Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the DayGlo Abortions (34 page)

The Generator show was wild, even by DayGlo Abortions standards. The fans seemed half-dead by the time Armed and Hammered finished with them, but they miraculously returned to life when the DayGlos came on. The backdoor was beside the stage, allowing Gymbo to let kids into the gig for free. He then smashed beer bottles on the ceiling, causing broken glass to rain down on their heads. Anyone who claims that punk isn’t dangerous has never been to a DayGlos show, and rarely does one go by without bloodshed. Though criticized by some for its lack of air-conditioning and poor layout, The Generator would be missed by many. Historic punk clubs are not remembered because they were posh and clean, but for the wild shit that went down inside.

Cretin had agreed to play several other gigs with the DayGlos in southern Ontario, but the band did not make a lot of money. According to Spud, Cretin became very upset with the way he and Bonehead divided the earnings. $200 went to help pay Michelle’s credit card bill that the band had incurred, and more went to paying off the merchandise and other expenses. When all was said and done, there was only fifty bucks for each bandmember, and Spud claims that Cretin found that hard to take. Perhaps Cretin was upset that his bandmates had divided up the money without him. “We knew we wouldn’t make much money, but Murray flipped out and accused us of poor money management.” Spud and Jesus Bonehead boarded the airplane and flew home, wondering quietly what the future might hold.

Cretin, despite the money situation, was inspired by the large turnout and the rabid fans. He had forgotten what it was like to front such a popular band. Lummox, though well-liked, just couldn’t compete. “I made up my mind to rejoin the band after that show,” says the guitarist, reflecting on his decision. The Cretin was back.

Incidentally, Spud won $1000 in a lottery and used most of it to pay Michelle’s credit card bill. “I got three numbers. One more number and I would have won half a million,” says the bassist, wondering what he would have done with all that money. We will never know.

In May of ’98, instead of embarking on a cross-country tour as was their habit, the DayGlo Abortions elected to do a short jaunt through BC into Alberta. The gig in Lethbridge was a gong show, dominated by steroid monkey bouncers wearing latex gloves. Naturally, the concert devolved into a massive brawl, with many punches thrown on both sides. The boys finally escaped in Barney, but whoever was getting a blowjob in the back accidentally opened the propane valve with his foot, necessitating a brief evacuation. The gang reboarded and, when Gymbo rebuked a fan for spilling a glass of whisky, the chastised fellow began
snorting
shots of booze. “Not a pretty sight,” remembers Cherokee. No wonder DayGlos fans are an endangered species.

At the show in Canmore, a youth who had been refused admittance for one reason or another, climbed through a window, bicycle and all, directly behind Bonehead while the band was playing. “Canmore has always been a great place to play, and the shows are always packed,” Cherokee recounts, inventive door crashers notwithstanding.

The DayGlo Abortions returned to Victoria and put Barney out of her misery. The ol’ purple dinosaur was already so worn out that even Spud was unable to keep her running. After suffering every sort of indignity a vehicle can suffer, Barney was finished—used up and left to rust. From now on, when the band wanted to tour, they would either rent a vehicle or hire support bands that had wheels. Later, they would use a small tour bus belonging to Unrest Records. More on Unrest later.

The DayGlos spent the summer playing locally and practicing in preparation for the next album. To facilitate this, the band rented space in a group of empty meat lockers known, appropriately, as The Meat Lockers. Since the enterprising fellow who owned them had new storage space and no longer needed the seven lockers, he rented them to local bands. Although one of the bands in the adjoining space was called Meatlocker Seven, the DayGlos can’t remember who the other groups were. But they probably weren’t vegans.

In November of 1998 the DayGlo Abortions decided that the time had come to record the next album. Because no one worked so well for so little, Scott Henderson was again the man and Sea of Shit was again the place. Bonehead stocked up on high-grade weed, and the rest of the band loaded up on alcohol. Recording engineer Brian Else kept a twelve-pack of suds hidden under the mixing board at all times—not because drinking in the studio was frowned upon, but because he didn’t want the DayGlos to steal his beer.

