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The Nerve Ends

 
The Nerve Ends

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. - Pudd'nhead Wilson Organic angst... fueled by nothing more than life around us.

1 top 50
43 songs
1.9K plays
The Nerve Ends - 2001 to 2003 took influences from folk, grunge, punk and many oddities. Members included Paul Karpinski-guitar/vocals and Kevin Berger/drums along with various others, Doug Hell-bass, Megan Parent-bass and Murray Weeks-guitar/bkup vocals. Pol has delved into his studies. Kevin is currently keeping time for The Annoyers and The Visitors (Ottawa Ont.) Doug Hell has spawned Radar Hate, now defunkt. Murray is studing various things in various places, amoung them classical guitar. Megan, miss book worm is with 'the guy'.
Band/artist history
propaganda... The Nerve Ends are an empire of three hailing from Canada's Capital. Odds are they won't sell too many albums because they are not deep like "Creed" or tough like "Eminem". They are certainly not handsome like "Nickelback". So they're already fucked. The Nerve Ends compensate for their conventional inadequacies with distortion and methane gas. Formed in Ottawa, Ontario they were voted by a nameless bum as the band most likely to get the shit kicked out of them by Chad Kroeger and Kid Rock. Drummer Berger once made a customer of the Underground Night Club eat his own shit. Then he kicked the customer's ass for not saving any for him. The Nervous Ends is not the name of The Nerve Ends. Bass player Doug Hell makes little hats for ants before killing them. While awaiting for the little critter's demise he takes goofballs. He smokes too many cigarettes and has a perpetual cancer cough. He is miserable and lonely with two friends in the world. His two friends have one and the one friend just may have tourettes but there is still no proof of that. The motherless fuck known as Doug Hell is rumored to be dead in Ajax, Ontario. Cone from "Sum41" killed him. Fuck you Berger. Oh yeah. Berger is the drummer for the Nervous Ends. The Nervous Ends are really called the Nerve Ends. And Berger takes exception to the empire Nickeback is trying to build through sodomy and deception. It just isn't right and Kevin is getting pretty mad. Kevion Berger is Kevin Berger's real name spelt wrong. Pretty Polly is a guitar-playing singer for a band called "The Nervous Ends" (nerve ends!?!?!). Polly doesn't breathe because he feels it doesn't make any sense. And that my friends, is how he acquired his supernatural powers which enable him to communicate with garden gnomes. The singer of the Vapids likes Sum41 but doesn't like the Butthole Surfers. This doesn't make any sense to the 6'4" brooding Doug Hell. Doug is the tallest guy in the Nerve Ends. Kevin is the second tallest at 6'5". Pretty Polly seems to think Jehovah's Witnesses are ridiculous. Paul explains this to me over a White Russian. The righteous mooks believe there is only so much room in Heaven yet they go door to door recruiting. If there was only so much room in Heaven then wouldn't they keep their mouths shut so they could insure themselves a spot? Heaven is reserved for people like Johnny Cash. Berger toots, a lot. ((Nervous Ed - Teenage Aggression Zine))
Your musical influences
insecure, undirected kids crash together and make timeless music together. but like most fantastic phenomena... as quickly as they appear, so do they disappear. i dunno what influenced that.
Anything else?
