Punk Ro,ck in the City· Plus A 26 Page Fall Fashion Feature

Garden Party: D.O.A.band members andmusicians from otherever-changing punkbands show their lighterside in the Burnabybackyard ofD.O.A.lead singer JoeyShithead (second fromleft).

New Wave M.usic: Back to Basics

Randy Rampage is sipping from. a mickey of rye on the lawn

outside the Sports Beat Inn,blonde brush-cut arranged toappear meticulously unat-

tended, his ensemble tarnished blackleather motorcycle jacket, torn T-shirtand oily dungarees. Rampage is a punkrocker; he plays bass with D.O.A. (DeadOn Arrival), Vancouver's premier punk-rock band. But the punk rock businesshere is not a lucrative one. Tonight, thereis a gong show at the Sports Beat Inn; topprize is two hundred dollars and D.O.A.needs it. Joey Shithead (not his realname), lead vocalist and front-man for thegroup, allows that he is worried about get-ting the band onstage. The problem is that

By Les Wisemandrummer, Hungry Chuck Biscuits(likewise not his real name), is only fif-teen, not yet legally old enough to enter apublic drinking establishment.

Joey, at 22 the oldest member of thegroup, has been part of Vancouver's mus-ical scene longer than the others andknows something about musical sub-tleties and performing stratagems. "We'regonna play so f***ing loud that they won'tbe able to gong us," he says, grinning atChuck. Chuck just sniffles and looks anx-ious. To dispel their worries, they drinkand talk about the music business, abouthow their E.P. (Extended Play record) isbeing distributed at a loss. The recordcontains four selections - Disco Sucks,Nazi Training Camp, Royal Police and

Woke Up Screaming - and cost two dol-lars apiece to make, yet D.O.A. is sellingit to retailers for anywhere from $1.50 to$1.69 for the retailer to mark up to bet-ween $2 and $2.98. They think that maybe120have been sold from their productionof 500. Rampage announces that hecoerced his mother into buying six copies.

Chuck Biscuits is allowed into the bar,and the management tells the boys thatthey may play only one number. The bandhuddles and decides that it will play twosongs without any break between. Whiletwo young long-haired chanteuses merrilysing California Dreamin' arid a bouncyoverweight businessman jigs through thepaces of Tie A Yellow Ribbon' Round TheOld Oak Tree, D.O.A. debates whether to

-= ,'0 ongs off the/E.P. or to go with=- '* ed Up Baby and My Old Man's A

Sports Beat Inn's clientele looks_ _~g and healthy, with evidence of:; =~ .' of pocket-money. Joey, inordi-

pale for mid-summer, spiky punkbing out every which way, looksy out of place, a buoy of degener-

a sea of suntans, blow-dried haira shell necklaces. Bar drinks are

fhis range, but he can taste the beer--,,' - e S200 first prize will buy.

movement while a couple of jocks in thecrowd throw crushed cigarette packs andother effluvium at those on the dancefloor. Young women at a table huddle to-gether and hold their noses, and onejunior Cheryl Tiegs makes motions aboutthe acne surrounding Rampage's mouthbefore collapsing in inaudible spasms oflaughter. The music kicks on, and an as-tute fellow in an Adidas T-shirt asks hisgirlfriend if she thinks that D.O.A. is do-ing this for a joke. She shrugs and turnsback to her banana daiquiri

Lukewarm applause greets the end ofthe set as the anonymous celebrity judgestake up magic-markers and jot down theirratings: an eight, another eight and a ten.Twenty-six points for D.O.A. Another acthas already done better, so the $200 is out,but there is still a chance at the $50 or $25second and third prizes.

First prize is bagged by the last act ofthe evening, a punk-rock band called TheSpikes. Noone has ever heard ofthem be-fore. They seem to have been formed inorder to win the prize money. "I'm gladthey won," says Joey. "They beat us atour own game. I'm happy they won."Joey is less pleased, though, as a folksinger and an ersatz Tony Orlando receivethe smaller awards. His girlfriend lookssad; she has been nursing the same drinkall evening. There will be no party tonight.Joey puts out his last two dollars for a bot-tle of cider, but seems unable to drink it.Sweaty and quiet, the band packs up itsinstruments and heads to the parking lotonly to find that Rampage's car has beentowed away. Inside the Sports Beat, thehouse band, a mainstream commercialrock group, has the dance-floor packedwith smiling, well-groomed hopes forCanada's future.

