Argh Fuck Kill: The Story of the DayGlo Abortions (41 page)

That night in Adelaide, the guitarist suffered a nasty wound onstage. “Cretin cut his shoulder on a broken beer bottle. He was bleeding like crazy,” Gymbo recalls. “His skin is like Saran Wrap and punctures easily.” Willy, who went to the bar after the show, returned to the house where the band was staying to find the guitar player lying in a pool of blood. “We had to take him to the hospital for stitches at 5:00 AM,” says Gymbo. As usual, the accident-prone songwriter was unconcerned about his injury. A little cut was the least of his worries, and at least he didn’t have any broken bones.

For now, the fight between Gymbo and Cretin seemed to blow over and the band continued onwards to Melbourne. Free for the afternoon, Gymbo found a shooting gallery in a mall where he was able to fire a .45 calibre automatic. “You could buy T-shirts and shoot them full of holes,” the frontman recalls. He also remembers the local bats, which were large and numerous. “They had these crazy bats that flew around at night. In the day, they’d hang upside down from trees, but you couldn’t get close because of all the guano. They’re big fucking things.” Nigel jumped off the stage after his band Rule 303 played that night, breaking his ankle. Even Cretin seemed injury-free in comparison—at least on this tour.

Wild bats and broken bones notwithstanding, the DayGlos finished up the tour with a show in Newcastle and one more in Sydney with Rule 303, Glen and the Peanut Butter Men, and Bastard Squad. Cretin had planned to take all the money when the tour ended, but was never given the opportunity. “I didn’t care anymore. It just wasn’t worth it,” Cretin says disgustedly. “I can’t believe that I was away chasing money when I was needed at home. I made a critical error in judgement.”

The long flight home on February 26th was not a happy one. Gymbo returned to icy Toronto and the other DayGlos went home to rainy Victoria. For Cretin, the trip would mark the beginning of a long, dark era. Bad times were here.

Alone in the big, empty house, Cretin had plenty of time to reflect on life. Sure, he could have stayed home to be a regular father, but was it not also important for him to pursue his own dreams? How was it possible to weigh his own needs against those of his family? Would Paris still be in a mental hospital if he’d missed a few tours? How many? The guitarist tortured himself with questions that had no answers.

Cretin struggled to get by. His fellow bandmembers, aware of the situation, did not call or visit. Worse, there was a court order preventing the musician from having any contact with his daughters. “They told Mekare I’d go to jail if she tried to talk to me,” says Cretin. According to Acton, Angie told the courts that he was abusing them so they could stay in a shelter for families at risk. Falling deeper into an abyss of despair, Cretin attempted suicide by drinking a bottle of rum and injecting a large quantity of heroin. He woke up freezing on the basement floor twenty-four hours later. “Maybe I had just enough speed in my system to keep my heart from stopping,” guesses Cretin, trying to explain how he survived the near overdose. He had hit rock bottom.

Slowly, the lonely man began trying to untangle the quagmire in which he found himself. After jumping through countless legal hoops the courts finally allowed Cretin to see his oldest daughter. “When I left, Paris was a virtuoso musician, and when I finally saw her again she was catatonic in an isolation cell,” says the patriarch/guitarist, his voice cracking at the memory. Cretin theorizes that his split with Angie and the guilt Paris felt for hitting her mother were the main factors that prompted her mental breakdown. “That must have been the single most stressful moment of her life,” says Cretin, shouldering more than his share of blame for the incident. Psychiatric doctors told the singer that Paris’s condition was the most acute they’d ever seen. “Kids usually start to bounce back fairly quickly, but Paris was still in full-blown psychosis months later.”

Naturally, the doctors immediately prescribed a barrage of drugs, some of which only exacerbated her condition. Cretin had to get waivers to visit his daughter in the hospital, and the staff was hostile until they saw that Paris clearly loved him. Finally, after years of experimentation, the doctors started to learn which medications worked and which didn’t. “It’s been slow, but she’s really coming around,” says Cretin, hope discernible in his voice. “Paris lost the executive function of her brain and can’t organize sequences properly. She’ll be twenty-one soon, but she’s nowhere near being self-sufficient.”