Most of these recordings have been done by the band, in full'on ghetto fashion. A few actually got done in a studio. enjoy! check out... www.soundclick.com/nofun101 www.myspace.com/doughell www.myspace.com/theannoyers www.myspace.com/thevisitorsarecool www.soundclick.com/thesohrabkanis and while yer at it.... www.myspace.com/capitalcitycreeps www.myspace.com/theriptides Berger ***Came across these while lookin for somethin else... at the time, i also wrote my thoughts about The Nerve Ends and as soon as i find'm i'll post'm. - Berger*** (Pol...written late 2004... i think) Utterly Baffled - When there was nothing else in my mind but a wish to escape those things which I couldn't confront, and the means to do it were 10 dollars at most (with the most paying herb or thirst quenching alcohols), no matter how many times or how hard I punched myself in the face, cursed at myself, screamed into mirrors - I was disabused of all hope and would indulge. I won't get into a long story about the reasons why certain situations ever existed. Things tend to explain themselves somewhat when you tell people what condition you were in at the time things happened. So without getting into the 'hows' of becoming loopy, I'll sum it up by saying: it's the only thing I really knew how to do well save making music. At the age of 20, anxiety had broken me from University. I felt the victim of a cruel world I had no control over. I had suffered a massive emotional breakdown and began seeing a psychologist. My lying to him didn't do me any good and so I decided to look for work. Throughout this period I was creating art - it's really all I had left. I wrote many songs during this time. I had since stopped enjoying to play those of my favorite musicians - whose tunes had a depressing effect on me. I was writing lyrics and poems fueled by Polish beer and pot until all I saw was ink and paper. I knew that smoking and drinking weren't helping me and that I was using them to escape. I had nonsencicle anxieties of all the world it seemed : happy people, groups, angsty teenagers, women, and all forms of responsibility or supporters thereof. If you happen to find yourself in one of those categories, let me assure you, the insane exist out of bedlams - I was walking proof. In spite of the fact, I soon found an excellent job. Kevin and I I met Kevin at New Morning Futon one March day 2001 - my first day on the job. I was taken by his outgoingness. At the time I was impossible to talk with, in a chronic state of apathy, and a pale shade of yellow. I'm sure Kevin had his impressions. Time passed. I remained in New Morning's basement making futons listening to music and he would come down and visit. I found Kevin's enjoyment of my company strange considering the way I was. Maybe if asked, Kevin will have something to say on the subject. I think he holds one of man's most desireable virtues : accepting people for who they are. It's a social level I haven't reached yet. At the time I felt like he was my own Salvation Army - socially speaking of course. He knows how I feel on the subject. When Kevin started recording Doug that fall I invited myself over. Soon he was recording my stuff. That Christmas I got him a Nazi helmet. That January 2002 we bought drums made out of tuperware and tin cans and began to make music. It was during this period that we wrote 'What's the Point?,' 'Trouble and Me,' the beginnings of 'Good Idea - Bad Idea' and many other musical treasures. I had a musical link with Kevin that was special - we both share a playfulness towards lyrics and melodies which keep things light between us as artists - sober or not. The Nerve Ends were formed at about this time. I don't remember the specifics - there was a lot of pot and alcohol. Brad After Doug became too difficult to deal with a week into us being The Nerve Ends, which we attributed to him not being a stoner, Brad, a collegue from New Morning tried out. I found it impossible to collaberate with him at the time on anything and think he joined mainly because it gave him a chance to work on stuff with Kevin. We picked up Doug immediately thereafter (5 seconds exactly). Doug and I Here I was at the outset of our acquaintace (August - 2001), slow-witted and clinging to music like a tic - there was nothing else to me. It wasn't so much a social retardedness that gripped me, but an absolute apathy for everything but music. A 6 month regimen of cotton and tunes had that effect on me. I liked Doug because he understood painful songs, but it wasn't until after I realized that and felt some of his throes that I liked him - this was AFTER the forming of TNE about 6 months after we met, at which time, I temporarily ceased being psychotic. I found a friend in him at last. We were buying eachother alcohol and spilling our grief; I don't think I shared my failures with anyone else so pleasantly before he came along. The more we did this, the closer we became. We reached our highest point in his shortlived appartment, complete with bottles, glasses, intruments, regrettable moments of creation, and genius. It was around this time when we wrote 'Referandum,' and some time nearing the end of his berthing there I wrote 'Monkey Man.' My songs captivated him and to my silent astonishment he learned to play some of them. He liked their mellodies as much as I did apperently. I liked his boarderline grungy - J. Cash - painful