Top: Rabid band members await arrivalof drummer Zippy Pinhead as punk fansdance or enjoy an obligatory tussle on thefloor. D.O.A. musicians Brad Kent and

,Randy Rampage flank Sub-humans' leadsinger Wimpy, center, while local punkrocker emeritus Joey Shithead belts outWoke Up Screaming at left. Punk's distaffside is represented by Deedee and theDishrags, farleft. Fans, right, mug for thecamera outside the Quadra Club onHomer.

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Inthe recent decade of creating, us-ing and passing on to the "next bigthing" in music, our ·consumer ·soci-ety has given witness to psychedelia,heavy metal, glitter, Sonny and

Cher, disco, etc. Now, in the waningSeventies, it has tripped over the mangy,unwashed, foul-mouthed body of punk-rock. Beginning late in 1975, the appeila-tion "punk" came to be applied to a newform of rock and roll music emerging fromthe streets of London, England. Markedby a renewed interest in simplicity of mus-ical format and lyrical composition, punkhad its roots in the working-class youthswho, due to Britain's faltering economy,aimlessly cluttered the streets unable tofind jobs. To counter the always stylishBritish middle-class, new styles of dress,hair and behavior were created andadopted. Punk became the antithesis ofthe Sixties' peace and love ideals. Op-timism gave way to nihilism, concern toapathy, long hair to unwashed spikybrush-cuts, aristocratic cool to revolt.

From the torpor of the welfare life rosea subculture whose disdain for the moreaffluent became so fixed that it could nolonger condone music from The RollingStones, Rod Stewart and the various Bea-tIes, etc. Those artists had lost sight oftheir rebellious beginnings, according topunk philosophy, and were becomingrich, fat, middle-aged, complacent andboring. In response, an angry punk van-guard tore their clothes apart, stuck themback together with safety-pins, cut theirhair in the style favored by guerilla sol-diers, and formed a band called the SexPistols. Front-page headlines followedsuch sensationalist Pistol antics as vomit-ing in airports, spitting at people and usingobscene language on television inter-views, and these, plus their manic stageperformances, made the Pistols guidinglights of the punk subculture. Americanmagazines, such as Creem and RollingStone, by enthusiastically reporting thestunts, created the first punk superstar:Pistols' lead singer, Johnny Rotten. Sud-denly, rock cognoscenti were sniggeringat the latest gossip about punk rock.Meanwhile, aside from music magazinereaders, Vancouver slept quietly throughthe birth of punk-rock. The commercialairwaves remained unsullied.

Elsewhere it was different. AlthoughNew York lacked the Dickensian classsystem against which British punks wererevolting, it did have the unwashed poor,the ghettoes and the hostilities of variousethnic factions. Too, the Big Apple hadbeen the home of The Velvet Under-ground, a band that many considered tobe the predecessor of punk before itburned out in a blaze of white noise yearsbefore the word punk had anything to dowith music. Within a month of the birth ofpunk in London, New York caught thefever, and punk bands erupted in pimplyprofusion. Characteristically, New Yorkclaimed to have invented the new musicalgenre.

Here in Vancouver, records by theRamones, the Damned, Talking Heads,the Jam and Eddie and the Hot Rodsfiltered into some esoteric record stores,although one saw fit to erect a sign thatread: We regret to inform you that thissection is devoted to punk-rock! Slicklycommercial Boz Scaggs, the Eagles,Fleetwood Mac, etc. continued to domi-nate air play and album sales. Rockmusic, that had preached revolution dur-ing the Sixties, had become big business,acceptable everywhere. "Mellow" wasthe keyword of the times, and rock androll began to assume the predictability andblandness of processed cheese. Even theteenybopper market had surrendered tothe clean-cut, parentally-approved likesof Shaun Cassidy and the Bay City Rol-lers.

