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She Said Boom The Story of Fifth Column (2012) [Full Movie] [Full Episodes]Full EP - Full
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Short filmTranscript
00:00:28Transcription by CastingWords
00:00:45CastingWords
00:01:00CastingWords
00:01:01I can't imagine 5th Column existing without conflict. It's systemic.
00:01:08The core members of 5th Column were Caroline, Beverly and GB. I would say they were very different people. I
00:01:19think that probably was a source of a reasonable amount of conflict in the band.
00:01:23It would be like, you know, it would be like absolutely epic, you know, legendary fights. I mean there was
00:01:30no like holding back on these things.
00:01:48Everyone was constantly fighting. It was like filmmakers and artists and musicians. And so there was a lot of different
00:01:56opinions. And there was a lot of fighting.
00:01:58But that was really an essential part of the creative process, I think.
00:02:04We were pretty dynamic because of the nature of disagreeing. That's the thing is that whatever crisis we went through,
00:02:12whatever conflict or clashing, that's what the art was.
00:02:22Like this, it begins again.
00:02:26Like this, it begins again.
00:02:29Like this, it begins again.
00:02:33Like this, it begins again.
00:02:35Like this, it begins again.
00:02:36Like this, it begins again.
00:02:44I don't think that there were any physical confrontations, but sometimes there was screaming. And, but Gloria would kind of
00:02:52do a caricature of someone losing it or coming undone. And she would, she would pretend she was holding this
00:02:58knife. Or I think she would even take a knife and hold it. And she would run at you with
00:03:02her arms and her legs flailing.
00:03:15I think he would you be taking care of overhead or whatever else could at you. And she would do
00:03:19it for a domestic to swim. And boy, what's that2020 are doing on this pallet? And she would be
00:03:33Stay away, so long
00:03:35It's where the pride tells the groom
00:03:38You've ruined my way
00:03:40And the landlord is dead
00:04:07At the time there was a real sense of crisis
00:04:11And I think that people were
00:04:14The people that I knew certainly
00:04:15Were really critical of authority
00:04:18And institutions
00:04:19And the kind of contradictions
00:04:22That animated liberal democracies
00:04:26And some of those contradictions
00:04:28Had to do with sexuality
00:04:29And what you were allowed to do
00:04:32And what you weren't allowed to do
00:04:34And the fact that most of the
00:04:37Restrictions on you were implicit
00:04:39Rather than explicit
00:04:40And those things really rankled young people
00:04:43And really pissed people off
00:04:45It probably doesn't need to be said
00:04:47But like obviously the culture alienated us
00:04:50We weren't part of the culture
00:04:51Not because, you know
00:04:54Not so much because we made a decision
00:04:56Not to be
00:04:58But because obviously there just wasn't a place for us
00:05:01In the culture as it existed
00:05:05Toronto was a really different place
00:05:07When Fifth Column started
00:05:09But Toronto 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
00:05:17Of tensions between people
00:05:20We had rocks thrown through our front window
00:05:23And eventually we ended up replacing the glass
00:05:28So that it wouldn't happen again
00:05:31We learned to take a tip from the people
00:05:34Who were from the mental health centre
00:05:37And we began to dress up like that
00:05:40Wear two or three hats
00:05:41And a couple of coats
00:05:42And we would be able to walk around
00:05:44And 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
00:05:54Out of doors
00:05:54And on the streets, too
00:05:57Moving around the city
00:05:59You know, there were
00:06:00I mean, even just putting posters up
00:06:02For performances
00:06:02Or spray painting
00:06:04Things on walls
00:06:05So a lot of our time
00:06:06Was spent in places
00:06:08Where we probably shouldn't have been
00:06:11So a lot of our time
00:06:39I was trying to get
00:06:40When I came back
00:06:42Passing into
00:06:44And I had a plan
00:06:45I was trying to get my boss
00:06:48Casting on my side to the boss
00:06:51But it wasn't
00:06:52Maybe you could live
00:06:53But I had nothing
00:06:54I could get from winning
00:06:55And it's gross
00:06:56Comes and goes
00:06:57And I'm on a time
00:06:58I'm on
00:06:59I'm gonna
00:07:00Put me close
00:07:02I know you've got
00:07:03So a lot of stuff
00:07:05And I've got to do
00:07:08It's like
00:07:08So long
00:07:10I know
00:07:10I know
00:07:11I know
00:07:11I know
00:07:13She's not my
00:07:14I'm just!
