Los Angeles based label, METROPOLIS RECORDS is currently home to GARY NUMAN, BAUHAUS, GANG OF FOUR, MINDLESS SELF INDULGENCE, SKINNY PUPPY, ELECTRIC SIX and now Vancouver’s FLASH BASTARD! METROPOLIS is one of the few labels left operating on the notion that signing decent music is a worthwhile endeavour. After what has been the 10 most catastrophic years in the history of music, we’re left with a cynical and poverty stricken music business landscape that will only put money into what it feels is mainstream and “no risk”. Sadly what that means is only the lowest common denominator is ever catered to. Gone are the days when a band like The Clash could be signed. Realistically, in 2015, nobody that matters can be signed. From Bob Dylan to The Beatles to The Sex Pistols to Nirvana… by the standards of today’s climate, none of those artists would stand a chance! Thankfully a handful of labels still exist, METROPOLIS being one of the best among them. So after years of watching the FLASH BASTARD saga unfold it’s nice to finally see them join an impressive roster.
Clockwise; Flash Bastard reunion at the Rickshaw Theatre, In Los Angeles 2014, The Bastards redecorate the Scorpion’s dressing room and German-Canadian relations hit lowest point since wartime.
FLASH BASTARD came out of the late 90’s Canadian punk rock booze can scene. The early shows were chaotic, messy and sometimes violent affairs. The band made an immediate impression on the Vancouver scene, due to the force of their personalities… unfortunately, for many people it wasn’t a positive impression, thanks to the combination of teenage testosterone and pre-facebook lack of discretion. The classic line up was Donal Finn, Pete Mills, Danny Fazio and Shawn Mrazek and I can attest that they were a handful back in the day. One of the first big shows they played was with my old band, PSYCHOMANIA at the notorious strip club, The Penthouse for the aptly named Anarchy In BC.
Anarchy in BC full page Discorder Ad, Teenage Bastard.
Back in the mid to late 90’s, there was a veritable explosion of doomed post-grunge bands that sprung up in the sleepy port city of Vancouver. In a reaction to the dressed down slacker sensibilities of the Seattle Grunge scene, Vancouver dressed up and drew on a New York influenced style of Punk rock n’ roll and British Glam! FLASH BASTARD were one of the best bands of that era, as well as one of the most unpredictable. I remember getting a copy of the bands demo tape which was “produced” by Tom Anselmi (SLOW) and Jamey Kosh, and instantly knowing that they actually had the talent and songwriting chops to back up all their swagger (They’ve always had a strange fixation on KISS, which I could never understand!). I was instantly hooked by their first song, “C’mon” which was a punk rock re-write of Bowie’s “Hang On To Yourself”.
“Looking good boys, now can you hold that pose for 10 years?”
Before they managed to fuck everything up, they did accomplish quite a bit in a short period. They developed a solid following, they got a couple interviews broadcast on Much Music whenever there was a slow news day and they made an excellent, classic video with director Rebecca Russell-Martin for “Rock N’ Roll Must Be Destroyed”. Pete and Danny enjoyed a brief cameo playing themselves in Bruce McDonald’s truly awful film “Hard Core Logo”… I recently tried watching it again and it remains truly awful. In 2000 the band signed to MOTLEY CRUE bass player, Nikki Sixx’s Americoma label. Unfortunately, It was a classic case of too much too soon, and in a spectacularly short time period, FLASH BASTARD‘s teenage delinquent behaviour, proved to be too much for Mr. Sixx to handle. The band famously managed to get themselves thrown off a tour opening for MOTLEY CRUE and The SCORPIONS and have their album shelved indefinitely by the label.
Donal with Friends, Donal with no friends, Pete Mills on LATV 2006.
While Flash Bastard were busy fucking up their music careers up in Vancouver, I was busy doing the same down in Los Angeles. I had caused a big buzz with my project, SOUL KID #1 and was courted by Interscope and Warner Bros. before signing to Dreamworks. After making my debut album, I recruited Donal down to Hollywood to play bass. Since I was on a major, they made me audition him. So after a parade of excellent bass players, Donal walks in the room, demands to play bass “acapella” and then proceeds to pluck out perhaps the most amateur version of “Louie Louie” ever, while my A & R department watched politely aghast. After weeks of arguments, Donal was eventually “allowed” into my band. But the die had been cast for me and the suits never quite understood my sense of humour, shortly after Donal had joined, my relationship with Dreamworks started to nosedive!