Punk music, meanwhile, was ex-pected to stay in London and New Yorkwhere it belonged, where one could readabout it, wrinkle one's nose and turn thepage. But in early 1977,the oozing threatspilled over into Vancouver in the form ofThe Furies. Short-haired, dirty andleather-jacketed, The Furies spewed thevitriol of their music into audiences view-ing art at Pump's Gallery and drinkingbeer at the Blue Horizon on talent night.They were alternately detested or merelydisliked by all but a handful. The moreoutrageous and avant-garde students atthe Vancouver School of Art adopted

punk attire and formed the core of TheFuries' fans - and punk became intellec-tualized.

A young man who was to become theprime spokesman for the punk movementalso liked The Furies. Sickened by whathe calls "the sick, boring, decadent city ofVancouver," and "the sick, boring, deca-dent and wimpy state of music," Joey cuthis shoulder-length hair, assumed thename Shithead, and with three otherkindred souls, formed The Skulls, a bandthat, in turn, gave rise to Victorian Porkwhen it needed a back-up act for one of itsperformances. The Skulls went to Toron-to, hated it, and broke up. Some of themformed D.O.A., another went to TheNegatives, which group became TheSub-humans, and so on. Punks argue alot.

Today, there are maybe thirty to fortypunk musicians in Vancouver. Audienceshave never reached commercial sizes,and the punks do not make much money.They produce their own dances in any av-ailable snakepit they can afford. Their re-cords are all independently produced anddistributed, profits being seldom if everrealized. The actual music is, in general,copied from London and New York.Loud and basic, it sets people to actingprimitively. With no defined revolution tobe fought here, except against expensiveand boring forms of entertainment, localpunk rockers admit that the music will

never have the impact it did in London.Yet they believe that basic rock and rollcan change things for the better. So theyplay it.

July I, Canada Day. All overVancouver, special eventshave been planned. For a weekor so, telephone poles and con-struction fences have been or-

namented with stark black-and-whiteAnarchy In Canada? posters announcinga free, anarchist-sponsored punk rockconcert and Anti-Canada Day celebrationto be held at Lumberman's Arch at oneo'Clock in the afternoon. Arriving fansgather that something is wrong, though:the crowd is full of matching Bermuda-shorts outfits; tourists are snappingphotos of the trees and each other; and, upon the brightly garlanded stage, childrenare performing ethnic dances. Amidst thecrowd, an occasional fan in punk regaliacan be seen nervously dodging baby strol-lers.

The word soon circulates that the loca-tion has been changed to Prospect Point.Punks and joggers hurry side-by-sidealong the seawall.

Prospect Point is a place of contrastson this sunny holiday afternoon. At oneend of the field, the Vancouver FirstChristian Reformed Church is enjoying apicnic and a softball game. At the otherend, the scene appears to have fallen fromthe pages of Petronius' Satyricon. On a

parked flatbed truck which is to serve asthe stage, Chuck Biscuits is trying, unsuc-cessfully, to wheedle a drink out of RandyRampage's large bottle of white wine. Attheir feet, sitting on the grass, a deathlypale, chromium-haired vampire woman ina black satin, slashed-to-the navel blousepokes a cigarette into her ruby red lips.She chats with a young lady whosehenna-red hair is cut in the macho-punkstyle and whose face is adorned with apurposefully tacky pair of cheap plasticsunglasses. One couple pairs an abso-lutely normal-looking young woman witha cadaverous boyfriend who has piercedhis brand-new $200 leather jacket withsafety pins to form a swastika.

One figure stands out, eclipsing all thisyouthfully exuberant decadence and cos-tuming. He sits, all 250 pounds of him,immobile, staring straight ahead, his long,dirty brown hair falling over the shouldersof his lumberjack shirt. One eye is co-vered with a black leather patch whilehanging through his nose is an immensebrass ring the diameter of a pencil. Helooks like a human gargoyle door-knocker. No one sits very near to him.

Then the anachronistic clatter ofhooves against the beat of large motorcy-cle engines is heard. The constabulary hasarrived, causing diverse reactions in punkranks: audience members shout and actparticularly tough, but the members ofthebands seem polite and cooperative. Thepolice appear to believe that something iswrong but cannot explain just what theproblem is. They call for someone withmore authority. Sergeant Foyle arrives inan appropriate leisure suit, flashes hisbadge and asks to speak to the leader ofthis anarchist-sponsored gathering.Punks, anarchists and Sergeant Foylediscuss the matter calmly and coopera-tively with a great show of diplomacy, andit is learned that the punks and anarchistshave no Park Board permit for their plan-ned event. Sergeant Foyle will notconfirm the spreading rumor that the FirstChristian Reformed Church picnickershave phoned in a complaint, but he allowsthat that may have been the case.

