Fresh Breath of Mint - Spring 2007

48 PAGES!

FREE!SPRING ’07

nardwuar interviews james brown! ice-t! joan jett!

a carolyn mark tour diary!

AN immaculate machine comic!

vintage bev davies pics!

the evaporators vs. franz ferdinand

vs. the cribs!

a young and sexy puzzle!

the buttless chaps!

a novillero comic!

from the mint vault!

The Hive studios!

and more!






vs. the cribs!


the buttless chaps!

a novillero comic!


The Hive studios!

and more!

Shane Nelken is a fixture in the Vancouver pop scene,playing with A.C. Newman, Sparrow, and VancouverNights as well as appearing in the New Pornographers’

“Use It” video. The Awkward Stage is Nelken's project,along with NP drummer Kurt Dahle, and their debut,HEAVEN IS FOR EASY GIRLS, is... something quite special forlovers of smart, hooky guitar pop... the kind of record thatwill leave you with a warm feeling inside and a goofy grinon your face... lend[ing] more credence to the belief thatVancouver is the center of the guitar pop universe. –All Music Guide

www.myspace.com/theawkwardstageband CD-EPOUT NOW

Six chansons chantées dans le français par ce trio de Victoria!

Disque-compact-epdehors maintenant!

ww

w.im

mac

ulat

emac

hine

.com

“I HONESTLY

CANNOT IMAGINE

LIVING WITHOUT

THIS” - EXCLAIM!

2-DISC DVDOUT NOW!

ON ALTERNATIVETENTACLES IN

THE USAWWW.NARDWUAR.COM

Mint CMW Zine 6x9 cover 2/2/07 6:18 PM Page 1

48 PAGES!

FREE!SPRING ’07






vs. the cribs!


the buttless chaps!

a novillero comic!


The Hive studios!

and more!






vs. the cribs!


the buttless chaps!

a novillero comic!


The Hive studios!

and more!






ww

w.im

mac

ulat

emac

hine

.com

“I HONESTLY

CANNOT IMAGINE

LIVING WITHOUT

THIS” - EXCLAIM!

2-DISC DVDOUT NOW!




04 Doll in the Family: Artwork by Kelly Haigh!05 The Evaporators Versus Franz Ferdinand Versus The Cribs!07 A Carolyn Mark Tour Diary: England and Italy!14 Nardwuar the Human Serviette Versus Ice T!18 The Buttless Chaps Interviewed by Andrew Pearson!19 The last known photograph of P:ano!20 Nardwuar the Human Serviette Versus Joan Jett!25 Nardwuar the Human Serviette Versus Bev Davies! Round 5!29 from www.thetyee.ca: The Awkward Stage30 Nardwuar the Human Serviette Versus James Brown!32 Photos from the Mint Records Vault!34 A Young and Sexy Crossword Puzzle!35 Elaine Corden’s writes about The Hive!37 from www.thenewpollution.net: Hanging Out with All of Your Friends38 Comic: Novillero – The Case of the Missing Instruments!41 The Nardwuar–Snoop Dogg Photo Album!42 Comic: Immaculate Machine in the Studio!46 A Mint Records Discography!

Cover: Nardwuar theHuman Serviette of The

Evaporators is held inthe air by Alex

Kapranos (center) ofFranz Ferdinand and

concertgoers at the endof Kapranos' surprise

appearance at the MintRecords Xmas party.

Kapranos joinedNardwuar's band The

Evaporators onstage tosing the Franz

Ferdinand hit "Take MeOut" to a stunned

audience at theUkrainian Hall in

Vancouver, BC,Canada. Photo ©

William R. Janswww.wrjphoto.com

free! vol.5 spring ’07

Novillero: New Year’s EveThe Cavern, Winnipeg MBNovillero: New Year’s EveThe Cavern, Winnipeg MB

Mint Records Inc. is a small indie record label based out ofVancouver, Canada. Since 1991, we’ve put our more than

100 releases by such bands and artists as Neko Case, TheOrgan, Novillero, The New Pornographers, The Awkward Stage,The Evaporators, Immaculate Machine, Carolyn Mark, TheSmugglers, P:ano, Duplex!, Young and Sexy, I Am Spoonbender,Corn Sisters, The Buttless Chaps, Huevos Rancheros, cub, Ramblin’Ambassadors, John Guliak, Atomic 7, and others!

Mint Records releases are distributed like so:USA: NAIL Distribution www.naildistribution.com

Canada: Outside Music www.outside-music.com and Scratch Distribution www.scratchrecords.com.

Benelux: Sonic Rendezvouswww.sonicrendezvous.com

UK: Shellshock www.shellshock.co.uk

Also, be sure to check out iTunes Music Storewhere more and more Mint titles are being

added all the time!

www.dollinthefamily.comOriginal Works of Art by Kelly Haigh

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfb1ZnCRU_Ukeywords franz ferdinand evaporators

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfb1ZnCRU_Ukeywords franz ferdinand evaporators

6

free! vol.5 spring ’07

Andrew Pearson (Buttless Chaps article)Andrew is a part time bon vivant and man abouttown. Co-founder of Vancouver's Red Cat Records,he fondly remembers buying the first Mint Records7"... and still thinks that Tankhog rules.

Bev Davies (Bev’s vintage photos and JamesBrown photos) – Vancouver BC photographerAvailable Mint item: Nardwuar vs. Bev Davies 2007Punk Rock Calendar

The Buttless Chaps – Mint Records recordingartist from VancouverAvailable Mint items:Where Night Holds Light CDLove This Time CD

Carolyn Mark (tour diary) – Mint Records record-ing artist from VictoriaRaised by St. Bernards in the Okanagan Valley,Carolyn Mark was 'discovered' sleeping in the backof Jewel's car in the early nineties. She has touredso much in the past two years, she passed her ownself the other day. Though not really a team player,Miss Mark is pleased to be associated with theMint Records Empire.Available Mint items:Just Married: An Album of Duets CDThe Pros and Cons of Collaboration CDTerrible Hostess CDTribute to Soundtrack to Robert Altman’s toNashville compilation CDParty Girl CD

Elaine Corden (Hive article) has been documentingVancouver's independent music and arts scene fornearly 10 years, in large and small publicationsacross North America. If you're nice and she thinksyer cute, she'll make you a mix tape of all she'slearned. [email protected].

Greg Oakes (Novillero comic) is a Visual Artist(Illustration/Cartooning/Design) who was born inWinnipeg on the 21st of March 1973. His influ-ences range from, Looney Tunes, The Muppetsand Mad Magazine, to the likes of Robert Crumb,Brian Froud and HR Giger. Greg is a 1993 Graduateof Red River College's ‘Advertising Art’ program,and has worked professionally in the graphic artsindustry ever since. Aside from creating an eclecticmix of print media illustrations and designs (bill-boards to product ID labels), he is also a live per-formance artist and has been sketching 'carica-tures' (@bar/bat mitzvahs, weddings, companyparties, etc.) for approx. 17 years. Greg currentlylives in Winnipeg with his wife and three daughters.www.gregoakes.comwww.myspace.com/gregoakes

Immaculate Machine (comics) – Mint Recordsrecording artist from Victoria, of which BrookeGallupe is a memberBrooke started drawing during long, boring drives

while he is on tour with Immaculate Machine. He isnot very good at it yet, but it is cute to measure hisprogress. He is inspired generally by the silly thingspeople do.Available Mint items: Ones and Zeros CDLes Uns Mais Pas Les Autres CD-EPnew album coming in ’07

Kelly Haigh (artwork)Kelly lives and paints in Vancouver, and sings andplays in the band Ashley Park with her belovedTerrydactyl. She has a little hair salon, which sheplans on filling with her collection of Victorian taxi-dermy, making it into her own personal natural his-tory museum. If she could, she'd live on an islandfull of wild dogs, and listen nonstop to the CornSisters, both collectively and individually.

Nardwuar the Human Serviette (Joan Jett, JamesBrown, Ice-T interviews) – lead singer of theEvaporators and also punk rock journalist!Available Mint items:Evaporators Ripple Rock CDDoot Doola Doot Doo... Doot Doo! DVDNardwuar vs. Bev Davies 2007 Punk Rock Calendarnew DVD coming in ’07

The New Pollution (All of Your Friends article) is amonthly online music magazine and podcast dedi-cated to in-depth stories on independent artists,scenes and culture. The magazine publishes asemiannual compendium, the latest due out inMarch 2007.

Novillero – Mint Records recording artist fromWinnipegAvailable Mint items:Aim Right for the Holes in Their Lives CDnew album coming in ’07

TheTyee.ca (The Awkward Stage article)– VisitTheTyee.ca for indendent and influential journalismthat covers everything from politics to pole danc-ing, climate change to film critique. And have yoursay on all of it.

William Jans (cover photograph)William is a Vancouver based photographer shoot-ing anything that moves. He is known to noseabout the planet a fair bit and has developed a bitof a cult following for his live shows about hisabsurd travels overseas. He is somewhat of an"octoglot" but mixes languages up sometimes.William thinks an Evaporators live shows beatsmost any huge stadium show for energy andexcitement. www.wrjphoto.com

Young and Sexy (crossword puzzle)Available Mint items:Panic When You Find It CDLife Through One Speaker CD/LPStand Up For Your Mother CD

CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE:

Mint Records Inc. PO Box 3613, Vancouver, BC Canada V6B 3Y6 www.mintrecs.com www.myspace.com/mintrecordsbiz: Kevin Beesley: [email protected] promotions: Dave Gowans: [email protected]: Yvette Ray: [email protected]

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the TradeRoutes program of the Department of Canadian Heritage for this project. / Nous

reconnaissons le soutien financier du gouvernement du Canada, par l'entremise duprogramme Routes commerciales, du ministère du Patrimoine canadien, pour ce

projet. We acknowledge the financial support of Canada’s private radio broadcastersas well as the Government of Canada through the Canada Music Fund for this project.

The views expressed in Fresh Breath of Mint are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Mint Records Inc. © Mint Records Inc. 2007

7

Welcome to England. Here's Your Tiny Bed!"Art is long and life is short and success is very far off" – J. Conrad

Day 1-2Voyage to the End of theDawn

Departed November 8 @ 8am from The Last Resort,Victoria, BC.

Arrived Nov 9 @ 7pm (eight hours in THE FUTURE)at The Blue Bell Inn, Hempstead, U.K.

When was the last time you travelled 36 hours (at greatexpense) to get to a hundred dollar gig? I thought asmuch. Pussy.

* * *

I went out last night to play this new open stage (timesare tough), and the guy I played with complained thatthey'd charged him for beer and I was like "Honey, I'vedriven 14 hours to pay for beer and I'm a wino. You onlyhad to come across town and your girl friend drove you,so shut it!"

* * *

10 hour plane ride. Diona slept like a baby. I couldn'tand woke her up in full blown petulant frenzy to help mefind my book. I had looked on my own. I had gotten allmanner of people to lift up their feet and stand up tolook on their seats. Nothing. And I was at the last chaptertoo. Memoirs of Montparnasse. I had to know if therewas a later price to pay for youthful hedonism.

No reason. Just curious.

Anyway, when I woke up Diona, she found the slendervolume in two seconds tucked into the seat ahead of meright where I'd left it.

Oh.

Sorry!

It wasn't in there when I looked I swear!

A million hours later, we arrive at Gatwick, kiss our newbest friend DJ GoodcopBadcop goodbye, get the luggage,clear customs and then...

And then what?

Oh yeah. This part. How the hell to get to The Blue BellInn which is in Hempstead, the mailing address of which

says "Near Saffron-Walden", down a country lane in themiddle of nowhere god only knows how far away?

Damn future. Sneaking up on me like that. Ok. Buses?

Trains? I don't know.

I hadn't slept and was not at my best.

Diona suggested we rent a car and my stomach droppedto make room for my sinking heart. The whole drivingon the other side of the road thing, the roundabouts, andthe law that any time you rent a car, despite the adver-tised price and no matter what country you're in or forhow long, it will cost you 600 dollars.

"No look. It's only 24 pounds a day", she says. Despiteevery experience I've ever had, I want to remain positive.

"Well, will you figure out the whole driving thing?"

"Of course. And it'll be cheaper than train fare for twoeverywhere."

Mmm...

We rent something called a Hyundai Getz from theEuropecar kiosk and go meet it in the parking lot. This isso weird. We feel like ADULTS or something. Diona fig-ures out the left-handed stick shift and the other-footedclutch (the signals are backwards too!) and we nose outinto the first of many roundabouts.

For some reason, screaming like Pee Wee Herman as yougo around seems to help. Somehow we make it to theA69 which is what the lady said to do. Okay. Okay. Holyshit we're in England! Driving! What a world!

Drove until dark and then some, down the motorwayand were both sort of wondering how the fuck we weregonna find the place and then I started worrying if I hadeven confirmed the show. Then I saw a sign for Norwichwhich I recognized from the second season of "I'm AlanPartridge", this culty obscure comedy show. Fuelled bythe excitement of seeing something "familiar", I suggestedthat we take the exit.

We stopped at the first petrol station to ask directions andholy fuck it was the EXACT RIGHT EXIT!! A narrowwinding country lane in the pitch dark save for the glowof a few tiny hamlets and then straight on throughSaffron-Walden, where it was apparently dog walkinghour, and more twisty country lanes and there it is. TheBluebell Inn. And in time for dinner even!

We opened the door and the pub was just as we left it 6months ago, which made the whole adventure seem likenot such a big deal even though on the inside we felt likemental cases.

My brain rewound back to the last time we were herewhich caused me to cringe slightly. If you'll recall, I slepton the bar room floor after allegedly giving a clarinet con-cert and propositioning the bar tender. I love that theyinvited me back. But then I guess it would take a maniacto even find this place.

Cute show. There was a keyboard so we worked it intothe act. D. and I both wore black and white and lookedkind of like music students at a recital. That is, until Iopened my filthy mouth of course. Nice crowd of about12 people sat in brightly lit chairs. Very attentive. Totallyfreaky.

When it was over we sat around the wood stove with Rodand Marion the owners, their daughter, their friends fromout of town and the two greyhounds. Except for theposters heralding the arrival of several other Canadianbands, it felt like we were in an oil painting from thenineteen hundreds. Or a rural episode of CoronationStreet.

Upstairs to the tiny beds to sleep the sleep of the penni-less international traveller.

"Welcome to England. Here's your tiny bed!"

Newcastle"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile-and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our actstogether. Not necessarily To Win, but mainly to keepfrom Losing Completely." – Hunter S. Thompson

You know it's gonna be a good show when the promotergoes by the name Fish Finger Frank.

We pulled into town mid-afternoon, hid our stuff behindthe DJ booth in the upstairs bar and ditched the car.Newcastle was grey and rainy and well, just how you'dthink. We strolled and eyed fashions in the fancy stores inthe main square while keeping an eye out for the perfectplace to eat. Found an Italian place with red checkeredtable cloths, thin pizza, salad, wine and you could smokeat the table! When we finished it was only 6:30 so westrolled some more and found a wine bar. Glasses of winewere two pounds forty but bottles of wine were threepounds twenty so what's a girl to do? Vocal warm-ups?Oiling and stretching? Communing with the instrument?

Whatever.

It was a perfectly quiet dark bar for a while until theyblasted piercing Eurodisco through trebly speakers to wel-come the Friday After Work Crowd. Shit. I was a littledrunk. I had noticed something funny with the gravitywhen I went downstairs to the bathroom. Crazy bath-room with a motion activated fountain.

Killed the bottle, drank some water and headed back tothe club. The Telegraph. Near the station. Found FishFinger Frank pacing around wringing his hands anxiouslyawaiting us. There was an opening act named MickOliver. Good songs.