00:07:15I know
00:07:16I know
00:07:16I know
00:07:17I know
00:07:18I know
00:07:18I know
00:07:19I know
00:07:19I know
00:07:20I know
00:07:21I know
00:07:21I know
00:07:21I know
00:07:22I know
00:07:22I know
00:07:22I know
00:07:31The third column
00:07:32Alison
00:07:33was preceded by
00:07:34an effort that Janet and I had made to create a band called Second Unit and
00:07:40when we met GB that's when we transformed into Fifth Column. So then I
00:07:46was going to school too and I had a friend named Jack Brown who was also
00:07:50going to school and he said oh I know these two girls that are starting a band
00:07:55do you want to go and play with them and he said can you play drums and I just
00:07:59said yes even though I've never ever even sat at a drum kit before so I went
00:08:07and I pretended I knew how to play drums. And I saw them at this party and they
00:08:12had three songs and they played the three songs over and over again and I
00:08:17couldn't get enough of them. They had this grumpy girl behind drums with long red
00:08:22hair and that would have been a girl who named herself Gloria Berlin who we now
00:08:28know is GB Jones. So after we played that one party then we decided we wanted to
00:08:37have someone to sing in the band and so we had two people come over and one of
00:08:45them was Caroline and we all decided yeah Caroline's amazing because first of all
00:08:53she had an incredible style. And the other girls were absolutely stunning
00:08:59punk goddesses and I was this short goofy kid from Forest Hill Collegiate who wore
00:09:05big sweaters and had my bangs way over my eyes. Bringing Caroline into the band
00:09:11really unleashed the kind of performative aspect of the band and it really gave an
00:09:17an incredibly dynamic presence to us. So much so that we knew that that was the
00:09:24point at which we were ready to start playing publicly.
00:09:31What do you do in the same days on the way? It's time to cut when I read it's going
00:09:39by on the
00:09:40day. And when the car goes wide, you're really fast. The people in the backseat, they began to shake but
00:09:49I'm sure that vacation's gonna last till I can't die.
00:10:01I think Fifth Column was an art punk band with a feminist edge.
00:10:07It's like Fifth Column was an art band but they weren't an arty band, right? I always think of an
00:10:12arty band like Devo and they get dressed up in these costumes and you know they
00:10:16were arty but they weren't an art band like Fifth Column to me was like a band that was like
00:10:21art.
00:10:21What made their music so unique and special is that it was played in a way that just
00:10:30sort of like broke new ground. You know the structure of the songs, the way that Caroline
00:10:39would sing. G.B. Jones amazing incredibly sexy husky voice. That voice. It's not so much that Fifth Column
00:10:51were a band of musicians and singers. It was like G.B. Jones and Fifth Column and Caroline. There were
00:10:58these 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. Because they played like
00:11:11psychedelic rock music. You know like really 60s influenced. They were doing this thing that to me
00:11:19opened up the idea that like there can be all different kinds of women in bands and
00:11:23all different kinds of music played by all different kinds of women in bands. And
00:11:27it'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. That it was you
00:11:35know it was like a metaphor for all that opposition. It was like well I'm not gonna
00:11:39keep time. I'm not gonna sit back there and keep time for the rest of the band to
00:11:43kind of rock out. Because we're not gonna rock out in that way. We're gonna kind of
00:11:47do something different, right? It wasn't straight ahead three chord rock and roll based in that
00:11:53convention for a number of reasons. One of which was that we probably couldn't have
00:11:59played that music. We 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,
00:12:09right? And they were able to kind of translate this different way of thinking
00:12:13about a song and how it was structured into an actual song.
00:12:17Well I mean we didn't know any other way of doing it. So and we were making it up.
00:12:22So what it meant was that a lot of the times the music sounded kind of weird. And
00:12:27actually G.B. I think she made a tape of some fifth column stuff, a compilation tape
00:12:33for someone and she called it the sound of music falling apart. And I thought that was
00:12:37just the perfect way to describe the way to sound it.
00:12:39She makes lists, shopping lists, from other players, listlessly in line with the blind and
00:12:52tonight be careful.
00:12:54Don't burn the underground parking door, burn the sauna at night. Don't burn the elevator,
00:13:02burn the door. And it's all over. Something away.
00:13:13Welcome to Windy Street. I'm Erika M. When we decided on doing the story on the Toronto
00:13:17Independent Band Fifth Column, I was a bit concerned because most people that I mentioned
00:13:21the name to went, ooh, that feminist band, they hate men. And I couldn't disagree. Their album
00:13:27was called to serve with hay. The fact that they just got on stage and they were who they
00:13:33were was enough. They didn't have to like sing like gay power, feminist power. Like they didn't
00:13:41have to do that. It was like their presence was totally enough. And the fact that they took
00:13:45it for granted that they were allowed to be there, supposed to be there, and that they were
00:13:48making the music they wanted to make. That was it.
00:13:54I 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. Like women getting together and saying,
00:14:07we're going to be in a band, suddenly was a feminist statement. When, you know, there wasn't a label for
00:14:13boys getting together and being in a band. So it's a really strange phenomenon.
00:14:17But the thing you have to really remember about Fifth Column is they were feminist. I mean,
00:14:23they didn't even like relate to the orthodox feminist movement, but they were essentially a kind of a
00:14:33feminist band. So there was a lot of animosity towards them. There was a lot of hostility towards them.
