Misfits & Miscreants: An Oral History of Canadian Punk Rock by Chris Walter

To say that Misfits & Miscreants is an ambitious project would be a serious understatement. While there have been other books written on Canadian punk in recent years, most of them prefer to stay laser-focused on one band, one city, or one era. What Walter does in this book is document the ways in which Canadian punk began and continued to evolve from the 1970s until the present, told through the voices of those who experienced it firsthand.

While a number of the bands featured in the book have been written about in other works, most notably Perfect Youth by Sam Sutherland, Treat Me Like Dirt by Liz Worth, I, Shithead by Joe Keithley, and even Walter’s own autobiographical works (Mosquitoes & Whiskey, I Was A Punk Before You Were A Punk, I’m On The Guest List, So Fuck You) and his other music biographies (Personality Crisis, Dayglo Abortions, SNFU, The Real McKenzies), nothing in Misfits & Miscreants comes off as a retread. Instead, this book helps to compliment, supplement, and build off the aforementioned works, while also drawing in stories from and about other bands whose stories had never really been written about before.

That said, some of this book might come off as a series of unrelated stories from musicians whose names tend to appear as a footnote here or there. But to those who care about punk, Canadian punk, and Canadian punk history, this book is a fantastic read. If I had to pick one flaw, it would be that it might require that the reader is at least somewhat familiar with Canadian punk to help put some of these tales into context. However, if this is your first book on Canadian punk it works as a solid introduction to the country’s secret punk history, which will hopefully inspire you to pick up some of the other aforementioned books and help you discover some of the best bands you never knew existed.

Order the book here: http://punkbooks.com/mandm.html

Earplugs and Book-Signings: A Cautionary Tale

I just finished reading Chris Walter’s ‘Chase the Dragon,’ so I thought I’d share a funny story about a botched book-signing with the author.

Back in the summer of 2012 I went to Frankie’s Pub in downtown Kitchener for a book tour event to promote Walter’s new biography of the influential Edmonton/Vancouver punk band SNFU, ‘SNFU: What No One Else Wanted to Say.’ The night featured a bar packed with Kitchener/Waterloo punks, a whole lot of cheap beer, and Walter reading excerpts from his book accompanied by a short Q&A session.

For those who don’t know his work, Chris Walter has been writing “punk fiction” for the past fifteen years or so, focusing on punk rock, drug addiction, and the general grittier side of life in Vancouver and other parts of Canada. After dealing with his own addictions he took to writing to keep his mind occupied, and has produced some of the most wickedly, savagely entertaining stories I’ve ever read. If you like dark comedy, enjoy characters who are generally terrible human beings but still likeable, and aren’t grossed out by detailed descriptions of hard drugs and the lifestyles that accompany them, check him out. Starting in 2008, he tried his hand at non-fiction, writing a biography of Winnipeg’s (should be) legendary Personality Crisis, and eventually put together his SNFU biography.

 

He’s not as scary as he looks

Anyway, still early in the night I was at his table looking over the rows of books for sale, eventually deciding on picking up the SNFU book and one of his recent books ‘Up and Down on the Downtown Eastside,’ a story about a complex web of tensions that arise from gentrification and development projects in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

As I was paying for my books, Chris Walter asked me if I’d like him to sign them, to which I replied “yeah, sure.” As it turns out, years of loud punk shows had taken their toll on Walter’s ability to hear well in a crowded bar like Frankie’s, with conversation going on all around us, and thought that I was giving him my name as “Asher.”

Luckily, I was able to correct him, and we shared a good laugh and joked about the importance of earplugs.

Remember kiddies, wearing earplugs at loud concerts may not look cool, but they just might save you from getting a complete stranger’s name wrong 30 years down the road.