Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the DayGlo Abortions (9 page)

Money wasn’t the only difference between the DayGlo Abortions and the other punks. Most of the Victoria bands tended to be politically-correct, whereas the DayGlos were the exact opposite. “I always saw that PC shit as being a form of fascism,” says Cretin. “We believed in freedom of speech, but the other bands were always telling people what they could or couldn’t say. Hardcore music was cool but those lyrics got old fast.” Whether or not social status was responsible for these opposing views is a matter of opinion, but perhaps it was the DayGlo Abortions’ fuck-em-all attitude that allowed them to persevere long after the first wave of hardcore punk died out. The DayGlos didn’t go down with the ship simply because they weren’t onboard in the first place.

Cretin goes on to agree that though they were not well-liked, the two factions eventually merged because the scene was so small. “They had fancy equipment, they had everything going on,” says Cretin, not without envy. “We were filthy dirtbags from Esquimalt who stole everything we had, but when they got to know us a bit better they realized that our wild behaviour was mostly an act,” remembers Acton, adding that he respected the early punks and thought they were “pretty cool.” Spud confirms that the Victoria punks weren’t short of cash, but says he also loved the bands that were around at the time. “There was so much music going on suddenly,” he remembers.

Kev Smith, who played bass and sang with The Neos, reflects on the early Victoria scene: “There was plenty of diversity; lots of bands, and not everybody sounded alike by any means. Even though punk already had its heyday in the larger world, Victoria was very culturally isolated in those days, so everything took a few years to arrive here. The scene was a lot of fun to be involved with during those years.”

The scene, for lack of a better word, was growing quickly now, and bands such as House of Commons, The Infamous Scientists, Nomeansno, The Do-Wops, and The Nevar were playing whenever they could. The young punks were always looking for excitement, and Cretin claims that the DayGlo Abortions were partly responsible for corrupting the young punks in House of Commons. “We took Andrew downtown and made him huff lighter fluid and spray paint cars,” recalls Acton. “We saw the police pick him up for vandalizing the ‘Welcome to Victoria’ sign, but they gave him a ride home when they found out that his father was the vice president of the Burrard Yarrow Shipyard.” Addiction may not know any distinction between the rich and the poor, but the police clearly do. Sadly, Dad’s money couldn’t save the guitarist from dying of a heroin overdose in 1990. That rock n’ roll graveyard is full to overflowing.

Cretin may have enjoyed leading punk rockers down the garden path, but his favourite local act was The Neos, who would go on to release two landmark EPs in 1982 entitled
End All Discrimination,
and
Hasibah Gets the Martian Brain Squeeze.
“Those were very influential recordings,” says Cretin. “They were just about the first speedcore band on earth. They played just a bit faster than they were capable of playing. It was nuts!” Neos bassist Kev Smith explains that he had no choice but to join a band: “I loved punk and hardcore and, once I figured out how to play a bit and started writing songs, there was nothing else I really wanted to do.” Though Cretin never expressed that exact sentiment, it is clear that he felt a similar compulsion to play guitar. Music was the only thing that seemed real in a complex and often-hostile world.

On March 31st 1980, the DayGlos made it across the water to Luxury Bob’s in Vancouver. Being a Monday night the place was not sold out, but a fair number of people attended anyway, which was encouraging. Perhaps there was hope for the band from Victoria. They received for their troubles a couple of free beers and thirty dollars. Could fame and fortune be far off?

The group gigged locally and raised hell around town, doing their best to make themselves as obvious and noticeable as possible, which wasn’t hard to do in sleepy little Victoria. A show at the OAP Hall with DOA and House of Commons on July 17th provided some much-needed fun. The cool thing about Victoria was the fact that it didn’t take much effort to stand out. Short of dressing nice and acting politely, there was no way that the DayGlos were going to blend in with the citizenry. It was time for the boys to stand up and be counted.

By the time 1981 rolled around, the DayGlos had learned much, and even The Neos didn’t scare them as badly. The Neos were the band to beat, and even Nomeansno made their debut opening for this seminal Victoria punk band. To this day, Cretin credits them for being ahead of their time.

