Hi. I'm Dirty Swagger, and this is a brief history of Dirty and the Derelicts. As I remember it. We started in 2000. Played our first show on Hallowe'en... a place on Hastings called the Web Cafe... a place that no longer exists. We cleared the place out fast. It was a party to celebrate the end of the film school year. They did it! They graduated film school! Our bass player Brent, who attended and graduated the school, and put on the show... celebrated too! He was too drunk to remember a single song or stand up properly. (If you live in B.C., Canada, you've probably seen Brent in many commercials. He and his wife had a son a few years ago, and from all reports are doing well). I took over the bass and called Danny (The Rainspider) up to finish the set.

 

Who's Danny "The Rainspider"?

 

Danny is an amazing songwriter from Vancouver B.C. that I had the opportunity to play with in 99/00. His bass player went tree planting and I stepped up to fill the gap. We became friends from our days playing the open mic nights at the (now defunct) Broadway Express at Commercial and 12th in East Van. Danny was an amazing songwriter, but he was an amazing tinkerer as well. After six months of playing, he was honing his songs by changing them from week to week. It was more than a drunken, attentionly challenged rawker could handle.
I recruited his drummer Mike for our "sideproject", Dirty and the Derelicts. That was the end of August. As I've said, we played our first show Oct. 31st.

 

So that's how we started...

 

We had to let Brent go pretty quick, as I booked our next show at the Cobalt for the end of November 2000. Brent had a lead in a local theatre production that would keep him busy for the next couple of months. Mike knew Graham(Lugger, Liver and Onions) who was available to play. Dirty and the Derelicts live on.

 

We played our shows and recorded our first 3 song e.p. "The Skids Are Alright" with Matt Walsh on Dec. 20th 2000, with a fourth song added Mar. 20th 2001. During that time, we recruited Mike "Red" for lead guitar. And on we played, beefed up rawk n' roll.

 

And we got the slot at Naughty Camp 2001. I LOVED Naughty Camp in 2000! I can't understand why there aren't more shows like that. Camping and Rock and Drink and Drug! Debaucherous heaven....  so you can imagine how upset I was when five weeks before the festival our drummer Mike suddenly quit.

 

Maybe it was my fault.

 

I could be the bigger man here and say "creative differences" or scheduling conflicts... but I'm going to say why I really think Mike quit. I think he quit because I was teasing him about being gay. Easy tiger, now hear me out. We met at the Cambie, he dyed his hair bright pink... had a bleached blonde handlebar moustace... and was wearing a LUSH t-shirt...we were drinking...

 

anyway...

 

At the time, Red was a waterboy. He delivered H2O to the thirsty masses of the Lower Mainland. One of his co-workers was alleged to be a wicked drummer. Red inquired, "could you learn enough songs to play Naughty Camp"? Chris "Dizzy Slip" was evidently up for the task. He learned a full set three weeks before Naughty Camp, and we had never sounded better.

 

When Dizzy joined our group, he brought with him an impressive legacy of heavy metal. By the time we had met him, he was playing in more FM Rock format bands such as My Blue Heavy. We had to make him understand that the classic BOOM-CHUCK-BOOM-CHUCK of punk and country was usually enough. But Dizzy put his undeniable mark on our band over the years.

 

If you've listened to our music, and if you've read this much you probably have, our music is pretty simple. If you can count to four....

 

and that kind of frustrated Liver and Onions...

 

Graham kind of longed to play in a more math rock format... Fugazi, no means no, etc. That was a goal that he couldn't achieve in the retarted Dirty and the Derelicts. But to Lugger's credit, he left the band gracefully, playing all our committed shows, plus a few others while we indoctrinated our new bass player.

 

Which brings us to Greasy...

 

We put an ad in the Georgia Straight which stated, "Dirty and the Derelicts need bass player. Punk Rawk. Call Dirty ***-***-****.Mike "Greasy Wormlips" reluctantly responded. We had numerous responses from the ad, from which Greasy was placed fifth on a list of potential bassists. (first come, first serve). From Greasy's opening question, (do you guys.... uh... drink?), we realised we had a kindred spirit.

 

Greasy played in numerous unknown punk bands, like the most notorious being Gwailo, a band from whom we've stolen many of our best songs.

 

In the summer of 2006, Dizzy told us he was leaving the band. He fell in love, and unfortunatly for us, she lived in Calgary. Dizzy too, left gracefully. (you made the right choice brother). Our new drummer found us, a benefit of working in the poverty biz in Vancouver. Red posted a note at his work that his band needed a drummer. Blake (Grubby... according to an article published by an  Absolute Underground interview) answered.  Since then, we've picked up acoustic instruments, stopped showering and began smoking copious amounts of weed.

Grubby's true name came about on our first road trip together... ask us about it sometime... our drummer is truly CAPTAIN HEATSCORE! He put a fire under our ass and we our third full-length album "Satan's Seed", our second recorded by Red. We then toured the country (Canada... if you weren't paying attention).

That was our longest tour as a band, and after it was over, Red was out of the band... ask us about it sometime...

 

Now, we're working on new songs, looking towards Europe, and being the Derelict mofos you know and love...

 

I'll try to keep it up to date.....

 

 

 

**Want us to play in your hometown? Send us money and tell us where you live, and we'll rawk your world. We promise. We'll even stay on your couch and eat your food for no extra charge. Too much beer and pot? No problem. We can take care of that too. No cheques please. Cash only. Don't worry. You can trust us. It's just that we're having a few problems with Revenue Canada and don't really want to leave a paper trail. You understand....
So if you're looking for top shelf entertainment at bootleg prices, look no further. Contact Dirty and the Derelicts for all your debaucherous needs.**