Blogcritics

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

We Have a Date With the Underground, Chapter 9

Michele Catalano — Tue, 30 May 2006 21:02:02 EDT

This is the ninth in a series of true stories about an anonymous punk rock guy Land of the Mouse [a follow up to this story.]Disneyland. Anaheim California. That is the town of Mighty Ducks, Del Taco, and misinterpretations of "UNITY" tattoos. Somewhere you only go if you want to ride the Matterhorn and have visual sex with Minnie Mouse.A place that was as flat as the desert and just as god damn boring.This is where our recording time was. This is where we had to spend what seemed like a lifetime.We spent all our days in bars with no money waiting for a transfer from the label. We walked from bar to bar. That's what we did. Find happy hours. Move around and not talk to each other. Waitress walks up, we walk away, shoving back the free chili dogs or whatever the fuck they had. Fuck, I think I was on a popcorn diet 'til "Nacho Thursday" one week. We moved when they asked us what we wanted to drink. Water only can push you so far until they figure out you are a bunch of freeloaders and toss you out. That's what we did. And I don't make any apologies or excuses. 'Cause nachos rule, dude. Two words. "Free" and "Nachos." Hey dude, if this a dream don't fucking wake me up cause this is the best I ate in days.We always did get thrown out. It was just a matter of time . Ticking away. Like a fucking time bomb. Shove that shit back like you are in the fucking Kentucky Derby. Get as much back cause the race is on and it only lasts a few minutes before the wreath is on the winner and you have to leave. One day we had to wait around while the drummer decided how he wanted his set miced. We had nothing to do; had about a dollar in change so we decided to get a beer. At the liquor store. Fuck man, even dive bars were too upscale for us. Oh yeah. We were slumming fucking hardcore, man.The nearest store was one on the main drag of Anaheim. The same street that had Disneyland on it.Disneyland!Fuck yeah!We had no cash. Nothing. Budweiser 16 ouncers and a studio with some asshole yelling "Gimmie snare again! One more time! Snare! Like you mean it this time! Snare!"Fuck that, dude. Let's find something to do. We tried to borrow money earlier in the week, but as the "Free Nacho" story says, we were having no luck. Jesus, this week was shitty. We walked up to the gate at Disneyland. 9 o'clock at night and 25 or so bucks to get in? Hmmm...they close at 10... we are broke..hmm....Well fuck that, man. This place is only open for a few more hours. After that we are in the studio for most of the night. Hmm......God dammit we are gonna get in. And it doesn't fucking matter how we do it cause if I have to be recording in a shit smelling recording studio for the rest of the week, I'm gonna be riding a fucking teacup by the end of this night. As god is my witness, I will be touching Tinkerbell's ass by the time this place closes if I have to put up with the crap back there for another week.A idea was born. A plan formulated. Small fence. Fast runners. A diversion. A dumbass diversion.Well, hell.It was decided that I would leap the fence. I would be the diversion. The plan. I would rip of my shirt and throw it when I hit main street. Hell, I had another shirt underneath. I'd keep running till I hit the Haunted Mansion. My friends would follow after the Disney cops chased me. We would meet at the mansion in 20 minutes, have some fun, and then go back to the studio.I couldn't see any Disney cops. Not eating kinda makes you wonky after awhile. And I know nachos are good, they just don't work as a meal. Things get...funny.I unbutton my shirt. Wipe the sweat off my brow. Throw the smoke down and down the beer. Kids were coming out 'cause it was getting late. The park was in shutting down mode. The night was over for some, but just starting for us.I ran. As hard as I could. I caught the glance of a kid as I was running full throtle at the fence. It was that confused look on his face. A mixture of "What the fuck?" and "Fuck yeah, dude!!!" Something that reminds you of seeing a Chinese contortionist stretching her legs around her back while being on her chest. Or maybe that's just me. I'm kinda kinky, ok?I gave the kid a fast smile as I hit the fence. Got over it and started to run.I was tackled by about three guards right when I hit my stride. Pulled down to the ground as my friends laughed at my ass on the ground and walked away. Disney cops.Fucking Disney cops.At least they didn't have guns. Well maybe chocolate guns.Minors around ya know.Vandals - Pirate's Life

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.

