Captain Matt's Armada Featuring Axel (Where Trevor Writes All The Songs And Does All The Work) The V-Twins The Guants The Q-Bar, Toronto Ontario: February 2002 Clintons, Toronto Ontario: May 2002 Convergence VIII Montreal, Quebec: May 31 2002 The Oasis, Toronto Ontario: May 24 2003 Clintons, Toronto Ontario: May 14 2004 The Q-Bar, Toronto Ontario: July 31 2004 There are two stories behind CMAFA. The first is the incredible booze and drug soaked odyssey of Captain Matt's Armada featuring Axel. The band consisted of singer Captain Matt, bass guitarist Axel, Trevor who plays lead guitar, writes all the songs and does all the work but gets none of the recognition, and Insatiabelle who was the drummer prior to 1985 and then disappeared until 2002. The band was formed 'back in the day' which translates to some point in the early '80's - the protagonists aren't too sure of the detail as a consequence of excessive substance abuse. The band formed in Perth shortly after Matt rescued Axel who was languishing in white slavery aboard an Icelandic Pirate Whaler. They were wandering the bars one drunken night when they ran into Trevor writing dark and moody songs. He complained to them that everyone kept stealing his songs. Recognizing him as a kindred spirit, Matt and Axel suggested that Trevor would have more luck retaining the rights to his music if he actually performed his songs himself. As one they broke into the nearest music store, stole all the instruments they needed, and thus Gland Ho!, their landmark debut single, was born. At some point Insatiabelle became the band's drummer. Nobody really knows how that happened but she sings on Gland Ho! so she must have been there. The band toured heavily for a number of reasons. Primarily because it allowed them to run away from their bar tabs. It was on one of their early tours that Insatiabelle "left" the band. After a particularly rowdy gig in Des Moines, Iowa the band fled, but accidentally left Insatiabelle behind (Captain Matt's fault). They noticed when they arrived in Chicago with a gig scheduled for that night, but no drummer. Fortunately, the Sisters of Mercy had just played, and the Captain had always loathed Andy E. So he beat him up and stole Doktor Avalanche (painting a big skull & crossbones on the side to disguise it). Unfortunately, they had to run off immediately after that gig as well, leaving the good ship "Insatiabelle" behind. This set a pattern, and as a result Andrew Eldritch owes his record company a lot of money for the purloined drum machines leading to his reputation as a skinflint. It also explains why he hates Goths as he identifies them with CMAFA. The band played all over the world; North America, England, Europe, the Middle East (the infamous 'Jihad' tour, where Peter Murphy supported them and found Islam), Australia & NZ, and indeed everywhere else, except (possibly) Antarctica. They even did a short tour of SE Asia called 'Holiday in Cambodia'; so fucked up on drugs & booze at the time that they took the Dead Kennedys exhortation seriously. In spite of their energy for touring a combination of bad timing, hopeless naiveté and sinister conspiracies (and one minor incident involving setting an A&R rep on fire), the band never achieved any mainstream recognition. They gained a sizable cult following however, based largely on the strength of their live shows; massive over-the-top affairs that included such famous escapades as exploding toucans, live snapping turtles released into the audience and Axel's Giant Psychedelic Riding Penis, among other things. CMAFA recorded 2 albums; Captain Matt's Armada featuring Axel Says Johnny Voodoo Bones Syphilitic Monkeys and Captain Matt's Armada featuring Axel Live. (Pronounced 'liv'.) They broke up while recording CMAfA Live on December 19th 1995. The album runs as follows: Applause. 30 seconds of song. Trevor stops playing & starts complaining about how he's fed up with never getting any of the glory even tho' he does everything. Big argument breaks out. The band storms off the stage. 65 minutes of speaker hum. After the band broke up, Axel moved to Bangkok where he supported himself by writing Hentai Haiku and pimping transsexuals and Matt became Big in Japan performing as a lounge singer. Trevor was unable to leave Canada because of shoplifting charges, so he retreated to Inuktituk. History happened when one of Axel's customers, alt.gothic regular David Gerard, recognized him and mentioned that the band was still remembered fondly on the newsgroup. Axel started posting to a.g., and was invited by Macross to appear on his regular internet radio show, In Perpetual Motion. It just so happened to be the same week that I was passing through town and had agreed to be interviewed about the upcoming Convergence VIII in Montréal. It also just so happened that Trevor was listening to the show and he called in to argue profusely with Axel. Somehow I managed to convince them that the prospect of drugs and groupies made it worthwhile to put aside their long standing feud and reform the band. Axel finished the interview with