INCORRECT THOUGHTS
THE SUBHUMANS
The Subhumans [© bev davies]
January 20, 1983, 9:00 a.m. PST
The cop has his knee pressed deep into Gerry Hannah’s back, pinning him against the asphalt. There’s a gun against his temple, and the thick taste of iron on his lips. Hannah runs his tongue through his mouth while a voice barks at him to get the fuck up. He’s missing a goddamn tooth, knocked out when the cop pulled him out of the truck during what he thought was a routine traffic stop. Only a few kilometres south of Squamish, Hannah had been heading north from Vancouver on the beautiful Sea-to-Sky highway, travelling with the Direct Action group he had fallen in with following his departure from the Subhumans in ’81. DA was wanted for the bombing of the Litton Industries plant in Toronto, the Cheekye-Dunsmuir B.C. Hydro substation, and three adult video stores in Vancouver. All five members were captured that day in a large-scale sting operation that had been in the planning stages for months, ending with a fake construction crew stopping the group en route to their daily training session and target practice in the B.C. forest. Before getting into an unmarked police car at the side of Highway 99, Hannah asks the cop if he can go find his tooth. The cop tells him that the tooth is the least of his worries.
The arrest and prosecution of Gerry “Useless” Hannah happened over two years after the release of the Subhuman’s seminal album Incorrect Thoughts and Hannah’s subsequent split from the group. While the rest of the band soldiered on, recruiting Ron Allen, hitting the road, and recording No Wishes, No Prayers for SST, they split before its release in 1983, only a few months after Hannah’s arrest. All of which is to say that Hannah’s involvement in domestic terrorism shouldn’t cast a violent pall over the Subhumans. But it does.
Hannah’s arrest galvanized the Vancouver punk scene in a way that still makes discussions about it uncomfortable. Concerned that the explosion of media interest in the story would make a fair trial impossible, bands like D.O.A. and the Subhumans staged benefits for the Squamish Five’s legal defence, referred to in activist circles as the Vancouver Five. In essence, they came out in support of a series of bombings that horrifically injured 10 innocent people in the name of Direct Action’s “propaganda of the deed,” a plan to incite a popular revolt against the evils of the state, weapons manufacturers, and pornographers.
The Litton Industries bombing — which Hannah did not directly participate in, but supported — split open the back of security guard Terry Chikowski by 14 inches, embedding half of a brick and several inches of sheet metal in him “like a shark’s fin.” It snapped four ribs off his spine and blew his diaphragm apart, sending four pounds of muscle flying off his back. It disintegrated his spleen and embedded fragments of glass in his heart, further fragments collapsing his left lung and kidney.
This was the action defended by the Subhumans’ former manager, David Spaner, in the pages of Maximumrocknroll. He wrote that “the Five recognize that social change — like rebel music — is not made by professionals or experts; it’s made by ordinary people taking control of their lives and acting against racism, sexism, nuclear weapons, authority, and the other terrors of everyday life.” It was the action tacitly supported by “Free the Five” concerts featuring bands like the Dead Kennedys. It was the action continually supported by Gerry Hannah, who wrote to Maximumrocknroll from prison that “It’s good to know that there are many people out there that genuinely care about our current situation and support us as political people engaged in resistance against the state.”
Hannah, who was planning to rob a Brink’s truck with stolen automatic weapons when he was arrested, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and served five. In the documentary about his release from prison, Useless, he is shown burning his parole card, along with the card for his parole officer, Bob Reading. “So long, Bob,” he says, while the crowd around him shouts, “Burn, Bob!” The viewer is not left with the impression that prison had much of an effect on Hannah.
“We pretty much came out totally supporting Gerry and the Vancouver Five,” says Brian Goble, the Subhumans’ vocalist. “I don’t think we gave it much thought, but there wasn’t anywhere else we could really throw our support.” In 2005, the Subhumans, with Gerry, reunited. And no one really likes to talk about the bombing, Direct Action, or prison.
