Wednesday, January 31, 2007



Sometime in 1979 0r 1980 I went to see the band Devo (Are We Not Men?) at the Commodore Ballroom. I was completely turned on by the sound of their guitars. The only reason I was there is that Les Wiseman (right between Joey and Joey's first wife Cheryl whom Mac Parry always addressed as Mrs. Shithead), who wrote a rock column (In One Ear) for Vancouver Magazine had told me we had to go. I knew nothing of rock and roll and much less anything related to punk or new wave music. Five years before when I lived in Mexico City I liked listening to the happy music of Ray Conniff. It was the Devo concert and a previous experience listening to Art Bergmann and the K-Tels at the Smiling Buddha that had awakened my enthusiasm for the raw-short-loud-primitive sound of punk. Leaving the Devo concert I will always remember seeing this scary, loud and angry man who somehow had not liked the Devo concert. That was my first glimpse of Joey Shithead (a.k.a. Joe Keithley In my long association with the lead singer of D.O.A. I learned to quickly realize that he was a gentleman (with an emphasis in gentle) but who will always be Vancouver's best spitter. Shortly after the Devo concert I took my first picture of Joey at the Buddha seen here with Simon on bass.



It was in 1984 that he knocked on my door in Burnaby, and said, "Alex we need a band photograph that is going to be published in Interview Magazine.. I remember that for this elaborate photograph, above left, I used many lights and I got paid very poorly but this was my first published photograph in a New York publication.



Through the years Joey has been so pursuasive that I even photographed his wedding. Note, Wimpy Roy, a.k.a. Brian Goble (Subhumans, D.O.A.) feeding his baby at the ceremony.





Below you will see a picture of D.O.A. at the Smiling Buddha shaking some beer.





Note the picture at Gary Taylor's Rock Room with Joey on stage Taking Care of Business with Randy Bachman.


And the pictures all make me smile even the one I took in an 80s Yaletown.



I borrowed a fire hydrant from the city and carrying it in my Fiat I managed to break the seat. My favourite ever configuration of D.O.A. is this one seen below. It featured from left to right, Wimpy, Dave Gregg, Joey and Dimwit. It was Dave Gregg's fantastic guitar in tandem with Joey's that made any D.O.A. concert an exciting sonic experience.



To be safe from all the pogoing and other near and on stage shennanigans I always positioned myself on stage right, right under that other gentle soul, Gregg who always made sure nobody ever bothered me and my photo gear.