We drank more wine and became his biggest fans.

The bar was half full of lonely dudes. Apparently this ismy Newcastle demographic. My 'fan base' as it were.

We played to the only two people radiating any light.

Carolyn Markgoes to England and Italy A Tour Diary!

8

Two swarthy guys at the front table who seemed to beGetting It. In the break, we went to talk to them and dis-covered that they had just arrived from the DominicanRepublic to take a sustainable agriculture course (inNEWCASTLE?!), spoke barely any English and had justrandomly come to the bar not knowing they were gonnabe seeing any music.

Us foreigners gotta stick together.

The show was kind of a blur. My throat and fingers feltthick and it was hard to sustain the notes. Sold a coupleof CDs and procured a local hostage to guide us back toFish Finger Frank's house where there was to be a littleafter bar party in our honour.

The local turned out to be one of the worst direction-givers of all time, telling us to go left just after passing theturn-off and various other shotgun crimes.

It made me think back to when I was a kid in the passen-ger seat and my mother, a nervous driver, would ask meto check if anything was coming on my side before shepulled onto the road. I used to think if was funny to tellher the coast was clear and then sharply inhale as shepressed the gas. Boy would she get mad. As we drove withthis guy I was silently apologizing to her for thousands ofpast crimes of this nature. And to Diona for making herdrive. And well the list goes on.

I was a remorseful, lonely,boozy chanteuse in Newcastle.

Got to the house. Diona hadbeen here before to score somehash when we played Newcastlelast time with Po'Girl when it wasthe big show at the fancy placecrammed with fans. Of course.She had dropped a few hints as tothe condition of the house, but Ipayed her no heed as we had noother option. It was shambolic.

Filthy, the ubiquitous really hairy cat,fur everywhere and the fireplace wasactually a coal grate! Like, there wereactual bags of COAL beside the fire-place!

We all huddled around on the livingroom floor. Fish Finger Frank, his silentwife, the bad navigator, the simperingsuperfan, me and Dee, possibly someoneelse.

Diona started making some 'well I'm off tobed, that's it for me' gestures but Iimplored her with my eyes to stay for 'justone' as they were doing this in our honour. Idon't think she was feeling well, but that'snot really an option any more. Some travel-ling people, presumably the ones that aregoing to outlive me, are able to ignore anytroubles the hosts have gone to and simply dowhat they want, oblivious to any ruffled feath-ers. Or maybe they don't even notice. Ormaybe it just takes a giant self-obsessed diva ass-hole to succeed in any way in this world. Lordknows people love to be abused... Hmm I wish Iwas more of an asshole but I'm a sucky pack ani-mal with watery boundaries lacking the integrityto say it at the time, emboldened later by the safetyof being miles away shut up in my room replaying theevents in slower time and skewing the details with per-spective so that I feel like more of a star.

So we stay up with the men. They play us some tracksfrom Fish Finger Frank's band's new CD, the bad naviga-tor sings me opera while crouching over me, we smokesome hash, the Simpering Superfan opens this SpecialWine He'd Been Saving. (O.K. so I'm a TOTAL asshole.A remorseful asshole in denial. The worst kind.) At somepoint, Frank left the room and his mates gathered round.

The Bad Navigator says, "You know Frank's really a asuper guy, I mean, despite the whole Ass Burgers thing..."

I am taking a haul off the joint, nodding. Agreeing untilI get to the end of the statement, I cough up the smoke,look up and say "Ass Burgers?!", getting the worst mentalflashes that maybe Frank liked to have lady singers shit inhamburger buns as his promoter fee or something.

You never know.

The Bad Navigator blinks, not understanding the ques-tion so I say it again.

"Ass Burgers? Like in Ass Burgers?"

Finally the shilling drops. He covers his mouth with ahand suppressing a shocked laugh. "No. It's a syndrome.A guy's name. Like Autism. A-s-b-e-r-g-e-r's."

Oh. Like that book The Curious Incident of the Dog inthe Night. Right. They explained some more details, likea crippling desire for meticulous order, social awkward-ness and other stuff until someone noticed that Frank hadreturned and steered the conversation in another direc-tion.

We discovered later, looking it up in London, that one ofthe things about Asberger's is that you think that every-one's talking about you. Poor Frank. Made me think ofan interview I read with Courtenay Love. They asked herwhy she was so weird that one year and she said bluntly,"Oh well I think is was the... uh... crack!"

She went on to say that crack makes you paranoid andyou think everyone's talking about you only since itwas her, they were!

We slept until four pm the next day waiting for our nerv-ous hosts to leave so we could use their phone and com-puter and make The Next Plan. I don't like missing thelight in a day. The evening always feels like I'm on amovie set waiting for the shoot to be over so they canturn the lights back on. Diona is still quite queasy andthe filthy house isn't helping. Also it's been 24 hourssince we've eaten anything. We are sharing three braincells between us. I want to go find C.R. Avery and gocrash his gig. Diona wants to go find Charles in Ireby. Soget this: Our research informs us that that night Charlesin Ireby is putting on the C.R. Avery show, so everyone'sa winner baby! Just as we were escaping, Diona realizedthat the cat had pissed all over her jeans and she almostpuked into the coal grate. Luckily she had nothing left topuke.

Ended up at a falafel stand and where the vegetarian sou-vlaki was a pita stuffed with french fries, a couple strandsof purple cabbage and drowned in mayonnaise. Blah.

Many round-a-bouts later we wound our way down thethin rain-slicked inky roads to Ireby to a cute little halland open arms and a nice house to stay at and they let usopen the show. It was sold out and they dug us which feltgood. C.R. Avery and his band were fabulous. They evengot the audience on their feet DANCING at the endwhich takes work over here. Back at the house down thelane later, a piano playing party with C.R. and the boysbroke out and Charles agreed to be my U.K. bookingagent which is encouraging except for the having tocome back to England part...

The next day was a twelve hour drive in the rain cul-minating with London traffic and Diona was reallysick and puking yellow foam and unable to eat any-thing. Couldn't really blame her. The food was alldisgusting. So even though I was mildy terrified, toatone for and quel the disgust at my own lack ofempathy, I offered to drive so she could rest in theback seat for a while. We were in the parking lot ofthe Motostop after having spent some time push-ing some mashed potatoes around on a plate nearthis family who's son kept asking "Can rabbitsswim? Mummy, can rabbits swim? Can rabbitsswim? Can rabbits swim?" But they had a newbaby now and were ignoring him. We left rightwhen I was about to snap and drown them allin the rabbit pond for being so ugly.

Okay. Get in the driver's seat on the left. Puton the seat belt no problem. Okay. No that'snot the gear shift that's the door handle.Right. Um okay clutch. brakes. Nope. Otherway round. Let's see. Shoulder check. Can'tsee shit. It's just all red. Okay well maybethe windows are backwards too. Let's con-centrate on this clutch situation. Backingup, backing up, not stalling, BANG!

Smashed right into a mail truck, whichexplains why the window was all filledup with red, and promptly burst intotears thinking of the expense and thebruised ego of my inner man. I wantedto save the day not ruin it.

So now Diona not only has to drive, she has toconsole me too as projectile tears splash down on 'myside' of the dashboard. About five minutes later I can tellthat she is trying to suppress a slight smirk. Six minuteslater we are laughing our fucking heads off at the sheercomedy of how fast the whole thing went down. I wasseriously in the driver's seat for under 2 minutes.

Twelve hours later we got to London and somehow madeit to my friend Paul's place in Stoke Newington. Otherthan seeing Paul, London was so horrible this time that Ican't even bring myself to think about it let alone write itdown.

I think you can get the gist from a letter I sent to mymother, and maybe like eight other people:

Cher Maman,I imagine you are wondering about the new level of debtcurrently accrued on the old Mark Family Visa card andwell, I can explain. It ain't pretty and I'm not proud buthere's the story to date:

I don't know. It's kind ofa touchy subject for me. I think everyone's

crazy and I'm suspicious of any sanctioned cures and themotives behind them in a world where the word 'func-tional' is good and the word 'shameless' is bad.

Maybe I have become such a crazy loser slacker that I amlooking for excuses to absolve me from my guilt of notplaying along or fitting in. Actually, since I'm able to'pass' enough to travel and get gigs, not good ones mostly,I mean I usually owe a little at the end, but maybe it's theguilt of fence sitting. Like being able to pass but not usingit to succeed. Like dulling some of your gut reactionsdown to even sleep after being paid like a whore at theend of the night, underpaid at that, for something you(used to) love to do. All the discomfort of selling out withnone of the profit! It's like I'm a social agnostic and youknow if I were Jesus I'd hate a fence sitter more thansomeone with convictions. Luckily, it's hard to punishsomeone who's already in Hell. Maybe in the next life I'llget to be a dog.

Firstly, I'm in Italy now, having left the grey Orwellianmisery of England that leaves one filled with ineffectualrage, screaming at the skies like Basil Fawlty. I can seenow why you left the first chance you were able.

Yesterday was, in a word, frustrating.

To bring you up to date, upon arriving at Gatwick, wepriced out the cost of taking trains for two everywhereand decided to rent a car. £24 pounds a day all inclusive.All was well. Diona said she'd figure out the whole driv-ing on the other side of the road thing which I think Icould have done but also it was a standard. Then Dionagot The New Fall Flu and was, among other things, puk-ing yellow foam and feeling terrible so I offered to trydriving so she could rest and in under 5 seconds, whilebacking out of the parking spot, I hit a postal truck andcreased the door (£75. I'd ticked the insurance waiver) InNewcastle, we rang the rental place to see if we couldkeep said car (a Hyundai Getz, for the record) for a cou-ple more days, figuring that to return it to Gatwick andthen take the train into London and then out to Lutenwould cost about the same.

I asked them if there was a fee to change the drop-off des-tination because, hey man, I've been around, I ain't norube and the woman said it would be £13 pounds whichI thought sounded too good to be true but since I'mworking on this Positive Thing now I thought maybe I'dbelieve her.

Well, she lied. It was £150 and we phoned the numberand pouted at the woman and asked for the manager butwe ain't in Canada anymore which we'd began to noticewhen we came out of my friend Paul's flat in StokeNewington earlier in the day to find the car 'clamped'(Just like on Ab Fab) with two tickets on it even thoughwe had a perfectly valid guest pass displayed prominentlyin the window. We phoned the number and asked tospeak to the manager but we ain't in Canada any moreand nothing's fair and do you think they actually wantmore people in London? It's survival of the fittest baby,like a game of chicken, like if you can't handle feeling thisshitty all the time, well you're clearly not cut out to live inLondon so shove off sister!

It's £115 to unclamp the car which is EXTORTION butthe plane's gonna leave and we have to return the car by3pm or else it's another day's charge so what are yougoing to do?

And the tickets are £100.

Oh yeah and we're exhausted of course, partially due tomy sketchy knowledge of England's geography-put 1000miles on the car between two gigs, and on top of every-thing, man is the food crappy. (What do they gotta dothat to the tomatoes for?) So a thousand dollars poorer,we boarded the discount flight to Italy and I put on sun-glasses, buried my nose in a book and cried hot hot tearsof deep despair thinking it's not just about the money, it'sthe feeling of being covered in loser dust and being madeto pay because you're trying things a different way andwell maybe this is the cost of all the joy etc.

I'm thinking of you and how you'll worry about themoney and how I don't want you to because I knowyou're having some unexpected expenses now and I'mgrateful that you help me at all and I'm gonna pay it backas soon as I can by hook or by crook.

Sorry about all this.love you,xooxcm

Italy: It's Typical of the Region!Keith picked us up at the Bergamo airport in our fancynew touring vehicle. Andrea, the guy who booked thetour, had wangled a sponsorship from the Kia companyby chatting up the president at some corporate party. Isuspect that when the president sobered up, he mighthave forgotten and from the looks of things tried to dosome fancy shuffling and when that failed, ended givingus his own personal car.

The President's car. Back warmers, DVD player, a G.P.S.system, rain sensitive wipers, all kinds of fancy ass crap.

So weird how your luck can change in a day. It's likeweather.

Keith drove us into Milan to see Gurf Morlix and SamBaker (We'll call them The Texans) play at a small clubcalled Nidaba. I had always wanted to meet Gurf. Heplayed guitar with Lucinda Williams for 9 years and he'sproduced a lot of great 'lady records' and has alwaysseemed like a cool guy from far away. I suspected that oneday we would meet but never thought it would be in Italy.

Turns out Gurf and Sam would be staying at Keith andSerena's with us.

The Texans were on stage singing about The War becausethat's what American folk singers do. I got to perfect myone Italian phrase: "do-ay bee-carry de vino rosso perfevorre" (Two glasses of red wine please.)

By the end of the show, The Texans had us all on stage-The Python and a ukulele player representing Milano, thisgirl from Brooklyn, me and D. and some others- in a Weare the World style finale of "I Shall be Released".

When in Rome...

I suspected that The Texans, perhaps nervous at being sodisplaced, were bumping up their "American-ness" andpulling corny shit they'd never dream of trying back homewhich, let's face it, is what Europe is for!

Andrea, the booker, had executed the plate-spinning taskof booking 6 tours for 6 different acts in the same venuesbut staggered relay-style like The Amazing Race.

Andy White was there with a Croatian keyboard player,Gurf and Sam, Me and Diona, the girl from Brooklynand our old friend Neville would be coming from Torontoin a couple of days. Andrea also works for Lifegate Radioand was making an album of his own songs. Musically histwo heroes are Bruce Springsteen and Townes Van Zant.The only time the acts would all meet up was at theTownes Van Zant tribute night in Milan. Before we left,Diona and I had been learning our songs from a cassette aformer suitor gave me before he wised up.

Guys always play me that "Caroline" song about the deadhooker thinking I'll like it. I don't really. For starters, thename's Caro-LYN and it's not such an inspirational taleand well, there's just better songs out there.

But I'm jumping ahead. While reminiscing. Weird. At theend of the night, Keith and Serena drove me, Diona, Samand Gurf back to Barlassina and we fooled around with'our' fancy car's G.P.S. system. As we drove, a woman'svoice with a clipped English accent would announce "Intwo hundred metres turn left". We decided that her namewas Angela. The Texans decided they were in love withAngela.

We noticed a funny thing about Angela; whenever shesays an Italian place name it's like she becomes this wholeother person, possessed by an Italian lady. "In 600 metres,turn right in the direction of MEE-LAH-NO"

We decided that the name of her Italian split personalitywas "Eez-a-bella".

Pegaso, ArcolaMy favourite bar in Italy and here's where we start thetour! The hospitality of Pegaso is legendary. Out of the carand into some vino. I spied dreamy Fabio behind the barreaching for the good stuff the second he saw me. I guessmy repetition precedes me.

Patio pounding and chain smoking until sound checkwith Matteo who is also dreamy but very tired tonight. Isee the long nails on his right hand and remember that heis a classical guitarist and ask him to play with us (ThePython couldn't make it) telling him that music is theonly cure for exhaustion. He agrees and we set up the gearand it's back to the patio until we are summoned for din-ner. Andrea, the owner, in honour of all the 'Andreabands' coming through his bar has decided to implement"American Food Week". Our hearts kind of sank but thebean soup, burritos and apple pie were mercifully unlikeanything you'd find in America.

Delicioso!

The show goes well and people came and Matteo andDiona sounded fabulous together, chasing each otherthrough matching riffs within my songs. So good. Weeven got an encore at the end. And after the encore,

Diona and Matteo stayed on the stage performing as aduo and it was amazing.

Keith and I just sat at a table drinking and marvelling. Ilove this place. They paid us 350 Euros to eat, drink andplay music!

