February 07, 2004

War Stories

Well said, Ben. I remember stopping a show in the middle of a set because some refigerator-shaped goon had injured his second cute little girl (by sudden drop body slam) after being warned to cut it out. Result: prima donna accusations. Once someone climbed on stage, yanked the bass chord and pulled down and destroyed the entire bass rig. Even though playing after that point was no longer even theoretically possible, there were still people saying: "oh, I see: so this is how it is now that you're a big rock star..." (Funny to hear it phrased that way, under the circumstances: we were playing in some kind of teen community center with no PA.) Or then there was the time when we played for free at a party in Arcata. I said something like "we've got tshirts and cds for ten bucks..." and this guy said "OK, here comes the sales pitch..." before launching into a speech about how the day will come when the blood will run red with the streets of the rock stars or something like that. If I recall correctly, he thought having cases for the drums was some kind of obscene extravagance. You can usually tell when someone's going to launch into one of those speeches because it's almost always heralded by the phrase, "oh, I see how it is..." Now you see the violence inherent in the system, etc.

There was this one show awhile back at Coney Island High in New York where a drunk, pudgy, troublemaker had been annoying the crowd by knocking over the girls in front of the stage for the entire night. He had also been trying to climb up on the stage (many people see this as their God-given right, no matter whether the band wants it or not, and regardless of how much disruption they might cause); he got up a couple of times during our set, inadvertantly pulling out my cord once, trying to slobber into the microphone whenever he got close enough. He mooned the audience (nice) before the security guys threw him off the stage for the umpteenth time. Then he sullenly went back to his schtick of hassling any members of the audience who were smaller than him, which was just about everybody; but he really focused on the girls.

Anyway, I was in the middle of playing "You're the Only One," when he climbed on stage again, knocked over the mic stand and once again pulled the guitar cord out of its jack. That's kind of a beloved song, and the girls had had enough. They pulled him down and beat him to a bloody pulp.

It was great.

Posted by Dr. Frank at February 7, 2004 06:54 PM | TrackBack
Comments

It doesn't matter where you go, there is always someone like that at a show. When action is taken, it's quite fun to watch. :)

Posted by: Jesse K at February 7, 2004 08:58 PM

I remember a show at Gilman St. (if memory serves, it was a record release gig for Tilt) where the MTX set was rudely interrupted by someone spraying a can of mace. There were mumbles when we were let back inside half an hour later that people felt gypped -- by MTX no less (regardless of the fact that Tilt proceeded to come on stage, and there was much rejoicing). I was miffed for having the set ended abruptly, but not at the band -- I was happy to see the mace-sprayer carted away by the cops. Who knows what his story was, anyway, but that's just rude.

Having been at a number of similar shows in my North Bay youth, I sometimes marvel at the tenacity of the bands in question, who get spit on, have their equipment abused, and, perhaps worst of all, told to play some Skynyrd.

So, keep rockin', and good luck on the tour. May you return with your dignity (or at least as much as you had when you started).

Posted by: Wes at February 8, 2004 05:44 AM

I played a show once and the crowd was throwing water and stuff on us. We knew that kind of thing would happen so we had brough some silly string to spray at them. Everything was fine until we actually sprayed the silly string and the club owners just about kicked us out. How immature and reckless it was for us to spray silly string at the people who had been throwing their drinks on our equipment for an hour. But, what can ya do?

Posted by: Amy 80 at February 8, 2004 06:21 AM

I remember back probably in the Summer of 1982. Hardcore was getting big in Boston. There was a band called SS Decontrol who were the kings of the scene. I hated them and all their evil works. Anyway, they had this fan or roadie or something who was at all their shows who was a very aggressive "slam dancer" as it was called then. So, the Cramps were playing, and this guy tries to climb on stage and do a stage dive -- Back then, this stage-diving thing was still really a novelty. Lux Interior was having none of it. As the guy crouched to jump, Lux got ahold of the hood on his sweatshirt and proceeded to swing him around with total disregard for microphones, equipment, other people in the band, finally Lux has the guy completely airborne and flings him off stage like a green plastic bag of garbage. The guy goes sailing off into the void, the crowd scatters away, and Mr. Tough Guy does not try it again. Ivy kept up a vamp throughout this thing, with that shallow affect sneer or her face, totally cool. The music resumed without interruption.

Score 1 for music, 0 for hardcore and ass-holery generally.

Alas, so few musicians have both hands free and also possess the Frankenstein-like superhuman strength and maniacal ruthlessness of Mr. Interior. It is not wise to come unto his stage uninvited.

It was a good moment.

Posted by: Lexington Green at February 8, 2004 05:45 PM

I think the Germs were the only bad that would not mind or lose any ground with croud behavior like that at a show. Otherwise, normal humans need reasonable people at shows or whats the point. Alcohol= Assohole.

