Scarred for life

The Fear & Loathing Festival celebrates
eight years of debauchery and danger

DISGUSTING AND OFFENSIVE: Babeu and Trigger Effect

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

If you’ve ever heard a friend or relative blither on about their newborn miracle with wide-eyed fervour and utter abandonment, then you know what it’s like talking to Fear & Loathing organizer Nick Babeu about his twisted festival of thrills, spills and chills. His drooling, cross-eyed little infant is finally able to wipe itself, and is celebrating its eighth year of dangerous rock ’n’ roll, mindless violence, wanton vomiting, drug use and simply sticking with its original theme—pure mayhem.

“I guess Fear & Loathing becomes more work with each passing year, but it’s not really like I consider e-mailing tranny strippers really work,” says Babeu. “When I started it at L’X while I was still in high school, I just wanted to have some weird shit happening between the bands and just make it more of a party, but now it’s really come into its own thing.”

The evening of debauchery is now split between two stages at Foufounes. The “Fear” stage will include the 10th anniversary of Montreal’s punk rock pride the Sainte Catherines, Vancouver sludge slingers Bison B.C., Babeu’s own Trigger Effect, pilsner and sticky bud enthusiasts Barn Burner and The BCASA.

Not too shabby at all, but it’s the sideshow theme of the “Loathing” stage that will have you calling in sick for work the next morning. Babeu is getting a bit tight-lipped on the surprises he’s stashing up his sleeve, but will divulge that a portion of the night’s festivities will be hosted once again by Toronto’s Satanic evangelists Cloven Path Ministries, fetish/sideshow performer Mia Culpa will make a return, and self-described “amputee psychopath” OneArmBob’s performance is guaranteed to offend even the most jaded and callous.

“I think one of the best parts of the festival is the audience participation section. We usually have pain endurance contests and just generally really gross shit. I still can’t believe the amount of people that line up for that stuff. One year we had a 100-year-old Chinese egg-eating contest, which are completely disgusting. One guy drank the egg and immediately puked it up in a glass, and without thinking the guy next to him just grabbed the bile-encrusted egg and just chugged it back.

“We also had a pain endurance where we got people up to put their balls in a mousetrap. I ran out of prizes and could only offer more mousetraps, and the lineup was still huge. We had a cigarette burn contest a couple of years ago, and this guy came up to me on the street recently, proudly showed me this giant burn on his arm from the show and said he loved it. The guy is scarred for life and all he got was a T-shirt—those are my kind of people.”

If it sounds like Fear & Loathing only appeals to the base, morally corrupt dredges of society, well, you’re kind of half right. Each year, the same faces keep showing up religiously while dragging a couple of more rubberneckers along for the ride. “The real true test that it hasn’t lost its touch is when unsuspecting people show up and get utterly disgusted and offended and demand their money back,” says Babeu. “That’s the best compliment I could ever have.”

FEAR & LOATHING IN MONTREAL
TAKES PLACE ON SUNDAY, SEPT. 6 AT
FOUFOUNES ÉLECTRIQUES, 8 P.M.,
$15 OR $10 IN COSTUME.