(Check out Les’ review of the Anthony Walker Treasure Town CD, pg. 32 of new Aug/Sept issue)
Writer/journalist Les Wiseman began chronicling the Vancouver punk rock scene in 1976 after witnessing the first Vancouver punk gigs by The Furies, Victorian Pork, Tim Ray and AV and D.O.A., a vocation that has lasted over three decades. As the associate editor of the slick city magazine, Vancouver, Wiseman wrote a column, In One Ear, which covered the scene through its glory years until 1989. Approached by documentary filmmaker, Susanne Tabata, to contribute to the storyline and exposition of Bloodied But Unbowed: Vancouver Punk, Wiseman relished the chance to go over his archives and memories of that scene and relive those halcyon days of poverty, fellowship, excess and music that moved its audience to such a degree that it validated their very lives.
Since bumping into Absolute Underground he says, “The rest is history in the making…”
(Says Les: Lemmy enjoys a little game of boop-gotcher-nose with hapless reporter, Les Wiseman, as Philthy Phil looks on and a staggeringly hungover Brian Robertson hopes he makes it through the photo session without blowing chow.)
(Says Les: 3 a.m. backstage at Gary Taylor’s Rock Room during Johnny Thunders’s legendary two-night Vancouver stand. Members of his band, the Cosa Nostra, and reporter Les Wiseman, look on while Johnny sticks a fit into a box of Oxydol and announces, “This is my favorite drug!”)
(Says Les: Joan Jett, backstage at The Commodore with longtime Runaways fan, Les Wiseman. Always pleasant, always a pro.)
(Says Les: “Can’t remember the photographer, but for some reason he set up in a corner of the Vancouver Century Plaza hotel lobby while I was upstairs interviewing Joey. Joey had accidentally kicked my tape recorder across the room as we were walking out.”)