00:14:40There's a sort of writing off of something or categorizing of something. Like you say, oh, they're
00:14:46feminist. And that sort of sticks them into a certain category. And we don't really have to pay attention
00:14:50to a lot of other things, you know, and 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. But I think we definitely all shared a feeling of being
00:15:06outside of culture.
00:15:07So there wasn't a lot happening that we felt spoke to us or related to us. So we did a
00:15:13lot of critiquing.
00:15:14And that's what we were really looking for as young feminists was like other feminists to connect with who weren't,
00:15:21like single issue feminists who weren't just like, we want to climb the corporate ladder and become just as fucked
00:15:29up and assholes as like all the guys.
00:15:30We want the right to like be racist too. Or we want the right to enforce classism on other people
00:15:35or 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 when the reporter says, are you a lesbian? And she
00:15:52says, yes, I've done everything.
00:15:56And 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 you can, the worst things you can call me, the better.
00:16:07Are you feminists?
00:16:09Bull Dykes from Transylvania.
00:16:36People valued authenticity and the whole idea of authenticity in the real.
00:16:40And of course, being in this outsider position in culture, we were very aware that everything that was supposedly real
00:16:49around 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
00:16:58a constructed culture and totally unreal.
00:17:02It doesn't have any relationship to your life.
00:17:06And 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 sixties, like the
00:17:28bubblegum groups that everyone just hated.
00:17:31We said we loved them because almost all of those groups, their message was addressed to like teenage girls.
00:17:41So it was the only music you could really listen to that didn't have all these like really misogynist content
00:17:48in 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?
00:18:03Superstar, Loved All Superstars, Loved All Superstars, Loved All Superstars, I don't know why they left us.
00:18:19Oh God, where did they go?
00:18:22But they'll be back, you know, they can't keep us away.
00:18:28It all kind of came back to this idea where you would construct your identity and that something that was
00:18:37really artificial would actually be more meaningful than something that had the pretense of authenticity because you actually chose your
00:18:47identity, you actually created it.
00:19:06The next day everythings changed.
00:19:14Stay down, live lost, night.
00:19:22No, not things are the same.
00:19:26But I'm not sure you're all right.
00:19:37Well, they looked very different, they had amazing hair was one thing, they all had beautiful
00:19:43hair and they had very classic looks, like they were obviously very, there was meaning
00:19:48to how they were look, how they were dressing, it wasn't random at all.
00:19:51I think we scared people, and it's strange because you're working on yourself, you've
00:19:57got your kabuki makeup, you've got a lot of makeup, your hair is teased up high, and you
00:20:02look at yourself and you think, I'm so beautiful, and you go out and you look like a car accident
00:20:08to most people because it's not natural.
00:20:11If we walked by, a bunch of the guys from the pool hall would sort of rush onto the sidewalk
00:20:16and start singing Rock Lobster at us, the B-52 song.
00:20:20It was quite a novel way of harassing someone.
00:20:25I think at the time we were really inspired by the big hair movie stars, like Sharon Tate.
00:20:30I think she also wore some pretty darn good eye makeup too.
00:20:33Who else?
00:20:35How about the Flintstones?
00:20:37Marg Rock?
00:20:38And Marg Rock was definitely an influence.
00:20:40And all the Patties.
00:20:42Patties?
00:20:43Patties?
00:20:44Pattie Duke?
00:20:45Pattie Smoop?
00:20:45Oh right, a peppermint Pattie.
00:20:48Pattie.
00:20:49Pattie, you know, we're wanting to have our own sense of style or enjoy the experience
00:20:54of beauty.
00:20:55But for Fifth Column, it's a different kind of beauty and it doesn't just have to be —
00:21:01you know, even though there's nothing wrong with that, that's one kind too.
00:21:05But when it's just always, always the same ever time, it's like a type of torture, you know?
00:21:11I should say at the same time we were also all going to the funnel and watching experimental movies all
00:21:17the 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 lot of amazing movies
00:21:28with Vivian Dick and Scott and Beth B.
00:21:33Yes, 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 that
00:21:50and of course we were really influenced by that because we saw Jack Smith perform at the funnel.
00:22:01So that was kind of like all converging at once.
00:22:04It was never really separate and so then when we started working with John Porter
00:22:08it was like this natural kind of thing to just incorporate film into what we were doing.
00:22:41Film is a big part of what we were doing.
00:22:44All of us went to school and studied film theory.
00:22:47You know, we were just really, you know, film obsessed.
00:22:52And often, you know, when we would write songs they were very filmic.
00:22:56They would start in a soundtrack sort of vein and the stories in the lyrics were almost like an epic
00:23:06film to us.
00:23:08G.B. was making movies and so, you know, a lot of those she filmed where we lived and with
00:23:13our friends.
00:23:14So, you know, it was not a weird day to go down the street to try to have a fight
00:23:20or play yo-yo so she could film us.
