Reunited only to break up again
After 25 years, Pointed Sticks happy to perform a final show Saturday
The reunion lasted longer than the original band.
The Pointed Sticks broke up after three years of unfulfilled promise. They got back together in 2006, toured Japan and made two albums.
Now, the band is knocking it on the head for the second, and probably last, time this Saturday at the Rickshaw.
They leave an unlikely story: Power pop band with punk sympathies makes a few great singles, records a disappointing EP for then-prestigious Stiff in the U.K., comes home, slips further with an LP, Perfect Youth, falls apart.
Twenty five years later, Nick Jones, Ian Tiles, Tony Bardach, Gord Nicholl and Bill Napier-Hemy regroup as a response to an insistent offer to play Japan, where they had become a word-of-mouth hit.
A few local shows follow, as does a well-liked album with a second one coming. Wrongs righted, Pointed Sticks fall apart again, this time on purpose. Looking back, Jones observes: “In 1981 the band really just dissolved into the ether.
“In retrospect, the die was cast when we went to England before we were ready. We should have stayed home and made a couple more singles, and forced the Canadian industry to take notice of us.
“And I always felt that Perfect Youth was badly flawed. Poor song choices, dated production and generally pretty lacklustre.
“Plus, we were having terrible internal strife. It was a very difficult time for us. The first wave of Vancouver punk was rapidly ending and we simply could not adapt.
“Plus, hardcore was rearing its ugly head. We just did not have the fortitude to get through all that.
“We never thought about a reunion; not ever,” he continues.
“You move on to different things. When the idea (of the Japan tour) first came up, I think the only reason we finally accepted (after saying no to the Japanese promoter for six months) was to get a free trip to Japan.
“If it had been a failure, who was ever going to know? But the trip was a riot, and, most importantly, we really enjoyed playing the songs, and being Pointed Sticks again.
“But after that we had a meeting at Tony’s house and talked about what our limitations as a band were, mostly concerning touring.
“Writing and recording was the only way to validate the band continuing. We had no idea whether that was even possible, especially considering the nature of our music, which mostly dealt with the angst of disaffected young people!
“But we decided to try, and within a week, Gord had the idea for My Japanese Fan. It didn’t sound dated, and it was a totally thumping pop song. Everything else came easy after that.”
The band had reached an age when it could handle pressure more easily. Thirty years ago, Pointed Sticks was the band expected to validate Vancouver punk/new wave.
“We were barely out of our teens when the band started,” Jones points out.
“From the outside, I look at the original music scene in Vancouver these days, and the first thing that strikes me is that most of the participants are so much older than we were — in their late 20s or early 30s.
“Being in a band now seems to be one facet of a busy modern life, which, by necessity, includes having a job and spending vast amounts of time social networking.
“When the Pointed Sticks ended the first time, the oldest guy in the band was 23. For us, and every one else in our scene, your band pretty much defined who you were, and you lived it 24 hours a day.
“We really didn’t have anything else, so consequently, even the littlest event took on disproportionate significance.
“So, it was nice to be able to revisit the music without having to deal with all the drama.”
A reunited Pointed Sticks could have continued, but it had gone as far as its members wanted and with the band spread out (Jones, for one, lives in Nanaimo), rehearsals and subsequent gigs were more difficult.
From that point of view, why not bring everything to an end at the Rickshaw?
“It was just the right time, right place,” Jones says.
“The Rickshaw is a fine old gig. If you drew a five-mile circle around the corner of Hastings and Main, you’d capture probably 95 per cent of all the landmarks in the Pointed Sticks’ story — gigs, rehearsals, recording studios, apartments, greasy spoons. ... So it’s as close to ground zero as we could get.
“So we made the decision to stop playing. It was unanimous within the band, and we’re pretty happy.
“It will give us a chance to say goodbye and thank you to everyone who ever thought that Pointed Sticks were fun ... or maybe we just need to take another 25 years off, and we’ll be back in 2037!”
A second album, which Jones, searching for a word, calls more personal, will be released in April on Northern Electric.
“Hopefully, people will find it, but, really, we made it for ourselves.”