We ended up staying at Fabio's place where he lives withhis beautiful girlfriend and crazy cat Monk. Woke up tocoffee and Friends in Italian on the TV. You should hearJoey's voice! It's hilarious.

Then back to the scene of the crime for lunch.

Oh yes. After all that they give you lunch the next daytoo. The Texans pulled up outside just in time to join usas they were that night's band. Or maybe they were juststopping in to absorb some hospitality. I can't remembernow but onion rings were involved.

It's weird. The Americans not singing their own songs, theItalians not making their own food.

It's like everybody's thinking "Oh but I thought you'dwant this!"

Just be yourselves everybody and it'll all work out I prom-ise.

It's like that weird fable where the woman cuts off herhair to buy her man a wrist watch without knowing thathe's cut off his arms to buy her a hair clip or however thatone goes...

OsnagoLa Locomotiva. The communist train station. The tinyplace with the two sound men. The Python joined ustonight on the guitar. He looks like a sexy walrus inleather and plays like James Burton.

Stefano, the cute young guy who runs the club meets us,gets us drinks, herds us in to sound check and then takesus to his father's restaurant up the mountain. The food isamazing and it looks like the staff is having a wild party.

Stefano says it's not a party. Just a regular night. The staffare all gorgeous waitresses in low-cut gowns. Shortly afterwe are seated, the waitresses are all behind the bar tryingto tickle Stefano's father who is also a handsome devil.

"Stefano where is your mother?" we ask.

"Oh she is in the kitchen cooking."

Hmm. Seems like a raw deal.

We ask Stefano who does the hiring and he says with agrin, "My Father but when it comes to hiring waitresseshe is blind. It's all based on skill."

We all look over at Stefano's father who is literally coveredin waitresses and nod sceptically.

Pasta and then more pasta and then some pasta. If it was-n't for the traditional espresso and grappa jolt at the endof the meal I really don't think I'd be able to get on stage.It's hard to sing about being poor and lonesome whenyou're full and the place is packed so we opted for thetrain medley/novelty song set which the crowd seemed todig. I mean I like to think they did. There were encoresand such. On the way home we made the car go 200!

And found a product called "Drive Beer" at theAutogrille.

Oh yeah. Checked the trap lines and found word fromback home:

Hey Ms C!Hope the trip is going well, and you are in fine fettle. It'sraining like crazy here, so the outdoor trips are few and farbetween. However,....an opportunity has come up for me,in that I can move in with Hoff, and have the back cabinat her place for myself and my toys. The date for this tohappen is Jan 1st. Because folks are shifting around andmoving from that house, the need for me to be quick inthis decision is important.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm giving my notice atChambers St for that date, a month and a half from now.

take care,xoTolan

Nuts. Fucker beat me out of there.

9

10

The Townes Van Zant Tribute NightWord around the chiminea is that the city of Milan hasimplemented a non-driving day in an attempt to combatThe Smog Problem. Serena got us some documentssomehow that would absolve us from the Hefty Fines iswe were to get pulled over by The Carabinieri. You don'tever want to get pulled over by The Carabinieri. Theydress like Mussolini and carry machine guns. Oh. In theItalian phrase book I found at Keith's house, there is achapter called "Don't Mention the War". Seriously.

It says that Italians don't like to talk about It and visitorsare encouraged to stick to the topics of Architecture orFilm.

Went for lunch in Barlassina, the Canadians, the Italiansand the Texans, and it was a nice place but the T.V. wason and tuned into this game show where amateur lingeriemodels with fake tits 'compete' for I don't know what.At one point, after they showed them changing, they puta bag over each girls head and had her identify differentthings with her mouth. "Mmm. I don't know. A penis?"

Naturally, the skinniest one with the biggest tits wonevery time.

And on a Sunday too.

After lunch we hung around the house practis-ing our songs. I was sitting on the floor andDiona and Keith were facing me on thecouch. Sam was at one end of the end with her blueprints and plastic trianglesstudying for her architectural exam. It feltsort of weird to practise with everybody inthe room and to pretend I didn't care.Gurf was right beside me with his back tothe wood stove warming his ass. Halfwaythrough the song I stopped and askedhim if he felt like playing the guitarbecause he's only like MYFAVOURITE GUITAR PLAYEREVER and happened to be you knowSTANDING RIGHT THERE ANDALL and he snapped open his caseand started playing and it was awe-some. All those little Tex-Mex runsjust like on all the Lucinda albums.So perfect.

Loaded up the Kia with gear andTexans, gave Angela the destinationco-ordinates and hit theAutostradde in the direction ofMilano.

The "no-driving" law didn'tseem to affect the amount oftraffic whatsoever. It turns outthat if you have a newer car ora hybrid or a smart car you canstill drive. Once again the richare rewarded and I don'tknow why people even talk about therules in Italy because no one ever obeys them.

Like how they're all allegedly religious but then have lin-gerie models with bags on their heads on day time televi-sion. Apparently the national nightly news features TheWeather Twins.

The club is a proper rock club. I was beginning to won-der if they had them here. Found Neville playing foose-ball when we walked in freshly plucked from the airportby his driver, Stefano from La Locomotiva. A lone pizzacrust lingered in a take-out box on the bar. Guess wemissed dinner but we were issued some drink tickets andgiven printed sheets with the show order. I was 15. Keithwas 4. Gurf was 25. Everyone wanted to trade with Keithas thirst trumps ambition after dark.

The night rolled on. So much acoustic guitar. So manymaudlin lyrics sung in all manner of accents. This crazyAmerican rocker woman sucked all the energy out of theroom when she hit the stage and then did a SECONDsong she wrote about when she used to "drink withTownes". It was then that I kind of snapped. I hadNeville in a conversational headlock.

I said, "Man if he was fat bald and living no one wouldgive a good goddamn how fucking great the dude's lyricswere!" perhaps a little too loudly, high from indoor

smoking and no dinner.

"We should honour the living, man!" I said soundingvaguely like Joni Mitchell on that footage from the Isle ofWight festival.

I know Neville is old friends with Princess Deborah whois a total force of nature so I know he can handle me noproblem as he is no stranger to crazy lady outbursts.

Suddenly it was my turn. I said I certainly hoped thatthey were planning on having one of these things for mein a couple of years. I think it went okay.

Possibly some slight slurring. The stage lights were prettybright so it was hard to gauge any kind of audience reac-tion. The next thing I remember is playing piano withAndrew Hardin on Dead Flowers. And then there was agang bang finale. Diona and I played the piano togetherand she covered me on the solo.

The last thing I remember is stopping at a roadside truckfor grilled sandwiches and throwing fatty bacon out theKia's back window and then waking up drooling withgreasy teeth and powerfully thirsty in front of the crashpad back in Barlassina.

But like old Townes said, "Where you been is good andgone all you keep is the getting there."

The next day there was a gang lunch for allinvolved in the trib-

ute. Pasta and (oh whythe hell not?) wine.

Feeling the slight starch glow reminded of My Trip fromthe night before so I proposed a toast to all the livingdrunk song writers because ladies and gentlemen that's afucking accomplishment!"

And with that stepped outside for a smoke and almostgot wailed by a car whizzing down the alley. LuckilyNeville grabbed me by the collar and pulled me backbefore they had a chance to announce next year's tribute.

BresciaThe following is an excerpt from a letter I wrote to some-one nice:

"Weird show in a university-ish kind of place-You knowwhen the building's all new and totally cold and nobodyknows how to work anything but they're real excitedabout trying everything and then you have to tell themyou're kind of a country outfit and politely talk them outof the rave-style laser light show and maybe less reverbon the fiddle since the room's made entirely of stone andkind of echoey anyway? You know that kind of a place

where everything's new and the staff are all new and try-ing not to get fired and there's way too many of themand when you have to send back the horse(!) (vegetarianoper favorre) you know it'll probably get the shy Croatiangirl fired and she'll have to go back to being a field hook-er cause it's all your fault for being a gluttonous pickyAmerican asshole? Yeah. That kind of place."

I have decided that the definition of Hell is when it‚sALMOST perfect.

Went by La Locomotiva afterwards to drop off Nevilleback at his host family and well, maybe to see if the barwas still open... Ended up going to a party up the streetwhere there was a hookah and a small dog and BobMarley on the stereo. Talked 'French'-ish with this silverhaired guy in a beret who was, I think, suggesting that Ishould not worry about yesterday and tomorrow but onlytoday and when I looked up from the bong and figuredout what he was trying to say I burst out laughingbecause I don't really need any encouragement to, like,Live In the Moment.

Meanwhile, across the table, Diona's guy was holding uphis thumb and finger at her and she was going, 'gun?loser?' so we called in a translator and apparently, he wasshowing her his, uh, 'dimensions' in case she was inter-ested in 'going to the mountain' whatever that means.

Best party I've been to in ages.

Maybe this was the night that wemade the car do 200 and found theDrive Beer.

Who can say?

Italy: In theFace of the Face!

A night off.

Keith and I took Diona to the airport (BigPo'Girl show in Vancouver. Booked monthsin advance) and thought about driving toCorregio to catch Neville's show at the prisonwine bar but even our inner drunks were tiredand thinking about the next five shows. RobertAltman died today and they showed Nashvilleon Italian television. They would never haveaired it if he was ALIVE. Sorry. Guess I'm stillon my Honour the Living trip.

Hosts gone to bed. Fire dying down.

Maybe tomorrow I won't eat all the cheese.

MilanoChocolate gorganzola pasta (You only need to trythat once) at a restaurant where semi-famous menwere eating huge plates of raw meat. Played atNidaba which was the club we went to to see Gurf

and Sam play when we first arrived.

There was a man there that takes photos of everyone withno film in his camera. Conceptual.

Joy and Paola, who I met last time, came ands and tookactual pictures and Serena brought her one armed friend.Keith and Python were awesome but I was missing Dionalittle bit. Or a "leetle beet" as they say here.

FrosinoneEverything in Italy seems convoluted and mysterious tous Canadians. It frustrates Keith considerably. WhenAngela haughtily announced, "You have arrived at yourdestination", we were pointed at a farmer's field in themiddle of nowhere. I've played some weird places beforebut clearly this was not the venue. We phoned the guyfrom the club to find out where we should go and he tellsus it's the Prima Estella Hotel only there's no way we'llever find it because it's not really called that and it's noton any road with a name or in any town(!) so he'll comeand meet us at the gas station.

Diona, Carolyn, Keith!

11

12

The gas station is crammed and busy and probably themost stressful place on earth to meet someone.Especially if you've never met them before and don'tknow what to look for and have no way of knowing ifyou're even at the right gas station.

This is the weird part. In Canada, there's always anaddress. In Canada maybe they don't feed you andthey'll probably rip you off a little at the end of thenight, but there's always an address!

A man appears at the Kia's window waving for us to fol-low him.

He takes us back to the place we thought it might beand tells us to check in and rest and that another manwill come back for us at around seven to lead us to theclub.

The desk lady wants our passports. I look at Keith buthe tells me it's normal.

We chillax in the room watching creepy Italian gameshow television drinking birra.

The club is an A.R.C.I.- pronounced 'archie'- likeLocomitiva- Your basic socialist/communist collectiveobligatory picture of Che Guevara behind the bar kindof joint.

Eight mangy dogs lurk around outside. I want tobefriend them but they all seem a little weird. The clubis a big square room with no heat. A couple of guys arethere already. One wants to give me his CD and be mymyspace friend. He feels like the first guy you meetwhen you change high schools. the one with the desper-ate eyes who wants to 'get to you first' to show youaround and 'warn' you about the others. He speaksEnglish very well.

Keith and I are nervosa about our recent duo status(Diona's gone, The Python had to work) so we half-jok-ingly ask the bar tender if he knows any guitar players,or accordion players even- any soloistas per fevorre? Theguy picks up the phone and calls someone, speaks for afew seconds, nods and then turns to us saying, "You arelucky. He was supposed to go on a date tonight."

While waiting for dinner to be ready we go out back tosmoke. I giant rat runs across the alley and the eager boysays "Oh that is a zoccola! That is a slang word specificto this region." He then tells us that, aside from rat, italso means whore, pussy and clog. In Italy, EVERY-THING is either "typical of the region" and/or slang forpenis or vagina.

I am entranced with the word and write in on my handso I can remember to say it into the microphone a lotduring the show.

'Zoccola!'

Dinner is served. Pasta for eight. I am the only girl. It'salways mostly dudes at the communist clubs. Got methinking about communism in general. How it's alwaysthe people that don't have anything that are way moreinto the concept of sharing than those that do. And howthe communist club owner invariably comes from a richfamily. We clink our glasses together in a toast that theeager guy explains means "In the face of the enemy!" Ilook at my wine glass and ask Keith "What if the wineIS the enemy?" and he said "Well then we're drinking inthe face of the face!" which became the cheers of thenight.

When they brought out the salad (Thank Christ!) a tallbald young guy came in carrying a Marshall amp.Hmm. This could go either way. He came and sat withus and we introduced ourselves. Nicola (Ni-COAL-a).Total sweetheart. Studied music in London. SpeaksEnglish. He made a few comments that let me know hewas gonna be an awesome guitarist.

The show goes well. The place filled up. Nicola is amaz-ing and turns on a dime. He plays a really worn inTelecaster in that loopy kind of Mark Knopfler way, likemy friend Phil, that works really well with my songs.Keith played great. It was kind of nerve wrackingbecause everyone in the place was a musician.

Went out to visit the dogs in the break and met themost beautiful girl I've ever seen. Elaria. Studied inBoston. Spoke English. Into music.

After the show I was standing at the bar with the origi-nal eager guy and a second eager guy when this other

guy comes up to the bar, orders a drink and starts read-ing my palm. He's pretty cute so I'm kind of into it. Hesays, "You are an artist and you'll never have to worryabout the future..." And I'm all swoony and patting myhair going, "Really? It says that?", even though back inthe day, when I ran out of money when I was living inLondon, I used to put on a head scarf, sit outsideCamden Station and pull that very scam. "There is a lotof discrepancy between your head and your heart etc"

So the first eager guy fucks off disgusted but the secondeager guy, who has known me a shorter amount of timeand is therefor still eager, grabs my hand and says to thepalm reader, "If you are trying to find out what she is bylooking at her hand, you need only do this!" and flipsmy hand over to reveal the word "Zoccola!" in flamingballpoint.

Rat, whore, pussy, clog.

Situation. Comedy.

I do okay when I'm the only girl in a dimly lit smoogiebar at the end of the night.

SalernoThis is my second trip to Italy and up until now noth-ing, except Arcola I suppose, has really looked like theItaly of the mind. Things are surprisingly modern andwe've been staying in the suburbs which are never pretty.I mean, aesthetically, Italian suburbs kick the ass of say,Vancouver suburbs with all the box stores and pre-fabhouses, but it's not the image you'd conjure upon hear-ing the word "Italy". Salerno is it. On the water, old oldbuildings, narrow cobble stone alleys, those cool marblebuttresses that hold the buildings apart from each otherthat some people live in, a pedestrian street of shoppingand cafes.

This is Italy baby!

Angela was in a mood today. She kept interrupting TheFamily Guy episode we were watching to say, "Watch forfog up ahead, two hundred metres." Only it wasn'tfoggy and she'd never mentioned the weather before.Maybe I pushed a button...

Everyone in Milan and their dog told us, if we weregoing to Salerno not to leave anything in our car. I won-dered if it was a North-South ignorant fear thing like'those people down there are all thieves and maniacswho'll kill you for a cigarette!' or if it was a real concernlike East Van.

