Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the DayGlo Abortions (38 page)

The tour rolled through Ontario into Quebec, reaching Montreal for a show at Foufounes Electriques. The last time they were in town, a half dozen girls had danced bare-breasted on the stage while the band debuted a new song called “Release the Hostages.” The fans would be expecting something extra-special, and the boys struggled to come up with a plan. Eventually, the band talked Gymbo into soaking his hoody with water and wearing his lighter fluid-drenched Jaks colours over it. During the last encore, a fire-breather pretended to be trying to stop the band from leaving the stage, but “accidentally” blew a plume of fire at Gymbo, who immediately burst into flames. “The crowd was freaking out, so I jumped off the stage and ran around as they tried to put out the fire,” laughs Gymbo. Then, after the flames were finally extinguished, the band played a fiery finale. It would be very difficult to top that stunt the next time they were in town.

The band also played Quebec City and Sherbrooke. Having come this far, they turned around and gigged through southern Ontario. The tour was as routine and normal as could be—angry bar owners, bleeding fans, and trashed hotel rooms just like always. Willy was a hardened veteran by now and could drink and vomit with the best of them.

The prairies were the same, the girls were the same, the beer was the same, and yes, even the sweat, blood, and piss were the same. The flat tire on the Trans-Canada Highway was the same, the gas station burritos were the same, the horrid farts were the same, and the awful jokes were most definitely the same. Bonehead’s laugh was the same, Gymbo’s manic energy was the same, Cretin’s crooked grin was the same, and Willy’s quiet patience was the same. The senior DayGlos wouldn’t let Willy forget that he was still the new guy, and it was hard to build seniority in the DayGlos, especially with Bone, who was about to celebrate his 22nd year in the group. Ten years later, Willy was
still
the new guy. Nothing changed. Ever.

Gymbo remembers stopping for a piss break near a dead bear while driving through the Rocky Mountains. “At the time, there had been a lot of newspaper stories about people poaching bears for their gall bladders, so I asked Murray if I could borrow his knife to cut the bear open.” Gymbo claims that Bonehead took him seriously and flipped out. “He actually thought I was going to do it,” laughs Gymbo. Later, the drunken singer angered Bonehead again by yelling at wild animals from the van window. “I’d be yelling, ‘Fuck you, elk!’ which did not make Bonehead happy. He said that there was a law against hassling the wildlife. Maybe there is, but who the hell is gonna enforce it?” Be that what it may, but more and more it seemed that the singer was determined to butt heads with DayGlos management.

And the year wasn’t over yet. In October of 2001, the band embarked on a US tour with Dr. Know. Again, Mike Anus’s mom Alice Lehmen snuck the guys over the border in her van, even though her son wasn’t in the band at the time. “We just sat in the back and tried to look Aboriginal,” recalls Gymbo. Even though this was now post 9/11, the Border SS didn’t give Alice and her disheveled passengers a second glance. Terrorists would do well to take note. Bonehead, who was
persona non grata
in the United States, was not with the band, and local drummer Blind Marc was along as his replacement. Marc’s brother “Bubba” aka Greg Hlady had passed away of an overdose six months earlier and Marc was glad for any diversion.

In Seattle, the group met Chris, who had promoted the drunken disaster of a show with Mike Jak on drums. Bonehead had been communicating with Chris online, and the American had offered to sponsor the tour, even providing a new SUV and a trailer full of Pabst Blue Ribbon. “There was so much beer in that trailer that we could barely fit our gear in there,” recalls Gymbo. The DayGlos were not fans of PBR and preferred to drink hard stuff. They eventually drank the American brew, but only when there was nothing else left to consume.

Blind Marc confesses that he cost the DayGlos money at an all-ages show with Dr. Know and Statch and the Rapes in Medford, Oregon. “Somebody grabbed my sticks outta my hand, so I stood up and bodychecked them off the stage,” recounts the drummer. Then, since the power had been shut off, Cretin demanded to be paid, but the promoter threatened to have Blind Marc charged with assault if they didn’t leave immediately. As it turned out, the promoter had decided mid-set that the DayGlos were too nasty for young ears, and it was she who Blind Marc had knocked on her butt. Perhaps next time she will think twice before deciding to take someone’s drumsticks away.

