Tour Diary: Dead Bob Dig Deep on Their Latest Tour of British Columbia

As the former drummer of the now legendary but retired Canadian punk band No Means No, John Wright could have sailed into the sunset. But like any great musician, he has a hunger for more, which has led him to Dead Bob. Dead Bob is the namesake of Wright’s solo project, with his debut album Life Like being released this past spring. Recorded in Wright’s native British Columbia, the material on the album spans several decades. He promises that there is a lot more in the archives, too.

It’s a natural inclination always to categorize music, but Life Like really defies categorization. The songs are far from conventional, each standing out for their own sake. What’s most apparent is that these songs should not be listened to quietly. They were all written and performed by Wright himself, with a few helping hands along the way. Byron Slack (Invasives), Kristy Lee Audette (Rong), Ford Pier (Ford Pier and the Vengeance Trio, DOA, Roots Round Up), and Selina Martin all contributed to this record. Colin MacRae of Pigment Vehicle also added some of his prowess on the electric guitar.

In support of Life Like, Wright was recently out on tour in British Columbia. Today, he joins us for an in-depth look at that tour, with his own tour diary, bringing you into all of the interesting little tidbits of information that take place while a modern musician is out on the road.

November 9th, Downtown Vancouver

“On my way to see The Destroyers. I’ve been practicing the keyboards and the trombone by myself all day and my hands and face are very sore. One week from today, Dead Bob, will wake up in Kamloops, British Columbia, having played our very first show in front of a paying, breathing audience the night before. I have confidence in the power that John’s excellent songs will no doubt exert over a breathing, paying audience, just as I’m confident in the band’s ability to manifest as a capable vehicle for that power, but I’m nervous about meeting the rest of the musicians.

“They’re all much bigger than I am and could easily beat me up if they don’t like me. The bass player, Colin McRae, is said to have a belt of some colour in some lethal practice, and the trumpet player Kristy Audette can bench 600 pounds. This is verified by footage on the internet. I can run pretty fast when I’m properly motivated, or if worse comes to worse I can say confusing things or burst into tears. This works better than you might think; a lot of people don’t want to tangle with a nut. Excited about playing these songs, but for now, I need to quicken my pace lest I miss the opening set by The Frog Eyes.”

November 15th, Practice Studio, Vancouver

“The rehearsals have gone well and we are all encouraged. These people all seem easy enough to get along with and I’m delighted to discover through casual banter that we have certain interests in common. The bass player Colin McRae and I both, for instance, share a keen interest in dowsing, automatic writing, and other divination practices. Still, there’s a look in his eye that lets you know he could throw you through a wall if you get on his bad side. I’ll be careful not to do this.

“John Wright himself is stern, but fair. He performed almost all of the parts of Life Like himself without concern as to whether the arrangement so delivered could be carried off by a performing outfit. The brief for this newly-minted live band is to preserve as many features of the album’s arrangements as possible while taking advantage of whatever specific corporate identity emerges from the group of musicians executing them, and adjusting accordingly. It should also rock.

“There was a surprise for us when we convened at the practice space. We were being waited for there not by our expected sound technician Will Schatz, but a man who said his name was Cory Austin. He had a letter from Will in a green envelope. Its contents were confusing; contradictory explanations about how he was in France accepting a prize. Or he’d ‘forgotten’ he had to move. He assured us that the bearer of this letter possessed skills at the mixing desk that were at least equal to his own, if not greater, and that he’d known him for years and years and would trust him with his life, although we noticed he spelled his name ‘Erskine.’ He included a number we were to call if we had any questions. But that number put us in touch with a dry cleaner in the 515 area code, which is North-Central Iowa. Oh well, Cory seems nice.

“A second hiccup occurred when the suspension mount for John’s 12’ tom, after 32 years of patient service, decided abruptly, ‘Forget you, I quit!’ and snapped. Zap-straps provided a temporary remedy to the problem, but something more robust will have to be secured before we pull out of Vancouver towards our first shows tomorrow.

“Is it my imagination, or are the guitar player Byron Slack and Kristy Audette giving each other ‘The Eye?’

“I’m so excited I can’t sleep.”

November 16th, Kamloops, B.C.

“Everyone is being called on to do something new to them in this band. Vocally, playing-wise, and choreographically. The guitar player Byron Slack, for instance, has never played with other musicians before, having honed his craft in isolation at the various seasonal jobs he takes as a lighthouse keeper or whatever they call those guys who take notes on populations of bears. His first tentative steps into lifting his voice in harmony with others have gone well. He’s a natural!

