{"id":596256,"date":"2026-04-11T04:18:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T04:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/596256\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T04:18:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T04:18:20","slug":"kurt-bloch-talks-the-fastbacks-in-vancouver-nuhs-of-november-and-getting-ones-ass-kicked-musically","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/596256\/","title":{"rendered":"Kurt Bloch talks the Fastbacks in Vancouver, nuhs of November, and getting one’s ass kicked musically"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday.\u00a0Sign up for our free newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sometimes interviews begin in an absurdly niche place.<\/p>\n

Take a listen to the Young Fresh Fellows\u2019 \u201cNovember\u201d<\/a>,\u00a0the kickoff track to the\u00a0 band’s wonderful 2020 LP\u00a0Toxic Youth. In between lines, there is a really striking vocal element, a catchy, silly repetition of what I think are 16 nuhs: “nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh.”<\/p>\n

From the first time I heard it, it sounded awfully familiar, but\u2026 what did it remind me of?<\/p>\n

It took me months of listening to the song, little \u201cnuhs\u201d chewing on my brain, to figure it out: it was the bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup-bup backing vocal on Polly\u2019s \u201cPut a Little English On It\u201d<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The man behind Polly, Paul Leahy, died of cancer in February 2017. Though I knew him best as half of NO FUN, in his last years, he had moved on to front Polly\u2019s hard-glam revival, making music that was equal parts T. Rex, Mott the Hoople, and David Bowie. \u201cPut a Little English On It\u201d was the standout track on Polly\u2019s\u00a0All Messed Up.<\/p>\n

Could the similarity be mere coincidence? I had previously established, when Fellows Scott McCaughey and Kurt Bloch were touring through town with the Minus 5, that they knew NO FUN; David Matychuk, of that band, had told me about hearing of McCaughey buying NO FUN\u2019s magnum opus,\u00a0Snivel,\u00a0when shopping in Vancouver\u00a0around when the album (actually a two-cassette box set) was first released.<\/p>\n

McCaughey confirmed that something of the sort indeed had happened, and we gifted him a\u00a0Snivel\u00a0CD (available through Atomic Werewolf, NO FUN\u2019s label).<\/p>\n

So if the Young Fresh Fellows knew NO FUN, they might have known Polly. And they had certainly overtly nodded to Vancouver bands before: check Jim Sangster\u2019s background vocals on \u201cI Don\u2019t Let the Little Things Get Me Down\u201d,\u00a0which are described on the back cover of\u00a0The Men Who Loved Music\u00a0as a deliberate nod to Slow, with whom the Fellows had shared a bill back in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

Video of Young Fresh Fellows 12 – I Don’t Let The Little Things Get Me Down<\/p>\n

So maybe the nuhs in \u201cNovember\u201d had been in some way inspired by the bups in \u201cPut a Little English On It\u201d?<\/p>\n

First, I asked McCaughey. He didn\u2019t know, but thought it was at least worth asking Kurt Bloch about, because apparently, the nuhs in \u201cNovember\u201d had been Bloch\u2019s idea.<\/p>\n

The plot thickened considerably, and started to seem a bit less farfetched, when I discovered that around the time\u00a0Toxic Youth\u00a0was being recorded, Kurt Bloch had come up to Vancouver to see the Pointed Sticks at the Rickshaw, for a Christmastime pre-COVID performance in December of 2019. It was probably the gig where the Pointed Sticks had debuted their cover version of, yep, Polly\u2019s \u201cPut a Little English on it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

So Bloch not only had actually heard the song, but he was\u00a0in The Rickshaw\u00a0when that clip was recorded! So maybe, just maybe, he knew it?<\/p>\n

Bloch was very patiently bemused as I laid this all out for him. Which took about five minutes, because we also had to make sure we were both right-side up on the Zoom call (Bloch initially came in sideways), and that he could hear my shared audio. Bloch\u2019s hearing, after a lifetime onstage, is not so great, so for much of the Zoom call, I had a closeup of his hair-shrouded ear, to which he was holding the phone. Plus, of course, I\u2019m speech impaired, as a result of multiple tongue cancer surgeries, which improved nothing, communications-wise. Eventually, I made my question clear, whereupon he chuckled and said, \u201cYou know, I cannot answer that question! I don\u2019t know!\u201d<\/p>\n

We came a long way to get nowhere much, but Bloch runs with the theme of \u201cNovember\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I love that song on the Young Fresh Fellows record, absolutely,” he says. “Maybe me and Tad sang that part? Once you do something on a song that you haven\u2019t really heard that much before, it kind of becomes part of the song and you don\u2019t remember the impetus for it, or who did it, for that matter!\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott definitely credited him with the vocal idea, I observe.<\/p>\n

