Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the DayGlo Abortions (16 page)

After the gig, Spud was pleased to make the acquaintance of Georgette and Angie, twin punker girls who liked to party. In fact, all Spud remembers about Winnipeg was the encounter with Georgette and Angie. Ferris recalls selling a gram of cocaine to Harvey, the moustachioed little manager of Wellington’s. “Harvey was amazed by the quality,” recounts Ferris. “When we came back through Winnipeg three months later, he still had some left.” The musicians killed time by hanging out with the strippers in the St. Charles Hotel every afternoon. “We’d sit in the pub next door and drink all day, and then we’d go back to do the gig,” Nev recalls. Why not? Beer was cheap and the girls were naked.

Ferris recalls that Scary Mary at Wellington’s hated the DayGlos. Anyone who remembers Mary, who was related to the owner, knows that her stinkeye was like no other. Offenders could actually feel the dirt hitting their coffin when the warped little woman dropped the evil eye on them. Then, one day as the band climbed out of the tour bus, Mary saw Ferris’ dog Bear and her craggy old face lit up like the sun. Mary smiled at the dog, which ambled over to lick her hand and make a lifelong friend. Not only did Mary love the animal, but she also seemed to like, or at least tolerate, the DayGlo Abortions after that, even on future tours when they didn’t bring Bear along. Peace reigned at Wellington’s—or at least between Mary and the bandmembers. After a final, explosive show on Saturday night, the band left town, tired but hungry for the road. Who knew that a dog could be so helpful?

With nothing to do but stare out the windows, the DayGlos started getting used to the new guy. Not only was the little guitarist funny, but he was happy to be on tour. Even cantankerous old Mike Anus began to relent, going so far as to teach Nev a few of the songs. By now, Nev was learning them anyway by practicing at the back of the bus. When he wasn’t smoking cigarettes or gazing out the window at the big empty spaces, he was strumming his guitar, pausing from time to time to listen to the songs on his Walkman. The songs weren’t so difficult, but some of the diminished chords were kind of tricky. Nev was more familiar with Mozart and Beethoven than he was with The Mahavishnu Orchestra or John McLaughlin. Jazz fusion? What the blazes was that?

Ferris’ dog Bear liked Nev quite a bit. Late one night, Nev stumbled onto Myrtle and passed out, dead drunk. Bear, friendly as always, walked over and settled down on top of the little guitar player. Soon the other musicians climbed aboard and, not long after that, everyone was asleep. Suddenly, a piercing shriek rent the air and Nev jumped to his feet, convinced that he had been buried alive. Not only did Nev frighten the poor dog badly, but his screaming also woke the other bandmembers, who were not happy. Finally, after much cursing and cussing, the school bus was silent once again. Well, at least until the snoring started up.

The band landed in Ottawa for a show with October Crisis on May 14th at Barrymore’s. Later, the DayGlos would stay with the October Crisis boys in London, using the punk house as a home base while touring southern Ontario. According to Ferris, October Crisis made weed oil in the basement, and one of their friends provided Mike Anus with plenty of Librium, which messed him up so badly that he couldn’t decide whether to stay with the DayGlos or join the Bunchofuckinggoofs. “Mike was popping Librium like crazy,” Ferris recalls. The guitarist wanted to be sedated.

The DayGlos arrived in Toronto and drove around looking for Kensington Market. They were supposed to play a show with the Bunchofuckinggoofs that night, and had been invited to stay at Fort Goof, the BFG house. Driving around aimlessly in circles, the boys were surprised to see a friend from Vancouver. In fact, they nearly ran over the little punk rocker, who was stumbling drunkenly across the road. “NOID!” the DayGlos shouted at once. Spud quickly stopped the bus and the band jumped out to accost their friend. “Noid was so glad to see people from Vancouver that he was jumping all over us,” recalls Ferris. Noid, who was living on a farm just outside of Toronto, invited the DayGlos over to drink all day. Half-bombed, the boys eventually staggered aboard Myrtle for the trip back into Toronto. Somehow, it seems unlikely that Noid was the designated driver.

Arriving at The Bridge, Ferris proceeded to terrorize the seventeen-year old promoter, demanding to know how many tickets he’d sold, how much he was going to pay the band, and how much money he had in his pocket. “The poor kid was scared shitless and went to the Goofs for back-up,” recalls Ferris. “The Goofs left him to fend for himself, and then he was completely terrified.” Somehow, the two parties hammered out the details and proceeded with the gig. Beer flowed freely.

