KENNY BRIDGES : What’s the decakjhdmen tkit? (attempting to read a pin on my jacket)

A : The Detachment Kit, a band from Chicago.

K : Oh.

A : They’re pretty rad. They’re very loud.

K : Oh I had… all these detachment kits…

HIPPY : New Music West! (indicates another pin)

K : Oh that was the one we didn’t play, right?

A : Yeah that was last year’s [New Music West festival].

K : How come you got so excited about that? (asking Hippy)

H : I don’t know. It was a good day.

K : Oh okay.

A : I shot you before at Music West a couple years ago where you had a blob of mucous that landed on your arm.

K : Oh! That was so gross.

H : What what?

K : That was the first time we played at the Piccadilly Pub. Remember, I was so sick. Ohhh… it was wicked, it was a wicked show, but uh the sound was terrible, I was so sick.

H : The sound yeah.

K : I remember… hochhh-ptooie. Biggest wad of friggin’ goo on my arm you know.

A : Showing it off to everybody.

K : Yeah, it just stayed there.

A : I got a shot… using the flash, it was totally whited out and you can’t see the blob, but it’s a picture of you going like this (making face) and looking at the crowd.

K : I’m excited for tonight ‘cause in the last… probably just in the last year, year and a half, our shows have changed a lot in Vancouver. It seems we never played Vancouver… enough… but that’s not really true, ‘cause we played some good shows in Vancouver. The last couple times we’ve come have been incredible. That time we came with Saves The Day blew us away. That was the perfect thing for us to have right in the middle of that tour for us because we had gone every show playing, with you know, no one knowing who we are at all. It was overwhelming. The Vancouver show was crazy. And then I like jumped off the stage like all, ‘Yo yo yo!’ like in the middle of the song, and I turned back to go jump back onstage… slipped… landed, both shins on the corner of the stage…

A : Ahhh!

K : …the pain. The pain I felt.

A : I bet. Ick.

K : Could you ever think about your friggin’ shin being broken in half?

A : Ow! Hey shhh.

K : Kinda like that. (demonstrates with hands at a 90-degree angle to each other)

A : The US has done fairly well with you guys…

K : With us? What, friggin’ molding us into friggin’ perfect friggin’... America!

A : Hahah. They’ve taken to you well.

K : Yeah.

A : But how was the UK crowd? How did they react?

K : The UK was really good, like they were…

A : How was the castle?

K : The castle, that was wicked, we had to sneak in, and then when I realized we were in an all-girls floor I got really excited, and then realized I’m with Lisa right now and I should not be excited about this, and then I wasn’t excited anymore. That was, it was wicked, the UK was incredible. It was just so new, everything was like, an adventure. Everything from like, the beans at the deli you’d eat every morning, to ohhh, to the Little Chef that we ate every day.

H : The Little Chef!

K : Every day we ate at Little Chef in the morning. And I got uh, beans, vegetarian…

H : Sausages.

K : Oh! The Linda McCartney vegetarian sausage links.

H : Oh yeah!

K : Got some toast. I don’t know if I had eggs or not. I don’t really remember eggs.

H : Yup there was eggs.

K : There was eggs on my platter?

H : Well I don’t know about on your platter but...

K : But anyways, the UK was great. The Little Chef was so good!

(laughter)

K : But yeah, the shows were really good. Like they reminded me… I’ve said this a million times and I feel like I’m repeating myself, but it reminded me a lot of our first tour. Western Canadian tour. ‘Cause they were places we’d never played. But by the end of the tour, people were like, started to hear about the shows, and they’re like, ‘Hey I heard about you guys’ show, like pulling your pants down and rolling on the ground like a bunch of morons.’ ‘Yeah, how was that you heard about that?’ But it was good because the word starts spreading and it reminded me a lot of Canada, because, even though it’s a huge place, the scene is that tight and that small. You know everyone knows everyone when it really comes down to it. Like maybe not directly, but we all know about Kevin Bacon. He’s big in the UK you know, he’s got the Bacon Brothers. They’re a big hit over there man…

H : Everyone, he’s like the Little Chef there.