songs like 'Prison Rape' and 'Johnestown.' They really made sense to me. He had songs that cut into me. Doug had an ear; he introduced me to Johnny Cash afterall. It was during this period, from the start of February to the end of March 2002, that me and Doug strumed our guitars into time immemorial. I was intoxicated with Doug as much as I was with booze, they both seemed to feul my unloyal wish to run away from everything else. Everything but The Nerve Ends. No Fun 101 NOFUN101 was a dream conjured up by Kevin and effectively brought out of it's deep sleep and stirred to life by Doug. It's first location was in Kevin's bedroom which was a gallery of rock posters and about the size of a king size mattress. The equipement was crudely complex and there was an endless hemorhage of entangled cables at our feet; Kevin made sense out of it all half of the time. The microphone was taped to his bed post and later his closet was fitted with foam for higher quality vox production. The smokey haze and beer cans were everpresent. I sat on the floor most of the time and watched. Us three had some excellent moments in that place - a sort of brotherhood formed that later became irritating. Murray and I We had played for years before The Nerve Ends and I never thought we would stop. We began in highschool - at the time he was just learning. Over the span of one summer, he excellerated beyond belief and soon we were, for a very brief period, equally matched technically. We formed a band called 'Cloudberry Wine' with one of our friends, Don Everson, and were doing Nirvana covers mostly, including some originals, and played a total of one party. After that episode, Don quickly persued other ambitions. Me and Mur continued jamming together for awhile and began making stage appearances on Open Nights at Roosters, Carleton University in 1999-2000. Technically and vocally we were an extremely tight harmonic duo. We both knew eachothers voices better than our own mother's. After I left school and became lastingly 'baffled,' I estranged him to some degree as I did many of my highschool friends, but regardless of how I acted, we still got together to jam. I never completely got out of touch with Murray over 2000 and 2001, though bumpy in other respects, music was our unwavering link. Without it, I don't thing our friendship would have endured. We played and recorded some songs together at his parents place with 'quality' equipement- something we both had wanted since we first began playing. When NOFUN101 was in business I got Murray to come and check it out. It was in this way that Murray gradually became the 4th Nerve End. After he agreed to join the band, he sporadically made appearances to play except towards the final days before our first show, at which point he became a regular. Mur was extremely courtious and gracefully talented beyond question, but nonetheless, he wasn't drunk - foremost, that was the majority's wavelength. He had some unspoken plans to leave the country after the show; this he did and that was the brief story of Murray with TNE. I haven't heard from him since. I think I pissed him off with some attitude I gave him over the phone one day. I hope to be able to play with him again - no, I would LOVE to play with him again! I don't mind our lull though; it's kind of respectful in a way. I'm using the time to clear my head. Our First Show During the whole of March 2002, Doug, Kevin, and myself were purposefully learning our songs. We had managed to amount extremely high bar tabs at the Underground and drank through every session for about 3 weeks straight. Our morale was heavily sponsored by alcohol as was our confidence. Doug was drinking himself into oblivion with his girlfriend and Kevin was learning to play the drums while I was enjoying life free from psychosis. (One afternoon at Kev's place it dawned on me that I wasn't as insane as I was just a minute before - something in my head just 'clicked.') It was a brief unforgettable period of the band's history in which events were occuring in each member's life that would forever change the band. All our efforts culminated on March 26th and the group ceased to exist a day or two later. The show was excellent; everyone played their best and we were all on cloud nine. The Underground was transformed into an ambiantly lit lounge and, as the oppening act, we waited till the very last moment to come on. Friends had all made their appearances and took to their seats around the tables. I don't remember saying much to the crowd and I don't remember much of our performance, but I do remember staring ahead of me and seeing a pond of faces fixed on us. We played our drunk hearts out and I think they knew it. Three days later Doug's gettaway car was in town and without a word he was gone. Around the same time Murray wasn't to be heard from again and possibly in another country. Me and Kevin were stunned, but we continued playing. That Spring This was the beginning of my shaky friendship with Doug. I now had a brief realization about the guy which sadly dimmed with alcohol. My blind faith in his promises was only now beginning to deflate - slowly. I knew deep down I hadn't a future with him, but held the hope that things would work out. The band continued to symbolize something eternal for me which I wouldn't let go.Me and Kevin transformed my mom's garage into a jam space and continued creating. We