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The Chi way or the highway

SNFU show a celebration of belligerence By Shelley Arnusch Who: SNFU with Moneen, Full Blast & The Antithesis Where: Garfinkel’s When: March 31 Tickets: $10-$15 "As long as I’m still alive, there’s going to be an SNFU show som
mr_chi_pig
Mr. Chi Pig

SNFU show a celebration of belligerence

By Shelley Arnusch

Who: SNFU with Moneen, Full Blast & The Antithesis

Where: Garfinkel’s

When: March 31

Tickets: $10-$15

"As long as I’m still alive, there’s going to be an SNFU show somewhere."

— Mr. Chi Pig quoted in Pique Newsmagazine, Jan. 16, 2004.

Earlier this week CBC.ca pop culture columnist Dan Brown posed the question "When does a band stop being a band?" in regards to the upcoming release of new material by British supergroup The Who.

Or, he argues, The Who-half. With legendary drummer Keith Moon "The Loon" and bass player John Entwistle both long gone from the world stage for "the great rock ’n’ roll hall of fame in the sky," just who are The Who anyway?

No one is dead, but in a sense, the question applies to iconic Canadian punk band SNFU, set to headline a high-octane show of punk-metal craziness at Garfinkel’s this Wednesday night.

Who, exactly are SNFU?

Go to the bio page on the official SNFU Web site and there’s a mockingly long list, 17 names strong, of former members with lineups numbered "Mach 1" to "Mach 10."

That’s not including the present lineup touring on account of full-length album No. 9 In The Meantime And In Between Time . SNFU Mach 11, let’s call them.

Longtime fans of the band probably just finished counting, confirming yes, there are indeed seven words in the title, a quirk the band has maintained since recording 1985’s debut And No One Else Wanted To Play .

"I don’t even know if there’d be enough excuses to not have a seven word title," says guitar player and original band member Marc Belke.

Aside from Belke and the seven-word album titles, there is one more constant throughout the band’s tumultuous 22-year on-again-off-again history: the enigmatic frontman two generations of raw skate punk fans know only by the creepy anthropomorphic moniker Mr. Chi Pig.

"When you have had as many lineup changes as we’ve had, I think we’ve had at least 10 different lineup changes, it’s pretty ridiculous," muses Belke. "But I sort of think, in regards to Chi, he’s such a unique performer and his presence is so unique, he’s the one key component to SNFU. If he wasn’t in the band it really wouldn’t be SNFU."

It’s rare to find a guitar player who actually supports frontman syndrome – the bane of both real and fictional bands – but in Belke’s case, it’s completely understandable. Part evil leprechaun, part Ninja, part pit viper, Chi’s always been the most intriguing figure in punk rock, exerting a cult-like hold over his legions of fascinated fans with each sinister cock of the head.

While SNFU’s punk rock contemporaries are running for public office, ranting spoken word at soft-seat theatres or releasing greatest hits compilations, Belke and Chi decided they still had another original album in them. Five years in the making, the process was drawn out by long distance relationships, re-masterings and the high-standards of the duo who felt that if they were going to do this, they were going to do it right.

Belke calls the result a "fun record."

"Lyrically, if you try to take it seriously or if you try to take Chi seriously, you can’t figure it out, you’ll be like ‘what the f*** is this?’ But if you look at it as just a fun record, it’s amazing.

"For me the incentive was just to do another SNFU record and work with Chi," he continues. "I respect him on an artistic level and I still think there’s no one out there, in the whole world of punk or rock or anything, there’s no one like Chi. He’s totally unique. The things he writes about and thinks about are totally unique. And he’s sort of an embodiment of doing something different and not being the norm, which is what punk rock intentionally was – trying to be something different.

"Chi is the real thing. The total embodiment of sticking to your guns and just doing whatever you want regardless of what people think. That’s totally what he’s about. And if I can be a part of that, that’s sort of what SNFU represents. It’s doing your own thing."

Belke has to admit that doing their own thing hasn’t always led to the smartest business decisions for the band. They hopped around from label to label, scoring with an Epitaph contract as the 1980s turned into the 1990s, but rebelling against what they felt were pressures to sound like an "Epitaph band" while they were signed. They’ve gone through more managers than Elizabeth Taylor has gone through husbands, and made the chronic mistake of undertaking ambitious tours before they had given new releases a chance to register with their fan base.

Regrets, they’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.

"SNFU has probably done everything wrong that we could do," says Belke dryly, "but SNFU’s totally belligerent. There’s some regrets for sure, but generally no. SNFU’s always just done what we wanted to do. We never really asked for a lot of advice from people. We just did what we want.

"So looking back, even on the things that I regret, everything was our own call."

That, my friends, is SNFU.

SNFU this way comes on Wednesday, March 31. Joining the band at Garfinkel’s will be Ontario punk rockers Moneen, along with Full Blast and local boys The Antithesis. Advance tickets are $10, available from The Circle and the Electric Daisy Internet Cafe, $15 at the door.

For more information go to www.mountainpromotions.net.