The club is another A.R.C.I. but a small fancy one. It'sin an alley that you're not permitted to drive down. Sothe guy from the club meets us and we unload the gearand he takes us down to the water to a pay parking lotand he says "Don't leave anything in your car!"

So maybe it is a real problem.

He then takes us to where we're staying for the night.

He calls it a 'Hotel' but I see the tell-tale tree symbolfrom when I was eighteen in London and it's a god-damn youth hostel.

My mind conjures images of sharing the shower withdread-locked Australians, toast crumbs in the margarinetub at 6am, bed bugs and well, eager youthful backpack-ers. Most troubling is if we play until two and they kickus out at 10, that's no sleep which doth make a bitchquite cranky. And I'm already there. Also, I am basicallyexperiencing what can best be described as a nosebleedof the cunt. Haven't been able to find any protezione soam basically shoving toilet paper down there and prayingthat I don't leave it behind anywhere when I stand up.Neko has a theory that as you get older your body getsangrier and angrier for not having children. I think it'smore like it gets more and more unbelievably painfuleach time so that eventually death will be a relief.

At the hostel, they take our passports and fingerprintsand we cross through a giant piazza with columns and afountain to the elevator.

The room isn't bad. There is a bathroom. There is a toi-let seat. Two tiny hard beds and some bunk beds. (Forour son Nicola. We had convinced him to play theSalerno show with us.) The window opens onto beauti-ful building tops and the ocean.

I know that both Keith and I are eyeing the bathroom. I

do the honourable thing and leave him to it in hopesthat he will return the favour.

I go down the alley to the water, crossing through thejoggers on the boardwalk. It looks kind of like SanDiego. There's palm trees.

I go down to the water. I want to get in it so bad but noone else is. There's some old plastic bottles washed up onshore and I can see some stray cats are living in a pile ofdriftwood, but the water itself doesn't look too bad.

I take off my shoes and socks and wade in the surf andit's magic. I walk along the shore wondering if everyoneis thinking, "Stupid foreigner" or "How delightful to wit-ness such a beautiful sense of childlike freedom in thesemodern times" when the smell hits. Like dirty diapers ormouldy coffee grounds or a toilet maybe. I am trying toidentify the smell when a used condom washes over mytoe and then I realize that where I am standing is wherethe sewage comes out. Just like back home in Victoriawhere I never walk the dog. Ugh.

So I have to put my socks back on to fit them into myboots and my feet are all sewery and sandy and I HAVEto have a shower stat. I go back to the room and Keith ispassed out on the bed. I thought he might leave when Igot back but I guess our deal was all in my head cause heain't moving. Fine. I bring all my stuff into the bath-room because I'm going to stay in there a long time. I getundressed and I'm covered in blood and sewage andopen the shower door and am just about to turn on thewater when I realize that there are no towels. FuckingHostels. Hostiles. I suppress a KeiteIian scream, getdressed, take the elevator downstairs trying to rememberthe Italian word for towel and approach the front desk. Ayoung man is working on a computer smoking underthe non- smoking sign with his back to me. I can'tremember the Italian word for towel so I ask him inEnglish and he disappears for ages before coming backwith one thin white towel. I go to grab it but he tells meit's 4 Euros. Fine. I toss him a fiver thinking that If Ihave to pay I won't feel half as bad for what I'm gonnado to that towel and start to walk away.

He tells me to wait and starts keying in data to the com-puter. He wants my room number and passport info andthere, is of course , a receipt to be printed. I am sighingheavily and throwing my head back like an outragedAmerican movie star. Can't a bitch just take a fuckingshower in this country?

(You know, I've been reading this book Amy lent meabout this guy who raises three abandoned bear cups in acabin in Northern B.C. and compared to him, my com-plaints now seem bourgeois at best but I think that thedefinition of Hell is when it's ALMOST perfect.)

I take the elevator back up and lock myself in the bath-room, take off my clothes and get in the shower. Theshower is tiny. It's basically a raised platform with thesesliding hard plastic dealios that sort of join in the back.It barely fits a body. I am just about to turn on the wateragain when I realize that there is no soap. I let out a longsilent "FUUUUUUUUUCK" and then I realize that Ihave some olive soap in my bag that I bought for TheMaintenance Man. Yes!

Okay so back in the shower, pull the curtains togetherand the shower head is one of the hand held variety butthere's no where to hang it so you have to hold it. Okayso soap up first and then rinse I guess? I drop the soapand reach down to get it but the shower is so small thatto bend over, I have to open the doors to accommodatemy ass. I feel like Lucille Ball only angrier.

I stay in the bathroom so long that eventually Keithknocks and asks if I am all right.

I whip open the door fully dressed and made up with allmy sewage-ey clothes washed in olive soap and hung todry. He seems impressed with the laundry. We hit thetown. Heading down tiny alleys until we find the pedes-trian shopping street and eye the shoe stores and cafesand it feels so good to be walking. End up at an outdoorcafe for snacks and vino where homeless people keep try-ing to sell us weird things.

Flowers, ceramic lions. I want to tell them that I'm justbarely one step away from being one of them and then Ithink about the fucking KIA with the GPS and the backwarmers and that I'm at an outdoor cafe in Italy and

13

holy shit, am I a fucking yuppie? Maybe everybodythinks they really don't have much. I REALLY don't havemuch. After England, I have much less then nothingwhich makes me very uncomfortable. There but for thegrace of the mother Visa go I. But whatever, Salute! Youonly live once right? In the face of the face!

The show went well despite the weird microphone. Verydirectional. Only this one spot the size of a nail headwould produce any sound and so if you moved it wouldfeel like your voice was giving out. Very unnerving andnot so satisfying but we made it out alive and paid in fullwhich is saying something.

The hostel, of course, threw us out at 10am despite ourheroic efforts to treat the matter of the knocking deskclerk with "ignortion". He was wise to us and I suspectedthat this technique had been tried there before.

Said goodbye to Nicola and drove like madmen to Arcolato catch Neville's show. He said we could play with himand we arrived in time for dinner and they fed us all andthe show was awesome and after we all sat around a tableplaying guitar and singing songs.

Andrea, the owner was singing all these sad Irish songs.He lived in Scotland when he was younger and had thetime of his life. Fabio took us home with him after theshow. I'm supposed to send him a pink capo when I gethome. What's really funny is that I thought he said "Ivant a beeg cowboy" and I was like "Yeah. Me too! Let'scatch the morning flight to Alberta!" but it turned out itwas the pink capo he was after and I already have one ofthose.

Woke up after a car-crash coma style sleep and walked to'town' in my slept-in funeral clothes in the bright sun-shine back to the scene of the crime in time for lunch."American Food Week" was officially over. We had pastacon olio y aille, fromaggio, insalata, vino, espresso, grappaand indoor afternoon cigarettes with The Owner and ThePython and Neville and Keith and then drove throughThe Cinque Terra (The Five Lands) with all the tinytwisty roads, vertical villages and terraced mountainswhere the trees and stuff look like they came from anH.O. train set.

Dear J,The shows are done but I'm still here counting down thehours. Neville just went into Milano for a beezness meet-ing and my host family's gone to Palermo for the architec-tural exam.

I'm staying here hogging the vacant house. Alone at last.The Italians don't believe that people ever want to bealone. It takes some fancy dancing to escape their clutch-es. My neck is sore from nodding and smiling and at mymost paranoid, I suspect the Italians are feeding us somuch to fatten us up for the final cannibalisto festa!

Or maybe I don't have to eat everything...

The guy that booked the tour is coming by later to collecthis fee. Ah well, At least they let me hold the money for alittle bit.

See you real soon,xocm

Sweetheart,Thank you so much for looking up the buses. You'rean angel. And I'm so glad it was you that told me ofThe Vampire's fate. It would have really sucked to hearit from any one else. I mean it totally sucks but I'mglad it was you. I sort of don't believe it thoughbecause everybody knows vampires live forever. Iguess I should probably stop calling him that. PoorNeville. He came home with fancy wine from Milanofor us and after a mere one bottle, Andrea sent the e-mail about how much money he was gonna take fromus and then I called you and heard The News and sortof started bawling like a Broadway actress just asAndrea pulled up in the alley to take us back to thatweird place in Brescia place which didn't exactly cheerme up.

When I hung up the phone, Neville saw my face andasked, "Do you want me to be nice to you?" and Isaid "Fuck no!'". So then he said "Well then pull your-self together woman and I'll give you a hug later!'which was kind of awesome. God bless the stiff upperlip.

(By the way, the Croatian girl still has her job!)

Couldn't help thinking how much The Vampirewould have fucking HATED that place. At the end ofthe night I had basically turned INTO him. Howlinglike a wounded animal at all the hypocrisy and horror.

Later on, I got to see Neville snap. The band was sortof brutal for two song writers to have to sit through.Like taking chefs to McDonald's or something. ButAndrea and Python were digging it and every so oftenthey'd look over nodding and smiling at us and we'dhave to cease our elaborate "kill me now" pantomimes.And after the third hour Neville, who is the mostrelentlessly positive chin up go-towards-the-light per-son I know just fucking snapped. He was crying intohis napkin over his pizza, which, by the way, lookedlike a meat graveyard.

Good times.

Yup. Stayed at the party too long once again.

Anyway by tomorrow night all this will look likesomething I want...

xo cm

Pulled an all -nighter in London. Spent some time atLuten airport then caught the 1:45 bus to Gatwick.Was having the best dream when I was awoken by thebus driver shaking me saying, "Souf Terminal luv?"Spent a few hours waiting and hitting the Bailey's dis-play in various disguises. It was on special at the dutyfree and they were giving out free samples. When Iwas going through the X-ray machines, this kid startedscreaming, "I want my Louie! I want my Louie! I wantmy Louie!"

The big dark security man had taken her doll and wasgoing to run him through the machine and he leansover and he has these great big caterpillar eyebrowsand garlic breath and says "Louie vants to go throughthe tunnel!" to the kid who starts really freaking out. "I

want my Louie! I want my Louie! I want my Louie!" Thekid was sort of voicing every body's feelings. It made mekind of misty. I mean nobody really wants to take off theirboots and surrender their stuff and be herded like cattle,it's just something you resign yourself to as you get older.

This is an actual conversation that went on inside myhead on the plane:

Voice A-"Look at you. This cannot continue. Maybe youhave to get a job."

Voice B- "You can't get a job! It's all computers now!"

Final assessment: Guess I'm into this music thing for thelong haul.

The Home Stretch-Made it to Vancouver and the Honey Sisters came to getme in the Mad Max Volvo and there was wine and vegeta-bles and everyone was speaking sweet English and I was sograteful but then then the next day, still had to get back tothis fucking island. There's a rule that for some reason, thetrip back to Victoria will take however long the trip toVancouver was and the Volvo won't start when it gets wetso we pushed it out of the way and dug the other car outof the snow but then ran out of gas and got stuck and hadto push the car and got a snootful of slush when the tiresgrabbed and wet feet and missed a ferry and then finallygot on the five and then the bus and to the liquor storebecause they seized my wine at the airport in Italy becauseit was obviously some sort of terrorist juice and there, out-side Big Bad John's, amidst the smoking hobos, was Tolanlooking kinda wobbly and I was getting out of the taxi inmidnight blue fur just back from Italy and it felt so weird,so I did the honourable thing and pulled my hat brimdown hoping we didn't see each other.

Got to the Maintenance Man's house and when he saidsomething about ladies and drinking, I somehow acciden-tally took a bite out of my wine glass. Seriously.

I think the trip home was a little stressful.

I apologized and he said, "Well I only have them for you"which I thought was quite sweet.

Practised my new hobby of passing out mid-sentence.

Tried to get my stuff all the way home the next morningbut couldn't scrape the ice off the car or get it to move sowalked home contemplating the epic task of moving out.

Decided that as usual, finding a box of money would defi-nitely take the edge off.

Also decided that even though I'm broke and it's stormyand I might have to move, It feels so good to be home.I'm going to watch movies and do dishes and dust and doall the normal stuff normal people do just to get along!

xoCarolyn MarkThe Last Resort, Victoria, BCDec '06

www.jcdcstudio.com

The New PornographersImmaculate MachineTegan and Sara

Young and SexyAC NewmanDestroyerThe EvaporatorsThe SmugglersRodney GrahamVolumizerThe WinksSparrowRaised by WolvesTheresa Sokyrka

vedahille.com

14

So David Hasselhoff, if you're listening tothis...Or anybody — $5 million, become a hip-hop star.Ice-T, how are the juice wars going? Howare the juice wars going, because youhave the Liquid…Yeah, I had Liquid Ice, but I got in a lawsuit withthem cats and I'm not promoting them anymore.Ah, OK, 'cause it was Liquid Ice andNelly has the Pimp Juice, so I thoughtthere was some juice wars going on.I made Liquid Ice. Liquid Ice was better. It tasted bet-ter and everything, but what happened was the catsthat had the company sold it to some other peopleand they tried to breach my contract and we had totake 'em to the max, you dig what I'm saying? Wehad to get our money.Ice-T, you talked today about how youhad to prepare for potential predators,battling potential predators.Yeah.Like, you never know who you'll comeup against. So I offer you this: What wasit like when you battled a leprechaun, inLeprechaun In The Hood?I was worried about that leprechaun, because thatleprechaun, I never saw that guy out of makeup. Sohe is a midget, so I would hit the corner, he waswalking around, and he always looked like that so Iwasn't really cool with that leprechaun. He was astrange character and he was always in character,so I just, you know, so I just read my lines and youknow, stayed out of the way.That's somebody you never prepared for,you never prepared for a leprechaun, didyou Ice-T?Nah. I ain't never thought I'd have to go head upwith somebody with superpowers.

Ice-T, what was it like having a1-900 line? Youhad a 1-900line. That'spretty cool.Yeah, that's cool.Back in the day,before the internetyou know what I'msaying, so peoplewould call. You justanswer a whole bunchof questions and they'dpress a button andyou'd get a recording.Ice-T, November 14.What doesNovember 14 meanto you?Day before November 15?No, it's Ice-T day inAtlanta!Yeah. [laughs] I got thatyears and years ago. I neverwent down there and flexedmy key to the city. I haven'tgone down there and said,"Hey, everybody shut up. It'smy day." But they gave that tome years ago.

Is that the only day you have? Have youbeen given the keys to other cities?I think they wish they took that day back. I thinkafter they gave that to me people said, "Do youreally know who he is?" So you know, I wouldmake it so November 14, in Atlanta, all titties willbe bare.Ice-T, were you the first guy to say "ho"on a record?I dunno, maybe, me or Too $hort, probably.I want to ask you about some of these

Nardwuar: Who are you?Ice-T: Ice-T.Ice-T, I have to ask you, right off the bat,did you ghostwrite this [Nardwuar givesIce T a cassette] right here, "Mr. T'sCommandments?"Yes I did.That's amazing. Can you tell me aboutworking with Mr. T, because you're notcredited on this particularrecord?I'm not on there?No. It doesn't have yourname. Like if you open itup, look for your name, itdoesn't say your actualname. It doesn't say Ice-Ton the actual creditswhen you open it up.Yeah, this is a secret. I guessback in the day I didn't feel Iwas ever gonna be anybody.I was around these cats whowere actually doing a videofor him called "BeSomebody Or BeSomebody's Fool" andthey didn't really have arapper and they askedme if I'd try to help Mr. Trap and I wrote mostlyall the raps for him.I love it. "Mr. T'sCommandments,"believe it, everyword is...True.True, yeah.[laughs] It was pretty whack. Imean, it's something to look back on, but the factthat I was able to even work with Mr. T? I gotta, youknow, give myself a pat on the back for that.Because it makes me think, who is thereal Mr. T? Mr. T or Ice-T? Who is the realT?Mr. T has the mohawk.And that gives him the crown?That's the answer, yeah. And he's bigger than meand he's more violent, I think.Ice-T, I wanted to read you a quote fromBlowfly. Blowfly says, "I'm a stand-upcomedian, a rapper and a singer." Whatdo you think about that? Are you likeBlowfly?

