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She Said Boom The Story of Fifth Column (2012) [Full Movie] [Free Online HD]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.
00:03:35Oh, yeah.
00:03:36That's the 삼
00:03:36The broad chosen 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
00:04:15Certainly were really critical
00:04:17Of authority and 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
00:04:30And 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 obviously the culture alienated us
00:04:50We weren't part of the culture
00:04:51Not because, you know, we
00:04:53Not 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 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
00:05:44And do what we want
00:05:45Go to the store
00:05:46Without any harassment
00:05:48By, you know, camouflaging ourselves essentially
00:05:52We lived a lot of our life out 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 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
00:06:26A lot of people
00:06:33Where as many more agency
00:06:33We were not
00:06:33I mean, just running
00:06:39We'll
00:06:39I'm going to show you where I'm going from tonight
00:06:42Dancing into the United States
00:06:45What's the time I'm getting my boss
00:06:48Casting on my sides of us
00:06:50But it doesn't get me in the middle of the world
00:06:54Nothing I can get from winning in this world
00:06:56I'm going to tell you what I'm talking about
00:06:59I'm going to put you close
00:07:02I'm going to show you where I'm going
00:07:04So I'm going to show you where I'm going
00:07:07This is about to be so long
00:07:10I don't need that person
00:07:13She's never justified
00:07:15I'm going to be this living heart
00:07:19I'm going to sit down and be so long
00:07:22I'm going to church now and be so long
00:07:25I'm going to show you where I'm going
00:07:31Fifth column was preceded by an effort
00:07:35That Janet and I had made
00:07:37To create a band called Second Unit
00:07:40And when we met GB
00:07:41That's when we transformed into Fifth Column
00:07:45So then I was going to school too
00:07:47And I had a friend named Jack Brown
00:07:49Who was also going to school
00:07:51And he said
00:07:52Oh I know these two girls that are starting a band
00:07:55Do you want to go and play with them?
00:07:57And he said
00:07:58Can you play drums?
00:07:59And I just said yes
00:08:00Even though I'd never ever even sat at a drum kit before
00:08:06So I went and I pretended I knew how to play drums
00:08:10And I saw them at this party
00:08:12And they had three songs
00:08:13And they played the three songs over and over again
00:08:16And I couldn't get enough of them
00:08:19They had this grumpy girl behind drums
00:08:21With long red hair
00:08:22And that would have been a girl
00:08:24Who named herself Gloria Berlin
00:08:26Who we now know as GB Jones
00:08:30So after we played that one party
00:08:33Then we decided we wanted to have someone to sing in the band
00:08:40And so we had two people come over
00:08:44And one of them was Caroline
00:08:45And we all decided
00:08:47Yeah, Caroline's amazing
00:08:48Because first of all
00:08:53She 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
00:09:05Who wore big sweaters
00:09:06And had my bangs way over my eyes
00:09:09Bringing Caroline into the band
00:09:11Really 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
00:09:24At which we were ready to start playing publicly
00:09:31What do you do in the same days I read
00:09:36It's time to cut
00:09:37When I read all's going by on the go
00:09:40And when the car goes wild
00:09:43It'll be really fast
00:09:45The people in the backseat
00:09:47They began to shake but I'm sure that vacation's gonna last
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.
00:10:11I always think of an arty band like Devo and they get dressed up in these costumes.
00:10:15They were arty, but they weren't an art band.
00:10:18Fifth Column to me was like a band that was like art.
00:10:22What made their music so unique and special is that it was played in a way that just sort of
00:10:30like broke new ground.
00:10:33You know, the structure of the songs, the way that Caroline would sing.
00:10:40G.B. Jones, amazing, incredibly sexy, husky voice. That 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.
00:11:03Because they played music that was punk in idea, but not punk in terms of genre.
00:11:11Because 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
00:11:21of 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.
00:11:31And it seemed like G.B.'s drumming was kind of the forefront of that.
00:11:34But it was, you know, it was like a metaphor for all that opposition.
00:11:38It was like, well, I'm not going to keep time.
