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Day Glo still offensive after all these years

Who: Dayglo Abortions When: Sunday, Dec.

Who: Dayglo Abortions

When: Sunday, Dec. 18

Where: Boot Pub

With albums entitled Two Dogs Fucking, Feed Us A Fetus and the latest album, Holy Shiite!, only two things should come to mind: thought one, you know you can’t take the band’s music too seriously and two, you know we can only be talking about Canada’s most offensive punk metal band of 27 years, Dayglo Abortions – the only punk/metal band to be dragged all the way to the Supreme Court for obscenity and then made an album about it.

"I never found it shocking," said Jesus Bonehead of Dayglo Abortions.

With lyrics from the hit I Killed Mommy, "My daddy was a bitch, screwed around with my dog and cat, my mommy satisfied her thirst with a bag of urine," you might question Bonehead’s sanity.

However, although excessive and repulsive, Bonehead still upholds his music is reflecting reality.

"These are the day to day things that go on in our lives," he said. "People read too much between the lines. They dedicated section 162.3 of the Criminal Code to us. They don’t see the tongue and cheek of our music. If you know us, it is not that shocking. It’s just the way we talk and think. Doesn’t anybody else’s shit stink? I can’t believe anyone would take our music that seriously."

With parent killing, rape, masturbation and of course recreational drugs on the Dayglo Abortion music list, the band’s upcoming show, Sunday, Dec. 18 at the Boot Pub is definitely not for the faint of heart.

While rebellious, Dayglo Abortion members aren’t young punks, with founding members Bonehead and The Cretin (otherwise referred to as a hand gesture) cresting their mid 40s. They just keep going, and going and going, not by choice, but out of demand.

"We thought Holy Shiite! would be the last one," Bonehead said. "Sometimes you’ve got to put the baby to bed, but everywhere we go, they don’t want us to end and they say we can’t give up. I guess we are not. We just flew out to Montreal with the Misfits last weekend."

Things are slowing down to a dull roar, with Bonehead busy in his record store in Victoria, Gymbo with his skatepark Shred Central in Toronto and The Cretin with his music. No more 40-city tours running on four hours of sleep a week. However, Dayglo is heading out on its fourth Australian tour in five years.

"This is big tour 58 or 59. I can’t remember," Bonehead said.

No assumptions can be made about the band that has turned out eight full-length albums and one greatest hits album over the past 27 years. Talking on the phone Bonehead, a.k.a. Brian Whitehead, was an extremely likeable and laidback gent who spoke intelligently with good humour – and he even plays golf!

Bonehead always looks forward to a Whistler show. He shared fond memories of Dayglo’s first Whistler performance at an A-frame house on Alta Lake. He said shooting through two 10 lb. boxes of russet potatoes with potato guns and RCMP and BC Hydro cutting the power lines at 4 a.m. were show highlights.

It was no wonder it took the band so long to get into a club. However, tall tales from Alta Lake weren’t to blame; instead it was the infamous hotel trashing yarn spun around town even today.

"The story went that we played a bar and desecrated a hotel room," Bonehead said. "The story running around Whistler is that we were mad defecators. We could never get a show there because of it. The first show ever (in a nightclub) was at Tommy Africa’s, which was like something right out of Gilligan’s Island."

The band has since worked its way into the Boot Pub on a number of occasions and there is a photo of Bonehead in the hotel to prove it – although the picture credits Bonehead to the wrong band, he says it is him.

"Every time I go there, I take little pieces of paper and put it on the picture, but no one ever changes it," he said, laughing. "We hope to see Johnny Thrash and all of our favourite Whistler characters out. Hopefully everyone is going to come out for a good time and hopefully none of us are going to do anything stupid or have heart attacks on stage. What I expect from Whistler is a full house or as much as they can before they have to deal with this Christmas crap. This is our Christmas party for everybody."

Alcoholic White Trash and local favourites Crepitus will join Dayglo Abortions for the regular Sunday night Punk Night.