Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the DayGlo Abortions (8 page)

The DayGlo Abortions circa 1980. (left to right) Spud, Jesus Bonehead, and “The Cretin” Murray Acton. [Bev Davies]

At the time, of course, the DayGlo Abortions had no idea that they would ever get to make one album, let alone nine to date. They were content to exist from one day to the next. What they needed more than anything else was a gig so they could introduce themselves to the good citizens of Victoria. The band eventually found a show, and it would indeed be one to remember. In fact, some still do.

Victoria in 1980 was experiencing a swift renaissance. “There was something going on all the time. Bands were springing up left and right, and there was always a party. A lot was happening in a very short time frame,” remembers DayGlos friend, benefactor, and driver Rancid Randy. New groups would form, disband, and regroup with slightly different lineups seemingly overnight. Despite the shortage of venues, basements were always full and house parties were common. In this environment, the DayGlo Abortions thrived.

So, in the spring of 1980, as the DayGlos prepared to play their first show, the townsfolk carried on as usual, unaware that a small group of misfits were preparing to desecrate everything they held dear. Had the hall owners known what was coming, they would surely have locked the doors and pretended they weren’t home. Sadly, they had no such tip off and the event at the OAP Hall in downtown Victoria would go down as planned. Sort of.

Part of the blame for the chaos that followed lay with the promoter, who had unwisely booked the DayGlos to support a local punk/new wave act known as Pink Steel, whose fans were completely unprepared for the shitstorm about to blow their way. Besides, The Sikphuxz had opened for Pink Steel before without serious consequence. Who knew things would go so badly this time? Interestingly, a website dedicated to Pink Steel mentions other gigs in the summer of 1980 but fails to mention the OAP Hall show with the DayGlo Abortions. One can only assume that Pink Steel guitarist Pete Campbell, who later formed The Sweaters with drummer James Richards, would rather forget this gig. And rightly so.

The night began, as they often do, innocently enough and there was nothing to indicate that the show would soon degenerate into a wild free-for-all. Kids filed into the community centre, interested only in drinking smuggled booze and finding someone to make out with later. The DayGlos, in time-honoured tradition, stalled as long as possible but eventually took the stage for the small crowd of bored and largely indifferent teenagers. The band launched into the set and, with gob flying through the air like sticky rain, they proceeded to heap abuse on the assembled concertgoers. “They weren’t going to spit on us—we were going to spit on
them,”
says Acton, thinking back to those halcyon days. The crowd, who didn’t seem to appreciate the DayGlos’ efforts to win them over, began to grumble mutinously but did not instantly retaliate. “The early Vic punks were a bunch of rich kids, and we were the bad boys from the wrong side of the tracks. They were terrified of us,” claims Cretin. Kev Smith of The Neos agrees that the scene was divided in the beginning: “Eventually we all got acquainted and those lines blurred and disappeared, but from ’79 to ’82, there were definitely two distinct camps.”

The DayGlos—even at this early stage, were an impressive sight to behold. Hunched over the microphone with ropy veins standing out on his neck, The Cretin assumed an overly aggressive stance that both fascinated and repelled. A&R representatives, had there been any around, would have backed carefully out the door as spittle and expletives shot from Cretin’s mouth like dirty water from a busted fire hydrant. Bouncing next to the angry frontman, Spud swung his bass guitar in much the same way a drunken lumberjack might wield a favoured axe. Jumping forward to contribute backing vocals, the blond bassist seemed ready to fly off the rails at any second, held together, but just barely, by Jesus Bonehead on the drums behind him. Bonehead, an energized wind-up toy gone dangerously amuck, pounded out a speedy and relentless beat, the rapid-fire
tat-tat-tat
of his snare drum like a crazy metronome from the depths of hell. Most kids didn’t know what to think. Who were these maniacs?

