Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the DayGlo Abortions (15 page)

In fact, despite having a worldwide fanbase and nine albums under their belts, the DayGlo Abortions have never been able to sustain anything but a meagre existence. In punk rock—excluding groups such as Rancid or Green Day—achievement is measured not in terms of dollars and cents, but rather in terms of influence and musical legacy. Under those conditions, the DayGlo Abortions are wildly successful. Unfortunately, influence does not pay the rent, at least not on a regular and ongoing basis.

Spud and Robin finally finished renovating the school bus, but tension grew as the tour kick-off approached. Although the new band played well together, Spud and Bonehead did not quite understand where Mike Anus was coming from. “They had a bit of a hard time with Mike,” recalls Cretin. “Me and Mike had more in common than the others did. We became brothers of self-destruction you might say,” the songwriter laughs. Spud and Bonehead were hardly schoolteachers, but Mike was a bit more hardcore in his drug use. Though he quit after joining the band, the guitarist had been injecting Talwin and Ritalin, a combination of drugs known as “hillbilly heroin.” “I was just a dumb kid thinking he was cool by sticking needles in his arm,” Mike confesses. Cretin didn’t shoot Talwin and Ritalin, but he and Mike would find other ways to get messed up. Drugs were always available.

In fact, narcotics were part of the DayGlos scene that made Wayne Gretzky uncomfortable. He didn’t mind a bit of weed or whatever, but needles made him uneasy. Not that drugs had anything to do with punk rock, but it seemed that the people who hung out with the DayGlos were a bit on the sketchy side. The bandmembers were always gobbling handfuls of pills or chewing blotter acid at any given moment, and could generally be counted on to be as high as possible. Heroin wasn’t big with anyone in the band yet, but coke seemed to be around more and more. At least they weren’t smoking that nasty new stuff known as crack. Or not regularly at least.

All that notwithstanding and, although the band was finally ready to play, they decided to do a few gigs, just to tighten their chops. Rather than rehearse in the dirty old warehouse, Bonehead managed to convince Lachman Jir to hire the DayGlo Abortions as the house band at the dirty old Smilin’ Buddha. The boys would be obligated to play several sets every night, even if the club was empty, which it generally was on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday the punks began to arrive, and by Friday, the place was generally packed. The gig didn’t pay much, but the band was given an allotment of beer. Since the DayGlos were only using the club to prepare for the upcoming tour, a couple of beers and a few extra bucks were just icing on the cake—a disgusting cake, surrounded by junkies and thieves, but cake nevertheless.

The month at the Buddha was not without madness, but Spud felt that the experience would help the band prepare for whatever might lie ahead. If they could survive the Buddha, then surely they could handle any punk club in North America, or at least that was how the frontman looked at it. Even the legendary CBGB probably wasn’t as scary. The DayGlos finished the month and collected their hard-earned cash. They would need every nickel they could get for the tour ahead.

In a cruel twist of fate, and just as the DayGlos were preparing to roll out, guitarist Wayne Gretzky suffered a burst appendix. The thoughtless bounder was now resting peacefully in hospital, leaving his poor bandmates high and dry. For the DayGlo Abortions, this was a significant setback. Although it was possible for the remaining musicians to tour as a trio, their sound depended on two guitars. The situation didn’t look good.

Then, through a girl named Pygmy aka Denise, who lived in a punk house known as Bitch City, Jesus Bonehead learned of a rhythm guitarist named Nev. The guy was already in a punk band, so he knew there was no money in it. Bonehead picked up the telephone and made the call. One of the first things the drummer wanted to know was whether or not Nev had a valid driver’s licence. “Jesus Bonehead phoned and asked if I wanted to join the DayGlos and go on tour,” recalls Nev the Impaler. “I asked him when, and he said in half an hour. I said okay, and they picked me up in the bus. My first rehearsal was live in Edmonton a couple of days later.”

Born in Vancouver on December 16th, 1961, Nev has an older brother and a younger sister. Nev’s brother Hal, six years his senior, introduced him to rock music at a very young age. As a result, the boy always knew more about the genre than any of his peers. “When my classmates were listening to The Partridge Family, I was listening to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin,” recalls Nev. His classmates would grow up to become plumbers and office workers, but Nev would go on to become a guitarist in an infamous punk rock band. Nev has his brother Hal to thank or blame for this, depending on his mood.

