Penetrating Insights

Pius

Last Friday, the original trio of Starkweather -- Doormat, Jay Matuschka, and Pius Panzram -- met up in Beautiful Downtown Oshawa to drink, be merry, hang out for the first time in about 16 years (!?), and speak with author Nick Martino.

To mark the occasion, this crappy photograph (L-R Jay, Pius, Doormat):

Pius

Jeff Peers, Anagram bass god, recently announced the band's last show would be Friday, April 13 at the Silver Dollar in Toronto with ~~Sun Ra Ra Ra~~ The Soupcans and Cut Flowers ($10, 9pm, no advance tickets). With the band members living in different places and at different points in their lives, I'd heard rumours that a break-up was a possibility (so the news did not come as a complete shock) but it's still makes me really sad and not a little bit angry as well, I'm surprised to say.

Can I talk about them in the past tense? It reads weird to me but -

Anagram were better than just a good band or even just a really good band. They exemplified a certain indefinable quality the best bands have, a spirit and creativity that seems tied to the zeitgeist in which they operate; they are of a time and place. I certainly didn't have the world's greatest show attendance in the last decade but, given what it was, I have no problem stating that Anagram were the best live band in Toronto and parts beyond. Who was better?

They had their own sound and they explored it intelligently and with a solid sense of style over a series of consistently great recordings; they knew each other live as players and could effortlessly jam out awesome slabs of noise seemingly tirelessly. Their songs have urgency and energy, pitching Matt Mason's growl against his brother Willie's angular guitar grooves into crescendoes that never ceased to get crowds jumping and moshing (or stumbling around into each other at the very least).

For me personally, Anagram had a huge amount of resonance. Drummer Clayton Churcher had bootlegged my first band Starkweather's tape to CDR years ago (and did a very nice job at that), and three-quarters of Anagram were in Panzram's Ghost, who played our songs. I felt really honoured, not just for the recognition and the (admittedly very nice) idea that you'd inspired someone - but for the prescient fact that these Anagram guys were actually really good at what they were doing and fun to watch and listen to right from the get-go.

They were kind enough to say I'd influenced them early on and I can return the compliment by noting that they inspired me to start No No Zero going in the first place - because they made going to shows fun again and made playing music look fun again and I wanted in on this energy and I wanted in on these shows. Without Anagram, it's fair to say there probably wouldn't have been a No No Zero.

So that's a bit of why I'm sad about the news. In a nutshell, because they put on fun shows and made great records and I'll miss that. I'm angry as well because they deserved better, more recognition, both from this city and the music world in general. I'm not naive enough to think the music industry or scene or whatever has anything to do with fairness or who deserves what - but, still, as I'm at pains to point out, Anagram were a pretty unique case to me.

They were special. Not only a really good band but one from my hometown of Oshawa, and not only that, but they acknowledged this and even sang about it. That is so rare as to be quite noteable. They were cool, down to earth people, they played great music and we got to play a lot of shows together and have a lot of good times.

I'm bummed because I felt sure that they were going to 'break through' and attain some higher level of success and I felt (and feel) they deserved it and could've really made a go of it. No No Zero played Montreal a few months ago and Anagram were the band people kept asking me about: why don't they come to Montreal? When are they going to play here?

I'm a greedy fan and I can't help wishing they had another album in them - but Majewski was a powerful note to end on, and their covers 7" is a fun cap to that. I am so glad the world got a recorded version of Anagram doing The Cleavers' "Fish" (not to mention Leonard Cohen's "The Butcher"). When you're done, you're done, and I respect that. Everything ends. I hate to leave my house nowadays, but I will be there April 13 and I will drink and jump and mosh and stumble around awkwardly.

To make this show even more of a must-attend/bummer, Sun Ra Ra Ra will also be playing their last set this night. These guys came along later in the timeline but No No Zero played a few shows with them too, and I always loved their crazy noisey psychedelic sets and felt like they were kindred spirits. They were great to see and cool guys too, and I am very sad to hear of their passing also. Also they were the best band at Four Corners 2.

