Hello, Everyone . . .

[william.scherk]

Via Youtube, a highlight from the upcoming documentary film Bloodied But Unbowed. This highlight clip is me in the flesh nowadays talking about sex and status and community and a wave of nostalgia.

William.Scherk, me, was once Bill Shirt, frontman for a couple of Vancouver bands. In the promo clip you can see some vintage footage of the callow youth cavorting on stage and singing the 1979 anthem "Nothing Holding You."

Strange to have the old days return in Vancouver. We were once 300 brave villagers battling the swampy, shitty music landscape of the time, banding together for mutual protection and plentiful libations.

Those days are gone, but for better or worse, Vancouver's punk-era nostalgia boom continues unabated.

The film premieres at DOXA festival on May 13. I am so excited. I am wearing my new pink sombrero (only those who know me on Facebook will get the in-joke).

I post this here so OLers who have only seen my snarkouts here can snark right back.

___________

[dan2100]

And what people think of Nomi back then in your area?

[George H. Smith]

Ah, yes -- those nostalgic three-to-seven weeks in our lives. 8-)

(People will have to watch Bill's video clip to know what I'm taking about.)

Ghs

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dayaamm!

Back when I was a record producer, we used to have a running joke. If there was someone hanging around you couldn't figure out, scratch him and underneath you will find a frustrated musician, most often a frustrated singer.

Good luck with the documentary, William.

Michael

[william.scherk]

Dan Ust asks about Klaus Nomi's popularity way back then (the magic years were 1977-1980). I asked my old art-rock buddy from the day and he reminded me that some of the seminal groups here like U-J3Rk5 were basicly on drip line from Nomi's veins by way of their schooling at the avant-garde college of the era. Remember, we were a village of 300, protecting each other from those who would do violence to us, so if only 100 might go see a Nomi show, all 300 would conceivably back up their friends in their freakshow art bands.

George, thank you for the notice. Of course, everyone on camera showboats a bit in this docco, and I am no exception, but my acting training helps me fake spontaneity and my years battling Objectivish ick has sharpened my ability to cut to the chase.

Michael, odd that you should take the fourth quadrant in the chi-square and end up with a Type One error right off the bat.

That said, I understand what you are getting at, that a certain bundle of traits observed will later supply the aha! when you see this person associated with a certain avocation. And of course, frustration is a hallmark of humanity. A frustrated musician is one who either hates him his band, audience, talents, gift, training, orchestra, public, record company or hates him some gruesome combination of them all.

Me, I was a lucky outlier. I did and do love almost all of those things. Moreover, I am this kind of musician: a singer who never has used a keyboard or fretboard or sequencer, and yet managed to write lyrics, melodies and arrangements and have them performed to the expectations of my mind's ear, by the excellent partners who are my friends -- talented songwriters themselves. If that is frustration, then yes, I was and am mightily frustrated. As my bio shows here on OL, it has been a while, but it is like riding a bike as I plot our comebacks.

I am also pleased to announce my first video-art installation in January of 2011, with a whole floor of my interpretation of the theme presented upstairs by local installation genius Mad Dog. I am also resurrecting my old sideline of charcoal / french pastel drawings on T-shirts. Grrr, more frustration.

To top off this litany of gritted teeth and promise deferred, I post the first in my series of Youtube commentary titled "Bill's Morning Makeup Tips."

Those like George who have worked to appear composed and coherent on television can understand that it took me a long time to be able to be Bill Scherk on TV with the relatively same blithe nastiness that William Scott Scherk has exhibited on the internet.

Edited April 20, 2010 by william.scherk

[Philip Coates]

Bill, I got a good chuckle out of your makeup tips. Enjoyed the video, but hope you didn't have to bankrupt yourself by overspending on all those cosmetic products (not to mention the staging and lighting effects--plus the hair): Being beautiful can be expensive.

Edited April 20, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

Those are good things to be frustrated about (it's always good to be concerned about your own talent and accompanying issues), but in my experience, they are not fundamental to the singer's attitude (at least the frustrated ones I knew).

The frustrated ones I knew were wound up because they weren't God.

Or at least really, really, really, really, really, really, really, rich and famous.

They managed to get the rock-star pose right, but they didn't have the adulation that backs it up. So every time that became obvious, it would tear at their guts inside. Just tear them up...

And I say that because due to some quirk of nature, I love singers even when I shouldn't. I really do...

Michael

[Rich Engle]

Heh...

That era was indeed peak (or full of peaking, depending on what drugs you could get). We were based in Cleveland, which had, all-in-all, a great scene. Actually, several scenes. There, being larger, things had squared off into different camps, which caused club owners a great deal of confusion. A lot of characters emerged (Harvy Pekar comes to mind). Great punk (and later, post-punk) bands, like The Adults. But the Old Guard was there, people like Michael Stanley (even The Raspberries were still holding on). And you gigged in Akron, too, so it could be rough if you rolled in the day after a Devo, Tin Huey, or Pretenders show. We kept trying to get to NYC, but only got as far as Pittsburgh, a place called The Electric Banana, and getting blown off the stage by The F-Models. Paper wads, paper airplanes, and occasional gobbing.

