| Subject: D.O.A's Joey Keithley releases Autobiography and DOA tour |
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Date Posted: 15:21:25 03/05/04 Fri
Author Host/IP: adsl-64-108-85-11.dsl.akrnoh.ameritech.net/64.108.85.11
Canadian Punk Pioneer Joey Keithley Releases Autobiography
I, S***HEAD: A LIFE IN PUNK on Arsenal Pulp Press in March 2004
Keithley-led D.O.A. Issuing Best-Of CD WAR AND PEACE Prior to
Spring Tour Dates in North America
London and New York are typically considered the breeding grounds of punk
rock, but thanks to Joey "S***head" Keithley and D.O.A., Vancouver, British
Columbia, earns equal prominence on the gob-splattered, beer-soaked map.
Canada's thriving punk scene was led by Keithley and D.O.A. Since the band
formed in 1978, it placed Vancouver firmly within the West Coast circuit that
included Los Angeles and San Francisco. For 25 years the band has performed
throughout North America and Europe.
Punk icon Keithley chronicles his adventures as D.O.A.'s
singer/songwriter/vocalist/guitarist, a political activist and a social reformer in his new
autobiography I, S***head: A Life in Punk which is set for release in the US on
Arsenal Pulp Press on March 3, 2004. It's already a national best-seller in
Canada. Amazon.ca has named I, S***head: A Life in Punk one of the top 25 nonfiction
books of 2003.
His fascinating journey is told in I, S***head: A Life in Punk, but the
book's existence is almost accidental. "It all started about five years ago when I
did some spoken-word appearances which kind of came out of me having a beer
with people and simply telling stories. I started bragging, 'Yeah, I'm going to
write a book.' Then a book deal with Arsenal Pulp Press in Vancouver came
together and once I sealed that, I realized I was facing a deadline!" laughs
Keithley. "Once I got past writing the first few chapters, it just flowed."
He wrote about his life's events in chronological order, and then he called
people to double-check facts like the exact month and year certain things
happened. Keithley also dispensed with relating tales about alcohol-related and
chemical-related exploits because those aren't shocking anymore and they didn't
help the flow of the narrative. The bulk of I, S***head: A Life in Punk traces
Keithley's adventures in the 1980s. At that time, D.O.A. was mostly active in
North America and became one of the first North American punk bands to make a
big impact in Europe. I, S***head: A Life in Punk chronicles D.O.A.'s wild
punk pioneering, and it covers the gamut from busts, to riots, to problems at
border crossings, to run-ins with local police and getting screwed by rip-off
record companies, as well as an ample dose of D.O.A.'s legendary lunacy.
D.O.A. will tour North America this spring to promote the new best-of CD War
and Peace on Sudden Death Records, which is owned and operated by Keithley.
During its quarter-century career, D.O.A. has sold more than 500,000 copies of
its 11 albums worldwide. "It's an anthology of material from our studio
albums. Picking the songs wasn't easy. When I was deciding what to include I'd make
a list of songs and then I'd rip it up and start over again," he says.
To fully understood Keithley's story, one has to go back to his youth when
the seeds of activism were planted. He started studying politics at an early age
and quickly discovered that he was philosophically at odds with his
conservative, straight-and-narrow, strict-disciplinarian father. Young Keithley
listened to the music of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and learned to play the drums.
He even decided to become a civil-rights lawyer in order to become another
voice of social change. "I was into the '60s counterculture but I was too young
to be a hippie," he says. "I remember watching coverage of the Vietnam War on
television back in a time when news coverage of a war wasn't censored.
"I first became a true activist when I was in high school. The American
military was going to conduct nuclear testing in the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.
Well, Greenpeace was actually founded in Vancouver and they were recruiting high
school students for a protest demonstration against the nuclear testing. That
one protest flipped me." It ultimately turned out that his literal
instrument of change was a guitar. On back-to-back days, he bought his first guitar and
enrolled in college. He soon discovered that college wasn't working out so he
turned to music full time.
D.O.A. formed at almost the very beginning of the punk movement whose deadly
serious mission was to gut, stuff and mount the bloated carcass of the
jet-setting, trendy, filthy-rich monster that rock 'n' roll had become by the
mid-1970s. "In 1977, the Ramones came along and transformed everything. Punk bands
represented what rock was supposed to be. Rock 'n' roll was supposed to be
rebellious, and punk filled a giant void," says Keithley. "By 1978, D.O.A. had
started and within three months we'd released our seven-inch Disco Sucks EP."
The punk underground was built on fanzines, concerts, word-of-mouth and a
cocky DIY (do-it-yourself) attitude. Keithley said punk became his "passport to
travel the world." D.O.A. toured heavily on the West Coast circuit that ran all
the way from Vancouver south to San Diego. There was a legendary gig in San
Francisco where D.O.A. met the Dead Kennedys.
Geography cannot be dismissed as a factor in creating the West Coast punk
scene, especially the inclusion of Vancouver. "It was a lot easier to drive to
LA than Toronto!" laughs Keithley.
In 1981, D.O.A. released what many regard as the band's definitive album,
Hardcore '81. During this time frame the band played a mini-festival for which
the punk subgenre "hardcore" was coined. "Between about 1979 and 1982 there
weren't many band that were classified as hardcore. It was basically us and Black
Flag," Keithley says.
Calling hard-touring bands "road warriors" was an understatement in D.O.A.'s
case. "Our approach was 'Let's be professional troublemakers.' We were
pioneers in that a lot of people hadn't seen this music outside a few major cities.