Yeah, yeah, I try to sing, you know I sing in BodyCount. But yeah I'm a stand-up comedian. I like totry and get a joke in edgewise, you know what I'msayin'? Then I'm a rapper. I go from one side to theother. Sometimes I'm dead serious about certainissues and other times I'm just, you know, havingfun.Ice-T, is it true, David Hasselhoff, Ice-T? Isthis true, you're going to be producingDavid Hasselhoff's rap LP?

No, there's a rumour out about that. Whathappened was I was

doing an inter-view with a guy and he asks me, hesays, "You're so cool Ice, you could probably makeanybody rap." And I'm like, "For enough money Icould make anybody rap." He said, "Could youmake David Hasselhoff rap?" I said, "For $5 millionI could have him rappin' like Jay-Z." So the nextthing you know we got the rumour out that I'mworking with David Hasselhoff. But uh, nope.I heard he's your next door neighboor.Nope. Nah, I never even met him before.So nothing ever came of it then? He did-n't ever contact you?The offer's still out there.

Nardwuar, Coco, and Ice-T!

15

Ice-T album jackets here. [Nardwuar pullsout some vintage Ice T vinyl] We have the"Coldest Rap." First off, let's zero in onthat photo of you. What is going on thereIce-T?Well, that's the old hip-hop style, you know what I'msaying? A lot of metal, a lot of studs and stuff. If youlooked at Melle Mel And The Furious Five, and all ofus was wearing. It was real heavy metal so that wasthe style back then.Were you toldto wear that?Nah. That was howMCs, we wanted tolook tough, so that'swhat we wore.And there's the"Coldest Rap,"that's where Ithought the rapthat contained theword "ho" for thefirst time was onwax.Yeah, this is my firstrecord. This is not actu-ally on the right label.It's on a record labelcalled Saturn, but youknow I still have my haton and my glasses andstuff. You know, back in the day that was the coollook.Now, they dressed you up for the movieBreakin'? Did they dress you up?Nah. That was just my clothes.So those were your clothes?Yeah, I had on, like, a bomber jacket and a hatfrom Neiman Marcus and uh, just doing my thing.Ice-T, underneath that record, if you couldjust lift them, we have another compila-tion called The Compton Compilation. Andif you could turn that over for a second, Iwanted to ask you about this. Here wehave a picture of Compton's Most Wantedwith a white guy in the band!Yeah, well you know, there's white people inCompton. Actually, that was MC Eiht and their crew,you know what I'm saying? I mean it was like, whowas in the original NWA? Arabian Prince was inthat group back in the day, you know what I'm say-ing? So there's white people in Compton, you knowthat?And right over here we have Vanilla C, afemale rapper. What's the history offemale gangsta rappers, Ice-T?I dunno. The trip with gangsta rappers is once a girlacts too hard it's like she no longer acts like a girl,so it's kinda like a paradox, you know what I'm say-

ing? They can only rap so hard then they startsounding man-ish, so it never really works. I thinkthe only real people that really mastered that areFoxy Brown and say, Lil' Kim.What do you think, if we could move hisrecord out, of this record? This personright here?Terry C, right?Terry C. What's the importance of Terry C,

a white woman gangsta rapper?Yeah, somehow Eazy hooked up with herand she was like supposed to be the nextthing and stuff but I never really met her.From what I understood she was an inter-esting chick, had an ill personality. A lot ofpeople weren't really getting along withher, but then I heard she turned over andstarted to try and do rock.I've been mentioning the womenbecause you're hosting VH1 Hip-Hip Honors and I understandyou're inducting MC Lyte into thehall of fame. MC Lyte!Yeah, MC Lyte is a hardcore rapper.East coast.Yeah, east coast, I wouldn't call hergangsta rap, but she was hardcore. Youknow, she was right on the edge andvery much respected and one of thepioneers of the early, rugged style of

rap.Ice-T, we have [Nardwuar pull out anoth-er vinyl LP] here The Posse, Chapter Two,another Compton record.Uh-huh.On the back here I find it neatthere are some pictures hereof the 2 Live Crew whenthey were from L.A.Yeah, people don't know that.Actually brother Marquis wasreally, used to be my hype-man. He used to come out onstage with us at some of ourshows and all the groups fromL.A. originally started onMacola Records see. Macolawas a pressing plant in L.A. thatwe could go to and you could go inthere with a tape and they would makeyou a record. So that's what me, NWA, allthe L.A. groups started right there.And right there [pointing to the record]we have the Digital Underground. Nowat this time was 2Pac dancing for DigitalUnderground? What can you say about2Pac dancing for Digital Underground?Yeah, 2Pac was dancing and doing the wholeDigital thing. You know, "Doowutchyalike" like and

all that kinda stuff, having a good time, you know.He didn't really jump off until he went into his solocareer with the more hardcore stuff.And here we have Ice-T! [Nardwuar pullsout a another Ice T LP] What do youremember about this? This is one coolrecord cover, Ice-T.[looking at record] It's me and Evil, you know whatI'm saying? And uh, you know, everybody's just try-ing to, we had the gun. I had the .38, you know.Back in the day I had the three fingered ring rightthere that everybody wanted. Some fresh Jordans,you know what I'm saying? It was just being funkyfresh, just keeping it real clean.Do you still have that outfit?Nah. I don't have that outfit. But it would still lookgood today.Ice-T, one other thing I was wonderingabout was "99 Problems." What's thehistory of that song? It's your song. Jay-Ztook it, and now apparently there's somelinks to 2 Live Crew?What happened was, the true story is BrotherMarquis made that comment one time I was withhim. And he was like you know "I got 99 problemsand a bitch ain't one." So I thought we can make arecord off of that, so I call Marquis and flew him outto L.A. Me and him did the record together, paidhim and everything was cool and that was that.Years later, Jay-Z hears the record from Rick Rubinand decides he wants to remake it, remakes thehook and does it. Then Marquis comes back andhears Jay-Z did it and decides he wants moremoney, but all the money was already paid out. I

didn't get any more money or any pub-lishing from it because I had a

publishing deal at the time. Sohe decides he wants to sue

me and all kinds of nastystuff which friends should-n't do to each other, butthat's the true story.Nothing's happenedsince then. You know, it'skinda water under the

bridge, you know, but thefirst "99 Problems" was

done by myself and BrotherMarquis from 2 Live Crew.

Ice-T, what did you do onFame? You were on Fame.

What did you do on Fame?Breakdancer, I was a breakdancer.Would you get paid for that? Did younegotiate a good deal or was it likethose other movies where you didn't getas much money?Nah, we got paid scale, you know, so probably,like, seven grand.

Continued on the next page!

16

Ice-T, you're a good friend of Jello Biafra.How come Jello Biafra, ex-Dead Kennedyis the real G? How is Jello Biafra the realG?Well, you know, real G's basically, if you want toget into it, it just means you're original. You know,and Jello Biafra is one of the original DeadKennedys members, one of the original punkers, oneof the original people who really set the mode forearly punk rock and stuff like that, so that makes hima G. If you're obviously a copy of somebody, youdon't get that G. You can't be called a G, you basi-cally a replica.Ice-T, do you still like Sizzler?Yeah, Sizzler's more of a west coast place, youknow. In New York right now we go to Tad's.Ice-T, the movie 3,000 Miles To Graceland.Yeah.I was a bit upset at the end of thatmovie. You're suspended from a flyingfox and you totally get murdered. Whydid you agree to do that? Was that justfor the money? Because I felt mad. Ice-T,you had no chance to live in that moviedid you?Uh, well the true story was the cat that was directingthat wanted me to be one of the Elvis' at the begin-ning of the movie. And I couldn't do it because I hadanother obligation. And they actually wrote that partin the movie to bring me in at the end, so it waskinda like the director wanted me to be, like I got acool part playing Hamilton and it was a pretty excit-ing moment in the movie. So I get a lot of clips inaction sequence shows.So you're just hanging basically from ameat hook getting nailed.Just spinning around shooting two guns. It was cool.It was fun.Ice-T, Dan Quayle, did he get a gold

record for helping Body Count?Yeah, we gave Dan Quayle a gold record. Wegave Charlton Heston a gold record. Not so muchthey helped us, but it was just like they was so stupidso, you know, you can call, once you have an offi-cial gold record you can call and get anybody'sname connected to it. So we got one with CharltonHeston's name on it and one with Quayle. Wehaven't ever presented it to 'em.Ice-T, you recently played the LeedsFestival with Body Count, didn't you?Yes sir.And you were heard saying, "The mainstage is full of pussies."True.What is a pussy, Ice-T?Just a pussy. Everybody knows what a pussy is.Just… I guess a pussy is something that has noballs.Ice-T, what's wrong with teddy bears?Why don't you like teddy bears? You'resaying Kanye West has a teddy bear.Why don't you like teddy bears?I don't understand grown men with teddy bears. Idon't understand it. I mean, Kanye West is cool, Imean he just threw me with the teddy bear.Ice-T, I wanted to ask you lastly here,about this record right here [Nardwuarpulls out an LP], we have the JimmyCastor Bunch. What can you tell the peo-ple about the Jimmy Castor Bunch? Youused a sample of this on your Powerrecord.Uh, you know, Afrika Islam produced a lot of mymusic and he was into the old original hardcorefunk bands like Jimmy Castor Bunch and DazzBand and all the real heavy grooves like that. Sothat's part of hip-hop is taking something that maybe, you know, obscure to other people and making

it funky. That's what hip-hop is about.And you were saying Ice-T, that yourband has splintered. Is it true that yourex-associate the Egyptian Lover is a pimpor is it DJ Aladdin who is a pimp?DJ Aladdin's a pimp [laughs]. DJ Aladdin is nowpimpin' somewhere. He may be up here in Canadawith his groove on. Egyptian Lover, from what I lastunderstood, is out DJing all over the world.Because he was in the movie Breakin'with you right?Uh, he was in there with Afrika Islam and TheGlove.Ice-T, anything else you want to add tothe people out there?Nah, I think you got enough. You're a very interest-ing guy and I like your wardrobe.Well, thank you very much Ice-T, I appre-ciate that.Yeah it's real pimpish. I like how it's going down. It'sreal big.Ice-T, why should people care about Ice-Tand Body Count?I dunno. I mean you gotta care about something,why not care about us? You know what I'm saying? Ithink music is just like going to the ice cream store,man. You know, if you don't like this flavour pick outanother flavour. I just happen to be one of theflavours in the ice cream store.Well, thanks so much Ice-T, keep onrockin' in the free world and doot dooladoot doo…Bang bang.

Thanks to Chris Nelson from MuchMusic's "GoingCoastal".To hear this interview, be sure to check outwww.nardwuar.com! Special thanks toChart Magazine www.chartattack.com!

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Last known photograph of P:ANOBarcelona, Spain, 03 June 2006

Last known photograph of P:ANOBarcelona, Spain, 03 June 2006

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Nardwuar: Who are you?Joan Jett: [laughs] Who am I? I'm Joan Jett.Joan Jett, welcome to Vancouver, BritishColumbia, Canada.JJ: Thank you very much, it's great to be here.So here you are on the Warped Tour. Acouple dates ago, did you play a gig withThe Germs? The Germs and Joan Jetttogether on the Warped Tour!JJ: Yes, yes we did. We weren't on the same stage butwe were in close proximity. It was a lot of fun seeingthem again.And you're in the new Germs' movie, too?JJ: Well, I'm not sure. There's a couple of differentmovies, so I'm not sure which one. I know they'redoing a documentary which I recently spoke to thewoman doing it. So, yeah, I'll be in that one, yeah.But you're not in the actual Germ's movieWhat we do is Secret starring ShaneWest?JJ: I personally am not but I'm not sure if they havesomeone in there playing me or not.Now Joan, you produced The Germs. Didyou really see Lemmy of Motorhead beatup Darby Crash of the Germs?JJ: [laughs] I saw him try definitely. Yeah, 'cause Darbycame to see us in England and, you know, he wasprobably a bit out of it. I think he jumped on stage orsomething like that, 'cause I don't remember seeingtoo clearly either. And Lemmy and some of the boysstarted beatin' on him and I'm like, "No! He's a friendof mine!" And Kenny Laguna, my songwriting partner,we had to stop the beating.Joan Jett, you have your own record labeland you're still kickin' and rockin' with abrand new band, pretty much brand newto your label, The Eyeliners!JJ: Yes, The Eyeliners are from Albuquerque, NewMexico. They're three sisters and they play great, sortof hooky punk rock music with great melodies.And you're in a brand new video spraypainting a cop car. Was that a life longdream of yours to spray paint a cop car,Joan Jett?JJ: [laughs] Yeah, that was fun. Definitely. Get my licksback, yeah.Joan Jett, you have a new song called"Bad Time."JJ: Yeah, that's one of the songs on the new CD, yeah.Did Canada at one time give TheRunaways a bad time when you openedup for Rush? Were Rush mean to TheRunaways?JJ: Well, I believe some of the guys in Rush weren'treally Runaways fans and probably made a fewremarks here and there, yeah.Why would that happen? Rush! That's likeCanada's national band! Have you seenthem since? Do you have any idea whythey would do that? Can you rememberanything about that incident?JJ: You know, it's kind of vague because it was so longago but I think one of the guys said somethingderogatory about us. We're, you know, standing sidestage or something and, you know, I was probably

really angry at the time but as I look back on it, youjust have to take it with a grain of salt and figure hefits in with many people who are threatened bywomen playing rock 'n' roll and it wasn't about themusic. Maybe the audience liked us better or some-thing.Many people in Canada do love you!Especially photographer Bev Davies. Shetook these shots here. [Nardwuar handsphotos to Joan Jett] I don't know if youremember, from the Commodore Ballroomin Vancouve,r in 1980.JJ: I don't actually but I do remember the time.Now looking closely, what are you wear-ing?JJ: [laughs] I don't know what the hell that is!There's something around your neck. Isthat a baby pacifier around your neck?JJ: Yes, it is. It's a pacifier. And that is sort of a remem-brance, or it was something to signify something that Iwent through with The Runaways. And when TheRunaways went to Scandinavia for the first time, toSweden, we got off the plane and were greeted byhundreds of beautiful girls. Blonde girls, like youngteenagers, wearing real pacifiers and sucking on themsaying, "Can we have your autograph?" We were liketotally confused by the whole experience. You know,we had just come from Japan where we were alsoheld in high esteem by all the young girls. And Iunderstood that a little more because in Japanese soci-ety women are second class citizens. So girls werelooking at us as empowering them, I suppose. But thewhole pacifier thing, I was confused and I asked themand they said, "It's a fad. It's a fashion." So, one day, Ifound a silver pacifier in a jewelry store and I just hadto get it. And that's what that's about.From Vancouver, 1980, Joan Jett! AnotherCanadian that loves you is Peaches.Peaches loves you and you love Peaches,too!JJ: Yeah, I think Peaches is great actually. I think she'sa lot of fun, her music is a lot of fun and I just saw heractually play, opening for Nine Inch Nails inMilwaukee a couple weeks ago.Joan Jett, Peaches loves feminine bodyhair. Do you think feminine body hair isunderrated?JJ: Yeah, I guess it depends on who you ask, definitely.Joan Jett, you also have a song called"Fetish."JJ: Yes.Now speaking of fetishes, is it true that TheRunaways once made a pee popsicle?JJ: Yeah, that is true.I have this quote: "We gave one guy whomessed with us a pee popsicle that was 10per cent lemonade and 90 per cent pee."JJ: Yeah, that wasn't all The Runaways. That was actu-ally at my party house that we used to keep them therefor if we needed them.Then he goes, "This tastes like shit."Without missing a beat Joan Jett said,"You're gettin' close!"JJ: [laughs] Well, I don't know if that was exactly thewords because I don't remember. But it sounds prettyclose.So why did he get a pee popsicle? And did