The show was boisterous and wild. The Painkillers opened the show, but the punks from Buffalo, NY failed to make an impact. The Bunchofuckinggoofs, on the other hand, ripped the place apart. A muscular associate named Thor was supposed to provide security for the BFG, but instead the crazy punk was responsible for much of the mayhem. With his twelve-inch mohawk and steel-capped boots, Thor appeared to be seven-feet tall. The maniac proceeded to smash a TV set to bits onstage while the BFG played, accidentally hitting a careless fan in the face with an iron bar. Bodies and bottles flew through the air, and the dance floor was slick with blood. The show went on, and by the time the BFG eventually finished, the fans were in a frenzied and psychotic state.

Then the DayGlo Abortions hit the stage. A punk visiting from Orillia named Don Barrett remembers the show with awe: “The DayGlos started playing and the whole place turned into a pit. There was shit flying everywhere. The pigs showed up and threatened to shut the place down, but they only succeeded in closing the back door and hotboxing the joint.
Much Music
was running around asking everyone, ‘Do these guys play any songs we will be allowed to air?’ We screamed, ‘FUCK NO, DICKHEADS, IT’S THE DAYGLOS AND YOU SUCK! WHERE’S ERIKA EHM? WE WANNA SEE HER TITS!’”

In fact, Erica Ehm and the television show
Much Music
were not present. Don and his friends probably thought that the straight-looking industry types from the rock magazine
Music Express
were with
Much Music,
but the DayGlo Abortions have been largely blacklisted by the mainstream music industry. Mistaken identities aside, the cover photo taken by the staff photographer for
Music Express
that night was so good that the DayGlos appropriated it for their own use. As for
Much Music,
only brief interviews with The Cretin ever appeared on the show. The DayGlos will never be ready for prime time.

At any rate, the DayGlos finished up and left the stage to wild applause and a shower of empty beer cans. “It was so hot in there that Bonehead almost fell off his drum stool from heat exhaustion,” recalls Ferris. The Crucifucks played next, but most of the fans were already streaming for the exit. The police were still outside, and there was little they could do to restrain the sweaty, bloody punks that spilled from the club, smashing bottles and puking in the street. This noisy introduction helped ensure that future DayGlos shows in Toronto would be well-attended. To this day, the band remains a good draw.

Afterwards, almost everyone went to a party at Fort Goof. The old building, in fact, was a 24/7 boozecan, and the BFG always had beer for sale. Tucked away in a dark corner of Kensington Market, the party at Fort Goof never ended, and neither did a bloody war between a gang of glue-sniffing Nazi skinheads and the BFG. This was a whole new world for the DayGlos, who had never seen anything quite like Fort Goof and its war-like inhabitants. “That was a very interesting place,” says Rancid Randy, who arrived later to help drive Myrtle. “The Bunchofuckinggoofs had steel cages around their beds, for chrissakes. That place was amazing.” BFG singer Steve Goof explains the cages: “Me and Mad-dog, the drummer, both had cages around our beds. I still do. The cages were to keep insane drunk chicks out, ‘cause when you live in a boozecan, you almost always wake up with some strange chick in your bed. Too often, you never got into bed with them but just woke up with them, not having a clue how they got there.” Doesn’t everyone have that problem?

Overrun with large attack dogs and covered with spray paint, Fort Goof was like a movie set for a mocumentary about punk rockers, except everything and everyone was real. Though they were anything but strangers to punk culture, the DayGlo Abortions were impressed with the fortress-like structure and its hardcore inhabitants. “It was quite the eye-opening experience,” reiterates Randy. The BFG were very accommodating and allowed Mike to drink as much beer as he wanted, which was plenty. “I immediately fell in love with their scene,” says Mike Anus. “I thought it was great—it was like hardcore heaven.” What they didn’t tell Mike was that he was running a tab he’d have to pay back later. How the guitarist was able to cover the tab remains unclear, but he didn’t just walk away from it. “Mike just went overboard, he was having too much fun,” laughs Rancid Randy. Steve Goof doesn’t recall the exact figure: “Like everyone that stayed there, Mike ended up with some astronomical beer tab. He probably had to pay me back with money from several welfare cheques.”

