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| Joy Shithead - Commodore Ballroom - 11 May 2024 |
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| Paddy Duddy - drums - Joey Shithead - guitar - Mike Hodsall - bass 11 May 2024 |
The Consummate Gentleman Gets Married
My Granddaughter, Joey & Randy Rampage
Yesterday,
11 May 2024, I witnessed a performance at the Commodore Ballroom of D.O.A., the
first Vancouver punk band that emerged in 1978. Of the original band only Joey
Shithead (Joe Keithley) remains. Blogs on previous versions of D.O.A. are the links above.
In was in the middle of the night, last night, that I came to understand that while D.0.A. had many incarnations, it is really a one man band.
I connected that thought with Plato’s concept of ideas or essences. D.0.A. has always been that one man band with associate performers who have always been stellar. That was the case last night. It is a one-man-band in which that bass and drums are essential to that D.0.A. sound.
Joey Shithead has a physical presence, a voice, an attitude (never quite angry) and if you look closely you will see in him a kindness and an integrity that is now obvious as the Burnaby City Councillor he is.
There is
another paradox associated with this one-man-band. When I first heard D.0.A in
1979, they and Art Bergmann’s Young Canadians exposed me to a form of music
that I had never suspected existed. It was loud, no-nonsense, with few guitar
solos and they played the music with an almost hidden virtuosity but with a passion
that was unmistakable. Listening to them was like going up the stairs from the stuffy NY subway to fresh air.
The paradox is that last night at the Commodore I was listening to music that seemed to me to be my first time. How could that be?
My world is full of first time experiences which I can relive through memory. This D.0.A., D.0.A, and all D.0.A. performances are first time experiences. I am sure that Plato would have a good explanation for this.
Because I
am not working for any magazine, my photographs of the performance are examples
of my experimental work with a slow shutter with my Fuji X-E1. With writer Les
Wiseman, with whom I shared as a the photographer for his In One Ear column in
Vancouver Magazine for at least 20 years, we soon came to understand that
photographs taken at the pit of performers singing into microphones could never
really be original or different. We bargained with the powers that be to get
access to the back stage. In those years I would have taken studio lights and
photographed the bands in their dressing rooms. We had pull and credibility. We always had access.
When I showed up at the Commodore yesterday at 7pm I knew that there were other bands playing before D.O.A. and that Joey and boys would not be on until 10:40. There were 2 long lineups. One was for ticket holders the other for those buying. There was a short one for those on the guest list. I knew I was not in it as I had communicated to the Man in Orange, Chris Crud that I planned to pay my way in but I needed access to back stage. Below you will find a communication from Crud to me explaining how he became the Man in Orange. I have known him for years. He was a roadie for D.0.A. and now he is a most competent sound man and organizer of the little details that any band needs. Every once in a while I keep running into Crud at the Vancouver Opera and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. The Orange Man is a man of disparate tastes.
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| Chris Crud - Soundman - 11 May 2024 |
When I finally got to the ticket window I was told:
1. Once in now you cannot leave.
2. You cannot come in with that camera.
On a lark I asked the pleasant young woman if I was on the guest list. I produced my Jorge A. Waterhouse-Hayward ID. She looked at it and asked me, “Are you Alex?” And so I was able to go home to my cats to then return at 10.
It was at that moment, knowing that I am 81, that I felt that sense of importance and of being useful thanks to Chris Crud and Joey Shithead.
The rest of the evening was a pleasant experience in which I did feel a tad of melancholy that Les Wiseman was not with me. All those years ago he educated me so that one day I might be able to go solo.
I tip my hat to him.
Those who might wonder about the title of this blog here is the explanation:
The Story of Orange..
I was on tour with Furnaceface in 92…. We had just played in Thunder Bay and had the next day off.
Friends of ours wanted to take us to a clothing store in the other part of the city…. Thunder Bay is actually two cites Port Arthur and Fort William… it was in Fort William side.
This big square building was like they had stopped the clock in the 50’s.. that same turquoise colour on the walls and these big bins with new clothes all for a buck each.
There was a lot of orange there. I just had this vision of doing complete orange. Took two years to get enough to pull it off. Dyed my hair orange and did two years of complete orange…. Finely had to open it back up to all colours again, but now still wear quite a bit….
There ya go the story of Orange.
C