a cry of "See you all at Convenience 8!" The news flew around the internet, and shortly thereafter Captain Matt's father got in touch to ask if his son could rejoin the band, as Matt's lounge act had broken up and he was stuck in Tokyo with no money, no work permit, and a severe foot fetish to support. Realising that their voices were both too damaged by smoke for them to be able to sing, Axel and Trevor reluctantly agreed. The biggest surprise though, was when Insatiabelle showed up. After years spent working in Des Moines to pay off the band's bar tab, she had been searching for them with no success. Now, thanks to their new presence on the Internet she was able to track them down and take her rightful place behind the drum kit. How could they refuse? For one thing she could sue their asses off if they tried. So now CMAfA have reformed. As a compromise to the egos that made up the band they were now known as Captain Matt's Armada featuring Axel (where Trevor writes all the songs and does all the work) introducing Insatiabelle. History was about to be remade. And then there's story two. WAAAAAY back in the autumn of 2001, Casper and I were at one of Axel's parties. We were heavily involved in organizing Convergence VIII at the time and we were bitching about the lack of decent Canadian acts among the band submissions. I forget exactly who started it, but at some point, Trevor and Axel said, "We'll help you out. We'll start a band." Axel, with his usual enthusiam for anything that sounds like it's going to be a really dumb idea, recruited Matthew on the spot to do the singing. Casper and I, drunk as we were, laughed and said sure. Figuring that like most of the rediculous plans our friends come up with, the end result would be a lot of talk, a hangover, and not much else. A week later Axel and Trevor bought guitars. Two weeks later they had a rehersal space and were holding regular rehersals. So obviously we weren't about to book some crap band that had been playing together for four months and put them on stage when we had already rejected a whole bunch of crap bands that had been playing together for a lot longer. But the boys had a plan. A gimmick as it were. They were going to make it a great big alt.gothic in-joke. The plan was to create an entire history for the band as one of the old-school "greats" of goth/punk music and get as much of the newsgroup in on it as possible. It was going to be a pet newsgroup project. The name itself was taken directly from a Kids In The Hall sketch. Once we realized they were serious about this, Casper and I set a few conditions we wanted met first. Something about them actually being able to play. In addition to that, I stipulated that they had to put on a public performance by the end of the year. (Which at that time was about two months away.) It didn't have to be a long one, and it could be just in front of friends, but I wanted to know that they weren't going to walk out on stage and freeze solid. That New Year's Eve, CMAFA played in front of all their friends in Axel's kitchen. They only played three songs, including one that had already been invented to be their infamous "hit" single; Gland Ho!. After they were done Casper and I looked at each other and said, "Well. Guess we're committed now, aren't we?" Trevor's girlfriend "Insatiabelle" played drums for them on NYE, and after that experience she decided to stick it out until Convergence. The next six months consisted of rehersing, rehersing and more rehersing. A friend who had done some voice training came to a session and gave Matt a bunch of pointers. Casper and I gave them as much feedback as we could. They did their first public performance in the tiny Q-Bar and they play in a room packed solid with friends who just could not believe they were really going to go through with this - and they impressed us all with just how far they had come in a few short months. In the meantime, Axel was posting to alt.gothic pretending to be the "mighty sex-god Axel" of CMAFA fame and the story of the band's history got wilder and sillier as more people got involved in the joke. We drove to Detroit for an appearance on IPM Radio - getting delayed in a blizzard and making up some story about him showing up at the airport in shorts and causing a riot. The guitarist phoned him up to chew him out on air, and not only did the band get back together that very night, but their appearance at C8 was confirmed! Steph wrote an interview with the band for Starvox. Sola built them a giant green riding penis complete with saddle for the stage show. Go-go girls were recruited. More post were made to Usenet. Insatiabelle got into a flamewar with an imposter. Scary Lady Sarah posted the band on one of her set-lists - inventing the song title Quit Your Bitching - and Trevor wrote a song for it. A CD was recorded, called In Search of Elvis. And every person who publically wondered what the hell was going on got dragged into the joke, and became a party to the conspiracy. In spite of technical difficulties and what seemed like intentional sabotage on the