came up with some incredible material during this time with songs like 'TNE,' 'Lullaby,' and 'Drinkin.'' I had bought a Framus guitar and began experimenting with a slide. Once again Polish beer reigned. I was forced to look for some work because I had been fired from New Morning not long before our first show. Back in February, inspired by my horoscope and an earlier tarot card reading, I agreed to go to Mexico with an old friend of mine; it was now time to make some money to pay for my ticket. To sum up those months, I was preparing for a trip to which I was giving credit for saving my life in advance. I wanted something to happen to change me for good. Although I had been temporarily relieved of my general insanity, I knew my condition wasn't stable. Booze was the essence of my stability and it was a matter of time before the house of cards would fall - I couldn't live like I was forever. That Summer All in all, Mexico was an experience. It ended like it started - in ignorance. I saw many things and met all kinds of people, but hadn't found what I was looking for. Nothing I recieved there answered my sparking wish. My mental relapse happened somewhere between Mexico City and a Volcano. Home As soon as I got back to Canada, I was back to drinking and playing with Doug and Kevin, but only this time, I was 'lost' again. I was thoroughly mixed up about what direction I was to take and was in the dumps again. I had been dreaming about TNE and a tour out West, but one healthy look at us was enough to know we weren't arriving at anything 'zenic.' Our highest point forever remained behind us in our past illusions of things to be - the state of mind which surrounded our first show. That was all gone and I had a brief sober look at us, long enough to see what was happening. TNE, as we knew it then, was a sinking ship we haden't gotten off of yet. Our practices became rediculous. We were bound to eachother at a dangerous depth. When one person started swimming up for air, the other would reach up and pull him back down. Doug felt like a ball'n chain at the time while Kevin seemed more like the buoy betrayed. I held the notion this was good for us and that tragedy would only make us stronger and so remained sympathetic to them both. In the end we settled on resentment and tried to ignore eachother the best we could. There was a girl called Megan hanging out at the Underground those days; she was pretty cool and was also a musician. She was trying out for the bartender's band; that didn't turn into anything, but it gave her time to get to know our music. She liked our stuff and brought a friend to one of our shows - the girl of my dreams. In August and September we put on several forgettable shows, with the exception of a horror show we put on for a local poet, Shelley something. I was force feeding myself liquor to remain ignorant of what was happening. Some cold logic passed through me at this point. Life was back to square one and something had to change - if not in the band then in my life. I decided to apply to go back to school - a courageous move. Doug moved out of town to create a new life of happiness while Kevin continued to do what it is he does best : smoking pot and managing New Morning. It was breaktime for the band. My U turn I continued my BA. at Ottawa University with some leftover credits that I had picked up at Carleton. Initially, I was enrolled in the music program, but soon was overwhelmed by my ignorance of music theory and dropped out of the program; this left me with two classes : English and Phylosophy. Everything and everybody began to make me uneasy, and like before, all of my past anxieties were still there and staring me in the face. I hated how I felt at school and around fellow students; I thought I was nuts and withdrew from the world once again. I seriously began considering admitting myself in the Royal Ottawa - they would help me if nothing else could! I didn't say a word about it to anyone. I daydreamed about straight jackets, quiet rooms, and solitude. I found it totally impossible to talk to anyone about how I felt because no one ever knew how to help anyway and would always say the same thing : ''I don't know, things will work out.'' Fortunately, Kevin would break me out of my daze and get me to play. We began jamming with Ian - the bassist of the Creeps. He worked at New Morning now too and was chill. We had some good jams. The garage was becoming colder so we played at Ian's place mostly. Once again, the score became drunkenness and stonedness. We didn't finalize any tunes, instead, we played Neil Young songs and improvized. Megan began chilling with us more and more and would come to jam sometimes. She was a pianist by trade, but she knew her music and played the bass very well. Jamming with her one night in the freezing garage, we came up with 'KPM,' a song named after the three of us. It's good, but isn't finished yet - it's on a long list with some others. If it wasn't for Kevin, I seriously think I would have remained in my room this entire time except for my trips to school. In October, I began looking for a topic for an English paper I had to work on and it wasn't long before I had found an article on a Sociology experiment done in the 70's. In it, 12 'normal' citizens were instructed to enter 12 different mental institutions and claim they were hearing voices. One of these pseudo-patients