A few members of the crowd are start-ing to get restless. "What are you talkingto those assholes for? What happened tothe anarchist spirit? Go ahead without thebloody permit!" But no one wants anytrouble. If the sound truck gets towedaway, the anarchists lose a lot of money.If the police decide to get nasty, nobodygets to hear the music. A compromise isreached: the bands will be allowed to playat six o'clock when the church group hasfinished with the park. Until then, how-ever, the flatbed must be removed.Everyone agrees without argument, andone is struck with the realization that thepunk rockers are first and foremost musi-cians who want their music to be heard.Being tough and punky means nothingwhen separated from the music.

D.O.A. and entourage retire to the ivycovered sanctuary of the Sylvia Hotel

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Lounge. At six, some 150observers havegathered at Prospect Point. The humandoor-knocker has not moved. All abouthim, though, the crowd has livened up,having had a couple of hours in which toalter its states of consciousness. The con-versation is mainly various distorted ve'r-sions ofthe earlier run-in with Authority.

A constant game of punk one-upmanship goes on. The girl in the Garbohat and the safety pin through her cheekexplains to the gay fellow with fluorescentorange and silver hair that Wimpy, for-merly of the Bloated Cows, is now singingfor the newly reformed Sub-humans,who, when they were called The Nega-tives, featured Dimwit from the Skulls ondrums and Jerry Useless on bass. Conjec-ture is rife as to whether Joey will urinateinto the crowd as he has done on previousoccasions. This is also D.O.A.'s first ap-pearance with their new guitarist BradKent (who has predictably changed hissurname slightly), formerly of VictorianPork, and the fans wonder how he will fitin. They also wonder what Joey will dowith both hands free.

While the equipment is being set up,Joey holds court with various mediatypes. He puts on his World War II armyhelmet embossed with the slogan "Ra-cism Sucks" , and sticks a cigarette up hisright nostril. He is the spokesman for thewhole Vancouver punk movement. Whenasked why he is the only figure to emergeas a leader, he replies that every move-ment needs a leader, and he is that leaderquite simply because he is the best.

As D.O.A. starts off the evening's en-tertainment with Waiting to Drink YourWretched Blood, it becomes obvious thatsound quality is going to be ignored infavor of volume. The band is overdrivingits amps and the P.A. (Public Address sys-tem), and the music takes on the tone of anabused 40-year-old 78 r.p.m. record.Punk fans are not the most discerning au-diences in the world, though, and they be-gin to leap into the air, heads shaking, hipsgyrating. The lyrics are incomprehensi-ble, and Joey's voice is a gruff auditoryblur. Freed from the confinement of play-ing guitar, Joey spits at the audience andpicks his nose. He throws off his armyhelmet, revealing a grey Beatie wig, andputs the whole microphone in his mouth,simultaneously bellowing as loudly aspossible. Behind him, the band churns outpure pandemonium at maximum volume.Mysteriously, Joey's pants seem to be fal-ling open to a near obscene degree, reveal-ing a Beluga-like expanse of white belly.A fan throws a T-shirt onstage, the shirthas the slogan Destroy written across itabove a swastika. Joey flicks his Bic andthe shirt bursts into flame. The band ap-proaches its climax, and, in a mock fit,Joey stumbles backward to land on hisback where he flails his arms and legs infrenzied excitement.

When the band has finished, theanarchists take over the stage and set ab-out burning the Canadian flag, the black

Anarchist flag and what is thought to be aCanadian Constitution. The audience re-turns to sipping wine and rolling joints,and generally ignores the speeches issuingfrom the flatbed stage ... until they startburning money. Burning money! Aghast,the punk devotees watch as the anarchistsask for money to burn, and are even moreaghast when they get it. Twenties, tens,fives and ones are thrown up on stage andignited before the hungry eyes of thecrowd. Rampage and Joey look at eachother in disbelief. "This is stupid," gaspsJoey as he makes an unsuccessful gropefor a fiver.

"Give the money to the bands," shoutseveral audience members, to no avail.The anarchists, after all, have their pointto make.

