Courtesy of BeatRoute Magazine
http://www.beatroute.ca/view_article.php?sectionID=19&articleID=3737
STRAIGHT OUTTA THE GARAGE
vet rawkers reveal their addiction to the savage, raw power which they have no intention of giving up
By Christine Leonard
Part trash, part thrash and hard all over Calgary’s widely-recognized garage
rock scene was a vitriolic phenomenon born of the twin catalysts of
‘70s punk and ‘60s garage. The anthemic underpinning of days spent in
skate parks and records shops, this rebellious urban urchin of rock was
the ideal soundtrack for adolescent lives spent couched in a comfortably
middle class environment. While the fast-food driven North American
appetite for the raw readiness of garage rock seemed destined to
flourish in Calgary’s automotively inclined suburban sprawl, it took
some fortitude for the intrepid groups that built the scene to come
crawling forth from their eggcarton armoured basements lairs. Eager to
commune in an too rare glimpse at the essence of teenage rage, an
unprecedented number of low budget but high octane bands would soon be
release upon our streets, defining the sound of the pavement from hedge
rowed driveways to downtown dive bars.
Apt to swap labels, venues, and band members (and God knows what
else) amongst themselves with the facility of a county square-dance, the
bands that furnished the majority of Calgary’s garage-calibre rock
music exploded over the course of the late eighties leading up to turn
of the century. Bars were packed even on the coldest of prairie winter
nights, as the audience for such decidedly unpretentious yet utterly
fearless entertainment grew with the swelling population of Cowtown’s
disenfranchised youth.
Crowding into low-ceilinged taverns and cinderblock halls, these
hardcore lovin’ hoards relished the guitar-strewn antics of balls-out
howlers like the Primrods, El Caminos, Mants, Wagbeard, Sublinguals, DC
Head, Skin Barn, Cripple Creek Fairies, Huevos Rancheros and Color Me
Psycho to name a few. Fuzzed-out trashy reverb was the order of the day,
cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air and there wasn’t a cell phone in
the joint. Those were the days. Rewinding and unwinding with a few
Calgarians who witnessed the advent and heyday of the city’s garage rock
era, BeatRoute looks back at a significant cultural movement that
started here at home yet continues to echo in the creative impulses of
emerging musicians across Canada.
Our panel: Vetted leader of Calgary’s legendary Von Zippers’ Al
Charlton weighs in with his considered opinion and rocks us down at
Franzl’s Gasthaus one more time along with Von Zippers’ bassist, Doug
Boland. Horror-rock pundit Tom Bagley is certainly no stranger to the
local garage rock scene. A fixture of Calgary’s counter-culture, his
alter-ego, Jackson Phibes, has blown our hair back as a singer/guitarist
with the iconic trio Forbidden Dimension (he’s also been in bands such
as Creep’r, The New 1-2 and The English Teeth) whilst TomB has
consistently blown our minds with his signature groovy, ghoulish graphic
artwork. Rounding out the crew, forty-something garage rock DJ and
cassette preservationist Kamil Krulis and Calgary’s own
diamond-in-the-rough, Don “Djewel” Davidson, who earned his stripes
residing as the Night Gallery’s record spinner extraordinaire for a good
decade, throw their hat into the ring as our four experts dish the dirt
on garage rock and the state of punk to come.
BeatRoute: How do you define something as enigmatic as “Garage Rock” and where did it come from?
Al Charlton: Well now, that’s the rock ‘n ‘roll spirit you be
talkin’ bout there. It be a magical potion made up of guts, simplicity,
and a desire to pursue fun and excitement in every one of its different
guises. It has absolutely nothing to do with Depeche Mode and it’s not
necessarily about 1966, although that was an amazing year for fine
music. Its origins go back to the Vikings and the cavemen that grunted
and carried the club many years before them.
Kamil Krulis: Garage, just like any other term flayed about in
the alternative music press, needs to be placed in context, and with
content. Let me take you on a trip, children: garage is a fucking
whacked out, manic, state of mind. It is a place where three chords are
one too many; where reverb and distortion make girls wet. It is a
primitive, raw, adrenalin-fuelled, magic world. It is both prehistoric
and prepubescent, virginal and filthy. It is MY rock n’ roll. The
physical, historical origins of garage are North American. The Brits in
their cultural-colonialism never quite got the savageness, did they?
They are very much about amplification, the cold war, and the
independent record labels of the early and mid sixties and about the
development of a specific suburban teen disaffection and rebellion to
authority. Down with Vietnam, the Sunset Strip riots in 1966. Garage is
about playing gigs, in Austin, Ann Arbour, Los Angeles, Winnipeg and
even Calgary (49th Parallel) making songs from R&B, country and
rockabilly ideas and playing through an amp with a Harmony guitar and a
VOX combo organ. Electrifying!
