Guyana Punch Line is what Tipper Gore fears most, a quartet of mayhem calling themselves “Columbia, South Carolina’s least favourite ejaculation.” Their album, Irritainment (Prank 2001), is a full-on auditory pissing of verse-chorus-verse that the MuchMusic crew might call “thrash hardcore.” This album brings back the feel of late 70s/early 80s dirty, in-your-face, blood-letting punk rock—the ultimate backlash to the glitter and fluff of the current music scene.
Once upon a time, punk rock was like throwing a bowl of boiling piss in the face of the establishment. Now it’s a meagre offering of dishwater. The pain and promise of the punk revolution should originate from the groin—the very seat of creativity. So the Varsity was more than happy to dip into the gangliotic mess of Chris Bickle, resident GPL “screamer,” and “Kevin the guitarist” (with Troy on drums and Drew rounding off the band as the new bassist) to ask them why so many bands nowadays seem to be merely going through the motions.
Bickle gets right into it. “While part of me thinks it’s fabulous that this underground DIY punk rock network exists, it’s simply made it too damn easy for any four guys to buy some gear and start recording/releasing records and packing it all into a van for a tour. When you have this kind of over-saturation, things are bound to get stale. If you want to look at it as a ‘market,’ it’s absolutely flooded. Everyone’s got their own motives as to why they want to have a band. For the truly misguided, it’s a way to make money. I wish I had a special insight into the minds of most of these bands—then maybe I could explain to them why it’s such a bad idea that they continue to water things down and make for shows that suck the life and energy out of the punk vibe.
“I myself play in a band because I am poor and cannot afford therapy. This is why making angry music gives me so much pleasure. I can’t afford a Playstation to vent my aggression.”
Anger and aggression are essential to the band’s Smashist philosophy. The album’s liner notes reveal that GPL strives to be Smashism incarnate. Says Bickle, “This could easily be misconstrued—because I’m NOT saying that I support these actions in ANY way—but I’d say that the notion that a couple of guys armed with box cutters being able to take down two of the largest buildings in the world…the idea that no matter how out-of-control technology or the system becomes, a stick can always bring it down.
It’s the all-encompassing idea that the world must remain in a constant state of building up and tearing down, that there is no creation without destruction.”
Speaking of tearing shit up, I ventured back into the punk rock realm and wondered if I was the only one who felt moshing was for kids born in the 80s. Whatever happened to the on-floor fucking one sees in those old, sketchy punk videos?
There would always be indistinct punk rockers humping like furious fiends on the grungy ground—you couldn’t tell who was the guy or the girl, because the fashion was so “fuck you” it defied gender.
The Varsity wondered if GPL’s shows revived this now-faded trend in their audience.
Says Kevin, “What audience?” Bickle says that, indeed, “People do tend to get a little weirder at our shows than at most punk shows. I think it’s because they know what we’re about and there’s a bit more of a sense of total abandon.”
Since a university paper should reflect some academic principles, I wondered if the lads had any parting wisdom to share. Like a shaman, Bickle shakes out: “A comfortable lie will always win out over an uncomfortable truth.”
But in sooth, dear punkers, I sorta prefer Kevin’s Yoda-meets-Wordsworth response: “The same old words worn thin, defaced by ages of careless usage, edited to make you feel meaningless. The word swallows our faces whole.
“Smashism accepts all forms of music, but cannot play any of them.”
Man, you’ll be twitching like the tequila worm outta the bottle with a needle in one arm called Rock and a needle in the other arm called Roll. My retinas have yet to return to normal size.