Mekare, the youngest girl, also suffered. With all the attention lavished on Paris, she had no choice but to get through the tough times alone. The talented, intelligent child soon equalled or surpassed accomplishments set by Paris, but no one seemed to notice because they were too busy worrying about her older sibling. Though Mekare also cared about her sister, she could not help but feel a little left out. Was this her reward for staying out of serious trouble? Such a thing hardly seemed fair.

Justin, twenty-one years old at the time, had long since moved out, but still lives in Victoria. His father reports that Justin is the rebel of the family, with a steady job, a stable life, and a big-screen TV. “Justin is as tough as nails, but he’s a really nice guy who would never hurt anyone, unless he was defending himself or his friends,” says the proud papa. “He’s honest, a really good guy.”

All this notwithstanding, Cretin was walking down a Victoria street in March of 2005, when a university reporter approached to ask him how it felt to have the number one independent punk record in the country. The DayGlos frontman looked at the reporter in disbelief and told him to step aside because he was on his way to the food bank. “I didn’t make a fucking penny on that LP,” he claims, still distraught years later. That night, Cretin paid Bonehead a visit, and there was “some real fucking shouting as to what was happening with the royalties.” Despite the yelling, the matter was not resolved.

In early October after a long, hot summer, Mekare left a phone number on the window of her father’s car and the pair resumed communication. Cretin eventually regained custody of twelve-year old Mekare in October of 2006, but not without a great deal of difficulty. In early 2010, the musician was also in the process of having Paris released from an adult group home into his care. His girl had been so disruptive and hostile that she was in danger of being declared a permanent ward of the court. “The whole thing has been really hard on my poor kid,” says Cretin, his voice quavering again. The pain runs deep.

Despondent though he may have been, Cretin also rescued an old friend from the streets and moved her into his house. In fact, the guitar player also took in several homeless street punks. The household was noisy and boisterous once again; not with the sounds of people fighting but with loud music and laughter. Though Cretin was still far from being happy, he wasn’t alone anymore. Life went on.

It was spring before the DayGlos reunited for a few shows. Little by little, Cretin began to accept things for the way they were. Bonehead did not cut him a large cheque, but whenever Cretin had an overdue heating bill or some other household emergency, he would show up at the drummer’s store and demand money. In order to keep the peace, Bonehead inevitably forked over the cash. This was not an ideal situation for either of them, but one that prevented open warfare.

Slowly, the DayGlo Abortions began playing more regularly but, other than a short trip to Ontario and Quebec in November, they stuck close to home. Rather than the typical months-long tours of yesteryear, short but lucrative runs to the interior of British Columbia or Alberta allowed them to return home within a week or two. The hard feelings Cretin felt for his bandmates eased but did not completely disappear. Still, the DayGlo Abortions are family, and family members sometimes fight.

Around this time, Bonehead fell victim to an evil addiction that would dog him relentlessly, cost him large amounts of money, and use up all his free time. Yes, the drummer had taken up golf. According to ex-girlfriend Mel Schedel, Bonehead started on a three-par course in Duncan, moved on to Henderson (in Oak Bay), and finally graduated to the Cedar Hill Golf Course in Victoria, where he is a full member. The drummer would also take his addiction on the road. Whenever the band was in a city for more than a few hours, Bonehead would sneak away to get in a few rounds, even attempting to coerce his fellow bandmembers to join him on the local course. Over time, the drummer would become so fanatical that he would skip soundchecks and, occasionally, almost miss the show itself. Even the band’s Australian tours were organized around golfing opportunities. The game helped him unwind from the stress of touring and other aspects of DayGlo life. He also liked cocaine.

Towards the end of 2006, Cretin agreed to do another European tour. At this point, Cretin had joined the Fuck You Pigs with Trey Agnew (of Neo Nasties infamy) and Hung Jak, who seems to be holding things together these days. The Fuck You Pigs, named after the tattoo on Cretin’s skinny torso, were fun, but not in a position to tour internationally. Music, after all, was Cretin’s life and he needed to involve himself actively. Analogies about sharks that drown unless they keep swimming are unnecessary.