00:11:40I'm not going to sit back there and keep time for the rest of the band to kind of rock
00:11:43out.
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?
00:11:49It wasn't straight ahead three chord rock and roll based in that convention for a number of reasons.
00:11:56One of which was that we probably couldn't have played that music.
00:12:00We 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
00:12:14and how it was structured into an actual song.
00:12:17Well, I mean, we didn't know any other way of doing it.
00:12:20And we were making it up.
00:12:21So what it meant was that a lot of the times the music sounded kind of weird.
00:12:27And actually, GB, I think, she made a tape of some fifth column stuff, a compilation tape for someone,
00:12:34and 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 made lists, shopping lists, come up with playas.
00:12:49Listlessly in line with the blind and tonight, be careful.
00:12:54Don't burn the under ground parking.
00:12:57Don't burn a sauna.
00:13:13Welcome to India Street, I'm Erica M. When we decided on doing a 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
00:13:27album was called, but sort of with hate.
00:13:31The fact that they just got on stage and they were who they were was enough. They didn't
00:13:35have to like sing like gay power, feminist power, like they didn't have to do that. It
00:13:42was like their presence was totally enough and the fact that they took it for granted
00:13:45that they were allowed to be there, supposed to be there, and that they were making the
00:13:49music they wanted to make, that was it.
00:13:53But I think just having a girl band itself was at that time still a fairly political
00:14:00act.
00:14:01It just had to be some women doing something, like women getting together and saying we're
00:14:07going to be in a band suddenly was a feminist statement when, you know, there wasn't a label
00:14:13for boys 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
00:14:32a kind of a feminist band. So there was a lot of animosity towards them. There was a lot
00:14:38of hostility towards them. There's a sort of writing off of something or categorizing
00:14:45of something. Like you say, oh, they're feminist. And that sort of sticks them into a certain
00:14:49category and we don't really have to pay attention to a lot of other things, you know, and maybe
00:14:53we don't even have to pay attention to the music. But, you know, you can't, it's very difficult
00:14:56to talk about feminism because it's not one thing. So 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. So there wasn't
00:15:09a lot happening that we felt spoke to us or related to us. So we did a lot of critiquing.
00:15:14And that's what we were really looking for as young feminists was like other feminists
00:15:19to connect with who weren't like single issue feminists who weren't just like, we want to
00:15:24climb 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. Or we want the right to enforce classism on other
00:15:35people or like whatever. And I just felt like the girls in Toronto just had this view that
00:15:44was larger.
00:15:45Our model was kind of like divine in pink flamingos when the reporter says, are you a lesbian? And
00:15:52she says, yes, I've done everything. And it's like any word you can use to describe me that
00:16:00you think is bad is good to me. Because the worst things you can call me, the better.
00:16:07Are you feminists?
00:16:08It's a bull dykes from Transylvania.
00:16:111
00:16:123
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00:16:418
00:16:4110
00:16:4110
00:16:41of course being in this outsider position and culture we were very aware
00:16:46that everything that was supposedly real around us was actually a total
00:16:51construction and just of course all the media you know that the culture that
00:16:56you're totally alienated from is just like a constructed culture and totally
00:17:01unreal it doesn't have any relationship to your life and as a matter of fact it
00:17:07totally alienates you from life it's not so part of our rejection of that was to
00:17:15like embrace the artificial so like we you know we we put together this whole
00:17:23theory about how like bands from the 60s like the bubblegum groups that everyone
00:17:30just hate it we said we loved them because almost all of those groups their
00:17:38message was addressed to like teenage girls so this the only music you could
00:17:42really listen to that didn't have all these like really misogynist this really
00:17:47misogynist content in it we thought the faker they were the better they are and
00:17:52so it was interesting because that led us to like watch the movies of Dave Markey
00:18:00loved all superstars have you seen that movie
00:18:26it all kind of
00:18:31and came back to this idea where you would construct your identity and that