With Marc Godfrey (Soul Kid #1) on LATV 2006, Donal learns that Marxism has nothing to do with Harpo!
Flash Bastard guitarist, Pete Mills also followed the musical migration south and set up in California… by 2007 it was getting crowded with Canadians down there so I thought it would be a good idea to go back to Vancouver for awhile. Without my coat tails to ride on, Donal and Pete were forced to reconcile their differences and after 10 years of sitting on the shelf, Nikki gave them back their long lost album. In 2011 France’s Black Cat Records finally released Flash Bastard’s debut album “Rock N’ Roll Must Be Destroyed”! Ironically, rock n’ roll had been destroyed over the previous decade. The music business went down as quickly as the dinosaurs did when a meteor hit the planet. The rise of free downloads and streaming, had systematically obliterated rock n’ roll and in 2015 making music is no longer a viable profession for those who weren’t already independently wealthy.
Wild the new album, Donal has his ballsack adjusted for photoshoot.
So here we are, after 15 years of riding the music business roller coaster, I sit down with Donal Finn for an informal look back at our misspent youth in the Vancouver post grunge punk rock n’ roll scene, our experiences and escapades in Hollywood, our participation in the Nikki Sixx sex tape, and the making of the new album “Wild”! This is the first in a series of BAD VIBES podcasts, enjoy and remember to go download the album and stop being thieving bastards, so that good music can once again prevail. 🙂 Visit METROPOLIS RECORDS
VAMPIRE BAT, MARC GODFREY interviews FLASH BASTARD, DONAL FINN…
You know that your subculture is dead when they make a coffee table book about it! Well it’s happened, recently, long time Los Angeles Scenesters, Amelia G and Forrest Black oversaw the publication of their “California Deathrock” book, a glossy overview of the subculture that evolved out of the early L.A. punk scene and recently has been enjoying a revival on the west coast. This time around however, I don’t see this as a nail in a budding scene’s coffin but more as a reaffirmation that, what a handful of artists have been pushing toward for the last 5 years is now a true growing cultural concern!
California Deathrock book, Christian Death Pins, Deathrock fashionista.
Up here in the unforgiving North, the underground has had a thriving Deathrock / Gothic / Darkwave community for years… The mainstream constantly pushes forward the image of “lumbersexuals” and coffee shop folkies, but in truth the Pacific Northwest is more metropolitan and anti social. The scene has remained subterranean largely due to our mainstream media outlets ignoring it. New artists and musicians have been operating in a vacuum, and with no one to please but themselves, we’ve seen the return of dangerous dark music as well as dangerous dark styles! All that is missing is the real violence and menace that permeated the early eighties scene… but alas, you can’t expect to have it all!
Sally Dige & Marc Godfrey outside Shadow Line (In an Italian article!), Early Dark Noise pioneer Dandi Wind on tour with The Horrors, The Vampire Bats and Shadow Line Poster.
The sea change first started around 5 years ago, with a collective rejection of bearded indie folk and coachella style hipsters who despite all the instagram selfies they were taking, somehow remained oblivious to how mainstream and boring they were! Vancouver and Portland have emerged as hotspots for a new Deathrock / Dark Wave / Gothic underground. Goth by the late 90’s had devolved and deviated into an embarrassing caricatureof itself, terrible cyber footwear, Hot Topic accessories, and awful bands that drew upon Nu Metal and Modern Rock… Is it any wonder that Columbine happened? Over the last 6 years, the new scene has been placing it’s emphasis on it’s obscure 80’s roots before it was hijacked by MTV frat boy mentality! In isolated yet urban, Vancouver we’ve seen the resurgence growing gradually and organically in our music and fashion. At the start of the decade, the musical landscape seemed to be hopelessly, bleak and bearded with a million bands that sounded like Mumford & Sons all jostling for an ipod commercial, now more and more bands seem to have seen the light and are drawing on 80’s Goth, Post Punk, Dark Wave and Deathrock influences.
I will always remember where I was on 9/11 (With the Human League!), Portland’s Shadowhouse
Deathrock BC DJ’s Batt Fink and Pentagram, Repossession Poster w/ Infidel, Spectres.