a lot of stuff hap-pen? Like, if youmess with TheRunaways, you'regonna get it!JJ: Well, I'm not really

sure where the pee popsicle thing camefrom. It was more like revenge on peoplewho would screw with my friends and I.And maybe TheRunaways, too.Joan Jett, are youever going to doanother rap? Like,you workedwithGrandmasterFlash! Is thereever gonna be another Joan Jettrap?JJ: Never say never. Maybe.Joan Jett, I wanna read you aquote from the book The BoyLooked At Johnny. It's by JulieBurchill and Tony Parsons from 1978 andit's all about punk rock. I don't know ifyou're familiar with this book at all.JJ: I am, I am, I know both of them.It's amazing. "Joan Jett is the last rock 'n'roll star as you know it in the world. Neveragain will glamour, youth, melody anddesperation find their way on to a big timestage in one teenage body."JJ: How can you even comment on something likethat? They were great writers and good friends ofmine and I just feel very humbled by those state-ments.It's incredible because theywere complete punks.They hated everythingAmerican except forJoan Jett. Let mecontinue. "AfterJoan Jett, allAmericans arepeanuts."JJ: [laughs]Then they goon to say,"Polly Styreneof the X-RaySpex is thebest thingabout Britishpunk rock whileJoan Jett is thebest thing aboutAmerican punkrock."JJ: I'm very grateful.It's incredible and that iscoming from 1977-1978, at theheight of punk rock. You are held inhigh esteem by these snobby punks. That'smust've been a great feeling.JJ: It sure was. I remember at the time when they wrotethat and it did make me feel very good, definitely.Joan Jett, did you also party on Sid Vicious'house boat and did Sid Vicious really havea house boat?JJ: It wasn't Sid's, it was The Runaways'. We rented itfor a couple of weeks because we were there to makea record. So we were living on the Thames River on ahouse boat and we never made the record becausethings fell through. So it wound up just sort of being aparty boat. And some of the girls would party withtheir friends, which is more of like a heavy metal partything and my friends were people like Sid and Nancy.Joan Jett, were you really rescued by

21

Manuel Noriega?JJ: No, what do you mean?[laughs]You were in Panama and youhad to be, like, flown out by heli-copter by Manuel Noriega.JJ: Well, I remember being inPanama, but I don't rememberthe whole... I believe he was a

fan or he wanted to meet meor...

Kenny Laguna:Can I refreshyou?

No, go ahead!Come on inKenny Laguna.JJ: Kenny, come in.This is... could you

please introduce, who do we have here,Joan Jett?JJ: Kenny Laguna is my songwriting partner and heproduces all my records and he's my best friend nowfor about 25 years at least.Welcome, Kenny.Kenny Laguna: Thank you. How you doin'?Good! Now back to Manuel Noriega.KL: Well, we were the first English-speaking band everto go to Panama. Even though those guys (Van Halen)

had that song "Panama," no-one ever went. NoAustralians, no Brits, no Canadians. So

we went in and we were the firstrock 'n' roll band. Panama's

whole country had boot-legged MTV. So they were

all watching MTV andwhen Joan got there it

was a huge thing.We did a live televi-sion show wherewe were doingfive songs. I'mpretty sure it wasa lip synch. Bythe time we weredone there werethousands of kids

outside of the televi-sion studio and a

riot ensued. AndNoriega's troops did

come and settle thatdown. It was chaos. We

actually lost a guitar player andwhen Joan and I were escaping in

the car we ran over his foot and we lefthim behind. [laughs] It was a very interesting

thing. The army got everybody out and then a daywent by and some of the officials came and they wereall nervous. And they said that Noriega sent his presi-dential plane from another city in Panama and want-ed Joan to get on that plane and spend the evening atthe palace with him. And Joan was like, "No way. I'mnot going."An evening at the palace with Noriega.JJ: [laughs]Yeah, doesn't that sound a little frightening.Alone.KL: But then, remember Noriega was still running thecountry, so the [U.S.] State Department who watchwhen you're doing these things... And we wereinvolved with the American government, hooked us upwith this and that, Joan actually opened the PanamaCanal physically with the big wheel. I mean, we were

plugged in, but they were all nervous about thisbecause the protocol has to be handled carefully. Sothey worked out something weird and they whisked usout of the country on American military. And you guysknow about the American military, right?Thank you very much for the update.Kenny always comes through, doesn't heJoan?JJ: Yeah well, he remembers those details. They justkinda go "shwooooosh" .Joan Jett, you have a song called "ChangeThe World."JJ: Yes, I do.Do you have any tips for winning over anaudience? Because in 1982, you played aPolice picnic in Toronto. Do you rememberthat?JJ: A police picnic?Called "The Police Picnic." I think The Policeplayed...KL: You dirty rat! How could you know all this? Youknow all these little things. Where do you find all thisstuff?Well, at The Police Picnic, I understand peo-ple were throwing hot dog and watermel-on rinds at you Joan and you were able toovercome this. How do you win themover? You were just going, "How youdoin', Toronto?!" And by the end, theyloved you.JJ: You know, I'm not sure. Maybe it's just an ability totake the shots, so I'm not sure, sometimes-KL: I remember that gig. See, here's the thing. We didthe tour before "Every Breath You Take" with ThePolice and it was an amazing tour and we were aboutequal at that point. And then they put out that recordand, we had hits that same year, but they had thatmonster record, "Every Breath You Take." And westarted doing stadiums together. So we did two toursin a row with The Police. When we had a show, let'ssay, where The Kinks would be on it or a good rock'n' roll band, The Ramones or something like that,Joan and The Police drew a certain kinda audiencethat was terrific and compatible. In Toronto that year,they put out like, Talking Heads, Flock Of Seagulls,and it was all these snobby kinda things going on,where they were saying rock 'n' roll wasn't goodenough for us. "We have something else we'redoing," whatever they called it. And I know whenJoan got on the stage, the sky went black withgarbage. They were throwing it on the stage. AndJoan doesn't really give in that easily.JJ: Yeah, you know I've been hit with so many thingsand in The Runaways I've been spit on and I've beenhit with so many things and called so many things. I'mnot leaving the stage. Nobody's gettin' me to leave thestage. Throwing hot dogs? I don't think so. I think just-And even watermelon rinds, how darethey!KL: There was a big sign, "I hate rock 'n' roll." Youknow, which is like-JJ: [sarcastically] I'm crushed.KL: Have you seen what Flock Of Seagulls looks liketoday? You see what she looks like today?I actually interviewed them a few yearsago !KL: Well, you know, they're good guys I guess, butlook what she looks like.JJ: You know, it's noteven about being per-sonal, it's just like, it'smore about standingyour ground and I'm not

sure what I would've said on stage 'cause sometimes Iget antagonistic if people are throwing things 'causeyou can get hurt.Joan Jett winding up here, I also wanted toask you about Evil Stig. You contributed tothe Evil Stig recording and in the end thattotally helped out Mia Zapata's murder, acold case was actually solved. That mustmake you feel great.JJ: Oh, we were all so happy when we heard thatthey caught the killer. But that was a very intense time.It was very moving. It was special. It was sad. It wasalso exhilarating to be able to do The Gits' materialand be able to sing those songs that Mia sang andmade popular with her fans. And to take it around thecountry and explain what happened to people and tobe in this band Evil Stig, which means "Gits Live."That's backwards. I'm just really honoured to havebeen a part of it.I have a song here from a Runaways trib-ute band called Cherry Bomb and theyactually have one original song called"Runaways Rule.'" The woman, Christeen isfrom Portland. I think she has a Runawaysor Joan Jett tattoo and these are the lyrics.I just want to quickly run them by you."Runaways Rule.'" This is their original."Rock 'n' roll rebel with a cherry bomb, allyour records are banned by mom..."JJ: [laughs] I like that."Joan Jett and The Germs, little Darby, LitaFord loves big hair and Ozzy. Cherie Curriewas a fox with Jody, doing the teenagetwist like Boney Marone!"JJ: [laughs]"Leather latex and lingerie, Runaways youmake my day!"JJ: I like it."'Cause Runaways rock, Runaways rule,Runaways gonna take you back to girl…"JJ: School.Girl school.JJ: I knew that one.So, I guess I was wondering, what was itlike fighting Chuck Norris?JJ: Well, you're not gonna win.Really?JJ: Yeah.Did you train hard for that?JJ: No, well actually, I think I did a little...This was in Walker, right?JJ: Yes, it was in Walker, Texas Ranger and I think theyeventually had a stunt person in there to do the realkilling.KL: Her honesty is deplorable.Is there any way, perhaps, you might'vebeen trained at all? Because wasn't LitaFord a fitness instructor at one time?KL: Cherie Currie.Cherie Currie, OK. Would you have evertaken classes from her?JJ: Uh, no, I didn't need to.Joan Jett, also, winding up here, Lita Ford,did you ever go to her apartment that sheshared with Nikki Sixx, in that roach-

Continued on the next page!

22

infested apartment?JJ: No, no.And watch cockroaches get, like, burnedup?JJ: No, I think we were broken up by that time, so weweren't hangin' out.Joan Jett, the first time you shaved yourhead, was that for the Rocky Horror PictureShow?JJ: No, I actually did it to mark the millennium. Tomark the sort of change from 1999 to 2000, sort oftake stock of who I am and who we are as humans.So it was just sort of a marker or something. And thenI just decided to keep it.'Cause the brand new CD, the greatest hitsreissue, has you with long hair and beforeit had you with short hair. Any reason forchanging it?JJ: Well, I think we wanted to use a picture that peoplewere more familiar with, the look of my black hair —and the blonde hair, a lot of times, throws people.KL: It's remastered also. It's remastered. It sounds a mil-lion times better now 'cause new technology ensuedand the new one has an enhanced element that's ter-rific. We wanted to do something also so that wecould see a difference and make sure that the storesweren't selling off the old stuff 'cause we wanted tosend it back so that we could give the best one. That'swhy we changed the cover, too.And there's Kenny Laguna, again, to therescue. I'm excited because Kenny was inthe 1910 Fruitgum Company.JJ: Yes, he was. And Tommy James And The Shondellsand several others.All that stuff that makes you say bubble…KL: Gum.Lastly here, I wanted to ask you about thisbook. Are you familiar with this book hereat all, The Devil's Disciples? [Nardwuarpulls out a book]JJ: I'm not.The Devil's Disciples: The Truth About Rock?JJ: What does it say?Well, what it says, Joan Jett, is, I open it uphere, The Devil's Disciples: The Truth AboutRock. Very scary. The Devil's Disciples! "In1982, Joan Jett put out a record whichincluded a version on cassette of an oldRolling Stones tune called 'Star…'"JJ: Fucker."With a title like that she should've knownbetter, but rock stars think they can getaway with anything as long as we letthem. When the Stones tried to market thesame tune, their record label made themchange the title to 'Star Star' and mumbletheir way through the offensive lyric, whichthey did. Joan didn't bother and, boy, wasshe sorry. When the K-Mart chain foundout about that song, they refused to handle

the product and started shipping back thetapes. Since cassettes now outsell albums,that hurt. Jett manager Kenny Laguna saysthey lost $225,000 in sales the first twoweeks of the boycott. As other retailersheard of K-Mart's action they also followedsuit and before long, Joan Jett's new albumwas stalled on the charts and falling." TheDevil's Disciple. What's the story behindthat? What the hell was going on? Howdid you get in a satanic book!JJ: That is hysterical. You got me. I have no idea how Iwound up in there.Do you remember any of that, Kenny?KL: I totally remember it because I got yelled at by allthe marketing people. But what happened was wewent in to — the artwork gets done ahead of timebecause that's the longest lead time and we'd finishedthe artwork. And in those days, if you remember, cas-settes would be uneven so there'd be this long blankthing if one side was longer than another, so we hadjust enough time blank on side one to stick somethingin and we looked at what was in the can. And we'ddone "Star Star/Starfucker" as a, you know, a groovebecause we're playing it live and it was a big numberfor us live and we had just recorded and had it in thecan and we're in the mastering room. And at the lastsecond we said, "Let's give them some extra music."And we thought that was a cool cut. We didn't reallythink the whole thing through. And when they discov-ered it — remember it was unmarked so that's thething that got us in trouble — it didn't have any kindof warning for parents. So they'd bring it home — "ILove Rock 'N Roll" didn't have any racy lyrics. Sothey'd get through the whole thing and all of a suddenthese parents would be listening to this thing and justfreak out. Just like I did when my little kid bought GunsN' Roses record with [singing] "You're fuckin' crazy!"But we did get in to a big hassle and Joan and I spentthe next three months goin' around the country andgoing to the head offices and apologizing and in theend, we made some good relationships.And in the end, you made the book, TheDevil's Disciples. Congratulations!JJ: Yeah! I'm proud of that!I know, that is just totally awesome! Wellthanks so much for your time, Joan Jettand Kenny Laguna. I think Kenny's alsototally amazing, not that this is the KennyCelebrity Roast or anything but he got youtogether with some Beach Boys!JJ: Yes.Like, that's not too exciting for you. I don'tthink is it. Like, the Beach Boys?JJ: No, I definitely enjoyed it.You got the Beach Boys! You were able tofulfill a fantasy by getting the Beach Boyson a Joan Jett recording, thank you!KL: Where do you get all this stuff? Your research isamazing. Where do you get all this stuff?

Well, when you guys do so much greatmusic it's pretty hard to ignore! Thank you.When you make it to The Devil's Disciples, Ireally appreciate that.KL: The Beach Boys moment with Joan was one of thebest moments of my life. And one of the real interest-ing things about that was Darlene Love was on ourlabel on Blackheart Records and Darlene Love sang"The Doo Ron Ron" and "He's A Rebel" and "(Today IMet) The Boy I'm Going To Marry." She's a legendarysinger for Phil Spector. So Darlene Love was with usand she came in and when Carl Wilson, rest his soul,came by and he said, "Well, who's going to be doingthese backgrounds with us?" And I said, "Well,Darlene Love is here." And he says, "Darlene? Darlenesang on all our records. She helped arrange, "In MyRoom," and 'Why Do Fools Fall In Love?'" I'm going,'You're kidding.' And I said, 'Darlene, you never men-tioned it.' All she talks about is Tom Jones, you know,'cause she's from another era and I said, "Oh mygod." So then we had Darlene, who's actually on allthese original Beach Boys records and gradually allthe Beach Boys would never go in to the same placetogether. They all showed up because we only invitedone.Joan Jett, anything else you wanted to addto the people out there?JJ: Just that I'm very excited to be here in Canada andI look forward to doing shows and meeting the audi-ences and-KL: Did you mention the name of our new record?Sinners?JJ: It's called Sinners. Devil's Disciple, you know?KL: If you don't own this record, give up.Why should people care about Joan Jett?Why should people care?JJ: I'm the wrong person to ask that question.Why should people care about Joan Jett?Kenny?JJ: It's very hard for me to say.KL: Joan, first of all, when she first started in TheRunaways, they were doing it in a vacuum. There wasno model, there was no one to really point to, or tocompare to. They were in a vacuum. They took a lot ofabuse, a lot of hits for the home team and that's onereason. The other thing is, Joan has never changedher style or her focus to adjust to the music worldaround her. She's always been outt of style from theget-go and has managed to have a few hits in spite ofit.Well, thanks so much Joan Jett and KennyLaguna. Keep on rockin' in the free world.And doot doola doot doo…JJ: Doot doot.