Tom Bagley: I always think of old ‘60s stuff like The Chocolate
Watchband, the Seeds, Count Five, 13th Floor Elevators, etc. The
Nuggets/Pebbles bands which were North American teenage bands reacting
to the British Invasion. Nowadays, it obviously means something way
different, but the modern bands that the term is applied to still have
the musical roots in the older style, meaning a kind of pop-punk sound
based in the blues.
Don “Djewel” Davidson: Mostly inept, often brilliant raw rock ‘n’
roll. Usually leaning more towards the Stones than the Beatles. I will
stretch it to allow such post ‘60s folks as the Lyres, Billy Childish,
Dukes of Hamburg etc. Its roots & origins are the same as every
other kind of rock n roll.
Doug Boland: Garage, punk and rock in general all have become
very generic terms. There are so many subgenres today that I don’t even
know what the hell half of them mean. Keith Richards said “there are
only two types of music, GOOD & BAD” and I agree with him totally.
That can be said for garage, some of it is terrible and calculated to
death. It’s got to be sincere, if not lyrically, then musically for
sure. It’s got to have the beat, be simple and keep your interest.
Sounds easy, but it’s a lot more difficult than you think to be able to
pull it off for more than 15 minutes. That’s why there are endless,
great compilations where bands could pull off one or two songs and that
was it, in most cases. A lot of blues guys, The Beatles, Kinks,
Yardbirds, Wailers, Sonics, they all had the sound, but for me, the
Nuggets compilation really was the first of more obscure groups that I
got to hear. That’s when I really fell in love with it. To pinpoint the
exact band or time responsible I find difficult, because I believe music
is influenced and related to the technology available at that time for
the masses. An example of that is rockabilly with electric amp and
guitar, garage rock with bigger amps and fuzz pedals and organs.
BeatRoute: What are your earliest memories of discovering songs or bands that really inspired you?
DjD: Probably “Surfin’ USA” by the Beach Boys got me wanting to be
in a band although it wouldn’t be until after I heard The Troggs’ “Wild
Thing” and the first Ramones album that I thought I could see a way to
do it.
AC: I think it was April Wine “Drop Your Guns,” though power
chords sound way better on a tennis racket — less work. Or Steppenwolf.
New York Dolls and Stooges. Eric Burdon on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.
The Who when they were in that Monterey Pop movie. Some pictures in a
book of Paul Revere and the Raiders with these long curly guitar chords
and a wall of Vox amplifiers.
DB: “Wild Eyes” by The Stampeders was my first record and I used
to play air bass to that one. Then came The Ramones and Nuggets, but I
didn’t hear the Nuggets collection until the early ‘80s.
TB: Sweet’s Desolation Boulevard was the first rock album that
made me want to figure out how all that racket was made. Later on, it
was Damned Damned Damned (by the Damned!) and a Stooges compilation,
called No Fun. I was also into Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult and metal
bands like that, so I kinda mixed it all up.
BeatRoute: Tell us about the first band you were ever in.
KK: My first band was called Bad Housekeeping. It was about
deconstructing certain trends of the day, including hardcore and
‘80s-cum-’60s garage bands. We did a Kempy and the Guardians cover,
“Love for a Price,” so it must have had garagesque undertones.
DjD: My first band was called The Will... No, we weren’t
influenced by garage. We tried very hard to avoid the sub-metal clichés
that hardcore seemed to wallow in. This was the early ‘80s. The early
version can be heard on our 12” EP, Causa Sui.
AC: My first band was the Cecil Bibbs Band. Had not learned how
to play guitar at this point, but covered by using the Electro-Harmonix
Muff Fuzz. Two other guitar players (no bass) and an in-your-face, wise
crackin’, low rent Jagger-type frontguy all through one Fender Super
Reverb. Total racket. “Rock’n’Roll All Nite,” “Batman,” and Aerosmith
covers. I don’t know what you call that, maybe garage in its truest
sense, or complete cacophony, that’d work.
DB: My first band was a true “garage” band because that is
actually where we practiced and learned to play our instruments. We
never got out of the garage except for a show at the local Junior High
School in Penbrooke Meadows. Our name was “Idolize” and we covered stuff
like BTO along with some of our own songs and we SUCKED!!!
TB: The first band I regularly jammed once a week with was
a basement metal band called Superdruid (very Sabbathy, but with tiny
little Peavey amps — we were poor!). This became Erebus Ram, and we
actually played at a high school talent show, and the drummer’s sister’s
birthday party. About a year or so later I had hooked up with actual
older punk rock guys and we started Color Me Psycho, which was
definitely a ‘60s garage-based band, but once again, we mixed in other
weird influences like Alice Cooper and Killing Joke.
