No Doctors
Blastitude Interview

By Weasel Walter

No Doctors is the name for a cryptic, ever-morphing musical organization which presented a consistently stunning string of shows in Chicago and the rest of the US during the last year or so. Founded in 1999 by the stalwart braintrust of Chauncey Chaumpers (guitar, voc, etc.), CansaFis (vocals, viola, sax, turntables, etc.) and Elvis S. DeMorrow (guitar, etc.), the Docs enact unsettling, super-charged live scenarios where real Classic Rock guts, balls and sincerity mesh hilariously and triumphantly with extremely cagey cacophony and discord (if one closes her eyes and listens, one might hear the Foghat songbook as rendered by the vintage, no-tuning-allowed Half Japanese line-ups, but that’s just a lot of rock critic talk). Since their formal inception, they’ve employed an endless supply of temporary cohorts but lately the band - including the now stabilized rhythm section of bassist Pat and drummer Mr. Motherfuckin’ Brian - has honed their jagged nut-spew of devolved rock and roll noise into something far tighter and more propulsive than anyone might have expected. Amidst the bouts of cathartic note-mauling and aggro street-bum testimonials emerge precisely controlled changes, breaks and segues. These guys are clearly not fucking around: for all of their sheer, gnarly sturm und drang, the clarity and purity of attack and control No Doctors wield diffuses any silly notions of incompetence that peons of lesser intelligence and musical taste will jealously and cravenly accuse them of. No Doctors rule our collective asses with a forceful but sensitive impunity.

The first of the dozen or so shows I’ve seen by No Doctors occurred on a Chicago rooftop during the fall of 2001. Instantly flabbergasted by the surging dissonance of their attack, the overall effect seemed akin to being sprayed in the face with ammonia while receiving a really good blowjob (or cunnilingus, ladies). The other thing that struck me was their totally incongruent look. For example, tall, lean, swarthy ‘Fis struck me as a dead ringer for Christian Bale-as-ass-destroying-yuppie Pat Bateman in the film “American Psycho” -- hair slicked back, mirrored aviator glasses, polo shirt, khakis . . . you get the picture. The comparison went much further though: regardless of any mere external similarity, our buddy CansaBate seemed to be utterly gripped by a very heinous jag of seismic psychosis. As he wantonly burst his larynx and flung his body about in dangerously greivous, erratic convultions, I couldn’t help to notice that his tan boat shoes unintentionally kept flinging off of from his sockless feet with an alarming, cruel velocity. I couldn’t help but to think that this character having a nervous breakdown before my eyes was the real deal. A dyed-in-wool frat boy that had clearly lost his shit completely. Either that or he was possessed by something much larger than all of us. The latter proved to be the case. Minus the laid-back foundation of Pat on bass, this particular quartet incarnation howled and ground through a brief but overwhelming set of the songs that are now familiar to us from their 2002 self-titled debut album on Freedom From. Amusingly, at that point Mr. Brian was relegated to an ultra-minimal percussion set-up comprised wholly of a broken hi-hat stand and a snare drum perched on a milkcrate – the cabal had unanimously decided that this was a necessary handicap! As time went on, I learned not to question the logic behind No Doctors insidious schemes.

Over the course of the following year, I watched the group evolve steadily, each progression revealing a new level of unexpected invention and mastery. One show at the Hideout in Chicago featured the core trio augmented by the quixotic, enigmatic svengali Clopas (nee Clopez, Dub Klopps, W. Ckloppes, Cclopiss, ad nauseam) on the bare-bones hi-hat and snare rig. The frontline maintained their usual positions in perfect, empathic unison while Clopppz seemed single-mindedly intent on busying himself with his own very intense personal exploration of arrythmic pounding and crude textural battering. The archetypal embodiment of the No Docs ethos, simian overlord CKcKKlpz seems to psychically manipulate the rest of the band even in absentsia, conducting his extended, solitary retreats deep in the woods of Duluth, Minnesota. It is intermittently rumored that he is currently absorbed in investigating a new rudimentary technique that involves gigantic, homemade 5 foot long drumsticks. Another show around that time featured Mr. Brian in tandem with a didgeridoo/conga player (who seemed more Dead than Grateful) as the quintet droned through a particularly turgid and laborious hour long set that seemed to hardly fluctuate from one single low tone. Just when the last person in the audience seemed to lose patience with the persistent display of tedium, the boys suddenly shot a greasy, wicked finger up our collective pooper, whipping out an insane, crazed note-for-note cover version of Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher”. I wasn’t the only person in that audience who had to put my drawers in the washer that night.