“Speaking of naturals, Kristy has learned how to play the trumpet especially for this project. After a scant few weeks of attention to the instrument, her facility on it surpasses my own on the trombone, which I’ve been playing since I could hold one. John has never had to carry a show as the lead singer while drumming, having spent his time in NoMeansNo onstage with two other gifted vocalists who could share the load. He could get away with it as the lead singer for The Hanson Brothers because he would usually perform seated in a wheelchair or standing still with his hands on his powerful thighs like Byron’s hero, civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, while Kristy played the drums.

“His demanding arrangements for his beautiful songs have us all singing in registers at the limits of our ranges and applying extended techniques to our instruments that challenge our capabilities. For my own part, I’ve never had to carry my own gear because I’ve always had people like David Macanulty or Brian Goble to do it for me. The disadvantages of performing with the largest rig I ever have are already making themselves felt in my knees and lower back.

“We were met at the space this morning by the driver-merchandise steward Carlos. I had been told beforehand that he had a lead foot. ‘Prone to speeding, is he,’ I might have answered. No, it turns out that he has an actual lead foot. Now, of course everyone knows dozens of people with an actual lead foot. But apparently this lead foot isn’t a prosthetic. Rather, he entered the world that way. If he wants to bring it up, fine, but I’m not going to pry. I’ll say this, though: to watch him dance, you would never guess.

“Carlos took careful notes on a wax tablet while we packed all of our equipment and personal belongings into the two minivans we’ll be taking. We are heavily laden and can look forward to taking on even more bulk when we collect our t-shirts and neckerchiefs in Nelson from the mayor, Brahm Paddyduddy. All we’ll have available for the fans at the first show in Kamloops are some CDs by Colin’s old band Blocked Magus and some trucker hats with nothing on them that I found a box of for 8 dollars at a charity thrift shop on the way to meet everyone. Everything has been secured, and now Byron, Cory, and I are off with Kristy at the wheel of vehicle number one, carrying guitars, keyboards, horns, stands, amps, monitors, personal belongings and sundries. Carlos is driving Colin and John with the drums and that box of hats.

“Update: Carlos didn’t make it out of the Fraser Valley before he was stopped for speeding.

“Second update: Load-in, sound-check, hotel check-in, a snack. All have gone off without a hitch. The stage sound is good and Cory Austin (Erskine?) proved himself out of the gate to be a capable problem-solver and thinker-on-his-feet. I have withdrawn to my hotel room for some contemplation and to pace. I’m nervous. I feel ready.”

November 17th, Upper Arrow Lake Ferry

“You can use us to determine whether or not a machine is intelligent because we are T(O)uring! Last night’s show was a celebration of togetherness and Human Potential. Everyone’s gear functioned properly and very few mistakes were made, although the very slightest would occasion a withering glare from John from over the rim of his now securely-mounted and happily bouncing 12” tom. There’s a complicated schedule of monetary fines for errors in performance which I’m not going to worry about too much. Whatever gets deducted from my pay gets deducted from my pay and I’m just going to keep my head down and do my best.

“The assembled multigenerational throng were appreciative and gratified us by being familiar enough with the material from Life Like for a good many of them to be singing along. Even some of the chestnuts in the set by John’s old band NoMeansNo brought a glimmer of recognition. Everyone in the group is a unique and commanding physical presence and whenever one of us has something tricky to do requiring special concentration, we can be sure that one of the others is going to be providing something to draw the beholder’s focus. I can’t think of the last time I was in a band with two jugglers. Maybe not since I was a teen.

“Afterwards, we enjoyed a drink together and showed each other pictures of our families and pets. Team building! Also, we got some mildly destabilizing news about our show in Vernon on Saturday. In the time it took us to perform, tear down, pack up, and repair to our accommodation, the Vernon date was cancelled and moved to a new location in Kelowna. Details about the reasons behind this were vague and second-hand; we only found out on MySpace. Apparently something to do with the Vernon venue drawing attention for being late with the renewal of the gaming license for their vintage one-arm bandit? Dunno.

“Anyway, by the time we found out about the problem, it seemed to have been solved, and this change of plans did nothing to affect our good spirits. If we’re successful in getting the word out about the change of locale, it could actually work in our favour, as the guitar player Byron has family there. Carlos blithely declared he had sold every hat in that box at a substantial markup! I drifted off to sleep positively on cloud nine and I only wish that the next two nights and the two weekends ahead could go on all winter. The drive today has so far been gorgeous but uneventful.

“Left behind: one trombone stand.”

November 18th, Nelson B.C.