Scott did the recording, and Brian Else seemed to know what he was doing at the mixing board. Incidentally, Brian had started work at Profile Studios in Vancouver just as the DayGlos finished cutting
Two Dogs Fucking,
so he knew what the band was after in the studio. The orchestra would not be sitting in on this session, and there was bound to be a fair deal of recreational drug use. Nigel Halloran even showed up to lend moral support. The party was on.

According to Spud, working conditions were tense because Cretin insisted on doing things his way and would not take advice. “He treated all his guests like big shots, but he treated us like shit,” gripes Spud, still smarting at the memory. Cretin maintains that because the songs were mostly his, he wanted his instructions followed to the letter. This was a dictatorship and Cretin was clearly in charge. “It was my way or the highway,” laughs the frontman, who had no qualms about reclaiming leadership of the group he had abandoned four years ago. A new day had arrived.

The recording progressed at a leisurely pace. The bong sound effect on “MarijuanaThon” is real, and after taking two massive hits of killer weed first thing in the, er, afternoon, Cretin slid to the floor, finished for the day. When several days were lost to severe drunkenness, the boys decided not to let Hung have any beer until he finished his work. One afternoon, the guitarist nailed two tracks in rapid succession, whereupon Cretin or Spud allowed him a beer. According to Brian Else, Hung was useless after just one sip and could not complete any more tracks. This is not corroborated by Cretin, who says that Hung doesn’t mess up even if he drops a lit cigarette down his pants.

Collectively, the DayGlo Abortions couldn’t get it together, and the studio bills climbed higher. Scott and Brian, who were good-natured about the lack of progress, enjoyed partying with the band and allowed them to run up a hefty tab. As of 2010, a good portion of that bill was still outstanding.

The work continued at a snail’s pace. On a whim, Cretin decided to include “Land of the Midnight Sun,” a slower country song he’d written for Lummox. A guest musician Tolan O’Neil also contributed pedal steel guitar to the track.

Despite the slow progress, the album eventually began to take shape. Cretin could not resist taking another shot at Fringe Product, and on “Ben Hoffman’s Nose,” the head DayGlo unloaded on the label executive with both barrels.

The songs themselves were a return to form in some ways, but a departure in others. Tracks such as “Big Ass Truck” (which Cretin wrote about the beastly vehicle he was currently driving), and Gymbo’s “Oh Wendy O” (after Wendy O. Williams of Plasmatics fame) were classic DayGlo numbers, but others such as “Executioner’s Song” and “Euthanasia Day” had more of a hard rock feel to them and weren’t quite as mosh worthy. This unevenness worked against the album and, although it contained many fine songs,
Death Race 2000
wasn’t the return to
Feed Us a Fetus
that fans had anticipated. Still, Cretin’s signature guitar work and “Popeye” vocals gave those same fans much to be thankful for. While the new album wasn’t exactly what they craved, it was nevertheless a bonecrushing and nasty piece of work.

Life was as chaotic as ever, and not just in the studio. According to Brian Else, Angie borrowed Cretin’s big ass truck while the boys were recording one night and smashed into a number of parked cars before eventually leading the police to the home of friends who were growing marijuana in their basement. They were not pleased to say the least.

On “Drunk on Power,” Jesus Bonehead laid down his drum tracks without hearing the vocals. He wasn’t happy to learn that the song was about him, and that the DayGlos had even sampled his distinctive laugh for the track. Later, as he often did, Bonehead realized that his fellow bandmembers meant no harm and were simply teasing him. Jokes of that nature were always funnier once a little time had elapsed.

Nigel Halloran, who had the ability to belch loudly for extended lengths of time, showcased his remarkable talent at the end of “Anal Chinook,” and the gaseous breeze that issued forth from his chest was quite impressive. The crazy Australian could apparently “sing” by burping, and occasionally accompanied the DayGlos onstage to provide backup “vocals.”