A band called Private School followsthe anarchists, much to the relief of thosewho refused to believe their eyes as cashliterally went up in smoke. PrivateSchool, too, assaults the audience with abelch of electric noise, yet the musiciansseem upset about it. Completely lackingin the aggression and riveting stage pre-sence of D.O. A., they complain that theycannot hear themselves because of mal-functioning monitors. The long-haired fel-low in the Boogie 'Til Ya Puke T-shirt isthe first to leave, and, as Private Schoolcontinues to play, half of the audience fol-lows his lead. There is nothing worse thanan unpunky punk band.

Two other bands follow. First, there isThe Sub-humans: Jerry Useless, Dimwit,Mike Normal and Wimpy. Wimpy grewup with Joey and has his knowledge ofhow to hold an audience's attention. Forinstance, at the climax of the act, Wimpypulls down his pants, points his posteriorat the audience and spreads his cheeks.Boz Scaggs he isn't.

The crowd has thinned considerablybut the Sub-humans, the only band withenough sense not to overdrive the P.A.,inject a bit of adrenalin into those who re-main. Bottles of Rush and Locker Room,two commercially available inhalableswith an effect similar to amyl nitrate, passunder adolescent nostrils, effectivelysimulating heart seizures.

Sergeant Nick Penis is next. This bandconsists of all the members of D.O.A.playing different instruments, with theexception of Joey who stays in the crowdeyeing his fellows nervously. The band isripping the fabric of the air when amounted Vancouver city policemancomes on the scene. The generator dies.The evening is over. Wimpy organizes thepunks into garbage detail, and the field iscleared of debris.

Andy Warhol once said thateveryone should be famousfor fifteen minutes, andthere are those who believethat punk rock did only last

about that long. Others claim that punknever existed at all in any appreciablesense. And then there are those who feel

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that punk is breaking new ground and willachieve acceptance and integration whenthe shock value wears off. Fans whoheralded punk as the "next big thing", andcritics who wrote paeans to the revitaliza-tion of rock and roll music have now pro-nounced punk dead, as dead as glitter, asdead as psychedelia, as dead as a door-nail. Meanwhile, in London, prestigiousclubs such as the Marquee have changedtheir decor to punk and pack in kids withsafety pins through their faces.

Bruce Allen, Vancouver's most suc-cessful talent promoter and rockbusinessman (responsible for B.T.G. andTrooper), says bluntly that" Punk isdead." He cites the fact that, while manyof the major record companies formedspecial "punk" divisions when the styleseemed to hold commercial promise, theyare being abandoned today. According toAllen, the music lacks originality as well."It's recycled early fifties music with bet-ter amplifiers," is his assessment. Allencites the amount of hype given to somepunk acts and the relatively low level ofcommercial success achieved.

Directly concerned with the commer-cial potential of punk is Quintessence Re-cord store, the most comprehensive retaildealer of punk records in the city, whereRon Sizer counters Bruce Allen with theclaim that punk has undergone anevolutionary process. Those bands with-out real talent have fallen by the wayside,says Sizer, while those able to make freshand vital music are gaining respect. Thesebands are breaking away from the label"punk" and are being called "new wave"(now there is a less brash form of newwave known as "power pop"), and theiralbum sales are climbing steadily with noend in sight. The negative reaction to newwave music, says Sizer, comes from thedesire of over-thirties for "laid-back", re-laxing music. "New wave is not relaxingmusic. You can't be relaxed all the time.People who put down the new wave seemto have forgotten their roots. It's rock androll, and it's becoming more refined. It'salso being accepted by more and morepeople, and is being absorbed into themainstream of music."

Joey Shithead, meanwhile, is sitting athis kitchen table, folding record coversand sealing records in bags. Some will goto Los Angeles where Disco Sucks is get-ting some play on new wave stations. Joeywill take the records down in a car andpound the pavement personally distribut-ing the E.P. to any interested recordshops. There is no doubt, he says, thatD.G.A. will be a headlining act in a year.Almost inaudibly, he adds something ab-out getting a job when he returns fromL.A.

Then he folds another paper cover,drops in the seven-inch record and sealsthe clear plastic bag around the recordthat cost $2 to make and which he will sellfor$I.50. •