“The honeymoon’s over. These punks are beginning to chafe me. In restaurants, the guitar player Byron Slack will tell waitstaff that you’re done with your meal if you excuse yourself to make a call or visit the can before you’re through. Whenever you tell him, ‘Byron, please don’t do that again.’ He answers, ‘Sorry, I thought you were done (laughs)!’ Like that, in a way that lets you know for sure he’s going to do it next time. If you know he’s going to do this, then why get up in the middle of a meal? Because I will not have my will or my nature submit to the likes of Byron Slack is why.

“Kristy Odette is a capable driver, if maybe a little too cautious, but she has all kinds of ‘rules’ for the van about where you can put things and what’s not allowed in or out or who gets out first and she gets to pick all the music, which is exclusively ambient-drone-glitch stuff. What she cheerfully calls Endurance Listening. Cory doesn’t say much, but sometimes he’ll smile just slightly with his gaze fixed at no particular point in the middle distance, as though experiencing a fond memory, and he won’t tell you what it was about. Maybe I’m overreacting but it makes me want to kill him.

“I will channel these frustrations into the show. Frustration and anxiety are the chief themes of the songs on Life Like. Perhaps by applying what I understand to be some of the techniques of the Stanislavsky System employed by method actors, I can deliver a performance of greater impact. Professionalism.

“We pulled up to the Royal in Nelson not too long after anticipated. The atmosphere was electric. Anticipation seeped from the storied cobblestones where Steve Martin and Fred Willard once sauntered arm-in-arm. Some urchins loitering outside the venue helped us carry our things inside and then hung around waiting for tips that were not forthcoming. I gave one of them the last hat from that box which Carlos didn’t sell because it had mustard on it. A teachable moment.

“Setup and soundcheck went quickly. When I first put this keyboard rig together, setup would take me the better part of an hour. I’m now down to just over 20 minutes. The job has been made quicker by different colours of metallic ink on the ends of cables. It is my aim to be able to pull it off in under 15 minutes blindfolded by the last show of this salvo in Powell River on December 3rd. I might not be able to do it. I still can’t feel the difference between the different colours of metallic ink.

“Schedules are tighter these days than they used to be and it wasn’t long after our soundcheck that the first opening band, Rad Dog, went on. They boasted two drum kits and their guitar player had just bought a guitar for 600 dollars that he was very pleased with, but did not use during their performance. They set up on the floor so the switchover to the next band, Hippiecritz, was swift. Both bands were excellent and did the important jobs of putting the crowd in a good mood, which only makes our job easier, and of giving us something to play up to, which makes our job harder, but in the good way.

“I went into the room behind the stage to stretch and vomit and found that John Wright had torn the room apart. He had upended the couch and bench and was on the floor looking for something with a penlight flashlight. It seems he had removed the filter from one of his new expensive earplugs to clean it and it had bounced away from him cheeping, ‘I’m free!’ Byron Slack came in and produced a more powerful light, one emanating from the computational device he carries with him everywhere. In the blink of an eye, he spotted the stray filter and triumphantly plucked it from the ground and deposited it in John’s hand. ‘Here it is (laughs)!’ He thinks he’s so smart. I can’t allow myself to forget that those long clever fingers of his could be just as easily be put to work to destroy as to create.

“Notwithstanding our personal difficulties, come showtime felt very much at home on stage and playing music with Byron and Kristy Hodet. Their coordinated steps are coming along well with only a few accidental tumbles. Is it my imagination or do they laugh just a little too much when they fall down together? That also bugs me. Not the falling, the laughing. This is not a humorous enterprise. It’s all take-no-prisoners with this show. Grim stuff.

“John Wright could have called this project Bobby Dad or something if he wanted everyone smiling like idiots, but he called it Dead Bob. To evoke a chill. We chilled the living stuffing out of that capacity crowd at the Royal in Nelson, and we were rewarded by being called back for not one but two encores. We were also rewarded with money. And also the chance to catch up with and stay with friends.

“We entered the catching up and staying stage of the evening after packing up and loading out into the crisp Kootenay night. You could see your breath. The changing seasons. A reminder of our mortality. The rest of the merchandise secured from Mayor Paddyduddy reduced what little space was left in the van driven by Kristy to a risible stage of nonexistence. The way John and Cory and I were packed in there for the drive to our lodgings you could have sent us over Niagara Falls in a barrel and we would have been fine. Snug. It’s late and I have to do some work on myself. The channeling of emotion I spoke of earlier. I can’t take these negative feelings to sleep with me. I don’t want to wake up to them tomorrow.

“Left behind: one blue collared shirt.”

November 19th, Kelowna B.C.