was labelled 'manic depressive' while the others were all classified as 'schizophrenics.' I found this interesting where, at the time, I thought that psychiatrists were dealing with tangeable illnesses they had some fundamental understanding of. How could they then, say that someone 'normal' was insane and treat them just the same? That makes no sense. I quickly compiled a large collection of books on the subject of insanity and bedlams. As soon as I could I told my English professor about the experiment and said I'd write on it. She welcomed the idea and suggested I also look for groups which advocate against drug use as a 'solution' to people's problems. She threw out a title which I scribbled down quickly : DIANETICS. I intently persued the topic emersing myself in the professions surrounding the insane - the answer had to be found somewhere! After a couple of weeks of reading, the amount of ambiguity I encountered on the subject was so staggering that I felt I was running in endless circles. No one new for sure what caused any of the illnesses they were all filling volumes of books with. Consequently, and more importantly, no one knew how to cure anything. What the fuck? The Sociology experiment in the original article I had been inspired by now seemed to me just another off-shoot of the complete ignorance inherent in the profession. What a mess! I coldly picked up the final book I had found in the library : Dianetics : A Modern Science of Mental Health. I found it very technical, but got through a good part of it. Almost instantly after getting into it, I experienced a reality shake-up. I examined the book more carefully and found a Scientology sticker on the inside of it. Apperently, Dianetics and a religion called Scientology were connected. I checked out the Church of Scientology in Ottawa and two weeks later I decided to work there. I was still going to school, but started taking some courses at the church in the evenings. That November I bravely decided to quit smoking up and drinking, both of which I was using to calm my nerves several times a week. I don't care how I looked, but I wasn't a pretty site on the inside; I felt stark and incredibly shaky at times. I was still psychotic, only now I wasn't escaping to drugs anymore and was suffering instead - coming off drug dependency is fucking hell! The Girl of My Dreams If life wasn't already strange enough; I saw the girl of my dreams again at Megan's house and we began dating. She was great and we were both honest - that was something new for me. The Shooting Gallery After 2 months of not seeing one another and being at odds about how to proceed with TNE, Kevin, Doug, and I got together booze free to make an EP. The thought of having our music well recorded had been fermenting since the previous year so when Doug rang up Kevin with the idea I was game. I remember that night being cold and crisp; Christmas time was near. It was a strange feeling being there sober. I was in a quiet mood and wasn't talking to anybody unless I had to. Things appeared different to say the least. Doug seemed a bit like a sergeant and oppressed Kevin with his usual orders and criticisms. Kevin, happy to be playing a decent drumkit for a change, held his good mood under the pressure. I was glad he did, because that wasn't always the case. These two could act like an old married couple sometimes, which had made me laugh in the past, but that night, sober, I discovered I couldn't stand Doug's badgering. It was depressing me. It was a strange evening for me. We finished recording in about 6 hours or something and after we put down the vocals I was glad to call it a night. In the final cut, Doug's songs came out beautifully and mine sounded a bit odd. I was later distressed a bit when it was decided that one of my tracks was to make a compilation. I didn't realize right away how I sounded on the recording; I would have put a stop to that then and there. Anyway, it was cool recording. After we were done, Doug drove back to the town he lived in and we were split again. Enough's Enough When New Year rolled around I made the decision to break from university and train full-time for my Church post; that meant I'd have to go to Toronto for several months. The band didn't understand what I was doing, and my girlfriend was upset, but regardless I made my preparations, said my goodbyes, and on January 12th I left for TO. I was occupied by study most of the time but regularly stayed in touch with the band and friends via the internet. I got a message from Doug complaining about Kevin's compulsive web posting. Kevin, as usual, was putting up anything he liked of ours - that meant everything! I forwarded the both of them about it and also requested that ALL emails concerning the band and any ideas, changes, additions, problems, or thoughts regarding our web site or anything else should be sent to all parties and not just to one of the other members, which was the only thing causing the confusion about who said what and so on. Kevin agreed to the idea, but Doug became silent. A couple of days later I got an email from Doug addressed only to me saying that he didn't want to be in the band anymore. Following that I wrote him a nasty email calling him a parasite among other things. A day or two later Doug wrote Kevin that I had kicked him out. I cleared it up with Kevin and quickly thereafter Doug was