Nev knew at an early age that he wanted to play music. The boy took classical drum lessons for years but moved to the guitar after learning how difficult it was to hold a steady rock beat. “I just didn’t have enough power for the kick drum,” Nev admits. At seventeen years of age, Nev started taking guitar lessons but quit after learning how to play Motörhead and the Ramones. He had no use for teachers, not when he could spend his money on beer instead. However, Nev’s background in classical percussion contributed to his sense of timing and rhythm.

In April of 1986, Nev the Impaler aka Neil Burns was living with his band NG3 (No God, No Guns, No Government) on 29th Street in East Vancouver. Nev had played his first live show at the Smilin’ Buddha, thus establishing his punk credentials. To further verify his qualifications, NG3 also featured Jon Craggs, the bassist for House of Commons, which, as the reader may recall, was a well-known Victoria punk group. Jon eventually quit, but NG3 carried on without him as a three-piece, going on to play a show with Husker Du and Nomeansno at The New York Theatre on Commercial Drive. The sold-out gig introduced NG3 to a larger audience, and the bandmembers were hoping that Chuck Dukowski of SST Records would sign the band. Although NG3 were very popular locally, Nev decided to jump ship when he got the phone call from Jesus Bonehead that would change his life.

As Myrtle rolled ever closer to her next stop, Nev listened anxiously to the engine. Despite Spud’s assurance that the vehicle was mechanically sound, the headers didn’t quite connect to the muffler and, as a result, the old bus sounded like a cement mixer full of ball bearings. “You couldn’t even carry on a regular conversation, it was so loud,” remembers Rancid Randy, who would later help drive the bus back from Toronto. “Even with the stereo cranked right up, all you could hear was that deafening roar.” Also, the electrical system was messed up and the lights didn’t work properly. Those with a little mechanical know-how could easily see that the vehicle could not possibly make such a long journey without difficulties. Spud deliberately chose to disregard such minor details, and felt that he could fix the bus if and when it conked out.

Myrtle did not break down and the band arrived safely in Edmonton. Nev admits that his first show with the DayGlos at the Sacred Heart Parish on May 2nd was an unmitigated disaster. “It was terrible, a nightmare,” laughs the guitarist some twenty-four years later. Spud had tried to show him the songs earlier, but there was only a certain amount Nev could remember and, of course, Spud had not been able to teach Nev anything while driving the bus. Mike Anus, disgruntled that his friend Wayne Gretzky wasn’t along on the tour, wouldn’t have anything to do with the new member. Mike and Nev later became close friends but it wasn’t like that in the beginning. “Mike hated me because I wasn’t born in East Van,” Nev claims. Mike insists it was more than that: “Nev was a great showman, but I was used to playing with Wayne Gretzky, and Nev wasn’t quite at that level,” says the lead guitarist. Despite all this, Mike eventually decided that Nev was okay. Even then, Spud and Bonehead didn’t care if they liked each other or not, just as long as they played their asses off every night. Nothing else really mattered.

The DayGlos left Edmonton the next day, eager to keep moving. Unfortunately, Jezebel only made it as far as Vermilion, Alberta before a horrible grinding noise issued forth from under her hood. Eerily, the musicians were playing Dungeons and Dragons at the time, and one of them had just rolled a number that signified bad luck. Spud, who could fix almost anything using only baling wire and duct tape, could see right away that Jezebel’s engine was completely shot. After a short consultation with Spud, Bonehead walked into town and called Rancid Randy, who was at home celebrating his twenty-fifth birthday. “Hello?” said Randy, thinking someone had phoned to wish him a happy birthday. Instead, the caller was none other than an anxious Jesus Bonehead. “We’re in Vermin and the bus is broken down! You gotta help!” pleaded the anxious drummer. “You mean Vermilion?” asked Randy, swigging a birthday beer. “Whatever!” yelped Bonehead. “Just send money!”

His birthday celebrations ruined, Randy wired the DayGlos the necessary funds, and a rebuilt engine was installed in place of the old one. The price tag, which was close to five thousand dollars, represented more money than the group would earn the entire tour. With her expensive new engine ticking smoothly, Myrtle chugged towards the next engagement. Although she had a rebuilt engine, the exhaust manifold still hadn’t been connected to the muffler properly and the cantankerous old beast was as noisy as ever. But at least they were rolling again.

