The Subhumans: Pissed Off...With Good Reason (1978-1995)

Okay there were six ways that you could wreck an early-eighties hardcore re-issue during the CD boom of the nineties:
1) Non-chronological sequencing of material
2) Over-long running time
3) Inclusion of dodgy live and/or demo material
4) Unexplained omitting of well-known tracks
5) Inappropriate and/or ill-fitting cover art
6) Adding newly-record material

The Subhumans CD, Pissed Off … With Good Reason! (Essential Noise / Virgin Music Canada, V2 41724, 1996) commits EVERY damn ONE of these errors plus some I haven't even thought of yet. The good news is you can take this out-of-print album here, cherry pick what you need and then go out and BUY the singles comp, Death Was Too Kind (Alternative Tentacles, 2008),  even if that release flirts with 5) by screwing with the the band's first 12" cover and fully commits 4) by leaving off "Behind the Smile and "Out of Line" from the Vancouver Independence compilation LP.






    Tracklist
1         Death To The Sickoids        
2         Model Of Stupidity        
3         Firing Squad        
4         Inquisition Day        
5         Dead At Birth        
6         Slave To My Dick        
7         Look At The Dawn        
8         America Commits Suicide        
9         Out Of Line        
10        Urban Guerrillas        
11        Out Of Place        
12        Death Was Too Kind        
13        No Productivity        
14        We’re Alive        
15        Googleplex        
16        Pissed Off With Good Reason        
17        Fuck You        
18        I Hate Words        
19        Canada’s Favourite Sport        
20        The Big Picture        
21        I Gotta Move        
22        Escalator To Hell        
23        Twenty-First Century        
24        Oh Canaduh        

Track 1 "Death To Sickoids/Oh Canaduh" 7" single (1978)
Tracks 2,5,10 & 14 "Incorrect Thoughts" LP (1980)
Tracks 3 & 13 "Firing Squad" 7" single (1980)
Tracks 4,6,12 & 17 "The Subhumans" 12" EP (1979)
Tracks 7,8,15 & 16 unreleased demo (1981)
Track 9 "Vancouver Independence" compilation LP (1980)
Track 11 recorded live in Vancouver, BC (1981)
Tracks 18-24 recorded live in Edmonton, AB (1995)


So is this one of the most 'screwed-up' eighties hardcore re-issues? Let us know what you think in the COMMENTS section (which is where you'll find Pissed Off...With Good Reason CD).


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Alternative Tentacles

Subhumans: No Wishes, No Prayers (1983)

After Gerry Hannah (more HERE) went underground, vocalist Brian Goble and guitarist Mike Graham replaced him with Ron Allan for The Subhumans' (more HERE) one-album dalliance with the influential-but-iniquitous record label, SST Records. For those keeping score at home, that means the Subhumans' first two full-length albums are solely owned by (different) labels who will neither keep the albums available or release them back to the band. While the album is hampered by the loss of Hannah's song, it's still got a slew of classic Subhumans moments like, "Canada's Favourite Sport", "Slap in the Face" and "No Wishes, No Prayers".

No Wishes, No Prayers

LP, SST Records, SST/Enigma E 1005, 1983.

1. Canada’s Favorite Sport (W. Roy)
2. Moron Majority (W. Roy)
3. For the Common Good (W. Roy)
4. Helicopter (M. Graham)
5. Slap in the Face (W. Roy)
6. Screwed Up (Case, Webster, Tannett, McDonagh)
7. America Commits Suicide (M. Graham)
8. Hiroshima (M. Graham)
9. No Wishes, No Prayers (W. Roy)
10. Mobile Electric Chair (W. Roy)
11. Breaking Point (M. Graham)
12. Googolplex (W. Roy)

Let us know what you think of The Subhumans final album of the 20th century in the COMMENTS section (which is where you'll find the link for No Wishes, No Prayers).

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Alternative Tentacles

Gerry Hannah (Subhumans): Songs From Underground (tape, 1985)

While serving sentenced to a ten-year prison sentence for his role in the various politically-motivated bombings of the group that became known as the Squamish Five (more HERE), former Subhumans bassist/song-writer, Gerry Hannah did not just learn to whittle. Rather, Hannah kept trying to fight the "Holy American Empire" but without the 550 kg of dynamite. 

As for the sound of this still-radical 12 song cassette recorded behind bars, it's acoustic-folk with a bit of that seventies consciousness-raising coffee-house vibe (especially when that flute chimes in!) It works outstandingly on the more finger-pointin' Dylanesque "Livin' With the Lies" but moves a bit into singer-song-writer-John-Denver territory on tracks like "Summertime". In-between those two places there a lot of stoic dignity and an audible refusal to knuckle under even in brutal circumstances.