out. That was that - no going away party - no nothin. In TO. I was, for the first time in years, without a guitar to play; I had totally forgotten to bring one. To kill free time I started filling the pages of a blank paged book my girlfriend had got me for Christmas. It was easy enough to become inspired on my time off. I continued sending emails to Kevin. I remember us exchaning some pretty cool lines - something we had been doing since I worked at New Morning. To this day I have an entire drawer full of papers, ripped cigarette packs, business cards, and other junky scraps all covered in our writings. I think I've kept them as an insurance for a dry and desperate day when we've no ideas; there are many jewels among them. During this time my proficiency in English and my organizational competence reached golden heights. I was so immersed in study that when the girl of my dreams broke up with me sometime that February, it hardly affected me. I was so dedicated to what I was doing that nothing could break me off it - save illness or death. As soon as I was finished a portion of my training in TO. I came back to Ottawa. Spring 2003 When I got back, there were 2 new additions to The Nerve Ends : Megan Parent and a van. I was glad about both. I quickly caught up on things with Kevin and we resumed playing in the garage. The only scolding he got this time was about his smoking pot before practice or around me; he did so reluctantly at first. Between the months of March to August we got better technically; Kevin outdid himself, and as a three piece we were tighter than ever. We worked out many great songs like 'China' 'Christine,' and 'Montreal Girls' to name a few - we were proud of them all. I was the only member during those months keeping us from playing any shows however. Despite outward appearances, which had drastically improved, I was still a mess when it came to being around people and I had never previously taken to the stage without drinking. Megan and Kevin were both wondering what the hell my problem was and talked to me about it, but I wouldn't budge. I never expilicitly told them that I was chicken shit. In August Megan began dating a nice fellow and had began to lose her interest in practicing if we weren't going to do gigs. She made up her mind to move to Toronto come September so TNE was down to 2 once more. Me and Kev were still playing short a bassist; we blasted out a song that blew our minds. It was classic! I called it 'TNE Boat Ride' - I think Kevin called it something different. We haden't lost our zest in the least! Turning Point I had decided something in August that took awhile to confront Kevin with. It's hard to tell your best friend that something he's addicted to and enjoys makes you unhappy. I wanted pot out of my life completely and didn't want to be involved with anyone using the stuff either, but at the same time I didn't want to lose my friend and the band. I told him how I felt during a practice one day and things exploded between us; the next day he gutted the garage of his equipment. Epilogue Now, two months later, Kevin is in Ottawa managing New Morning Futon, and I'm continuing my training in Montreal. We have talked about what happened since then and both agreed we wouldn't give up. The Nerve Ends are forever. Paul Karpinski ***** (Doug written 2003) The only word I could use to describe my reasoning for applying at New Morning Futon. It was a five minute walk from where I lived though and I was sick oftaking the bus to work. I hated taking buses. They were hard to pick up chicks on. If only I knew what kind of adventure waited for me at New Morning Futon. Enter Kevin Berger. One of the most influential people I have ever met in my life. Kevin was a 6'5" gangling who was the manager of New Morining Futon. He knew every aspect of the business. He was telling me about the ropes of the trade when he took me downstairs to where I would be assembling futons. I walked in the room to the sound of Pink Floyd. "One of These Days" pelted out of a beat-up ghetto blaster. Beside the ghetto stood Paul Karpinski, a boyishly handsome fellow, looking thoughtful with a cigarette in hand. I commented on the Floyd and Kevin scowled at me and told me Floyd was just a bad laxative. I looked down and noticed the Misfits tattoo ankle on his leg. Well, I happened to love the Misfits and Floyd. Shoot me. Kevin and I immediately got to talking about punk rock. I told him of my tenure with The Vapids and he seemed mildly impressed. I told him I still wrote but I had no band or means of recording any material. Kevin said he had a program and would likely be able to help me out. I was impressed and appreciative of his offer. Eventually after a lot of chat Kevin had to return to his duites upstairs. That was when Paul and I got to talking. We talked more about the Pink Floyd and Radiohead side of music. This was what I liked about Paul and Kevin collectively. I had all my musical preferences covered between the two of them. Turned out Paul was a singer and a very good guitar player. He built chords I never even heard of. He was constantly tuning and re-tuning his guitar. Personally, just trying to keep up with him at times was maddening. But we got along famously. Our music and alcoholism was our common bond. It wasn't long before we were hanging out regularly and often. Kevin, Paul and I started hangning out in Kevin's