SUBCULTURE DECEMBER

I’m not a person that takes to being censored in any way very well. The muckity mucks at BeatRoute don’t like when I go off the musical beaten track in my columns but how can I not when all this shit is happening around us. How many times can I discuss shitty turnouts, poor stage changeover manners or cross booking newbie promoters.

I was looking over all my articles since October 2011 when I started writing for this paper. I touch on political issues a lot. I’m a punk. A lot of activists are punks. It’s my salute to their tireless work. Someone has to give a shit about the ‘man’ running civilization into the ground. I had written about music in reference too. I had lamented about the former shitty DJ at hockey games and people potty training at the bar. I had given up the idea of ever starting the Hellhole in this gentrification-obsessed city and wonder why I can’t sell off the Cobes fixtures I have in storage. I talked about my pickled liver and quitting the booze. I memorialized those that have passed.

SUBCULTURE OCTOBER

Every time you turn around online there's a new 27 or 32 ways blog article on reasons to hate either bands, venues or anyone associated in the game of music. What always amazes me in these articles is the lack of understanding on what it takes to be a cog in the wheel and the misinformation that exists between these necessary allies. These two entities need to coexist to make local live music a reality.

People that complain about a venue's booze prices fail to realize that the place has a shitload of fixed expenses.
You pay rent, they pay rent. They also pay for staff salaries, insurance, hydro, all levels of government taxes and licensing, or to fix damage to the premises caused by asshole patrons. How about that $10 roll of toilet paper or soap dispenser refill you snuck home in your bag. That barely scratches the surface.

SUBCULTURE SEPTEMBER

So I was asked this month to comment on all things booze. BeatRoute wanted my experiences about drinking at shows, whether booze makes the gig experience and the music seem better. From my perspective this has been the hardest nine months of my life. Being newly sober and working in a bar.

I find myself easily annoyed. So much so, that in the first few months after I quit the sauce, I'd turn into a pumpkin at midnight. I'd pay the bands and I was out the door.

SUBCULTURE AUGUST

(ellipses still intact!)

I was chuckling recently about a new promoter’s Facebook thread titled “What do I need to tell opening bands about show etiquette?”… Some of the answers were hilarious and pretty standard… For instance… Stick to a 30-minute set… I understand you’re excited to finally get a show but I’ve had opening bands jam out for an hour… Not only does that screw up set times, it makes the other bands, sound guy and promoter have an instant dislike for your band… Only your family and friends are enjoying your shit after the 40-minute point in the set… I loathe when I have to interject and say, “Get the fuck off the stage”…

Another gem was the dreaded gear changeover… I’ve had non-newbie bands that are guilty of this debacle… The crowd is wondering after 20 minutes if the show is over because it’s taking so long… How many times have you actually struck your gear… Maybe that needs to be practiced at one of your jam sessions…

SUBCULTURE JULY

Well, well… It seems every time you turn around the various levels of government find a way to stick it to the commoner … Christy Clark’s provincial Liberals’ latest favour for the people is called ‘Happy Hour’ … Now I’ve seen people prematurely rejoicing before realizing that it turns out to be just a cleverly-disguised liquor minimum price increase … I bet they’re backslapping up a storm in the legislature, now that they can spin this as a non-taxation cash grab …

These new minimum prices are at least 10 cents per ounce higher than any other Canadian province … Per ounce! The average beer is about 12 ounces … That’s a $1.20 price hike per beer higher than anywhere else in the country … This is outrageous! … This means that every bar that had cheaper beer prices below five dollars per 20 ounces of draught, now is forced to raise their prices … Of course, the talk about the measurements is in ounces, when most Canadian fluids are marked in millilitres to add to the confusion …

SUBCULTURE MAY

Man, this great city just sucks sometimes ... Every time I hear about a D.I.Y. attempt to contribute something edgy and different, like clockwork, they get bombarded with the dog and pony show of red tape ... It makes me shake my head ... Having waded through the double whammy of also having the same slumlords on top of it, I can relate ...