In the Glen Sandford short film, Useless which followed Gerry Hannah after leaving prison, Hannah still seems bitter and angry. However, in Bloodied But Unbowed (more HERE and HERE)  film-make Susann Tabata caught Hannah in a different place. In the more recent film he explains that political violence can be a tool of your enemies and so he cannot support it. While he many not yet be the Canadian Gandhi (my countrymen admire Gandhi but often only seem to remember the civil part of civil disobedience) there's clearly been a change in his understanding of the world. Of course, I could just be projecting my own long-standing distrust of political violence onto the man.

So what do you make of Hannah's underground songs? And while were asking questions, what do you make of politically-motivated violence? Let us know your views on either of the above (or anything else for that matter) in the COMMENTS section (where you'll find the Songs From Underground link).

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Alternative Tentacles

D.O.A. Right to be Wild (Free the Five benefit single) (1983)

On January 20, 1983, former Subhumans bassist Gerry Hannah and four others involved in a series of politically-motivated bombings were arrested by a group RCMP officers masquerading as highway workers on a highway just outside of Squamish, British Columbia. The Squamish Five (documentary HERE), as they were called became a source of outrage for the Canadian media and a rallying point for friends and fellow-travellers.

Unlike the FLQ and the October Crisis, during which I was an infant, this was a chapter in the short history of Canadian terrorism, for which my memories are vivid. My family were chatty but during the eighties we listened to CBC Radio's The World as Six during dinner every day. As a result, I heard about every action in this political drama as it happened*. So when CBC TV made a kinda-terrible docudrama, The Squamish Five (watch a bit HERE), I actually stayed home solely for the purpose of watching it. Well before that odd viewing experience,  I'd submitted an essay on the Squamish Five for a Great Canadians project in my grade eleven Canadian History class (with the lyrics to D.O.A.'s "Trial By Media" carefully typed out as an appendix). The project actually involved poring over microfiche of newspapers from 1983 in the public library and helped spark an interest in history, not as something ancient and settled but as something still breathing down our necks.

After this benefit single, Gerry Hannah's "Fuck You" -  my vote for The Great Canadian Punk Song - effectively because D.O.A.'s. So strongly did they come to own the song, that when I played The Subhumans' version to my favourite dyed-in-the-roots punk girl back in '85, she dismissed it as "too slow". Of course, by that time D.O.A. had effectively assimilated The Subhumans by bringing it's leader, Brian "Sunny Boy" Goble (a.k.a. 'Wimpy Roy'), on bass and vocals.



 ("Fuck You" is the second song of three songs in the above video.)

So? Is "Fuck You" The Great Canadian Punk Song? Is D.O.A.'s version better the The Subhumans version? Let us know what you think in the COMMENTS section (which is where you'll find the Right to be Wild link)

 

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* Please forgive that programming schedule joke that only CBC-fed Candians of a certian age will get.

The Subhumans: Live at the Marion Hotel (1981)

Canada's Subhumans (more HERE) were never road warriors, like their regional rivals D.O.A. but they certainly did tour hard and tour well, as evidenced by this excellent soundboard recording from a venue that is, quite literally, three blocks away from where I write these words today. The Marion Hotel has always been a biker bar, which makes sense as the rough-neck sounds of both D.O.A. and The Subhumans always had a certain amount of biker appeal. It's a set heavy on non-LP (and in some cases unrecorded) tracks like "Escalator To Hell", Out Of Place" (both written by Ken 'Dimwit' Montgomery R.I.P.) as well as Gerry Hannah's anthem "21st Century", Mike Graham's classic "Behind the Smile" and Brian Goble's defiant "Out of Line", both from the Vancouver Independence compilation. All in all, an essential addition to a good Subhumans collection.


 


Tracklist
01. Firing Squad
02. Escalator To Hell
03. New Order
04. Out Of Line
05. Slave To My Dick
06. The Scheme
07. Model Of Stupidity
08. Greaser Boy
09. Urban Guerrillas
10. 21st Century
11. Screwed Up [Menace cover]
12. Behind The Smile
13. Let's Go Down To Hollywood

So MRML readers, give us your take on Canada's The Subhumans in the COMMENTS section 'cuz we've got more rarities in the bag. (Speaking of the COMMENTS section, that's where you'll find the Live at the Marion Hotel link).

