Hard Core Logo (1996)

“Saskadelphia, Saskatoon. Wherever.”

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I used to think I was punk.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense when I think about it now. There I was, the youngest account director in a certain Toronto multinational PR firm’s history, thinking I was punk.

Soft-soften, careful, sensible, I found myself evening after bruising evening at the Lee’s Palace upstairs Bat Cave dodging guys with shaved heads and flying shots of ‘Gringo Killer’ tequila.

I was quietly, secretly punk in my sensible shoes, business-speak and black suit.

I’m pretty sure Hard Core Logo’s Joe Dick would rain down a shower of spittle on me right now for positing that anyone can be quietly, secretly punk. Hold down a day job? Have decent credit history? Shower? No way.

Joe Dick is probably right. But Hard Core Logo shows us that being 100% bona fide punk is a hard, hard, filthy, depressing road.

Directed by Bruce McDonald, Hard Core Logo tells the story of an almost-famous punk band of the same name comprised of Joe Dick (Headstones’ front man Hugh Dillon), guitarist Billy Tallent (Callum Keith Rennie), bass player John Oxenberger (John Pyper-Ferguson), and drummer Pipefitter (Bernie Coulson).

The band is a disaster that is equal to more than the sum of its parts. Each band member is a mess. Together they create an epic, glorious, wretched mess that swallows up matter and lives like a sucking black hole.

Joe Dick is a mohawk’d rage monster who deliberately sabotages every opportunity for fame or fortune he comes across. In the world according to Dick, the music industry is the “stupidest, sleaziest and most boring business there is.”

Pipe is a wild-eyed “freak of nature” who wets his nest (or in this case, the tour bus). John ‘Just John’ is a schizophrenic who decides to go off his meds.

The only character with any ability to feed and care for himself seems to be Billy Tallent. His needy striving ambition gives that little extra edge he needs to have walking-around money and a career path. He’s got a lifeboat away from the Hard Core Logo sinking ship in the form of an up-and-coming band called Jenifur.

Joe Dick’s whole shambling life is Hard Core Logo. He talks Tallent and the others into reforming for one last tour across Canada, following a benefit show for Dick’s hero Bucky Haight (Julian Richings).

The tour turns into the ugliest, most surreal road trip since I decided to take a Greyhound bus across Canada without any cash in my pocket.

With many (*many*) tips of the hat to rock mockumentaries like This Is Spinal Tap and (I swear) a liberal seasoning with the surrealism of Guy Maddin,  Hard Core Logo is a bracing, often painful exploration into the essence of the Canadian punk movement.

Punk isn’t pretty. Neither is Hard Core Logo. Random, disorderly and dirty, it really took me back to when I was punk …you know, in my mind.

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Rated R for punk language, punk substance abuse, some punk violence and punk sexuality

92 minutes