This sounds suspiciously like the soundproofing farce of 5 years ago, that seemed mandatory for only certain parties ... How are the existing businesses in the D.T.E.S. able to be operating without mandated upgrades from grid electrical wiring ... Does BC Hydro expect that the building will still be standing after the bigwig real estate roulette table is spun ten stories high on that block ... This seems to be a feeble attempt to thwart the potential of anything positive happening at that address, when they'd actually prefer making the building slowly rot into another convenient plot of community gardens that stretch to the next shuttered property ... There must be a need to keep up with the condo Joneses that are lurking across the street ...

SUBCULTURE FEBRUARY

As yet again I rush to write this column I wonder if I’m repeating myself ... I figured I’d just scribble down a bunch of musings at work as I’m listening to extremely loud death metal... Hey, it actually ripped me away from twiddling with my phone for a couple of hours...

I had an interesting conversation with a cab driver the other night... As I was checking the NHL app on my phone for the hockey scores, he chimed in about how the world is changing people’s attention spans with technology...

SUBCULTURE JANUARY

As we enter another calendar year of giveths and taketh aways, I face one of my greatest challenges... Working in a bar sober... As you may have heard, I was recently hospitalized for a pickled liver and its manifestation of an absurdly huge buildup of fluid in my body... After some fluid shedding meds, I feel like I was a balloon that was popped finally... Sadly, this development in my overall health has caused my permanent breakup with Jagermeister... It was a long exclusive run... I'll miss you!

SUBCULTURE DECEMBER

Last month, we lost Canadian punk rocker Nev the Impaler... Neil Robert Burns was an original member and guitar player for The Dayglo Abortions... There will be a memorial show on Friday, December 13th at Funkys to celebrate his life... The Dayglos are playing and there will be a jam / tribute / spoken word aspect to the show during intermissions and just before the Dayglos take the stage... We will also be having a raffle 50/50 type of thing full of band merch and other goodies to raise a bit of dough for his daughter Jules, whom he had just reconnected with when she moved out here recently... I'm glad they had that time before his passing... On that day, Nev had been jamming and recording, doing what he loved... If any bands/artists want to donate some stuff to the raffle get a hold of Deborah or me or just bring the stuff to the show and we'll add it to the prize pack...

SUBCULTURE NOVEMBER

Ha ha ha, Chi Pig was part of a hilarious situation last night at the SNFU show as he came up and hid behind me saying that a rabid female fan was harassing him... So I was standing there protecting him and she spots him poking his head out from behind me... She moseys on over and tries to engage him again while he's telling her to leave him alone and I'm also then telling her to shoo... Then she says, “I'm going to keep bugging you until you remember me Justin!” Chi and I were just gutting ourselves laughing about that all night and for the rest of the gig I addressed Chi by his new nickname 'Juschinn'! Comedy gold! They say everyone in the world has a doppelganger... Oddly enough; Chi Pig has one named Justin somewhere out there...

SUBCULTURE OCTOBER

I had really hoped that the public outrage over the new labour market opinion [LMO] fees would carry more weight than it has ... Jason Kenney doesn't seem to give a shit at all ... That being said, I'm sure Stephen Harper doesn't care either, even with nearly 137 thousand signatures opposing those changes ... I personally find it outrageous that musicians are lumped in with mine workers from China with multi-billion dollar corporations behind them...

SUBCULTURE SEPTEMBER

Free money!! Anyone else think these Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdfunding website cash grabs are out of control? It's one thing to have the funds raised actually be for charity or serious life-changing obstacles but when it's funding people's educations and businesses, how far is too far?

I recently found an Indiegogo campaign for a former D.I.Y. haunt of mine asking for dough to expand their business, in exchange for potential goods and services if the endeavor pans out.

SUBCULTURE AUGUST

It's tricky to be in this business of being the booking coordinator of a venue without receiving both the kudos or blame of how any given night turns out.... I do my best to try to book the venue according to whatever else heavy is going on in the city.... Invariably, as hard as you try to book in advance and list your show genre early, almost always some other promoter or venue will book against you.... This is progressively getting worse with former hipster haunts suddenly lauding the punk and metal subcultures ... I guess they realize we're hearty drinkers with an abundance of bands to fill a night of live music...