Perhaps the single most perplexing and galvanizing performance I witnessed came earlier this year when No Doctors had inexplicably wheedled their way onto a suburban, Phish-infested “Battle of the Bands” near Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Oddly enough the sextet formation (with a short-lived trumpet chair) put on a mesmerizingly high-energy, slick, professional show to a packed audience of raging collegiate boobs and unanimously won them over! It was sheer pandemonium. Every soaring note Elvis and Chauncey wrung from their tandem guitars was greedily swallowed by the gaping throng. Although the contest was clearly rigged by the irritatingly reactionary yuppie-in-training judges, the technical ‘first place winner’ of the melee even verbally conceded to the Docs after the dust cleared. The rest of the evening was spent in Dionysian celebration involving a bottle of Everclear, some ice-cold Jagermeister and a convoluted predicament involving certain members of the group being physically and verbally threatened by a roving gang of jocks. You had to be there.

To be blunt, the debut release by the band doesn’t capture the momentum or excitement of the No Doctors fervent live displays at all. We all know that records aren’t the same as flesh, but I have bore aural witness to the group’s voluminous stockpile of outtakes, radio shows and live recordings and I’m alternately ecstatic and suicidally dismayed to report that the boys are merely holding out on us. Once again, it clearly isn’t high time for the general public to completely comprehend the modus operandi of these conniving charlatans of choad. One will have to suffice with somewhat blind faith or the sporadic live event for the time being. It’s often difficult to get to the heart of No Doctors' method, but half the fun comes from the effort, as you will witness in this severely edited dialogue conducted in December 2002.

Chauncey Chaumpers (CC): Remember that show we did at Veronica’s house where you played the umbrella?

CansaFis (C):(laughs) It was fucking incredible. We were diving . . . there was glass on the floor and metal and nails. It was fucking incredible. You remember how violent it was and there was some scary man outside the window that no one knew.

CC: He just banged on the window the whole time. We played in the suburbs of Minneapolis in this chick’s basement.

C: There’s usually no freaks in the suburbs, but that man was definitely fucking . . .

CC: She kept trying to keep her parents asleep the whole time and that guy kept bangin’ on the window.

Weasel Walter (WW): Were you the only act at this show?

C: Well no. This one girl made grilled cheese with english muffins and sour cream later. It was fucking wild, but it tasted really good.

CC: I mean, I like live shows. I like the idea that people should be able to participate in their entertainment. We don’t want a disenfranchised community of consumers.

WW: What’s an example of an audience that has met your expectations?

CC: We haven’t found it yet.

C: Not even close. We were talking about Jesus Camp? You know, when we were laying down, they whispered stuff in your ears.

CC: Oh yeah, they whispered . . . they’d come up to you real quiet and they’d go (unintelligible)

WW: (laughs)

C: No! It’s fucking awful. But it was cool man, because everyone was drawing really fucking . . . graffiti and like hunting theory out over the walls. A lot of really intense hunting theory.

CC: Remember? He set us down and said, “Listen guys. I been trying to run a Jesus camp for a long time now and I’ve never had anyone draw this many penises on the walls!”

C: You remember? It wasn’t Wavy Gravy, but it was another hipped out dude . . . there was the dude with the popsicles. That’s how it all started. First they whispered, then the popsicles, then the talk, then the graffiti, then the snowball fight with the band, man!