part of the house tech lead, the actual gig went pretty well. CMAFA aquitted themselves admirably in front of their somewhat dubious audience - people actually danced! And they even got an not-entirely unfavourable review. After that experience, the guys definitely wanted to keep on playing. They performed breifly as The V-Twins and then for an even a shorter period as The Gaunts. Unfortunately other priorities interfered, and the band went on semi-permanent hiatus. Trevor is the only one who regularly performs, playing guitar for surf/garage band The Von Drats. We still have a bunch of CMAFA t-shirts and CDs kicking around the house. Souveniers of one of the silliest ideas ever to hit a stage. The Cash Brothers University of Guelph, Guelph ON: 1988 UofG used to have all these parties for the incoming students with a couple of bands and a licenced beer tent. Maybe this is standard at schools, I don't know. I do know that I never bothered going when I was a new student. My last year of school, on the other hand, I was friends with the president of the student association and he dragged me and a few other pals down to the school to join the party. We ended up sitting around in the green room with the bands and drinking all their beer. They seemed like nice guys and didn't act like they minded. The music is a little more folk-flavoured than I really like. But like I said, nice guys. The Chameleons Club Soda, Montreal Quebec: October 7 2002 Club Soda, Montreal Quebec: October 8 2002 Pheonix, Toronto Ontario: October 9 2002 LD50 Entertainment was a promotion company I worked for for three years. Early on in our mutual history, I was woken up by a phone call. "Hello," saidt he accented voice on the other end. "This is Mark Burgess of The Chameleons. "Fuck off," I said back. "Who is this really?" And that's how we ended up putting on three shows in three days. The first show was an "accoustic" set with no opener. The second gig was a full out rock show with Bordello as an opening band. Turns out Nadzine is a huge fan and was afraid to go and talk to them. Of course we told them that and sic'd them on her. She turned ten shades of red but she was thrilled to death. In Toronto we had Ariel open for them. The shows were amazing. Seriously. Two-and-a-half hours long, tight, amazing, incredible shows. One of the best live acts I've ever seen. And absolute sweethearts as well. There was a blank day between the Toronto gig and their next date in the U.S., so we held a media party and jam at a local bar. Nobody else wanted to get up and play with them because they were too intimidated at first. So a couple of the Chameleons ran around and dragged people up to play. We all got very drunk and foolish, and in spite of a slightly worrying fire alarm incident it ended up being an enormously good time. The Chaos Engine Convergence VIII Montreal, Quebec: June 1 2002 Harlow, UK: October 2002 Whitby Gothic Weekend, Whitby UK: October 31 2003 I started listening to these guys because they were friends of Axel's. They quickly became one of my favourite bands, and when Casper and I won the bid for Convergence VIII, they were the first band we contacted to play. Other bands we put on the same lineup were just as cool - Bella Morte, Cinema Strange, This Ascension, Swarf, Bordello and Captain Matt's Armada Featuring Axel (Where Trevor Does All The Work and Writes All The Songs) Announcing Insatiabelle. Turns out they are also really cool people and everybody got on like crazy. It's probably their fault that the three of us decided to go to Whitby the first time. Lee is a wildman on stage, leaping about and screaming into the mic like a madman. He's never made any secret of the fact that performing is a method of catharsis for him and it makes the liveshows a pretty wild ride. It's not be accident that he is responsable for Whitby's first ever mosh pit. Now if I can just break him of the habit of always trying to drag me onto the damn stage. Cheap Trick Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto Ontario: 1978 This was the first concert I ever went to. I think I was maybe 16? My sister and a bunch of her friends were lining up for tickets so I got a couple for me and a friend. I wasn't even that huge a fan of Cheap Trick, I just thought it might be a fun thing to do. Little did I know. Graham Parker was the opening act, I remember him as being incredibly energetic. The details of the show are pretty fuzzy by now, but I do remember being incredibly impressed by how electric the experience was of seeing musicians play their music live instead of on a record. And so an addict was born. Chiasm Radioactive, Detroit MI: August 31 2002 Radioactive was a concert to promote the Internet Radio Fairness Act. Some friends were involved, so we decided to pack up the car and spend the weekend in Detroit hanging out and catching the show. Algernon started off with a spoken-word set called Goth-in-a-Box. The sound was terrible, and he was to soft-spoken to actually project over the people in the room talking so I couldn't hear more than about 10% of