Talk – Action = 0, An Illustrated History of D.O.A. – Joe Keithley

Arsenal Pulp Press, #101 – 211 East Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, V6A 1Z6, Canada/ Turnaround
www.arsenalpulp.com, www.turnaround-uk.com

A couple of years ago „I, Shithead, a life in punk“ was published, which was basically Joe’s autobiograpy focusing on 1979 – 1990. With this book you get the full deal mainly concentrating on D.O.A. from the beginning to today (2010 that is) of this longstanding canadian band. This book has much more visuals, you get alot of flyers/posters, vintage photographs, handwritten lyrics and other various ephemera besides the text.

Joey has lots of storys to tell, no wonder in the 33 years history of the band they played over 3.500 concerts in Northamerica, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and China. Released thirteen studio albums, various other releases and went thru almost 30 bandmemberchanges! The book has ten chapters, but goes chronological from year to year. As you can imagine some years are more intersting than others but I can assure you the reading never gets boring. And especially in the first 1-2 decades Joe has lots of storys to tell that are hilarious.

It seems the first 2/3 of the book is much more detailed (hard to imagine it is all memory, must be diary or at least notes….) then in the end, or maybe it was just me. Anyway, be with the band on their journey thru 3 decades, I like the balance of text/graphic, the layout is fine (for me personally handwritten lyrics dont mean so much, but that might be different to other people…). Not sure why the closing words are not in the end, but 30 pages before it, but I’m sure there is a reason to it. D.O.A. was one of the original bands playing hardcorepunk with a political message and still does so after all this years.

There have been some downs (musically) during the years, but that is not such a big surprise (considering how long they have been around) and the band is back on track musically as well as with their politics. Joe was even running for the Green Party in Burnaby and is also doing solo shows as well as spoken word, besides the band and running the label Sudden Death Records. The free download card for the songs „Disco Sucks“ and World War 3″ should be part of the book also… It is a full colour + 300 pages paperback 25×20 with over 150 full colour photographs. This is a must have for evey fan and works also as a very good intruduction for people who have never heard of D.O.A. 27,95 $ (dolf)

Isbn 9781551523965

[Trust # 152 February 2012]