Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the DayGlo Abortions (26 page)

The DayGlo Abortions weren’t very worried about crossing into the United States. Hadn’t they managed it many times before? All the same, the vehicle was quiet when they reached the border. Sure enough, things quickly went south. The guards on duty that day had nothing better to do than hassle our intrepid punks for what seemed like decades, and if it weren’t for their general body odor they would certainly have been subjected to cavity searches. Ironically, the DayGlos, in an attempt to go legit, had actually joined the musician’s union and filled out the proper paperwork. None of this helped at all, and the band was refused entry when the Border Nazis learned that both Spud and Bonehead had minor criminal records. This threw a major wrench into the group’s plans, and they risked having the vehicle seized if they tried to cross somewhere else. The alternative was to scrap the tour, which they did with much regret. This one would have been a decent money-maker had the group been allowed to cross. Sometimes life really sucked.

Returning to Victoria, the band sulked for several weeks, feeling cheated by the curveball life had thrown them. The boys sat around and got drunk for a while, but they eventually began to play locally and make trips to Vancouver as well. Fall arrived and the DayGlos returned to Ontario for a handful of shows, including a gig with NOFX, who were not yet the professional punks they would later become. Christmas quickly came and went, and then it was 1992. Time flew by faster than a Bad Brains single on 45 rpm.

1992 was a slow year. At this point, the DayGlos had existed as a band for twelve years, and those years hadn’t been easy. Along with many separate trips across the border, they had completed two full tours of the USA. The boys had seen their record label dragged before the courts for songs they had written, and had survived more crap than any band should be forced to endure. Instead of throwing in the towel, these hardships only made the DayGlos stronger.

Mekare Acton, Cretin’s second daughter, was born in August, and now the singer had three children. Along with electric guitars and empty beer bottles, his house was cluttered with stuffed toys and other baby paraphernalia. In late November, Michelle arrived from Ontario and moved into Spud’s house on Berdette Street. Together at last, the happy couple watched TV, which was Spud’s second favorite pastime. Mike Anus fell ever deeper into an abyss of heroin, and when he wasn’t high, he was dopesick. He met a girl named Jen, and together they drifted aimlessly on a cloud of poppies, returning to earth only when they ran out of dope. Cretin was busy helping care for his newborn daughter, and the others worked part-time at jobs they disliked but weren’t too strenuous. Life kept happening.

Winter set in and, though the DayGlos had vowed never to tour again in the snow, they set off across the unforgiving prairies on another cross-country blitz. At least the rented RV was comfortable and there was enough space to keep them from open warfare. Bill Crepell was along again, and his relationship with the bandmembers had not improved. In Northern Ontario, the soundman rear-ended a tractor-trailer, damaging the motorhome so badly that the band—minus Bill—had to fly to the next show. Bill had the vehicle fixed and drove to Toronto, where he promptly damaged it again by driving into an awning at the hotel. The insurance deductables were adding up, and the boys weren’t impressed.

Back in Victoria, life soon returned to the random madness that passed for normal. The relationship between the DayGlo Abortions and Fringe Product finally collapsed, killed by years of distrust and suspicion. Venues that had refused to let the band play while the trial was still pending welcomed them again, while other clubs gave them the heave-ho for being too rowdy. The boys were hometown heroes, so why did it sometimes feel like nobody gave a toss about them? At least the DayGlo Abortions had purpose in their lives.

A high point for the band arrived on July 30th, 1993, when they were asked to support the Ramones and the Bad Brains at Infest, a large outdoor festival in Alberta. With a massive PA system, the songs from
Two Dogs Fucking
sounded the way Cretin intended them to sound—with blazing guitars and aggressive, furious vocals. For this show, the DayGlos recruited a local drummer named John London because Jesus Bonehead was marrying his girlfriend Robin that weekend. Since Robin was an American citizen, the marriage could have been beneficial to Bonehead, but they divorced within two years, leaving the drummer stuck in Canada. According to future girlfriend Mel Schedel, Robin “wanted a rock star but ended up humping all his friends.” Cretin later used a photograph of Robin’s ass taken while Kelly Jak was having sex with her as the insert for his Lummox CD.

