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00:00:00Untertitelung des ZDF, 2020
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00:01:00Untertitelung des ZDF, 2020
00:01:02I can't imagine 5th Column existing without conflict. It's systemic.
00:01:08The core members of 5th Column were Caroline, Beverly and GB.
00:01:13I would say they were very different people. I think that probably was a source of a reasonable amount of conflict in the band.
00:01:23The B-Light. You know, the B-Light. Absolutely epic. You know, legendary fights. I mean, there was no, like, holding back on these things.
00:01:33Everyone was constantly fighting. It was like filmmakers and artists and musicians.
00:01:54And so there was a lot of different opinions. And there was a lot of fighting. But that was really an essential part of the creative process, I think.
00:02:04We were pretty dynamic because of the nature of disagreeing.
00:02:07That's the thing, is that whatever crisis we went through, or whatever conflict or clashing, that's what the art was.
00:02:16Like this, it begins again.
00:02:26Like this start at the end again.
00:02:29Like this, it begins again.
00:02:33Like this start at the end again.
00:02:37I don't think that there were any physical confrontations, but sometimes there was screaming.
00:02:50And, but Gloria would kind of do a caricature of someone losing it or coming undone.
00:02:56And she would, she would pretend she was holding this knife.
00:02:58Or I think she would even take a knife and hold it.
00:03:01And she would run at you with her arms and her legs flailing.
00:03:03And she would, she would, she would, she would, she would, she would, she would, she would.
00:03:24And if she used to be like this, I'm not sure, I don't know.
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00:04:59There just wasn't a place for us in the culture as it existed
00:05:02Toronto was a really different place when 5th Column started
00:05:09Toronto was really tough
00:05:10It was a tough city
00:05:12And it felt more violent
00:05:15There was a lot of undercurrents, of tensions between people
00:05:20We had rocks thrown through our front window
00:05:23And eventually
00:05:25We ended up replacing the glass
00:05:28So that it wouldn't happen again
00:05:30We learned to
00:05:32Take a tip from the people who
00:05:35Were from the mental health center
00:05:37And we began to dress up like that
00:05:40Wear two or three hats
00:05:41And a couple of coats
00:05:43And we would be able to walk around
00:05:45And do what we want
00:05:45Go to the store
00:05:46Without any harassment
00:05:48By, you know, camouflaging ourselves
00:05:51Essentially
00:05:52We lived a lot of our life out of doors
00:05:54And on the streets, too
00:05:56Moving around the city
00:05:58You know, there were
00:06:00I mean, even just putting posters up for performances
00:06:02Or spray painting things on walls
00:06:05So a lot of our time was spent
00:06:07In places where we probably shouldn't have been
00:06:35But hopefully, and if we didn't see
00:06:37We had a missing note
00:06:39It was a tough day
00:06:40And a lot of our time was spent
00:06:42And it felt like we didn't have been
00:06:44But it was a tough day
00:06:44And it was a tough day
00:06:46But I had a lot of people
00:06:47I was hoping to come
00:06:48And you know, I'm in the house
00:06:48And I'm in a house
00:06:49And I'm in a house
00:06:49And I'm in a house
00:06:50And when you're in a house
00:06:51And I'm in a house
00:06:52And you know, you're in the house
00:06:53And now you're in a house
00:06:54And I'm in a house
00:06:55And I can get the feeling of the insurance
00:06:56And it's like
00:06:57That's the best time
00:06:58I'm in a house
00:06:59I've done all I put you across
00:07:02And they haven't read
00:07:03And they've been a big deal
00:07:04Musik
00:07:32The Fifth Column was preceded by an effort that Janet and I had made to create a band called Second Unit.
00:07:40And when we met GB, that's when we transformed into Fifth Column.
00:07:45So then I was going to school too and I had a friend named Jack Brown who was also going to school.
00:07:51And he said, oh I know these two girls that are starting a band, do you want to go and play with them?
00:07:57And he said, can you play drums? And I just said yes, even though I had never ever even sat at a drum kit before.
00:08:05So I went and I pretended I knew how to play drums.
00:08:09And I saw them at this party and they had three songs and they played the three songs over and over again.
00:08:15And I couldn't get enough of them.
00:08:18They had this grumpy girl behind drums with long red hair and that would have been a girl who named herself Gloria Berlin, who we now know as GB Jones.
00:08:28So after we played that one party, then we decided we wanted to have someone to sing in the band.
00:08:40And so we had two people come over and one of them was Caroline.
00:08:45And we all decided, yeah, Caroline's amazing.
00:08:48Because first of all, she had an incredible style.
00:08:55And the other girls were absolutely stunning punk goddesses.
00:09:00And I was this short, goofy kid from Forest Hill Collegiate who wore big sweaters and had my bangs way over my eyes.
00:09:08Bringing Caroline into the band really unleashed the kind of performative aspect of the band.
00:09:15And it really gave an incredibly dynamic presence to us.
00:09:21So much so that we knew that that was the point at which we were ready to start playing publicly.
00:09:26What do you do in the swam days on the road?
00:09:36It's time to cut the wheels going by again.
00:09:41And when the car goes by really fast, the people in the backseat, they began to shake.
00:09:49I think Fifth Column was an art punk band with a feminist edge.
00:10:06It's like Fifth Column was an art band, but they weren't an arty band, right?
00:10:11I always think of an arty band like Devo and they get dressed up in these costumes.
00:10:14And, you know, they were arty, but they weren't an art band.
00:10:18Like Fifth Column to me was like a band that was like art.
00:10:21What made their music so unique and special is that it was played in a way that just sort of like broke new ground.
00:10:32You know, the structure of the songs, the way that Caroline would sing.
00:10:39G.B. Jones, amazing, incredibly sexy, husky voice.
00:10:47That voice.
00:10:49It's not so much that Fifth Column were a band of musicians and singers.
00:10:54It was like G.B. Jones and Fifth Column and Caroline.
00:10:58There were these sirens that were like calling you out to destroy your ship or something.
00:11:04Because they played music that was punk in idea, but not punk in terms of genre.
00:11:10Because they played like psychedelic rock music, you know, like really 60s influenced.
00:11:16They were doing this thing that to me opened up the idea that like there can be all different kinds of women in bands.
00:11:23And all different kinds of music played by all different kinds of women in bands.
00:11:26And it's not this one thing where everybody sounds like L7.
00:11:30And it seemed like G.B.'s drumming was kind of the forefront of that.
00:11:34That it was, you know, it was like a metaphor for all that opposition.
00:11:37It was like, well, I'm not going to keep time.
00:11:39I'm not going to sit back there and keep time for the rest of the band to kind of rock out.
00:11:44Because we're not going to rock out in that way.
00:11:46We're going to kind of do something different, right?
00:11:48It wasn't straight ahead three chord rock and roll based in that convention for a number of reasons.
00:11:55One of which was that we probably couldn't have played that music.
00:11:59We were learning how to play as we were becoming a band.
00:12:04They really thought songs differently and they thought rhythm differently and stuff like this, right?
00:12:09And they were able to kind of translate this different way of thinking about a song
00:12:13and how it was structured into an actual song.
00:12:16Well, I mean, we didn't know any other way of doing it.
00:12:19So, and we were making it up.
00:12:21So, what it meant was that a lot of the times the music sounded kind of weird.
00:12:26And actually, GB, I think, she made a tape of some 5th Column stuff, a compilation tape for someone.
00:12:33And she called it the Sound of Music Falling Apart.
00:12:36And I thought that was just the perfect way to describe the way to sound it.
00:12:40She makes lists, shopping lists, and I'm a list.
00:12:49Listlessly in line with a line of time, be careful.
00:12:54Don't burn her underground parking in the darkness.
00:12:58I'm like, don't burn her in the car in the dark.
00:13:03Something all right.
00:13:05All right.
00:13:13Welcome to Windy Street.
00:13:14I'm Erica M.
00:13:15When we decided on doing a story on the Toronto Independent Band 5th Column, I was a bit concerned.
00:13:20Because most people that I mentioned the name to went, ooh, that feminist band, they hate men.
00:13:26And I couldn't disagree.
00:13:27Their album was called The Sir With Hate.
00:13:29The fact that they just got on stage and they were who they were was enough.
00:13:34They didn't have to, like, sing, like, gay power, feminist power.
00:13:39Like, they didn't have to do that.
00:13:41It was like their presence was totally enough.
00:13:43And the fact that they took it for granted that they were allowed to be there, supposed to be there,
00:13:47and that they were making the music they wanted to make, that was it.
00:13:53I think just having a girl band itself was, at that time, still a fairly political act.
00:14:01It just had to be some women doing something.
00:14:05Like, women getting together and saying, we're going to be in a band, suddenly was a feminist statement.
00:14:09When, you know, there wasn't a label for boys getting together and being in a band.
00:14:15So it's a really strange phenomenon.
00:14:17But the thing you have to really remember about Fifth Column is they were feminist.
00:14:23I mean, they didn't even, like, relate to the orthodox feminist movement.
00:14:28But they were essentially a kind of a feminist band.
00:14:35So there was a lot of animosity towards them.
00:14:38There was a lot of hostility towards them.
00:14:40There's a sort of writing off of something or categorizing of something.
00:14:45Like, you say, oh, they're feminist.
00:14:47And that sort of sticks them into a certain category,
00:14:49and we don't really have to pay attention to a lot of other things, you know?
00:14:52And maybe we don't even have to pay attention to the music.
00:14:54But, you know, you can't, it's very difficult to talk about feminism because it's not one thing.
00:14:59So it's a lot, a lot of different things.
00:15:01But I think we definitely all shared a feeling of being outside of culture.
00:15:08So there wasn't a lot happening that we felt spoke to us or related to us.
00:15:12So we did a lot of critiquing.
00:15:14And that's what we were really looking for as young feminists,
00:15:17was, like, other feminists to connect with who weren't, like, single-issue feminists,
00:15:23who weren't just, like, we want to climb the corporate ladder and become just as fucked up and assholes as, like, all the guys.
00:15:30We want the right to, like, be racist too.
00:15:32Or we want the right to enforce classism on other people or, like, whatever.
00:15:36And I just felt like the girls in Toronto just had this view that was larger.
00:15:45Our model was kind of, like, divine in pink flamingos.
00:15:50When the reporter says, are you a lesbian?
00:15:52And she says, yes, I've done everything.
00:15:55And it's, like, any word you can use to describe me that you think is bad is good to me.
00:16:02Because the worst things you can call me, the better.
00:16:06The better.
00:16:07Are you feminists?
00:16:08Bull Dykes from Transylvania.
00:16:11Gone fishing for days.
00:16:16Gone fishing for days.
00:16:21Gone fishing for days.
00:16:26Gone fishing for days.
00:16:31Gone fishing for days.
00:16:36People valued authenticity and the whole idea of authenticity and the real.
00:16:41And, of course, being in this outsider position in culture, we were very aware that everything that was supposedly real around us was actually a total construction.
00:16:52And just, of course, all the media, you know, that the culture that you're totally alienated from is just like a constructed culture.
00:17:00And totally unreal.
00:17:02It doesn't have any relationship to your life.
00:17:05And, as a matter of fact, it totally alienates you from life.
00:17:10It's not...
00:17:12So, part of our rejection of that was to, like, embrace the artificial.
00:17:17So, like, we, you know, we put together this whole theory about how, like, bands from the 60s, like the bubblegum groups,
00:17:29that everyone just hated.
00:17:31We said we loved them because almost all of those groups, their message was addressed to, like, teenage girls.
00:17:40So, it was the only music you could really listen to that didn't have all these, like, really misogynist content in it.
00:17:49We thought the faker they were, the better they are.
00:17:52And so, it was interesting because that led us to, like, watch the movies of Dave Markey, Loved All Superstars.
00:18:01Have you seen that movie?
00:18:02Superstar, Loved All Superstars.
00:18:09Superstar, Loved All Superstars.
00:18:15I don't know why they left us.
00:18:19Oh, God, where did they go?
00:18:21But they'll be back.
00:18:23No, they can't be just the way.
00:18:28It all kind of came back to this idea where you would construct your identity.
00:18:35And that something that is really artificial would actually be more meaningful than something that had the pretense of authenticity
00:18:44because you actually chose your identity, you actually created it.
00:18:49You made one event last night.
00:19:03You made one event last night
00:19:07The next day, everything's changed
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00:20:41Und all the Patties.
00:20:42Patties?
00:20:43Patties?
00:20:44Pattie Duke.
00:20:45Pattie Smooth.
00:20:46Oh, right.
00:20:47A Peppermint Pattie.
00:20:48Pattie.
00:20:49You know, we're wanting to have our own sense of style or enjoy the experience of beauty,
00:20:55but, you know, for Fifth Column, it's a different kind of beauty.
00:20:59And it doesn't just have to be, you know, even though there's nothing wrong with that,
00:21:04that's one kind too, but when it's just always, always the same every time, it's like a type
00:21:10of torture, you know.
00:21:11I should say, at the same time, we were also all going to the funnel and watching experimental
00:21:17movies all the time.
00:21:18So right from the beginning, there was this kind of interaction with the film community,
00:21:23because we were really interested in people like Lydia Lunch, because she was making a
00:21:27lot of amazing movies with Vivian Dick and Scott and Bethelby.
00:21:32Yeah, so it was all part of creating artwork.
00:21:39Like, you became your own artwork in a lot of ways.
00:21:45Which has its similarities to people like Jack Smith as well, who spent his whole life doing
00:21:50that.
00:21:51And, of course, we were really influenced by that, because we saw Jack Smith perform at
00:21:54The Funnel.
00:21:56So that was kind of like all converging at once.
00:22:03It was never really separate.
00:22:06And so then when we started working with John Porter, it was like this natural kind of thing
00:22:11to just incorporate film into what we were doing.
00:22:14Film is a big part of what we were doing.
00:22:42All of us went to school and studied film theory.
00:22:45You know, we were just really, you know, film obsessed.
00:22:50And often, you know, when we would write songs, they were very filmic.
00:22:56They would start in a soundtrack sort of vein.
00:22:59And the stories in the lyrics were almost like an epic film to us.
00:23:08GB was making movies.
00:23:09And so, you know, a lot of those she filmed where we lived and with our friends.
00:23:14So, you know, it was not a weird day to go down the street to try to have a fight or play
00:23:21yo-yo so she could film us.
00:23:23Get out of the road, boy.
00:23:28Get out of the road, boy!
00:23:32Yeah!
00:23:33Musik
00:24:03It was the so-called fake reality, but the kind of movies that they were doing, the kind of films that I was doing, it was the real reality films.
00:24:33Ghost of a Buffalo, Hester is a huge, across the field, there's an anxious spot on the hill, it's moving close, and it walks real strong.
00:24:53Ghost of a Buffalo, Hester is a huge, friend of a million.
00:25:03Is it a prazer, is it on earth?
00:25:07Fifth Column decided to tour the States, and it was the Eastern Seaboard, we hit about 13 towns, 13 cities.
00:25:14Caroline, of course, was just organizing everything and speaking to club promoters and setting up the gigs.
00:25:23I had created a character named Magda Savage, who was our phony manager.
00:25:30And we found that when we phoned people and said, look, we're touring and we'd like to play, they were like, who are you?
00:25:38And I'd say, I'm in the band, and it didn't matter to them.
00:25:40But if I had a manager who phoned them up and talked about how great the band was, that made a difference to them.
00:25:48So I created a character named Magda Savage.
00:25:51But it was also really convenient because, you know, anybody who had the time could be Magda Savage.
00:25:55It didn't all have to be Caroline. And also, it was a good, it was a negotiating tool for us.
00:26:01Because, you know, if something was going on that we weren't comfortable with, it was, sorry, you have to talk to Magda Savage.