Gymbo Jak flew in from Toronto, using money he had earned skateboarding naked for
Honcho.
As mentioned in
Personality Crisis: Warm Beer & Wild Times,
the magazine ran a feature on nude musicians that also included the drummer from Blue Rodeo’s twin brother, John Milchem. Although the experience made him a trifle uneasy, Gymbo wasn’t about to refuse $500 USD for showing a little skin. Arriving at the studio, the singer played bass and sang on “Oh Wendy O.” “Before we started, I paused to tell Cretin that it was a surreal to play bass with him and Bonehead on a song I wrote,” remembers the singer. At one point, after Cretin and Gymbo consumed roughly sixty airline bottles of hard stuff, they also polished off a litre of mouthwash. Gymbo did vocal tracks for “One Cheque From the Street,” “MarijuanaThon,” “Squeegee Night in Canada,” and “Stupid Fuckin’ Cunt,” but spent more time getting drunk than he should have, and returned to Shred Central without finishing his backing vocals. He was a working man now after all.

In October, Gymbo and several associates had taken possession of the indoor skate park Rampsterdam and changed the name to Shred Central. Within a few years, Gymbo’s partners would walk away, leaving him as the sole proprietor. Shred Central, located at 19 St. Nicholas Street, was still open in May of 2010, but the building had been sold and the future is uncertain. “They’ll probably put up more condos,” Gymbo says disgustedly.

Work continued, with Cretin and Spud squabbling over various details. “You couldn’t get a word in edgewise—it was the Murray show,” Spud moans. To his credit, Bonehead didn’t berate Spud over his decision to bring Cretin back. “He never said ‘I told you so,’ and that almost made it worse,” the bassist says ruefully. The studio bills grew as fast as the stack of empty beer bottles but, between drinking binges and periods of recuperation, the boys at last pulled the album together. Engineer Brian Else applied the finishing touches to the mix and slumped exhausted in his chair. It was done.

With
Death Race 2000
due for release, the band hit the local clubs to test-drive the new material. The shows went fine, but the relationship between Cretin and Spud continued to sour. “I’d planned to do another tour with the DayGlos, but I eventually realized that I just couldn’t do it,” explains Spud. Finally, after nearly twenty years with Canada’s most infamous punk band, his tenure was drawing to a close.

In early December, the gang recorded Barry Manilow’s “I Write the Songs” for the compilation album
20 More Explosive Fantastic Mega Rock Hit Explosions!
which also included The Fastbacks, Wilco, and King Missile. Reviewers, who were dumfounded by the DayGlos’ song selection, devoted large amounts of space to the subject, excluding other contributors. One reviewer noted that the band was “out of key and out of tune.” Apparently, it didn’t occur to the fellow that any group would intentionally mangle a Barry Manilow song. What sort of animals would do such a thing?

Bonehead also met Mel Schedel’s redneck father around this time. According to Mel, the drummer threw a tattooed arm over the patriarch’s shoulder and said, “So, I’m fucking your daughter, eh Dad?” The man was not impressed, even though Bonehead would later take up golf to prove to Mel’s dad that there was more to him than met the eye. The real surprise was that Bonehead liked the game and became good at it. Alice Cooper look out.

Winter arrived, and then it was 1999. One of the most chaotic shows in the history of the band came in January when a promoter offered the band $2000 US to play Seattle. Since this was roughly $500 more than they usually made, Spud quickly agreed and the band prepared to travel. Sadly, the mission was doomed from the start, and things began to go south when Spud tried to fly out in a helicopter. Though in essence the plan was simple, the bassist’s attempt failed and he was turned back by US customs officials in Seattle. And this was just the beginning.

Meanwhile, the rest of the band, minus Bonehead, who knew he wouldn’t get in, attempted to cross the US border at Blaine, Washington. Insanely, Mike Anus was filling in for Bonehead, and his mother Alice drove the boys across in her van, telling the border guards that they just wanted to play a few games of bingo. Amazingly, the group was allowed to enter, whereupon Alice drove directly to the next gas station to load up with cheap beer. The DayGlos were drunk when they arrived at the venue, but not too wasted to lay siege to the rider, which contained more booze than any rider the promoter had ever seen. “There were bottles of Jack, cases of beer, bottles of wine; it was sickening,” recalls The Cretin, shaking his head. The band then proceeded to drink or give everything away before demanding more booze. By this point, the musicians were so smashed that they couldn’t even form complete sentences.