bedroom. Kevin recorded mine and Paul's own original material. Within months we each had our own Mp3 pages. It was a lot of fun. I eventually got fired from New Morning Futon for laziness. Hard to be efficient when you have no supervision, a stereo and plenty of comfortable places to lay down. Nonetheless, we all kept in touch and hung out. A ritual was born. Every Monday we were hanging out for recording and substance abuse. This kept up for months. Polly and I had some good fucking times. A guitar in one hand and a beer in the other. Hand in hand. It was all about the music and the alcohol abuse. We hung out a lot. Toughest part of hanging out with Polly for me was trying to get any kind of female attention when he was around. The girls just loved him. It was maddenning. He was this cute little polish guy and I was a big hideous, brooding bipolar poster child. Women hate that. The music came just as easily as the drunkeness. Kevin eventually got himself a drumset and taught himself how to play within weeks. The three of us started to jam regularly. Initially we had no plans of becoming a unit. It just kind of happened and that is precisely how "The Nerve Ends" were born. The name was though out from an episode of Ren and Stimpy. Initially I thought of "The Nerve Endings", but Polly decided on the former the night we went to see the Headstones at Barrymores. The more we played together, the tighter we got. I guess that's usually the case when you practice diligently. Murray Weekes, a friend of Polly's was added as a lead guitarist. He probably had more technical talent that the three of us put together. He never seemed to have the heart though. I was playing my natural instrument, the bass, at this time. Eventually we got bounced out of Berger's basement. We were fucked for jamming until the owner of the Underground night club in Ottawa let us practise there. We got really good really fast. Our first show was on March 26/2002. We were the first band of four to play. It was a great show. We played on a Tuesday night in the middle of an immense blizzard. We still managed to fill the place through friends and tireless advertising. We were tighter than a frog's ass. On April 6/2002, I hastily moved to Windsor in a moment of madness. At that point the Nerve Ends were on an official hiatus. April 6 was my wedding anniversary. I was screwy. Murray had disappeared too. There were tryouts to replace us but they all kinda fell through. About a month after that Polly went to Mexico with a friend. Windor is kind of a blur to me still. I know there was a lot of drinking. It wasn't the same when I picked up my guitar without my good friends around. July 9/2002 I returned to Ottawa. I had a mere thousand dollars to my name. My life's possesions were in an oversized black hiking bag. Naturally, I still had my guitar too. When I got back Berger and I became very tight. I had no place to live and he helped me out any way he could. He even offered me to stay at his place but I wasn't comfortable with the idea of burdening one of my best friends. Especialy when it was I who shot myself in the foot. Eventually a firend by the name of Shelley Bridges was kind enough to let me stay in the basement of her house. That dark basement was the inspiration of several of my songs. Berger and I started jamming as soon as I got back. I played my acoustic guitar through a pickup and distortion pedal. It was fun but we missed our good friend Polly who was still down in Mexico fantasizing about angels and donuts. One night we were so hard up to play live we bullied our way into an open mic at a little blues bar. We called ourselves the Evil Farm Children and sang obnoxious bluegrass numbers. We were thrown out after four songs. Polly returned to Canada in early August. I was elated. We immediately got together and drank an obscene amount of red wine. Polly never showed up at my place for drinking without his guitar and I loved that. There was never a dull uninspired moment. During Polly's absence I had been organizing a punk rock benefit for the Underground. The place was in danger of closing because the owner had shirked her monetary responsibilities. The show was going to be huge. Definitely the biggest show the Underground would see that summer. Two days before the extravaganza I got the retarded notion to add The Nerve Ends to the bill. It was a bad move. First of all, we were not a punk band. Punks tend to get cranky when they show up and have to hear anything but punk. Secondly, Polly just got off a plane and had been wasted ever since. The show was set for August 8/2002 and a show it was. We hadn't played together in about six months and we were minus a second guitar player. I remember going into the Underground to meet Polly and Berger the night before for a desperate practice and they were frantically trying to wirte punk rock songs in the last minute. It was really quite comical if not terrifying. The night finally came. We were slated to go on last. This was a strategy on my part. Hopefully the place would either be dead or everyone would be to drunk to care. Well...... The place was anything but dead by the time we went on. I was right about one thing. Everyone was too drunk to care. Problem was Polly was one of those people. I had never seen the guy so drunk. I was really going all out for this show myself. I was pretty wasted too plus I was wearing a