Vancouver punk legend Zippy Pinhead dies at 57, March 13 2019. The erstwhile Bill Chobotar was a legendary drummer and world-class partier.
Today is the anniversary of the death of Zippy Pinhead. Those who knew him called him Zip. I knew him quite well as I was an extension of Vancouver Magazine’s editor Malcolm Parry concept of keeping your door open. It would seem, as I look back at my life now that I am 80, that I had my door open for my camera and was in many places as a witness of Vancouver events.
One of them was at an underground rock concert on 52 West Hastings Street on March 27 1982. I paid $7.00 to get in to hear a band that was becoming a legend.
The Rádicos Popularos (the name was quickly shortened to Los Popularos) was a super groupe made up of folks from other bands. This was a Fuck Band. Why this term? This Vancouver innovation began with musicians who simply wanted to play "for the fuck of it”.
My ticket, seen here in this blog had the number 175 on the back. I won the door prize. I did not want to drive a Pontiac hearse home. I was given the choice of taking $500 instead.
I approached Bud Luxford, a punk band entrepreneur and golfer and said, “Here is five hundred dollars. I want you to buy beer and I want to give a party for our friends. I don’t want them to perform. I just want them to drink.” And so it was. Luxford bought me a six pack of Heineken and cheap beer for the crowd. The beer was placed in a bathtub with ice.
I can report here that,somehow, not all the beer was consumed and Zippy Pinhead was carried out as he was so drunk that he had passed out.
In our mixed attendance of our Railway Club Thursday at noon gatherings, Zippy and Randy Rampage showed up one day. Rampage at the time was driving a Cadillac convertible. Writer and friend, John Lekich, wrote about his encounter with the two and with a luscious blonde.
Mr. Rampage, Mr. Pinhead & a Backseat Bombshell
In my series of taking photographs of my friends wearing my mother’s red Mexican rebozo (shawl) I managed to get Zippy to pose. One of the requirements was that the person posing had to write. He did.
We who were lucky to have met Zippy all miss his best quality. This was his infectious grin.
In all the pictures I have with Zippy in them the one below is the only one where he is not grinning.