“I made a decision when I got involved with punk rock,” says Hannah, who’s seated on the back patio of a Toronto bar with his bandmates. “I would not be playing punk rock when I was 26. I decided part of the idea was to usurp the dinosaurs that were still trying to play rock music. And by the time I was 26, I guess I wasn’t playing because the band had broken up. But somewhere along the line, my thinking changed.”
In 1977, the Skulls, Vancouver transplants trying to break into what they perceived to be a more promising punk scene in Toronto, were without an opening band. Their friend and makeshift roadie, Gerry “Useless” Hannah, had been trying his hand at writing punk songs, having only recently warmed to the genre. He used to sing in a very early, very jam-y version of the Skulls, alternatively billed as the Resurrection and the Icon, when the band lived in the British Columbia woods without electricity and were basically nothing but a bunch of dirty, long-haired hippies. The band had initially resisted the first warning shot from the worldwide punk cannon, tentatively working Ramones covers into a set that leaned heavily on ’70s arena rock.
“I wasn’t sure whether I liked that first Ramones record all that much at first ’cause it was so different from anything else I’d heard up to that point,” recalls Goble. “The Idiot by Iggy Pop was floating around, and a few Bowie numbers were kind of on the punk edge. It was a transition period for me.” The Skulls may have debuted with a Beatles cover at a logger’s wake in Cherryville, B.C., but they soon found themselves immersed in the new sounds of New York and London, a long way from home and with substantially shorter haircuts. And in need of an opening act.
The Skulls switched up their instruments and handed Hannah a bass, dubbing themselves Wimpy and the Bloated Cows. Fronted by Skulls’ bassist Brian “Wimpy Roy” Goble and featuring Ken “Dimwit” Montgomery on guitar and Joe Keithley behind the kit, the band was a joke, a fuck band in the classic Vancouver model, born of necessity and taken seriously by absolutely no one. It was an oddly prophetic joke project. According to Goble, they only ever played the one show in Toronto, and soon after, the Skulls split and splintered.
“Toronto?” he asks. “My perception was it was kind of arty. It had more roots, and it already had some established bands that were pretty big draws. The crowds didn’t feel all that welcoming to a bunch of west coasters. I mean, there were some nice people, but I don’t think we ever felt like we were that welcome there.” After the band’s failed Ontario experiment, Keithley and Goble spent some time in London, while the rest of the band headed home to Vancouver.
Back on the west coast, two bands formed, then fused like a filthy punk Voltron — the Stiffs, which featured Hannah and a promising guitarist named Mike Graham (plus two friends named Sid Sick and Zippy Pinhead), and the Subhumans, with Goble, Montgomery, and former Skulls guitarist Brad Kent, an influential force in the band’s social circle who had opted to stay in Vancouver during the group’s great eastern migration. It’s worth noting that Pinhead’s father was the head of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Christian Association. “So you can imagine how disappointed he was in his boy,” laughs D.O.A.’s Joe Keithley. “But that’s the way it goes, right?”
“We just said, ‘You should get rid of Zippy and Sid and come play with us,’” laughs Goble. Soon, Kent decamped to D.O.A. with Joe Keithley, and the first classic Subhumans lineup was born. It wasn’t long before the group had already fashioned a lean set of acerbic punk tunes, hitting the studio to record their first two songs, “Death to the Sickoids” and “Oh Canaduh.” The single remains a classic of the era, with the latter song regularly covered by acts ranging from Nomean
sno to Andrew W.K., and the former an untouchable piece of early punk perfection. The band managed to combine the coming onslaught of the first wave of hardcore with the melodic sensibility of new wave; their time in the arena rock trenches of Cherryville had given them a naturally epic tendency, balanced by a blackly humorous side that continued to shine through even their darkest political songs. Unlike many of their American hardcore peers, an ability to wink at the firing squad defined the Vancouver scene, and the Subhumans in particular.
“Even thought it’s hardcore music, it’s still funny,” says the Pointed Sticks’ Nick Jones. “I think that was something that we valued a lot in Vancouver. We weren’t doing this for the money, and we certainly weren’t doing it for the recognition. We were doing it because we wanted to have a good time. If you’re taking it that seriously, then it wasn’t really going to be worthwhile to us.”
