PERFECT YOUTH: The Birth of Canadian Punk (31 page)
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Authors: Sam Sutherland
New Age: D.O.A. and the Early Vancouver Scene
Author Interviews:
Ralph Alfonso, Chris Arnett, Jade Blade, Joe Keithley, Duff McKagen, and Keith Morris.
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Barclay, Michael. “D.O.A. Is Alive.”
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, October 2003.
Blush, Steven.
American Hardcore: A Tribal History
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I, Shithead: A Life in Punk
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———.
Talk – Action = Zero
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Mokrane, Patrick. “Punk spurns modern banality.”
Ubyssey
[Vancouver], 2 Febuary 1979: 10.
O’Connor, Alan. “Local Scenes and Dangerous Crossroads: Punk and Theories of Cultural Hybridity.”
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21.02 (2002).
Pauls, Naomi, and Charles Campbell.
The Georgia Straight: What the Hell Happened?
Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1997.
Kickin’ ’Til I Die: The East Coast
Author Interviews:
James Cowan, William Davison, Michael Fisher, Mark Gaudet, Wallace Hammond, J.D. MacNeil, Ron Foley McDonald, Peter Morris, Allison Outhit, Peter Rowan, Craig Squires, Phil Walling, and John Westhaver.
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Benjamin, Craig. “Music in Halifax.”
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Punkton
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Elvis Is Dead: The Forgotten Rebels
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Damian Abraham, Stephen Burman, Bob Bryden, Chris Houston, and Mickey DeSadist.
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Mersereau, Bob.
The Top 100 Canadian Albums
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Pig Gold, Gary. “Forgotten Rebels Fan Mail.”
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, April 1978: 4.
Worth, Liz.
Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond.
Montreal: Bongo Beat, 2009.
I Can’t Get the Sounds I Want: Victoria
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Murray Acton, Pete Campbell, Jeff Carter, Tom Holliston, Nick Jones, Steve McBean, Kev Smith, and John Wright.
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On Kiddie Porn: Sexual Representation, Free Speech, and the Robin Sharpe Case
. Vancouver: New Star, 2011.
Russell, Nicholas, Brenda Clark, and Nicole Kilburn.
Victoria Underfoot: Excavating a City’s Secrets
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Walter, Chris.
Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the Dayglo Abortions
. Vancouver: Gofuckyerself, 2010.
Step Out Tonight:
The Mods, the Garys, and the Last Pogo
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Dave Bidini, Colin Brunton, Scott Marks, David Quinton-Steinberg, and Gary Topp.
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Dick, Greg. “The Last Pogo.”
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———. “The Mods.”
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The Last Pogo
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Nobody Knows Nothin’:
The Extroverts, the Idols, and Saskatchewan’s First Wave
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Mike Burns, Brent Caron, Darlene Froberg, Les Holmlund, Bryan Potvin, Jay Semko, John Sinclair, Ron Spizziri, and Jon Wyma.
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Beug, Lorne, Anne Campbell, and Jeannie Mah.
Regina’s Secret Spaces: Love and Lore of Local Geography
. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina, 2006.
Jacobs, Jane.
Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life
. New York: Random House, 1984.
Passion Bastards: Ottawa
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Brian Roy Goble, Mike Graham, Gerry Hannah, and Joe Keithley.
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———. “Letter.”
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. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2001.
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I, Shithead: A Life in Punk
. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp, 2003.
———.
Talk – Action = Zero
. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp, 2011.
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Teenage Beer Drinkin’ Party: Teenage Head
Author Interviews:
Mickey DeSadist, Greg Dick, Grant Forsythe, Peter Goddard, Chris Houston, Paul Kobak, Gord Lewis, Gary Pig Gold, Don Pyle, and Peter Rowan.
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Dick, Greg. “Teenage Head.”
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Mason, Jim. “Teenage Head: From Hamilton with Energy.”
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Nott, Glenn. “Tales of the Head: The Up-and-Down Story of a Truly Hamilton Band.”
