interview from eye. 1993 Tombstone Blues Head Trauma has another one of those days By Chris O'Connor I swear I never meant to frighten anyone. Honest, it was just a nothing question - so routine I can't even remember what It was - but right now it's causing Steve Vardy some serious Heath Trauma. He sits there wide-eyed, hiding behind lank, fading, bottleblack locks, looking like a feral child raised by phantoms: I may as well have asked him the riddle of existence.

"OK, Steve," prompts Jillian Buckingham gently, "Go ahead...." "No, Jill I'm lost again," he protests, barely audible, and- points at the jukebox, which is dribbling out Top 40 syrup. "It's that thing. It' s distracting me." Then, as if pleading with a protective older sisters "You answer it, OK, Jill? C'mon, I'm so confused today." The bass player answers the question, the guitar player looks relieved. So I ask him: you're not usually this distracted, are you? "I dunno," Steve grins distractedly, "probably." "He got lost this morning wandering in the cemetery," Jill explains. She'd been to the doctor, applying for jobs - nice, normal activities - when Steve, left alone for a few minutes, made a beeline for the boneyard. He hadn't been to one in over two years and he wanted to read the headstones. "It's just been one of those days for him." Steve Vardy, see, lives a perpetual Halloween, where weirdity bisects conventional reality and the only logical outcome is Head Trauma: Dark, Brooding Bastard spawn of Skinny Puppy and 17 seconds christened with titles like "Graveyard" and "Four Padded Walls." Jill is the archtypical down-to-earth bassist, the band's link to reality, but Steve -- Steve's like Alice in Wonderland if Edward Gory wrote it.

but that's OK," says Jill, with genuine affection. "It's what makes him interesting. Actually, I've been criticized by Manny [HT's occasional guest vocalist] for encouraging him to get in touch with reality: you know, like getting a job. Actually, he does have a lead on a job picking Tulips."

Jill's looking for a job, too (though I don't think tulip-picking is high on her list). She quit her job at a New Age-ish hair salon: the owners hired her because "their psychic did their tarot cards and predicted that a black haired girl would apply," which was pretty cool, but when they asked her to lose her supernatural locks it was time to go. That, and the fact that they wanted to anoint her weekly with "healing oil" to purge her aura of Steve's influence: "They were kind of freaked out by him."

Head Trauma might be a magnet for the weird, but Understand: they are not out of touch with reality. Considering their next show' is headlining a benefit for People-With AIDS, far from it.

PWA Rick ("I'd use the real name, but it' s too long and trio French," he jokes) is an organizer for People With AIDS and a coordinator for the show. "That's our goal," he says, "to be able to help those people with everyday life, and the money will help them pay for their rent,- medication, hydro, phone, the everyday living stuff. I'd be climbing the walls if I didn't do this, because I'm on long-term disability. I've been at this for three years. Actually, fundraising, for the past two, dying for the past three. He laughs, but is not bitter. "You've got to joke about it, you really do. Take it with a grain of salt and live your life while you've got it" And just for a second, conventional reality doesn't seem so dark. The Toronto PWA Benefit, Featuring Head Trauma, Masochistic Religion, Parade & Acid Toad Secretions.

Formed in 1991, disbanded in 1995
releases
bomb scare 1992
when darkness falls 1993
evolsidog 1994

Email : perdition@perdition.com