00:26:07And she sounded like this.
00:26:10Hi, how are you? I've heard of your club there in Ann Arbor.
00:26:14It's a fantastic club. The girls have always wanted to play here.
00:26:18Yeah, it's a pleasure.
00:26:48Untertitelung des ZDF, 2020
00:27:18You know, it's funny, people came and went in 5th column. To me, it was always a big mystery about the previous members, and I suppose in a way, I was a bit in awe.
00:27:32It's hard to talk about the power struggles because they were always changing and shifting.
00:27:38So, at a certain point, my friendship with GB was very, very tight, really solid.
00:27:48And then, a year later, we were kind of glaring at each other from across the room.
00:27:54Well, I think people sometimes found Caroline and GB hard to work with just because they were so certain about their aesthetic.
00:28:03I mean, they really had a clear vision of what they wanted.
00:28:06And it was often hard to articulate or hard for other people to understand or maybe relate to.
00:28:15So, you know, sometimes that generated conflict for people.
00:28:20I don't want to make it sound like people were stupid and didn't understand.
00:28:25But I'm just thinking, you know, does anybody talk about Michelle and Luke and Donna and Tori and all the other people that were in the band?
00:28:35Members came and went, but I think that the core of the band always remained.
00:28:42And I guess the only real constant was that Caroline and I were both in the band, always.
00:28:47And so, Caroline was writing most of the lyrics because she's a brilliant lyricist.
00:28:53And I would write a couple of songs, and then we would write a few songs together.
00:29:00At different points, other people would write stuff as well.
00:29:03Well, Beverly contributed lyrics to some songs.
00:29:06And, of course, everyone participated in the songwriting kind of on an equal level.
00:29:12In my mind, the band became really strong and defined when Beverly Breckenridge joined.
00:29:17Originally, I mean, I said I didn't play, but I played clarinet in high school.
00:29:21And she, you know, asked me, do you play anything?
00:29:23You know, do you play any instruments?
00:29:24And I said, well, I play clarinet.
00:29:25And she was like, awesome.
00:29:27No, she didn't say awesome.
00:29:28She said, that's great.
00:29:30You should, well, you know, you should play with us sometime.
00:29:33I was like, yeah.
00:29:34So I actually did go and bring out my old clarinet and start playing it.
00:29:37But the clarinet thing never happened.
00:29:40I was precocious.
00:29:42You know, GB was uncompromising.
00:29:44We were both strangely shy and had no social graces.
00:29:48And then this bass player comes in who can, people aren't threatened by her.
00:29:53So all of a sudden, I think we were more approachable because of her involvement.
00:29:58And secondly, I was like, and the other thing is I'm actually kind of shy.
00:30:01Like, being on stage wasn't something that I was interested in doing.
00:30:03Again, she reassured me, that's no problem.
00:30:05You just play with your back to the audience.
00:30:07So I did that for many years, actually.
00:30:10It took a long time before I planned facing the audience.
00:30:13I mean, I remember going to Just Desserts, like the original Just Desserts restaurant.
00:30:24There was every cake you could ever imagine in there.
00:30:26And if you look through the windows of Just Desserts, you would see the most interesting-looking waitstaff.
00:30:33I worked there.
00:30:35GB worked there.
00:30:36And we met a wild, crazy young guy who had hair like John Sucks, you know, from the 80s, from New York's Danceteria days.
00:30:48And his name was Brian Bruce.
00:30:50And him and GB became very close, and she renamed him Bruce LaBruce.
00:30:55Because we were all working together, it was so boring there.
00:30:59And you just start talking to people.
00:31:02And Bruce was interested in film.
00:31:04He was, yeah, he was a film student.
00:31:06He was writing film theory.
00:31:07So naturally, that was interesting.
00:31:11Next thing, you know, you knew, Gloria was like, well, we've got a go-go dancer.
00:31:16And he's coming down to the shows, and he's going to dance.
00:31:19And I, to be honest, I remember thinking, why do we want that?
00:31:26So there we are, opening up for the Jesus and Mary chain, and Bruce is doing this, like, great Gerard Malenga go-go dance in the middle of the Fairview Mall story.
00:31:36I think the impetus behind using a boy go-go dancer for a song like the Fairview Mall is kind of like, that is a statement.
00:31:47You know, a bunch of girls on stage are doing the work with the instruments, and the boy's doing the dancing.
00:31:52So, yeah, so he started hanging around with us, and then I came up with this idea that he would play, like, the archetypical bag on a song called The Fairview Mall Story,
00:32:04which was about a police bus in St. Catharines of the Fairview Mall washroom, where they had put surveillance cameras in to arrest people.
00:32:14And the aftermath of that was that all the people that were arrested had lost their jobs, and I believe one man committed suicide because his life was ruined.
00:32:23He took the family card,
00:32:53I think it was very different.
00:33:22There were no other bands that would have sang about that sort of stuff at all.
00:33:27There were no queer male bands at all. There was just Fifth Column.
00:33:31I mean, there were different members of Fifth Column over the years, and certainly a number of them were not gay at all, gay, queer, anything, were quite straight.
00:33:40But they became known, at least for a period of birth, I think they became pretty much known almost as a gay band.