00:18:36and something that is really artificial would actually be more meaningful than
00:18:41something that had the pretense of authenticity because you actually chose
00:18:47your identity you actually created it
00:19:00you know
00:19:01the next day
00:19:10everything's
00:19:11changed
00:19:15stayed up there
00:19:17last night
00:19:37well they looked very different they had amazing hair was one thing they all had beautiful hair and they had
00:19:44very classic looks like they're obviously very there was meaning to how they were look how they were dressing
00:19:50it wasn't random at all
00:19:51i think we scared people
00:19:53and i and and it's strange because you know you're working on yourself you've got your kabuki makeup you've got
00:19:59you know a lot of makeup your hair is teased up high and you look at yourself and you think
00:20:03i'm so beautiful and you go out and you look like a car accident to most people because it's not
00:20:09natural
00:20:10if we walked by
00:20:12if 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 b52 song it 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
00:20:34um
00:20:35how about the flintstones
00:20:37margrock
00:20:37and margrock was definitely an influence
00:20:40and all the patties
00:20:42patties
00:20:43patties
00:20:44patty duke
00:20:44patty smoke
00:20:45oh right a peppermint patty
00:20:48patty
00:20:49you know we're wanting to have our own sense of style or enjoy the experience of beauty but
00:20:55you know for fifth column it's a different kind of beauty
00:20:58beauty 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 but
00:21:05when it's just always always the same every time it's it's like a type of of torture you know
00:21:11i should say at the same time we were also all going to the funnel
00:21:14and watching um experimental movies all the time
00:21:18so right from the beginning there was this kind of interaction with um the film community
00:21:23because we were really interested in
00:21:25people like lydia lunch because she was making a lot of amazing movies with uh vivian dick and um scott
00:21:31and bafferbee
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
00:22:42film is uh a big part of what we were doing all of us
00:22:45us went to school and studied film theory. You know, we were just really, you know, film
00:22:49obsessed. And often, you know, when we would write songs, they were very filmic. They would
00:22:57start in a soundtrack sort of vein. And the stories in the lyrics were almost like an
00:23:06epic film to us.
00:23:08G.B. was making movies, and so, you know, a lot of those she filmed where we lived
00:23:13and with our friends. So, you know, it was not a weird day to go down the street to try
00:23:18to have a fight or play yo-yo so she could film us.
00:23:29Get out of the road, boy!
00:23:32Yeah!
00:23:48When people see G.B. Jones' films or Bruce's films, especially like the early, early films
00:23:54from the 80s and whatnot, they're like sort of stunned because everything now is about
00:24:00slick professionalism or this so-called fake reality. But the kind of movies that they were
00:24:06doing, the kind of films that I was doing, it was the real reality films.
00:24:37G.B. Jones
00:24:40G.B. Jones
00:24:49G.B. JonesrafilOkay
00:25:04Um, fifth column decided to tour the states and it was the eastern seaboard.
00:25:11We hit about 13 towns, 13 cities.
00:25:14Caroline of course was just organizing everything and speaking to club promoters and setting
00:25:22up the gigs.
00:25:23I had created a character named Magda Savage who was our phony manager and we found that
00:25:31when we phoned people and said, look, we're touring and we'd like to play, they were like,
00:25:37who 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
00:25:47made 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
00:25:54be Magda Savage.
00:25:56It didn't all have to be Caroline.
00:25:57And also, um, it was a good, it was a negotiating tool for us, um, because, you know, if we,
00:26:03if something was going on that we weren't comfortable with, we were, sorry, you have to talk to Magda
00:26:07Savage.
00:26:08And she sounded like this.
00:26:10Hi, how are you?
00:26:12I've heard of your club there in Ann Arbor.
00:26:14It's a fantastic club.
00:26:16The girls have always wanted to play with.
00:26:26And we're going to play with.
00:26:31And we're going to play with.
00:26:36And we're going to play with.
00:26:41And we're going to play with.
00:26:44And we're going to play with.
00:26:46And we're going to play with.
00:26:47And we're going to play with.
00:26:48Oh, come into me.
00:26:50My brother's too late.
00:26:52So good.
00:26:52She's a little too tall.
00:26:55Don't be young.
00:26:57Don't be young.
00:27:00I'm a scared bird.
00:27:02It's a piece of the note.
00:27:03I don't know if you want it.
