Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the DayGlo Abortions (36 page)

On the news that night, the boys watched TV footage of rioters destroying an armoured assault vehicle. The protesters flattened the vehicle’s tires with large jacks made of sharpened re-bar, jammed a stop sign into the wheel well, and then used a car to turn the assault vehicle over, using the stop sign as a lever. The operation was carried out with military-like precision, and the musicians were impressed with the organizational skills of the protestors. Canadian rioters rarely flipped anything heavier than a police car.

Later, on the same tour, Cretin noticed pictures of a Nike bonfire, that had been taken at the WTO riots in Seattle, on the wall of a squat. The proud owner of the photograph explained that he and his friends had travelled to the USA and started the riots. Apparently, the Europeans also had “terror tourists.” Cretin congratulated the happy fellow on a job well done. North Americans, when it came to activism, were sadly outclassed. “You have to go to riot school to be ready for that shit,” laughs Cretin. Europeans were true professionals.

The tour carried on, through Austria, and into Slovenia. The country was shockingly poor and public infrastructure was all but non-existent. Since cars were rare in Metelkova, the town that held the venue, the promoter told the band that people from hundreds of miles around would
walk
to the gig. He also warned the band not to put any Croats on the guest list. As the promoter was saying this, Bonehead came strolling around the corner arm-in-arm with a large group of scruffy people, who were singing at the tops of their lungs and were obviously very drunk.
“Charma
!” spat the promoter, which translates loosely as “drunken assholes.” He then warned Cretin that it was a grave insult to refuse drinks when offered, but advised them not to swallow the local swill, which was at least 50% methyl alcohol. According to the promoter, the purple stuff often caused insanity and blindness. He strongly suggested that the boys just wet their lips with the vile hooch or suffer the consequences later.

Obviously, many Croats found their way onto the guest list. Croats, it seemed, were the Eastern Bloc version of crusty punks. The guest list was lengthy, but hundreds of regular citizens also flocked to the show, which was held in a decrepit bunker-like structure with dodgy electrical service. The band gave the enthusiastic crowd everything they had, and the fans were clearly starved for entertainment. At one point, Cretin, marvelling at the thought that the DayGlos were probably the first North American punks to play Slovenia, looked up and saw a Scum Element sticker plastered to the dirty ceiling. Discovering a Scum Element sticker in Slovenia was like finding beer cans on the moon, and just as unlikely. “Dan Scum later told me they’d played the gig of their lives there a year earlier,” Cretin remembers. The guitarist took one last glance at the sticker, his sense of wonderment growing stronger. It was all so unreal.

The show went on, wildly, chaotically. “They knew every word for every song, and they sang so loudly that they almost drowned out the band,” Cretin laughs. Even after the DayGlos played their entire set twice, the guests refused to let them leave the stage. They were trapped.

Since there was no way for the boys to escape through the crowd, they did “Argh Fuck Kill” three times as an encore. The fans screamed and shouted for the band to play it again, but when Cretin told them they would do any song
except
that one, the audience, most of them severely intoxicated on “plum brandy,” yelled “ARGH FUCK KILL” so loudly that the windows—had there been any—surely would have broken. Under these circumstances, the Day-Glos had no choice but to perform the popular tune not once but twice more before the fans finally allowed them to depart. Later, the band drank into the wee hours with the Croats and anyone else who happened by. “We had a great time—everybody was really cool,” Cretin recalls. Obviously, the bandmembers suffered from blindness the next day.

The DayGlo Abortions toured back across Europe and eventually made their way to Germany. Cretin and Jesus Bonehead, both forty years old now, were beginning to realize that they had little knowledge of the world outside of North America. There was so much to learn, so much to comprehend. Even as the tour drew to a close, they could hardly wait to return to Europe. Next time, they might even make a little money.

The DayGlos flew home from Berlin on Saturday, April 29th 2000. Although they had been gone just over a month, it seemed like much longer and they saw Canada in a different light. The little things they had taken for granted suddenly seemed important. Not that they were less pissed off, but it was nice to drive on paved roads and drink booze that wasn’t 50% methyl alcohol. Despite being saddled with high taxes and greedy politicians who cared only about lining their pockets, Canadians had it good.