Nuff respect, Sun Ra Ra Ra.

Pius

This past weekend was the rare one in which I actually went out and did something worth writing about here - to wit, as you may have ascertained from the title, attending the Panzram's Ghost (and Metz and Holy Mount) show at Oshawa's venerable Atria Saturday night; also, the fourth Zine Dream festival of zines, art, and music the following afternoon at Toronto's Tranzac club.

I can be a remarkably lazy person.

One way in which this vice of mine manifests itself is by often waiting to go to a show until three or more bands I'm interested in are all playing on the same bill. Tonight was just such a lucky occasion: 1. infectious slow'n'low trio Holy Mount, whose new "We Fell From The Sky" record has been on frequent rotation in my place of residence; 2. the mighty Metz, who I've wanted to see for a long time, and whose stellar reputation precedes them (people whose tastes I respect had told me they were one of the best bands around); and finally, 3. the one and only Panzram's Ghost, a band with whom I have a 'special relationship', and who I'm always happy to see.

I had to drive a fair ways to get to the Atria, and opener Holy Mount had already started when I came in. Drat. I did see most of their set though, I think, including the title track off the new record, which is my current fave. These are songs that would sound great with just a voice and acoustic guitar alone - actual good tunes IOW - but, played heavy as hell by Holy Mount, they rock in extended fashion with solid head-bobbing grooves, sweet solos, and psychedelic FX.

Speaking of FX, how many effects pedals do Metz have? And how bad a segueway was that?

Another LOUD & heavy trio, Metz blew me away with apparent ease. They earned every bit of the praise I've been hearing, having genuinely created their own kind of heavy sound and putting it across as powerfully as can be imagined. In my personal musical pyramid of greatness, Jimi Hendrix is pretty much at the tip top, and Metz evoke a sensation I can only compare to the Master himself; their music is actually transcendental (not said lightly). I really look forward to seeing Metz again soon, and to hearing their debut full-length (coming fairly soonish).

Panzram's Ghost are a long-running cover band made up of Clayton, Willie and Matt from Anagram, as well as Andrew from Quest For Fire; they mostly play songs from the 1993 Starkweather tape "This Band Has Seconds To Live", but their repertoire has expanded to include tunes by GG Allin, The Pack, and The Dicks. This was their first show since the last time they played the Atria two years ago.

I have to be perfectly honest and confess I get a kick out of seeing Panzram's Ghost play songs I used to do. I would imagine that gratification can't be too surprising? What might surprise you though is the unique vantage point I have while hearing these songs now that I don't have to be facing the audience onstage singing them; in other words, I can sit back and relax, revel in my anonymity, and ogle women's butts in tight summer shorts, watching them bounce around to stuff I wrote! A point of view I never had before. So nice.

I can surreptitiously dig that scrub sitting at the bar, slowly getting into "Aluminum Baseball Bat". Check out people nodding their heads to "I've Got Fangs" or see them moshing to the band's titular theme. It's fun. It feeds my poor, starving ego, and feels more than a bit perverse (or, as Matt put it to me at the Dirt Picnic, "awkward"). And I get to be so lazy while it's all going on, almost like being a ghost at your own funeral! I hope PG never stop playing shows, I really do…

I asked the guys to pose onstage for a quick pic, seeing as how they'd played in near-darkness. To my surprise, they happily acquiesced. So here are perhaps the only 'band pictures' you'll ever see of Panzram's Ghost --

When the show was over, it was about 1:30am. I waked down King Street, past Oshawa's most outsized dance club The Big Sexy - with its usual stretch limo out front, drunken couples arguing, and young ladies in tight dresses huddled together with cellphones in hand. Just past the club, I was amused to see a wig (or part of a wig, anyways) lying on the street corner. Yes, somebody actually left their weave out on the sidewalk in the rain.

