Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the DayGlo Abortions (2 page)

Life threw Corporal Acton a curveball and, in his second year at the base, the young officer became involved in a barroom brawl with a third-year trainee and was demoted to the rank of private. The lifelong military man retired as a captain in 1972, but probably would have risen much higher had he not been forced to come up through the ranks as an enlisted man. “He did it the hard way,” Murray acknowledges. Fate can be cruel.

New in Greenwood, Murray soon made friends with kids his age but had problems adapting to school. In fact, the bandleader claims to have been kicked out of every school he ever attended, including kindergarten. “I punched a nun in the fucking nose. She tried to cram a sandwich spread with margarine in my mouth, and I don’t eat margarine,” grumbles the guitarist/nun beater. Whatever the case, Murray was asked to stay home until school started again the next year. And the real fun had yet to begin.

After being kicked out of kindergarten, the future DayGlo Abortion was a bit apprehensive about returning to school, and says he ran into trouble on the first day of Grade One. Things went south in art class when the teacher showed the students how to stick paper mâché on balloons to form balls. Murray thought balls were boring and wanted to make dinosaurs but the teacher forbade him. When the schoolmarm briefly left the room, Murray and two other students applied the paper mâché directly to their own faces. When the joykiller returned, she found the boys stumbling around making dinosaur noises, wearing so much paper mâché they could barely lift their heads. The teacher was not amused, and the boys soon found themselves on the business end of a strap in the principal’s office. “I didn’t see what the big deal was, but we got punished anyway,” Murray mutters. Bart Simpson had nothing on young Mr. Acton.

Hoping to avoid further punishment, Murray did his best to fly under the radar of school officials. Such a thing proved near impossible and the young student regularly found himself in detention. Perhaps Murray gave up trying to be good after a while, since he kept getting into trouble anyway. School was always a challenge for him—not because he found the work difficult, but mostly because he hated rules and authority.

The birth of Murray’s sister Saskia (named after Rembrandt’s wife) in February of 1965 kept his parents busy. From the beginning, she was almost the opposite of Murray. Studious, well mannered, and motivated, the child was both precocious and independent. Much later, after graduating with honours from high school, Saskia matter-of-factly informed her parents that she was taking a trip to Africa. In fact, the seventeen-year old had already purchased an airplane ticket with money she’d saved from her allowance. “She hoarded every dime,” laughs Murray. “My parents were horrified but there wasn’t really anything they could do.” Saskia later told Murray that culture shock first set in when she saw women on a bus tie their stretched earlobes under their chins when the wind picked up. Saskia stayed in Africa for a year before returning home with lasting memories. The DayGlo Abortions have not yet toured the African continent.

When Murray was six, his parents bought him a cheap acoustic guitar. The child, who had always assumed that he would be able to play the complex music in his head, was in for a rude shock when he picked up the guitar. “It went
twaaang!
It was all out of tune,” the musician recalls. Murray was so angry that he threw the guitar in a closet and didn’t look at it again for almost a year. Even if the instrument had been made by Fender or Gibson, it is unlikely that Acton would have been able to play at the level his brain told him he could. Granted, many cheap guitars, especially children’s toys, are impossible even for a trained musician to play. Strings that sit three-quarters of an inch from the neck are enough to discourage all but the most determined child.

Without music to keep him occupied, young Acton began to run with a group of local youngsters he refers to as the Ivy Street Gang, although they didn’t have a real name. The base was an ideal place for the boys to roam, complete with a large wooded area, a sandy oasis, and a little creek. There was also a busy airstrip, full of military aircraft. When they were bored, the youngsters would lay on the tarmac at the end of the runway and watch the heavy military aircraft lift off overhead. “I felt as if I could reach up and touch the tires,” Acton recalls wondrously. Not all their activities were as passive, and the “gang” also loved to cause trouble. “We terrorized that town,” recalls Murray. “Some of the shit I did as a kid…” Thus began a pattern of juvenile delinquency that would follow Murray Acton to adulthood and, some say, continues to this day. “I’ve always followed the chaos,” the singer admits. “Safety is too boring.”