We Have a Date With the Underground, Chapter 7

Michele Catalano — Mon, 22 May 2006 12:39:34 EDT

This is the seventh in a series. It is someone else's story, told to and transcribed by me. Basically, he gave me the details and atmosphere and a lot of the words and I put them together in my magic hat and pulled this out. His voice, his story, my translation.Never Go BackSome days you feel you have to do what you have to do. Running on empty, feeling there must be some sort of deity who is either out to get you or just bored. Just wasting time fucking with you 'til Batman reruns would come on and he could sleep on the couch. See, this is why I don't believe in god. One night when we were just starting, we played a gig in San Francisco. The set was alright. It was a two-staged set. Two totally different styles of music. One upstairs and one downstairs.Not really caring about anything but playing, I went to sleep in the truck, carefully noting where the sun was at in the sky so I knew how long I could sleep. Crocodile Fucking Dundee. Like I knew. When I woke up there were tons of people there. It was two bars, two sets, and Saturday night.We didn't really want to mess with anyone or make any enemies. It had already been a bad run. The last three months were spent cleaning blood off some piece of equipment, the van, or ourselves and we were getting, well, getting fucking tired of it. Waking up in the morning with your hand smelling like a penny gets old after awhile. The bass amp was huge. We called it "the widow maker." When you say its name, you grab your balls and squeeze. That thing was a mess. A huge Fender cab that weighed probably as much as my mother when she was on her "Pork Diet." It was big and it did was it was intended to do, but it was missing two wheels. Great. Just fucking great. We had a makeshift crew that consisted of a neighbor and that was it. He was the one. The one who got free ins but instead of helping, used our drink tickets. He was it. Great. Just fucking great. We had to drag this thing in every night while I kept reassuring my friends that, "Hey dude, it might bust your balls, but it was fucking cheap, okay?"The set goes, we finish up and and I'm walking around afterwards wondering what happened to my gear. "Widow Maker? Baby?" Finally, our "roadie" said he found our hand truck and would pull my amp out. But, wait. We didn't have a hand truck. Hmm... This is the way it works, folks, anytime you think "Hmm," something is probably wrong. But hey, I was a young dumb kid so loaded on free beer I could barely work my fingers, much less put together a sentence asking where that thing came from. "Cool," I thought as I jumped in the van. The roadie pulled the Widow Maker and "our" hand truck in and we took off for home.Sometime during the trip it occurred to me that the hand truck was not ours. It was the club's. We stole it from them. You could put together your thoughts as if this was justified, but in the back of my mind, we stole from them. Burning bridges in this business is not a good thing.About two or three hours from home, I decided we had to go back and I took over the driving. This was not right. Fuck, everyone was sleeping anyhow. Who cares? We had to take the hand truck back. You don't want to leave a club thinking that a band stole from them. I don't even know how much those fucking hand trucks are, but I spent more on gas bringing it back than the fucking OPEC nations do pumping out crude.When I got back, the guy who had stamped our hands the night before was still at the door, probably too tweaked to go home. He asked what we wanted. It was way before six in the morning and they weren't even open yet. I explained to him how we made a big mistake the night before and grabbed their hand truck by accident and we wanted to return it and it was an honest mistake and... The dude looks at the hand truck. Stares. Then says, "You didn't have to bring that back. That's an old one." At that exact moment when those words hit my ears, I decided I would burn every bridge like the Towering fucking Inferno.

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.