A catfight? A ménage à trois gone wrong? Saturday night in downtown Oshawa.

The next day I got up earlier than I'd have liked (ears still ringing from the night before) to attend Zine Dream 4 at Toronto's Tranzac. I was so overwhelmed by all the cool stuff on display that I forget to take any crappy pictures - you'll just have to imagine lots of awesome zines, prints, records, shirts, and comics…

I ran into a bunch of folks I hadn't seen in awhile, including my very good friend Davis Weir, there selling his excellent anthology Everything Elevator, a new zine of prints, and a new line of limited-edition cassettes under the label name of Trouble Door. I mention these because, well… I'm on two of them.

My own Sleazy Meanz has its first honest-to-goodness release - "Pornography God Man" (a plunderphonic loops-type thing put together last year); and Shar Pei, a longtime musical collaboration between Davis & I, also has its first actual release - 1997's "Urusai Kusai". The other two Trouble Door cassettes are: "Juntök", the latest effort by Davis' solo project Skulleraser, and "Space Waste", a 2001 record by Dumbodian (another Davis collaboration, this time with Erik from Whitby's The Cleavers).

I grabbed all four tapes, plus Davis' new zine, as well as other stuff from Lorenz Peters, Marc Bell, and Ayal Senior (two CDs from Kevin Hainey's Inyrdisk). That hot new BBW-themed zine Thickness? Grabbed one of those -- and a really excellent triple 3" CD comp called "Songs of Toronto" put out by Kevin Crump's Wintage Records. I had hoped to see elusive Dream Zine organizer Jesjit Gill (previously mentioned here on the blog) but he remained elusive so… Hi, Jesjit!

Is it OK to reveal here that Jesjit did the awesome artwork for No No Zero's forthcoming record? I hope so.

Pius

Anagram's entire musical catalogue - including their brand-new record, Majewski - is now available to hear in streaming format, or to download as digital files (MP3, FLAC, or Apple Lossless), at their label Dead Astronaut's website.

Majewski release shows will follow on Friday October 22nd at The Shop under Parts & Labour (1566 Queen St. W., Toronto), and Saturday November 6th at The Polish Hall (219 Olive Avenue, Oshawa); the Oshawa show will also feature a display of titular inspiration Michal Majewski's artwork.

Come celebrate this awesome new album, as well as the life and work of one of Oshawa's great talents.

Pius

I may be that rarest of Canadians, someone happier with the hockey game off - but even I love the 70s-era goalie masks of Greg Harrison (my fave is probably his 78/79 Atlanta Flames mask for Yves Belanger).

It was while looking into these masterpieces that I happened upon The Canadian Design Resource. If you like Canadiana and/or design, it's a no-brainer. More than 453.592 kg of pictures to please the eye!

Pius

So Friday was the second show for the new line-up of No No Zero. We piled into the van and drove out to my hometown of Oshawa, to what is one of the last clubs still hosting cool shows in this whole stuck-pig town -- the Atria, on King Street (just across the street from Oshawa's age-old epicentre of sleaze, the Genosh Hotel). The pride we felt at seeing our name in lights was somewhat tempered by the fact that every band on the bill got an abbreviated name.

The Diplomats didn't even get that. They were first up, a trio from Peterborough with a heavy, bluesy bedeviled sound: thick bludgeoning bass, psycho guitar. Songs about Hell and being damned. I dug it a lot, The Diplomats were a great start to the night.

Sun Ra Ra Ra - who we'd just played the Lakeshore Legion Hall with a few weeks before - were up next, and I was really blown away by these guys all over again. They were even better this time, in fact. Punk psych jams with noisey bits, loopy organ and guitar, tall dude with tambourine, wow. I hope we'll be playing lots of shows together in the future. These guys have a way-out sound, do a great cover of The Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird", and have a very genuine interaction onstage that's lots of fun to watch.