But vandalism and mayhem weren’t the only things that interested young Acton. The DayGlo Abortion has always been drawn to music, and he easily remembers that his first album was Walt Disney’s
Peter & the Wolf.
Written in 1936 by Sergei Prokofiev, the classical composition is a forceful piece of work. The boy’s favourite part was the nimble
bump bump bump
of an oboe as the wicked wolf stalks his intended victim on tiptoes. The suspenseful passage excited Murray and drew him in. “It’s a harmonic minor or something—it sounds creepy,” says the singer, pondering the chord progression. Even as a child, Murray would compose huge pieces of music, note for note, in his head. He was born with the desire to be a musician and cannot recall a time when he did not want to play an instrument. Of all the turbulence in Acton’s life, music was the only constant.

Eventually, a neighbour taught Murray how to play “Down on the Corner” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. “That first guitar was a real piece of crap,” recalls the singer. Despite the quality of his equipment, Murray and several other kids formed a little band. One lad used garbage cans for drums and Murray, of course, played guitar. The boys performed the only song Acton knew, followed by a barrage of instrumental chaos. The fledgling guitarist had not yet begun to write his own lyrics, and charming little ditties such as “Fuck My Shit Stinks” were still many years down the road.

In Greenwood, young Acton was always on the lookout for adventure. To this end, the air force brats staged semi-mock battles for possession of the small oasis, and the weaponry quickly grew more sophisticated. When rocks and clumps of mud failed to inflict grievous injury, the boys upgraded to pellet guns. They fired gleefully, aiming to inflict as much damage as possible. Wounds that didn’t break the skin were not considered worthy, and the boys had a rule: “You cry— you die.” The little hellions blasted the bejesus out of each other and the violence continued until several parents found lead pellets embedded under their children’s skin. Guns confiscated, the boys returned to weaponry that was more primitive. Like a deranged real-life
Lord of the Flies
the fight continued.

In a bid to frighten other kids away from the oasis, Acton concocted an evil plan. Under Murray’s instruction, the Ivy Street Gang captured a number of bullfrogs and “sacrificed” them atop an altar-like rock. The boys then made masks with the skin, but stopped short of actually wearing the masks on their faces. The plan worked splendidly until grownups discovered the gore-splattered rock. Soon the entire community was convinced that a gang of Satanists was on the loose, and the media, of course, took the ball and ran with it. Lurid headlines screamed DEVIL WORSHIPPERS CONDUCT ANIMAL SACRIFICES IN WOODS! Local bullfrogs croaked a sigh of relief when the children finally left them alone. However, the Ivy Street Gang was soon up to new tricks, inspiring newspaper editors to conjure up other ridiculous headlines. There wasn’t much in the way of real news in those parts.

From an early age, Acton fostered a deep resentment of authority. As far as he was concerned, all adults were liars and cheats who just wanted to spoil his fun. “I didn’t get into punk rock because it was fashionable—I was
born
this way,” asserts the frontman. Not that anyone has ever accused Murray of being a bandwagon jumper, but punk was anything but fashionable in 1980 when the DayGlos formed. At that time, punk rock was still a bastion for malcontents and ne’er-do-wells, which accurately describes Murray Acton. When the frontman takes his kids to all-ages shows these days, the guitarist avoids other parents, who stand uncomfortably at the back shuffling their feet. Murray relates to children better than he does to adults and treats kids in a respectful fashion. “Every adult that I’ve had any dealings with, to this day, has been a total dick!” insists the guitarist, forever unwilling to age gracefully.

Perhaps Acton’s dislike of adults springs from a perceived sense of abandonment, and again Murray has memories of being alone at a young age. “I remember walking around at Piccadilly Circus in England by myself. I found a bobby and hung out with him for a while,” he recalls, describing a trip to the UK with his parents. While it seems likely that the child simply became lost, it is clear that his sense of loneliness and isolation is real. That was also the last time Murray had anything to do with a cop.

Bored at school, Murray turned to malicious pranks for entertainment. He discovered that if he inserted a sewing pin in the gap above the switch, the next person who turned on the light would create a short circuit and blow out the power. Soon, both students and teachers alike were too terrified to flick any switches. Teachers searched the pupils daily in a frantic bid to learn the identity of the culprit, but failed to find the pins that Murray had hidden along the seams of his jacket. “They never did catch me, and we spent most of the year in darkness. It was hilarious,” says Murray, displaying the twisted sense of humour he retains to this day. While it is unlikely that his teachers found the prank even remotely amusing, this fundamental understanding of electricity and electronics would serve him well later.

