Interview by Earl Kuck, That's Who

Bunyon was the kind of zine sci-fi writers like to have shot into space and discovered centuries later by infant civilizations who adopt its content as holy writ. As the publication's prime architect throughout its nine-issue history from 1991 to 1999, which also featured noteworthy contributions from Julian Lawrence, Ted Dave, Lester Smolenski, and Jason McLean, the compulsively flamboyant Robert Dayton hand-lettered nearly word and drew nearly every illustration. Subtitled "The Journal of Daytonology -- 500 horsepower ego-charged zine," Bunyon contained interviews that sometimes derailed into gloriously surreal train wrecks, but the main attraction was the extensive selections from its creator's personal diaries, which organically merged the thinking-on-paper typical of navel-gazing chronicles with squeamish insights a reader would likely feel amazed to be allowed to read.

In the mid-'90s, he reached a bigger audience through his regular column in Terminal City, a free weekly in Vancouver, British Columbia, where Dayton calls home. The magazine folded the same year he concluded his Bunyon experiment (although Terminal City has been resurrected since 2001, again with Dayton on board doing comix and covering the my-drug-experiences and television-pilots beats). Fortunately for Dayton, Julian Lawrence's lust for newsprint blossomed at the right time. Accustomed to the free reign he enjoyed in Bunyon and ample elbow room at Terminal City, Dayton could not even consider contributing to The Georgia Straight, Vancouver's other free weekly, a long-running yuppie tool whose editors endear themselves to contributors by grinding the voices of many into a single faceless blob. With Lawrence as comics editor and Smolenski on board for layout and editing, Dayton co-created and helped edit The Drippy Gazette, a free monthly whose delirious all-nighter vibe lasted twelve issues published between late 1999 and 2000.

Dayton and Lawrence had already established a friendship and working rapport in July Fourth Toilet, a band Dayton says "started out as messy, drunken blackout catharsis and evolved into the colorful, bargain-basement show biz extravaganza it is today," although it does revert periodically to a "blackout cathartic" state, which is what anyone would have expected by the end of July Fourth Toilet's seven-hour show in March, 2000. Since forming in 1994, when their christening derived from the near-legendary list of possible band names created by John Singer and Gregg Turkington of the Zip Code Rapists, over eighty-five people (including Lester on several occasions) have performed with the band, ranging in age from seven to seventy-nine; forty-five of them were at the party where their version of "Let's Go" was recorded for Horrifying Circus Music's Canadian Relics seven-inch.

Throughout all of this, Dayton, under the pseudonym Barry Benatar, was paying his dues in British Columbia's competitive karaoke circuit, a twilight world in which the house could be brought down with a particularly spunky rendition of "Foot Loose" or "Word Up." While on a one-week cruise ship bound up the block and around the corner to Alaska, Barry finally made the acquaintance of a karaoke kingpin he'd only heard about Salt Loaf -- a formidable crooner who likes to please crowds with visceral readings of "Burnin' Love" and "Smoke on the Water." Following a deadlocked karaoke tournament on the ship, the duo shared some champagne and The Ohio Players' "Fire," and decided to form the world's first karaoke supergroup, Canned Hamm. Salt Loaf renamed himself Big Hamm and confessed that playing Warren Beatty to Dayton's (now Li'l Hamm's) Dustin Hoffman wouldn't be enough to sustain their Ishtar-Cubed. Yes, Big Hamm wanted to direct, compose, perform and record their own karaoke tunes. Canned Hamm's debut CD Karazma! (Pro Am Entainment International, 2001) should revolutionize the way anyone thinks about karaoke, an entertainment that thrives on and is defined by audience participation and yet completely obstructs the use of original material. Karazma!, advertised not inaccurately as "abominably catchy," successfully captures the spirit and mood and every nuance of the Japanese art of public sing-along, while at the same time bringing the value of DIY into play and consigning thousands of overused, cringe-inducing endurance tests to a sweet little bucket called oblivion. - Earl Kuck, That's Who

Earl Kuck: You and Big Hamm seem like consummate entertainers.

Hamm used to be in a band called Slow who played Expo 86. Hamm's pants came down and caused such shock that they canceled the rest of the alt rock music series. Hamm made the cover of Billboard because of that.

It would take very little refinement to get Canned Hamm on television, I'd say.

What's the number of Letterman's booking agent? I'm sick of cooking pub food. Well, sorta sick of it.

The only line you cross is when Midi Hamm comes out in a diaper and you introduce him as the Baby Jesus. Are you deliberately setting up the audience to believe you're these ultra-gentle guys, so that you can thrust this on them?

We are ultra-gentle! We are writing a song to be called "Who Needs a Hug?" or "Lineup For Hugs." We're not sure yet. It'll be the "Who Let the Dogs Out" of 2002, with a Shaggy vibe.

A shaggy vibe, as in the sisters Wiggins?

No, the reggae-rap guy.

Eew. Why Jesus instead of some other historical figure?

It's a seasonal thing. And a diaper is an easier costume to build than a bunny outfit. And it's funny! Li'l baby Jesus performing li'l baby miracles, like yo-yo tricks.

Do you write the Canned Hamm lyrics?

I write a lot of the lyrics, but not all, sometimes with a melody in mind. Many of them come from personal experiences but I try to write lyrics that are fairly universal without being cliche. Big Hamm spiffs them up, alters them, improves them. Then we do the good ol' song writing process: we sit down at the piano together and work it out. I don't know music at all and can only go on feel or by humming, but Big Hamm is the talent in that department. The songs are catchy by design. We've had people come up to us and say, "That song reminds me of something..." As long as that something isn't another song or melody that already exists, great. We do have varied influences and we just throw them in the pot. Sometimes something is written that is just too ridiculous or painful but that leads us to do it more. He spends hours recording the music on his many keyboards and on the computer.

You record the music, too? I assumed you just owned a karaoke library or something.

Nope, no karaoke library. You're not the first to think so. We used backing tracks on "Hey, Li'l Hamm," samples on various occasions and MIDI files for the basis of "The Beat Goes On" for a Screamers tribute CD. We altered and added a lot to them so that the song would encompass many other elements. We were going for a tribute to The Screamers and Vanilla Fudge.

Was "Karaoke Lady" inspired by anyone in particular?

Yeah, all the lovely ladies who do karaoke! It was originally meant to have a Serge Gainsbourg kinda vibe but then we went for the Steinman.

I can hear the Steinman influence. Tell me more about the songs, like what's behind them.

The introduction on Karazma! is just bravado, a mockery of show biz mantra. "Shortenin' Bread" is a re-imagining of the traditional number and a nod to Adult Child, the unreleased '70s Beach Boys album that has profoundly inspired Canned Hamm. "Father And Son" is a very glib song about my bosses at the pub where I cook. At one point everyone in the kitchen was going to form a band together. It never happened but I did write the lyrics.

Does "High on Life" have anything to do with your blackout period?

I stopped drinking entirely for a couple weeks and imagined going to AA or NA and performing this song. I have a lot of NA friends. Many of my lyrics are self-deprecating; I was once the surrogate boyfriend of this girl who was real bad news, though I didn't know it at the time. Because of that and numerous failed dates with various women, and a need to quell my lonely frustration, I wrote "Platonic Friend." I was laughing at the situation I was in.

Neil Hamburger suggested asking about what happened in Yosemite when Canned Hamm toured with him last Spring.

It was an interesting gig. Neil was booked to play the National Park with us as support but we were uncertain of the details. We were hired by this gal named Hopeless, who works for the park, to entertain her and her friends, as we found out when we arrived, out in the open at their campsite. Neighboring sites were able to see and hear everything. We were surrounded by nature. It was odd, to say the least. We were mic-less because we needed the tiny PA for our CD player. Lots of families from other sites were watching until we did our burlesque routine. We never show more skin than what a swimsuit would reveal but they didn't know that. Parents were putting their hands over their kids' eyes and ushering them back to their sites. Later when Neil was doing a series of off-color boy-band jokes, all of a sudden this big drunk guy from a nearby site comes barreling up and says, "Hey! I have fucking kids here! I don't need to hear that kind of talk! First, you're fucking running around in your goddamn underwear!" Neil says, "That wasn't me, sir," but the big drunk guy says, "I don't fucking care. Take it back to the Bay Area!" Things were tense and we thought the guy was going to get violent but he left and Neil continued with his act, mic-less after that point. Neil's a pro, he handled it well. The next day we stopped at Pea Soup Andersen's. Wow, what a great place! It has a faux-German look to it with a big, fake windmill and gift shop. Everyone was saying that Big Hamm and I should do a movie based on their mascots Hap Pea and Pea Wee; they have a very dominant-submissive relationship. Pea Wee is little and bandaged and holds the peas that big ol' Hap Pea splits with a big mallet. They're drawn in a '40s cartoon style.

Think you'll do it?

I am currently writing a Canned Hamm movie entitled Canned Hamm in... Street Cred. Hamm and I have a five-year plan for it to be made. The tag line is "You'll believe that men can cry." It's character-driven.

You don't say.

The first shot is a long pan around a busy cafeteria with the sounds of natural environment noises. The camera eventually stops at a table. My character is sitting there with a young woman. She does all the talking: "It was your idea to meet. You just didn't get what you wanted. It's over, blah, blah, blah..." I burst into tears and run home. My room is covered in photos of her. I start tearing them down, blubbering, and crawl into bed and stay there. Cut to Big Hamm's character's job, he plays a chiropractor, he's in a short-sleeved white shirt talking to a work buddy about me. He calls me, and it rings and rings. Cut to me not picking up, phone beside my bed. Then Hamm bursts into my room. Title comes up: Street Cred! Next shot is Hamm carrying me down the road, then down the highway. I'm still blubbering. A bus pulls up. The driver asks, "Where ya going?" Hamm says, "Anywhere," and the driver says, "Well, hop on in!" The bus pulls away. We see the destination sign on the bus and it reads anywhere. That's just the first five minutes. Pretty good, huh?