Almost immediately, the Subhumans were at the top of Vancouver’s growing punk heap, forming a dangerous hardcore one-two punch with D.O.A. Soon, it was them, and the Pointed Sticks, who became the ambassadors of the west coast’s dedicated, aggressive, and varied new sound. The Subhumans’ first single was the ideal first strike, portending the invasion of west coast hardcore throughout North America with its streamlined sound and pseudo-political musing. There was also the undeniable appeal of drummer Ken Montgomery, whose massive size behind the kit translated to massive sounds on tape. But that doesn’t mean the band thought they were any good.
“It was a pretty unsatisfactory recording session,” says Goble. “We were totally green at that point, didn’t know anything about studio stuff at all. I remember wasting a lot of time on stupid details. I had a terrible vocal performance and, I don’t know, the whole thing sounds like it was played under a blanket.” It’s the second time I’ve talked to Goble. This time, he’s on the phone in his car, pulled over on Main Street in Vancouver while trying to avoid rush hour traffic. I chalk up his general dismissal of numerous Subhumans classics to context.
“The Subhumans had a whole different sound and style,” says the Modernettes’ John Armstrong. “I think it was because they were left alone. There was no music industry here. It was really only about Trooper and Prism, bands that came out of the club circuit and were aiming at top 40 success. Satin pants, poofy hair. That was the only music industry there was.”
Which is not to say that Vancouver musicians were without ambition. Despite a dedicated fanbase inside the city’s growing punk community, Montgomery quit soon after the band’s first recording to join the Pointed Sticks. Goble maintains that Montgomery may have been the most career-minded of the group, and he saw the poppier sound of the Sticks as a more likely route to a future as a professional drummer. All in spite of the slightly odd coupling of the hulking Montgomery with the teen idol Sticks.
“I don’t think he really fit in well with the Pointed Sticks,” says Goble. “They’re kind of like an English, gentlemanly pop band, and then you’ve got this big gorilla-like figure in the back that plays thundering drums.” The band didn’t want for long, however, when Koichi Imagawa, better known locally as Jim, stepped in to fill the gorilla’s big shoes. Looking to produce a new recording to show off their still-developing sound, the band hooked up with Quintessence Records and Bob Rock at Little Mountain Sound, a pairing that had started with the Modernettes and Young Canadians.
With each member of the band developing a distinct voice as a songwriter, the band’s eponymous 1979 12" benefitted from equal input from Hannah, Goble, and Graham. It boasts one of the band’s defining anthems, “Fuck You,” alongside the tongue-in-cheek skewering of macho sexism with “Slave to My Dick,” and the dark, raging finger-pointing of “Death Was Too Kind.” Even more so than with their first single, the Subhumans now embodied the emerging sound of west coast hardcore, ahead of their time and cited as a major influence throughout the ’80s accordingly. No Canadian punk mix tape is complete without “Fuck You,” its distilled anger and agro-as-fuck minor chord changes still stirring up adolescent angst decades after its release. It was broad-based teenage finger-raising of the kind later popularized by bands like Rage Against the Machine and rappers like Eminem, but grimmer, and, in some ways, even more potent.
Even years removed from its production, Goble admits that he’s still happy with how the recording sounds. With a satisfactory batch of songs and the support of the city’s lone punk label, the Subhumans followed their peers D.O.A. out into the North American touring void, becoming one of the first Canadian punk bands to travel across the country and down into the United States. Like many Vancouver bands, the Subhumans felt an immediate kinship with the city of San Francisco, exemplified by their continued relationship with Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles label, which has released all the band’s post-reunion material.
“It was obviously a lot of fun, y’know?” says Goble of the band’s experience in California. “I liked the environment. San Francisco seemed like a really cool place, a little more mature than Vancouver. Better pinball machines. And you could walk into any store and get beer.”
At some point in their cross-continental adventures, the band found themselves re-recording the fan favourite “Fuck You,” a song with, unsurprisingly, several crucial, emphatic swears in its chorus. Problematically, the band was working in a Christian recording studio.