anything he said. So I have no idea if he was good or not. Urn were up next, doing a metal set. I wasn't blown away at the time. Much to my surprise, it turned out. Because when I was talking to Dominic later that night, I recognized him - he had been involved in Morphine Angel, who were just brilliant. It turned out to be a bad show for everybody, because one of the organizers approached Axel to ask if he could sub base at the last minute for Chiasm. Which made me really nervous, because he hadn't been playing for very long at that time. However, the regular base player was able to pull through at the last minute and the show went on. I have some of the recorded material, and I quite like it. There is a lot of passion in the live performance too. But I think it was just a bad night for a lot of people, I'd have to see all the acts again to formulate anything like a fair opinion. Then we sat up 'till dawn in Bob's living room and shot the shit and drank beer. Very good. Christian Death Convergence II, Boston MA, August 9-11 1996 This was Valor's incarnation of Christian Death, not the original. The story of how they came to play was kind of a funny one. Cusraque, who was the promoter who put together the second Convergence was trying to get Switchblade Symphony and Sunshine Blind as part of the lineup. They were in the middle of a tour opening for Valor's Christian Death, so he ended up having to book all three bands to make it work. In later stories, Cusraque would describe how Valor acted like a complete and utter prick, until Cusraque finally told him he was quite welcome to take his cheque and go the hell home. They did end up performing, however, and I watched the first half of the set. It was hysterical, completely over-the-top with the overblown theatrics. At the point where he started swinging the huge flashlights around to dazzle the people in the front of the audience I just completely lost it. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the rest of the band. That was my first time seeing Sunshine Blind and Switchblade Symphony, but not the last as they seemed to be playing every goth festival on the planet over the next couple of years. I really dug You Shriek. The opening band for the night was One of Us, who were good, but I thought they were a lot less memorable than the rest of the lineup. Clan of Xymox Convergence V, New Orleans LA: April 2-4 1999 Kathedral, Toronto Ontario: October 27 2000 Convergence V This was the second Convergence I went to (not counting the one I helped to organize) and it still stands out as one of the most fun. It was a great weekend bracketed by a rather eventful roadtrip. Everybody says Convergence is "not about the bands", which is true, but they are definitely a part of the experience. That didn't stop me from blowing off the first night of bands to go play Stripper Bingo with a pile of friends. On the Saturday night, however, we packed out House of Blues. I spent most of my time up on the balcony close to the bar, and we could look down and watch people dancing downstairs. The line-up for the night was The Cruxshadows, Mentallo and the Fixer and Clan of Xymox. I was kind of dissappointed by Mentallo & the Fixer, I had had high hopes for them but they didn't really inspire me. I really enjoyed the headliners though, so it was not a wasted night. Well not that kind of wasted, anyway, there was plenty of wasted going on otherwise. I did like Xymox, however - ended up going to the Toronto show just so I could see them play again. Cocteau Twins Concert Hall, Toronto Ontario: June 14 1996 I brought BC to this show early on when we were dating. It was during the "trying to find common ground in the music we listen to" stage of the courtship. It was a mellow show. We spent most of it sitting on the floor. Convertible Robots Kathedral, Toronto Ontario: December 20 2003 Holy Joe's, Toronto Ontario: September 25 2004 I've seen these guys headline two shows now. The first one I had to leave for work about a third into their set, but I was favourably impressed by what I did see. A three piece, drummer, guitar and singer plus the usual massive number of effects and stuff. Live drummers seem to be making a comeback these days. I couldn't really see the drummer behind his kit, but both guitar player and singer were big men. The singer is a really big man and he has this rich resonant rolling voice that I normally associate with blues singers, not electronica. He had stage presence coming out the yin-yang. He didn't really "engage" the audience in the classic sense, but he would come out with these hilarious non-sequeters - "Anybody had any good sandwiches lately." - before ripping immediately into the next song. The music was energetic and he bounced, stomped, marched and boogied along with it. The music itself was very upbeat energetic electronic. The drums and guitar were quite high in the mix, so it could have passed for a pop-rock band if not for the effects and samples. My comment to a friend was, " David Clayton Thomas meets R2D2." Very enjoyable stuff. Check them out if you want