After Sun Ra Ra Ra, No No Zero was on. We did our thing, burning through a 20 minute or so set of short songs. Oshawa in my experience is a relaxing place to play, with generous and demonstrative crowds - so bands tend to loosen up here and have fun onstage. I'd say we did the same, and enjoyed it even more than the Poster Show. Chris Cheeseman is obscured here by my gut.

The penultimate band tonight was The Ancestors and this is another band I like more every time I see them, one I could see doing lots of shows with (and in fact we're playing with them again Sept. 29 at The Velvet Underground, along with FNU Ronnies and TV Ghost). Seriously tight, good punk, difficult to describe, maybe along SST-type lines? I hate describing bands, really.

Tonight, The Ancestors broke a string, and took the opportunity to break out an impressive two-piece cover of Minor Threat's "In My Eyes". I'd love to hear this with the whole band playing!

Headliner was Panzram's Ghost, who it is somewhat awkward for me to talk about as they are largely a cover band for songs I wrote a long time ago in Starkweather. Needless to say, their songs are great! They got the best response of the night with a ripping rendition of GG Allin's "Bite It You Scum", and it almost brought a tear to my eye. I hope these guys record their set someday. I can listen to it when I'm feeling particularly low. Long live Panzram's Ghost.

I would be remiss if I didn't comment on the wonderful decorations Erin Hagen made for the night, a night dedicated to the late Michal Majewski and a fundraiser for a trust in his name (as well as being this year's pre-Shwaltz Party). The club became a 'magical forest' and, as I was going out the door, I confess I grabbed a star to take home with me. Thanks to Erin and Al Cole for a great show in Mike's memory, and a fun evening.

Pius

I was shocked and saddened tonight to learn of Michal Majewski's death over the past weekend, while hiking in Squamish, BC.
This news report has more details.

Michal was a really great guy & a lot of fun to be with, as well as being extremely talented artistically & a major asset to Oshawa's music scene. We've featured his poster work here before, and I would encourage anyone not familiar with his art to check out some highlights here.

Pius

Here is the only CD my first real band put out. We started in December of 1991. In 1993 - then known as Starkweather - we put out a 90 minute tape called 'This Band Has Seconds To Live'. At some point we changed the band's name to The Starkweather Fix* and that is how it appears on our 1996 CD, released on N.A.R. (as was the subject of the last post, Ocosi).

I could go into way too much detail about this record, but I'm a terrible judge of what is relevant or even interesting; I'm just too close to the thing. So let me simply run down who's playing what, I'll stick up some reviews to provide a clearer picture afterward, and we'll leave it at that.

The band -- Lt. Fucker Bob guitar, Neeler Peeler bass, Jay Matuschka drums, and yours truly vocal microphone. Also Slim Tornado saxophone, Nervous Rex space guitar on 'Edin Na Zu', Randy Groin (who also recorded the record) x-tra guitar on 'Quickie', and finally Art Martian numerous cut-ups and mini-mixes throughout the record.

The Starkweather Fix -- WHAT THE SWEDISH BUTLER HEARD [Neg. Air Research]

In a page ripped straight from the Oblivians' Playbook o' Dirty Trix, these guys got my immediate attention with the CD cover: a gawgeous woman with truly enormous hooters and a big, black... microphone... sandwiched between said golden globes. So right away we know they are shameless. Flip the case over and check out the titles... "Miss September," "Fucked Up," "Girl With a Toke," "Eerie Psychosexual History," "Easy Lay," "Dirty Fuck"... ah, they must be a trashy garage band!