t-shirt long enough to be a dress. I also had eyeliner on. Berger was his typical "just tell me when" self. We kicked off huge with "Too Late", which happened to be our punkiest song on our repertoire. I don't even remember the next three we fumbled through before Polly fell over flaming drunk. Not sure exactly why that infuriated me so much I slammed my bass down on the stage in frustration and stomped out. What was left of the crowd went wild. I myself was stomping purposefully down Sunnnyside Avenue cursing myself angrily for being stupid enough to think we could actually pull off a half assed show. I didn't get very far before I remembered I was dressed like a fag and no one was going to take my rage seriously dressed like that. I ducked behind a church and rectified the problem. Eventually my girlfriend found me sitting on the front steps seething. She didn't really say much. Just handed me a cigarette every time I looked like I was ready to holler or burst into tears. Eventually I returned to the scene of the crime. Polly was stumbling around everywhere and Berger was on stage. Turns out he never left. As soon as Polly and I were removed from the equation Mike and Doh from a band called the Pretty Nothings filled in quite nicely in mine and Polly's absence. It was quite a spectacle really. I moped outside so I didn't get to witness it. That was the first time I seriously came close to quitting the band. But by the next time next morning rolled around I was fine. The gig was a success after all and there were even rumors swirling around that we stole the show that night because of our shenanigans. Our next show was a little over a week at the same place. It was for a poetry read i (the works of shelley!!! wahahahahaha!!!). Polly wanted no part in it and I was lukewarm but Berger was all too happy. Of all the people I met in my life, Berger has to be the horniest to perform. The show went surprisingly well. We had a few practices in before it and plus we stripped down, having a more raw sound. We were loaded on red wine naturally but Polly didn't have to feel the pressure of a mob of angry hate-starve punks to worry about. We had a blast. It was not a night without incident. Shelley Bridges busted a pool cue over my arm for biting her where eagle's don't dare and Polly decided to bodysplash me when I was laying on the stage. Nevertheless, it was a hoot. The next week I received news from my brother that both of our grandmothers died in the same week. I missed both funerals because no one knew how to get a hold of me. I was devastated. I was on the next bus to Hamitlon to spend time with my mother. During that time I met a girl actually worthy of committing my life to. Michele and I met under really bizarre circumstances which I am not going to write about because that would be a novel in itself. MIchele and I fell in love instantly and spent a lot of time together. She drove me up to what was to be our final gig. I didn't know this at the time. My original plan was to move back to Ottawa after spending time with my mom. We played our last show with The Nads, and the The Pretty Nothings. It was horrorshow. A great way to go out I guess. But of course we didn't realize that would be our last show as a unit. September 20/2002 was our final show at the Underground. It was pretty raucous as usual but no real incidents. I eventually moved to Pickering with Michele. The Nerve Ends never really officially broke up. We stayed in touch. We talked songs and such. But proximity dictated it was impossible to do any real work. I really wanted to do a proper demo. Kevin always loved to record. So much that he put every piece of shit up on the internet that we ever recorded. Even stuff him and Polly recorded without me. Polly seemed to be sitting on the fence when it came to the idea of recording. I may or may not be wrong and we have since lost the ability to have conversations regarding such issues. We recorded anyway at the Shooting Gallery in Ottawa. It was a six song EP. Three of Polly's songs and three of mine. Today when I listen to that final product I hear a lot of evolution. We didn't sound like what I originally started out like and I don't know how I feel about that. Our sound seemed compromised somehow. I think it was at that point I thought about quitting. It was actually the proximity factor too but I really wanted to remain a part of the band before recording. In February/2003, I decided I didn't want to be an active member of the band anymore. I wanted to focus on my own original material. I offered to play with them still for shows and such but that never happened. There were a couple of personel changes in the band which I know very little about and don't really care to comment on. I can only really write what I know about. Reflecting I would have to say the whole thing was quite a ride. It started out as friendship and remained that way for the most part. I don't know where Berger and Polly stand on this but they were always my friends before they were bandmates. They saw my ugliest sides. They put up with a lot from me during that time. I had frequent bouts of depression and mania. Neither one of those did me any good. Berger and I remain good friends to this day but Polly and I have since become everything but estranged. I miss Polly. We had some good times. Doug Hell
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