SUBCULTURE JULY

I loathe thieves! So touring season is upon us and out come all the 'Bad Luck Brian' stories that plague touring underground bands... Now an unfortunate reason for this is that venues for our subculture usually exist in the less desirable areas of town.... I'm starting to think I need to make a list of common-sense dos and don'ts for band members thinking of visiting beautiful Vancouver with each gig booking acceptance reply...

SUBCULTURE JUNE

So I recently saw a rant on Facebook about gigs running on time so that people can get home without missing the headliner because Vancouver Skytrain times are still archaically on day people schedules ... Now there are a few things that will always fuck up the smooth gig concept...

For the attendee complainers freaking that the gig runs late and even suggesting that we start earlier... Here are a couple of problems with that...

SUBCULTURE MAY

Some sad news to pass along.... Caleb Henyu-Crowchild passed away mid-April in his sleep... He was a strong supporter of the punk and metal music scene and rarely missed a gig.... To honour him as an exemplary single dad and raise some funds for his girls, we are having a couple of shows coming up in May...

 The first one is his memorial show on Monday, May 6 featuring the Dayglo Abortions with Snaggletooth [Motörhead] and the Fight United... There will be a 50/50 draw and a donation box at the show... A second full fundraiser show is slated for Saturday, May 18 and is being co-organized with RC Guns and her band the Wett Stilettos... Both shows are at Funkys 37 West Hastings...

SUBCULTURE APRIL

So I thought this month I would talk about our dear ol' Government's border crossing policy.... What is needed for a non-Canadian band to play in Canada is a minimum five page form called an LMO... A 'Labour Market Opinion’.... You can Google 'CRA LMO' and it will take you to a Service Canada website where you can download the PDF to print out the forms...

Now the trick to these, is making sure you just keep your answers to the 69 questions simple... YES / NO is good! ... I use the terms 'original band' and 'job retention' a lot!

SUBCULTURE MARCH

So I wonder sometimes if I could run out of ideas for this column and then boom! something rears its maniacal head that gets me rolling on a tangent …

I got a great quote from Denyss of the Rickshaw while we were chewing the fat on the hypocrisies of Vancouver’s bipolar music scene one day … It goes something like this … ‘convictions only last until they’re inconvenient’…

Now I have the good fortune to still be carrying on my work out of one the last bastions of not-yet-gentrified skid bars in Vancouver…

SUBCULTURE FEBRUARY

As I'm repeatedly receiving messages from the 'Save the Waldorf' groups, I just have to chime in about this debacle.... I hastily signed one of the many petitions before I knew the all the facts ... I feel like I was fleeced with the hysterically storied 'Big Bad Condo Developer is to blame' headline...Then bit by bit the real story trickled out... The Waldorf Productions lessees were up to their necks in debt... Three things about this whole scenario screamed huh?

SUBCULTURE JANUARY

IF YOU'RE READING THIS, CONGRATULATIONS!

YOU HAVE SURVIVED THE MAYAN CALENDAR END-OF-THE-WORLD SUPPOSED APOCALYPSE,
CHRIST CONSUMER MASS AND ALL THE BOLLOCKS ASSOCIATED WITH ORGANIZED RELIGION AND THE CORPORATE CALENDAR NEW YEAR.


I FOUND THE HYPOCRITICAL CATHOLIC CHURCH COMMERCIALS WELCOMING DIVORCED PEOPLE BACK TO THE FOLD MILDLY AMUSING. YOU COULD SEE THE REJUVENATED MAN’S SCRIPT VEILED A SLICK FINGER POINTING OUT HOW THE POOR GUY’S LIFE FELL APART WITHOUT THE CHURCH. THE DESPERADO PAPAL COFFERS MUST BE EMPTY FROM PAYING FOR ALL THE SEXUAL ABUSE CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS.