About
the book:
Set
to the cranking beat and amphetamine buzz of Vancouver’s early punk
scene, Zero
Avenue follows
Frankie Del Rey, a talented and rising punk star who runs just enough
dope on the side to pay the bills and keep her band, Waves of Nausea,
together. The trouble is she’s running it for Marty Sayles, a
powerful drug dealer who controls the Eastside with a fist.
When
Frankie strikes up a relationship with Johnny Falco, the owner of one
of the only Vancouver clubs willing to give punk a chance, she finds
out he’s having his own money problems just keeping Falco’s Nest
open. Desperate to keep his club, Johnny raids one of the pot fields
Marty Sayles has growing out past Surrey, along Zero Avenue on the
U.S. border. He gets away with a pickup load and pays back everybody
he owes. Arnie Binz, bass player for Waves of Nausea, finds out about
it and decides that was easy enough. But he gets caught by Marty’s
crew.
Johnny
and Frankie set out to find the missing Arnie, but Marty Sayles is
pissed and looking for who ripped off his other field — a trail
that leads to Johnny and Frankie.
About
the author:
Dietrich
Kalteis
is the award-winning author of Ride
the Lightning, The Deadbeat Club, Triggerfish, House
of Blazes and Zero Avenue.
Nearly fifty of his short stories have been published
internationally, and he lives with his family in West Vancouver,
British Columbia.
Social
networking links:
Website:
http://dietrichkalteis.blogspot.ca/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/dietrich.kalteis/
Twitter:
@dietrichkalteis
Available:
October
3
Buy
links:
Chapter
2 Excerpt
[Frankie]
walked in, Falco’s Nest open to the indie music scene. Johnny Falco
being the second club owner with the balls to do it. Most venues
around town treated punk like taboo: pogo dancing leading to
underaged drinking, leading to drunken fist fights, leading to police
raids and shutdowns.
Johnny
moved here from back east, got to know the punk scene in Toronto,
told her about living in the Lawrence Hotel, rooms like two bucks and
change a night, a Sabbath cover band called Never Say Die stayed down
the hall, the band living on potatoes and soup packets. Getting to
know them while bowling with empty ketchup and beer bottles in the
hall, driving the landlord crazy.
She
loved hearing Johnny tell about the Toronto scene: the Viletones, the
Demics. Bands like the Diodes, Cardboard Brains and Teenage Head out
of Hamilton, venues like Larry’s Hideaway on Carlton. Johnny saying
he wished he’d been on the coast to catch the Furies before they
split up, loved their sound, getting out here a couple years too
late.
Photos
were tacked up behind the bar: him standing arm in arm with Frankie
Venom, another one of him and Daniel Rey, producer for the Ramones,
one with Carole Pope out front of the Concert Hall.
Lachman
over at the Buddha was first to do it in Vancouver, bringing the
sound to town. The Young Canadians, still called the K-Tels back
then, put on a hell of a show, followed by the Subhumans. The Buddha
had been packed ever since, Lachman still trying to live down the
night he kicked out Hendrix, back in the club’s R&B days a
decade earlier, Lachman telling anybody who’d listen the guy just
played too loud.
Falco’s
Nest had been catching the Buddha’s overflow since opening its
doors eight months back. Johnny usually short on cash, but long on
ideas, showcasing new talent, giving bands a chance to jump off the
hamster wheel of shit gigs available to them. The local papers called
both clubs a spawning ground for a new terrorism on the
sensibilities, but Vancouver’s punk scene didn’t read the dailies
— fans flocking from as far as Mission, giving the “No Fun City”
image a good shake.
Not
sure who Johnny had booked in tonight, she walked by the posters
plastered across the storefront window. Hoping to duck Marty till
later, she’d come to hear some music, have a beer with Johnny then
drop in at the Buddha, catch some of D.O.A.’s second set. The guys
sometimes letting her sit in. Her Flying V locked in the trunk, just
in case.
She
stepped into the warmth and the smoke.
Excerpted
from Zero Avenue by
Dietrich Kalteis. ©
2017 by Dietrich Kalteis. All rights reserved. Published by ECW Press
Ltd. www.ecwpress.com
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