Though a good percentage of the crowd clearly disliked the DayGlos, the band might have finished the set if a patron hadn’t gobbed at The Cretin, who returned the favour by spitting on the youth’s girlfriend. The lad retaliated by bumping Cretin’s mic stand, sending the microphone crashing into the singer’s teeth. When this happened not just once but three times, Cretin threw down his guitar and pounced on the male he deemed responsible. “I drove his face into the floor and started pummelling him,” says the frontman, describing the vicious attack. Other patrons tried to pull Cretin off, but Spud waded into the fray, swinging his fists like a man possessed. “Spud kicked the shit out of those guys,” laughs Cretin. When the dust cleared, it turned out that the singer had jumped the wrong guy and was beating an innocent man. Cretin’s victim, in fact, was none other than the keyboard player for Pink Steel, the headlining act. Naturally, another fight soon broke out, with fists and boots flying everywhere. Order wasn’t restored until the police finally arrived to break up the mêlée. The DayGlo Abortions were off to a violent start, unaware that this dangerous precedent would remain largely unchanged over the decades.

Not long afterwards, a reviewer for a local underground rag filled two pages with angry words, calling the DayGlos every name in the book and begging fellow members of the press to ignore the young upstarts and deny them news coverage. So incensed was the reviewer that he completely forgot about Pink Steel, neglecting to mention them even in passing. The lesson was not lost on the DayGlo Abortions, who would continue to attract press with bad behaviour and outrageous stage antics. Free publicity was the only kind the band could afford.

Not only did the press give the band plenty of free publicity, but once they even helped write a song. This came about when Vancouver musician/critic Alex Varty referred to Cretin as a “Johnny-Rotten-come-lately,” going on to describe DayGlos lyrics as nothing but “blah blah blah argh fuck kill.” Alex didn’t know it then, but Cretin would later use those sentiments to write “Argh Fuck Kill,” which would be a standout on 1986’s
Feed Us a Fetus.
Cretin found the opportunity to thank Alex in 2001 when he saw him at Naughty Camp, an outdoor punk festival. According to Cretin, Alex had changed his mind about the DayGlos by then, and had nothing but good things to say about them. Whatever led to this change of heart remains unknown.

The members of Pink Steel, however, did not change the way they felt about the DayGlo Abortions. One evening, a fan in a bar asked Spud if he wanted to jam. The bass player had nothing better to do, so he accompanied the fan to a house nearby where an array of musical gear awaited. The two jammed for a while on bass and drums, and everything was all right until the owners of the equipment suddenly arrived home. Sure enough, the stuff belonged to the guys from Pink Steel. “All hell broke loose right away, and Pete Campbell was acting like he wanted to scrap. I told him I didn’t know it was their gear, but he was still being a dick. I thought I’d have to fight the whole band!” says Spud, shaking his head in disbelief. Pete might have liked that.

Somehow, the two groups avoided all-out war, and the DayGlos returned to the basement to practice intensely and write new material. Bolstered by the attention heaped upon them by the media, the DayGlos felt they could raise even more hell if they beefed up the lineup a little. If three of them could cause so much trouble, what might they be able to do with a fourth member? Besides, if the next show was anything like the first, another set of fists might come in handy. Already, the band was beginning to seem more like a gang than a band. Not only would that feeling intensify as time progressed, but fans worldwide would also feel as if they were part of the gang. Naturally, the “gang” often wanted to slide in on the guest list, and did.

With the intention of developing a fuller sound, the DayGlos recruited a young man named Glen Schmidt, who had previously played in a group called Pat Bay and the Malahats. “Glen was a cool guy, and he did one show with us,” Acton recalls. Unfortunately, Glen didn’t have the chops, so they had to let him go. “Glen was a great guy, but completely insane. His whole family was wacko,” says Cretin, but not in an unkindly manner. Good wackos are okay.

At first, with few songs and no permanent place to practice, the DayGlo Abortions were little more than a ragtag group of ne’er-do-wells. To keep themselves busy, Hagen majored in petty theft, and Acton occasionally tagged along to assist. Bonehead, less ambitious, was mostly content to smoke grass. The youth’s luck wasn’t good and he was always getting caught with small amounts of the illegal green stuff. “I guess you might say that we were free spirits,” suggests Cretin, though the police probably weren’t as charitable in their evaluation. Young and high, the trio talked endlessly of their plans for the future but did little to achieve those goals. With no practice spot, the youths bounced from place to place, drinking plenty but rehearsing seldomly. The situation did not look particularly bright.