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Alternative Tentacles

*

This is not my rip, that pain-staking work was done by Bat29 who runs a fantastic blog called Noise Addiction. Over at NA, Bat has been digitizing his massive tape collection and the results are stupendous. Go visit him!

*

The Suhumans: Incorrect Thoughts (1980)

 
As a disaffected youth, I discovered rival Vancouver punk legends D.O.A. and the Subhumans on the same day, in a musty, suburban basement.

At one time in North America's cultural evolution, no basement would have been complete without a stack of abused and abandoned vinyl records. To be sure, they usually had the words Nana and Mouskouri stamped on them. But some obsessive types, as I was, and remain, are physically incapable of passing  a stack of records without succumbing to the urge to 'flip'.

So on that day in the summer of 1984, buried deep in friend's basement, I hit upon the black sheep of that family's records. A modest-in-size but utterly pure vein of gold among the slag. There, amidst the "Learn French" records and Ms. Mouskouri's purported Greatest Hits, were half-a-dozen or so records that were absolutely not like the others.

I swear it is this particular discovery which makes every stack of worn and beaten vinyl magnetic in a pull. What if, I still ask myself, instead of James Last, Rusty Warren or Strange Advance and other such Columbia House cast-offs, some black sheep's albums are lurking in in there?

What I did find therein was the Buzzcocks's Different Kind of Tension, 999's High Energy Plan, Iggy Pop's Soldier, The Cure's Boys Don't Cry et les pieces des resistance, those hopelessly rare (even then) foundational documents of Canadian punk rock;  D.O.A.'s Something Better Change and The Subhuman's Incorrect Thoughts.

While I took to each of these albums with a sort of fury, I was never uncritical. I scrutinized the sleeves of each LP as it spun, considering what to commit to tape and what to excise. The Subhumans' album made it to tape unscathed. After all, the band's mid-tempo rhythms, melodic guitar lines and bellowed politics reminded me of my beloved Clash, albeit with more audible hard rock roots and less stylistic fiddling. However, while Punk rock has, throughout its history, often rewarded sound-a-like bands, (Ramones-core? D-beat? Street-punk?), The Subhumans played nobody else's game.

In fact, the refusal to play anybody's game may be the defining trait of an album that simply bleeds alienation. Each of the three song-writers appears hopelessly at odds with the culture from which he sprung. Whether it's guitarist Mike Graham saying that "I don't fit the big picture", singer Brian Goble telling us us "I can't stand the new regime" or bassist Gerry Hannah mocking Saturday Fever culture with the charge, "I'm just a slave to my dick", this album is like discontent distilled. More than any other of the albums I uncovered that day, Incorrect Thoughts was the one that that could 'comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted', even though both affliction and comfort marked the life of that disaffected youth.

Now I post this album with some trepidation. While Incorrect Thoughts itself remains difficult to obtain, thanks to some inexplicable legal chicanery, the band has not only re-recorded the album they've added new depth of experience to the songs. The end result of this being an unusual case where you'd want BOTH versions of the album. So if you're here to get Incorrect Thoughts (1980) feel free to do so but if you sense its power PLEASE go and find the 2010 version, called Same Thoughts, Different Day, and see how much it adds to the band's legacy.


So let us know MRML readers, Any favourite albums found in strange places? Any favourite Subhumans moments? Let us know in the COMMENTS section (where you'll find the Incorrect Thoughts link).


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Alternative Tentacles

NoMeansNo: Oh Canaduh/New Age 7" (1991)

Please click over to The Big Takeover for my review of NoMeansNo live.

Y'know in case I couldn't talk you into downloading any of the two gargantuan-sized NoMeansNo singles/comp tracks/live songs bootlegs (see HERE), then do not miss this exquisitely packaged 1993 single which contains the band's rip-snortin' cover of two seventies Vancouver punk classics; the Subhuman's "Oh Canaduh" and DOA's "New Age". Hell, even if you did take those, add this for the artwork alone (and add the chance to add these two tracks to your next playlist!)

This is, I believe, was the last NMN release to feature Andy Kerr. While the band did amazing work before his arrival and since his departure there is a fearsome intensity about the Kerr era that is hard to replicate.

 

Oh yeah all the crafty artwork is courtesy of punk artist John Yates who worked with Jello Biafra and briefly ran a label, Allied Records, which always looked stunning!

So what's your take on the Kerr era of NoMeansNo? Let us know in the COMMENTS section (where you'll find the Oh Canaduh/New Age 7"  link).


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