The fuckers and
the fucked

Conservatives scapegoat Toronto’s
Holy Fuck for arts funding cuts

JUST SAYING HOORAY?: Holy Fuck

By RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Hidden behind the hoopla of the Beijing Olympics at the end of August was news of note from Ottawa, and not good news. The Conservatives announced a scorched-earth slashing of some $45-million in funding for the arts in Canada, including $4.7-million for the PromArt program, an initiative for exporting Canadian art abroad. Among its recipients were the Canadian Museum of Civilization, which brought Inuit art to Brazil (a $50K affair) and the Royal Winnipeg ballet ($40K for a U.S. tour), but justification for kneecapping our cultural ambassadors was found in the mere three grand passed to Toronto’s Holy Fuck for their U.K. tour—on the basis of the band’s name alone.

“I would go so far as to say that no one in the Conservative party is actually offended by the name,” says Holy Fuck’s Brian Borcherdt. “They were going to cancel that budget anyway. So they found a scapegoat—if it wasn’t us, they would have found someone else. But they were like, ‘Oh boy, we found a band with a swear word in their name! Perfect, that’s just what we were looking for.’ I don’t think it has anything to do with religion or obscenity, I think it’s just 100 per cent lies. That’s obvious.”

“It’s kinda silly, slash insulting in some way,” adds his bandmate Graham Walsh. “You know, you get help from the government, a hand—here you go!—and then a couple years later, that hand sorta punches you in the face. The only thing that’s frustrating is that some people are ignorant about the whole grant system. They call it welfare for musicians, and think we’re living off all this money.”

What’s exasperating is that, at least in this writer’s opinion, Holy Fuck make a first-rate export. Their shows are astounding, their tunes intricate and ecstatic trance-dance jams cobbled together from the noises of the scrap and recycled electronics that Walsh and Borcherdt have scrounged up—as such, their basic creative process is a golden display of greenthink in action.

Not that the Conservatives would necessarily know this. When asked if anyone in the party had actually listened to 2007’s magnificent LP, Walsh says, “I don’t know. Maybe, but I don’t think so.” If they had, the more theocratic in their ranks might have to acknowledge how essentially Christian a tune like LP’s “Lovely Alien” is—Jesus woulda loved the different-is-beautiful title, and the epiphanic sweep of the jam is a pure, life-affirming expression of joy, hope and all that good stuff.

“Hopefully we are bringing a euphoric, cathartic energy to our music,” Borcherdt says. “I guess that’s really what the term ‘holy fuck’ is about—it’s a way to say ‘hooray!’ Just another way of expressing excitement.”

Holy Fuck may get a bitter last laugh. They’re nominated for a 2008 Polaris Award—sorta like a Juno but much cooler, and moreover a global-profile seal of approval from Canada’s music journalists and supporters. “It seems like its heart is in the right place,” says Borcherdt of Polaris, “and every year, the chosen nominees seem appropriate—a good representation of Canadian music.”

Not that Borcherdt would want to win the prize as a protest gesture, a public riposte to the Cons. “I’d rather not see a big deal made about it, in a bad way or good. I’d rather it hadn’t happened in the first place.”

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