Then, as fate would have it, two older supporters named Fred and Miriam offered to let the band use the basement of their used clothing store. Located at 541 Johnson Street, Metropol was a consignment store with many interesting items in stock. In fact, the model on the cover of
Out of the Womb
wore a pair of Italian sunglasses that Cretin found there. “But I taped the Venetian blinds over the lenses,” he adds. What good would sunglasses be without Venetian blinds?

The rehearsal spot, which had previously been occupied by another band, was ideal, and it was here that the DayGlo Abortions finally began to function as a unit. The group celebrated the true birth of the band by getting gloriously drunk and making a huge mess. “Fred eventually moved back to England, and Bonehead saw him when he was there a couple years ago,” says Cretin, still grateful. The new spot would become DayGlo Central, and the band might never have developed the way they did without a solid place to practice. If fingers are to be pointed, they should be pointed at Fred and Miriam.

Though Cretin liked nothing better than playing music, there was his future to consider, and it seemed unlikely that the band would generate an income he could live on. With this in mind, the singer put more effort into his studies at Camosun College. He was truly interested in diodes and resistors and, for the first time, the youth had found something other than music that didn’t bore him to tears. Not just that, but Acton sensed that he might also be able to parlay his growing electronics expertise into a career. With a little work, he could have his cake and eat it too.

Despite Cretin’s enrollment at college, the DayGlos practiced nights and weekends. There still weren’t many places that booked punk shows, so gigs were infrequent. House parties were fine, but the sound always sucked and the cops invariably arrived to break them up. Why couldn’t the police arrest some real criminals instead? Spoilsports all.

The Fellowship of Eagles Hall on View Street became a popular venue, and the membership suddenly swelled from four senior citizens to dozens of thirsty punks. The club had seen a decline in membership and, at first, the newcomers were welcome. Shows went swimmingly until one night a police car cruised past at closing time. The cops, after watching several rowdy punks leave the club, immediately went into a state of high alert. Then, when more boisterous patrons streamed from the hall, the cops figured they had a riot on their hands and called for reinforcements. The old ladies who ran the place were horrified to see paddy wagons and police cars converge on the venue as if it were full of outlaw bikers. “The next thing you know, there were cops everywhere, kids getting beaten on. What a horrorshow,” says Spud, who heard about the fracas later. The media got wind of the story and soon it was all over the newspaper. Things weren’t quite the same after that, and the old guard soon introduced a dress code that effectively chased the punks away. But the Eagles Hall was fun while it lasted.

Back at the Metropol, the group worked on new material. Songs such as “I Killed Mommy,” “Used to be in Love,” and “Suicide” replaced earlier efforts and would become mainstays on 1981’s
Out of the Womb.
Acton worried that the new stuff wouldn’t go over well with the punk crowd because it was “way too metal.” Aside from “I Killed Mommy,” which was a dyed-in-the-wool three-chord punk rock song, the others had a distinctly metal vibe that didn’t fit the basic punk template. The DayGlos marched to their own beat from the beginning, but not without some trepidation.

In fact, Acton claims that the DayGlo Abortions were actively hated by the punk community, who did not at all comprehend where the band was coming from. “We weren’t exactly the most popular band around,” recalls the frontman. Such a thing is hard to comprehend. How could the local punkers resist such charming little numbers as “Kill the Hosers”? As is often the case, it wasn’t until the band became popular elsewhere that they were widely accepted in their hometown. In fact, the DayGlo Abortions would eventually come to rule the Victoria scene, and even the mighty Nomeansno were not as wildly notorious. By 1988, the entire world would be talking about the little punk rock band from Victoria, British Columbia.

Social status set the DayGlos apart from the rest of the scene. Although the Actons were not collecting welfare or living in a shelter, they were decidedly lower middle class. Not only did Mr. Acton support a family of four with his military pension, but he also paid for Murray and Saskia’s education. What is more telling is that Cretin saw himself as being apart from the status quo, and it was this feeling of separation that gave the DayGlo Abortions an edge. The upstarts from Esquimalt were just a tad
angrier
than everyone else.