At any rate, John London was a very capable-but-not-perfect replacement for Jesus Bonehead. London was an accomplished musician and, though he nailed the more difficult songs, he struggled with the basic numbers. “Bonehead has a style that is hard to duplicate,” says Cretin, who is not stingy with compliments for his old chum and schoolmate. Though Bonehead sometimes doubts his skills as a percussionist, John London told him that he was a big inspiration and not to be too down on himself. “All those hotshot drummers had a lot of respect for the ol’ Boner,” Cretin remembers. “Bonehead is set in his ways and looks like he should be in an iron lung or something, but he can still crank it out.”

For the DayGlos, much of the fun happened before the show when they met the Bad Brains. Despite an unfortunate penchant for homophobia (at least in the early days), the American hardcore/reggae band is deeply respected by many, including the DayGlo Abortions. The Bad Brains were already legends in ’93, and Cretin and Spud were excited when they saw the band pull up in their tour bus, even though a young protégé named Israel was filling in for original singer HR. Rumour had it that HR, who was prone to erratic behaviour, had checked into a mental hospital to deal with a few issues. Let’s just say that ol’ HR wasn’t exactly the calmest Rastafarian at the smoke-in.

Regardless, this was an opportunity for the DayGlos to meet a group they had admired for many years, so they walked over to say hello. Spud figured that the American hardcore kings would appreciate a toke, and he offered to smoke a joint with them. The DayGlo lit a reefer and passed it to Israel’s personal assistant first, watching as the man took a good hit. The assistant’s eyes bugged out as he exhaled a fragrant cloud of BC’s finest. “Whoa, go easy on this stuff, Israel. You be needing your pipes tonight, mon,” the assistant warned, impressed by the strength and quality of the sample. The Bad Brains, who smoked cheap Mexican pot by the kilo, were unfamiliar with potent hydroponic grass. Israel, wary of damaging his throat, puffed gingerly on the reefer. He blew a cloud of pot smoke into the air and his eyes lit up. “Damn!” said the Bad Brain.

Later, after the DayGlos played, Spud asked Israel if he wanted to smoke another joint. The singer quickly declined, but took Spud and Cretin aboard their tour bus and introduced them to bassist Daryl Jenifer, who was more than happy to partake. The bass player asked Cretin to bring some killer pot backstage when the Bad Brains were scheduled to perform in Victoria later that month. “Daryl told me that I’d be like Jesus walking into Nazareth if I brought him some weed,” Cretin remembers.

Later that evening, the Ramones unceremoniously killed the power when the Bad Brains exceeded their allotted time onstage. Incredibly, when Cretin made a negative comment about the incident to Daryl Jenifer, the bass player quickly defended the Ramones. “You got it all wrong, mon,” said Daryl in his thick Jamaican accent. “Every one of us, we owe it all to the Ramones.” After that, a chastised Cretin decided not to say anything else. “I had to agree with him,” acknowledges the chief DayGlo Abortion, who was deeply impressed by the bassist’s humble attitude. Ultimately, Daryl’s comment says more about the Bad Brains than it does about the musical legacy of the Ramones.

The DayGlos spent the rest of the summer in Victoria, venturing back and forth across the water to Vancouver several times. Shows were generally well attended, and the band was making a few bucks these days. In August, the boys played Punk Fest, a large outdoor festival in Portland, Oregon for thousands of sweaty fans. They also met up with the Bad Brains again when the Americans played Victoria. The Yanks liked Cretin’s pot so much they waited anxiously at the foot of a bridge near the venue for him to arrive. “They had no idea that weed could be that strong, and the only thing they’d ever smoked that even came close was some Hawaiian grass,” laughs Cretin, proud of the local product.

On October 1st, 1993, Cretin and Angie tied the knot, setting the stage for a long and incredibly dysfunctional relationship. The couple would break up many times but, to the chagrin of the singer’s bandmates, they always seemed to get back together again. Cretin and Angie were in it for the long haul.

As 1993 turned to 1994, the DayGlos started thinking about the next album, and Cretin had already penned a few songs. The guitarist was also busy helping care for his girls. Other than that, life was a little boring, and the band almost missed the reporters who had once dogged them so ruthlessly. No matter how disgusting and offensive they were, the press just didn’t seem to be interested in the band anymore, making him wish (subconsciously at least) that Fringe had lost the court case. The media spotlight would always be on them if nasty lyrics were illegal. Cretin wondered just what a band had to do to get arrested nowadays. GG Allin managed, didn’t he? Prison, however, was not where the guitarist wanted to be.

