1977 % Proof

"Danger stranger, you better paint your face, no Elvis, Beatles, or the Rolling Stones... in1977."

In 1977 I was 13 and listening to Queen, Boston and Thin Lizzy. In 1978 my sister gave me a record token for Christmas. I bought the sex pistol's never mind the bollocks picture disk LP which I still have. I had also discovered the Clash, Johnny Thunders, the UK Subs, the Damned and, in my view, one of the finest punk bands in the world, Stiff Little Fingers. By late 1978, I was playing guitar with the fledgling Bangor based punk band 70% proof. Ralf, Gaz and myself all went to Gransha where we met, Russ went to the Grammar, but tolerated the proletariat.

Robert Scott had been playing guitar with `the proof` on and off but was really the lead guitarist for the older and more accomplished bands at the time like Palace of Variety. The Doubt and the Co-ordinants were also one of our contempories, slightly older and undoubtedly more proficient. I desperately wanted to become a better guiatrist and we practiced incessently throughout the summer and winter months. I also spent my dinner money on mars bars and cidre. In terms of dedication to a specific cause - the cidre drinking beat guitar practice hands down...and d'you know what, is still does.

It would be pretty fair to say we belonged the second phase of punk. The originals, plastic bin bags and fishnets, had melted away and were being replaced by a new model army with a more uniform look, doc martens, bleached or bondage jeans, mohair jumpers and black bike jackets and a less tolerant attitude to those who refused to conform. I gladly joined up but had to sneak up to Gaz's house to get changed as my mother refused to tolerate subversive clothing, which was quite odd as she came to my wedding wearing a hat bearing an uncanny resemblance to a flying saucer.

One of the proof's first serious gigs was in Ballyhome youth club in a fairly affluent suburb of Bangor. I spent the 15 minutes before the gig on the bog literally shitting myself with nerves. We came on, raced through a few covers like teenage kicks and a number of originals that Russ and the other `proofs` had penned like `no fame.` We cocked up quite a bit. Having a relatively innumerate guitarist meant that starting songs was often tricky, "one, two, tree...?" All in all though, the gig wasn't half bad and we even got a write up in the local weekly paper the Bangor Spectator by incumbent journo for youff and now best selling author and thoroughly nice guy Colin Bateman who described us as, Bangor's answer to the Angelic Upstarts and as young raw and...happy? We were laughing at your bondage jeans Colin, nothing more.

Gaz and I became pretty friendly and still are to this day. He was unemployed at the time (Thatcher's Britian and all that), I was working in a supermarket stacking shelves and on Wednesdays (my day off) we used to catch the train up to Belfast, trudge up to Terry Hooley's Good Vibration Records for the latest punk offerings. The biggest local bands of the day were the Outcasts, Rudi, Rufrex. SLF on the other hand, were entirely in a league of their own. I finally managed to catch the Fingers in the Ulster Hall in 1979. Supported by the Outcasts and the Members, SLF came on and blew the place apart. Here was a band that knew what it was like to grow up in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. I have since seen Jake Burns interviewed and he has perhaps played down the markedly political orientation of the band, but in truth Northern Ireland was a pretty grim place, dark, politically charged and very very nervy. Stiff Little Fingers had their finger on the pulse of the province at that time.

The proof split in 1980. My mother had decided that I needed a fresh start and I had an ill uncle in Ontario Canada who was getting divorced. She agreed to become his carer as it would give me a chance to go to Canada, get back to school and make something of myself. Prince Andrew followed me soon after, I guess his mum reckoned he needed a helping hand too.

In truth my departure was only one reason why the band broke up. Russ had discovered girls and the fact prescription drugs for acne mixed with large volumes of cheap cidre gave you the most intense halucinations during which he would pen interesting ditties (I said ditties not diddies) about breeding and sheep (not to be confused with breeding sheep or breeding with sheep), which Gaz had difficultly singing about. (A bad experience as a teenager on holiday in Wales, don't ask)! Ralph difted away to University in the UK where he drummed with a band called Onion head. His true talent, however, lay in drinking copious amounts of alcohol and then being violently sick earning himself the name, "Pukin McGookin!"Gaz and I wanted to be the UK Subs merged with the Ruts, "We hate your guuuuuuuuuuuts, we're living in a ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuta!" See the comments from the Duke on his memories.

70% proof sadly fell apart. Russ continued with other bands and even released a single with a band called Carpenter Joe. Life became a little difficult for him, everyone has demons to fight.

