Here I am bestowing Yoko Ono with a birthday gift. Only on Facebook!
I’m going to try very hard to write more, to get out of my own way. I’ve decided to put my novel, The Town Slut’s Daughter, back on the back burner for a while. I’m frazzled enough with poetry and performance and need to focus on those projects, my book of verse, Window Seat, and AURAL Heather, our first gig coming up in April. I can’t do all of it well and the pressure is too much.
There is much activity on the domestic front as well, with my son’s puberty and puberty fallout. His allergies have peaked it seems, gotten bad, manifesting in a chronic runny nose and cough. We are taking him to an allergist and now trying naturopathy.
Enjoyed a pleasant birthday celebration last Saturday with friends and family, went out for dinner at Blue Eyed Marys. Another Piscean in the restaurant was celebrating too and a local comedian came in on stilts and a fat suit to sing Happy Birthday. Made for a memorable evening.
Had a power outage that Monday which threw me off kilter but then rehearsed with Roderick. We are arranging a new poem/song and have a lot of work to do but it’s exciting, gearing up for our first shows.
I finally managed to complete this questionnaire Vancouver punk rock chronicler Scott Beadle sent to me months ago. Scott is compiling interviews for his upcoming book.
Questionnaire for Ms Haley for Scott Beadle’s ongoing Vancouver Punk History Project: (See my Facebook page for more details.)
Where were you born?
Matapedia, Quebec
Where were you raised?
Winnipeg and environs, then Salmo in the Kootenays and Cloverdale, BC.
What were your parents’ jobs, during this period?
My dad was a jack-of-all-trades, usually employed as a welder or carpenter. He was a very skilled artisan and used to sell wood carvings while in the RCAF, stationed in the Yukon. My mother always worked, usually as a waitress or a cook.
What was the highest level of your parents’ education?
My father only reached Grade 11 and my mother was apparently forced to quit at age twelve. Her father had perished as a prisoner of war in Hong Kong and her mother was dying of cancer. She stayed home to take care of her four younger siblings and ailing mother.
Where did you attend high school, and did you graduate?
I graduated from Lord Tweedsmuir in Surrey.
Did you have any post-secondary education? Did you get a degree?
Two years post-secondary. I studied music at Grant McEwen in Edmonton, then moved to Victoria and attended Camosun College. I never did transfer to university. My family couldn’t afford to send me and by that point I was wrapped up in the music scene, playing and touring.
When did you leave home?
I first left at age sixteen but moved back in about a year later, then permanently after high school.
Where did you live?
I lived in Alberta for a while with my boyfriend, then we moved to Victoria, then I came to Vancouver.
What were your major pre-punk musical influences/interests?
I grew up listening to my mother’s favourite country music; Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams. I didn’t appreciate it then but now love it as much as she ever did. I sang folk songs, in school and in church, the choir it’s only attraction. I would get very excited donning our robes and making our entrance, usually drifting of to sleep during mass.
I loved the Beatles when I was a kid. I used to hang out at my friend Nancy’s house where we often snuck into her big brother’s room to listen to his records. He always knew and always blew his stack at us. The two of us would covertly take the bus into Winnipeg whenever a new Beatles movie came out and would have been in dire need of Help if we’d ever been found out. The first album I purchased was Jimi Hendrix’s Are You Experienced? I remember running into the popular girls from school at K-Mart. They wanted to know what I had bought. I reluctantly showed them and their response was, “Jimi who?” Then they thought I was really weird.
Poetry affected me very much. In high school I started reading contemporary verse due a forward-thinking English teacher who deviated from the curriculum and had us reading bp nichol, ee cummings and Susan Musgrave. That’s when I started writing in earnest.
When and how did you first hear punk rock or new wave music?
I had moved to Vancouver after breaking up with my boyfriend. My best friend Cathy Cleghorn took me to see—and most definitely hear—DOA at the Windmill. It was a shock though I assimilated it all very quickly. I was ripe for change. Many of our Surrey cohorts were in bands; Jim Cummins, Bill Scherk, John Armstrong, Gord Nicholl and Art Bergmann, whom I had gone to school with in Cloverdale. My boyfriend, Peter Draper, had played guitar in Art’s first real band, the Shmorgs and the three of us roomed together. Continue reading →