East Hastings

East Hastings is a three-part composition from the 1998 CD of F# A# ∞, named for East Hastings Street in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Its movements are "Nothing's Alrite in Our Life..." / "The Dead Flag Blues (Reprise)", "The Sad Mafioso..." and "Drugs in Tokyo" / "Black Helicopter". Most of it was on the 1997 LP. The first two movements opened side B, "Bleak, Uncertain, Beautiful...", and "Drugs in Tokyo" came from side A, "Nervous, Sad, Poor...".

The first movement is a bagpipe reprise of the main riff of The Dead Flag Blues under a Caribbean street preacher testifying about spiritual hunger and material wealth. She was Imogen, who used to sit outside a Woodward's store in the late 1980s and early 1990s and spread the word of God. Menuck said the band were filming and recording around East Hastings in Vancouver when they heard her from around the corner and took out a portable recorder. "The Sad Mafioso..." begins with a slow repeating guitar theme, building as drums and strings join, then runs faster and more aggressively before switching to double time. A pulsating drone starts the last movement and fades into a guitar loop, and a buzzing electronic drone ends the piece.

Film and live

An edited "Sad Mafioso" was used in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later and its sequel 28 Years Later, and it is heard near the end of the fifth episode of the series Under the Banner of Heaven. Boyle told The Guardian that the soundtrack to 28 Days Later "was Godspeed" and that the whole film was cut to Godspeed in his head. The piece is not on the soundtrack album because the rights could not be obtained.

The Sad Mafioso is a regular set closer, played over 250 times since the 2010 reunion as of June 2025. It starts as a noisy improvisation, the band sing along after the first crescendo, and after a drumroll an extended noisy outro of feedback and improvisation fades as the members leave the stage.