Another Halloween goes by and yet another Halloween of Police oppression.

Let me explain.

I enjoy street performing and have a permit to do so.
It costs me a hundered dollars a year and allows me to play my various instruments;Mandolin,Guitar,Bass,with amplification on most public streets in Vancouver.

I always meet tons of people;other musicians, hot chicks,people from all over the world, film producers etc, whenever I play and I am able to promote SpookhauS to potentialy hundreds, if not thousands a day, selling CDs and giving out promo cards.

As some of you know, The Winter Olympics are fast approaching here in Vancouver in February 2010 but you may not know that the police are instructed to break up any demonstrations opposing the event,arrest any radicals that are forming crowds and instigating "riots".

There is also another visible transformation happening in Vancouver.

The ever previlant homeless and drug addicts are being "removed" from the downtown eastside.

The area was once a prosperous,downtown core,80 years ago is now home to 1,000s of diralects,downandouts,drug addicts and homeless.
There are other people,of course, that make up the downtown eastside;It's the home to Chinatown,Artists,musicians and vampires...like myself.

The simple fact is that every homeless person that lives on the streets in Canada moves to Vancouver because its the warmest city in this country.
Subsuquently, Vancouver has to deal with the "problem".

The 20 years that I've lived here,however, the problem was never properly addressed and it was obvious, as one could see, walking or driving almost anywhere in the city,people sleeping on sidewalks,church steps and even in the entrance way to someone's fancy kitsalano apartment building....heaven forbid.
The obvious problem of homelessness was visibly spreading throughout the city.

So Vancouver, being under the eyes of the world's media during the games,is doing some major cleaning up so that it can further sell itself off to corporate whores, real estate tycoons and big bussiness.
Prevailant homelessness is not a sign of prosperity for any city and is not a good selling feature to the world press or big investors.

So the cops have issued tickets to hundereds of homeless for loittering, spitting,jaywalking and other bylaw infractions and are rounding em up and will be doing a mass sweep soon, as most have no money to pay the fines.

How does this relate to street performing you may ask?

Well I went to renew my permit the day before Halloween, because it expired on Oct30 09, at city hall and was filling out the form when the lady in charge of giving out permits said to me,
"We are not allowing the use of amplification during the duration of this permit and as well there will be certain guidelines and areas that you will not be able to play in"
She pulled out a 5 page handout with maps and areas that were out of bounds, which was most of downtown.

I was shocked and claimed in all the 6 years that I had done street performing,never was there such restrictions layed on the permit holder.
She claimed it was just during the Olympics that the restrictions were in effect and that we would recieve only a 4 month permit.But the no amplification may be continued as many commercial bussiness and shops were complaining of noise..

So I renewed my permit despite  the regulations and was bound and determined to do the street show on Halloween with amplification and lots of it!

I thought to myself,"They don't even want street performers visible on the streets because they create noise pollution and instigate public gatherings!!..wtf is this city comin to.
I paid for my permit and mentioned to the lady that this tastes a little like martial law.
And she agreed...

As some of you may recall, my street show last Halloween was rudely shut down by an old cop that clearly wanted nothing to do with"having to police your little show" and that I was being shut down for"Instigating a Riot" only 25 minutes into my performance.
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I have to admit that there was hundreds of enthusiatic ghoul, goblins and zombies gathered to hear and see a madman with a skull mask playing creepy riffs on an electric guitar..
 Shit, it was Halloween and people want to party,have fun, move,mosh and dance about!!

This year, I thought, would be different.
I would play in a different location, I would try to keep the volume down, maybe not play as loud and heavy.I knew that most cops seem to hate metal guitar..y'know, the loud distorted riffing, the downtuned demonic chord progressions. To them,these chords signal danger, destruction and chaos.I would try to ease off on the metal...must...try...must..

So I set up the show on a "safe" but populated area on Granville with my good Fiend Voodoo Jack playing The hand drum.
We started off quiet, playing tribal, funky, voodoo groovees that soon attracted a circle around us and had zombies,transformers,obamas,and michael jacksons all taking turns on laying down their voodoo moves within the circle.
The CD sales were soaring and the tips were in large bill durations and it looked like the SpookhauS street show was on fire!!!

I had looked at my watch and realized I had surpassed the mere 25 minutes of last years show,
I was well into a coupla hours and no hassles from the cops thus far.
So I blasted another blunt with Voodoo Jack and gathered steam for our next venture into musical mayhem.

I was confident at this point and the volume was slowly increasing.
I was anxious to start laying down some chunky distorted riffs over some heavy industrial beats.

I have an assorted collection of beats that I play to as well as backing tracks of SpookhauS Tunes such as "I want to be your Vampire" and started that one off with a stonedout Voodoo Jack laying down a solid polyrythmic percussion to it.

With the increase in energy meant an increase in crowd and thus the volume increased and the show became intense..that is untillll...

Well low and behold, who comes barreling through the crowd followed by his little group of lacky rookies but the same old cop that shut me down last year??!!.

"You again,I didn't forget you! I kicked you off this street last Halloween so pack up and giiiit the fuck outta here!!"

I didn't even get a chance to take off my mask and say shite to the oldman when he just walked off and let a younger east Indian cop deal with me.

"You actualy have a permit for all of this.This I gotta see!!"he snarled

"I mean, you can't sell CDs,you cant put on a show like this!!"he bellowed.

I was surrounded by this asshole and several other cops, probably half my age, staring me down.

Voodoo Jack stood off to the shadows like he's good at and the crowd seem to disperse very quickly when police presence arrived.
All the people that were cheering me on and dancing about being entertained were fleeing from the police presence,"not even standing up for me and my rights and their rights", I thought..
But who could blame em,they were probably packin booze, a few joints,who needs the hassles?

I produced my permit, knowing that I was playing past the time limit of 10pm and that I was playing with amplification but insisted that it was Halloween, people were enjoying themselves and that I was not creating any disturbance.
The cop took my name and id and said that my permit would be confisicated by the city.

He said flat out that it was getting late and extra forces were sent to clean up the streets and basicaly get people moving, preferably away from the Granville strip and that I was obstructing them from allowing to do so.

Well, thats an honest cop.
No bullshit. no games.

But he revealed alot about himself and the police force that he represents.
They've all been specialy instructed in crowd control for the olympics and are applying these tactics forcefully and have been doing so for the last few years.

So, after a few heated exchanging of words and a threat of throwing me in jail, he and his copboys got outta my face and as he left he said,

"Y'know,I don't have to be your father and have to tell you to shut down at the time that clealy states so on your permit."

I laughed at the thought and said, "Yes sir and have a great Halloween sir!!"

I too was packing a few joints of stinky BC Bud in my pocket but ,despite the legal issues,I cant seem to keep my mouth shut when authority gets in my face.

I was packing up my gear and soon had dozens of people coming up to me asking me what the cops said to me,if I was ticketed.
Some had recorded it on there vidcameras and phones and said they would send them to me.Another claimed he worked for the city and that he would see that my permit was not revoked.

So another Halloween goes by and still more evidence of an ever increasingly uptight,assuming oppressive police force rears its ugly head once again.

I hope everyone had a great Halloween despite our descent into Martial Law.

 -S-