In early 2007, Unrest Records agreed to re-release the DayGlos back catalogue and give them 15% of total albums pressed. “Alongside our Accused releases, the DayGlo Abortions albums helped kickstart the label and establish some awareness of Unrest Records. Our working relationship with the DayGlos has been a positive but challenging experience,” says Unrest’s Mike Safagé, who also organizes Unrest Fest in Edmonton every summer. Anyone who has done business with Jesus Bonehead will know what Mike is talking about when he says that such a thing can be difficult.

Pleased with the record deal, the DayGlo Abortions left Canada bound for Holland in June of 2007. Willy’s girl Sarah was heavily pregnant at the time, but the trip could not be postponed. The Golers, also on Unrest Records, were along for the tour, and Chris from Unrest—who had also promoted the train-wreck Seattle gig—was acting as tour manager. “The Golers play real fucking heavy, but they were easygoing guys,” says Gymbo. Given the fact that the DayGlos had visited Europe twice before, this tour should have run more smoothly. Despite this, no one was surprised when it turned out to be just as wild and chaotic as the others.

At this point, Cretin, Bonehead, and Willy were all members of the “Mile High Club.” “We’d banged girls sitting in our seats, ferchrissakes!” says Cretin. When Gymbo found out, he also wanted to join. According to Cretin, he grabbed a porno magazine and marched down the aisle toward the washroom, prompting the other DayGlos to call after him that there was no “Half-Mile High Club.” The singer returned to his seat and waited sheepishly for the booze cart to reappear. There was still a long flight ahead of them.

The plane eventually landed in Amsterdam, where the two bands picked up the vehicles Chris had hired. From there, they drove all night to make the first show with label mates The Accused in Prague, Czech Republic. “I was stoked because The Accused was one of my favourite bands,” remembers Willy Jak. The gig was good, but the musicians were somewhat annoyed to discover that hotel arrangements had not been made, leaving them sweaty and tired in the cold. It seemed that nothing ever changed.

The situation deteriorated further when the band attempted to pick up a batch of records from the pressing plant in Lodenice, Czech Republic. Due to a miscommunication between Unrest and the go-between Pirate’s Press, the records were not ready. The DayGlos left empty-handed, but later picked up approximately eighty various albums that had been shipped to The Accused’s booking agent in Berlin. Despite the confusion, they were pleased that their vinyl would soon be available worldwide once again.

The Canadian bands played several dates in the Czech Republic before moving on to Germany where the madness and insanity continued. Bookings and hotel arrangements were again messed up, raising the ire of The Accused’s Tommy Niemeyer. “Tommy was starting to get pissed off,’ Gymbo recalls. Botched tours were nothing new to the DayGlo Abortions, but perhaps The Accused were accustomed to effective management, if such a thing is even possible in punk rock. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary.

According to Gymbo, the dates seemed fairly random and involved a great deal of driving. “We zigzagged all over the place,” the frontman recalls. The driver hired by Chris carried his methadone supply across multiple borders in a Gatorade bottle. A hungover Cretin accidentally consumed some of the methadone one morning, thinking it was regular Gatorade. “I was fucked up all day,” the guitarist remembers. The band also smuggled small amounts of hash from country to country. “Bonehead would be pissed, but then later he’d be so fucking happy to get high,” says Gymbo.

In Spain, the Unrest bands played two gigs with the Suicidal Tendencies. “Those guys were super fucking cool,” says Willy Jak, who was pleased that frontman Mike Muir didn’t act like a big rock star backstage. “It didn’t take long to strike up a conversation, and Mike was a really nice guy.” Gymbo was more impressed by the quantity and quality of the food. “They fed us shrimps and steaks; the chow was amazing.” Later, after the show in Barcelona, the two bands visited Pepe’s, a local bar. “We all got pretty drunk,” Willy recalls foggily.

The merch guy hired by Chris from Unrest was an ex-porno star who had once been David Lee Roth’s sidekick. When a passing truck scraped the side of the tour bus, Porno became very unhappy because the driver wanted to file a police report. Gymbo awoke later to learn that the driver had fled in the van after Porno punched him in the head. Only by firing Porno were they able to convince the driver to return. “Porno was cool,” says Cretin. “Too bad he had to go. And he was right: you
never
phone cops!”