naked men? Well heck, cheerleaders get up into pyramids, don’t they? If those guys weren’t wearing hoods, you’d see they’re having a ball, shit-eating grins on their faces. We should know. We’re the ones that made them eat shit. Guess we were shoving those light filaments up their asses in case they got scared of the dark…”

“The Pope’s Big Hat” by Matt Besser is another howler. What if the Pope goes senile and starts talking? “We had the Lindberg baby in the Vatican catacombs and we fucked it till it got too hairy!

Then we shellacked it and now we burn incense out of its butt-hole!”

What Would Bill Hicks Say? is a little hit-and-miss on the laughs, but scores a bulls-eye for righteous anger and truth-saying. The editors intend to reprint every few years, and they ask for submissions. Good idea. Now is definitely not the time to let-up.

The Nerve September 2006 Page 33

CONTENTS Dead Rising

By Dale DeRuiter

Dead Rising Developer: Capcom Production Studio 1 Publisher: Capcom USA Here it is, reason alone to finally go buy an X-Box 360. Up until now it’d just been car games, shooters and some RPGs that really only showcase how good the new system is. With the release of Dead Rising, the new era has begun. This game is the scenario everyone has been dreaming about and wetting their pants too.

OK, you’re in a mall filled with Zombies and you grab shit from the stores to re-kill them. The range of weaponry is huge.You can stick with the good old katana and cut the undead in half or you can get really artistic and grab a lawnmower to literally mow them down. My favourite part, I gotta say, is running over about a thousand zombies with a cube van in the maintenance tunnels underneath the mall.

You have 72 hours to figure out what the hell is going on. The time line in this game is sort of win/lose.You are never truly free to fuck around because there is always someplace you have to be by a certain time so the game feels hurried. The better half of this is you never get the Grand Theft Auto disease, where you can just run around a free roaming environment killing things without working on the story.

As the story progresses you are updated over a headset (from some friends you made in the security room) of survivors they have spotted throughout the mall and you have the option of saving said survivors for some serious exp. points.

With experience your stats increase but you also unlock new skills for fighting the hordes of the undead. Highlights include the “disembowel” and the “neck rip”.

Not only is there the zombies you have to worry about but you have to option of taking down some serious human villains as well. There is a chainsaw juggling clown, some rednecks with rifles,

a pyromaniac and there’s even a cult in the movie theatre. Think of how much easier life would be if we all took it upon ourselves to each destroy a cult each. Xenu would shit his pants.

Rogue Trooper Developer: Rebellion Publisher: Eidos Interactive Pulled from the pages of the 2000AD comic book, this futuristic shooter by Rebellion is right on target.

With Sniper Elite and now Rogue Trooper, Rebellion is starting to give Bungie (Halo) a run for their money as the undisputed king of FPS.

Rebellion is supplying the gamer with the little things you never knew you wanted… until now.

With Rogue Trooper the stealth element is amazingly done.You can hide behind boxes and fire randomly over the top or hop out and fire in controlled bursts, then jump back behind the box. Other games have had the “strafe with your back against a wall” option, but it has never been this fluid and easy to pull off.

The basic setting for this game is there are two warring sides battling for Nu Earth. In the future it is a poison filled wasteland that only genetically created soldiers can handle.You are one of those soldiers and your platoon of Southies set out to battle the Norts (north). Pretty much all of the genetic soldiers are slaughtered and you set out for revenge.

As your friends die along the way, you take their biochips and attach them to your weapon and items.

This is another unique feature that Rebellion gives you that you never knew you needed. The most notable is Baggar, the biochip you attach to your back pack.You give him scrap metal and he fashions you ammo and grenades. When you find blueprints he can make you new weapons or upgrade the ones you already have.

If you like shooters at all, make sure you check this shit out.

Rogue Trooper

The Nerve September 2006 Page 34

r

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CONTENTS

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The Nerve September 2006 Page 36

n

Skatespot: From Van to Slam and back Again Calgary Slams The circus rolled into Calgary last weekend.

Slam, which moved from Vancouver to Cowtown, this year, hasn’t weathered the move too well. Under new ownership for the past 2 years, it’s become more like a Rightguard ad and less like the homegrown contest that grew into a world-class event.