Thanks to Chris Nelson from MuchMusic's "GoingCoastal" and also Bev Davies for the pics.To hear this interview, be sure to check outwww.nardwuar.com! Special thanks toChart Magazine www.chartattack.com!

23

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www.naildistribution.com

www.stevekeene.com

digital release:March 6physical release:April 24

24

Bev Davies is a fabulous photographer from Vancouver BC, Canada who hasamassed an amazing amount of incredibly cool pictures over the years. Infact

her "2007 Punk Rock Calendar" was described by See Magazine as "An absoultelyessential nugget of punk history." You may remember a couple of interviews I didwith her from a while back. Well here we are for, gulp, round five!

Henry Rollins, Black Flag, August 17, 1985New York Theatre, Vancouver, BC Canada Nardwuar: Who are you?Bev Davies: Bev Davies!Nardwuar: Mint Records put out your "2007 Punk Rock Calendar" last yearand now we have a whole wad of unseen pics for lucky readers of this zine.Bev: Yes Nard, you forced me back into the archives to find more photos and thanks, it's alwaysfun.Nardwuar: First off, how did you get Rollins to pose for this? He has a localfanzine Generic Drivel pasted to his stomach!Bev: The editor asked him to let me take some shots with this zine. There are a few others wherehe is just holding it, then he stuck it on his chest and gave me that look, that Rollins look.Nardwuar: When I interviewed Rollins a few years ago, and people canwatch and read and listen to that interview at nardwuar.com, he talkedabout hating Vancouver. Let me play you the clip:[Nardwuar plays clip of his Rollins interview]Nardwuar: Why do you think that people think you hate Vancouver orWinnipeg, because people think you hate Vancouver or Winnipeg. Peoplethink that you hate Vancouver or Winnipeg.Rollins: 'Cause I used to very much. 'Cause I would come up here and you guys would be a shitty,spitting, heroin shooting, equipment stealing audience who we weren't allowed to kill. So, after Igot out of Black Flag and I didn't have to come here anymore, when I became the boss of the sys-tem, I stopped coming here so I didn't have to get spat on and have my equipment ripped off by,by idiotic punk rock junkies. So I gave the city about seven years to cool off, and came back andfound it to be a very wonderful place.Nardwuar: What do you think about what he said about Vancouver?Bev: Well it seems, and I stress, seems, that he has changed too. Nardwuar: I also must say if it were not for Rollins I would not be talking toyou today, because I met you at Joey Shithead of DOA's Garage Sale, whereyou were selling your photos. I was looking for a Black Flag picture to gowith my interview and you hooked me up! So thank you Henry Rollins forindirectly hooking me up with Bev Davies!Bev: [silence] I am speechless Nardwuar.

Iggy Pop, February 16, 1983The Commodore, Vancouver, BC Canada Nardwuar: Iggy is looking right at you? Or is he?Bev: Iggy wears glasses, and you can never tell with those people who wear glasseswhen they take them off for the stage, right Nard?Nardwuar: That is true! Singing in the Evaporators I can't see athing. Now this is not from the famous show at UBC where hepopped out his cock is it?Bev: No, but I have a photo of that, and you have seen that photo. He used to do thatand people expected that, but he had stopped exposing himself by 1983 or so. Thistime he played 2 nights at the Commodore and my favorite band, Nard, my favoriteband, opened both nights, D.O.A.Nardwuar: Did many bands get naked?Bev: Wow, we have photos of two bands Iggy, and Slow, who were quite famous forthat but no, not many. I can't think of any others, but didn't Wendy O. Williams wearblack electrical tape placed carefully? And the Slits were wearing mud on the cover oftheir LP. Although when I photographed them in London they were fully clothed.

Continued on page 26!

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The Jam, June 5, 1982Kerrisdale Arena, Vancouver, BCCanadaNardwuar: Here is Paul Weller of The Jambackstage at Kerrisdale Arena in Vancouver. Bev: The Kerrisdale Arena was quite a hot bed of rock

shows over the years. I guess Motorhead got the placeclosed down a couple of years after The Jam were there. Isaw the Clash there too, and Jimmy Cliff. Years and yearsbefore, I saw Frank Zappa's Mothers of Inventions at theKerrisdale Arena, no photos of that sorry.Nardwuar: Back to the Jam Bev, I love thatPaul Weller is sitting in a hockey stall. Youcan see the players name "# 23 Vohallo"right above him. Who is that guy besidesPaul? A contest winner?Bev: No idea. But the Arena is not just a "name", some

shows actually had the floor down over the ice surfaceand it was cold. The Jam had a very large crowd ofMods dressed in those green parkas, it was like I was anextra in Quadrophenia.

Nina Hagen November 10, 1982 The Commodore Vancouver, BC, CanadaNardwuar: Nina Hagen is so fun!Bev: Nina Hagen. What I remember about con-certs like this is again, it was a joy to be at them.The night before she played, I was at the JudasPriest concert at the Coliseum in Vancouver andthe people on the stage and a lot of people in theaudience were dressed in a lot of black leatherwith studs and belts and straps and things likethat. And then when I walked into theCommodore, I didn't get there early, the showhad already started. The entire audience lookedlike Judas Priest. It looked like the entire bandand their fans had cloned themselves and cometo the Nina Hagen concert.

Skinny Puppy, July 5, 1985New York Theatre, Vancouver, BC,CanadaNardwuar: This was the first gig I ever wentto so I totally remember the date, July 5, 1985at the New York Theatre in Vancouver, BC. Itactually was my Birthday and I, Braineateropened!Bev: I never knew you were a Skinny Puppy Fan!Nardwuar: I loved thee Puppy! In this picturewe see Nivek Ogre the singer, but we don'tsee cEVIN Key. I love the fact that cEVIN Keybefore Puppy, played in Vancouver synth poplegends Images in Vogue. Did you take manypictures of Skinny Puppy and Images inVogue? What did you think of them?Bev: The word "Goth" came late to my life 'cause when Isaw those people dressed in black with their makeup Ithought "Skinny Puppy people." Images in Vogue was oneof the better bands around doing synth pop other thanSkinny Puppy.

The Cramps July 19, 1986, UBC Winter SportsCentre, Vancouver,BC, CanadaNardwuar: Poison Ivy of TheCramps in action! How manytimes did you photograph TheCramps?Bev: I am not sure how many times,but I know they were all in Vancouver,maybe 3 times. I have some backstage shots at a Commodore show butthis show at UBC maybe the last time Isaw them. This was the "Date withElvis Tour."Nardwuar: Did you ever geta chance to talk to them?Bev. Yes, and they were very nice andnot nearly as strange as you mightthink they would be. I think the "notstrange" was an act to make us feel atease. I am sure they are very strange.Nardwuar: What about giftsand stuff like that? Did youever get gifts given to you bybands? Or get their auto-graphs?Bev: Gifts, what a nice thought, nonot really. Records I guess, and now,CDs. I wanted to get a ZZ Top KeyChain from ZZ Top, but they didn'tgive me one. I asked for very fewautographs, sometimes I kept a set listbut mostly just the photos. I was thereto hear the music and take photos.

The Modernettes, 1980179 Royal Canadian Legion, Vancouver BC, CanadaNardwuar: What can you tell me aboutthis picture of the Modernettes? A veryrare pictures! They were not always a 4piece?Bev: This was taken at a time that Jon Doe was in the

band, and I think I never saw him play with them.There are two Jon Doe's so we need to be clear. ThisJon Doe is the the Jon Doe from theScramblers/Rabid, not X. This photo was taken at theLegion at 8th and Commercial, the 179 Legion. Thereused to be gigs there quite often, infact, Nardwuar,your Evaporators shot a video there---Nardwuar: For "Half-empty Halls" ! Inever knew about the history of thatplace when we shot the video. I wish I didso I could look for hidden punk graffitifrom the 1970s. How did the Modernettesfit in with the early Vancouver Punk

Scene? Some people like them better thanthe Pointed Sticks!Bev: They were there at the early times and made

great music, I don't think you had to pick, really. I triedto go to everything. Actually my friend Carola whoruns the Jem Gallery in Vancouver put on theModernette’s Renunion show last month at Richards onRichards in Vancouver.Nardwuar: They are back together now,touring Japan and what not, although notwith the original line up as bass playerMary Jo is still breeding cats.Bev: Ah cats, not a bad way to live with cats. Grinder,my cat, and I are thick like thieves. Nardwuar: People should check outModernette's singer John Armstrong's book"Guilty of Everything," it is so informative!Bev: I love the story in it about The Modernettes and

The Pointed Sticks on their 1980 tripsouth to California where they almost gotkilled at an Oakland biker bar. Nardwuar: And he has a newbook "Wages" coming out soon.Bev: So I hear. I look forward to more ofhis stories. God he can tell a good story.Nardwuar: Well, thanks for yourtime again Bev Davies. Keep onrawkin’ in the free world, anddoot doola doot doo...Bev: Click Click.

Slow, July 19, 1986UBC Winter SportsCentre, Vancouver,BC, CanadaNardwuar: Slow! My secondfavourite Vancouver bandever doing the ultimateCanadian rock pose!Bev: Don't you see what they arewearing? They have Nurses uni-forms on.Nardwuar: Oh yeah, bloodyNurses uniforms? What doyou remember about thisgig?Bev: Well, the show was at UBCWinter Sports Centre, a place I hadnever been to. I was at theVancouver Folk Music Festival as aphoto volunteer. Just imagine leav-ing Jericho Beach and coming tothis show. The Cramps with Slowopening. What a strange day.Nardwuar: In this photo,Hamm, the bass player'shair is amazing–Bev: Hamm, who played bass foryour Evaporators at the MintRecords Xmas party!Nardwuar: Indeed. Thankyou for remembering that.Of course, we can not men-tion Slow without mention-ing Expo 86Bev: The Expo show, I missed. Yesthat one, the famous one whereSlow almost got the place closeddown for taking their pants off onstage. No photos of that show. Justthese nurses here Nard and I'mglad I didn't need medical help thatnight.

Copies of the "Nardwuarvs. Bev Davies PunkRock Calendar" are still available at punkrockcalendar.com

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myspace.com/thepeopleverses

the people verses

.com

new & used cd’s& vinyl

and a record labelhome of

The Doers, Tolan McNeil,

Amy Honey!4307 Main Street, Vancouver, BC Canada V5V 3R1

www.redcat.ca

29

By day, 34-year-old ShaneNelken is a cremationist at

Vancouver's Mountain ViewCemetery. By night, with his newband, The Awkward Stage, hethinks about what it was like to getpantsed in gym class.

"The Awkward Stage came to mein the silence that occurred duringthe third dunk of my head into thejunior high toilet," he tellsMySpace readers.

The band is a welcome indie popaddition to a long line of tele-vised, filmic, and literary celebra-tions of prom night dysfunction,untimely boners and sweaty slowdances -- you know, awkwardstuff.

The Awkward Stage's debutalbum, Heaven is for Easy Girls,was released this fall on MintRecords. It was co-produced andengineered by The NewPornographers' drummer KurtDahle, and follows the"Vancouver" trail of colourfulpower pop treaded by artists likeA.C. Newman, The Salteens andSparrow.

Before forming The AwkwardStage, Nelken was a major collab-orator on other music projects that

THE AWKWARD STAGE's nostalgic,teen angsty “The Morons Are Winning” By Jackie WongThis article originally published Dec. 14, 2006 in TheTyee.ca

weren't his own. His lyrics aboutblooming late match Nelken'sown late arrival at the helm of hisown band.

Like most puberties, the albumimproves drastically by the end.Opening tracks "The Morons areWinning" and "So Stupid, SoSmart" fall open like the firstpages of a high school yearbook,laying the groundwork for thealbum's broken-glasses ambitions.But Heaven truly finds its feet,with the offhand buoyancy of"We're Going for a Ride" andthe faux majesty of "West VanGirl," a regional response to"Uptown Girl."

The best moment of the albumlies outside the car rides andWest Van girls with a retreat toloner solitudes with "The RoomTone." It's a comforting alterna-tive for those who might cringe atthe thought of grinding to JT's"Sexyback" at the next winter for-mal. The Awkward Stage urgeslisteners to dance with the skele-tons in their closets instead, cast-ing Timberlake dreams aside formore bittersweet pastures.

For more Tyee music picks, visit http://thetyee.ca/Music/

photo by Karin Bubas

...you’re getting a call from 1977: Buzzcocks, Gang of Four, Undertones, Jam,all hanging on one line, but cross-switched to 2006 without losing clarity,

without static. Your musical door, today, is kicked off the frame, and in comes a band, all instruments a-blazing, shooting you full of musical notes. Wow. –Razorcake

full-length out in March on Deranged Records www.derangedrecords.com

www.myspace.com/thetranzmitors

JAMES BROWN: How are you feeling?NARDWUAR: I’m feeling great, Mr.Brown. Well, I think Mr. Brown is real great,but I think you’d better call me James Brown.They told me to address you, “Mr.Brown.” Well, that’s a business transaction,but I’m an artist first. Just call me James. Don’tworry about it.Do you remember these guys: BobbyTaylor and the Vancouvers? Do youremember them? I don’t remember them.Bobby Taylor and Tommy Chong. Theywere in this band, and Tommy Chong,Bobby Taylor was the guy who suppos-edly discovered Michael Jackson. Really?That’s new. I discovered him!You discovered Michael Jackson! (laughs)I don’t believe that, but I mean, you know, I’mthe only one speaking. Michael Jackson wasdiscovered by a man called Purvis Spahn andmyself. We had television shows out of Gary,Indiana. But uh I don’t want to shoot this kiddown ‘cause he could have met him later in lifeand....Was that the TV show you were beat-ing Johnny Carson? No, I’m not going tobrag about it but we had a show called “FutureShock” in Atlanta with Ted Turner when he firststarted, uh, it was the SuperStation, TBS, and,um, we’d be costing between 27 to 10. Andthey wanted me to do national television but Ididn’t want to do television because I wanted tobe out here with all these pretty young ladies.And I can’t have them on television everyday.The JB’s have a new album. Have youever thought of getting back togetherwith them at all? Well, there is no JB’s,there’s a lot of people have said there are.It was a reunion LP. Well, I’m sure thereunion would do good with all the fellows thatwere involved many many years ago, and we’dlike to probably play some gigs some time forfun you know, but my band the Soul Generalswe have now is a new new young dynamicband that is unbeatable, but also Maceo Parkerand Fred Wesley are unbeatable too.You also play drums, don’t you? Didn’tyou play drums on Night Train? I heardlike the drummer went to the wash-room and James Brown, ur, Mr. Brown,filled in! (laughs) You’re a funny cat! But that’strue. That’s true. Cat had to go the bathroomand we had to cut to the next song. (laughs) I ‘llstart to go a little deeper. He had number 1 in

In honour of theincredible life of

James Brown, webring you an interview he did afew years ago with Nardwuar theHuman Serviette.It went a littlesomething likethis...