\u201cNice, well, then\u2014good on me!\u201d Bloch says, laughing amenably. \u201cIt\u2019s really cool, but it could have come from many places\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Tad he had referenced, by the way, is not fellow Seattleite Tad Doyle, but Tad Hutchison, now-retired Young Fresh Fellows drummer and onetime very-occasional lead vocalist. (Find \u201cUnimaginable Zero Summer\u201d online. He also did lead guitar on the singularly goofy \u201cTrek to Stupidity\u201d, off 1985’s\u00a0Topsy Turvy,\u00a0and was involved in the band’s art). Hutchison has been replaced, insofar as he can be, by NRBQ\u2019s John Perrin on the kit.<\/p>\n

So what is Bloch\u2019s history with Vancouver?<\/p>\n

\u201cGosh! We first started going up to Vancouver when we were teenagers,” he recalls. “Because there was more of the kind of music that we liked than there was in Seattle. I can\u2019t remember the first time we went up to Vancouver to see bands, but we would have seen D.O.A. down here in mid-’78. They played at the first Bird, the Seattle music club. I remember the D.O.A. show very well: they came across a little heavy-handed for the first bit of their show. <\/p>\n

Bloch adopts a Joe Keithley-esque growl, and intones: \u201c’We\u2019re tough and were punk rockers!’. And we loved punk music, but we were, even at 17, judgemental about people. Like, \u2018Oh, these guys sure think they\u2019re tough!\u2019 But by the end we loved them and we\u2019ve loved them ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bloch also remembers seeing Vancouver scene veterans the Furies, but can neither remember the exact time nor the place that he saw them: \u201cWe saw them in a loft-sort-of in Seattle, and had never heard of them, but when you\u2019re that age and you see a telephone pole poster, you think, \u2018Wow, that looks like something cool! The Furies sounds like a band we\u2019d like!\u2019 I forget what other bands were on the bill, but we paid $2 to get in and we went and got our ass kicked by kick-ass music. Like, whoa! Wow! Wow! Wow! Then basically had never heard of that band again, ever, until recently.\u201d<\/p>\n

We checked in with Furies\u2019 frontman Chris Arnett, who says the gig was probably an August 1977 show at the Seattle Oddfellows Hall with Seattle\u2019s the Feelings opening and the Lewd headlining. It was the Furies\u2019 first live show with John Werner on bass, he reports, adding that the Furies were the first Canadian punk band to play the U.S\u2026. just like they were the first band from Vancouver to play a punk rock show here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Video of In America<\/p>\n

Bloch moves onto the Pointed Sticks and their first 45s. He had those and saw them in Seattle in 1979, he reports, and it left him amazed by the variety of music Vancouver had.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause D.O.A. and the Pointed Sticks, really, had nothing in common with each other, yet those were kind of the two kinds of bands we loved: we loved the kickass punk bands and we loved the rockin\u2019 pop bands.\u201d<\/p>\n

By that point, Bloch was a veteran attendee of shows north of the border.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my first band the Cheaters blew up and cancelled our show at the Smilin\u2019 Buddha, which would have been early November of 1979, we were were already familiar with the Buddha. We could to bars legally there by that point; the drinking age in Seattle is 21, so we\u2019d try to play in bars, here, but they\u2019d kick you out \u00a0as soon as you started playing, so it just wasn\u2019t fun. Whereas we could go up there and watch bands and really have a good time. So we were super-excited to go up there and have a weekend at the Smilin\u2019 Buddha.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fastbacks started right after the Cheaters folded.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first show was February of 1980,” he recalls. “By later 1980 or early 1981, we ended up going up to Vancouver with our buddies in X-15 and playing the Smilin\u2019 Buddha. I believe we played more shows in Vancouver in 1981 than in Seattle!\u201d<\/p>\n

That May 1981 gig, with X-15 headlining and the Fastbacks opening, also featured East Van Halen as the middle band on the bill. Bloch remembers Benny Doro, the guitarist. (For those who don\u2019t, seek out the Randy Rampage solo track \u201cLivin\u2019 on Borrowed Time\u201d, which is basically a five minute excuse for the greatest extended guitar solo in Vancouver punk history\u2014one of a few things Mike Usinger and I agree on 100%).<\/p>\n

Iconic Vancouver photographer Bev Davies was present and snapped picture, including one of a 17-year-old Duff McKagan, later of Guns N’ Roses, on drums. A Fastbacks photo taken by Davies the next year, in March of 1982, with Kim Warnick on bass and vocals and Lulu Gargiulo on guitar, reveals a brick-walled venue we\u2019re guessing might have been the Laundromat, though Bloch is not sure where that show was.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Fastbacks, back in the day. Bev Davies. <\/p>\n