00:23:29Get out of the road, boy!
00:23:31Yeah!
00:23:45And when people see G.B. Jones' films or Bruce's films, especially like the early, early films from the 80s,
00:23:55and whatnot, they're like sort of stunned because everything now is about slick professionalism.
00:24:02or this so-called fake reality, but the kind of movies that they were doing, the
00:24:07kind of films that I was doing, it was the real reality films.
00:24:32Ghost of a Buffalo, Hester is a huge, across the field, there's an anxious spot on the hill, it's moving
00:24:47close, and it walks real strong.
00:24:54Ghost of a Buffalo, Hester is a huge, friend of a billion, is the appraiser, is it honor?
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,
00:25:20and 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,
00:25:37they were like, who are you? And 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
00:25:47a 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.
00:25:56It didn't all have to be Caroline, and also, you know, it was a good, it was a negotiating tool
00:26:00for us,
00:26:02because, you know, if something was going on that we weren't comfortable with, it was, sorry, you'd have to talk
00:26:06to Magda Savage.
00:26:07And she sounded like this. Hi, how are you? I've heard of your club there in Ann Arbor.
00:26:15It's a fantastic club. The girls have always wanted to play here.
00:26:19They are like, where, where, where are you? What are you? What are you doing?
00:26:41And here's a great club. You know what? You're like, where I'm in the band when you're in the band.
00:26:47And here's a great club. It's a great club. That's a great club. You just didn't even want to play
00:26:49right now.
00:26:49Oh, my man's a man.
00:26:50My brother's too mad.
00:26:52He's over a bitch.
00:26:53She lives in town.
00:26:55Don't be mad.
00:26:58Don't be mad.
00:27:00I'm a scared bird.
00:27:02Please, if you know it.
00:27:03I don't know if you want it.
00:27:06You can do everything at once.
00:27:09And right close from so much.
00:27:11I'm a gravel.
00:27:12I'm a love with you.
00:27:14Don't be mad.
00:27:16Don't be mad.
00:27:18You know, it's funny.
00:27:19People came and went in fifth column.
00:27:22To me, it was always a big mystery about the previous members.
00:27:27And I suppose, in a way, I was a bit in awe.
00:27:32It's hard to talk about the power struggles
00:27:34because they were always changing and shifting.
00:27:38So at a certain point, my friendship with GB was very, very tight.
00:27:47Really 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
00:27:59just because they were so certain about their aesthetic.
00:28:02I mean, they were 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.
00:28:14So, you know, sometimes that generated conflict for people.
00:28:22I 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
00:28:33other people that were in the band?
00:28:36Members came and went.
00:28:38But 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.
00:28:46And 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.
00:28:59At different points, other people would write stuff as well.
00:29:04Beverly contributed lyrics to some songs.
00:29:07And 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, did 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.
00:29:38But the clarinet thing never happened.
00:29:39And I 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.
00:30:04Again, 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.
00:30:20I 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.
00:30:27And if you look through the windows of Just Desserts, you would see the most interesting-looking waitstaff.
00:30:33I worked there. GB worked there.
00:30:36And we met a wild, crazy young guy who had hair like John Sex, you know, from the 80s, from
00:30:46New 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, and he's coming down
00:31:17to the shows, and he's going to dance.
00:31:21And I, to be honest, I remember thinking, why do we want that?
00:31:27So there we are, opening up for the Jesus and Mary chain, and Bruce is doing this, like, great Gerard
00:31:33Malanga go-go dance in the middle of the Fairview Mall story.
00:31:37I think the impetus behind using a boy go-go dancer for a song like the Fairview Mall is kind
00:31:45of 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
00:31:51dancing.
00:31:53So, yeah, so he started hanging around with us, and then I came up with this idea that he would
00:31:58play, like, the archetypical fag on a song called The Fairview Mall Story,
00:32:04which was about a police bust in St. Catharines of the Fairview Mall washroom, where they had put surveillance cameras
00:32:13in 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
00:32:20one man committed suicide because his life was ruined.
00:32:51He took the family card.
00:32:53He went to Fairview Mall, where he went to Fairview Mall, where he went to Kresge's, and then he went
00:32:58down the hall.
00:32:59There he don't crunch.
00:33:01Into the washroom, he hid in a stall.
00:33:03What's a boy to do?
00:33:06Met a young man and took a fall.
00:33:11Then staring at each other, I believe that they answered the call.
00:33:17Fade no mind, girl.
00:33:20I 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.
00:33:30There 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
00:33:36gay at all.
00:33:38Gay, queer, anything.
00:33:39They were quite straight.
00:33:40But they became known, at least for a period of years, I think they became pretty much known almost as
00:33:46a gay band.
00:33:47There were assumptions about Fifth Column being queer or, you know, because we were mostly women or a women-led
00:33:53band, that we were lesbians.