A : Oh right. What, are you serious?

K : No not at all. I’m sure they’re not a hit anywhere.

A : Yeah I was gonna say, there’s something going on there - I mean, there's David Hasselhoff [who Germany is obsessed with].

K : Who was… oh yeah, the chef, at the Little Chef was a Mario but like the friggin’… what kind of Mario was he? He was like a…

H : He was like a…

K : Serial killer Mario.

H : Yeah.

K : He’s the guy… he’s the guy…

H : In jail for a couple years…

K : Yeah yeah yeah. ‘Hey Bruno. Go break that guy’s fuckin’ thumbs.’ He was that kinda guy. He would get Bruno to go break his thumbs.

A : Did you hear they opened up a Krispy Kreme [donut shop] out in Langley [actually, I think I'm wrong - it's in Delta or something... somewhere out there anyhow]?

K : Did they really??

A : Yeah.

H : Wow. That’s great.

A : You’ll have to take a trek out there.

K : ‘Cause someone, someone today said …

(one of the other bands’ members comes strolling by at this point looking for the band room)

K : …someone was talking about it today. Like I cant believe you haven’t had Krispy Kremes before, and I forgot that it wasn’t everywhere in Canada. They’re like, ‘Yeah, it’s not everywhere in Canada, it’s only in Ontario.’ Then I’m thinking like, where the hell did you get them then, if you have them? But it’s in Langley, that’s wicked. We should go get them. Is that where we’re staying?

H : I think Lisa’a saying maybe we’ll go there.

K : Okay cool. See, I was really hyped about Krispy Kreme donuts. Until they came to Ontario.

A : I just can’t handle donuts.

K : And then I realized I could get them all the time.

A : Creepy. We went out there, we were bored one night, and we took a trip driving around aimlessly and we ended up at the Krispy Kreme donut place after driving for about two hours ‘cause we couldn’t find it, at about two o’ clock in the morning, and there was a fucking line up!

K : Okay so it’s mayhem at this one too?

A : Yeah, it’s probably died down by now, but yeah.

H : There’s a story…

A : But the parking lot was covered in like police tape…

H : Supposedly when it first opened up in Mississauga, there was a man…

K : Oh yeah! Wait, you gotta make sure you get this, this is a good story. (moves the mic closer to Hippy)

H : Supposedly when the first one opened up in Mississauga, there was a man, who stayed afterwards, or after the store closed or something. He was just waiting in the garbage bin, in the dump, waiting for them to like dump all the old donuts that they didn’t use.

K : And then like, waiting for it.

H : Didn’t he get arrested or something?

K : Uhhh I think sometime after. Which brings me to another story that that one always reminds me of. Which was at some fairground somewhere. Where a man, dressed up in a full, like body raincoat…

H : Ohhh yeahhh!

K : Climbed into a portapotty, with a camera, and was just looking up as the ladies came to do their thing. Think about that! And he was found. Some lady heard something and then looked down to see some guy down there going… (makes twisted creepy face)… which doesn’t transfer very well to an audio tape, but…

A : I’ll describe it.

K : It’s all about expression you know. Boys face, looking up, eyes wide, looking creepy.

A : Let’s hear a little more about Moneen, the girl. I’ve only heard the most cursory of references, but never any really like... what what was…

K : She’s nice. She was Lisa’s roommate, and we always made fun of each other, but we liked each other, (starts speaking in weird monotone) and we were friends, and then we said we were gonna start a band and name it after her, destroy her identity, and we did, and then she moved away, but then we saw her in Montreal, which is where she’s from, she came to the show, and she’s like, ‘oh my god, this band’s me,’ and I’m like, ‘no it’s not, it’s us,’ with your name eeeee. And then she moved away again. And then she went to Washington to become a lawyer to sue our friggin’ ass off, but she came to the show, and she has a banner that says moneen and tshirts that say moneen and to kids who like moneen sometimes, she’s like, ‘wow this band’s me, yeah.’

