Vancouver’s No Fun began as a punk band in 1974 with their first recording, “Planned Disaster,” and the equally surreal, “She’s a Potato.” Now, fifty years later, Atomic Werewolf Records is in the process of reissuing enhanced versions of almost all the material No Fun has since produced. To rewind a little, in the 1970s No Fun had a “cult following” (more accurately, a tight community that grew up around them) based in their collective hometown of Surrey, BC. By the 1980s their fan base had expanded, and an influential champion for them was David Wisdom, dynamic host of “Nightlines” on CBC Radio. When David Wisdom invited No Fun to play live on air in 1988, they performed “Rich Folk Festival,” a recording soon to become as iconic as their definitive “Beatles of Surrey.” Bandleader David M’s continuous creativity is fuelled by the fact that, first and foremost, he’s a musicologist, an especially perceptive one. Performing and composing may be secondary, although his pitch-perfect rendition of the baritone sax from Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” is anything but secondary. He plays it on the membranophone (that is, the kazoo) and what a world-class performance it is. Amongst their numerous original tunes, “Me and Warren Beatty and Mick Jagger (Have This Problem)” delivers the most daydreamy, teenage-angst chorus imaginable. Pair this with their cover version of Chad & Jeremy’s “Summer Song,” and its cleverly altered lyrics, and you have to marvel at the sheer wistfulness. Makes you long for a No Fun take on “Dirty Old Town,” if such a rarity exists. No Fun has covered a lot of ground since their Surrey days; all the while David M has hung onto a number of 4-track recordings from the 1970s, waiting to be completed. As he points out, “Add to that a vast number of live recordings of our shows, and Atomic Werewolf will be issuing No Fun product forever.”

‍—Jill Mandrake

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Photo by David Matychuk/Atomic Werewolf /jpg