00:33:47There were assumptions about Fifth Column being queer or, you know, because we were mostly women or a women-led band that we were lesbians, and how we sometimes used that, how we didn't want to clear, you know, we didn't feel like we needed to clear any of that up.
00:34:02We weren't really concerned with what people thought of us.
00:34:06Well, I was pretty open about being in love with GB at the time. I was 19, and I told my parents I wanted to marry her.
00:34:15That flipped them out.
00:34:20It did.
00:34:23But we got over that.
00:34:26I told her, I said, we could go to Hawaii and get married because you weren't allowed to get married in Canada yet.
00:34:34And she said, are you nuts?
00:34:36And that was the end of that.
00:34:38But what would you, what if I had a baby?
00:34:42I'd steal it from you.
00:34:43What would you do to it?
00:34:45I'd turn it queer.
00:34:48One of the reasons we turned to punk in the first place was because we were disillusioned with the direction of the gay movement, that it had become assimilationist and bourgeois even back in the mid-80s.
00:34:59A lot of gay men hated women, and it was very thinly veiled at the time.
00:35:04Because there was a real separation between men and women in those days, and they didn't really collaborate, and they didn't really have common interests, and they didn't hang out together.
00:35:12Oh yeah, man.
00:35:13I want to fuck your tight ass.
00:35:16That reminds me, did you boys buy toilet paper?
00:35:19Boys don't use as much toilet paper as girls do, so I shouldn't have to buy any.
00:35:24What?
00:35:24What about the shit on the end of your dick while you're packing that fudge, brownie hounds?
00:35:28These girls that had a hardcore punk band called ASF, anti-scruntie faction, and they lived in Boulder, Colorado.
00:35:51Und ich sette ein Show für sie für sie, an einem Punkclub mit Le Coctet.
00:35:57Wir haben versucht, die Filme zu zeigen, denn Bruce hat bereits angefangen zu machen,
00:36:03und ich habe schon angefangen.
00:36:06Dann gab es eine große Herausforderung.
00:36:08Einige von den Punkten wurden wirklich erschüttert,
00:36:11mit dem Queer-Content in den Filmen.
00:36:14Sie haben angefangen zu punchen Bruce,
00:36:16und Carolin war da, und sie fuhr um ihn zu retten.
00:36:21Wir waren die Sissies und die Dikes,
00:36:24die wollten zu sein, aber wir waren wirklich auf die Homophobie und die Misogynie in den Punkten.
00:36:35Das ist das, was wir machen.
00:36:36Wir machen unsere Fanzines über,
00:36:38unsere Experimental-Suppereite-Filme über.
00:36:41Und das war unser Dilemma.
00:36:47Wir waren zwischen diese zwei Subcultures, Punk und Gay,
00:36:53und wir wurden kind of rejected by both of them.
00:36:56I mean, the Punk world was really straight.
00:36:59Und die Gay world was really lame.
00:37:03Und da gab es nicht wirklich einen Platz für Kinder,
00:37:07wo sort of, you know, had more of a punk aesthetic.
00:37:09If I could change your mind
00:37:12And you would be just fine
00:37:15We could still then
00:37:18Run away to San Jose
00:37:22They say that we're day
00:37:25We're strange, that's okay
00:37:28Oh, yes, I'm dying
00:37:31I'm not going home today
00:37:39Queer Corps started, as I like to say,
00:37:41in my apartment on Queen Street
00:37:43at Queen of Parliament
00:37:45in my living room
00:37:46where everyone would come and hang out.
00:37:48So I made this little cassette tape up
00:37:50and I started mailing it out to my friends
00:37:51and I just called it
00:37:53The Homocore Tape
00:37:55I just made up this word
00:37:56I thought it was funny
00:37:57because it's hardcore, homocore
00:37:58So I made that word up
00:38:00and then when we did the zine
00:38:02I thought, oh, okay
00:38:03I'll use that word
00:38:04because it's so funny
00:38:06So, you know, punk has its gay origins
00:38:10and we were trying to put the gay back in punk
00:38:13I think that the beginning of it
00:38:16was sort of taking straight punk images
00:38:19and kind of giving them a homoerotic feel
00:38:23you know, so there'd be pictures of like
00:38:25totally straight punk shows
00:38:26but guys with their shirts off
00:38:27looking really hot
00:38:28and there was sort of a fetishization
00:38:30I think of that sort of aesthetic
00:38:35We would get these straight boys in bands
00:38:37that were either staying at our house
00:38:39or would come over to visit
00:38:40and we'd try to get them drunk
00:38:42and then make them take their clothes off
00:38:44so we could take naked pictures of them
00:38:46to publish in our homo punk fanzine
00:38:49And they made it seem like in Canada
00:38:52in Toronto
00:38:53there was this real big queer skinhead
00:38:56with these tough looking sexy, hot, muscly punk rock boys
00:39:01these hot, gorgeous punk rock boys
00:39:03who all were gay and into punk
00:39:05when there really wasn't a scene as such
00:39:08it was just in the figments of GB Jones's imagination
00:39:12and Bruce's imagination
00:39:14So suddenly there were kids who were dressing like that
00:39:16and there were kids who liked punk music
00:39:18and then all of a sudden there were people who were in bands
00:39:20who were making that kind of music
00:39:22so it really was, it was a North American phenomenon
00:39:25You know, a lot of guys kind of thought
00:39:28oh this is all about us
00:39:30and they just assumed that it was all just going to be like
00:39:34the same as gay except punk
00:39:36you know, that's what a lot of people think queer-core is
00:39:39they just think it's gay punk
00:39:41which it totally isn't
00:39:42so I wanted to change it to queer-core
00:39:44because I wanted to make sure that
00:39:46it was inclusive of girls
00:39:48and beyond gender beyond label
00:39:52We got Double Bill
00:40:17and it was like, kind of about
00:40:19William Burroughs
00:40:21and William Conrad
00:40:23the star of Cannon
00:40:25The TV star, Bill Cannon
00:40:27who is the protector of women
00:40:29and then icky Burroughs
00:40:32who tries to kill women
00:40:34who's completely misogynist
00:40:36It's brilliant!