00:33:55And how we sometimes used that, how we didn't want to clear, you know, we didn't feel like we needed
00:34:01to clear any of that up.
00:34:02We weren't really concerned with what people thought of us.
00:34:07Well, I was pretty open about being in love with GB at the time.
00:34:11I was 19, and I told my parents I wanted to marry her.
00:34:16That 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
00:34:32in Canada yet.
00:34:33And 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
00:34:52of the gay movement,
00:34:53that it had become assimilationist and bourgeois even back in the, in the, in the mid-80s.
00:34:59A lot of gay men hated women, and it was very thinly veiled at the time.
00:35:04Like, there was, there was a real separation between men and women in those days,
00:35:07and 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. I 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? What about the shit on the end of your dick while you're packing that fudge, brownie hounds?
00:35:29Woo-hoo!
00:35:45These girls that had a hardcore punk band called ASF, Antis Grunty Faction, and they lived in Boulder, Colorado.
00:35:52And I set up a show for them at this punk club called Le Coctet.
00:35:58We decided to show some of the movies we were making, because Bruce was already starting to make movies by
00:36:04that point,
00:36:04and I was making movies, and so then there was just this huge fight.
00:36:09Like, some of the punk kids got really upset at the queer content in the movies, and started punching Bruce,
00:36:16and Carolyn was there, and she was running up to defend him.
00:36:21So we were like the sissies and the dykes who were, who wanted to be part of the punk movement,
00:36:30but we were like really pissed off by the homophobia and misogyny in the punk movement.
00:36:35So that's what we started to make our fanzines about, our experimental short Super 8 films about, and that was
00:36:44sort of our dilemma.
00:36:48We were caught between these two subcultures, punk and gay, and we were kind of rejected by both of them.
00:36:56I mean, the punk world was really straight, and the gay world was really lame.
00:37:04And there wasn't really a place for kids who sort of, you know, had more of a punk aesthetic.
00:37:33We were going home today.
00:37:40Queercore started, as I like to say, in my apartment on Queen Street, at Queen of Parliament, in my living
00:37:46room, where everyone would come and hang out.
00:37:48So I made this little cassette tape up, and I started mailing it out to my friends, and I just
00:37:53called it, um, the homocore tape.
00:37:55I just made up this word, I thought it was funny, because it's hardcore, homocore, so I made that word
00:38:01up.
00:38:01And then when we did the zine, I thought, oh, okay, I'll use that word, because it's so funny.
00:38:07So, you know, punk has its, uh, its gay origins, and we were trying to put the gay back in
00:38:13punk.
00:38:14I think that, I think the beginning of it was sort of taking straight punk images and kind of giving
00:38:21them a homoerotic feel, you know?
00:38:24So there'd be, there'd be pictures of, like, totally straight punk shows, but guys with their shirts off, looking really
00:38:29hot.
00:38:29And there was sort of a fetishization, I think, of, um, of, of that sort of aesthetic.
00:38:35We would get these straight boys in bands that were either staying at our house or, or would come over
00:38:40to visit, and we'd try to get them drunk and then make them take their clothes off so we could
00:38:45take naked pictures of them to publish in our homo punk fanzine.
00:38:50And they made it seem like in Canada, in, in Toronto, there was this real big queer skinhead with these
00:38:57tough-looking, sexy, hot, muscly punk rock boys.
00:39:01These hot, gorgeous punk rock boys who all were gay and into punk, when there really wasn't a scene as
00:39:08such.
00:39:09It was just in the figments of GB Jones's imagination and Bruce's imagination.
00:39:14So suddenly there were kids who were dressing like that, and there were kids who liked punk music, and then
00:39:19all of a sudden there were people who were in bands who were making that kind of music.
00:39:22So it really was, it was a North American phenomenon.
00:39:26You know, a lot of guys kind of thought, oh, this is all about us.
00:39:30And they just assumed that it was all just going to be, like, the same as gay except punk.
00:39:37You know, that's what a lot of people think queer-core is.
00:39:40They just think it's gay punk, which it totally isn't.
00:39:42So I wanted to change it to queer-core because I wanted to make sure that it was inclusive of
00:39:48girls and beyond gender, beyond label.
00:39:53All right?
00:40:14When we got Double Bill, and it was like kind of about William Burroughs and William Conrad,
00:40:24the star of Cannon.
00:40:25The TV star, Bill Cannon, who is the protector of women.
00:40:30And then Icky Burroughs, who tries to kill women, who's completely misogynist.
00:40:38It's brilliant!
00:40:39I worked on a zine called Hide.
00:40:42We would do this beautiful Xerox art, and you'd spend a lot of time working with Zatchco knives.
00:40:47You know, in those days, you didn't have Photoshop or anything.
00:40:50You just had a knife and Xerox and tape.
00:40:57You know, we were all working on fanzines.
00:40:59And so we'd be working all night on these fanzines and putting them out and sending them to people that
00:41:03we knew.