to hear electronic music that doesn't suck. Craig Ruhnke Oak Park Junior High School, Toronto ON: 1975 Craig Ruhnke was a pop artist in Toronto in the mid-70s. My grade 7 teacher happened to be a friend of his, so every year the band would come to the school and perform in the auditorium. Most kids that age had never seen a live band before, so even though the music was a little soft for the tastes of your average teenager, they still got a pretty enthusiastic response. The year we saw him play just happened to be the year he had his only hit single. Suddenly we were seeing a band perform that actually got radio play. Several hundreds 13 year old girls lost their minds. The Cramps The Concert Hall, Toronto Ontario: November 3 1983 I can't beleive I've only ever seen this band once. I'm going to have to do something about that. It was when I was living in Guelph with my ex-husband, so we had to drive into Toronto to see the show. At that point The Cramps had not played in Canada for years, so there were a lot of people making the trip. It ended up snowing really heavily that night, mucking up the highways and making what is normally about an hour drive about three times that long. Worth every second. The Cramps are bad, bad, dirty fun. And of course the audience went nuts for the entire show, which only served to encourage their behaviour. Lux Interior started off in full-length skin-tight PVC, by the end of the show he was standing on the amps wearing only a PVC thong and a pair of stillettos. (I should add here that he is one of the palest human beings I have ever seen in my life.) I remember that Nick Knox and Candy del Mar were in the lineup at the time. For the life of me, I can't remember whether or not there was an opening band. Cruxshadows Spellbound II, Cleveland OH: November 8-9 1996 Convergence V, New Orleans LA: April 2-4 1999 I have never really "gotten" the Cruxshadows' popularity. I mean, I can understand why their live shows go over well, because they put on a very energetic set, and the thing that Rogue does of running around in the audience always goes over really well. And they seem to be really nice guys. But I find their music infinitely forgettable. Just completely generic. Yet they are very popular. Go figure. For a band I don't think much of, I have still managed to see them twice. The first time was when my friends put on the second iteration of the event that had introduced me to Morphine Angel, so I had high hopes. Unfortunately, history was not to repeat. The lineup this year included the aforementioned Cruxshadows, Gossamer and Falling Janus. None of whom really did it for me. Ah well. The weekend wasn't a total waste, however. I got to see a performance art piece that a friend of mine was involved in that featured a burning "building" in an empty warehouse and a naked fireman being lifted out on a rope. And I managed to completely spin out on the highway out of town during a blizzard and crunch the front end of my car so badly we had to open the hatch to crawl out. Fortunately duct tape saved the day. Or at least my headlights. The Cult Superskate, Kitchener Ontario: August 18 1987 CNE Stadium, Toronto Ontario: 1987 The first time I saw the Cult play was in a roller skating rink. Superskate was a big hall in Kitchener where they would occasionally have concerts. It wasn't a huge place - about average roller-skating rink size, I would guess -- and they had sold out the show. Opening act were a band I had never heard of called Guns n' Roses. They didn't go over all that well with the audience and the singer got a little pissy about their reception. At one point we realized Nigel Preston was standing right next to us watching the gig. When the Cult finally came on stage, they played about two songs and then the power blew out. leaving the band and the audience in pitch black. Ian Astbury ended up just standing at the front of the stage rambling at the audience for a while until the lights finally came back on. I found a really funny version of it here, as described by one of the tech crew. The Cult are really big on all the 70's cock-rock conventions - it's one of the things that makes them really entertaining. This show was no exception, lots of my-guitar-is-a-big-penis and I-am-a hard-drinking-rock-star posturing. Ian Astbury climbed all over the amps, but the ceiling was so low he had to break a hole in the tiles to do it. Great fun. The second time I saw them was shortly thereafter, when they were opening for Billy Idol in a much larger venue. For some reason the show doesn't stand out in my memory nearly as much. I wasn't a big fan of Idol at the time - we were solely there for the opening act -- but I do have to admit that he put on an energetic live show. He even fell off his set once, which will instantly warm my heart towards a fellow clutz. I was entirely unsure what to make of his actual stage set, which was a big pair of open legs splayed out across the backdrop - complete with thatch of pubic har. Last Updated September 23 2007.
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