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Worth, Liz.
Treat Me Like Dirt: An Oral History of Punk in Toronto and Beyond
. Montreal: Bongo Beat, 2009.
This book would not have been possible without the cooperation, enthusiasm, and support of the incredible people who willingly subjected themselves to hours of interrogation, cheap pints, and burnt coffee. There is a tremendous weight that comes with trying to tell the story of someone’s life, and I am indebted to those who trusted me with a tiny piece of theirs. Without hyperbole, there are no words to express my appreciation.
In particular, I owe a wallet-emptying degree of gratitude to those who stuck their neck out by putting me in touch with old friends, bandmates, family members, and sworn enemies, helping to connect a tangled, confusing Canuck punk web. I can’t imagine it’s easy to cold-call someone and tell them that a kid in his mid-20s wants to talk about high school gossip from 30 years ago, but people did this for me. Many appear elsewhere in the book, but those that don’t include Murray Andrishak, Mark Black, Richard Chapman, Erik Cimon, William Davison, Jason Flower, Gina and Steve Hawker, Mark Hesselink, Melanie Kaye, Ricky Long, James Martin, Ray McCarville, Virginia McKendry, Bill Reynolds, Jeff Rogers, Mark Sommer, and Skip Taylor.
Jason Schneider connected me with ECW, where I had the pleasure of working with Jennifer Knoch to bring the final edit home, streamlining a shocking number of unnoticed references to heshers, Voltron, and pruning. Rachel Ironstone realized the aesthetic of the book perfectly, and Erin Creasey delicately walked me through a very foreign process for the first time. Most incredibly, Michael Holmes endured years of incessant emails and still took this book on; his encouragement and assistance as an editor is the reason this exists.
Lori Beckstead and Dana Lee worked as my academic advisors during the nascent stage of this project while at Ryerson and didn’t kick me out when a true mess of a final paper arrived at the end of the year. Without them, I would be years behind on my initial research and interviews.
Thanks to James Keast, who gave me a job right out of high school working with my favourite magazine, teaching me how to actually write about music before I could legally go to any decent bar shows. Additional and important
Exclaim!
appreciation to Ian Danzig, Chris Gramlich, Atsuko Kobasigawa, Cam Lindsay, and Allison Outhit.
Lara Sutherland (no relation) and the Toronto Public Library were an invaluable resource, and turned hundreds of dollars in late fees into slightly less than hundreds of dollars in late fees.
For assistance in transcribing the eight billion hours of tape required to make this book interesting and credible, my sympathies and thanks to Micheal Demone, Sonja Maurin, Jin Park, Claire Richardson, Roger Tran, Nicole Villeneuve, and my wonderful sister, whose name is regrettably not printed in glitter as I promised, Suzanne Sutherland.
And finally, for Ashley Carter, the most important end-of-the-acknowledgements thanks I can muster. Not just for tolerating this madness, but aiding, encouraging, and always being the most fun part of it.
Sam Sutherland is a Toronto-based journalist. He is a former assistant editor at
Exclaim!
magazine and music editor of
Broken Pencil
. His work has appeared in the
National Post,
Maisonneuve
,
Alternative Press
, and alt-weeklies across the country. He currently works as the online producer of
AUX.TV
.
Copyright © Sam Sutherland,
2012
Published by ECW Press
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Sutherland, Sam, 1985-
Perfect youth : the birth of Canadian punk / Sam Sutherland.
ISBN 978-1-77041-065-7
Also issued as 978-1-77090-277-0 (PDF) and 978-1-77090-278-7 (ePub)
1. Punk rock music—Canada—History and criticism. I. Title.
ML3534.6.C2S966 2012 782.421660971 C2012-902729-4
Editor for the press: Michael Holmes
Copy editor: Jennifer Knoch
Design and typesetting: Rachel Ironstone
Cover image: © bev davies
Author photo: Ashley Carter
The publication of
Perfect Youth
has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada, and by the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities, and the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit. The marketing of this book was made possible with the support of the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