00:41:04And that was your social life, in a way.
00:41:07Like, you didn't have a bar to go to, so you got stuff done, which is really good, you know?
00:41:12Like, you weren't just out dancing and drinking like all the other people were.
00:41:15You were actually, like, staying up all night creating a fanzine and sending it out to people or recording some
00:41:20song on a 4-track.
00:41:23And that was the social life, because there wasn't somewhere to go.
00:41:27Well, you know, I'm going to give credit to J.D.'s because besides 5th Column, the J.D.'s fanzine, which
00:41:34was more about queer punk,
00:41:36and was really the, you know, like, the grandmother and the granddaddy of all that.
00:41:43And I think that's what invited 5th Column to all these endeavors because of our association with J.D.'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 because all of a sudden we were able to reach a
00:41:56lot more people
00:41:57and find other people who were collaborators who we wouldn't have been able to find.
00:42:01You know, we found like-minded people in different cities all over the continent, so it changed things dramatically.
00:42:11People in the mainstream have no idea how easy it is to kind of reach their children
00:42:18because if you put out a scene or you put out records, they're all very appealing to young people
00:42:23and you can get your message across and it comes right into their bedroom and it's private
00:42:28and then you can reach them that way without having to go through mainstream channels.
00:42:51You know, we had this crickety house that you would, you know, walk through the stairs
00:42:55and your foot would go through the stairs and raccoons would fall down
00:42:58and the windows were like covered with glitter and the floors were crooked,
00:43:03so 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. I've never seen that many cockroaches before or since.
00:43:16The building inspector ended up coming over to our house and he was walking up the stairs to go up
00:43:22to the second floor
00:43:25and he literally fell right through the staircase, like down one whole flight of stairs.
00:43:31Not down the stairs, but through the hole in the stairs down into the next floor.
00:43:38That's how bad the building was.
00:43:41They found about 113 violations in the house.
00:43:45There was a clock on the wall that was sort of half fallen out of the wall
00:43:51and the cockroaches used to swarm, like there was literally thousands of cockroaches in this house.
00:43:57It was the most disgusting thing, like you could imagine, but you get used to it, you know.
00:44:04It was, um, hard, but it was good, because, um, why was it good?
00:44:17Well, it wasn't good, really. It was really hard.
00:44:20But, um, what can you do about it? There's nothing you can do about it.
00:44:30Well, what do you know? No skin off my ass.
00:44:38The whole Warhol kind of influence was really interesting because we kind of mimicked the, the, the superstar, um, thing
00:44:46that Warhol did.
00:44:48So, each of us would either accuse or, or kind of identify the other as relating to one of the
00:44:56superstars.
00:44:56So, I mean, Gloria was very Nico, I mean, in her whole approach, in her voice, in her kind of
00:45:02like the way that she would just go silent.
00:45:04And this kind of like, sphinx without a riddle, this kind of like, um, enigma that you just present as
00:45:11a kind of empty signifier that people can project onto.
00:45:26Well, uh, the, the fanzine war, the, the rifts kind of basically boiled down to, um, accusations of me being
00:45:36a sellout.
00:45:37And I think that the attention and success that Bruce began to have with, with no skin off my ass
00:45:42sort of started a ball rolling where,
00:45:45you know, perhaps there was some resentment that, um, other people weren't getting the credit they deserved.
00:45:50Because they, these things were very collaborative efforts. I mean, not to take anything away from him.
00:45:54It was his movie and he made it and he edited it and all of those things.
00:45:58But, but because what we were all working on was so collaborative, I think when one person began to be
00:46:04singled out as, you know,
00:46:06someone who had done something in particular and everyone else was sort of, you know, in the shadow,
00:46:11I think there was a certain amount of resentment or just difficulty sort of negotiating that.
00:46:15It was the fanzine wars basically and it got very acrimonious and, um, there was a lot of, uh, there
00:46:24was a lot of name calling and kind of, uh, defamation of character.
00:46:29There's all been a lot written about the whole zine wars and, you know, the falling out between.
00:46:35I'm probably one of the few people that has been able to stay good friends with, um, all the people
00:46:41involved over the years.
00:46:43One of the few people, you know, but, you know, when you deal with people who have explosive personalities and
00:46:49are creative,
00:46:49of course there's going to be conflicts. It's like, it's not going to be all like little birdies singing along.
00:46:57No, it's not going to be like that at all. You know, there's going to be like some conflicts and
00:47:01things like that.
00:47:02And, you know, well, honey, you know what Toronto is like. It's like Toronto is like a real nitpicky town.
00:47:08So it's like, you know, and, and, and you know how you Canadians are.
00:47:15How?
00:47:17Whoa, got your tape decks on there, Canada?
00:47:20Well, welcome to the wacky world of Fifth Column.
00:47:23And this here is our holiday song.
00:47:38Who?
00:47:41How?
