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Old punks never die; they just do spoken word

Joey Keithley is still trying to change the world By Shelley Arnusch Who: Joey Keithley/D.O.A. with the Antithesis What: The Punk Night Where: Boot Pub When: Sunday, Jan. 25.
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Joey Keithley is still trying to change the world

By Shelley Arnusch

Who: Joey Keithley/D.O.A. with the Antithesis

What: The Punk Night

Where: Boot Pub

When: Sunday, Jan. 25.

Tickets: $10 - $12

Was disco really all that bad?

Let's be glad that it apparently was because it spawned a helluva lot of good music. With the rally cry of "Disco Sucks!" bands anted up to show the world a grittier, more honest, more socially-conscious way to rock.

They sprung up like poisonous mushrooms on a manicured lawn.

Then some of them burned out. Some of them faded away. But a few, like Vancouver's D.O.A., are still around.

So what do old punks who still care do? Well they play the odd show, or join the odd reunion tour, but if they're smart, they realize their years have left them with a wealth of experience, stories and a unique perspective on social issues and they pick up the pen.

Consummate performers, however, they usually end up back onstage presenting spoken word. Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins fills high culture auditoriums. Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra hits university campuses with his political diatribes. And Vancouver's own D.O.A. frontman Joey Keithley has carved out a sort of Beat-on-the-brat-poetry niche for himself. He's only becoming more prolific with the release of his first book, I, Shithead named after his well-worn punk moniker, on Vancouver's Arsenal Pulp Press. The book was released last October in Canada and is slated for U.S. release this spring.

The book is a brutally honest account of Keithley's life in punk rock. From the early days playing for beer at biker rallies through the protests of the Reagan era, the rise and decline of the Seattle scene, marriage, kids, politics, band politics and rock, rock, rock.

Keithley cleans up fairly well, but he'll never be the polished, smooth talking motivational-speaker type, even though now he gets to add "author" to a title cache that includes everything from "smelly punk" to "political activist," to "troublemaker."

He is also, proudly, still a musician. Along with the current incarnation of D.O.A. - The Great Baldini on Drums and Damned Dan Yaremko on bass - Keithley will be taking over The Punk Night this Sunday at the Boot Pub for a set that dips into decades of D.O.A. material. Whistler locals The Antithesis will play an opening set. At 9 p.m. the evening will kick off with Keithley's spoken word session which will include readings from I, Shithead.

But in the punk-rock spirit of jumping the gun, Pique caught up with Keithley at his Sudden Death Records headquarters in Vancouver.

Pique : The book's brutally honest. When you choose to be that honest you can't help inspiring strong opinions. Have you gotten much feedback from people who are in the book?

Joey Keithley: Actually, not much. I've sent the book to most of the guys who have been in D.O.A. except for one, Biscuits, the original drummer. He's moved and I can't find him. But I haven't talked to everybody about it.

All the guys in there were pretty good guys because that was a prerequisite to being in D.O.A., you had to have some sort of a conscience about what was going on in the world.

Pique : A lot of the stuff that happened was pretty beer-soaked. What was the process of remembering like?

JK: "It wasn't too hard. I had lots of notes and stuff like that. Randy Rampage, the original bass player, was back in D.O.A. for about one year in 2001. We recounted a lot of those stories and he had an amazing memory. Better than mine. So he helped a lot.

We just tried to pick out significant ones like the Rock Against Reagan concert or the big police bust at the Smilin' Buddha.

The book essentially grew out of my telling stories in the van - some people not having heard them before and some people having heard them 20 times before. It's like "oh god, here he goes again, give him one beer and it's like the punk rock Legion."

I had an old soundman who encouraged me to get into the spoken word thing. Once that was going along I started thinking about putting these stories into a book. So I've been thinking about this off and on for the last three or four years.

Pique : It's funny when you talk about people getting sick of your stories. You've got kids, so are your stories about pissing on stage the equivalent of other dads saying they had to walk 20 miles uphill to school and back?

