Daddy's Hands

The singer of one of my favourite bands of all time died last week. His name was Dave Wenger and the band was Daddy's Hands. I didn't know him personally but I probably possess as many Daddy's Hands songs as humanly possible without being an actual member of the band. And it probably would not be hyperbole to say that they've easily been one of the single greatest influences on my musical tastes.

The band's discography is quite sparse, consisting of a few demo tapes that circulated around British Columbia in the mid-1990s as well as one "official" CD that was released in 2000 on Montreal label Que Sera. I'd seen them live a few times during that period but had assumed the band disbanded following the untimely death of band member Emily, whose distinctive child-like voice provided the perfect compliment to Wenger's rasp. In the past few years, though, I've heard that Wenger continued to play shows in Victoria, Montreal, and Vancouver under the moniker of Daddy's Hands as well as in other bands.

Despite this lack of official output, Daddy's Hands tapes were traded around like holy relics in the circles that I traveled in during the mid-to-late 90s. A few lucky people maybe had a single original copy, but most had dubs of dubs of dubs. I think I listened to my battered second generation copy of the first two demos hundreds of times during that period. To this day, I could never understand why the band never became huge, especially after other Victoria-spawned bands like Frog Eyes and Wolf Parade - who definitely owe a great deal to Daddy's Hands on a number of levels - have since become so popular. Because I didn't know Wenger, I thought that the least I could do share some of his songs.

Don’t Go
Scabby Corsage
Hey Kunt

These songs from the first Daddy's Hands demo are small, filth-covered gems and are still probably among my favourite songs by any artist. (I vividly recall seeing the band perform "Scabby Corsage", in particular, at the Nelson Legion hall, with Wenger covered in blood by the end of the song after repeatedly smacking the microphone against his forehead while writhing around frantically on the ground. I guess it goes without saying, but it was definitely a very awesome show.) As you'll immediately notice, the hiss from the original tapes blankets everything in these recordings, muddying the vocals, horns, drums and guitars into an appropriately dense sludge. Yet, despite the obvious sonic limitations (which in my mind are essential anyway), these early songs achieved the right combination of noisy, feedback-drenched shambles with some genuinely catchy pop-hooks - much in the same way that Tom Waits, for instance, writes perfectly ragged songs by combining his growled lyrics and kitchen sink percussion with pretty straightforward and melodramatic piano ballads.

Bastard You’re A Hard Man To Love/Redman
Strangled Planet
Moon Vs. Mancoat

The second cassette, Intelligent and Powerful, is an equally messy but far more ambitious project than the first one. The songs are better articulated, more complex, and a bit more subtle than the early ones, both lyrically and musically. It's probably more satisfying when listened to as a whole, with its short instrumental and noise interludes scattered throughout the album. But, as you can see with these three tracks especially, the individual songs definitely stand up on their own.

There Won’t Be A Next Time
Feral You
Baby’s Fire (demo)

Like a lot of people I talked to at the time, I was a bit confused by Tutankhamun, the first official Daddy's Hands album to be released on CD. Much of the noisy punk rock of the two cassettes was gone, replaced with a much slower, slightly cleaner, and very Cramps-esque sound. I've since become quite fond of the album, although I've always kind of wished that more songs sounded like the hidden song at the end of the disk, "Feral You", which sounds to me like more of a continuation of the trajectory being set by the two cassettes. That said, I still don't understand why this album never became more popular. You can find quite a few more messy but definitely still excellent versions of this album's songs on the Hive Studios website.

I know that in the past few years Wenger wrote and recorded another Daddy's Hands album as well as songs with a bunch of other bands that he was involved with. I'm not sure why the songs were never released or what their status was prior to Wenger's death, although I know that Goldkixx posted a few of them a year or so ago and they sounded really excellent. Goldkixx also wrote a brief history of the band a few years back that is definitely worth reading and that goes into the love/hate relationship that many people have had with Wenger over the years.

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My friend Roxane also wanted me to let people know about a fund that's being put together to help friends of Wenger from Eastern Canada afford to fly out to his funeral in Victoria on December 4th. If anyone wants to help out, they should email Johnny Pollard, who's managing the donations, at plench (at) telus (dot) net.