Posted by: slim hathaway jr. at February 8, 2004 10:58 PM

"band" i mean

Posted by: slim hathaway jr. at February 8, 2004 11:00 PM

Just wanted to say something about ben's post even though everyone here is re-counting gritty ditties but there are no comments on his site.

i am in no way defending the actions of asshole fans since they truly suck and ruin shows for everyone (shit, i cringe at shows even when some fan yells out a request between songs) but hey, kinda goes with the territory right? i could apply many bad employment metaphors to illustrate this but no need to overkill a point. i know the proper musician response to that would be, "hey dick, i didn't sign up to have beer bottles thrown at me! i just want to play my music." and i totally agree and the behavior of those "fans" are no way justified. but when i read something like this -- "You're tired, you're sore, and you've been doing this over and over and over since before most of your fans were born." -- I truly feel bad for the guy but you chose a line of work (oh wait, it chose you right?) that shouldn't make that a TOTAL surprise and if you're playing music for people that much younger then you, uhh...i think you just nail-gunned the problem onto your head. jealousy of our idols/heroes and going after them has a long history, even before ben was born.

but anyway, what gets me is that the piece is really just a bitch-rant about a "job." and musician IS a job, not denying that. but the bullshit one encounters as a musician is fairly well-documented and everyone who has a "straight" job (note: i really need to look into some gay jobs, less bullshit perhaps?) can go on forever how much it sucks and all the crap one has to put up with. but the key word here is JOB and until the world wakes up as a hippie commune we gotta try to play nice in this work system. if it's a job and money is involved, then there's gonna be inherent crap to deal with. by all means, talk about it, get mad, and call the assholes on their shit but i don't care much to read about performers/genuine celebrities/etc who invite strangers into their world, and that's what they're doing in a sense, and then complain that assholes showed up to the party with a bag of burning dogshit. i mean, you certainly wouldn't care if i bitched about my 9-5 job so i don't.

actually, i prefer to talk about the rock-n-roll aspects of my straight job. "hey, marci in benefits has her radio on k-rock all day and she loves guns and roses. marci, rock on!"

(before you attack me, mtx and sw are two of my favorite bands and i have nothing but the greatest respect for them. also, i've never spilled beer on anyone besides myself and only hurl slurred obscenities when looking at a mirror. but i think i approached dr frank after a show once and offended him with my bad breath as i told him how much i enjoyed the performance. sorry about that dude.)

Posted by: krucoff at February 9, 2004 03:46 AM

That story about the party in Arcata is *hilarious*, though usually in my experience, the guy giving the blood speech was behind the microphone. At least you can take comfort in the confident knowledge that you most assuredly didn't smell as funny as he did. There's a lot of smelly people in Arcata.

Posted by: Emily at February 9, 2004 03:26 PM

Krucoff-- you can certainly poke holes in the job analogy. What's funny/interesting to me is the fact that the "rock star" accusation is never levelled at actual rock stars, but only at people on the lower rungs who are having a rough time. That makes perfect sense logically, of course. You don't say "who do you think you are, some kind of rock star?" to a genuine rock star. It would be like going up to Alex Trebek and saying "who do you think you are? Alex Trebek, host of TV's Jeapardy?" And he'd say, "uh, yeah." And then he'd probably say something like "Security!"

But the whole point of the would-be insult, the real thing the accused is being accused of, is that he or she is *not* a rock star. The message is, you're too small time for special treatment, you should really get over yourself. When all you want is a sandwich, or functional monitors, or your $250 guarantee. Believe me, even when you have a pretty easy-going temperament, it can be galling, not to mention tiresome, when your most modest requests are continually characterized as some kind of "let them eat cake" prima donna trip, by people who, for some unfathomable reason, still seem to want to you drive to their town,set up your equipment and play while they stand around glowering in stony, disdainful silence, and then sullenly ask you autograph the LP that they're furious at you for not giving them for free.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to say it's the worst kind of suffering in the world. Just that it gets old pretty quickly. NB: the "sting" of the purported insult is fairly close to non-existent. That is, if you're trying to hurt a smalltime musician's feelings, accusing him of being a rock star won't cut it. They all want desperately to be rock stars. It means they get sandwiches, monitors and their $250 guarantee.

Wes, I totally remember that Gilman mace show. Unfortunately, I was singing at the time and had taken a deep breath at just the wrong moment. That stuff really works! Quite painful.

Posted by: Dr. Frank at February 10, 2004 04:51 PM

i hear ya, and i'm pretty sure i agree with everything you said but my point was really more about ben bitching about asshole fans who i tend to view as an occupational hazard. (and we've got them here in the "straight" work world too - we call them "co-workers" and "clients" "bosses"!) i've always believed the "sting" of verbal "sell-out" insults was nothing cause it's such a stupid point but it seems like some musicians try so hard to say they're not insulted that i'm having a hard time believing how they actually feel about it sometimes. i mean of course, a baseball fan like ben wouldn't have "rabbit ears" or anything.

the point about sandwiches, monitors, and guarantees is well taken but it sounds more like a promoter issue rather than a fan thing to me. (unless your fans are putting on your shows in basements which would technically make them promoters too i guess.) of course, being shorted and stiffed in those situations is truly unfortunate. i'm sure the frustration is compounded when fans start acting like assholes even when they're not aware how much the promoters dicked the musicians over. but i would think musicians would use their efforts to educate local audiences on who are the dick promoters, etc instead of telling a job sob story which is how i read ben's piece. just my own interpretation.

i dunno, let's Agree to Agree cause i think we're basically on the same page but just on different paragraphs.

Posted by: krucoff at February 10, 2004 10:16 PM