JK: Yeah, I don't really get into that. It would be like, "let me tell you about that time I stole 500 beers, and they'd be like, "there were 400 the last time you told that."

Pique : You're considered a punk trailblazer. But now you, Jello, Henry and others have to blaze the trail for punk's elder statesmen. You're still blazing.

JK: Yeah, "old punks never die, they just do spoken word." Or "old punks never die, they just stand at the back."

Jello and Henry are both really good when they get up to do spoken word shows, albeit their trip is quite different. Biafra is more political, as he always has been, but Henry makes lots of really valid social commentary that makes people think.

With D.O.A. we just go out and play our best. But most punk bands are in their twenties not in their forties, so the spoken word is another avenue you can put out what you think about the world, which the bands in their day did, and in D.O.A.'s case we still do because we're still going. I think we're probably the oldest living punk band still going. The spoken word stuff is just kind of an extension of that.

When I get up and do spoken word I talk about what's going on today too and relate a lot of these stories and put my two bits on modern politics. It's a natural evolution, I think.

Just going out there and being part of the arts, being part of the social fabric of this country and trying to stir things up and kick the establishment in the groin, that'll keep going until I'm dead or they kill me, one or the other.

Pique : Do you think the kids getting into punk these days have a parallel attitude to when you were getting into punk?

JK: A lot of them understand what punk stands for, the Do-It-Yourself ethic, be your own boss, think for yourself type thing, be something positive in society. They understand it. Maybe the drunk punks don't understand it - the kids that only understand the bands on the Warped Tour. I'm not saying all of them don't, I'm just sayin' a lot of them don't. They just go because it's the current sound and fashion. Punk rock's pretty big business these days compared to when I was a kid, that's for sure.

Pique: Has punk become too judgmental?

JK: Certain sectors will pass judgment on anybody. Back in the day, punk was a big mix of people: bikers, greasers, punks, hippies, rasta-men, it was a big mixed bag of people who went to shows.

Pique: United by anarchy?

JK: United by boredom. Boredom and anarchy. Two great uniting factors. When punk started there was f***-all going on musically. It was one of the worst eras in rock music history.

Punk keeps going because it's united by this built-in rebellious aspect. That's one reason it keeps going and keeps growing, and why it's a wonderful marketing tool for record companies. Pre-fab anarchy.

Pique : Johnny Rotten has agreed to go on a UK reality TV show and he's getting slagged for being a sellout. Should we leave Rotten alone?

JK: It would be funny. He's really funny and witty. I saw him on Bill Maher before Bill Maher got canned. There was this Republican apologist on there and Rotten got up and tore strip after strip off her philosophical foibles. I thought he was very bright and very on the ball. I hadn't seen him on TV in eons. I thought he was great. It's too bad he's being billed as a washed-up guy because he's done a lot of great things.

Keithley goes on to say that one of his booksellers informed him that his elementary school teacher, who would likely be in her seventies - came in to buy a copy of I, Shithead recently. He also will be presenting a seminar on creative writing to high school teachers at a professional development day.

"Lucky for the teachers there will be two other choices should they not enjoy my ramblings," says Keithley with the true punk mix of pride and self-deprecation.

But attitude aside, does this mean he has won? Has punk rock infiltrated the establishment on its own terms and started to make a difference?

"Yeah," he semi-agrees. "But there's always something more to do. I started out in this world thinking I wanted to try and change it for the better and do something good with my time in this world. I've gotten part of the way there but not the whole way. There's still a ways to go as far as I'm concerned."

Catch Joey Keithley's spoken word performance at 9 p.m. at The Punk Night at the Boot Pub this Sunday, followed by Whistler's The Antithesis and D.O.A. Tickets $10 in advance from The Electric Daisy Internet Cafe and Blueballs Boutique, $12 at the door. Call 604-932-3338 for information.