Despite these mechanical difficulties, the band had come prepared. Along with the mountain of musical equipment and everything else they thought would come in handy, the band had also hired a friend Ferris Jak aka Ron Ferris to act as road manager. Perhaps “hired” is the wrong word, since Ferris would never receive even a small per diem for his troubles, but he and his dog Bear were along nevertheless. Indeed, Spud didn’t give
any
of the bandmembers a per diem, as all their needs were supposedly met. “Myrtle eats first, and we get the leftovers,” Spud warned the troops. He admits that he was frugal with the cash, but only out of necessity. Luckily, Ferris had his own funds and didn’t need anything but accommodations from the DayGlos. Ferris was in it for the adventure, and there was bound to be plenty of that.

Ferris met the DayGlo Abortions when they first started playing clubs in Vancouver. In fact, he once videotaped the band as they performed for a small crowd at Stalag 13. “The feedback was unbelievable and they had no monitors at all. The sound was fucking terrible,” recalls Ferris, shaking his head. “They borrowed the video and promised to give it back, but I never saw it again. They probably didn’t like it.” The road manager, who was slightly older than his rambunctious charges, took his job semi-seriously. Although the veteran punk could party with the best of them, Ferris generally liked to keep his act together, or at least when he wasn’t freebasing cocaine at the back of the bus. A coke dealer at the time, Ferris brought an ounce of the ol’ marching powder along with him on tour. After all, he was accustomed to a certain standard of living and couldn’t count on the DayGlo Abortions to provide him with the basic necessities of life such as cigarettes and beer.

Although the road manager was wasted a good deal of the time, he worked hard at keeping the band together. “I was the guy who negotiated all the little battles. It was my job to make sure that they didn’t hate each other too much to play together every night,” Ferris explains. According to Ferris, Spud and Bonehead were the most difficult members because they had to be handled delicately, whereas Mike and Nev were simply hired guns and didn’t have much say in the day-to-day affairs of the band.

Despite that, Nev could be troublesome. No one, including Nev, knew that he was bipolar. “He’d wander off and do all sorts of weird shit,” Ferris recalls. “Nev would disappear before a show and come back all beat to shit. I tried to keep an eye on him, but sometimes he got away. It was a nightmare.” Mike Anus could also be a handful. One had to wake up early and stay up very late if they wanted to out-debauch Mr. Anus. At times, it seemed the bandmembers took turns at being the most disruptive person onboard. The DayGlos were one crazy, dysfunctional family.

At first, the engagements were a bit rough. When the band hit the stage in Regina, Nev still had to watch Mike’s hands and do his best to play along. Most of the kids at the show probably didn’t notice the problem, but the other DayGlos were very aware of the new guy in their midst. As far as gigs went, this was not one that Nev cared to remember. Fortunately, the shows would soon improve dramatically.

Nev looked out the window at the endless prairie rolling by. His bandmates, who only knew him as “Nev,” didn’t know that a friend of his older brother had given him the nickname years earlier. Soon everyone was calling him Nev and his real name was all but forgotten. The DayGlos later changed it to “Nev the Impaler” because it reminded them of Vlad the Impaler.

The rhythm guitarist snapped out of his daydream and shook his head. The bus was slowing down, which meant it was time to get gas or maybe some food. Later, when the boys could barely afford to eat, they began referring to the gruelling cross-country jaunt as “The White Bread & Baloney Tour.” Hard times lay ahead, possible deli-trays notwithstanding.

The DayGlos pushed on to Winnipeg, playing three shows at Wellington’s on the 8th, 9th, and 10th of May. Despite the fact that Nev was still learning the songs, and that many of those in attendance were aware the band had switched frontmen, the show was a success. The first night was a bit shaky, but the band got progressively better each consecutive night. Nev, always a good leaper, threw his small, wiry frame into the air frequently, fooling those who mistook aerial acrobats for musicianship. “Nev jumped higher than I did, and always looked good onstage,” Spud recalls of the new guy. So what if he didn’t know the material very well?