“When they were recording the vocals, someone else in the band would just yell something every time they said fuck,” laughs John Armstrong, who spent a few weeks on the road with the band during the Modernettes’ heyday. “By the time mixing happened, it was pretty chaotic.”
Before long, the band had amassed enough songs and fans to justify a full-length, still a rare high water mark for many first-wave punk bands. On the strength of their first two releases, the Subhumans had already cemented a place in the annals of hardcore history. But it was in 1980 with the release of Incorrect Thoughts that they became true punk legends, a band with an album capable of going toe to toe with any other record of the era. It was one of the strongest debuts of the decade, from a punk band or otherwise. Incorrect Thoughts, from the anthemic call to arms of opener “The Scheme” through to the sludgy sarcasm of the last song, “Let’s Go Down to Hollywood (And Shoot People),” put all the Subhumans’ power into nearly 45 minutes of music.
Mixing a handful of previously released songs with a brand new selection of high-octane anthems-in-waiting, the band continued to hone in on a blend of hardcore’s newfound thrash and the stark melodies of peers like the Pointed Sticks. Unlike D.O.A., whom the band was often compared to, the Subhumans crafted wide-open songs, leaving room for Graham’s distinct riffs and Imagawa’s inventive style of drumming. The band fit in with the burgeoning west coast hardcore movement, but still possessed the ability to craft slower, more nuanced songs like “Firing Squad,” a tune with more Replacements than Flipper in its DNA. If Keithley and co. were a hammer to the head, the Subhumans and Incorrect Thoughts were the the sonic equivalent of Trotsky’s icepick.
The album’s influence, despite legal complications that have kept it out of print for decades, is measurable, even if the band themselves don’t seem to feel strongly about it.
“All I remember is being satisfied with it,” says Goble. “It was just something we could use for promotions. I don’t think anybody thought there was magic to it or that we’d created a masterpiece.”
At the time of the album’s release, Hannah said in a radio interview, “I wouldn’t buy it.”
The band’s disaffection was real. It was what gave their songs bite, but also what began to hold them back. A live review in the Edmonton Journal praised their “short, loud, and frenetic” songs, focusing on their tight performance and overall musicality. At the same time, the reviewer calls Goble “dispirited” and, with retrospective irony, seems to doubt the Subhumans’ punk bona fides. Journal critic Alan Kellogg continues,“The supposed anger came off as silly, and you
get the impression that the Subhumans’ mums sew the rips into the t-shirts in cozy little bungalows in Burnaby or North Van. I wonder if this rather comfortable nation will ever produce a convincing punk band. The form just seems, well, un-Canadian.”
A few months later, Goble himself would refer to the band as “lazy as shit” in an interview with the University of British Columbia student paper, Ubyssey. They toured, but as much out of necessity and practice as anything else.
“We did this one really long tour, six weeks, before Gerry quit for the first time,” says Goble. “There were a couple of stops, like New York, that were pretty interesting. Other than that, it’s just the fatigue and the grueling nature of travel, and that never appealed to certain members of the Subhumans. After more than two months on the road I’d get kind of weird. I don’t know how people do it for six months or a year.” So in 1981, both Hannah and Imagawa left the Subhumans. Incorrect Thoughts, despite its great legacy, wasn’t putting gas in the tank, and the Subhumans remained on the tip of hardcore’s iceberg, unable to grasp the huge, dedicated audience headed toward the genre in the mid-’80s.
While the Subhumans would go on to record No Wishes, No Prayers for SST Records in 1983, the fire in Goble’s belly was gone. Despite joining the ranks of bands like Black Flag, Minutemen, and Meat Puppets with No Wishes, the band was already broken up by the time of the album’s proper release. In essence, the Subhumans without Hannah were never really destined to be the Subhumans.
“I think he was kind of dissatisfied that punk was never more than entertainment,” says Goble. “It was when he discovered that there was no real radicalism taking place, then he had no interest. He wanted to be involved with people who were more serious.”
PERFECT YOUTH: The Birth of Canadian Punk Page 28