Still, although they lived in a wealthy country, the DayGlo Abortions also needed cash, which in part drove them to organize yet another tour. First, they had to do something they’d been putting off for too long. Hung, who was still messing up and showed no signs of improvement, had to go. Being fired from the DayGlos for drug abuse was like being dismissed from Imperial Tobacco for smoking, but every band had limits. Something had to give.

Wishing to avoid an ugly confrontation, the band did not fire Hung directly but instead began rehearsing with Willy Jak. Meanwhile, Hung must have been wondering why the band wasn’t calling him. The soon-to-be ex-DayGlo must have known that he was in trouble. Only a blind man could miss the clues.

Willy remembers the night when it all came to a head: “We were practicing, when Hung suddenly came barging into the room. He smiled at me and then went over and began shouting at Murray and Brian. He was fucking pissed!” Willy was glad that Hung wasn’t mad at him for taking his place. “He’s a good guy, and he might even be a better bass player than I am,” Willy admits. Such modesty is refreshing.

At any rate, the DayGlo Abortions had a new bassist. Born November 29th, 1970, Willy Jak is the son of a Scottish housewife and a Mexican/American welder. His mother, being a careful woman, didn’t want her son to grow up in the tough Inglewood district of South Los Angeles, so when she and her husband divorced, the woman moved to Langford on Vancouver Island with Willy and his older sister Dina. Eight-year old Willy was not happy about moving away from LA, but he soon made new friends that weren’t destined for a life of crime. His mom breathed a deep sigh, but her relief was a little premature. Trouble is always available for those who seek it.

Settling in Langford, Willy’s mother married a man who already had three boys, and the couple eventually produced a boy and a girl of their own. Willy’s father, meanwhile, married a Mexican woman, and the couple had a daughter. This left Willy somewhere in the middle of the pack and, although he didn’t visit his dad in LA very often, the youth always had plenty of siblings around. This familiarity with crowded living arrangements would later serve him well when touring with four other musicians, a soundman, a merch guy, and at least one roadie. The tour bus was just like home.

Life was simple enough, but Willy had a way of mucking things up. In Grade Seven the youth began drifting towards punk rock, driven there in part by the rocker mentality of his peers in Langford. “My older brother was into Led Zeppelin and all that,” says the musician, not without some distaste. “I just wanted to take the piss out of everyone around me.” Then his sister Dina introduced him to The Psychedelic Furs, among others, which eventually led to Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys. After that, the teenager continued his education via punk radio shows on the university station. “I’d tape a lot of that stuff,” Willy remembers. Despite his growing appreciation for punk rock, or maybe because of it, the youth continued to be disruptive.

When Willy was fifteen, his mother sent him to live with his father, who by now had moved to Austin, Texas. The change of scenery may not have led to dramatic behavioural changes, but the move was beneficial in other ways. “Living in Texas helped me see a lot of punk rock shows,” reflects the DayGlo bassist. “There was a lot of good music down there. I loved Austin—I
still
love Austin.” Interestingly, Willy says that he attended more gigs in San Antonio, which is eighty miles southwest of the music hub of Austin. The youth found himself drawn to the crossover scene that was starting to emerge in ’85 - ’86. “Before that, I wasn’t into metal at all,” Willy recalls. The long war between punks and metalheads was finally drawing to a close.

His formal education complete, Willy moved to Victoria to live with his mom and siblings. Travelling around town on his skateboard, the youth became more aware of the DayGlo Abortions posters he saw plastered everywhere. “I had a DayGlos tape with me in Texas, so I was already listening to them by that point. The DayGlos were legends in Victoria,” says Willy. Soon he was playing in his own bands, just as he’d seen his peers do. It was really that easy.

The boys rolled out with their new bassist in early June, stopping in every little town along the way. By now, Canada was wide open and gigs could be found everywhere. The turnouts were good, and though Willy Jak quickly found himself becoming accustomed to playing in front of large crowds, he was not yet familiar with his instrument. “I was a guitar player, and had no experience with the bass whatsoever,” reveals Willy. “At first, I followed the guitar instead of the kick drum. It took me a long time before I actually sounded like a real bassist.” Nevertheless, Willy enjoyed being a member of the DayGlo Abortion. It was fun.

