JUST ADD SWEAT

Circa 1984 The Dead Kennedys headlined a mega-show at the Beacon Theater, with opening acts No Thanks, The New York Transplants, False Prophets, and Millions Of Dead Cops. The first ten rows of orchestra seats were removed for the occasion, leaving a vast expanse of bare wooden floor for chaos. The show started promptly at 8pm with No Thanks’s girl singer screeching “Fuckthedraftdon’tregister.” The Transplants’ lead vocalist peeled off layer after layer of clothes until he was down to just pink knickers, shading his eyes the whole time while staring at the sound booth and continually monotoning “Would somebody please turn down the lights?”, even in the middle of songs. I couldn’t tell if this was part of the act or the lights were really bothering him. When No Thanks and The Transplants were done with their brief sets they signed off with  ”Good night” and “Fuck you,” respectively, and that was that.

False Prophets were next.  Stephan donned a taxidermied moose head that him look like Bullwinkle and ranted about Jean-Paul Marat getting stabbed in the back in his bathtub.  Like the deep sea diver’s helmet that rendered a Salvador Dali lecture indecipherable, the moose head muffled Stephan’s voice so heavily that it was all but impossible to hear him.  A kid jumped up on stage next to Stephan, thrashed too close and inadvertently banged into him so hard his noggin rebounded audibly off the inside of the moose head, thudthudthud.

Stephan ended his set with a stiff-backed heel-clicking salute on the last note of “Blind Obedience,’ then yelled “God bless America” with what I assumed was sarcasm.

When Jello Biafra suddenly appeared onstage sans fanfare a small wax-paper packet was launched from the crowd, sailed through the air in an arc, and landed with a plop at his feet.  He picked the packet up and held it out at arms’ length with as much nose-wrinkled disdain as if it were a sloppy-second trojan.   “Oooooooo, how original,” Jello sneered, the same thing happening night after night after night, “a package of Jello!”  I saw this same scene, with minor variations -sometimes the Jello was already prepared and set and splatted onstage blob-like- repeated every time I saw the DKs.  Jello would -and did- rip his namesake packet open and sprinkle sugary red powder onto the sweaty barebacked human swell pressing against the stage.  ”Now you can all be sweet and sticky,” he would -and did- say, just before exploding into Life Sentence: “Used to be/A partner in crime/Now you say you ain’t got the time…  Instant Jello, instant pandemonium.  I got high-lowed by bodies flying in opposite directions and involuntarily somersaulted onto the base of my skull as more bodies fell on top of me like cars piling up in a multi-vehicle accident, the crushing weight gradually decreasing as they rolled off one by one.   I was helped up by a guy twice my size and went back into the maelstrom for more.  Bodies slipped, slid and fell as the slick of sweat on the polished hardwood deepened into a puddle, but thankfully I didn’t go down on my skull again…

Beware False Prophets

One blazingly hot Sunday afternoon in 1980-something I went to the Tompkins Square Park bandshell for “Rock Against Redevelopment,” a 12-hour anti-gentrification rally-cum-concert to save the neighborhood.  ”Give us our land, peace, and bread,” pleaded the posters, “Instead of leaving us stranded, fleeced and bled.”  False Prophets -my favorite hardcore band, although they weren’t hardcore per se- were scheduled to lead off, followed by a succession of acts every hour.  At least that was the plan.  Well past the advertised 2pm start nothing had begun and there were no spectators save for some bewildered Ukranian babushkas pushing strollers and a few supine winos jarred awake by the Prophets tuning up.  False Prophets were fronted by the brilliant but oft-misunderstood Stephan Ielpi, who cut quite a figure in his asymmetrical haircut with single sideburn, toothbrush moustache, and black mandarin-length fingernails.  His usual getup consisted of a military officer’s cap worn at a cocked angle, a monk’s cowl, knee-high engineer boots, and a shepherd’s staff topped by a taxidermied wolf’s head.  Stephan engaged in strident harangues between songs, and liked to get in people’s faces, sometimes literally.  One night at a benefit for Thwack magazine at CBs, just days after the San Ysidro massacre, Stephan jumped down from the stage and head- and chest-bumped audience members while warp-speed singing “Ideserveabreaktoday, Iwannahaveitmyway…”

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The Osmotic Telegraph

Hardcore was certainly named right; although it flew way below the radar it had some of the most rabid and devoted adherents of any subculture I was ever part of.  Members somehow managed to find and stay in touch with each other across the country, and even around the world, and we did it without pc’s, cell phones, blackberries, or any of that other gimcrack junk which later turned to landfill.  Cells communicated via fliers, posters, newspaper ads, non-commercial radio, word-of-mouth and handmade ‘zines.  Adobe Pagemaker?  Fuck that.  Back then a pagemaker was your hand and some scissors.  This network was like the songlines of Australian Aborigines; just as clans beat out messages that thrummed from Mungindi to Wollongong,  we had Osmotic Telegraph lines running from Manasquan to Wantagh.  That’s how a Montreal band like Cancerous Growth could play some buttfuck like Richmond Furnace, Virginia and still have every punk within 50 miles show up.  I had a schoolmate named Alan who put out a semi-regular 4-page ‘zine called SKAM!, so named because its main purpose was to allow Alan to score journalist credentials and not have to pay for tickets to shows.  He even toyed with the idea of naming his ‘zine “Get Into Clubs Free,” but realized that would be pushing his luck.  Deviousness aside,  the obscure listings in Alan’s mag and others of its ilk were a blessing; where else to find out where Ism or The Nihilistics would be playing next?  The only distribution SKAM! got was Alan passing it out by hand, but it worked.  There was a diffuse antiauthoritarian network working its way into high schools and colleges, even suburban ones.   We didn’t worry about satellite wars or power failures because we didn’t need that kind of power.  But then we shut all the escape hatches, couldn’t find a way out, imploded, and the lines went dead silent.  It’s time for those of you who never knew about it, or were too young, to relearn what you never knew in the first place and revive the Osmotic Telegraph.

On Learning To Do Without What You Never Needed In The First Place

If I may paraphrase Mick Foley, I’m not Old School; I’m from the school that burned down before the Old School was built. To continue the lucha metaphor -and my regular listeners do know my fondness for the squared circle- , anyone out there remember Paul E. Dangerously? That was Paul Heyman’s late 80s heel manager character in the indies and WCW, prior to his ECW heyday. The name was a reference to Michael Keaton -who Heyman resembled- in the film Johnny Dangerously. The Paul E. character was a stereotypically abrasive, loudmouth, yuppie New Yorker, of the sort vilified anywhere West of the Hudson. He carried a cell phone -which in those days was quite uncommon- that was the size of a brick and had a telescoping antenna. Paul E. yapped incessantly into that contraption at top volume, during promos, announcing stints, even when members of his stable were in the ring. It also made a handy ‘foreign object” for those frequent times when the referee’s attention was diverted. Even though I’ve always considered myself a smart mark who was in on the kayfabe, Paul E. annoyed the hell out of me, specifically because of that Goddamned cell phone. In the 80s, nothing screamed “Inconsiderate Self-Important Pompous Asshole” more than a cellphone. Did anyone in their right mind think that ostentatiously lugging a squawk box everywhere was a good idea? What an annoyance. I lived for the moments when face opponents clobbered Paul E. and smashed his yuppie toy to bits. Unfortunately, as we all know, Paul E. wasn’t just a villainous buffoon, he proved to be a prophet of sorts, for an age now passed. The perpetually plugged-in millions are all gone now, and while the microwave silence has left millions out of sorts, for me it’s a case of addition by subtraction….