00:27:05It's a little bit.
00:27:06She can do everything at once.
00:27:09And right close from the song.
00:27:11I'm a gravel.
00:27:12I'm a love with you.
00:27:14Don't be young.
00:27:17Don't be young.
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.
00:28:03I 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
00:28:11or maybe relate to.
00:28:15So, 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
00:28:33and all the other 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.
00:28:57And then we would write a few songs together.
00:28:59At different points, other people would write stuff as well.
00:29:04So Beverly 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.
00:29:40I 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.
00:30:04Again, 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.
00:30:26And 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
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 bus 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,
00:32:19and I believe one man committed suicide because his life was ruined.
00:32:51He took the family card,
00:33:20I think it was very different.
00:33:22And there 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,
00:33:34and certainly a number of them were not gay at all, gay, queer, anything,
00:33:39were quite straight, but they became known, at least for a period of birth,
00:33:44I 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
00:33:53band,
00:33:53that we were lesbians, and how we sometimes used that, how we didn't want to clear,
00:33:59you 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.
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,
00:34:29because you weren't allowed to get married in Canada yet.
00:34:33And she said, are you nuts?
00:34:35And 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
00:34:49was because we were disillusioned with the direction of the gay movement,
00:34:53that it had become assimilationist and bourgeois,
00:34:55even back in the mid-80s.
00:34:59A lot of gay men hated women,
00:35:01and it was very thinly veiled at the time.
00:35:04Like, there was a real separation between men and women in those days,
00:35:08and they didn't really collaborate,
00:35:09and they didn't really have common interests,
00:35:10and they didn't hang out together.
00:35:12Oh, yeah, man.
00:35:14I 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,
00:35:22so I shouldn't have to buy any.
00:35:24What?
00:35:24What about the shit on the end of your dick
00:35:26while you're packing that fudge, brownie hounds?
00:35:29Woo-hoo!
00:35:38I don't care, I don't care, I don't care!
00:35:41I don't care, I don't care!
00:35:45These girls that had a hardcore punk band called A.S.F.,
00:35:49Antis 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,
00:36:01because Bruce was already starting to make movies by that point,
00:36:04and I was making movies,
00:36:05and so then there was just this huge fight.
00:36:09Some of the punk kids got really upset
00:36:11at the queer content in the movies
00:36:14and started punching Bruce,
00:36:16and Carolyn was there,
00:36:17and she was running up to defend him.
00:36:21So we were like the sissies and the dykes
00:36:24who wanted to be part of the punk movement,
00:36:30but we were really pissed off by the homophobia
00:36:32and misogyny in the punk movement,
00:36:35so that's what we started to make our fanzines about,
00:36:38our experimental short Super 8 films about,
00:36:41and that was sort of our dilemma.
00:36:48We were caught between these two subcultures,
00:36:52punk and gay,
00:36:53and we were kind of rejected by both of them.
00:36:56I mean, the punk world was really straight,
00:36:59and the gay world was really lame,
00:37:04and there wasn't really a place for kids
00:37:07who sort of had more of a punk aesthetic.
00:37:11You could change your mind
00:37:12and you were good just fine
00:37:15We could still have fun
00:37:19Run away to San Jose
00:37:21They say every day
00:37:25We're strange, that's okay
00:37:28Who cares about how to die
00:37:31I'm not going home today
00:37:40Queercore started as I like to say in 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
00:37:52and I just called it the homocore tape
00:37:55I just made up this word I thought it was funny
00:37:58because it's hardcore homocore
00:37:59so I made that word up
00:38:01and then when we did the zine
00:38:02I thought, oh, okay, I'll use that word
00:38:04because it's so funny
00:38:06So, you know, punk has its gay origins
00:38:11and we were trying to put the gay back in punk
00:38:14I think 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
00:38:27but guys with their shirts off
00:38:28looking really hot
00:38:29and 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
00:38:41and 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
00:39:17and there were kids who liked punk music
00:39:19and then all of a sudden there were people who were in bands
00:39:21who 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
00:39:29oh, 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
00:39:40they just think it's gay punk
00:39:41which it totally isn't
00:39:42so I wanted to change it to queer-core
00:39:45because I wanted to make sure that
00:39:47it was inclusive of girls and beyond gender, beyond label
00:40:15When we got double bill, and it was like, kind of about
00:40:21William, bros, and...