00:47:42Hi, am I skaled!
00:47:43I sort of though this art all about this video.
00:47:53How can you tell us if I fall into what?
00:48:02In the future of this room?
00:48:05I'm just paramed in the open smoke,
00:48:08I also got the wrong know pozy.
00:48:08How to bark atauck.
00:48:08Well, I've been dreaming to be careers
00:48:12And I must think about the way you really had to say
00:48:17So I don't want to go to school
00:48:21Addiction is a touch, just need to walk
00:48:25It's a touch on my control addiction
00:48:28Girls went wild, like even these young girls
00:48:31Like school girls, little riot girls
00:48:34They would just be ripping their chests, yelling, singing with us
00:48:39Young gay boys and just people who were just welcoming
00:48:44And you know, one thing that was interesting is
00:48:47We seemed to have more of a dialogue
00:48:51Near the end of Fifth Column
00:48:53Like in the 90s when we were touring in the States more often than not
00:48:57We had more of a dialogue with people who were younger
00:48:59So we all of a sudden became, came into our own as older sisters
00:49:04Of kids who were odd
00:49:35We had
00:49:37We had
00:50:00the gay punk community was what Riot Grrrl sprung out of.
00:50:03I mean, it would not have existed without it.
00:50:08And we felt very much a part of that scene,
00:50:10and we felt like it wasn't called Riot Grrrl, really.
00:50:15It was like people in their apartments doing things.
00:50:17It became Riot Grrrl later, like much later,
00:50:20like after it had already happened.
00:50:22We weren't calling it that.
00:50:24We felt like we were part of the whole horror scene.
00:50:26Well, there wouldn't have been the Riot Grrrl movement
00:50:29without G.B. Jen's Fifth Column.
00:50:33I feel like that's sort of the amazing relationship
00:50:37that happened between Bikini Kill and Fifth Column,
00:50:41and G.B. specifically, was this sort of being inspired
00:50:47and being inspired enough to participate.
00:50:50We didn't see Fifth Column until pretty late.
00:50:51I think it was like 94, 95, 96, like somewhere in there.
00:50:55And it was like this whole legendary group of girls, women.
00:51:02We'd seen the movies, read the zines, artwork,
00:51:06like the whole thing, totally obsessed.
00:51:08And then they came to town, and they were absolutely lovely.
00:51:12Saw them play.
00:51:15And I just remember thinking,
00:51:18why are we the ones who get all the attention?
00:51:20They're such a better band than we are.
00:51:23So even though Fifth Column, I think, was an influence for these girls,
00:51:29they never sort of unfortunately, I think,
00:51:32got like fit into the movement in a certain kind of way.
00:51:36So I think that some of the groups that came after them
00:51:38and were influenced by them actually got a lot more media attention
00:51:41than they did.
00:51:42And in terms of the mainstream, our fame or attention level
00:51:48eclipsed what they were doing.
00:51:49And I think largely it was because we were straight or perceived as straight,
00:51:53which was always really frustrating when the people who were the real
00:51:58kind of originators of something get erased.
00:52:21I love the movie, Kathy's Curse, and there's an evil little girl in that.
00:52:25And she says one of her famous lines is, all women are bitches.
00:52:29She used to go around saying all women are bitches all the time
00:52:32and any situation that demanded it.
00:52:34And so I was like, wow, I can't believe she's saying that.
00:52:39It kind of shocked me at first.
00:52:40I was like, and she had gotten it from this movie called Kathy's Curse,
00:52:45where 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.
00:52:56And she totally turns against all women and she, and she just calls all women
00:53:01are bitches and she goes around saying all women are bitches.
00:53:07What's going on here?
00:53:10Kathy, answer me.
00:53:11So I went in to our practice space and I said, okay,
00:53:15now we're writing a song called All Women Are Bitches.
00:53:17And everyone's mouth just kind of fell open like, what?
00:53:21Are you crazy?
00:53:39We were supposed to go and play this festival that they had called Kumbaya
00:53:43that was supposed to be like AIDS charity and everything.
00:53:49It made us a little nervous to do mainstream.
00:53:53But, you know, the thing is, you kind of can't think about it.
00:53:57It'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
00:54:12or we'll get more money to pay our record debt.
00:54:17But when we went on the show, they said, okay, you can't play that song.
00:54:21So, of course, then we had to play the song because, you know,
00:54:24they told us not to.
00:54:25So we absolutely had to play it because it was being broadcast live.
00:54:29So they couldn't actually edit us out.
00:54:31And we knew that and they knew that.
00:54:33So they said, no, you can't play that song and don't play it.
00:54:36And so then we did play it and they were furious.
00:54:39And they said, okay, you're never going to be on much music again.
00:54:43And they never did play any of our videos after that.
00:54:46But then Melody Maker made it the single of the week.
00:54:50So then it got all this publicity and everything.
00:54:54And then we were rock stars for a week.