Toronto was a blast, and the DayGlos played several well-received shows with the Bunchofuckinggoofs. The punk community in Toronto was harsh but vibrant, teeming with life and crawling with crabs. However, reality set in when Kris Carlsen, who had booked the Ontario dates, reconciled with Ken Lester and flew back to Vancouver. The DayGlo Abortions were dismayed to learn that Kris hadn’t advertised for any of the shows, and now it was too late to do anything about it. The DayGlos made the rounds to Hamilton, Ottawa, and London, performing to small groups of people who had basically wandered in off the street. Money was tight.

The DayGlos needed to earn more money. Not only were many of the shows poorly attended, but there weren’t enough of them. Despite this, the boys elected to spend the summer in Ontario and play as many gigs as possible. In fact, Ferris claims that Bonehead and Spud wanted the DayGlo Abortions to permanently relocate to Toronto, mostly to be closer to Fringe Product. The intense punk scene must also have contributed to that desire. But how would they survive? The band, it seemed, hadn’t figured that part out yet.

To make ends meet, Spud found a job doing maintenance, Bonehead stayed with an ex-girlfriend, Mike and Nev hung out with the Bunchofuckinggoofs, and the days went by. As much as the bandmembers may have wanted to stay in Toronto, they still had nowhere to live and could only practice during live performances. The plan didn’t seem to be working. In fact, it seems possible—likely even—that the local punk bands began to resent the DayGlos for competing with them for what little money there was. The dirty nogoodniks from British Columbia were welcome to get back into their bus and split town any time, the girl-stealing, beer-guzzling bastards. There wasn’t enough to go around.

But the DayGlo Abortions didn’t get the hint. On weekends, they would venture into the outlying suburbs for a show. Although the out-of-town gigs were often half-empty, they usually provided a couple of beers and a few bucks for gas. Some shows were complete busts, and the band returned home with even less money than they’d started with—if that was possible. Poor Myrtle ran on fumes, and never carried more than residual amounts of fuel. The boys themselves fared no better, subsisting on baloney sandwiches and whatever food they received from sympathetic female fans. Despite these hardships, the band remained reasonably optimistic. After all, poverty was nothing new to them. Even Spud, who usually had a job, ate his fair share of Kraft Dinner and instant noodles at home in BC. Who needed food?

In Ottawa, Ferris landed a dream job at a brewery and decided to stay put. Why work hard to get money for beer when he could go straight to the source? The job was ideal but short-lived. When Ferris flew back to Vancouver for the funeral of Lavina, a girl in the punk scene, he collided with Simon Snotface at the China Creek skate bowl and suffered a broken foot. Thus laid up, he was unable to return to Ontario for his job at the brewery, and was also unable to fulfill his duties as the DayGlos’ road manager. Short of money, and with no steady source of income, Ferris fell back on his former occupation as a cocaine dealer. He built up a clientele and catered to touring rock bands, becoming a dope dealer to second and third-tier rock stars. Unfortunately, Ferris blithely ignored the wise old adage “don’t get high on your own supply,” and most of his earnings went up in a cloud of freebase smoke.

Anyway, the DayGlo Abortions tried to view Ferris’s departure as one less mouth to feed—not that they were feeding him much anyway. Thirsty and miserable, the band found the motivation to venture into Quebec for several gigs in Montreal and Quebec City. At this point, the band was relying heavily on the merchandise Fringe Product sent them. Fringe, of course, kept close track of the merch and deducted the cost from the band’s royalties. Had the DayGlos known about the trouble that would later descend upon them, they would have asked for even more shirts and records. Royalties to which the band was entitled would completely dry up in less than two years. More on that later.

Using London as a home base, the boys returned to neighbouring townships such as Mississauga Hamilton, and Kitchener. Life was not always easy and, while the band was staying with October Crisis, a car full of angry rednecks showed up looking to kick some ass. “One guy whacked Mike in the head with a baseball bat, and the kid who tried to protect him was beaten so badly he had to go to the hospital,” says Nev the Impaler, recalling the unprovoked attack. “Mike had a swollen face but at least his fingers were okay.” Mike remembers the assault clearly. “I got the shit beat outta me by these guys who were running around with aluminium bats,” says the guitarist, touching his head where the bat struck him so long ago. After being hit in the face with a bat, Mike dove through a hole in the screen door while the thugs continued to batter his legs. Apparently, the hooligans, who had already assaulted an old man, were just looking for trouble and punks made ideal targets. Today, the war is over, but it was very risky to look different in 1986. Especially in London, Ontario.