Valentines Massacre at the Anza Club

Last night in Vancouver, BC, Canada at the Anza Club - two days before V-Day - a host of local legends got on stage to cover songs by The Sex Pistols, the Stranglers, Husker Du, and Frank Zappa. The Next Pistols, The Manglers, the Huskee Dudes, and Slowpoke and the Jets excited the crowd with classics from the aforementioned bands.

In the photo above, is the trio usually known as Slowpoke and the Smoke - but at the Anza last night they were called Slowpoke and the Jets and they had an an excellent sax player with them. From left: Tony Twilight, Bradford Attitude, and Eric Napalm.

Manglers front man Doug Donut, formerly from Death Sentence (a band my pals and I loved seeing back in the 80s), did an especially excellent and lecherous-sounding version of "Peaches." In fact, he brought a sort of hilarious extra-raunchiness to the music, which was a bit more sped-up and harsh than the original. The Manglers' Stranglers "stick in your head" bass sound was brought to us by Phil Addington, who has been playing music in Vancouver for so many years and who also owns Bone Rattle Music on Commercial Drive. He and his staff are so nice to my little son who loves his store full of cool guitars (and they tolerate my son's outbursts of disappointment when I drag the little fella kicking and screaming out of the store when it's finally time to leave!)

It was interesting to see so much recording at the show. There must have been at least six people with video cameras on tripods and 15 people using cameras. I thought I saw local photographer Bev Davies walking around looking for good angles or subjects (or whatever really good photographers look for!)