My two groups then were Strange New Flesh, and later, Hazard Profile. These were noisy, experimental, complex instrumental bands. SNF, because of the name, kept getting booked with punk acts, and that was a problem, but a gig is a gig (you gotta play, you gotta make that thirty bucks). So we just adapted with costuming. The Lakefront was downtown, a hard-drinking former sailor's bar that was next door to Flex bathhouse (slappy cat-fights would spill into the club). I remember wearing a leopard skin bodysuit, and playing guitar with a monkey wrench. Stuff like that. Once we stole a bunch of surgery clothes from the cardiac surgery unit at Fairview hospital--we thought it would be cool for Ozzie Hatcher, our giant, talented, bezoik-Nigra sax player, to wear the plastic dome hood thing, but it fogged up on him during the first song.

We fought back by booking our own shows. We brought in heavy avante-garde acts to play with, like Fred Frith (Henry Cow), Eugene Chadbourne (Shockabilly)--that worked out pretty good.

I think one of the proud yet humiliating moments had to do with the making of the film Light of Day (Joan Jett/Michael J. Fox). A good deal of filming was done at the notorious Euclid Tavern, where we played a LOT (yay, free beer always, the good old days). They had cattle call auditions for bands, and a bunch of 15-16 year old kids (ALL either students of me, or my drummer) got the gig. They got their 15 minutes of fame (if you've ever seen that flick, there's a scene where they're playing the Tavern--a crappy little group called The Penguins).

I miss the era, but am also grateful to have survived it.

Loved the viddies, good luck with the documentary. There's another kind of doc being filmed right around you that I'm heavily involved in, it's about this guy that...oops, sorry, no can mention. Verboten.

rde

Edited April 20, 2010 by Rich Engle

[dan2100]

Dan Ust asks about Klaus Nomi's popularity way back then (the magic years were 1977-1980). I asked my old art-rock buddy from the day and he reminded me that some of the seminal groups here like U-J3Rk5 were basicly on drip line from Nomi's veins by way of their schooling at the avant-garde college of the era. Remember, we were a village of 300, protecting each other from those who would do violence to us, so if only 100 might go see a Nomi show, all 300 would conceivably back up their friends in their freakshow art bands.

Thanks. I asked some of my friends about Nomi and no one else seems to know of him -- even ones I thought were knowledgeable about that period.

[william.scherk]

Dan Ust asks about Klaus Nomi's popularity way back then (the magic years were 1977-1980). I asked my old art-rock buddy from the day and he reminded me that some of the seminal groups here like U-J3Rk5 were basicly on drip line from Nomi's veins . . .

Thanks. I asked some of my friends about Nomi and no one else seems to know of him -- even ones I thought were knowledgeable about that period.

Funny. Well, some folks don't know their own bloodlines, let alone the creative genealogy of art/music. Frank spawned Elvis spawned Beatles spawned Nirvana spawned Lady Gaga. That is all some people need to know.

Phil Coates -- feel free to ask questions of the Make-up Man. He may include your letter in one of his weekly shows.

Edited April 21, 2010 by william.scherk

[Newberry]

To top off this litany of gritted teeth and promise deferred, I post the first in my series of Youtube commentary titled "Bill's Morning Makeup Tips."

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=1fxLmZmUosE

Creepy.

[Rich Engle]

One nice thing about Bill's makeup tips is that you're ready to spend all day performing bank robberies and/or terrorist acts before gig time starts. It's so nice when you can dress the same for both of your jobs!

rde

Dress For Success, use that soft lens attachment.

[william.scherk]

One nice thing about Bill's makeup tips is that you're ready to spend all day performing bank robberies and/or terrorist acts before gig time starts. It's so nice when you can dress the same for both of your jobs!

Our own homegrown radical in Vancouver said the same thing, Rick, mentioning the Black Bloc, the tiresome and stupid provocateurs who meet up at large events to sand the gears and lob cocktails.

If Princess Newberry feels icky looking at the lighthearted side of Scherk, he will feel very icky indeed if he looks at my pastels . . .

Edited April 24, 2010 by william.scherk

[Rich Engle]

If Princess Newberry feels icky looking at the lighthearted side of Scherk, he will feel very icky indeed if he looks at my pastels . . .

It was indeed not only funny, but a bit creepy, and that's what I was counting on. After years as a punk frontman, what was left to do? More eyeliner? Something painful involving safety pins? The classic preemptory strike of we aging, male pattern baldness challenged males (the head shave)?

You did what had to be done, man. Hold your Lone Ranger-masked head high.

rde

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I thought he was dressing up for a bank robbery or something...

Michael

[Rich Engle]

I thought he was dressing up for a bank robbery or something...

...MAY-bee.... Shhhh!