The drummer also cost the band a gig in Santa Cruz, California. Being just before Halloween, many of the guests were dressed in costumes, so Blind Marc—who still had some vision in those days—thought nothing of it when he saw Cretin talking to someone dressed in a policeman uniform. “I walked over and said, ‘Nice costume, ya fucking pig!’” recalls the drummer. Not only was the guy a real officer, but he was also the captain of the Santa Cruz Police Department. The DayGlos were shown the door,
sans
paycheque.

On Halloween night at Al’s Bar in LA, the band was finally shown a little respect. The show was a success, and everyone had a great time. Blind Marc, dressed as the late El Duce, was treated especially well. “El Duce used to work at the bar,” explains Marc. At least none of the bandmembers came down with scabies this time around.

The DayGlo Abortions moved on to San Diego, leaving a trail of dirty socks and shattered beer bottles. On a rare day off, the bandmembers got drunk and entertained themselves with an early-morning jaunt into Tijuana. The boys didn’t even have time to recover before flying to Houston for one final show. “They picked us up at the airport in a stretch limo,” remembers Blind Marc. Onstage, Gymbo was rewarded with a barstool to the head after slagging a number of racist skinheads in the crowd. The singer keeled over backwards, but regained his senses just in time to see a large group of Hispanic DayGlos fans pounce on the skinheads. “It was like one of those cartoons you see with the fists and boots sticking out of a flying cloud of dust,” recalls Gymbo. The fight tumbled all the way across the hall, out the door, and into a parking lot across the street. Badly outnumbered, the racists managed to escape, but not without considerable injuries. “They got their asses kicked by the Mexicans,” laughs Gymbo. “We didn’t even have to scrap.” The promoter even gave the boys an eight-ball of cocaine after the show. No hookers though.

The next day, Gymbo flew to Mississippi to see a girl he knew, and the other DayGlos flew back to Canada. Though short, this tour was significant in that the band was able to meet up with Chris again. Chris and his label Unrest Records would later help the DayGlos re-release their back catalogue. As always, it was the fans who allowed the band to succeed.

Back home for Christmas, the DayGlos laid low for a few days. They probably would have stuck around longer, but a bar owner in Saskatoon hired the band for a show at the Wash n’ Slosh on New Year’s Eve. “They flew us out and hooked us up large,” Gymbo recalls. As a provision of the rider, the DayGlos asked that they be met at the airport by bikini-clad girls bearing a placard with the group’s name. Amazingly, the venue agreed to this rock star-ish demand and sent two scantily clad strippers to greet the boys. One can assume that the blow and champagne were also forthcoming.

The gig that night was routinely wild but, towards the end, the singer picked up a metal tub that had once held the band’s beer and tossed it into the crowd. “Two dudes grabbed it and threw it back onto the stage,” Cretin remembers. Gymbo managed to dive out of the way, but the tub landed directly on Cretin’s foot, breaking it. The guitarist finished the set, despite being in a great deal of pain. A broken foot was nothing he couldn’t handle.

After the gig, Cretin had a hard time getting around. Serena Woodrow, who served beer at the Wash ‘n Slosh, remembers that the singer used the vacuum cleaner attachment as a crutch. Since there was no way Cretin would visit the emergency room on New Year’s Eve, he waited until they returned to Victoria to seek treatment. “Willy dropped me off at the hospital with a six-pack,” says the tough-as-nails frontman. Has any musician ever suffered so many injuries in the line of duty? Truly, Cretin is the Evel Knievel of punk rock.

The DayGlo Abortions rested over the holidays before making plans to tour Europe again. First, they recorded “Jack” for
High Voltage Box: the Ultimate AC/DC Tribute.
For one reason or another, Blind Marc filled in for Bonehead when the band cut the track at The Rat’s Nest with producer Gary Brainless. “That was fun, even if we were a bit rushed,” remembers Gymbo.

Since they needed money for plane tickets, the band played a few dates in and around Victoria, including one at the formerly fabulous Cobalt Hotel on April 20, 2002. This gig would be bloody, even by DayGlo standards.