CC: An old man with popsicles? I like seein’ that . . . People should come to the shows. With popsicles. If they like girls . . .

C: I hope they like girls. (laughs)

CC: I’m not that old yet, but I don’t know what a young person’s motivation is anymore. When I see these shows I kind of question. . . I know how I live and I know what it means. We love people though. I’m not bitter about it!

WW: Do you have any schemes to up the ante, to get the audience more involved?

CC: There’s a time to up the ante and there’s a time to take a nap, you know what I mean? At this point we did our full blitz over the summer and now we’re doing things we can’t talk about.

C: I always wondered why they made you read “Bunnicula” in grade school, you know? The vampire bunny rabbit. What was the point of that, do you know? It was a requirement. All the kids were asked to do that. Seriously, it haunts me! It’s funny how time works like that – or doesn’t work like that – like a big line. Above or below where you want to set it, but when it’s there, it’s there and what has happened has happened and you can’t run away from it, right? Or you could.

CC: I guess that’s the glamorous life.

C: The glamorous life? To take it away. To change it. To murder it or what are you talking about?

CC: It’s a constant self-realization basically.

C: You have this one piece of paper and you’re writing down your life on it. You don’t even get words. You get letters and that’s . . .

CC: What do you want with a piece of paper?

C: Fine, there’s no piece of paper. There’s just this (unintelligble) What do you put in it?

WW: Do you see No Doctors as being constantly fully realized or do you see a progression . . .

CC: I think if you want to understand No Doctors, then you’d have to be me, for one thing. (laughs) But on a more serious level, the whole idea with us is that we don’t want to stay . . . flaccid.

C: Definitely not.

CC: There’s something we’re working towards.

WW: Last winter I saw one of your shows with Clopas accompanying you on drums . . .

C: (growling like a demon)

WW: . . . it’s the only time I’ve ever seen him on drums and he seems to hold No Doctors in a thrall. Like a svengali, a floating, disembodied head muttering jibberish . . .

CC: (deliberately, in anguish) It’s . . . so much . . . more . . .

WW: Why don’t you explain, as much as you’re comfortable explaining, about how Clopas relates to . . .

C: (even louder growling)

CC: I was just a normal person when I was younger. I led a normal life . . .

C: (more growling)

CC: I lead a normal life.

WW: Is he here right now?

CC: It was so much easier, but now . . . there’s no conflict. There’s no obligation. (long pause) Things were different before we were in the band. (shaking head in misery)

C: (after more than a minute of macabre growling) Shit. I just had a Clopas.

WW: I’d like to talk about the actual songs for a little bit . . . “The Quarry”?

CC: “The Quarry” is a very specific song.

C: I got two ways to go at that one . . . (long pause)

WW: Do it!

C: I was by there two weeks ago. The quarry. A Quarry. It just made me think of (unintelligible)

CC: “The Quarry” is much different to me than a lot of other songs. Some of our songs are kind of vague but “The Quarry” is a very specific song.

WW: Structurally or emotionally?

CC: It comes from a very specific place. Some of our songs are like, they’ll . . . (long pause)

C: What do you think about . . . (long pause)

CC: “The Quarry” was a song that birthed itself. It forced itself into the band. Some of the songs we seek out, “The Quarry” sought itself out.

C: Yeah?

CC: It came from a dream I had. I had a very specific dream. Before I had that dream, I had a warning I’d have that dream.

C: Yeah?

CC: I had a dream of a very specific image. I can’t really explain it. Colors that I remembered very specifically dreaming. I remember waking up and (unintelligble).

C: Would you be offended if I mentioned mountains and stuff like that? Showers.

CC: I wouldn’t be offended.

WW: You once told me that “Solomon Grundy” was one of the first songs you wrote. It seems to have an almost religious feel to it. What does it mean to you?

CC: I like that song, but when you say religious we definitely don’t just play that song.