They also have mighty odd ideas about how trashy garage rock is played, which is actually more interesting that all the lowbrow scuzziness imparted from the CD graphics. For one thing, they appear to have two bass players; they also have a guitarist, although he doesn't seem to play very often -- i get this great image of them all bouncing around the practice room while the guitarist stands around smoking Lucky Strikes and every so often he goes, "Oh yeah, i got this here guitar strapped on, i guess maybe i should, like, PLAY something" -- at which point he generally rips off crazed runs like one of Buck Owens' stellar sidemen possessed by the Satan of Surf. They also have a sick fondness for connecting the short blasts o' primal steak with odd bits culled from bad science fiction flicks, which is truly hilarous. This last bit really turns into an art of its own on the last track "Edin Na Zu," in which -- after spending 24 tracks play stripped-down short blasts of trashy rock and roll, they reveal their REAL ambition: to be the poor man's drunken Yes, waffling on in a rambling, stoned jam for a time roughly equal to all the rest of the songs put together, interspersing said rambling with occasional deluded (and hilarious) quotes from more bad cinema. A stroke of sheer fucking genius if you ask me.

So let's see... highlights.... the lurching, death-metal-meets- rockabilly groove of "Fucked Up"; the jumpin' sock-hop groove whose wasted innocence is quickly soiled by the dirty lyrics in "Mutant Cock Rock" (which features a tremendously nifty guitar solo worthy o' Dick Dale); the jumpy bass throbbing of "Shiveraltitude," followed by the guitar wailing that pops up midway through, sounding like the wailing at the end of "Spirit in the Sky," only as done by someone drinking lots of high-tension booze. Then there's the eerie, ominous bass rumbling and creepy arppegiated guitar squealings of "Tourniquet"; the grinding roar and feedback of "Eerie Psychosexual History," which sounds like maybe they managed to set the amps on fire while playing; the crawling kingsnake shuffle of "Death Trip"; more Oblivians-style raving on "Too Late"; more time-warp sonic trashiness in "Bad Back".... Jeez, the whole disc is pretty damn suave, although they get a little to excited for their own good (not to mention listenability) on the hyperkinetic "look at how fast we can play!" numbers, which are thankfully few and far between. These drunken white trash scumlords are better at the slow groove thing....

It must be said: This would be excellent background music for taking over a hotel party on the thirteenth floor to drink all their beer, open the windows, and test the dynamics of Einstein's Theory of Gliding Hotel Furniture. Strictly BYOB, though... i get the feeling they don't share....

- The Moon Unit, fr. DEAD ANGEL #26 (ezine) 6/97

A few years back, four nice, polite, somewhat shy boys from Motown, Ont., (a.k.a. the 'Shwa) created a controversy within these very pages. Somehow, their decision to name their own homemade pop group after the infamous American serial killer Charles Starkweather managed to flood the eye office with mail. Immoral! Obscene! Outrageous! the letters cried. These four sweet lads were cast as "sick, perverted fuckers" by complete and utter strangers. As sad as this injustice is, it could have been a lot worse. Imagine if any one of these decency-patrol officers had actually heard Starkweather. Blood would surely have been shed.

The Starkweather Fix (name changed due to legal intimidation from similiarly monikered U.S. groups) throw down pure garage-punk raunch over the 73 minutes of their debut disc. There are plenty of two-chord odes to sickness and perversion such as "Mutant Cock Rock" and "Easy Lay", but those who take the narrow view and have written Starkweather off as mere purveyors of stupid, sloppily executed filth may be surprised. A lot of the material here shows a band that has evolved beyond that stage, as heard on their home-dubbed demo tape from 1994 (a Can-indie classic, in my incidental opinion). The addition of the tenor sax adds a wallop of free jazz/R&B chaos to the already lurching rave-ups on the opening track "Miss September" and surefire party hit "The Bushwhack".

The track that strikes me the most is "Apocalypse Revisted", which features Fucker Bob's eerie surf guitar over Neeler Peeler and Jay Matuschka's pulsing Velveteen rhythm. Pius Panzram's lyrics describe the internalization of the nuclear threat within our generation better than anyone else has (including Mr. Gen-X himself, Douglas Coupland). Observe: "Mushroom clouds are nostalgic to me/Paranoia doom all I hear or see/memories of WWIII to be". Nukes are no longer an immediate threat, but have become a latent, more insidious one.