“I began the day determined to achieve a rapprochement with Byron and Kristy. So while our gracious hosts made coffee, I ran downtown and bought them diamond earrings. On the walk back, I wondered whether I should present them as soon as they come by to pick us up, or should I wait for a theatrical moment? If the purpose behind these gifts is a speedy restoration of harmony, then maybe the sooner the better. Or would I come off as needy? Weak? Obsequious? I fretted about these things and didn’t pay attention to where I was going and got lost.

“It took me an hour to find my way back to the house where we stayed, the home of my friends Laurie and Karl, that’s Karl with a K. Nobody seemed to have noticed that I’d been gone. The two vans had arrived and everybody was inside talking about school catchments and gymnastics and heat pumps and other things that I do not understand, and eating savory breakfast millet rolls. They left me half of one. Laurie and Karl seemed to have decided in my absence that they liked the other band members better than me, and even let Colin feed their fish.

“Once we hit the highway I became aware of a chill in the van. There were ugly instances like when Cory noted we were making good time, and a remark came from the front of the van that we’d better be after someone went running into town on a secret mission for an hour. I thought my absence had gone unobserved! For a sickening moment I thought of presenting the earrings right there and then, but I was worried about causing an accident. I watched Kristy’s hands tighten and loosen on the wheel for a while and wondered to myself for the first time in weeks why a man of my years still doesn’t have a living will.

Dead Bob ‘Life Like’ album artwork

“It’s hard to overstate the effect John Wright’s music has had on the people it’s touched. Doubtless there are children and grandchildren in the world because of the music he’s made. He knows this, and with that knowledge comes something like responsibility. Not responsibility for that life as such, but a commitment to continue to participate in its enrichment, and to never betray the impulse which quickened it. Heavy hangs the head or whatever. It’s just a punk band, this Dead Bob, you might say. It’s merely music. But there’s nothing mere about music. Music is the sound of our passage through time together towards an uncertain but common destination, just as surely as that Toyota van was carrying the four of us up the 33 towards a cidery by the Kelowna airport.

“We arrived at the cidery by the airport where we were playing to learn that the toilets had blown up. I’ve had some fun with the truth in this account, but this part is real. Despite clear skies, the parking lot was slick with moisture by the time we finished our soundcheck, and teeming with jean-vested men who shared a contented mien of being ¾ of a pound lighter than they had been before making their way out to YLW. While we watched a portable biffy being loaded off a forklift over by one of the unguarded entrances to the restaurant, Byron Slack piped up with a surprising amount of knowledge about securing their use, the impossibility of insuring them, how much they weighed, and their environmental impacts.

“Impressed, I reached into my pocket to get him some earrings, and felt the blood leave my head when my hand perceived my pocket to be quite empty. Of course. I had changed into my performance trousers already and the earrings must still be in the dungarees I was wearing when we left Nelson. I’d have to go and empty their pockets later. But not before catching another couple of raging sets from Hippiecritz and Rad Dog! Once again they really got the crowd going, and Carlos was even moved to leave his post in Colin’s care and go skating around the burnished concrete floor of the Upside Cidery on his lead foot with the assistance of some of my trombone slide grease. I’ve learned since witnessing this that he used to do this for money. Still, I’m not going to put any direct questions to him about it.

“We were set up on the burnished concrete floor of the dining hall which took up half of the Upside Cidery. This was a special treat for all the people who’d waited for so long to get to see John perform again to be right up close to him playing his drums. To be sharing close physical space with that unalloyed force.

“And once again, as with the last two nights, we ourselves were treated to an enthusiastic audience who had the Life Like record committed to memory and who sang along with every word. It’s inspirational to witness the effect of this music on the people to whom it means so much. That, in turn, amplifies our own relationship with the songs and wrests a more committed performance from us. We all agreed afterwards that we couldn’t have hoped for a better three inaugural audiences for our blooding as a functioning live unit. We look forward to returning.

“After tearing everything down and paying for all our chickens and cider, it was off to Byron’s cousin Hans’ place for late night chicken and cider and post-match breakdown. Laying plans for next weekend’s trip to Vancouver Island. The earrings are going to have to wait for tomorrow’s drive back, although I’m starting to consider their purchase to be extreme and desperate. Maybe I’ll take a bus to Nelson this week and try to return them. Early tour jitters? I haven’t done this in a while.”

Tour Dates:

11/25 – Nanaimo, BC @ Terminal Bar
11/26 – Victoria, BC @ Capital Ballroom
12/01 – Vancouver, BC @ The Pearl
12/02 – Roberts Creek, BC @ The Legion
12/03 – Powell River, BC @ The Carson Loft