The DayGlo Abortions wanted to return to Vancouver, but it took awhile before they were finally able to do so. Finally, Bonehead booked a show at the Smilin’ Buddha, and the DayGlo Abortions, who looked nothing like hippies, set off for the ferry in a friend’s VW Microbus. The band made it safely over the water and arrived at the infamous club, where Cretin changed into his smelly and disgusting clothes, hoping that they would continue to protect him from danger. “That place was pretty cool, but it was intimidating, what with Igor and all that,” recalls Acton. Igor, the gigantic Hungarian bouncer who watched over the club, was enough to strike fear into the heart of any skinny punk. “I got along pretty good with Igor. He never turfed me out even once,” remembers Spud. Apparently, “getting along pretty good” with Igor meant that he didn’t throw you into the street.

Walking through the crowd at the Smilin’ Buddha, the DayGlos were not surprised to see a punk rocker named Simon Snotface again. Simon was already a friend after meeting Cretin and Spud when they performed as The Sikphuxz. Snotface, a muscular ball of negative energy, quickly appointed himself as the DayGlos protector, rendering Cretin’s sour clothing unnecessary. “Snotface is the only person who has ever knocked me out,” says Spud. “It was a sucker punch, but I saw little birdies, the whole bit.” But that would come later, and the Buddha show went off without a hitch, partly due to Snotface’s menacing presence at the front of the stage.

After the gig, Snotface invited the band to a house party where the furniture was made of full beer cases. As members of COLA (Carling O’Keefe Libera-tion Army), Snotface and his associates had helped themselves to more than a hundred cases of beer from the poorly guarded brewery. “I met Ferris and Slutty and those guys that night, and sat in a chair made of beer,” recalls Cretin. The party, as they say, was on. “The COLA thing was a blast. I even went into the brewery with them on another trip,” says Cretin, thinking about all that free beer. Disappointingly, the Carling O’Keefe Brewery met the wrecking ball in 1989 and an assisted living senior’s building now occupies the site. “I’m still tight with Snotface, even though he’s a full-fledged sociopathic monster,” says Cretin. Even Snotface feels the assessment is a fair one.

When they woke up, the still-drunken DayGlos climbed into the van for the return trip to Victoria. The successful gig was encouraging, but the band knew they had a long way to go if they wanted to headline. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about security at the Smilin’ Buddha any more. “Snotface would sit at the foot of my mic stand and nobody would fuck with me,” says Cretin, still laughing at the memory. As he would eventually learn, the only thing worse than having Snotface as an enemy was to have him as a friend.

Back on Vancouver Island, Bonehead decided to move into the upper floor of a house at 567 Head Street in Esquimalt. Six months later, Spud joined him. What fellatio aficionados wouldn’t want to live on Head Street? Neil Embo and other members from House of Commons would occasionally drop by to drink beer and buy weed from Bonehead. Neil remembers that the tenants would find various ways to keep themselves entertained. “One night they all gangbanged some drunken chick in Bonehead’s kitchen, the dirty bastards,” laughs the ex-HOC frontman, declining to say whether or not he participated in the event. Perhaps he’s not the type to kiss and tell.

Free at last of supervision, Spud and Jesus Bonehead settled in to smoke weed and drink beer. Bonehead was happy to be rid of the probation officers and social workers. The drummer began dating a girl named Jennifer who would later marry the head of British Columbia’s Nazi party. Apparently, Jen and her friend were waitresses at a gay bar up the street. “Jennifer went from being a card-carrying lesbian, to Bonehead’s girlfriend, back to a being a lesbian, and then to marrying that Nazi skinhead guy,” recalls Cretin. “He was a real bad-ass motherfucker. I saw him getting hauled off to jail on the news one night.” After Bonehead and Jennifer broke up, the drummer began seeing Jennifer’s friend, Tammy. The girls could hardly have been “card-carrying lesbians” if they both dated Bonehead. “But I think they were by the time Bonehead was finished with them,” laughs Cretin. Lesbians? Nazis? Punk rockers? Life on Head Street was like the set of a seventies B-grade sexploitation movie, but without the catering trucks.