We Have a Date With the Underground, Chapter 6

Michele Catalano — Fri, 19 May 2006 09:32:36 EDT

This is the sixth in a series. It is someone else's story, told to and transcribed by me. Basically, he gave me the details, atmosphere, and lot of the words and I put them together in my magic hat and pulled this out. His voice, his story, my translation... Sleepy in SeattleTouring drags on you after awhile. Sometimes you wonder why you started this in the first place. All you can do is look at the dates and anticipate when the tour is ending. Calculating when the last gig will end and the time it will take you to get back in your own bed. It's a bleak feeling when you're near the end of a tour and you look at the gig dates and you come up with a 36-hour drive until you see your house. You damn well know everyone else is feeling the same way so it's gonna be a straight shot home. You'll be in that van for 36 hours and you hate even thinking of it. But it needs to be done. You need to be home. Living in a van sucks.I was crashed out the floor of another band's house in Seattle. The guys in that band kept kicking us to wake up, saying we were a bunch of sleeper boys. Fuck, we'd been on the road 16 hours after playing a gig in Portland then another in Seattle. All I could manage to do was stick my middle finger up from under my blanket and say "You know, you need to go fuck yourself."We had a break that day, so we got up and went thrift store shopping. Dead tired. But something tells you that if you don't do get up and out, you are going to sleep all day and lose your ability to function in the night. See you get used to being on a "no sleep schedule" on tour. Sure you sleep, but really, how well can you sleep in a strange town on a strange floor with strange people when you don't even know what fucking time zone you are in? The local guys were all happy and fully rested and I looked at the guys in the band and saw the black circles underneath all of our eyes, which told me we were just about done. Thank fucking god this was almost over. 'Cause we were gonna have to bury someone if this went on any longer.We spent the morning by the wharf. That area of Seattle is full of great dive restaurants, the kind where you can eat an omelet, drink a beer and have a cigarette in your mouth at the same time. At 8am I was eating breakfast and listening to sailors tell me their stories as they drank vodka. I slammed back Budweisers as I wondered who the hell could drink vodka this early.By noon, the whole band was dying and we had a show to play that night. We needed to sleep badly and it was up to each one of us to take care of that ourselves.Later that day, we loaded in to the club. The sound check hadn't started yet. I got my hand stamp and drink tickets from the door. I looked at the guest list to see who it had on it then it hit me...I didn't know anyone in that fucking town . I needed to crash, bad. I had been sleeping in clubs for years. Didn't mean I liked it. I just got used to it. But it had to be done.Right when I was just going down, I heard the thump of the bass drum. I was out of it. Not drunk, but completely exhausted. I had been awake a long time and instinct alone kept me going. I got up, walked out back with a smoke in my mouth and fell asleep outside. Right then some one kicked me up for sound check. Great just fucking great.The band was half-awake and half-dead and as they walked on the stage before the check and I wondered if this gig was even gonna happen. I couldn't remember my middle name much less tune a fucking bass. Shoving back drinks, I pushed the button and I was ready. 15 minutes of this shit. Great. Just fucking great. Meanwhile a bench out back was calling me to sleep on. But when the crowd moved in and the first band hit the stage, I had a feeling that this was gonna go. And the longer the opener played, the more I could sense that feeling coming up, that this was gonna happen tonight no matter how tired I was, these people wanted to see us and we damn well better come on stage and play.Ramones - Touring SNFU - Trudging

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.

