By Les Wiseman
C’mon little ones. Sit down around boompah’s slippers, fold your dimpled little fingers and let me tell you of a time long ago when herds of wild punk rockers trod the vast empty spaces of our inner cities. In Vancouver particularly, this breed thrived, bristle-headed, studded of garb and raucous of call. Packs were formed and took names including DOA, the Subhumans and the Rabid. They took up instruments and what they lacked in technique they made up in energy. Their instincts led them to raw and brutal performances. Their bellowings echoed stentorian and dischordant.
Yet, in the midst of this melee, there arose within the genus of punk rockers, the species of the Pointed Sticks. What set them apart from the rest of the herd was a sunnier disposition and a less political agenda. The motto was: Pointed Sticks are fun. Singer Nick Jones, a.k.a. Nick O’Teen,warbled lyrics of girls, love and breakups. His voice was a high melodious alternative to the frenzied barking of DOA’s Joe Shithead or Subhuman’s Wimpy. The Sticks paid more attention to chorus and hook than dreadnought onslaught. They were called power pop. In other festering hotbeds of punk rockers, this power-pop music was also making headway. Thus, the Pointed Sticks were called to England by Stiff Records and thus were considered the most successful of Vancouver’s hordes.
Unfortunately, after recording an album, Stiff passed on releasing it. The Sticks returned home to Vancouver, toured a bit, played a few gigs, put out the album, Perfect Youth, and simply petered out as band members went on to other musical projects.
In the meantime, life intervened. Jones went on to travel the globe as a merchandise manager for Live Nation Merchandise. Bassist Tony Bardach joined Los Popularos and took up acting and art. Guitarist Bill Napier-Hemy became a music teacher at the Fraser Academy in Kitsilano and married Jade Blade of the Dishrags. Keyboardist Gord Nicholl opened up a recording studio, Paramount Recorders, in Vancouver’s Japantown. Ian Tiles, a.k.a. Buddy Selfish of Buddy Selfish and his Saviors, went became the office manager at Radical Gaming, a Vancouver-based video-game company. And life went on anon. Producing children rather than music became a priority.
While touring with DOA, Joe Shithead, honcho grande of Sudden Death records, noticed that wherever DOA toured fans asked about the halcyon days of Vancouver punk. He negotiated the rights to albums by Pointed Sticks, Modernettes and Art Bergmann’s Young Canadians and noted that they sold well, especially in Japan. Unexpectedly, a call came from Sudden Death’s distributor in Japan with a request for the Pointed Sticks to play three gigs as they had sold over 3,000 records there.
Maneuvering jobs and children, the band managed some rehearsals and hopped the plane in August 2006. They played Kyoto on Friday night and Tokyo on Saturday and Sunday night. The sold-out crowds of 300 were ga-ga – as can be seen on the YouTube coverage. “They knew the words better than we did,” says Bardach. “We had to stay two hours after the gig to meet people who had spent time rehearsing their English to ask us questions.”
Jones adds, “All these 30-year-olds had street posters from Vancouver from 1978.”
Understandably blown away, the band came home and would play together as time allowed, culminating in two sold-out shows at Richards in January 2007. Suddenly a hot commodity again, the band was invited to headline the First Annual New York Power Pop Festival in April 2007. A year later, the Sticks regrouped for a benefit for injured producer/engineer Scott Harding.
“We all have careers and things that are more important than the band,” says Bardach. “The band came entirely secondary, which simplified things. Making an album was just a natural occurrence of being in a band and getting on together.”
“The album took a year and a half from start to finish,” says Jones. Calling in favors, they recorded at Nicholl’s studio and had Mike Fraser (Aerosmith, AC/DC, Franz Ferdinand) mix the album for a case of Old Style.
Thus my young ones, 29 years after Perfect Youth, we have a new Pointed Sticks album, Three Lefts Make a Right -released on November 1 on vinyl, CD and download through the Northern Electric label (northern-electric.ca). Ever seen a vinyl record, Billy? Here, let boompah put it on this rotating thing and drop the needle on it. Ah, now listen to what used to set boompah to pogoing at the Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret lo those many years ago. Yes, Pointed Sticks the only band to meld the polar opposite influences of ABBA and the Stooges. Remarkably, the whole album sounds young, fun and still obsessed with teen pop and girls. Tiles has a great powerful drum sound and Bardach’s bass alternately bounces and drives. Napier-Hemy still strums at Buzzcocks speed (Anytime) with little Blue Oyster Cult/Stooges-style runs tastefully tossed in (Too Late, Wireless). Nicholl’s keyboards are stellar here, underpinning heavy raga stylings (Leave Me Alone) to lush Deep Purple-ish backdrop arrangements to carnival calliope sounds (Anytime). And Jones’s voice, a high reedy thing unlike any other in pop music, hasn’t aged any except perhaps to show some lower range on the John Lennon-ish How I Felt. Highlights include the Bardach-penned Igor Said, which features the Dishrags on backing vocals and terrific lyrics about circumnavigating the bouncer at the Smilin’ Buddha, back in the day. Scrambled Eggs is another killer and should garner the radio play that eluded the band back when being labeled punk was the kiss of death.
“I think the Pointed Sticks left a lot on the table when we packed it in,” says Jones. “We wanted to make a real Pointed Sticks record and, without being nostalgic, it certainly is referential [to the punk days]. There’s a power-pop renaissance going on and we’re kind of godfathers to a lot of 30-and-under bands that are playing that kind of music.” Then he laughs, “And, we’ve been together longer now than we were in the first place.”
Pointed Sticks play two shows at Vancouver’s Rio Theatre at the corner of Commercial Drive and Broadway on December 19. Evening show is fully licensed, but in the afternoon you young’uns can get in to all-ages matinee. Tickets at independent record stores. Details: www.thepointedsticks.com
