Early Vancouver punk group Pointed Sticks released one of the best Canadian punk records ever with 1980 album Perfect Youth. Fizzing with energy and filled with hooks, the album and early singles, with songs like "True Love," "Out of Luck" and "What Do You Want Me To Do," still deserve prime position on punk playlists. The band reunited in 2006 for a few shows in Japan, and liked it so much they've stuck together long enough to put out a new record, Three Lefts Make a Right. Bassist Tony Bardach talked to me about Pointed Sticks past and present shortly before a pair of springtime shows in wild rose country, their first in town since the early '80s.
Pointed Sticks Break Up
What happened with the initial Pointed Sticks breakup? Was it a bad parting?
Bardach: It wasn’t necessarily a bad parting. Certainly in all relationships there are always disagreements, but retrospect has a lot to do with looking at things objectively and understanding how they work. The overall thing had developed itself a flavour that was different from the thing that we’d enjoyed to begin with, and we all sort of became aware of that at different times and it dissolved itself over a period of a few months. I was gone before the end; there was another bass player and a sax player for a few months after me.
Pointed Sticks Japan Reunion
When you got back together to do the reunion shows in Japan, had you realized the band still had a huge following?
Bardach: That’s sort of when it became real to us. We certainly saw people my daughter’s age singing all the lyrics to our songs and at that point we’d had one practice together since 1980. The crowd knew our tunes better than we did and they weren’t even English-speaking, so that was pretty cool. They had a huge sense of purpose themselves – they were arriving with all kinds of memorabilia from back in the day for us to sign and autograph for them, things like old posters, old record promotion stuff, albums, singles, everything you could imagine. And for a couple hours they stood there waiting in a big lineup to ask us questions that they had prepared, you know, worked hard at getting the English together to make sure that we’d understand the question.
Japanese Fans of Canadian Punk
What was it like to be received so well?
Bardach: It felt like—If they wanted to know that, then we’d tell them. We’d never thought that it would be that interesting. We, I think, had imagined music, especially at the time that we were making it as being more disposable. We didn’t think that we’d have been anything but disposed of.
The New Pointed Sticks Record
What made you decide to put out a new album rather than just get back together for shows?
Bardach: After Japan, we worked on making a single and then we decided we’d do a show in Vancouver and thought we might make a couple of more singles to follow that up. Maybe play once in a while, and mostly spend time working at those singles. We don’t have a lot of availability together; we can get together once or twice a year for a few days.
Pointed Sticks Lyrics and Punk Rock Love
How have things changed lyrically?
Bardach: It’s funny how the kinds of experiences you have repeat themselves. You do, in a way, often end up writing about the same sort of things but you just sort of see it from a different perspective.
There still seem to be a lot of boy-girl relationship themed songs, but with a different attitude.
Bardach: That’s right. I wonder if it’s a little bit of the aspect of retrospect. Sometimes it’s difficult to write about an experience while you’re having it, and so those types of songs will be different if you write about it later.
1970s Punk Records
Are there any records from that era that you would still listen to?
Bardach: As a band, music that we still enjoy, I would say probably everything that came out between ’75 to 1980 is somehow interesting. We probably all still listen to Iggy Pop a lot; I put on the Ramones quite often. I never really got much into any of the ‘90s music. I’m sure was probably some things I might have paid attention to if I hadn’t glossed over the whole thing.
Canadian Punk Overseas
Why do you think Japan in particular is so crazy about Canadian punk?
Bardach: Maybe it’s purity. There’s a purity in seclusion, you know? We’re a relatively small family, easy to follow and our cousins are next door on both sides, Alberta, Washington, California.
Source:
Bardach, Tony. Personal interview. 19 March 2010.
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