BeatRoute: What are some of your favourite memories of seeing performances by “garage-like” bands from the Calgary area?
KK: Garage like? WTF? Currently, I like the Von Zippers the most. In
the past, the best-ever-fucking-band was Thee Deadly Three, a young Ivo
at the helm and Eric Hedstrom (recently deceased) on guitar. The
Cryptomaniacs got it pretty good too, Saddler working on that spooky
organ sound nice and easssssy! Color Me Psycho, also fun! Memories? I
have been electrocuted by THE lightbulb, cut by a flying beer bottle, in
fact lots of various bleeding injuries: had my ankle broken by a really
big excited man, accused of peeing on a girl (beer hidden in crotch of
pants) at an all ages. I threw and broke the monitors off the stage of
the Republik (banned, yet again). Loved it when Milne and Blondeel of
the then hipster band, The Ostrich, had a fight on stage — very cute!
DjD: I don’t remember too many specific garage rock shows. Al’s
Boat & Trailer Shows both had stand outs but I’ll let him tell you. I
do usually like the Von Zippers though, and the Hazard Lights, Pine
Tarts. You can decide if they’re garage or not.
TB: In the old days, I really liked the Legendary Few, and in the
‘90s onward, I always thought the Al Charlton and Brent Cooper bands
have been a blast. The Ostrich were particularly good as well.
AC: Although I have all their records, I was never old enough to
see the 49th Parallel. Knucklehead are a local bunch of guys that have a
palpable amount of the rock ‘n’ roll spirit, that’s what I think makes
them stand out. Calgary’s red-hot right now - Spastic Panthers, Thulls,
Throwaways, Sharp Ends, Ramblin’ Ambassadors, Ex- Boyfriends, Rumrunner,
Pine Tarts, Forbidden D, Brenda Vaqueros, Cripple Creek Fairies — all
this shit rules, hell yeah!
DB: For me, Color Me Psycho, The Choads and Forbidden Dimension
are at the top of the heap. In my opinion, Al Charlton and Tom Bagley
have been a very big influence on the Calgary scene for the last 20-25
years. I have enjoyed so many great shows, I can’t remember them all!!!
(ha ha), but I do remember a story about a particular singer who had to
take muscle relaxants before a show because of a bad back.
Unfortunately, they relaxed “every” muscle in his body (if you know what
I mean). He had to be very careful to finish the set without actually
shitting himself on stage, which must have been extremely hard for him
considering his on-stage antics.
BeatRoute: Given all the good times that you’ve had performing
over the years can you see yourself continuing rocking out long into the
future?
TB: I’m still having fun getting out and jamming with my pals once a
week and it’s good to go and play in front of crowd that has females
present.
KK: When the people get it, they “feel it at the front,” as I
like to say. Those are the best times. I have been lucky to be part of
some amazing shows over the years. I will always make bands — it is an
extension of my artistic practice!
DB: When we have a show and everyone in the band is totally “on”
and not just hitting the right notes and all that shit, but really
coming on as a unit, that’s when it’s perfect. If the girls are dancing,
then you know you really got it going on. It’s so much fun when it’s
right that it keeps you going long enough to load those damn amps up the
stairs one more time...
DjD: Every time’s the best time I’ve had playing. Yes I certainly do plan to quit doing this type of stuff... upon my demise.
AC: I don’t think about much else but the moment! Not considering
stopping. When the hammer stops striking the anvil for good, at that
point, I’ll probably ask myself, ‘What would Bob Seger do?’ and then
start another band.
BeatRoute: Any advice for upstart garage rockers?
KK: Think twice before you use a shitty band name, always buy me
beer, and you can open for us. If you’re ever on a blind date make sure
Night of the Sadist in on the stereo, action clincher!
AC: Ummmm... That brings to mind that phrase (and we’ve all used
it), “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!” I have enjoyed all
of it with not much regret, ‘cause nothing’s perfect, and that’s the
righteousness of the whole thing. Being in the Von Zippers’ alone has
been like being in several bands, none of them by-the-book perfect by
any stretch, but that’s what makes it fun to do.
TB: I believe it’s all a process. None of it is geared to any
kind of success career-wise, but more as an on-going social art project,
and you kind of build on what you’ve done in the past, try not to be
too repetitive...and it’s always more fun playing and interacting
musically with live subhumans versus cold clammy transistors. Advice?
Crosspollinate your influences and use your imagination so you can come
up with something a bit more interesting than just a straight-ahead
pastiche.
DB: Be afraid, be very afraid!!! If you are looking for money,
fame, sex or drugs, you will most likely be disappointed. OK, maybe you
will find the drugs, but seriously, is it ever fun looking for it. So,
go start a band, NOW!!!!!
DjD: Get a fuckin’ job, kid. You ain’t cut out for this.