Part of the of the problem is that it’s no longer being managed by people who actually skate and have experience in the industry. Just the same it’s always fun to see what unique course New LIne will come up with, and see your favourite locals skate with international pros. Last year’s course was granite-enriched and pure-street-ish, this year more artifice with a mini-golf/ cartoon flava - Peanuts doghouse, iced out Whister Bowl Series, local, Lien to tail transfer gold-chain rail and an arcing Spiderman photo: Derek DeLand rail, plus a rolling My Humps ledge just for fun. Tech maestro Micky Pappa beat out The Vancouver Skatepark Coalition voted in thier Will Christafaro and some older and taller new Board. Congrats to Michelle Pezel (Prez), competition to win the Es Game of Skate. The Jeff Chan (VP), Char Hunter (Treasurer) and Lee comp overall was pretty fun, but not as many pros Ann Slade (Secretary). A main priority is getting as in past years. Contest Results: 1. Greg Lutzka, 2.

Leeside built - soon and right. Check vspc.ca and Chad Bartie, Australia; VanCity’s Ryan DeCenzo, antisocialshop.com for upcoming meetings. Summer Magnus Hanson and Nathan LaCoste, placed 3rd, End Skate Jam, put on by Underworld Skateshop 4th and 5th, 6th was Calgary’s Ryan Oughton, 7. is Sept. 3rd at the Downtown Plaza, with lots of Dayne Brummet, 8. Sascha Daley, 9. Tony Trujillo, 10. cash prizes for best tricks. After party at Lucy Danny Fuenzalida; other good runs for Canucks Mae Browns. Coming up, the official opening of were: 11. Scott DeCenzo, 12. Sheldon Meleshinski, 15. Chris Haslam, 16. Eric Mercier, 17. Jesse Langden, Quilchena Park is Sept. 9, with demos planned. Hope they fix the bad coping job before it goes down. Plus 19.Josh Evin (who also placed 10th in vert), 20.Greg Matix and Supra’s Greatful Shred Tour, with your Brewer, 21. Trevor Houlihan, 22. Josh Clark, 23. shredologists: Marc Johnson, Daewon, McCrank, Micky Pappa and 25. Geoff Dermer,Vancouver. Men’s Biebel, Danny Garcia, Mikey Taylor, as well as Travis Vert: 1. Rob Lorifice, 2. Sandro Dias, 3. Neal Hendrix.

Stenger and Mike McDermott. Signing at Antisocial Girls’ Street: 1. Lacey Baker, 2.Vanessa Torres, 3. at 3pm Sept. 20, and The Source Skate Shop, Calgary, Lauren Perkins. Canadian Kristen Zurwick came Sept. 24, 3 pm. Demo in Van at the Plaza (Georgia in 7th. Girls’ Vert: 1. Karen Jones, 2. Holly Lyons, 3.

Viaduct) and Calgary at the Millennium Park; both Vanessa Torres 4. Amy Caron and Vancouver’s Alison demos at 5 pm.

“Nugget” Matasi placed 5th.

- D-Rock and Miss Kim downspace@telus.net East Infection Spectrum’s Prez Jim Barnum joined “East Coast A.N.T.I.S.L.A.M. and Drunks Skate Militia” Richard Sarrazin, Steve Lange and Following 10 days of seclusion on an island in Brent Jordan in skatepark and spot entrenched Georgian Bay, I arrived in town just in time to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Am Getting Paid take part in Perry Mylnowski and Brian Ball’s pet goes down Sept. 23, 24 amd 25 at South-Parc project, A.N.T.I.S.L.A.M. By 1:00 a relatively mellow skatepark in Montreal - check south-parc.com for session was going on in a freshly-painted bowl. more details. Bad news from Montreal - the Big O A few new faces… rippers, kooks, ripping kooks, Pipe is in jeopardy. A soccer stadium is is plaaned whatever, it was fun. After three hours of skating, for that site, which could mean the end of the Pipe’s roasting in the blazing sun, and dodging clueless existence. Montreal skaters are organizing to try retards of all ages, shapes, and sizes, the first of best to save the classic spot: go to their website and trick contests started in the 8-foot. Johnny B did a sign their guest book to help Save the Big O pipe. fakie bigspin hurricane revert, some ringlet-headed savethepipe.blogspot.com/ dude did a kickflip rock, and Stevie D looked like Back in the Van he was about to land a cab to backside disaster. I The Underworld sponsored Fraser Heights Comp didn’t find out though because at 4:00 it was off to went down Aug 19. First place went to Ryan Fifth Ave to catch the premiere of “Skate Fast, Fall Decenzo, 2nd Dustin, Montie, 3rd Magnus Hanson.