Hence in December 1980, after saying goodbye to a few mates and lusting heavily for a petite blonde on my street who was going out with someone else, as was I, I found myself dressed in a crombie (that I had nicked from my boss - but had the good sense to have dry cleaned before I wore it), levis and red brothel creepers on an Aer Lingus flight bound for a very cold and a very quiet life in Ontariario. Oh happy days...

Monday, Tuesday...Happy Days!

"Happy days - Northern Irish slang for everything is ok, fine or cool."

My name is Stu-Option, one time lead guitarist, vocalist and principle song writer for the three piece hardcore punk bank from Oakville, Ontario called...zeroption. I decided to start this blog as a chapter in my own autobiography and a living history and an alternative commentary on the birth, life and demise of this little known punk outfit who have been credited with influencing bands such as killdozer and the whitestripes. Am I being nostalgic? In a sense yes, as my times playing with this band were some of the happiest days of my life. The summer of 1982 stands out as memorable. The punk scene in Canada was embracing the emergent hardcore trends filtering up from Los Angeles and the West Coast and later Boston. Zeroption was moving into its most successful incarnation, as a three piece which endorsed the best of punk past, while also embracing the emergent scene from the South. Undeniably playing with zeroption for me was a rite of passage, which allowed me to move onto bigger if not better things.

How it all started...

"They wanna have me here, Have me and hold me near, Hold me down fasten and tie...But the cars are all flashing me, Bright lights are passing me...I feel life passing me by..."

I grew up in Bangor Northern Ireland during the 1960s and 70s. In retrospect the situation in Northern Ireland during these two decades could be described in the military venacular as a low intensity civil conflict, we simply referred to it as... the troubles. My parents split when I was eight, which in a religously conservative country such as Northern Ireland was at that time difficult and which presented my mother with a stigma which was hard for her bear. I later learnt that she often referred to my father in the past tense, giving the impression that he was dead and that she was a widow. In reality he had moved to England and later to France, which doesn't quite count as being deceased, although the Dordogne can be... very, very, very quiet, especially in the winter.

Due to my parents divorce, we also became economically downwardly mobile moving from a relatively middle class suburbian Carnalea to what then was the upper working - lower middle class culdisac in Bangor west. I remember we got number 36 West Burn Crescent for £7,000. It had no heating and cast iron window frames that rattled in the gales that blew in from the Irish sea. My mother had always worked in a part time capacity but now having turned 40 and divorced she had to find herself full time employment, which to her credit she did, working first in a local supermarket and then as a receptionist in a borstal, which meant I often got `special issue` baseball boots which were available only to the discerning clientele of Her Majesty's Reform School for Boys, Rathgael. I stopped wearing them after a few weeks as most people assumed that I was on the run, which in truth was kind of true. It was just that I was bunking off from school rather than absconding from the borkie.

I spectacularly failed my 11 plus and even more so spectacularly failed its resit. Hence clad in a black uniform I joined the other `lads` from `the street` and made my way to Gransha Boys High School euphemistically known to us all as GBH school. I'll cover the Gransha years in another chapter, but I emerged at 16 with 4 GCSEs (with appalling grades), no discernable skills other than just about holding my own in a punch up and a healthy disregard for authority. By this time, however, I had discovered punk rock and could also play the guitar..badly.

My band days started with a garage band based near Bangor Dairies where I had had a part time job since I was 14. A three piece fashioned on the Jam, it consisted of an accomplished drummer Gary Grahame who went to go onto play with Bangor heavy metal luminaries Burning Steel, myself on guitar and an aspiring hairdresser named Ken on bass and vocals. Ken has done well in the hairdressing business, which is just as well, as he couldn't play nor sing. He gave me the Jam's greatest hits song book and told me to learn it. As reading and writing was not my strong point, our first, second and third practice consisted of a cover of house of the rising sun played repeatedly. Ken's contribution to the song consisted of him repeatedly plucking the same string while singing in a monotone voice. I learnt that a postmodern pop quartet from Manchester caught one of his later shows. Such was his influence on that band that they changed their look, fashioned themselves on his bass playing and singing and changed their name to Joy Division... the rest is history.

I got chucked out of `Bass by Ken's` band for not showing up for a gig he had put together for his mates. It transpires that his mates didn't show up either. My reasons were that I had been approached by the drummer of a punk outfit which was missing a guitarist. With Gaz `The Duke` on vocals, Russ on bass, Ralph on drums and myself on guitar, we became 70% proof...oh happy days.