00:40:39I worked on a zine called Hyde
00:40:41we would do this beautiful Xerox art
00:40:43and spend a lot of time working with
00:40:45with Zatchco knives
00:40:47and you know, in those days
00:40:48you didn't have Photoshop
00:40:49or anything
00:40:50you just had a knife
00:40:51and Xerox
00:40:52and tape
00:40:57You know, we were all working on fanzines
00:40:59and so we'd be working like all night
00:41:00on these fanzines
00:41:01and putting them out
00:41:02and sending them to people that we knew
00:41:03and that was your social life in a way
00:41:06like, you didn't have a bar to go to
00:41:09so you got stuff done
00:41:10which is really good
00:41:11you know, like you weren't just out dancing
00:41:13and drinking like all the other people were
00:41:14you were actually like
00:41:16staying up all night
00:41:17creating a fanzine
00:41:18and sending it out to people
00:41:19or recording some song on a 4-track
00:41:22and that was the social life
00:41:24because there wasn't somewhere to go
00:41:26Well, you know, I'm gonna give credit to JD's
00:41:29because besides 5th Com
00:41:31the JD's fanzine
00:41:33which was more about queer punk
00:41:36and was really the, you know
00:41:38like the grandmother
00:41:40and the granddaddy
00:41:41of all that
00:41:42and I think that's what invited 5th Column
00:41:45to all these endeavors
00:41:46because of our association with JD's
00:41:48to me, I think that's when it blew up
00:41:50Zines played a huge role in 5th Column's popularity
00:41:53because all of a sudden we were able to reach
00:41:55a lot more people
00:41:56and find other people who were collaborators
00:41:58who we wouldn't have been able to find
00:42:00you know, we found like-minded people in different cities
00:42:03all over the continent
00:42:05so it changed things dramatically
00:42:10People in the mainstream have no idea how easy it is
00:42:14to kind of reach their children
00:42:18because if you put out a scene
00:42:20you put out records
00:42:21they're all very appealing to young people
00:42:23and you can get your message across
00:42:25and it comes right into their bedroom
00:42:27and it's private
00:42:28and then you can reach them that way
00:42:31without having to go through an mainstream channel
00:42:51You know, we had this crickety house
00:42:53that you would, you know, walk through the stairs
00:42:55and your foot would go through the stairs
00:42:56and raccoons would fall down
00:42:58and the windows were like covered with glitter
00:43:01and the floors were crooked
00:43:02so we lived in Alice in Wonderland
00:43:05It literally was one of the diviest places I'd ever seen
00:43:10There were so many cockroaches
00:43:11I've never seen that many cockroaches before or since
00:43:16The building inspector ended up coming over to our house
00:43:19and he was walking up the stairs to go up to the second floor
00:43:24and he literally fell right through the staircase
00:43:27like down one whole flight of stairs
00:43:31not down the stairs but through the hole in the stairs
00:43:35down into the next floor
00:43:37That's how bad the building was
00:43:40They found about 113 violations in the house
00:43:44There was a clock on the wall that was sort of half fallen out of the wall
00:43:50and the cockroaches used to swarm
00:43:53like there was literally thousands of cockroaches in this house
00:43:56It was the most disgusting thing
00:43:58like you could imagine
00:44:00but you get used to it, you know
00:44:03It was hard, but it was good
00:44:08because, um...
00:44:15Why was it good?
00:44:17Well, it wasn't good really
00:44:18It was really hard
00:44:19But, um, what can you do about it?
00:44:22There's nothing you can do about it
00:44:29Well, what do you know?