00:40:22I was just gonna make sure they were deaf and I DAVID
00:40:23William Conrad, the star of Canon.
00:40:25The TV star, Bill Cannon, who is the protector of women,
00:40:30and then Icky Burrows, who tries to kill women,
00:40:35who's completely misogynist.
00:40:38It's brilliant!
00:40:40I worked on a zine called Hyde.
00:40:42We would do this beautiful Xerox art,
00:40:44and you'd spend a lot of time working with exacto knives.
00:40:47You know, in those days, you didn't have Photoshop or anything.
00:40:50You just had a knife and Xerox.
00:40:57You know, we were all working on fanzines,
00:40:59and so we'd be working, like, all night on these fanzines
00:41:01and putting them out and sending them to people that we 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,
00:41:11which 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
00:41:18and sending it out to people or recording some song 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,
00:41:32the J.D.'s fanzine, which was more about queer punk,
00:41:37and 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,
00:41:46because of our association with J.D.'s.
00:41:48To me, I think that's when it blew up.
00:41:51Zines played a huge role in 5th Column's popularity,
00:41:54because all of a sudden we were able to reach a lot 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,
00:42:05so 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, you 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, and it's private,
00:42:28and then you can reach them that way
00:42:31without 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,
00:43:01and the floors were crooked, so 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.
00:43:12I've never seen that many cockroaches before or since.
00:43:16The building inspector ended up coming over to our house,
00:43:20and he was walking up the stairs to go up to the second floor,
00:43:25and he literally fell right through the staircase,
00:43:28like, down one whole flight of stairs.
00:43:32Not down the stairs, but through the hole in the stairs,
00:43:35down 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.
00:43:54Like, there was literally thousands of cockroaches in this house.
00:43:57It was the most disgusting thing, like you could imagine,
00:44:01but you get used to it, you know.
00:44:04It was, um, hard, but it was good, because, um...
00:44:16Why was it good?
00:44:17Well, it wasn't good, really.
00:44:18It was really hard.
00:44:20But, um, what can you do about it?
00:44:23There'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,
00:44:41because we kind of mimicked the superstar, um, 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, I mean, in her whole approach, in her voice,
00:45:01in her kind of, like, the way that she would just go silent,
00:45:05this kind of, like, sphinx without a riddle,
00:45:07this kind of, like, um, enigma that you just present
00:45:11as a kind of empty signifier that people can project onto.
00:45:26Well, uh, the, the fanzine war, the, the rifts,
00:45:30kind of basically boiled down to, um, accusations of me being a sellout.
00:45:37And I think that the attention and success that Bruce began to have
00:45:41with, with No Skin Off My Ass sort of started a ball rolling where,
00:45:45you know, perhaps there was some resentment that, um,
00:45:48other people weren't getting the credit they deserved.
00:45:50Because they, these things were very collaborative efforts.
00:45:53I mean, not to take anything away from him,
00:45:55it 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,
00:46:02I think when one person began to be singled out as, you know,
00:46:06someone who had done something in particular and everyone else was sort of,
00:46:10you know, in the shadow, I think there was a certain amount of resentment
00:46:13or just difficulty sort of negotiating that.
00:46:15It was the fanzine wars basically.
00:46:18And it got very acrimonious.
00:46:20And, um, there was a lot of, uh, there was a lot of name calling
00:46:26and kind of, uh, defamation of character.
00:46:29There's all been a lot written about the whole zine wars and,
00:46:33you know, the falling out between.
00:46:35I'm probably one of the few people that has been able to stay good friends
00:46:39with, um, all the people involved over the years.
00:46:43One of the few people, you know.
00:46:46But, you know, when you deal with people who have explosive personalities
00:46:49and are creative, of course there's going to be conflicts.
00:46:51It's like, it's not going to be all like little birdies singing along.