00:55:00Because I remember there was a point with Fifth Column
00:55:03where they were just being taunted in the music press and just saying,
00:55:07oh, they're so amazing, they're so great.
00:55:09Like when Melody Maker and New Music Express
00:55:12was writing about them every week at some point, you know.
00:55:15Then it started getting media attention to what was going on.
00:55:19And they would write up one of the bands
00:55:21or they would, you know, review one of the fanzines.
00:55:24And I think that actually started to cause a certain amount
00:55:26of difficulty in the scene.
00:55:29Every time we had an encounter with the media
00:55:31was just like a matter of what would they try and co-op this time?
00:55:35What would they change?
00:55:36What would they misquote?
00:55:37What would they take liberties with?
00:55:40So that, you know, when you see yourself in the media,
00:55:44it would just be something totally different
00:55:46than what you started out to do.
00:56:04Maybe if we live in our black
00:56:08Every night is burning flags
00:56:11There's a talk show called Natsy Mask
00:56:14My brother's chill and his software get you
00:56:17She needs you to tell
00:56:18Donna
00:56:21Donna
00:56:44That's a lot of the mainstream, they try to like dangle a little carrot to get people
00:56:48interested.
00:56:48So, I completely agree with why G.B. Jones and Carolyn and Beverly didn't want to like,
00:56:54they weren't going to like have a carrot dangle in front of them, they decided to like,
00:56:59fuck that shit.
00:57:02The assumption was that we would, you know, do what every other group does and kind of
00:57:08just become part of the system, part of the music industry.
00:57:13A lot of people didn't want to get famous.
00:57:15Getting famous didn't seem to be a kind of goal you wanted to pursue.
00:57:19I mean, you know, getting famous was kind of selling out.
00:57:26It's funny because we did talk about those things, but honestly, like, you know, we stuck
00:57:30out like a sore thumb anyways.
00:57:32We were so clearly not in alignment.
00:57:36We didn't look like we were, you know, the normal people who were the usual crew who would
00:57:41be on television.
00:57:42So, yeah.
00:57:45I never really got the impression that Fifth Column sold out.
00:57:49Gloria saw to that.
00:57:51I think Caroline could have been, you know, perfectly happy just moving past the college
00:57:57indie circuit and getting into a bigger realm, even just to communicate with more people.
00:58:03And, um, I know I think for myself, I would very much, the idea of just being able to make
00:58:09a better income and, um, do what I like doing, that was, that was, I would love to do that.
00:58:23Until the quiet in your eyes, down a dark hallway, into an empty room, you're hysterical.
00:58:39Where is the, where is the, where is the dumb, the dumb that burns you?
00:58:44All right.
00:59:13When I left Fifth Column, it was really different because it didn't feel as innocent as it once was.
00:59:21Things started to feel more serious.
00:59:24I went into the whole project with a kind of a different idea in mind of what I wanted to
00:59:30do.
00:59:33Because, you know, we weren't going to be running around with guns, creating riots and trying to change the world
00:59:40that way,
00:59:41our whole method of trying to effect a kind of a change was to introduce these really subversive elements into
00:59:51a culture that we were in opposition to.
00:59:55That was a large part of what Fifth Column was about. Sabotage, subversion, and a struggle for power.
01:00:04Fifth Column, to me, was actually more of an activity or a group of workers working together, more so than
01:00:14it was a band.
01:00:15So Fifth Column was a tool in some sense.
01:00:18Well, you know, I don't think there were many structures that would have left standing if we had our way.
01:00:23We really did want to change the world.
01:00:26So economic structures and political structures, all the rigid boundaries around who you could be
01:00:33and who you couldn't be according to your economic status or your sexual preference or your gender identity.
01:00:39The real world kind of sucks, but the world we created didn't suck.
01:00:46So if you can exist in that world, and I'm going to piggyback that with the movies that were made
01:00:52during that time.
01:00:53It's that we're really, to me, now really monolith because they created their own world and their own party and
01:00:59their own laws
01:01:02and their own ethics and their own guilds. And it was a world that was not related to a real
01:01:09world.
01:01:09It was a world of happiness and acceptance and ridicule.
01:01:19And then it was over. And then that's the last thing you've ever heard of us. No, no.
01:01:24And then we put out our album. And then we went on tour. And that was the story.
01:01:31Is there more that you wanted to know?
01:01:36Water and diseases. Water and diseases. Which one have you got? Which one have I got? Oh.
01:01:51Sure.
01:02:15That was perfect.
01:02:19No, no, no, no.
01:02:21The affliction of water and diseases
01:02:26Water and diseases
01:02:30And diseases
01:02:52Water and diseases
01:02:55Water and diseases
01:02:59Condition
01:03:01Critical
01:03:03Condition of control
01:03:21And the list of causes
01:03:24And the modern men get an animal
01:03:40Infection, infections, or diseases
01:03:46Good night
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