Ultra Bide
with Nomeansno at Mama Kin
by Lex Marburger
I was living in Annapolis, MD in 1992 with the local underground contingent of freaks, punks, and assorted riffraff. Out of this melange, I became very close with a woman named Gretchen. We’d run around town, drinking ’til we couldn’t walk, taking speed and LSD until the sun rose twice, and generally jumping up and down a lot. The soundtrack to most of our escapades was Nomeansno, a Canadian hardcore band whose high-energy music and completely depressing lyrics (“Roses are red, violets are blue. I hung myself, so fuck you”) complemented everything we did, be it sitting on the pier drinking malt liquor or fucking like rabid dogs.
One day, she bought a converted milk truck and left town. She went to California and dropped out of sight and out of society. She “took herself out of the grid.” I stopped listening to Nomeansno because it brought back too many memories, even memories of not remembering certain nights. I figured, when I knew they were coming live in support of their new album, The Worldhood of the World (as such) (Alternative Tentacles), that I should face my demons and see the band of my education.
Ultra Bidé opened the night, twisted and thoroughly Japanese/NYC, spitting out songs with passion and inspiration that initially confused the crowd, most of whom had never heard this kind off stuff. Walls of noise, odd times, jolting and schizophrenic changes, hollered Japanese… The things that make NYC great. They had lots of fun onstage, playing rock star to the hilt, posturing and looking nonchalant, playing the bass behind his head, the works. This is a band to watch, they have predicted what punk will become, and they’re playing to the future.
Then it was time. Nomeansno took the stage and played songs from their new album, “Wiggly Worm,” “Humans,” and “I’ve Got a Gun.” “This is okay,” I thought. “I can deal.” The music was good, and I hadn’t made any associations between the new material and Gretchen. They were loud, rambunctious, and wonderfully satirical, even self-effacing. It takes a lot of guts to make fun of yourself onstage and still pull off a great show.
I was grooving pretty hard when they pulled out “Body Bag.” “Oh shit,” I thought, “here we go.” They started playing old songs, songs that brought back the glorious moments, caught in the fleeting slide of remembrance, bringing the emotional baggage that inevitably followed. They played “The Tower,” “The Day Everything Became Nothing,” “Rags and Bones,” “Manic Depression” – all the songs that made me bemoan my loss. I started to get angry and morose, just plain surly. It wasn’t fair that she just split like that. I could feel myself getting more and more nihilistic, more self-destructive as the songs echoed the silent movies in my brain.
Nomeansno finally stopped and I had to leave. It’s a good thing they didn’t play “Self Pity” or “Metronome,” because I would have flipped out. Yeah, they put on a good show, but for me, it was a personal dredging of my of my heart. Gretchen Barskis was last seen in San Diego driving a converted Kurbmaster step van. If you know where she is, please contact this paper.