Loud, lewd, loathed… and loving it

>> A lot of bands claim to tear their audiences a new one. Montreal’s Trigger Effect can proudly claim they actually have.

RIDE IF YOU DARE: Trigger Effect

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Sitting in the doctor’s office the other day, I decided to while away the minutes by thumbing through the new issue of Rolling Stone. Those humps Fall Out Boy are preening and pouting on the cover. The thing that irked me is that the article actually mentions punk rock, even in passing, when describing these fucks.

We all know of course that Fall Out Boy are about as punk rock as Dick Cheney, Rolling Stone is hardly worth wiping your pimply ass with and, well, the sky is blue, but you have to wonder where the hell all the real-deal punk rock is these days. It’s sure as shit not on the cover of Rolling Stone this month.

I’m not talking about lip-synching imps sashaying around in eyeliner. I mean the genuine article, punk rock that still has all the danger, excitement and sense of revolution coursing through its veins. Where’s the pissed-off, livid-to-the-gills rock ’n’ roll? Where’s the punch to the gut?

About six months ago, I actually found it, or rather stumbled into it, when my friends and I decided to wet our whistles at Barfly just as Montreal’s Trigger Effect were about to unleash some of the fiercest, paint-peelingest punk rock around on a largely unsuspecting crowd. That isn’t to say that there aren’t great punk bands in Montreal right now, like ...And the Saga Continues, Ballast, Born Dead Icons and Jerk Appeal. But that night, Trigger Effect just had a certain edge over their unwashed hometown brethren, so if you’re starving for real, Grade A punk fucking rock, know this: Trigger Effect deliver it in spades.

Too punk for punks

“We think of ourselves as a punk rock band, but when we play on bills with other bands, people don’t seem to know what to make of us at all,” says drummer Mike Niro between pulls on a beer can as he lounges on a stained chair in Trigger Effect’s graffiti-caked rehearsal space.

“We don’t really sound like anybody else, which can be really satisfying, but has also gone against us as well.”

Animated singer Panic Babeu seconds the opinion. “We all agree that punk rock has gotten really diluted. I think in every city, you see bands just imitating a band like Converge, or even a band like MXPX or whoever, but once we get in here,” he says, pointing at the walls of the rehearsal space, “we don’t really think about other bands and just do what we do.”

Though they’ve only been around for a relatively short while, Trigger Effect have already earned equal measures of hate and praise, and like all the great ones before them, they’ve erased all middle ground between the two. Shredding punk rock’s rigid rulebook has hardly endeared them to the scene’s self-appointed elite, but the band wouldn’t have it any other way, adhering as they do to the old Groucho Marx bit about never joining any club that would have them as members.

Choosing to remain outsiders, hunkering down in the Côte-St-Paul neighbourhood—where the whole band lives—Trigger Effect don’t go the regular route of promoting themselves on local message boards or making the scene in hipster hangouts.

“Basically, the only people we feel really close with are the people in our band,” says Babeu. “I wouldn’t say that it was intentional, or that we planned on being outsiders or whatever. It just worked out that way.”

Niro is quick to add, “And so if we don’t have a lot of people to help us, fuck it, we’ll just do it ourselves. Nobody really wanted to give us a chance, including getting on so-called punk rock bills, so we just had to create our own thing.”

Unlicensed to ill

The DIY ethos is bandied about quite a bit by bands, especially at a local level, but Trigger Effect definitely walk the walk, and although the tag may have been applicable by necessity, the band have chosen to wear it well. Their shows at their rehearsal space are the stuff of legend, and through the illegal sale of beer, they were able to finance t-shirts which they screenprinted themselves, pay for the recording of their first full-length, Dare to Ride the Heliocraft (which, due to intensive rehearsing, seven days a week for six months, was pulled off in only two days of recording), manufacture their own CDs, start their own record label (Turbo Machine Enterprises) and book a 38-stop tour of the U.S. that will have them playing mainly basement shows and other off-the-beaten-path venues. Hell, even the hooch they used to sell at their initial shows was their own homebrew.

“We could’ve done some things in the past with help from other people,” says Babeu, “but when you do things yourselves, you obviously have complete control. I think that has become a really important thing for us. We’ll argue for hours amongst ourselves but I think, with what we have accomplished so far, we’ve gotten a little wary of outside influences. If you’re doing stuff that’s a little different from most bands, you’ll have to work a little harder but in the end, you’ll definitely get something good out of it. It’s a lot of work, but if you’re having fun doing it, it won’t even feel like work.”

The band has always kept its plate full, having also staged the annual Fear & Loathing festival as well as the annual Röck Fight, the upcoming edition of which, this week, will double as the band’s record launch. If that wasn’t enough, Trigger Effect has recently applied for a permit to stage a parade in their beloved Côte-St- Paul, and since it was getting too hard to play with likeminded bands, Trigger Effect just started one of their own. Interestingly, this side project, called Rock Hard, cites the pelvic thrust of Jonas and Danko Jones as its two sole influences.

“We have taken their ‘fuck me, baby’ crotch rock kind of sound, but put it in the context of gay sex, because I think it’s pretty obvious that those two guys are gay,” deadpans Niro. “This is just our way of helping them come out. ”

Bloody good fun

And with that, it seems that Trigger Effect can soon add the Mango Kid and Jonas to the ever-growing heap of people who loathe them. Babeu’s Darby Crash/Iggy Pop antics often result in random violence, which has earmarked them as assholes, while the band’s refusal to turn down their amps has led to a lack of return engagements at local clubs. In fact, it’s the band’s sordid reputation that recently bit them in the ass when they asked local newscaster Mitsumi Takahashi to play herself for the intro to Heliocraft.

Ol’ Mits was only too happy to help out until her producer Googled the band’s name, only to have tales of sodomy, meathook-festooned scrotums and such pop up onscreen. Needless to say, Mits got cold feet.

Their run-ins have also included NDG mayor Michael Applebaum, who personally took it unto himself to drag Babeu to court for the lowly activity of putting up posters, albeit fairly offensive ones, resulting in $1200 in fines.

“I think that we probably enjoy being hated as much as being liked,” muses Babeu. “The area to stay away from is having people just tolerate you.”

Trigger Effect’s members are all quick to agree that if people are bleeding at the end of their sets (which happens quite a bit), they regard it as the equivalent of a standing ovation. Recent shows have included Babeu “de-trou’ing” a biker sort in Toronto, and getting punched and kicked by a girl in Philadelphia after Babeu wouldn’t let go of her ankle. The rest of the band, being true champs, of course just ignored the young lady kicking the shit out of their singer, and simply finished the set.

“We were playing at this guy’s apartment in Ottawa once,” recalls Niro, “and there was this big skinhead who fell into the drum kit and ended up piercing his ass on the leg of one of the toms when he fell on it. There was just blood everywhere.”

“Yeah, a lot of bands have said that they’ve torn an audience a new one,” adds a beaming Babeu, “but I think we are the only band that actually has.”

CD launch with guests Humanifesto,
Road Bones, the Dangers, Röck Hard,
Delicious Little Boys and Tora! Tora!
At Röck Fight 2 at Ugly Ass Bikes HQ
(1935 de l’Eglise) on Saturday,
March 10, 7:30 p.m., $10 (includes free CD)