[George H. Smith]

George, thank you for the notice. Of course, everyone on camera showboats a bit in this docco, and I am no exception, but my acting training helps me fake spontaneity and my years battling Objectivish ick has sharpened my ability to cut to the chase.

I admire good one-liners, and your "three to seven weeks" line is brilliant, one of the best I've heard in a long time.

Not "a few weeks," not "a couple months" -- these would not have worked nearly as well -- but "three to seven weeks." Perfect.

Ghs

[Rich Engle]

Agree.

I think he's a damn fine writer, Ghs. He's got The Gift<tm>.

Pretty sure he can complete sentences, do fart jokes, everything.

Edited April 24, 2010 by Rich Engle

[william.scherk]

If Princess Newberry feels icky looking at the lighthearted side of Scherk, he will feel very icky indeed if he looks at my pastels . . .

It was indeed not only funny, but a bit creepy, and that's what I was counting on. After years as a punk frontman, what was left to do? More eyeliner? Something painful involving safety pins? The classic preemptory strike of we aging, male pattern baldness challenged males (the head shave)?

\

For the princesses among us, esthetic injuries are as painful as whiplash or a blow to the temple. I wonder what Princess Newberry would do if she found this pea under her mattress:

[Brant Gaede]

I certainly think people should be appreciated for what they are and not chastised for what they are not, which I forgot in William's case elsewhere.

--Brant

[Rich Engle]

Now, girls, girls...let's not get into a fight when we're at the beauty parlor.

[Jonathan]

If Princess Newberry feels icky looking at the lighthearted side of Scherk, he will feel very icky indeed if he looks at my pastels . . .

It was indeed not only funny, but a bit creepy, and that's what I was counting on. After years as a punk frontman, what was left to do? More eyeliner? Something painful involving safety pins? The classic preemptory strike of we aging, male pattern baldness challenged males (the head shave)?

\

For the princesses among us, esthetic injuries are as painful as whiplash or a blow to the temple. I wonder what Princess Newberry would do if she found this pea under her mattress:

I think the double pink wig clip presents what the Principessa, and Objectivism's other guru-wannabes, would call a proper Objectively Romantic sense of life. In style, it "value-swoons" with a good mix of happiness and weepiness. It would have been even better if it were a bit more corny, but, technically, it's Objectively Romantically sufficient as is.

("Whee, I'm heroically leaping through the air in joyous/weepy celebration of little ladies who give their grocery money to God," would have made it perfect.)

J

P.S. William, I've been wondering about the history of the development of your aesthetic tastes. I suspect that, like most people, you began with Objectively Normal tastes -- that, as a child, you had a preference for images of things like benevolent fluffy bunnies, happy bursts of sunshine, and people displaying their joy by leaping through the air or otherwise physically exploding as a means of visually delivering overtly joyous "ought-to-be" messages (which never come across as creepy) -- but then you read Kant's third Critique, and it became the foundation of your aesthetic evil. Am I right? Or did Kant cause you to become evil less directly?

[Rich Engle]

P.S. William, I've been wondering about the history of the development of your aesthetic tastes.

Former 70's-80's punk band frontman. Do the math, man.

"There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge."

--Hunter S. Thompson

[Jonathan]

P.S. William, I've been wondering about the history of the development of your aesthetic tastes.

Former 70's-80's punk band frontman. Do the math, man.

Right, so Kant got to William at some point prior to his fronting punk bands. I'm just wondering exactly when William fell under Kant's evil spell, and what the particulars were of how it happened.

J

[Rich Engle]

Right, so Kant got to William at some point prior to his fronting punk bands. I'm just wondering exactly when William fell under Kant's evil spell, and what the particulars were of how it happened.

Once he comes off his current ether binge, maybe he'll elaborate, depending on how much is left of him. Watch his next video carefully--see if it looks like he has a ring of spraypaint around his nose and mouth--like a plastic bag had been there. Questions, man...questions.

Meanwhile we can only speculate. It happens a lot of ways with musicians and art types.

Back in the 70's, while deep in my avante garde period, I was kind of stuck playing with this other guitar player, Manuel Franco: philosopher, con man, musician, and occasional restaurant critic. He used to criticize how I rinsed dishes in my house, quote Krishnamurti endlessly, stick us with diner tabs, and leave notes and other articles on my front door. This was during a Great Period of Bohemian Exploration and Activities (that means I had just read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, all the Beat Writers, etc., etc., and was dropping a lot of acid, for one thing).

One day, after a very long, brutal debate between us regarding (I think) the work of George Gurdjieff, the significance of Neo Classical serial music, and some other kind of shit, I woke up to yet another passive/aggressive note, along with two books.

One book was Atlas Shrugged. The other one was Critique of Pure Reason.

These two books, should not, I believe, at least for beginners, NOT be read simultaneously, which I of course did.

The effects were brutal beyond belief, and lasted for years. It will be fully explained in my coming book, under the title "My Years as a Philosophy Prick."

All this crap just does things to a man. I'm sure Bill has his own war story.

Regards,

rde

Writing as "Christian Tingler"