Hard”. Now, I’m not exactly sure how this project came to be… something about film students, a grant, and Pacific Pilsner offering sponsorship… but it was pretty funny; basically a day in the life of local skate drunks Newfie Mike, Hawktu, Tyson, Shamus, and associates. Sort of like a lower-budget version of Fubar with less direction and more skateboarding.

And with that it was back to Hastings to score some barbecue and catch the rest of the contest. The undisputed highlight was watching Seb dispatch with all the lesser men on his way to winning the Last Man Standing event. The two-handed take down of the Thunder Bay guy made me laugh. Good thing he was wearing full pads and a lid. So A.N.T.I.S.L.A.M. was a success.

Thank you Perry and Brian. And in the “gift that keeps on giving” category, a special thanks for everyone who helped to give the bowl a new coat of paint and a facelift (Keen and Milan were involved in the artwork department for sure but I’m not sure who else) because the place looks good and now you can slide down the wall without scraping off all of your skin.

Dustin Montie 50-50’s Spidey’s rail next to - Jeff Chan “grand_wazoo@hotmail.com” Snoopy’s doghouse. Photo: Kim Glennie

CONTENTS AINSWORTH

The Man That Matters

By Jason Ainsworth

O

kay, long story short, I had to go to the doctor like a nice guy.

Don’t have a so-called “family” physician, on account of having no living offspring, it didn’t seem an important or cool thing to have.

Come to think of it, just a couple of months ago I got all upset and weepy thinking about JonBenet, God’s loneliest little angel, and the next thing you know, FUNNY! All the papers are talking about little JonBenet again! If JonBenet had lived, just think about the daughters she’d have, each one a pearl.

But JonBenet... doesn’t matter as much in this column as she should.

So I go over to the whatever it’s called, medical walk in clinic, near my house.

Recommended! Only took a few minuets to see my one-night-stand of a doctor. He looked over my medical file, which is full of stupid things that happened before. He asked a few probing questions about the mind, and looked at my wounds. Pants remained on, to my despair and confusion....

“I think you should go off for some thyroid tests, and basic liver work,” he said something like that, I’m no doctor, “twenty units of alcohol a week is quite high, and I see you smoke....” I totally never said twenty units, though, but you know, mumbling, you know.... not blaming him, I guess....

“I’d also like to send you off for some basic Venereal tests....” He scribbled on a form.

He’d ticked Chlamydia and Gonorrhea, as well as an HIV Serology.

Nominal reporting, you’ll be thrilled to hear.

Awesome.

“Mr. Anusworth, you’ll need to give a sample. In this case you‘ll have to commence to pee, and allow the sample to be taken only in mid flow of the pee.”

This made me cry, it really did. Here was this doctor being a friend to me, using big medical words like penis and graduated cylinder to me, pretending to believe I understood what he was talking about, and then, BLAMMO! “Pee”, like I was a child of four.

a male, though, because of the need for anal penetration. To “do”, or anally penetrate another man, or if a woman uses a stick on a man, a stick of small diameter of course, the anus (of the receiver) must be relaxed and stimulated. (The penetrator’s anus is of no consequence here). It can help to use a series of light nibbles and licks to the general area, including the penis, or a feather to ensure that the anus dilates enough top be open for pleasure, to then be mounted, or to use au courant equestrian parlance, to be covered.

Anyways, I just gaped at him. Then he said, “When was the last time you had unprotected oral sex” and every instinct and nerve in me screamed, “Lie! Lie!” but he’s a doctor and I told him the truth, and he looked pretty contemptuous. Still, he checked of the mouth syphilis or whatever bug women store in their mouths. Pretty uncool moment in front of my doctor, but at least he was good enough to check to see if I was getting dozens of mouthings.