The Starkweather Fix may be sick and twisted perverts, but they are also smart fuckers. And they are blessed with a sense of humor, of which no further illustration is required than the cover of this CD. The letter campaign begins now, good citizens.

- Jonathan Patrick, eye (Jan. 30, 1997).

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Durham Region porn pundits The Starkweather Fix ejaculate 73 minutes of lurid, lascivious libido that will offend just about everybody (more than once I found myself raising my hand to my mouth and saying, "oh my"). Debauchery prevails and sexual mores are of course obliterated, but what surprises me is t.s.f.'s refined musicality. Their rock-a-billy tunes are nastier, their blues tunes dirtier, and punk songs tighter. In addition, they even get experimental with some groovy stuff and other altogether weird shit. Still, the best way I can describe What The Swedish Butler Heard is the rendered sound of William Burroughs, Russ Meyer, David Chronenberg, and Ron Jeremy playing strip poker.

- Dylan Brisebois, The Gargoyle (Feb. 13, 1997).

It's rude, it's crude, it's lewd, it's the debut CD from the swamp bred and raunch fed Starkweather Fix. A bubbling blob of sex, surf and swing. It's called What The Swedish Butler Heard. It puts the dirty back in rock 'n' roll. It is sexual mutants dating dilinquent deviants. It's a date with yourself. It's David Lynch and Tim Burton in a trailerpark stripjoint. It's discovering your Dad's porno collection. It's Larry Flint Vs. Dick Dale, Henry Miller Vs. The Cramps. It's in and it's out...and back in again. It was known as Starkweather. The whipping boys of the Purple Toads and any number of 60s garage bands added to their moniker before they had to. It is Pius Panzram, Lt. Bob, Neeler Peeler and Jay Matushka finally after four years getting laid on disc. Their debut cassette from 1993 This Band Has Only Seconds To Live only hinted at what this band would become. In the interim Starkweather Fix have become a staple in the southern Ontario centrefold. They have gigged with Local Rabbits, Suckerpunch, Hanson Bros. and Nimrod. A total of five compilations feature their contributions and the band have enough studio outakes for a whole other album to be released in the near future. Starkweather Fix picked up $500 in a garage wars by playing fifteen songs in seventeen minutes. It's seventy three minutes, twenty five songs, the twenty fifth twenty five minutes long. All original, all new, one cover of co-locals The Brown's 'Sugar Goat', one ab-lib recorded live at the Different Drum coffee shop in downtown Oshawa. Slim Tornado, Art Martian, Nervous Rex and Randy Groin all contribute to the frenzied aural orgy. It's behind the bikeshed lyrics, unprintable song titles and controversial art. It's all in fun. It's sex-positive rock n' roll. It can be yours. It's at any record store that knows good rock n' roll. It is released on Negative Air Research Records, co-operated with producer and former Voodoo Chicken Andy Owen. But that's, as the man on Tales From The Riverbank would say, another story.

- Will McGuirk, The Woolly Toque E-Zine (March 1997).

Back in the infancy of rock'n'roll, Howlin' Wolf recorded "Evil (Is Going On)". Music has changed, punk was born, Charles Lester died (may he RIP), but now a new Chuck is here: the Starkweather Fix, and they're as evil as evil be. Formerly known as just Starkweather, the band started out as a garage band winning garage band contests by playing 15 songs in 17 minutes...or was that 17 in 15? If that wasn't fast enough, their first release was a lo-fi tape called This Band Has Seconds To Live. Besides being liars, these guys are the baddest lyrical perverts around. The sound is brooding punk and '50's dirt. Songs like "The Bushwhack", "Death Trip", "Easy Lay", "Dirty Fuck", and "Mutant Cock Rock" make Howard Stern look like the mama's boy he really is, and that's why I like this disc. It's heavy and fun, it makes me want to booze and dance, two chords really are enough, it scares my mother, they play faster than the Ramones, and the CD has tits on the cover.

- Chris B. Dunk, Exclaim (June 1997).