Show Review – The City's in Flames
Toronto Public Library, Fort York
Branch
Wednesday, June 25th, 2014
This was an event put together because
of World Pride with films by punks in the LGBT community or films about
people in the LGBT community. The line up of shorts was put together
by Don Pyle in what he described as a loose knit fabric of punk and
LGBT and art worlds colliding.
Troublemakers (1990)
The first film was by GB Jones of Fifth
Column who wasn't able to make it. But Caroline Azur of Fifth Column
did say some words about the film on her behalf which included that
the actors in the film did all the things that happened and were even
arrested for some of it. She also said that they were inspired
Suzanne Naughton's film on the Viletones that is shown later in the
program because that was the first time they saw punk and Toronto in
the same film. This inspired Fifth Column to make their own films.
John Porter, also on the program spoke about how Fifth Column made
their own films and showed them at a place called the Funnel. GB
Jones' film is a serious of scenes that show young punk kids played
by Fifth Column and Bruce La Bruce and their friends getting up to
all kinds of mischief. The scene opens with some shoplifting which is
particularly funny if only for them standing below the Shoplifters
will be proecusted sign. The death star like security camera is
particularly a period piece and is equally amusing. Bruce La Bruce
has one of his nipples pierced which is sure to get a reaction. And
there is some raccoons who make an appearance at the end which is in
the house that Fifth column lived in at the time and as we learn from
Caroline was the old New Rose store, which is the punk store that
Margarita Passion ran and was refered to as the Viletones clubhouse.
How Many Fingers? (1981)
This is a music like video for one of
the Government songs. Andrew Paterson the band's guitarist and singer
and creative mind behind the band was at the screening to explain the
videoand he is one of the best speakers deeply immersed in theory
behind the art. He called this a musical video as opposed to a msuic
video because the band saw it as a critique of the music video
format. At the time the music video format was coming into popular
use and shows were popping up for teenagers of band's songs which was
around the tiome that Much Music was coming into being. Andrew points
out that the space that Much Music would occupy housed some great
affordable production houses for students at OCA like Trinity Video.
Ironically, Much Music would kick those people out. Lots of Toronto's
hardcore scene was recorded at the studio space on this building. But
the song itself was inspired by George Orwell's “Nineteen Eighty
Four”. How many Fingers has a reference in the book and is a space
where liberalism meets fascism which is an argument I hear being made
about the original punk scene in which the idea was to push
liberalism as far as it could go until that fascist underbelly struck
back. Well Paterson plays a game show host or contestant that doesn't
repeat the correct number of fingers that the host is suggesting he
is holding up and in a way tests the power of suggestion. Later
Paterson plays a fascist like priest who orders a teacher to burn a
book in front of a student while laughing maniacally. Book burning
certainly suggests the facsist era practises. The film has
institutional settings and is very sophisticated for a piece of this
medium. I was glad to have seen it even if we missed part of it. And
the song itself incorporated some dub in it which harkend back to
Gang of Four and Public Image types of experimentation.
I'm Not in Love (2011)
This short takes two guys dressed in
drag doing some very homo erotic things to a song by 10CC in a way
that is contrary to the pessimistic message of this hit from the
70's. And they use elements of karaoke by way of performance.
Beyond the Screams (1999)
This is a film I am very familiar with
as I own a copy of it. I bought it at a Chicago Fest when it forst
came out and have watched it several times. But Martin's setting of
the tone of the film helped me understand much more about the film.
In the late 90's bands started popping up all over the United States
that sang in Spanish. These were punk rockers who were sons and
daughers of people who immigrated to the US who spoke Spanish as
their mother tongue. These bands were partially reacting to the anti
immigration policies of the time and one of the participants in the
film, Jose Palafox who played rums in Bread and Circuses. He made a
film called “New World Border” which cpatured some of that
anti-Latino sentiment in 2001. He was in Beyond the Screams and I had
forgotten how bad things were. The idea of the film came to Martin
when he had to put together a thesis project for his Photography
Discipline at the University of Chicago. He decided to do a film.
Martin also sang in Los Crudos prior to this and they had been
touring and seeing these bands starting up throughout America. In
Chicao there was band's like Youth Against and Sin Orden who
represent the new wave at the end of the film. In New York there was
Huasipungo. In L.A. there was Life's Halt. Arma Contra Arma, Kntra
Attaque, Subsistencia, Sbitch, Logical Nonsense and Michelle who was
the drummer in Spitboy. Didn't they do a split with Crudos? Martin
looks back at some of the scenes in South America referencing Ohlo
Seco and Colera which harken back to the early days in punk. But he
also looks at what America had to offer and discovers a scene that
comes out of East L.A. Which is refered to as the East Side
Rennaisance and including bands like the Zeros, the Bags, the Plugz
(Repo Man soundtrack), and the Brat. The film starts out with one of
the most jaw dropping scenes of a Los Crudos show in Mexico City that
as the songs starts the camera pans back and as far as the eye can
see are punk rockers at an outdoor show losing their shit to the
Crudos song just launched into. The scene ends with Martin explaining
the meaning behind “We're that Spic band”. It was as inpiring
today as it was when it came out.
Will Munro's Dirty Load (2007)
This is a short that I didn't know
existed. Matt interviews Will Munro at the end trying to get at some
of his inspired activities. Will describes his underwear art. There
are scenes of Will Djing and some vids at Vaseline. But there is so
much more to Will story and I strongly recommend that people read
Sarah Liss's book “Army of Lovers” for a more full account. That
shouldn't take away from the fact that this is a touching tribute to
a out queer punk who changed our scene for the better.
An Afternoon at New Rose with the
Viletones
I have seen bits of Suzanne Naughton's
film in Colin Brunton's latest “The Last Pogo Jumps Again”. The
bits are stunning. Suzanne explained that she was a film student at
Ryerson making a film called “Mondo Punk”. The film shot at the
New Rose was supposed to be supplemental footgae to this film. She
instructed the cameraman to shot cut aways so that she could edit it
into the “Mondo Punk”. It was 800 feet of raw vintage toom
follery at the New Rose in black and white, which looks like a punk
rock house party with large sized posters from the time decorating
the walls, all kinds of punk gear on display and an outline of a dead
person on the floor that Leckie lies in. Leckie hams it up for the
camera, Freddie Pompeii says a few things. Margaritta Passion is in
the film along with Tank who plays some pinball whiule drinking Black
Label. It is a precious time capsule for sure.
The Dishes at U of T (1977)
TV Ontario is a public broadcaster and
back in the 70's they filmed live bands as part of their mandate to
capture local artists. One of those bands was the Dishes who could be
one of Toronto's first punk bands. They played the 3D show at OCA
which is often refered to as the first local punk show in Toronto.
They wrote “Rebel (Unorthodox)” for the Viletones. They released
two singles and created that missing link betwen the glam and the
punk scene. Don Pyle described their Roxy Music style which is seen
in this live show outdoors at the University of Toronto. Don said
this must have played at least 60 times on TVO and was able to get a
DVD of the video from Steven Davies just before he passed away.
John Porter also had some footage on
8mm of the Dishes. He also had some footage of a show that Fifth
Column performed at making up a sound track to his films he projected
at the Funnel. Reportedly the songs are unreleased.