A : I guess that takes care of that.

K : That transferred much better than the facial expression did.

A : Yeah use voices. Voices are the way to go.

K : (sings) Laaaaa.

A : The songs themselves kinda deal with issues and whatnot…

K : Death?

A : Sure! But then, you guys are just all goofy and stuff, all over the place. What’s going on here? (the guys suddenly ran off to the side a bit)

K : Sorry.

A : Okay. Do you ponder song contents at all while you’re playing them, or are you just kinda like, going off?

K : No, it’s just whatever we’re feeling. Whatever is flowing out of our orifices. Ew!

H : Ohhhh hahaha. Like spit.

(more laughter and babbling about orifices)

K : But yeah, we uh, I dunno, like that’s the thing, I think that’s the contrast. I think in the states it throws people off ‘cause, this is the first time that people are hearing about our band before they’ve seen us live, in the states… not a lot, but there’s some people that will hear of our band and get the record and then see us live. Um, and it’ll be like, they think we’re this shoe-gazing, really serious, like, indie-rock emo kinda band, but then they see us and we’re just these goofballs, that friggin’… in Spokane, our last show in the states we did before we came here, um, I formed a break dancing circle in the middle of the show. And we were break dancing. I formed a big line, we were doing funk flips, like, it was mayhem, but it was the coolest thing ever. And so I think that’s just a good contrast, like we don’t take ourselves too seriously but at the same time, we take ourselves seriously enough that we don’t friggin’ do heroin and friggin’… you know… I don’t know why that would really…

A : You talk a lot about being slapped, kicked or punched, or punching, kicking and slapping people. What’s the…

K : Anything can go down man! As my good friend Andrew would say, it’s raging all the time. You never know what’s gonna happen. Raging. Like a party that wont stop. A raging party. You’re like… you have some like Cajun Smarties, well we have ragin’ parties. That’s right man. You take tobasco sauce, put it in the Smarties, so when you bite through the chocolate, through the candy shell, all you get is just liquid tobasco sauce that bursts into your mouth.

H : And then you put it in your eye, it’s in your eye.

K : Yeah you put it in your eye. (cue the rap) It’s like an explosion, but it’s not like the lotion, I got in my pocket, but I ain’t got the socket, to plug in the plug for the ragin’ parties, I’m back to that again, but I ain’t got no friend, except for this one right here, he’s comin’ in. Haris, gimme some funk, ‘cause you know you got the junk.

HARIS (GUITAR TECH) : Yo yo check the flow. (Haris comes dancing in, frolics momentarily with Bridges before wandering off again)

K : Yo the flow is here, but you don’t know ‘cause I ain’t got no beer… (stops rapping as he notices Haris leaving)hey where you going man, we’re friggin’ doing it!

HARIS : (runs back over) Doodly woodly, alakazahoolie!

K : (raps again) Yo, coming in Africa-style! You know I got... oh God, I gotta stop it right now before I offend people.

(massive laughter)

H : Fucking… Africa-style???!!

K : You said like ‘zabalabooie’ or something!

(Want to listen to .moneen. kick out the jams, and some of the weirdness that caused said jams to be kicked out? Click here for over a minute of fresh .moneenian. rhymes...)

A : Okay we gotta roll this on here to the next little section…

K : We got six minutes!

(see 10 Questions with Moneen)

A : Okay good we didn’t run out of tape.

K : Hey, thank you so much by the way.

A : Thank you! This was fun.

K : We’ll take a minute to calm ourselves. Say thank you. Shake the water bottles. (they both hold out their water bottles from their sleeves for me to shake) I’m excited, we get a meet and greet!

A : I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do now. If I have to leave here now, or wait for the show to start or what the hell.

K : You can just hang if you want. Come hang. Meet and greets going on.

A : Cool can I be in the band?

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : May 21, 2004.