00:44:31No skin off my ass
00:44:33The whole Warhol kind of influence was really interesting
00:44:41because we kind of mimicked the superstar thing that Warhol did
00:44:47So, each of us would either accuse or kind of identify the other
00:44:53as relating to one of the superstars
00:44:56So, I mean, Gloria was very Nico
00:44:59I mean, in her whole approach, in her voice
00:45:01in her kind of like the way that she would just go silent
00:45:04this kind of like sphinx without a riddle
00:45:07this kind of like, um, enigma
00:45:09that you just present as a kind of empty signifier
00:45:13that people can project onto
00:45:15Well, uh, the fanzine war, the rifts
00:45:30kind of basically boiled down to, um, accusations of me being a Salat
00:45:36And I think that the attention and success that Bruce began to have
00:45:40with no skin off my ass sort of started a ball rolling
00:45:43where, you know, perhaps there was some resentment
00:45:46that, um, other people weren't getting the credit they deserved
00:45:49because these things were very collaborative efforts
00:45:52I mean, not to take anything away from him
00:45:54it was his movie and he made it and he edited it
00:45:56and all of those things
00:45:57but, but because what we were all working on was so collaborative
00:46:01I think when one person began to be singled out as, you know, someone who had done something in particular
00:46:07and everyone else was sort of, you know, in the shadow
00:46:10I think there was a certain amount of resentment
00:46:12or just difficulty sort of negotiating that
00:46:15It was the fanzine wars basically
00:46:17and it got very acrimonious
00:46:19and, um, there was a lot of, uh, there was a lot of name calling
00:46:25and kind of, uh, defamation of character
00:46:28There's been a lot written about the whole zine wars
00:46:32and, you know, the falling out between
00:46:34I'm probably one of the few people that has been able to stay good friends
00:46:38with, um, all the people involved over the years
00:46:42one of the few people, you know
00:46:44but, you know, when you deal with people who have explosive personalities and are creative
00:46:49of course there's going to be conflicts
00:46:51It's like, it's not going to be all like little birdies singing along
00:46:54No, it's not going to be like that at all
00:46:58You know, there's going to be like some conflicts and things like that
00:47:01And, you know, well, honey, you know what Toronto is like
00:47:04It's like Toronto is like a real nitpicky town
00:47:08So it's like, you know, and you know how you Canadians are
00:47:12How?
00:47:16Whoa, got your tape decks on there, Canada?
00:47:19Well, welcome to the wacky world of 5th Column
00:47:22And this here is our holiday song
00:47:25But it's our holiday song
00:47:39We're going to play, we're going to play
00:47:43We're going to play here
00:47:45We're going to play
00:47:47Untertitelung des ZDF, 2020
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00:50:57Legendary group of girls, women, we'd seen the movies, read the zines, artwork, like the whole thing, totally obsessed, and then they came to town, and they were absolutely lovely, saw them play, and I just remember thinking, why are we the ones who get all the attention, they're such a better band than we are.
00:51:22So even though Fifth Column, I think, was an influence for these girls, they never sort of, unfortunately, I think, got, like, fit into the movement in a certain kind of way, so I think that some of the groups that came after them and were influenced by them actually got a lot more media attention than they did.
00:51:42Like, in terms of the mainstream, like, our fame or attention level eclipsed what they were doing, and I think largely it was because we were straight or perceived as straight, which was always really frustrating when the people who were the real kind of originators of something get erased.
00:52:05I love the movie Kathy's Curse, and there's an evil little girl in that, and she says one of her famous lines is, all women are bitches.
00:52:28She used to go around saying all women are bitches all the time in any situation that demanded it, and so I was like, wow, I can't believe she's saying that.
00:52:39It kind of shocked me at first, I was like, and she had gotten it from this movie called Kathy's Curse, where this young, it was a Canadian movie too, a fabulous movie,
00:52:49where this young girl is possessed by a dead spirit that she finds in the attic, and she totally turns against all women, and she just calls all women are bitches, and she goes around saying all women are bitches.
00:53:06What's going on here? Kathy, answer me.
00:53:11So I went in to our practice space, and I said, okay, now we're writing a song called All Women Are Bitches, and everyone's mouth just kind of fell open, like, what? Are you crazy?
00:53:22We were supposed to go and play this festival that they had called Kumbaya, that was supposed to be, like, AIDS charities and everything.
00:53:48It made us a little nervous to do mainstream, but, you know, the thing is, you kind of can't think about it. It's kind of like getting a booster shot.
00:53:59This is Fifth Column.
00:54:09We saw the outcome, you know, well, if we do this, we'll get more shows, or we'll get more money to pay our record debt.
00:54:15But when we went on the show, they said, okay, you can't play that song. So, of course, then we had to play the song, because, you know, they told us not to, so we absolutely had to play it.
00:54:26Because it was being broadcast live, so they couldn't actually edit us out, and we knew that, and they knew that, so they said, no, you can't play that song, and don't play it.
00:54:35And so, then we did play it, and they were furious, and they said, okay, you're never going to be on Much Music Again, and they never did play any of our videos after that.
00:54:45But then, Melody Maker made it the single of the week, so then it got all this publicity and everything, and then we were rock stars for a week.
00:54:59Because I remember there was a point with Fifth Column where they were just being taunted in the music press, and just saying, oh, they're so amazing, they're so great.
00:55:09Like, when Melody Maker and New Music Express was writing about them every week at some point, you know.
00:55:15Then, it started getting media attention to what was going on, and they would write up one of the bands, or they would, you know, review one of the fanzines, and I think that actually started to cause a certain amount of difficulty in the scene.
00:55:29Every time we had an encounter with the media, it was just like a matter of what would they try and co-op this time, what would they change, what would they misquote, what would they take liberties with, so that, you know, when you see yourself in the media,
00:55:43it would just be something totally different than what you started out to do.
00:56:13I don't know.
00:56:15I don't know.
00:56:16I don't know.
00:56:17I don't know.
00:56:19I don't know.
00:56:21I'm just gonna hurt.
00:56:22I don't know.
00:56:23I don't know.
00:56:24I'm just gonna hurt.
00:56:26It's busy tonight.
00:56:27Donna's the girl who's full of love.
00:56:30She did everything at once.
00:56:33And let her spot so much fun.
00:56:35I'm proud of all the love.
00:56:37Donna.
00:56:38Donna.
00:56:39Donna.
00:56:41Das war die Mainstream.
