Dayglo Abortions play Detroit and Cleveland, END UP IN JAIL.
When I think of the best punk rock bands of all time, those that have consistently put out classic albums for decades, it's a short list. Bands with songs that offended my parents as kids, and remain scream-along classics all these years later. Bands like The Misfits, The Dead Kennedys, The Dwarves, and NOFX come to mind... and Dayglo Abortions. As a 15-year-old kid around 1983, I was just discovering real punk rock when I ordered my very first vinyl record through the mail (all of my prior records had come from the chain store Harmony House). I ordered what looked like it would be the most offensive album ever made, and I still remember sitting on the couch at my parents' house and opening the mailer when it finally arrived (from Canada). It was the Dayglow Abortions (they later dropped the 'w' from 'Dayglow') "Out Of The Womb" 12" with the dayglo orange cover. The poster insert went on the wall in my bedroom and never came down until I moved out many years later. This was a life-changing slab of vinyl that would be played until it was completely worn out, replaced later by their "Feed U.S.A. Fetus" LP that reprinted the 14 songs from "Out Of The Womb" and added more, bringing the count to 21. I eventually replaced that again with the CD version.
While I never intentionally formed my views on the government based on punk rock ethos, one of the first times I felt a personal connection to the message was during the Dayglo Abortions' obscenity trial. I clipped an article out of the newspaper and must have read it 100 times. The government was going after my favorite band, and I was pissed. I loved Dayglo Abortions, but my bigger fear was that it would prevent a lifetime of obscene punk rock music from being created, which I was greatly looking forward to. Fringe Records owner Ben Hoffman (subject of the Dayglo's song "Ben Hoffman's Nose") would end up with massive legal fees, but the case was eventually resolved with their albums being deemed not to be legally obscene. I still frequently read through old stories about the case, one in particular says, "The tunes are laced with four-letter words and describe sex, satanism, bestiality, rape, murder, and suicide". Without context, that pretty much nails it.
It wasn't until 5 years later that I would eventually have my own car and score tickets to a live show at local hangout Blondies. They had just released their second full-length album, "Here Today, Guano Tomorrow," and it was an instant classic. I was from the suburbs, and Blondies was in the city (and not considered a safe place for teenagers from the suburbs to be hanging out), but I filled my car with friends and beer and headed down for the show. When we arrived, it was apparent that the band was in the house when we saw a full-size yellow school bus parked in front of the venue with "DAYGLOS" painted on the front. Despite being underage, we could drink at Blondies. In addition to Blondies' warm, skunked pitchers of cheap beer, The Dayglos brought out a 30-pack of Strohs and shared even more with us. To this day, if you were to ask me what the single best concert of my lifetime was (and I have been to hundreds), I would say without hesitation that it was the 1988 Dayglo Abortions show at Blondies.
The 1980s were a great time for punk rock music; some may say that no decade afterward has been able to match it. I'm on the fence, with a lot of my favorite music coming out in the 1990s. This included four more releases by The Dayglos ("Two Dogs Fucking", "Little Man In The Canoe", "Corporate Whores", and "Death Race 2000"). These were all amazing albums, and cemented them as punk rock icons. While they never reached the level of commercial success that bands like The Misfits, The Dead Kennedys, and NOFX eventually did, their songs were just as good, and the lack of success seemed mostly intentional (which was fine with me). There was another show scheduled at Blondies that we showed up to, but The Dayglos did not (reportedly due to issues at the border), and that started a long drought for live Dayglos shows. In the mid-1990s, Dayglo’s drummer Jesus Bonehead started God Records to re-issue all of the Dayglo's material, and singer Cretin released (on God Records) an album with his side band Lummox. I corresponded through the mail with Jesus Bonehead a few times and ordered everything I needed to keep my Dayglos collection complete. At least the music was still coming out, and it was as good (and as offensive) as ever.
Over the 20 years that followed, The Dayglos continued. "Holy Shiite" came out in 2004, there was a live album in 2011, "Armageddon Survival Guide" in 2016, "Hate Speech" in 2021, and the "Upside Down World" EP in 2023. One of the most amazing things about The Dayglos, and that sets them apart from most of the other bands that started in the 80s and still tour today, is this: if you asked me to list their best songs, they would mostly come from their current albums. "Chokin' On My Puke" from 2023's "Upside Down World", "White People" and "Raised On Chest Milk" from 2021's "Hate Speech", "I Love My Mom" from 2016's "Armageddon Survival Guide" and "Is This How A Punk Song Goes?" from 2004's "Holy Shiite" would all easily make the short list. It's as though they are getting better and better as the years go by.
On June 27, 2018, The Dayglos finally came back to the U.S. and we caught their show at Sanctuary Detroit. While I would have loved to see the original lineup (Cretin on guitar and vocals, Jesus Bonehead on drums, Couch Potato on bass, and Wayne Gretsky on guitar), I was thrilled to at least see Cretin still belting out Dayglos songs old and new. There was a lot of nostalgia that day, not just with seeing The Dayglos again but with the same group of guys that went to the show in 1988 (including my lifelong friend Ronnie Fry, R.I.P.). We all get old, and Cretin (Murray Acton) is no different. He was diagnosed with colon cancer around a year later, and that could have been the end of Cretin and The Dayglos. Fortunately, he beat it. The following is a statement that he put out as part of a successful GoFundMe campaign, post-COVID.