00:46:57No, it's not going to be like that at all.
00:46:59You know, there's going to be like some conflicts and things like that.
00:47:02And, you know, well, honey, you know what Toronto is like.
00:47:06It's like Toronto is like a real nitpicky town.
00:47:08So it's like, you know, and you know how you Canadians are.
00:47:15How?
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.
00:47:38You know what the fuck?
00:47:50Y-
00:47:53But, you know, you're making good friends.
00:47:57You know, I have to know some people who have loved you,
00:47:57and we're not having a good friend on the board.
00:48:00I know some people who have loved you,
00:48:04but they're not having fun.
00:48:04You know, I'm working on the staff and your team.
00:48:04However the world that's been very well.
00:48:05You know, with a good friend,
00:48:06and they're lucky.
00:48:07With a good friend and friend who has loved you,
00:48:08Well, I've been dreaming to make careers, and let us think about the way you really
00:48:16have to sing.
00:48:17So I don't want to go to school anymore.
00:48:22Addiction needs to touch.
00:48:23Just need to walk.
00:48:25It's an addiction.
00:48:27Control addiction.
00:48:28Girls went wild.
00:48:30Like, even these young girls, like school girls, little riot girls, they would just
00:48:35be ripping their chests, yelling, singing with us, young gay boys, and just people who
00:48:43were just welcoming.
00:48:44You know, one thing that was interesting is we seem to have more of a dialogue near the
00:48:52end of Fifth Column, like in the 90s when we were touring in the States more often than
00:48:56not, we 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 of kids who were odd.
00:49:36So we're in theater, can work!
00:49:40So, so-roar, and take care of these and then we have screen, take care of these and then
00:49:57we just had fun at this time!
00:49:58really the gay punk community was what Riot Grrrl sprung out of. I mean it would
00:50:05not have existed without it and we felt very much a part of that scene and we
00:50:10felt like it wasn't called Riot Grrrl really it was like people in their
00:50:16apartments doing things it didn't it became Riot Grrrl later like much later
00:50:20like after it had already happened like we weren't calling it that and we felt
00:50:24like we were part of the whole core scene.
00:50:26Well there wouldn't have been the Riot Grrrl movement without G.B. Jen's fifth
00:50:32column. I feel like that's sort of the amazing relationship that happened
00:50:37between Bikini Kill and fifth column and in G.B. specifically was this sort of
00:50:46being inspired and being inspired enough to participate. We didn't see fifth
00:50:50column until pretty late I think it was like 94 95 96 like somewhere in there and
00:50:55it was like this whole legendary group of girls women we'd seen the movies read the
00:51:05zines artwork like the whole thing totally obsessed and then they came to town and
00:51:09they were absolutely lovely saw them play and I just remember thinking why are we
00:51:19the ones who get all the attention they're such a better band than we are.
00:51:23So even though fifth column I think was a was an influence for these girls they
00:51:29never sort of unfortunately I think got like fit into the movement in a certain
00:51:35kind of way so I think that 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 than they did.
00:51:42like in terms of the mainstream like our fame or attention level eclipsed what they
00:51:49were doing and I think largely it was because we were straight or perceived as
00:51:53straight which was always really frustrating when the people who were the
00:51:57real kind of originators of something get erased.
00:52:09Pete after me are we gonna look for mommy?
00:52:13Are we gonna look for mommy?
00:52:15Don't talk to me about your mommy all women are bitches repeat all women are bitches.
00:52:22I love the movie Kathy's curse and there's an evil little girl in that and
00:52:25she 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 in any situation that
00:52:33demanded it and so I was like wow I can't believe she's saying that it kind of
00:52:39shocked me at first I was like and she had gotten it from this movie called Kathy's
00:52:45curse where this young it was a Canadian movie to a fabulous movie where this young
00:52:51girl is possessed by a dead spirit that she finds in the attic and she totally
00:52:57turns against all women and she and she just calls all women are bitches and she
00:53:03goes around saying all women are bitches.
00:53:06What's going on here?
00:53:10Kathy answer me.