00:56:45Sie versuchen, eine kleine Karte zu machen,
00:56:47um die Leute zu interessieren.
00:56:48Ich bin völlig klar,
00:56:50warum G.B. Jones und Karolin und Beverly
00:56:52nicht wollen...
00:56:53Sie wollten eine Karte dangle,
00:56:56in fronte von ihnen.
00:56:57Sie haben gesagt,
00:56:58Fuck das!
00:57:02Die assumption ist,
00:57:04dass wir, wie jeder andere Gruppe macht,
00:57:06und dann einfach
00:57:08ein Teil der System.
00:57:10Das war ein Teil der Musikindustrie.
00:57:13A lot of people
00:57:14didn't want to get famous.
00:57:15Getting famous
00:57:16didn't seem to be
00:57:17a kind of goal
00:57:18you wanted to pursue.
00:57:19I mean, you know,
00:57:20getting famous
00:57:23was kind of selling out.
00:57:25It's funny,
00:57:26because we did talk
00:57:27about those things,
00:57:28but honestly,
00:57:29we stuck out
00:57:30like a sore thumb anyways.
00:57:32We were so clearly
00:57:34not in alignment.
00:57:36We didn't look like
00:57:37we were the normal people
00:57:39who were the usual crew
00:57:40who would be on television.
00:57:42So, yeah.
00:57:45I never really got the impression
00:57:46that Fifth Column sold out.
00:57:48Gloria saw to that.
00:57:51I think Caroline
00:57:52could have been,
00:57:53you know,
00:57:54perfectly happy
00:57:55just moving past
00:57:56the college indie circuit
00:57:57and getting into
00:57:58a bigger realm
00:57:59just to communicate
00:58:01with more people.
00:58:02And, um,
00:58:03I know I think
00:58:04for myself
00:58:05I would very much
00:58:06the idea of just
00:58:07being able to make
00:58:08a better income
00:58:09and, um,
00:58:10do what I like doing.
00:58:11That was,
00:58:12that was,
00:58:13I would love to do that.
00:58:14Thank you.
00:58:15Thank you.
00:58:16Thank you.
00:58:17Thank you.
00:58:18Thank you.
00:58:19Thank you.
00:58:20Thank you.
00:58:21Thank you.
00:58:23Thank you.
00:58:24Thank you.
00:58:25Thank you.
00:58:26Thank you.
00:58:27Thank you.
00:58:28Thank you.
00:58:57When I left Fifth Column,
00:59:15it was really different
00:59:17because it didn't feel
00:59:19as innocent as it once was.
00:59:21Things started to feel
00:59:22more serious.
00:59:23I went into the whole project
00:59:26with a kind of a different
00:59:28idea in mind
00:59:29of what I wanted to do.
00:59:32Because, you know,
00:59:33we weren't going to be
00:59:34running around with guns,
00:59:36creating riots
00:59:38and trying to change the world
00:59:40that way,
00:59:41our whole, um, method
00:59:43of trying to affect
00:59:44a kind of a change
00:59:46was to be, um,
00:59:48introduce these really
00:59:49subversive elements
00:59:50into, um, a culture
00:59:53that we were in opposition to.
00:59:55that was a large part of,
00:59:57of what Fifth Column was about.
00:59:59Sabotage, subversion,
01:00:01and a struggle for power.
01:00:03Fifth Column, to me,
01:00:06was actually more of an activity
01:00:08or a group of workers
01:00:11working together,
01:00:13more so than it was a band.
01:00:15So Fifth Column was a tool
01:00:16in some sense.
01:00:17Um, well, you know,
01:00:18I don't think there would,
01:00:19there were many structures
01:00:20that were left standing
01:00:21if we had our way.
01:00:22We really did want
01:00:23to change the world.
01:00:24The, um, so economic structures
01:00:27and political structures,
01:00:29um, all the rigid boundaries
01:00:31around who you could be
01:00:32and who you couldn't be
01:00:33according to your economic status
01:00:35or your, um, sexual preference
01:00:37or your gender identity.
01:00:39The real world, uh, kind of sucks.
01:00:42But, uh, the world we created
01:00:44didn't suck.
01:00:45So if you can exist in that world,
01:00:47and I'm gonna, um, piggyback that
01:00:49with, uh, the movies that were made
01:00:51during that time.
01:00:52It's that we're really, to me,
01:00:54now really monolith
01:00:55because they created their own world
01:00:57and their own party
01:00:58and their own laws, uh,
01:01:01uh, and their own ethics
01:01:03and their own guilds.
01:01:04And, uh, it was a world
01:01:07that, uh, was not related
01:01:08to a real world.
01:01:09It was a world of happiness
01:01:10and acceptance and, and ridicule.
01:01:19And then it was over
01:01:20and then, that's the last thing
01:01:22you've ever heard of us.
01:01:23No, no.
01:01:24And then we put out our album.
01:01:26And then we went on tour.
01:01:28And that was the story.
01:01:30Is there more that you wanted to know?
01:01:33What?
01:01:34Yes.
01:01:36Modern diseases
01:01:39Modern diseases
01:01:43Which one have you got?
01:01:47Which one have I got?
01:01:51Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh.
01:01:55Musik
01:02:25Musik
01:02:55Musik
01:03:25Musik
01:03:28Musik
01:03:33Musik
01:03:37Musik
01:03:53Musik
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