Photos from that very gig are also on the back cover of the Fastbacks\u2019 1982 12\u201d EP,\u00a0The Fastbacks Play Five of Their Favorites, which has a song with singularly relevant topical heft, \u201cIn America\u201d,\u00a0wherein Warnick, on vocals, muses about maybe it being time to leave her country, which is failing its potential badly. Backing vocals are provided by the Dynette Set, Scott McCaughey\u2019s pre-Young Fresh Fellows band, which had a strong girl-group influence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also on the back cover of the EP, there is an illustration of a dorky-looking fellow in a red sweater, with \u201cNo Threes\u201d above him and \u201cSafety First\u201d. What\u2019s going on there, exactly?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Threes was the name of our record label, which we started I guess in 1979, and Safety First is our buddy Brian Fox, who also had a record label that put out the Moberleys first album, about 1979. He helped finance, or at least the pressing of, the record\u201d.<\/p>\n

But why No Threes? What\u2019s wrong with threes?<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, to be honest, we wanted the record label that seemed mysterious, because we loved Blue \u00d6yster Cult and bands that were slightly mysterious. And we loved the Blue \u00d6yster Cult\u2019s symbol. So we had a No Threes sign that originally said No Left Turn, and we took it off its pillar and re-painted it so it said No Threes. That would have been as early as 1977, even, because the No Threes sign was on the stage at the first Cheaters show, which was in March of 1978. So before there were thoughts of it being a record label, the No Threes sign existed. Later, we decided to make a record label.\u201d<\/p>\n

Video of Randy Rampage – Livin’ On Borrowed Time<\/p>\n

Another obscure question I put to Bloch involves the solo for the Fastbacks\u2019 \u201cK Street\u201d,\u00a0which has a playful quality that reminds me of \u00a0very much of the solo on Doug and the Slugs\u2019 \u201cWrong Kind of Right\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bloch acknowledges that the solo for that song is a composed one, and that he is aware of Doug and the Slugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I couldn\u2019t say that they were an influence. But as for sharp-eyed spot-the-influences question\u2026 a lot of times the solos were the impetus for the song, so the solo part would come first and the rest of the song would follow it. So you may listen to the first Fastbacks\u2019 single, \u2018It\u2019s Your Birthday\u2019,\u00a0and the guitar solo in that song is not copied from, but is directly inspired by, the guitar solo by Bill Napier-Hemy in \u2018Out of Luck\u2019! But that is an obvious influence, a tip of the hat to Bill and to anyone who wants to go back and dissect it\u201d.<\/p>\n

There was more from Kurt about his transition from the Fastbacks (who have continued to record, though Warnick has retired from touring) to the Young Fresh Fellows (playing their first Vancouver show in decades this Saturday), but we must skip some of that to allow Bloch space to wince and giggle at questions about the episode in the Hoodoo Gurus dressing room, as recounted by Grant Lawrence in\u00a0Dirty Windshields, and discussed a bit with Scott McCaughey here<\/a>.\u00a0More to come from Nick Thomas, on that!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe behaviour was terrible\u201d, Bloch says with a grin. \u201cIt cannot be justified in any way, but that did happen. The Smugglers were on the bill, and maybe on the poster, and then a bunch of things got messed up, and it got a little messy in that dressing room! All we knew was that our friends the Smugglers were to open the show, and we get there and they say the Smugglers can\u2019t play. That\u2019s not that cool!\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, the Fellows invited the Smugglers to play anyhow, mid-way through their set, which did not endear the band to the promoters.<\/p>\n

However, Bloch continues philosophically, \u201cThere was quite a bit of pretty bad behaviour in that era. Probably not just by\u2014I could say by \u2018us,\u2019 but, uh, me. But also by other bands! Of course none of it was out of anger, it was just wild, pent-up energy, and oftentimes thinking you were being funny, without thinking of the consequences. So definitely the table with the snacks on it at the Hoodoo Gurus\u2019 show got a little messed up! For whatever reason. Probably the main reason is being over-served!\u201d<\/p>\n

The Young Fresh Fellows, with Kurt Bloch on lead guitar, play the American on Saturday (March 11). Tickets here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday.\u00a0Sign up for our free newsletter. \u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[76,49,48,8497,569,16291,75,1048,1187,1554,2998,890,341,13117,3560,404,348,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-596256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vancouver","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-city","12":"tag-culture","13":"tag-dining","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-events","16":"tag-fashion","17":"tag-film","18":"tag-food","19":"tag-lifestyle","20":"tag-music","21":"tag-nightlife","22":"tag-restaurants","23":"tag-shopping","24":"tag-tv","25":"tag-vancouver"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}