00:53:11So I went in to our practice space I said okay now we're writing a song called all
00:53:16women are bitches and everyone's mouth just kind of fell open like what are you
00:53:21crazy?
00:53:39We were supposed to go and play this festival that they had called kumbaya that was
00:53:44supposed to be like AIDS charities and everything.
00:53:49It made us a little nervous to do mainstream but you know the thing is you kind of can't
00:53:56think 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 or we'll get more money
00:54:14to pay our record debt.
00:54:17But when we went on the show they said okay you can't play that song so of course then
00:54:22we had to play the song because you know they told us not to so we absolutely had to play
00:54:26it because it was being broadcast live so they couldn't actually edit us out and we knew
00:54:31that and they knew that so they said no you can't play that song and don't play it and so
00:54:36then we did play it and they were furious and they said okay you're never going to be on
00:54:41much music again and they never did play any of our videos after that.
00:54:46But then Melody Maker made it the single of the week so then it got all this publicity
00:54:51and everything and then we were rock stars for a week.
00:55:00Because I remember there was a point with fifth column where they were just being taunted in
00:55:06the music press and just saying oh they're so amazing they're so great like when Melody
00:55:10Maker 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
00:55:20up one of the bands or they would you know review one of the fanzines and I think that actually
00:55:25started to cause a certain amount of difficulty in the scene.
00:55:29Every time we had an encounter with the media was just like a matter of what would they try
00:55:34and co-op this time, what would they change, what would they misquote, what would they take
00:55:39liberties with so that you know when you see yourself in the media it would just be something
00:55:45totally different than what you started out to do.
00:56:04Make me laugh in a blast, every night is burning flat.
00:56:11There's a talk show called Nancy Man.
00:56:14My brother's jealous, I forget she should beat you down.
00:56:18Donna, Donna, Donna.
00:56:24I'm scared of her, it's busy tonight.
00:56:27Donna's the girl, who's full of work.
00:56:30She did everything at once.
00:56:33And that comes by, so much fun, you better fall in love.
00:56:38Donna, Donna, Donna.
00:56:44That's a lot of the mainstream.
00:56:45They try to like dangle a little carrot to get people interested.
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.
00:56:57They decided to like, fuck that shit.
00:57:02The assumption was that we would you know do what every other group does and kind of just become part
00:57:09of the system,
00:57:10part 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 out like a sore
00:57:31thumb 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 be on
00:57:42television.
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 indie circuit and getting into
00:57:58a bigger realm,
00:58:00just to communicate with more people.
00:58:03And I know I think for myself, I would very much, the idea of just being able to make a
00:58:09better income and do what I like doing,
00:58:12that was, that was, I would have loved to do that.
00:58:23Into the quiet house, down a dark hallway
00:58:30Into an empty room, you're hysterical
00:58:39Here is the dove, the dove that burns you,
00:58:41Where is the dove, the dove that burns you in,
00:58:44All right.
00:59:13When I left 5th 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 affect 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 5th Column was about.
01:00:00Sabotage, subversion, and a struggle for power.
01:00:04Where 5th Column, to me, was actually more of an activity or a group of workers working together, more so
01:00:14than it was a band.
01:00:15So 5th 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 and who you couldn't be
01:00:34according to your economic status or your sexual preference or your gender identity.
01:00:39The real world kind of sucks.
01:00:43But 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.
01:01:24No, no.
01:01:24And then we put out our album, and then we went on tour.
01:01:29And that was the story.
01:01:31Is there more that you wanted to know?
01:01:57That was the story.
01:02:15I trapped away every day
01:02:19I'm feeling the afflicted
01:02:23Water and diseases
01:02:26Water and diseases
01:02:52Water and diseases
01:02:55Water and diseases
01:02:57Water and diseases
01:02:59Condition
01:03:01Critical
01:03:03Condition of control
01:03:20The list of causes
01:03:35Water and diseases
01:03:38Water and diseases
01:03:48Water and diseases
01:03:49Water and diseases
01:03:49Water and diseases
01:03:50Water and diseases
01:03:50Water and diseases
01:03:50Water and diseases
01:03:51Water and diseases
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