Across the mountains and into Alberta. Gymbo and Cretin usually got along reasonably well together, but the shit really hit the fan while the DayGlos were eating on a restaurant patio in Golden, BC. Gymbo, who had been bad-mouthing Cretin’s wife Angie, was surprised when the guitarist hauled off and punched him in the face. “The Angie-Christ was a drag on the whole band,” Gymbo claims. “I mean she even called the cops on him once for growing pot in his basement. What kind of wife does that?” At any rate, Gymbo retaliated violently, knocking Cretin backwards onto the plastic chairs. Diners scattered and tables and chairs flew in all directions as Gymbo quickly overpowered his smaller bandmate. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the fight was over and the boys continued with the tour. Angie was to Cretin what Nancy was to Sid Vicious, and the singer couldn’t get her out of his system.

A show at The Underground in Calgary almost ended in disaster when a fan named Mikey Pratt broke the sprinkler pipe from which he was swinging. A jet of pressurized water immediately shot onto the floor, threatening not only the band’s gear, but also creating a severe shock hazard. “I didn’t do it,” Gymbo says, denying reports that it was he who had caused the flood. Since there was no stage at the time and the band was playing on the floor, Gymbo stood with his back facing the broken pipe to prevent the water from hitting Cretin’s amp. To make matters worse, the owners had cemented the drains closed and the water was unable to escape. “The place started filling up pretty quick,” Gymbo recalls. Before anyone could drown, the fire department arrived and ushered everyone to safety. The DayGlos were paid in full, despite having performed only three songs. “I drank about 300 gallons of water in half a second and had to walk home in the cold, soaking wet with a busted ankle,” laments Mikey Pratt. “I remember that night well.”

Bonehead also remembers the Calgary show, for his backpack containing all the cash the band had earned on tour was stolen in the confusion. Though he had stowed the small bag in a drum for safekeeping, a brazen thief lifted it while the band was loading out. According to Cherokee, the guy who stole it was caught on camera, posing in ankle-deep water with the band. What a pity that no one had a chance to drown the thieving sonofabitch.

That same night, Willy met Sarah George. The pair would date for five years and eventually have a child together. “He chased me through the crowd and caught me at the door,” remembers Sarah. “I’d met her earlier and we had a similar tattoo,” says Willy, partly explaining how he was able to convince the girl to leave the club with him so easily. The bassist seemed to have a way with the ladies, and his membership in Club DayGlo didn’t hurt any.

The mosquitoes were bad in Winnipeg that summer, and little green worms had eaten all the leaves on the trees. It looked like winter but with no snow. Slapping at winged parasites and brushing webs from their arms the DayGlo Abortions returned to the Royal Albert Hotel, where they hadn’t played in years. Jay Eleuterio remembers the gig: “It was nuts. They had a big tubful of beer and ice on stage and, when the beer ran out, they dumped the ice on the crowd. I think every cube got hurled back at them.” Cretin remembers hiding behind his amp for a while. “Those things hurt!” he complains.

Cretin and Bonehead would not admit it, but these tours were not as easy as they had once been. The pair was getting older and Bonehead now wore a baseball cap to cover the bald spot spreading on the back of his head. Cretin was also feeling his years and his back ached royally where he had fractured it as a teenager. The “boys” could remember every bump in the road, every crack and pothole. Even the women looked the same, and the crowds were a noisy, faceless blur, soaked with beer, dripping with blood and sweat. Men their age were married with children, settled down with dogs named Spot and forty-year mortgages. What did the DayGlos have to show for a lifetime dedicated to rock n’ roll? Bonehead had a sore butt from sitting on the damn floor too long. The drummer contemplated his lot in life as the van bounced down the endless highway. Had he made the right choice? The veteran Day-Glo shook his head angrily and reached into his pocket for a joint. Those sort of questions were not worth considering.