"Two months ago I was diagnosed with colon cancer. It did not really come as a big surprise to me because I had been tested for it right before covid and there was an indication that further testing needed to be done. Well the lockdowns prevented that from happening for the better part of three years. Through that time I could tell something was up so when I finally did manage to get the testing done I had a nasty looking tumour up my ass that had a three year head start on me. I have two oncologists that I am seeing. One of them is a surgeon, and the other is a radiation oncologist. They have decided to give me a 5 day radiation program starting on April 24th. Just today they gave me a cat scan and tattooed a couple of targets on my abdomen. They will then wait for two months to let the radiation shrink the tumour, then sometime at the end of June or early July they will surgically remove a fair bit of my colon. I hope that they will be able to connect what is left of it to my asshole because, well I probably don't need to explain why. I have had this thing in me for three years now which is not good. There is concern that it is metastable and spreading to my other organs but that is not something that I am going to dwell on. I have it firmly in my mind that I am going to defeat this thing. I am not a passive victim of cancer. I with the help of my friends have been reading up on all the latest alternative cancer treatments. I have found a lot of information in the form of peer reviewed papers in medical journals that contrary to what I was told by multiple people during covid-mania I am perfectly capable of reading and understanding and I have selected multiple alternative methods of fighting cancer that have shown promising results in trials, and don't interfere with each other or the traditional therapy. In fact they seem to enhance the effect of each other by attacking the cancer from different angles. In the long run they might end up to be more effective than the traditional therapy but it is not my goal to prove anything here. My only goal is to still be here 10 years from now. Anyway, I am telling you all this because enough people already know that it is only a matter of time before the rumours start flying around and I thought you deserved to hear it from me rather than some distorted gossip. It is the least I can do out of respect for all the years of support you have shown my bandmates and myself. I don't have much choice about touring. It is my only source of income and I'm not going to kid you, these alternative cures come with some expensive supplements, and it is important to me to really kick the shit out of that tumour as much as possible until the surgery date. Besides it's either getting out and visiting all of you again doing the one thing that relieves all my stress or staying home sick and alone with all the stress, worry, and depression, that goes along with that. It's an easy choice, and I am grateful that I have the ability to do that. I want you all to know that the only reason I can do this is because the venues know that if I show up with my guitar, you will all be there buying drinks off of them. I can't thank you enough..."
Fast forward to 2024, and The Dayglos were back! They announced a Canadian/U.S. tour that would finally bring them back to the U.S. I'm near Detroit, which is a short drive across the border to Windsor, so luckily I was able to catch the Windsor show on the Canadian leg (click this link to read the full story on that show). That was lucky, because the U.S. leg of that tour was cancelled after tour promoter Adam Kitchen screwed The Dayglos, keeping several thousand dollars that were fronted to him to secure their visas and never submitting the paperwork. Apparently, The Dayglos were not phased and in 2025 they announced a new U.S. tour that included Sanctuary Detroit in Hamtramck, Michigan.
Saber Tooth Gary opened the show. They are a local band that I'd seen recently on a bill with The Drowns and New Bomb Turks< (click this link to read the full story on that show). Gary's vocals are reminiscent of Tesco Vee from The Meatmen (who had just turned 70 a few days before the show, Happy Birthday Tesco!), and they are always good. They did the usual bit with "Memory Loss", a cover of a Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers song, and seemed genuinely honored to be on a bill with The Dayglos.
Ralph Smith of Death In Custody. All photos courtesy of Paul Holstein.
SuperDevil was up next, another local band that I had seen recently on a bill with The Murder Junkies (click this link to read the full story on that show). I ran into Austin Ahmad, their bass player, in the parking lot, and he provided a quick correction to my previous story (he was not filling in; he's a permanent member of SuperDevil). They played another great set, ending with a shout-out to Canadian punk rock bands and a cover of D.O.A.'s classic "Fuck You".
Death in Custody rounded out the local support, with Ralph Smith (who also booked the show) on vocals. In contrast to Saber Tooth Gary, who are a punk band, and SuperDevil, who lean towards rock-n-roll, Death In Custody is a hardcore band. We saw the most pit action of the night, but also technical problems (the bass amp went out, which delayed their start for quite a while, and once they got going, the guitar player broke a string and had to switch guitars). They did a great job of keeping it together, but we were all ready for The Dayglos (The Brothels would have played next, but had to unexpectedly cancel).
We were initially disappointed when The Dayglos brought out their set list, and it was only 9 songs, even though it was packed with classics. They would end up far exceeding that, however, with an impressive 20-song set that spanned their entire career. They opened with "Stupid Songs," which got the crowd going right away. They continued with "Arg, Fuck, Kill", "Bedtime Stories", "Sick Of The Lies", "Ronald McRaygun", "Wake Up America", "Proud To Be A Canadian", "I Love My Mom", "I Killed Mommy", "I Am My Own God", and "Religious Bumfucks". That was where the set list ended, and it would have been a great show even if they had stopped there. There was a hilarious moment where Cretin lost his dentures, and while the inter-song banter was kept to a minimum, he took just a few minutes to mention how much the entire rest of the world hated our government.
And then they ripped into "My Girl", "Dog Farts", "Inside My Head", "I Used To Be In Love", and "White People". Cretin took a brief moment to mention that Ozzy Osbourne had died on the third show of the tour, and that the next song would be dedicated to him. Of course, that was "Acting Like Black Sabbath," which was followed by "Stupid World" and their final song "Drugged and Driving". They had only one shirt in XXL, and I snagged it on the way out, but I would have bought one of every shirt that they had if they were in my size. A great show, and I sure hope I can see them at least one more time before we are all too old to do this anymore.
UPDATE: After I wrote this story, I found out that The Dayglos had played one more show in Ohio and then were arrested. Apparently, the Brothels had already dropped from the tour (a band decision, not an unexpected event as we had originally thought). As Murray (Cretin) and Matt from The Dayglos remained in jail over the holiday weekend, several shows were cancelled (from the dozen or so left on the tour), and speculation circulated throughout social media. They have since been released from jail, and the tour is back on!