WW: You played me a radio show version of that song where it seemed to go on for hours. It was an endless guitar solo by Elvis. Was that a special occasion?

C: That wasn’t even one of the most special occasions. It was really special, of course. It’s always special.

CC: “Solomon Grundy” is definitely not a song to be taken lightly. Some of the songs, like “The Quarry”, it comes from a specific place, but I can play “The Quarry” right now. But if I’m going to play “Solomon Grundy” right now, I’m going to warn you that you might get hurt. You know what I mean? We respect the songs.

WW: Have you ever had a song rear up and smack you in the face?

C: Oh yeah. There’s songs I’m afraid of doing. Like, literally afraid like when we mention that we want to do it for the show I know that for weeks I’m going to be a different man. You know, “Grundy” was like, the third track we ever played together.

WW: (after long pause) Bah ha ha ha! That’s a great statistic. You asshole. (laughs)

C: Fuck off man!

WW: That is the stupidest thing you’ve said in this whole interview. (laughs)

CC: (wistfully) You grasp your wine glass and reminisce . . .

C: Well, you know the last Elvis-one we were talking about . . . the difference between last that one, where Elvis was flying, floating away, becoming the bird. He became the bird and flew away. I remember the first one, and it wasn’t like that at all. Then the first one was the third one. It was just bizarre.

WW: Wait, the first one is the third one?

C: The first “Solomon Grundy” was the third song No Doctors . . . like, if you even want to look at it like that. It’s interesting.

WW: Sure! Absolutely. I think we’re all just trying to wrap our heads around that concept!

C: Man . . .

WW: Are you frustrated CansaFis? Are we not even understanding you? Do No Doctors ever come up against a brick wall where they feel like they’re not communicating?

C: Yeah, you could say that.

WW: If that’s a dark place, we don’t have to go there.

C: It’s not a dark place, but I don’t think I understand the question.

WW: I think that No Doctors is a very focused organization. There’s an understood thread and I’m wondering if that ever unravels and you have to re-evaluate what’s being said.

CC: There’s a lot of people involved, but there’s still stuff getting done.

WW: Do you acknowledge a hierarchy in No Doctors?

C: If someone’s not there, like if Clopas or Kev E Kev isn’t there . . . there’s past members that I still feel are members. There’s people on the street who you almost feel are members, regardless of if they are or aren’t. That sort of weird connection, when you feel it immediately.

Pat (P): (talking on phone) Mr. Brian, we’re over at Weasel’s doing an interview and we want you to ask a question via telephone. So I’m gonna ask you the question. Two weeks ago you explained to me that you know what a “gunt” looks like. Please explain.

Mr. Motherfuckin' Brian (MB): (via telephone) A gunt is a monkey-like tumor extending from the right hand of the afflicted. It has “cloaking properties” and its sole intent is to destroy all record labels.

C: This is a big question, Mr. B, what has Clopas shown you?

MB: (via telephone) Basically, hold on man, I gotta think about that one. Um, I mean, you just can’t understand what a Clopas is, I mean, that’s what the problem . . . is and that’s why you can’t even get anything from the Clopas, you know. He just is, he just is!

And . . . he taught me exceptional sideburn hygiene.

C: Let’s call Elvis. Right now.

WW: (more phone shit, this question prompted by the other members) Elvis, do you think you are the misogynist of No Doctors?

Elvis S. Demorrow (E): If you’re gonna pick one, you’re looking in the wrong direction.

WW: Who would you say is the misogynist of No Doctors?

E: I would say most likely that the misogynist of No Doctors is Clopas. Not because I’ve seen him express any hatred towards women, but, uh, these suspicions have arisen on tour where frankly, we think he might be killing people. And if he’s killing people, it’s probably women.

CC: I don’t want a misogynist in this band. That’s not cool.

C: We gotta take care of that shit. I don’t want a misogynist in the band.

WW: Call Clopas. Let it ring until he answers.

(end of tape)