We would play a lot of towns where we would be the first punk band ever to
play somewhere like Dayton, Ohio, or Missoula, Montana," recalls Keithley. "The
simple fact is that we would play anywhere, anytime, for next to nothing. It
was evident that you didn't need a big record company machine behind you."
It was hard trying to make a living as a punk musician. Keithley struggled
for 10 years and worked part-time jobs to help support his family. Eventually,
the gradual success of D.O.A. and Sudden Death Records eased the financial
strain. "Success is gratifying, but struggle is part of the fun," he says.
Trying to change the world, to put it mildly, is difficult. Yet he believes
in the politics of "people power."
"The best example was stopping the Vietnam War," he says. "When regular
middle-class people like truck drivers and teachers started coming out against the
war, that's what eventually got it stopped."
Given the craziness of the modern world, Keithley is never at a loss for song
subjects. He's always had something to write about. "D.O.A. is the oldest
full-time running major punk band, although we did stop once for about 18
months. Then we realized we missed it," Keithley says. "One of my favorite things to
do is write songs, and I like to write about different things. I think you've
got to know what's happening in the news and you've got to know history too.
The most important thing about music is passion and a fire inside."
Keithley's approach is a clever one because he's trying to change the system
from the inside. He's certainly no communist or socialist. As a business
owner, he is technically a capitalist but he is using his resources to achieve his
political goals. "I'm a pseudo-anarchist. I vote, but I hold my nose and vote
for the best of the worst," Keithley says. "I'm anti-globalization, but you
can't close off society. I also believe in fair trade, not free trade."
Keithley is considering writing a second book, but it would be more of a
survival guide to our modern age and a primer on social activism rather than just
picking up where I, S***head: A Life in Punk left off. He would also like to
record a solo album and a reggae-oriented album.
Despite suffering some losing battles, Keithley has been on the winning side
sometimes. He cites a couple of sweet victories that help keep up his morale
as an activist. In 1988 D.O.A. and Bryan Adams, certainly strange bedfellows
from a musical standpoint, joined forces for the common goal of a benefit
concert to raise awareness about environmental damage caused by pulp and paper mills
in British Columbia; ultimately, the laws were changed and they tightened
restrictions on these industries in order to protect the environment more. Then
in 1990 D.O.A. and Bachman-Turner Overdrive played a benefit concert to raise
money to purchase badly needed parts for ambulances in Soweto, South Africa.
"I want to change the world in a positive way," Keithley says. "I've done it a
little bit, but I'm not there yet."
It was recently announced that D.O.A. will be honored in March by Canadian
Music Week. D.O.A. will become the first band inducted into the Canadian
Independent Music Awards' Indy Hall of Fame. This is the fourth annual "The Indies"
show. In December 2002, newly elected Mayor Larry Campbell, in his first act
of office, declared December 21st as D.O.A. Day in Vancouver. Joey was
presented with an official Vancouver city scroll to mark the occasion.
For further information on the book by Joey Keithley, I, S***head: A Life in
Punk, please contact Trish Kelly at Arsenal Pulp Press at 604-687-4233 or
trish@arsenalpulp.com. The book is distributed by Consortium in the United States.
D.O.A. -- Keithley, new bassist Damned Dan Yaremko (who has worked with
Econoline Crush and Bif Naked) and drummer The Great Baldini -- will hit the road
soon. Upcoming tour dates are scheduled for the West Coast and more on the East
Coast will follow later. Keithley also has bookstore and spoken-word
appearances scheduled too, and sometimes these will occur on the same day as D.O.A.
concerts. They will always be earlier in the day, between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00
p.m. local time. The current schedule includes:
JOEY KEITHLEY – Bookstore & Spoken-Word Appearances
Thursday, March 4th Toronto, ON
Sneaky Dee's
Friday, March 5th Ottawa, ON
Octopus Books
Saturday, March 6th Kingston, ON
Novel Idea
Wednesday, March 10th Kamloops, BC University
College of the Cariboo
Thursday, March 25th Portland, OR
Reading Frenzy
Friday, March 26th Sacramento, CA Tower
Records (2500 16th St.)
Saturday, March 27th Oakland, CA AK
Press
Monday, March 29th Los Angeles, CA Virgin
Megastore (Sunset Blvd.)
Monday, March 29th Los Angeles, CA Alterknit
Lounge/Knitting Factory
Friday, April 2nd Brea, CA
Tower Records (220 S. Brea)
D.O.A. – Concert Appearances
Wednesday, March 3rd Toronto, ON The
Phoenix
Thursday, March 4th Toronto, ON The
Funhaus
Friday, March 5th Ottawa, ON
Barrymore's
Saturday, March 6th Kingston, ON
Scherzo
Friday, March 19th Squamish, BC Howe
Sound Inn
Thursday, March 25th Portland, OR Meow
Meow
Friday, March 26th Sacramento, CA The
Roadhouse
Saturday, March 27th Concord, CA
Bourbon Street
Sunday, March 28th Malibu, CA
Malibu Inn
Tuesday, March 30th Downey, CA Anarchy
Library
Wednesday, March 31st Santa Barbara, CA Coach House
North
Thursday, April 1st Hemet, CA
Shooters
Friday, April 2nd Santa Ana, CA
Galaxy Theatre
Saturday, April 3rd San Diego, CA
Brick By Brick
Sunday, April 4th Bakersfield, CA
Jerry's
Friday, April 23rd Eugene, OR
WOW Hall
Saturday, April 24th Tacoma, WA
Hell's Kitchen
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