It’s stupid, I don’t get fellated nearly enough to risk mouth syphilis or tooth ayds. Nobody does. It’s silly. Wearing condoms just means you will never love each other. And by the way, fellows, you should always remove your penis from the vagina ten seconds or so before you think you are going to ejaculate. And it’s wrong to just spurt all over the poor girl’s vagina from the outside. She has a face, guys, come on.

He looked over my medical file, which is full of stupid things that happened before.

He asked a few probing questions about the mind, and looked at my wounds. Pants remained on, to my despair and confusion....

Fuck, if I was getting a gonorrhea test at the age of four I’d be a pretty cool kid. I’d be strutting around the room, dripping AIDS and Chlamydia everywhere, from my very satisfying member, mom would be freaking out, some guy in the corner, leaning on his broom and smiling.... and why would they test a four-year-old boy for Chlamydia anyway? Only women can get it.

Actually, when I think about it, lots of “molested” four-year-old boys probably get these tests. (I wouldn’t know, fuck off) It’s impossible to rape

Got kinda heated up, mad.

I told the fucking doctor I got it at his last wedding anniversary, from his wife’s mouth.

“My wife is dead...”

Oh, man I felt bad when I heard that. I really hurt his feelings.

In conclusion, I’d just like to say, ladies, that I haven’t caught anything. I mean, never went to get the tests done, but if I had VD I’d feel sick. I’d know it. I mean, people go to the doctor way too much here. They never go at all in Africa, and things are going pretty well there. n

The Nerve September 2006 Page 37

CONTENTS

By Dan Scum Across 1. Smallest province 4. Canadian brewery (abbrv) 8. Wager 11. Divided by 13. Not warlike 14. Crystalized di-hydrogen oxide 15. Guitar playing hook 16. al-Qaeda leader and 9-11 mastermind (1st name) 17. National Hockey 18. Landlocked Asian nation between Iran and Pakistan 20. Laugh Out Loud 21. “It’s the end of the world as we know it” band 22. Open Learning Institute 23. The Boston ____ Party 25. Civilians currently under US occupation 28. Military word for “doin’s” 31. State below S.Dak 34. Navy Seals division 35. Anthrax word 36. Like a lamprey 37. Fixes 41. Knowledgeable 43. Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm 44. US tax watchdogs 46. Abbreviation of average 47. End of a hammer 48. Lie 49. Strata 53. Opp of aves 55. Snitch goof 57. Baby lice 58. 9-11 Ground Zero 60. Author of, “Failed States,” and “Hegemony or Survival.”

65. Horton hears a _____ 66. Ultimatum 67. Board game feat. Colonel Mustard and Professor Plum 68. Cult radio host Bell 69. Portents 70. Roseanne 71. Place for shoes 72. Church benches 73. Abbreviation of session Down 1. Raid (take from) 2. Riddle 3. Reason to scratch 4. Operation Desert Storm, e.g

The Nerve September 2006 Page 38

5. Applause (abbrv) 6. Peruvian Capital 7. Racial slur for “oriental” 8. al-Qaeda leader’s last name 9. “E” to an Army guy 10. Poker slang for “mannerism” 12. Site of Mohawk-SQ (Securite Quebec) conflict 13. Tesla apparatus 18. Jackie O’s 2nd 19. Place for cocaine 24. The E in Einstein’s equation (E=MC squared) 26. Charmingly old fashioned 27. Dictator Amin 29. Dictator Pot 30. US bomber plane 32. India Pale or Cream 33. Alternative Tentacles Ani 37. Common epitaph 38. Compass dir.

39. George W. Bush’s Grandaddy 40. Home of the Tamil Tigers 42. Sinatra’s 2nd 45. Religious oratory 50. Make certain 51. Island jail 52. Pig pad 54. Be a nosy parker 56. Deeds 58. Andrew Ridgeley’s band 59. _____ Bora , Afghanistan 61. It’s either you __ __ 62. From the start 63. European Zig Zag’s 64. Members of the Legislative Assemblies

Last Issue’s Answers

The Nerve September 2006 Page 39

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