Vancouver’s SPECTRES made their debut in 2007 with their “Cold War” EP and then in 2010 released a true classic… “Last Days”. Their latest album, “Nothing To Nowhere” continues the band’s winning streak in absolutely nailing the Deathrock genre! Vancouver has been leading the charge in dark music, with a particularly prolific amount of new bands, WHITE LUNG, MODE MODERNE, ACTORS, TERROR BIRD, ANIMAL BODIES, VAMPIRE BATS and PETROLEUM BY-PRODUCT to name a few. The now defunct, dark wave revivalists Petroleum By-Product spawned SALLY DIGE, who relocated to Berlin and has just released her debut album on Night School Records. This month’s issue of the NME has picked her as a buzz worthy artist. Petroleum bassist, Vanessa Turner is often found DJing alongside TERROR BIRD frontwoman Nikki Nevver at the DARK 80’s, a night that just keeps growing in popularity! Sally Dige’s sister Johannah Jørgensen relocated to Copenhagen and formed METRO CULT who’s debut EP has just come out on the excellent Mass Media Records. Mass Media is also home to notable Portland band SHADOWHOUSE, who along with BELLICOSE MINDS are two of the best of the city’s scene!
Portland’s Bellicose Minds.
Spectres, Nikki Nevver Terror Bird, Metro Cult.
One of the early influential catalysts of the revival in Vancouver of the new Gothic Deathrock scene was the monthly SHADOW LINE night that ran throughout 2012 at the now defunct Waldorf hotel. Created by THE VAMPIRE BATS and Virginia Fraser, the SHADOW LINE played host to past, present and future talents from the city’s Goth, Punk and Arts scene! The SHADOW LINE featured guest DJ’s and live performances and the most over the top, elaborate “Bat Cave” decorations in clubland. Each event was like walking onto a movie set or art installation. We managed to create a Gothic Wonderland and were able to promote some of the city’s most deserving and enigmatic artists, DJ Philth (Download, Skinny Puppy), Dandi Wind (Fan Death), Bloody Betty, The Vampire Bats, Spooksy Delune, DJ Vortex, I Braineater, DJ Contrasoma (Sanctuary), Sally Dige, Arsenic Of Jabir, Viktor Kuhn and many more… sadly, just when we confirmed Daniel Ash to DJ, the Waldorf was shut down during a much publicized dispute with condo developers, Solterra!
Vampire Bats at The Rickshaw, Spooksy Delune and Sally Dige.
The Shadow Line’s run had an subtle impact on influencing the city’s burgeoning black clad culture… It was the first club night in town to start mixing in harder edged Deathrock with the more traditional Gothic dance staples that could be heard at nights like SANCTUARY. After that came Deathrock BC’s ill fated, REPOSSESSION and DARK 80”s. The DARK 80‘s at the Astoria has become the natural successor to the Shadow Line. One of the best moments for me at the SHADOW LINE, came when I was Djing… I followed up 45 GRAVE‘s “Evil” with the BIRTHDAY PARTY‘s “Sonny’s Burning” for a packed pogo-ing room and realized that for the first time, that song had somehow become a dance floor crowd pleaser! Right after that, I suggested to GOTHIC BC website curator Michael Barrick that perhaps we should think about making a coffee (Coffin) table book…
SPECTRES & BELLICOSE MINDS will be playing at THE DARK 80’s Friday May 22nd!
Not too long ago, The VAMPIRE BATS reached number 1 at CITR (Vancouver’s College radio station)… mind you, it was due to our inclusion on Northern Electric‘s wonderful compilation CD, “EAST VAN SPECIAL BLEND” and we did have a little help from a few other artists, which included the legendary Pointed Sticks, Polly, Kelly Haigh, Mac Pontaic and Butch Murphy… but in this day in age when airplay is more dependent on the amount of payola a band is willing to cough up, you take what you can get and anybody who knows me, knows I love a good group effort and enjoy a bit of scene building as opposed to condo building! You can grab a copy of the CD here at Northern Electric… http://northern-electric.ca/
Here’s some great live footage of the Bats performing “Back In The 604” shot by Rod Matheson for his ambitious “Every Day Music” project!
Spurred on by this and the slow burning success of the debut album “Cemetery”, a video is in the works for Mark Henning’s (Combine The Victorious, PURE) EDM remix of the track “Back In The 604”. The Vampire Bats debut EP has received great reviews and more importantly the title track, which is a reworking of a song originally recorded by Canadian Indie pioneers DEJA VOODOO, got an enthusiastic thumbs up from it’s composer Gerard Van Herk! https://soundcloud.com/secret-agent-records/cemetery-the-vampire-bats
SECRET AGENT RECORDS MAGAZINE 