Nardwuar the Human Servietteversus

JamesBrown

30all photos by Bev Davies

mind; we had the whole thing in mind, right?!(laughs) It was real good. And I played thedrums on a song called “Hold It” as well.Mr. Brown, what exactly was the storybehind the cover of the “Please PleasePlease” 7-inch (showing a whitewomen’s legs on the cover)? Your pic-ture is not on the cover. I’m going to let theladies know (The Bittersweets—James Brown’sback up singers), when I first made this song,“Please Please Please” and it becamesuch a dynamite hit, they didn’t put ablack man on the covers too much.Black men were not on the covers. Andthis album I was not on the covers. AndI was not on the cover of “Try Me.” Agirl was on that. And I was not on thecover of “Think.” It was a baby on there,but then later on they found out is whatthey were missing is a beautiful face andthen they decided they wanted to put it onthere,but after things got better and peo-ple got to understand, so they recoveredall of them.Do you still own radio stations andgas stations and all that stuff. Mr.Brown? Not gas stations. I wish I did owna gas station and let the radio station gobecause gas sells faster! Since the Internetcame by, radio stations suffered tremendous-ly, I am sure you know that, but we have twostations and an interest in a third one inAtlanta. And hopefully we will get a chanceto get it. But what happened with my station,I tried to rephrase what was going on in earli-er years and everybody has copied my formatnow.Did you also have restaurants too?There was the Golden Skillet? Well, no.At least you close, Gold Platter. How do youknow the word, how did you learn the word“skillet”? Where did you learn that from?I don’t know, just hanging out in theVancouver, British Columbia, Canada,Mr. Brown! Well, that’s a long waysfrom...(laughs) okay, but anyway, we got aGold Platter and they did pretty well but uh Icouldn’t stay there and eat all the time, I want-ed to get on the road, so we gave that away,gave it up. We made a lot of money on itthough.Now Mr. Brown, I know when I got thegentlemen to get you to sign this(poster of the 1964’s TAMI SHOW), youwere very excited about it. I was lookingfor the Bittersweets. I wanted them to see what Ihad to fight through. When you think of JamesBrown on a show with the Beach Boys, ChuckBerry, Barbarians, Marvin Gaye–The Barbarians? Remember them? Thedrummer only had one arm. I rememberthem very well. They were fantastic people. Idon’t know how you rememberthem though?They’ve shown the TAMI Show on TVquite a bit. I was curious: the reactionyou got from the TAMI Show isabsolutely outstanding. You completelyblew the Rolling Stones away, Mr.Brown. Was the reaction you got theretypical to the reaction you would getaround the world? Well that was the firsttime they had ever seen somebody move thatway! Dick Clark talks about it all the time, myvery good friend. And I went on AmericanBandstand and you had to be careful because

my moves were classified a little deeper thanregular moves, you know. And thank God forElvis Presley came along with the tight pantsand he gave me a chance to put mine back on!You were totally sweating on the TAMIShow! Totally sweating away. What doyou think of sweat, Mr. Brown? (laughs)I think sweat is something that is a very emo-tional thing in regards to where you put itat. You

might put itin different places! (laughs)Sweat expresses emotion, either way, whether itis hard work, or... uh..., I wish I could get outof here, I’m tired (laughs)Isn’t there a story about you drivingaround in a black Cadillac with beauti-ful suits with the windows up youknow to look cool, and you were total-ly sweating away there? In the South? I

don’t remember that man but I tell you, if I wastoo deep in the South with a Cadillac I wouldbe sweating like that. In those days, I’d tell youthat right now, and I’d tell them that too!(laughs) Brown’s Security: 30 seconds!Ski Party was an amazing movie.(1965 film with Frankie Avalon and theThe Hondells) Well, Ski Party was my first

debut in really trying to actand uh I can remember thelines, I said, we walked inand they walked up andasked me a few questions,and I brought in, Robert Q.Lewis, he was all wrappedup in snow and he hasbeen frozen, and I said, “Ifyou found him out thereyou had better put him bythe fire. The AbominableSnowman.” I think “abom-inable” was the hardestword I had to get across!I don’t want to talk allnight now because wegot to sing, and talkingis a lot harder thansinging. I’ll see you afterthe show.Can I just ask youtwo quick ques-tions here, Mr.Brown? I waswondering, doyou rememberAndre Williams atall? He had asong called“Bacon Fat”? Yes.Yes, I do. I rememberthat. I remember thedance.He also did thesong called“Jailbait” too. Idon’t know any-thing about that.Andre Williams

was also in the band calledthe Five Dollars as well. Arethey bringing him back?He is back, and guess whatthey’ve brought him back asMr. Brown? Check it out. Thisis Andre Williams back in the1990s. (showing AndreWilliams Silky LP jacket whichfeatures Andre touching anaked ladie’s behind on thecover) He’s got a lot of sense, don’the? (laughs) We’re gone, okay.Thanks very much, Mr. Brown.Keep on rocking in the freeworld, and doot doola dootdoo.... Well thank you very very much.I’m not going to say whap bappa boola abig bam boo either! I don’t believe thatmovie, they’ve got a new rock ’n’ roll pic-

ture out, and the cat don’t even know the song,he’s like whap bappa looba a whump bamboomp! (laughs)That’s pretty close. Doot doola dootdoo... The Bittersweets: Doot doot!All right! (to the Bittersweets): Are you goingto be that good tonight?

31

March 5, 1985

Commodore Ballroom

Vancouver BC

32

THE CORN SISTERS

THE NEW TOWN ANIMALS DUOTANG

THE HANSON BROTHERS

33

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS

THE SMUGGLERS

CAROLYN MARK & HER BOYFRIENDS

HUEVOSRANCHEROS

34Solution is to the right! © Bev Davies

35

FRIDAYS3:30-5:00PM PST

www.citr.ca

RADIO SHOW!

www.nardwuar.com

If you live in Vancouver, chances are you’ve experienced thetwinge of embarrassment at the city’s constant desire to boastitself as "World Class". At the end of the nineties, and the begin-

ning of this decade, it seemed "World Class City" was all youheard from politician’s mouths, and for a while, Vancouverappeared for all to see as an approval whore, the civic equivalentof a high school theatre nerd. With the 2010 Olympics on theway, the need to be seen as a booming metropolis instead of asleepy fishing village has reached panic state, and as a result, weare knocking up stadiums and endless rows of glass towers weekafter week. What has gone quietly unnoticed by developers andpoliticians is the already world-class arts at culture scene thriving,without its help.

Take, for example, The Hive Creative Labs. Without a lick ofpromotion or Olympic logo to be seen, The Hive has establisheditself as a world-renowned and respected recording studio, a go-tofor international stars, like Black Mountain, Hot Hot Heat,and local luminaries, like P:ano and They Shoot Horses,Don’t They?. Founders Colin Stewart and his wife Terry,along with their partner Jesse Gander, have built somethingtruly special, something truly worth bragging about for the city ofVancouver.

More than just a recording studio, the Hive, true to its name, is abuzzing epicenter for independent music in a city whose talentsare becoming more and more sought out on the world stage.Whether laying down tracks for many of Mint Records’ artists –The Buttless Chaps just recorded there, ditto ImmaculateMachine and soon, ditto Young & Sexy — or recording a hostof new talent, it practically compulsory for any band wanting tomake it from our edge-of-the-world to do a session at the studio.

Far from having a single sound, albums made at the Hive insteadhave a unifying spirit, one that flies a rare flag of independentlymade art in a city growing at breakneck pace. While you’ll findsome in common between the new Elizabeth record, (First Ex-communications, a dark, jagged effort playing up the band’s loveof Joy Division) and efforts by Book of Lists (think Eno, Feltand My Bloody Valentine), you’d have a harder time linkingthose groups to the thrash sounds of Pride Tiger, the gentle, fem-inine energy of Great Aunt Ida or even Gander’s own band,post-punk luminaries Ghost House. All those albums and actsare disparate, yet united through the Hive community, and its everincreasing role as the hub of Vancouver’s indie-rock spirit.

The Hive, and the ever-thumping heartbeat of arts and culture inthis city are what makes it world class. You may have to light anOlympic torch to shine a light on it, but, brother, is it there. Checkout their drool-worthy artist’s page at www.hivestudios.net formore on acts and artists who’ve graced their studios.

Hot Hot Heat — www.hothotheat.comBlack Mountain — www.blackmountainarmy.comp:ano — www.darkhills.netThey Shoot Horses, Don’t They? — www.theyshoothorses.orgElizabeth — www.elizabethelizabeth.caImmaculate Machine — www.immaculatemachine.comYoung and Sexy — www.youngandsexy.orgThe Book of List — www.thebookoflists.netPride Tiger — www.pride-tiger.comGreat Aunt Ida — www.greatauntida.comGhost House — ghosthousemusic.com

The Hive Creative Labsby Elaine Corden

36 37

It's almost like stepping back in time: the bigorange house, located on a busy Winnipeg

street, with no numbers on the outside. Inside,the living room bears a striking resemblance toEric Forman's basement. Stacks upon stacks ofrecords peek from bookshelves amid mis-matched furniture straight from 1976. The din-ing room looks like the one from your parents'house-except the walls are papered with gig fly-ers. Oh, and the table and chairs have beencleared out to make room for keyboards andguitars. It's a fitting home for the self-proclaimedsociopop collective All Of Your Friends, eventhough only three of them actually live there.The smoky rooms double as a jam space and arecording studio. It may not sound like themusic-making digs you'd associate with a buzzband, but then, AOYF kind of won that statusby accident.

Dana Moore (vocals/keys/guitar), ChrisCameron (guitar), Trevor Graumann (guitar/har-monies), Megan Turnbull (vocals) and VickiBaldwin (drums) have only been a band for 10months-the length of the average high schoolromance. But in that time, the band have man-aged to record enough songs for a full-lengthalbum, nab a gig opening for The NewPornographers and get their tunes heardbeyond the Perimeter Highway. "What we liketo believe is that we met on a transit bus thatgot stuck in a snowstorm," Moore says. Fourout of five members are lounging around the liv-ing room. Three are smoking. "It's sort of ourmyth," Graumann laughs. Actually, it's sort of alie. The quintet didn't meet on a snow-strandedcity bus at all. In fact, despite their unconven-tional rise, their roots are very ordinary. "Wejust found each other," Cameron says. "It wassort of like pick up hockey," Moore laughs."Then we ended up with a team."

With members both classically trained and self-taught, the quintet's diverse musical back-grounds are evident on their self-titled EP-whichisn't actually an EP at all. Long enough to be astand-alone album, the record is a sparkling les-son in expertly crafted indie-pop. From blurryand spacey to catchy and bright, it's mature fora debut, let alone one that was created fromequipment that came from the garbage orMoore's grandparents. "We're just trying to puttogether a good collection of music," saysCameron. "The EP has been an ongoing collec-tion of songs, and the album will come out inthe New Year." And if you've snagged a copyof the EP, you will notice many similaritiesbetween the disc's 10 songs and the soon-be-released record. And if you didn't, don't worry-the EP was never actually released.

"It just kind of got out there," Moore says. "Werecorded it in this room and we mixed it on thiscomputer. Over time, it grew to include moresongs. The last one we wrote was inSeptember." The few copies that are currentlychanging hands among scenesters are burned,

sealed in self-made sleeves. The track listingsdiffer, depending on when it was acquired. Theleaked EP is proof enough that sometimes arecord that's decidedly lo-fi can still generatesome serious buzz. When Turnbull dropped offone of the EPs at UMFM, the University ofManitoba's campus radio station, they neverexpected it would actually chart, peaking atNo. 2. The disc also helped AOYF snag somemuch-wanted gigs. "The point of being in aband is to play shows," Moore says. "But wecouldn't get any shows. That all abruptlychanged."

A casual entry into an Exclaim!/CBC Radio 3contest was equally dramatic. "It just said tosend in a tune from your band, so I sent in atune from my band," Graumann says. Thinkingit was just to get some airplay on Radio 3,AOYF didn't think much of the submission.Some weeks later, however, the band found outthat they'd won a place on the Montreal bill ofthe Exclaim! Mint Roadshow in October, shar-ing the stage with The New Pornographers."We had the house going overtime making but-tons, shirts, CDs and covers," Cameron says.Though both Winnipeg acts on the Roadshowbill were afflicted by disaster-AOYF got stuck inWawa, while mod-rockers Novillero mournedthe theft of their vintage Moog-the high-profilegig was certainly an exciting turning point. Theband also landed a gig in Ottawa just beforethe Roadshow was due to roll into Montreal,opening for The Hylozoists, the like-mindedmulti-instrumental collective founded by musicalmastermind Paul Aucoin. And Aucoin wasn't theonly one to take an interest in the Winnipegband. The quintet has attracted the attention ofa number of notable indie acts, opening for TheAwkward Stage, The Hidden Cameras andTokyo Police Club. Not bad for a band that pre-

viously went unbooked. "It was like the openingof the gate, those shows," Cameron says."Now we open for everyone who comes totown."

It's not hard to figure out why the quirky collec-tive is a hit. There is something a bit differentabout AOYF. The 'Peg may be as famous for itsmusic scene as it is for its windchill, but in ahardened prairie city with even harder winters,the music tends to be, well, hard. The '60s-soaked garage rock revival and the gut-punch-ing punk movement are certainly alive and kick-ing, but AOYF are exposing a different side ofthe scene-whether it's a calculated move or not."When we write, we're not going for a specificgenre," Cameron insists. "Sociopop is just popmusic that's accessible," Moore says of theirself-branding. "I think 'circus folk' was anothername we were using. I have a short attentionspan, so a lot of it comes from keeping our-selves interested." Still, as exciting as the lastyear has been, the experience has been alearning curve for the band. "I appreciate howmuch work it takes to do this," Moore says."We do everything ourselves," Turnbull says."From the printing to the shirt screening to therecording. Everything." Indie street cred pointsaside, hard work tends to be the great unifierbetween fledgling bands like AOYF, and theseasoned pros sharing the stage. "It's weird toplay with these bands," Moore says. "You havetheir CDs. You listen to their music.But when you play with them yourealize that they are just like us, froma different house, in a different city."

This article first appeared inThe New Pollution Issue #10.www.thenewpollution.net

Social SceneHanging out withBy Jen Zoratti

Clockwise from top (in the cube) is Dana Moore,Trevor Graumann, Chris Cameron, Vicki Baldwin,

Noel Linsey, and Kelly Beaton. Photo was taken by Jenessa Baert.

All Of Your Friends

38 39

40

LOSIN’ IT CDAVAILABLE NOW ON SCRATCH RECORDS“...a four-piece that gets every detail right: classic pop with a knowinglyramshackle edge; vast reserves of style, taste, and wit; and the kind ofnatural chemistry that inspires the rest of us to start our own bands. Onthe splendidly titled debut album Losin’ It, all that personality is some-how squeezed into 10 tracks of peerless indie-rock bubble gum, drivenby a sense of fun so infectious, it’s as if somebody started rolling tapeat the world’s hippest slumber party.” – Adrian Mack, Georgia Straight

www.vancougar.cawww.myspace.com/vancougar

www.myspace.com/organtrail

41

on the set of “Bones,” Vancouver BC, May 2000

with Archbishop Don Magic JuanFour Seasons Hotel, Vancouver BCDecember 4, 2003

on the rooftop plaza ofthe Metropolitan Hotel

Vancouver BC August 14, 2002

Check out all the Nardwuar vs.Snoop adventures on the NardwuarDoot Doola Doot Doo... Doot Doot!”interview DVD!

backstage Pacific ColiseumVancouver BCJanuary 6, 2007

“

42 43

Document2 2/2/07 12:48 PM Page 1Document2 2/2/07 12:48 PM Page 1

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vs. the cribs!


the buttless chaps!

a novillero comic!


The Hive studios!

and more!






vs. the cribs!


the buttless chaps!

a novillero comic!


The Hive studios!

and more!






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Documents

Fresh Breath of Mint - Spring 2007