AVG Morfee Elementary School in Greenwood, Nova Scotia eventually showed Murray the door, though he can’t remember exactly why. The timing was good at least, because the Actons had become footloose again and moved to British Columbia when Murray was eleven. Upon arrival in Victoria, the former Nova Scotians stood on the shore looking out at the Pacific Ocean and decided that this was a good place to be. At last they were home.

Mr. Acton liked Victoria so much that he eventually took an early retirement rather than transfer to some fly-infested base in the middle of nowhere. Murray’s parents still live together, which the guitarist finds slightly bizarre. “I’ve never even seen them hold hands,” he says, perplexed. We know that they must have been intimate at several points, since the couple is not childless. Murray claims that he doesn’t resemble his father at all, and looks more like a neighbour’s kid. Still, the long-lasting marriage is a considerable achievement, depending on one’s point of view. Mrs. Acton found strength to endure in God, but Murray says she is a person of faith rather than a follower of religion. “My mother has often said that the church is just a convenient place for like-minded people to meet, and that her faith is in her heart, not in the halls of man,” says the songwriter. Mr. Acton must also have put some effort into the relationship, because couples do not stay together that long without compromise.

Murray sees his father as a very conservative man who has never been willing to take chances. Despite this, the singer acknowledges that his father sacrificed a great deal for his family, and that he took his duty as a provider seriously. “I’m sure my kids wish I was a bit more like him in that way,” ruminates the DayGlo frontman. Still, one cannot help but feel that Murray wishes his dad had offered a little support. According to Murray, his father has never accepted his career choice. “You work in the service of the devil! Why don’t you get a real job? I’ll get you signed up for the Parks Board!” Murray raves, imitating his father. The singer goes on, somewhat wistfully, to recount how Stephen McBean of Black Mountain’s parents helped their son when he was in his first band, Jerk Ward. “McBean was about eleven-years old [ed note: fourteen], and his band kicked ass! His parents whisked him away the second he stepped offstage because it was past his bedtime. They were his roadies, fer chrissakes!”

Richard Acton would later have real problems regarding Murray’s music when his cohorts at the local bar kept mentioning that they’d heard about his infamous son on the TV or radio. The 1988 court case regarding distribution of obscene material was big news, and the entire country waited somewhat anxiously for a verdict. But all this was in the future, and neither Murray nor his father had an inkling of the shitstorm that would eventually descend upon them. “Just shut up about that music!” rants Murray, mimicking his dad again. Unlike the fortunate Stephen McBean, it seems impossible that Murray and his father will ever find a common ground. Despite this total lack of support, the youth was not to be dissuaded when he decided to play the guitar, and that stubbornness would serve Murray well over the decades. He follows his instinct.

Even at eleven years of age, music was very important to Murray. His parents had a number of albums including
Willy & the Poor Boys,
and
The Herb Alpert Tijuana Brass Band,
but they didn’t play them often. Later, when Acton reached puberty, he furtively masturbated to the cover of the Herb Alpert album, which featured a naked woman covered with whipping cream. Good pornographic material was difficult to come by in those days. “They also had a Chet Atkins LP, which had some gnarly guitar playing on it,” Murray remembers. No word on whether or not he liked the cover.

A mathematician/musician named Tom Lehrer introduced Murray to satirical humour in music. Satire, of course, is as important to the DayGlo Abortions as hops are to beer. “Lehrer wrote a song called ‘The Old Dope Peddler,’ which is super funny,” recalls Acton. But Leher was all but forgotten when Murray discovered Frank Zappa in the early 70s. While visiting relatives in Maple Bay with his parents, Murray stumbled across a box of records that included
Lumpy Gravy,
Zappa’s first solo album. A cousin, marine biologist Bill Heath, was happy to blow Murray’s mind. “I couldn’t believe the sounds that were coming out of the speakers,” says Acton, still awed by Zappa’s wild creativity. The song “Idiot Bastard Son” in particular was an immediate hit with the boy, who loved the mixture of rock music and irreverent humour. That many future DayGlo Abortions songs would have similar titles is no coincidence. Murray borrows what he likes.