The owners of the gay bar down the street from Bonehead’s place actively supported the DayGlo Abortions. The proprietors at The Queen’s Head were behind any group who shook up the status quo the way the DayGlos did. In fact, it wasn’t just The Queen’s Head, but other queer watering holes as well. When venues became unavailable, the bar owners allowed the DayGlos to use their establishments. “The homophobic punks turned out not to be very homophobic at all, and everyone had a good time,” remembers Cretin. “The gay club scene is hilarious, and those people are a riot to party with. The punks who got hit on learned to treat it as a compliment,” theorizes Cretin, who never took such things seriously. Spud had a nasty habit of hustling the bull dykes at pool and got his ass kicked on at least one occasion. “Spud could shoot pool, but they beat him with cue sticks,” laughs Acton. The years Spud spent hanging around pool halls as a kid had not been in vain, but the bass player needed to work on executing the hustle without getting caught. For the record, the DayGlos are
not
homophobic, and believe that people should be able to sleep with whomever they want. They approve of sex in general, and the more the better.

The DayGlo Abortions stumbled onwards, playing when and where they could. Acton was still attending Camosun College, and the band was not yet a full-time project. Though the boys slowly became more cohesive as a unit, they were not really “musicians” in a technical sense. Stevie Ray Vaughan did not lay awake nights worrying that the DayGlo Abortions were coming for him—even though, in a collective sense, they were. Punk rock was the antidote for bloated corporate rock, and now it was time to trim the fat. Since musical acumen was not the first priority, it was almost incidental that the DayGlos eventually became capable musicians.

Kev Smith remembers early DayGlos shows: “Originally, they seemed to have a habit of getting too wasted to play, and I recall hearing that they didn’t practice much. Later, the DayGlos performed consistently well. I think what happened was they just learned how to play drunk.” For now, however, the noise coming from the Metropol was not always in tune or in key. Such things would come with time and were not of importance.

The DayGlos knew they had to record original music if they wanted anyone to notice them, and it was here that Robin Sharpe stepped in. When Cretin and Bonehead told Robin of their desire to record an album, the older man surprised the youths by offering to fund the project out of his own pocket. Robin, who would rather burn money than pay taxes, felt that it would be very satisfying to foist an obscene and vicious punk rock record upon a richly deserving public. Subversion in any form appealed to him.

The DayGlo Abortions, of course, were ecstatic at this turn of fortune and immediately began practicing the songs they planned to include on the album. Not that there were a great many to choose from. Some, such as “Kill the Hosers” were obvious picks. The catchy little number, which Cretin had written in reaction to the Bob and Doug McKenzie madness sweeping the country, was offensive enough to make Ann Archy scream were she still around. The Cretin often thought of her when they performed the song:

Let’s kill that kid cause he’s a jerk

Let’s kill his friends cause they look worse

Let’s rape that chick cause she’s a slut

And we’re real horny and we wanna get fucked.

As always, the deliberately hateful song was designed to shock straight people and make fans laugh. Only an uptight idiot would take such lyrics seriously, even though the last line was undoubtedly true. The DayGlos, like all young men, were perpetually horny, and any healthy male who claims not to be is a liar. In fact, their peers sorted people into two basic categories: those they wanted to fuck and those they wanted to kill. Almost everyone they knew fit into one group or the other. Only a hypocrite would argue, and nothing anyone said could change that.

The DayGlos were anxious to get started on the project, and Bonehead soon booked a block of time at Legacy Studios in downtown Victoria. Although the band had considered recording the album in Vancouver, it was easier to do the job in Victoria. Having secured the studio, the boys looked around for someone to produce the album. They were new to the recording game but felt that much depended on picking the right man for the job. Actually, the DayGlos weren’t that fussy but, since Robin was paying, they figured that they might as well try to make the best record possible. Robin, for his part, wanted the finished product to be as professional as possible, within reason. Music critics would pounce on studio flaws, and he didn’t want them to hate the album for the wrong things.