Cretin, instead, focused on several side projects, just to keep the creative juices flowing. One of them was the band Lummox, which he formed with ex-BFG Merrick Atkinson and drummer John London (who had filled in for Bonehead at Infest). Atkinson, apparently, had angered several people in Toronto, necessitating a move to the West Coast. Lummox mixed old school country with DayGlo-style filth, making the band an enjoyable diversion for Cretin, who was beginning to tire of playing the same old DayGlos songs night after night. As brilliant a songwriter as he is, Cretin has problems with long-term commitments and frequently quits and rejoins various groups. Call it artistic temperament or call it a short attention span, but the results are always the same: Cretin moves on when he gets bored. So many bands, too little time.

Anyway, as much as the head DayGlo was having fun with Lummox, even that wasn’t enough. Looking around without success for something different, he started another project called Colour Out Of Space that was much more experimental than anything he had done since Airborne. “A lot of the songs on
Two Dogs Fucking
were toned-down, simplified teenage versions of Colour Out Of Space songs,” says Cretin, giving us a vague idea what the band was like. Mike Anus and John London were also part of this project, and the other bandmembers consisted of Shaun Ross on bass and Jason Bonneau of Pigment Vehicle singing. “Shaun was like Geezer Butler on acid,” says Cretin, as if it would be possible to imagine such a thing. At any rate, Colour Out Of Space was Cretin’s latest passion, and the songwriter was enthusiastic about music again—something the DayGlo Abortions hadn’t been doing for him lately. No one, not even Cretin, knew it yet, but change was in the wind.

A music festival on July 2nd in Ottawa did little to chase away the doldrums. For Cretin, the final death blow came in the form of a Flipper show, whom the boys supported in the winter of 1994 at the Starfish Room. Cretin claims that from the very start of the show, things did not go well. The bands that played before the DayGlos failed to evoke any sort of response from the apathetic and listless patrons, and Cretin recalls the general feeling of lethargy. “It was the most sorry-assed punk-is-dead night I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” says the singer, shaking his head sadly. “I looked around the room after we finished and decided to quit. We weren’t even going through the motions anymore.” Cretin felt strongly that the DayGlo Abortions had lost their fire, and had no wish to flog a dead horse. He was done.

Packing the gear, Cretin mumbled his dissatisfaction loudly enough for Mike Anus to hear, whereupon the lead guitarist also quit. Neither musician told Jesus Bonehead that night, and it wasn’t until the drummer’s birthday on December 22nd that he and Mike broke the news. “I told Brian that he was free to do as he wished with the DayGlo Abortions, but that I was finished,” says Cretin, revisiting that gloomy day. The reaction was, understandably, not one of joy, but neither was the news any real surprise to Bonehead and Spud. They knew that Cretin wasn’t happy—it was evident in his performance. “That’s just the way Murray is,” Spud says, philosophically and without rancour.

At the time, the departure of Mike and Cretin left the remaining DayGlos with a logistical problem. The bass player and drummer did not intend to quit and to them this was just another bump in the road. All they needed were some replacements to fill the void. After all, Spud had fronted the band for two major tours, and he could do it again. In fact, he
would
do it again—there was no other way. As much as the veteran DayGlos knew that the Flipper show had not been the finest moment in punk rock, they felt that it was just a bad night, not the end of the world. There was still blood left in the beast, and the DayGlo Abortions weren’t done just yet. This was only the beginning, or maybe the middle.

Bonehead and Spud took some time off while trying to come up with a new plan of action. Spud could sing—he’d done it long enough already—but they needed a new guitarist. Then Bonehead remembered the kid who kept showing up at his door begging for a chance to jam with the band. What was his name again? In fact, Bonehead only knew the guy by his nickname, which was Squid. What kind of nickname was that? Did he have eight arms or something? Could he shoot black ink from his asshole? More importantly, where was the dude? It seemed unlikely that he’d be worth a damn, but they might as well give him a chance before asking around the community. There was nothing to lose.