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Moral Lepers
Turn to Stone - 12" EP
MO-DA-MU - 1982
Michael Panontin
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"Five politically conscious people who conduct ourselves in a politically conscious way."
Conny Nowe's description of the Moral Lepers would surprise no one who was hanging around the BC lower mainland in the early eighties. There was not a place anywhere in the western world that took punk and politics more seriously than the kids in and around Vancouver. People forget that out there political activism meant direct action, which back then - remember this is long before 9/11 - could also include violence...like the bombings of a BC Hydro substation and some Red Hot Video outlets, and of course the October '82 bombing of Litton Industries, who were providing guidance systems for the US' controversial nuclear cruise missiles.
True to form, the Moral Lepers took the stage for the first time at a Women Against Prisons benefit to help raise money for a bail fund for women prisoners. So no surprise then that they were also involved in raising defense funds for the Vancouver Five, who were tried and ultimately convicted for that Litton explosion.*
Musically, the all-female Lepers were merely the latest in a string of Canadian female punk groups, starting with Vancouver's Dishrags and Toronto's Curse, who were both up and running by the summer of '77, and on to the London (ON)'s Zellots, Toronto's Fifth Column and fellow west coast denizens Animal Slaves. But the five here - singer Marian Lydbrooke and guitarists Bonnie 'Banjo' Williams and Elaine Stef, with bassist Rachel Melas and drummer Nowe shoring up the rhythm end of the equation - were quick to distance themselves from the thrash and burn of west coast punk and hardcore.
"It's 1983 and people have been pogoing now for five years," Nowe explained in an extended interview in Fuse magazine. "Punk is alive and well but at the same time all those punks' girlfriends are a little tired by now of having their boyfriends slam-dancing back and forth while they sit at the sides to keep their bodies from getting bruised. It's a very violent male thing."
So when the Moral Lepers issued their 12" Turn to Stone EP in December '82, those looking for taut, two-minute blasts a la D.O.A. or the Subhumans would have been disappointed to say the least. Unlike many of their contemporaries - female or not - the Lepers spout equal parts vitriol and quirk. The record checks off most of post-punk's boxes: herky-jerky rhythms, quivering guitar licks and those earnest grad-school polemics.
It is probably a good bet that the gals were spinning the hell out of their Au Pairs, Delta Five and Kleenex discs. 'Suicide', for instance is a two-minute blast of frenetic bass lines and twirly guitar noodles that picks up - well, lyrically at least - where the Slits' 'Typical Girls' leaves off. Elsewhere, though, that angry stance is stippled with bits of muted psychedelia, especially on the gloomy lead-off track, 'Dead of Night' or the woozy 'China Rag'.
Things began to pick up after the release of Turn to Stone. The group added Janet Lumb on sax (in place of Williams) and scored gigs in Seattle (which Lynbrooke recalled "got well reviewed in the local paper, The Rocket") and New York (at The Pyramid Club in the East Village). There were also some coveted support slots, including for D.O.A. locally at UBC and for the Dead Kennedys on the West Coast. In 1984, though, the Moral Lepers decided to call it a day, but not before they had recorded two more tracks, 'Family Love' and 'Land of the Insane', which managed to get some radio play in both the UK - by John Peel, no less - and Canada.
* "Let it be clear," Lydrooke was quick to point out in a recent email to CM, "that although the Moral Lepers support direct action, they DID and DO not support 'bombing'."
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