The night started innocently enough and, as usual, Wendy Thirteen gave the boys a 24-pack of beer just to keep them happy. During the set, a rowdy “fan” spat on Gymbo, inspiring the singer to pour beer in his eyes. Unfortunately, the bottle slipped from his hand and shattered the patron’s front teeth. The angry man punched Gymbo in the face, at which point the frontman jumped from the stage to engage the patron in hand-to-hand combat. Gymbo was only able to land a few punches before the punk rockers took over, beating the foolish and injured man all the way across the bar and out the front door. Folks at the Cobalt didn’t like people who fought with the band. Gymbo, for his part, wishes things had gone differently. “I’m not proud of that, and I had to watch my back whenever we played Vancouver for the next year or so,” he reflects ruefully.

The DayGlos didn’t have much time to dwell on broken teeth because, three days later, armed with plenty of Canadian smokes, they took a taxi to the airport and caught a flight to Germany. The promoter Bonehead hired to run the tour assured the bandmembers that all was in readiness, and that there would be no missteps or tomfoolery. Although they had no way of knowing that the man was a drunken buffoon, his promises alone should have worried the gang. Of course there would be screwups—that was the nature of the beast.

As the boys soon learned, their driver spoke little English and communication was again difficult. Also, Lars the promoter liked to drink. “He would spend all his money and then borrow extra from us to get even more fucked up,” recalls Gymbo. The promoter and the driver didn’t even know each other, and the latter had apparently landed his job via a newspaper advertisement. After the first few dates, Gymbo suggested firing the promoter, who most definitely did not have his shit together. “We had to straighten him out, right at the very beginning,” remembers the frontman. Lars tried a little harder to behave after that, but the promoter was just one drunken mistake away from being tossed out on his ear. Even the European driver wanted to get rid of him.

The clubs in Germany were reasonably well attended, and the shows in the smellier venues, such as squats, were packed. Germany was fertile ground. The band probably could have based the entire tour there, but they wanted to extend their influence beyond the confines of Germany, and set off for several shows in Copenhagen. Denmark had been fun last time, so there was every reason to believe that these shows would be even better. Arriving in the capital city, the DayGlo Abortions played the largest squats without encountering any significant problems. So far, the tour was going well.

In Freiberg, Germany, members of GBH doused Gymbo with water while he was singing, prompting the frontman to retaliate. Colin Abrahall of GBH still remembers the incident: “We had just started our set, when Gymbo appeared in the middle of the crowd with a large industrial-sized vat of reddish sauce, which he proceeded to hurl everywhere—all over us, all over the crowd and, unfortunately, all over the PA.” The band laughed it off and finished the set, but the promoter, a stern fellow known as Mitch the Bitch, was furious. Mitch threw Gymbo out of the bar, preventing him from hanging out with GBH after the show. “Gymbo looked like a naughty schoolboy getting told off by the teacher,” laughs Colin. GBH’s drummer and Jesus Bonehead tried to get the red stuff out of the steel mesh covering the monitors, but failed to remove it completely. Bonehead was angry for weeks, and Mitch didn’t forgive Gymbo until the band toured Europe for the third time, five years later.

Anyway, despite the general madness of the tour, the gang completed the engagements without serious bloodshed, and Cretin didn’t even break an arm or leg. The worn-out bandmembers flew home from Berlin, not rich, but not broke. Under these terms, the second European tour had been a success.

2003 arrived cold and wet. The inclement weather did not stop the band from touring, and they set off across the frozen prairies with nothing but ten boxes of merch and the will to survive. Cretin was pissed at Bonehead—who had declined to play several shows for one reason or another—and wanted to replace him with Blind Marc. The plan never came to fruition. Although Cretin says that Blind Marc is “amazingly tight,” Bonehead and Cretin use eye contact to orchestrate the many pregnant pauses and out-of-time sequences that are so vital to the DayGlo sound. Cretin has only to glance at Bonehead to communicate what he wants onstage. These subtle cues that took decades to develop made it difficult to replace Bonehead, even with a top-notch drummer like Marc. “Me and Bonehead don’t even need to speak anymore—we just look at each other,” says the guitar player, not without some regret. The two are hopelessly entwined.

The gang plowed through British Columbia and into Alberta. As usual, Gymbo returned home to Toronto, and the other DayGlos carried on to British Columbia. Somehow, they survived the ice and snow, and made it home alive. Shackleton would have been impressed.