The latest project of founder of legendary Canadian punk band Nomeansno will be coming to Prince Albert on Tuesday, March 12.
Threadbare Productions is presenting Dead Bob and TV Casualties live at the Prince Albert Brewing Co. (PABCO). Dead Bob is the latest project of Nomeansno founder John Wright
Wright said the band retired in 2016 because his brother Rob Wright did not want to be on the road all of the time and had a young family.
“We thought we would just fade away, ride into the sunset, but I ended up moving up the West Coast here,” Wright explained. “I live up there right at the very top of the Sunshine Coast and at the end of the road.”
During this time, he reconnected with Colin MacRae who was formerly of the band Pigment Vehicle, who were active from the late 1980s to the late 1990s. He was also busy with the group Compressorhead, a band of robots who play live instruments from Berlin.
“I ended up doing a record with them doing the writing and helping them make the make a punk rock band out of robots,” he said. “It was an amazing project. The album was released in 2017 called Party Machine … and that kind of kept me busy with music for a while.”
He also opened a pub with partners called Wildwood Public House.
“We unfortunately opened just before COVID,” Wright said. “It was really good timing, and it was just a struggle. Finally at the beginning of last year, 2023, we had to shut the doors. We just couldn’t (keep going). We just lost too much money, so it was unfortunate, but that kept me very busy and I wasn’t doing much music.”
Then during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic he went back to some incomplete pieces and gave them another shot. He ended up with 30 to 35 songs from this working piece.
“I ended up doing this just for fun,” Wright said. “I thought for fun I would just do an album of my own—a solo album—and put it out. I put it out on Facebook that I wanted to do this and I got a really great response.
“(I) realised, well, I’m out of a job, so why not try to put a band together and maybe try to play some of this stuff? So that’s what I did,” Wright said.
He began working with Byron Slack, who is from a band called the Invasives, this ended up getting his partner Kristy Lee Audette involved. She was in the band Rong and was a multi-instrumentalist. He also got friend Ford Pier, who he also worked with in the past involved.
MacRae was not involved in the songwriting, but eventually became interested in returning to music. MacRae and Wright are based in Powell River and the rest of the band in based in the Lowe Mainland, which made it harder to rehearse.
“The bar went under (and) he was one of my partners at that pub,” Wright said. “He just wanted to get back in the music. He’s like, ‘I want to play bass’ so he picked up his bass after having not played for about 25 years and off we went.”
The band released their newest album, Life Like, in November 2023. He is lucky to work with what some people would consider an all star cast of musicians.
The stop in Prince Albert is part of the first full tour for Dead Bob, who played several shows in British Columbia in November and December of 2023. Wright said that those shows got some great feedback and the band sold a bunch of merchandise.
“This is phase two saying, ‘OK, let’s head out and go out to the prairies and play some shows,” he said.
“(With) Nomeansno (performing) across the country many times and travelling around the world, I have this legacy also to work on. There’s lots of people who I work with are in the business and other people in the business were fans, so it’s good.”
Wright said that this was the first time any of his bands have performed north of Saskatoon. He does have connections to the region as his father was born in Star City and he visited Tisdale when he was a child.
Clay Cottingham of Threadbare Productions reached out to book the band and Wright was excited to here from him.
“I don’t know how much punk rock you get through Prince Albert, but that’s what it takes,” he said. “There are towns all over the place and they kind of spring to life because there’s some person that decided, well, if I want music, I have to do it myself.”
He said that it takes people bringing shows to towns like Prince Albert that help put them on the map for touring acts.
“Hopefully there are some folks who are excited to see something like us and maybe some old Nomeansno fans that never had the chance or just think it’s pretty funny we’re coming to their town,” Wright said.
They are the first band that Threadbare is putting on at PABCO after doing several shows at The Spice Trail.
He said that the band is excited to come to Prince Albert except for one problem.
“It’s going to be fun to come, except that the drive to Prince Albert will be the longest drive of the tour because we play in Winnipeg the night before, so that’s going to be a bit brutal.”
Advance tickets are $20, tickets at the door are $25 (cash only), the show is also 19 plus. Advance tickets are available at Inspired Vapor (cornerstone), Skin Junkies (Central), The Spice Trail and PABCO. Doors open at 8 p.m. and bands start at 9 p.m.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