We Have a Date With the Underground, Chapter 5

Michele Catalano — Wed, 17 May 2006 13:14:51 EDT

This is the fifth in a series. It is someone else's story, told to and transcribed by me. Basically, he gave me the details and atmosphere and a lot of the words, and I put them together in my magic hat, and pulled this out. His voice, his story, my translation..Can You Please Stop Throwing Beer On Me?After that initial gig, we start picking up gigs at other party houses. Tonight's at a frat house right outside a college town. You really don't know what to expect inside of one of these. I mean, frat guys are pretty much the exact opposite of punk rockers. So walking to the door there's a feeling of "Hey! We are gonna get free beer!" and "Hey! We are gonna get our asses kicked!"The first time we walk in this house, the stench hits me. Beer and burning methamphetamine. That smell permeates the house. As we set up to play, we watch as ten guys bump into walls and play video games.I roll in the drum bag, set it down and go to look for a beer. One of the wall-bumpers says that the keg won't be there for fifteen minutes, so I head for the fridge to see if there's any beer there. Something I have never seen stares back at me - a fridge with a padlock on it. Great. Just fucking great. Now what? Welcome to a frat house.I go upstairs to find the friend who lives there who hooked this gig up for us. He's sitting in his room smoking speed. On tinfoil. Call the white trash brigade cause I have one to be picked up. His hands shake as I ask him where the beer is at. He says there is a keg downstairs. There isn't. Great. Just fucking great.I walk back downstairs and just wait. That's something you have to get used to when you are playing gigs. Hurry up and wait. It's one of the worst parts of being in a band. You're told you need to get ready. Then you're told to wait for an hour. Hurry up and wait.Our equipment is already set up, so we just sit around this huge house waiting for something to happen. Eventually, people start coming in the door. It's getting huge, fast. I can't believe how many people are pouring in. As they walk through the house, they give me a look like I don't belong - a contemptuous sort of a sneer. It's a look that you get used to. It's a look that says "They let you in this house? Your band better be god damn good." There's a huge crowd of people and they push everywhere. Just getting up from the keg is a challenge, much less keeping people away from the set. I'm using a new wireless set. One of the guys in the band has a friend who lets him try out these new devices to see if we like them. Musicians like us rarely get much gear for free. We usually deal with an asshole salesman who wants to jack us like a fucking used car salesmen. But this shit is free for us to try out and we decide to test them out at this party. If we only have them for a night, we might as well drop the clutch and see how much these motherfuckers can take. So I take my bass, and as I'm playing, I go for a walk to test out this wireless thing. The guitarist is sick of getting hit with beer so he follows me. The singer takes our lead but heads out the back, and we try the new equipment out in the different yards, just having fun, seeing what we can do with this party. I'm outside playing the wireless bass in a circle of kids. They are screaming at me and throwing beer on me, and I just keep going. The singer is in the backyard getting the same thing and the poor drummer has to take it all on his own in the open garage.As the beer cups hit me and people dance around me, the only thing I think, surprisingly, is "This is fucking cool!" Still playing, I walk around the house. over to a fucked-up sofa that's just sitting outside, and the crowd follows me like I am the Pied Piper of Punk. I sit on the couch and just move my fingers as girls come up and kiss me on the cheek. I keep going, just playing, listening to clues as to which song we're playing next.The singer, still in the backyard, says something like "Ok, this is getting crazy, we lost our guitarist and our bass player and I have no idea where I'm at, but this is the next song." He yells the name of it and "1-2-3 go!" and I'm going again on the sofa with a huge circle of people around me.I'm laughing and having the time of my life. I remember that earlier in the night I thought that being punk rockers in a frat house, we would get our asses kicked. Getting wired and drunk on free dope and beer, and the kids digging the music are things I never expected so I play my heart out for this crowd and the rest of the band does the same. We are fucking glowing. The kids feel it and edge us on as we push with everything we have to make sure we have fun. Because when the band has fun, the crowd does, too.After the gig, someone from the frat comes up and asks us to be the house band. I think, this is a great fucking week. And it's only Tuesday.Fear - Gimme Some Action Rich Kids on LSD - Dead Teds Rich Kids on LSD - Break the Camel's Back

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.

We Have a Date With the Underground, Chapter 4

Michele Catalano — Mon, 15 May 2006 08:52:31 EDT

This is the fourth in a series. It is the beginning of someone else's story, told to and transcribed by me. Basically, he gave me the details and atmosphere and lot of the words and I put them together in my magic hat and pulled this out. His voice, his story, my translation..Paying the DuesYou can't get the big gigs if you don't cut your teeth on the small ones first. It was raining when we pulled up late at night in a small college town to play one of our first parties. We drove up there in a pickup truck, with all our equipment in the cab. By the time we got there, the boards were wet, the gear was soaked. We spent the first half of the night waiting for the rain to end while using hair dryers to dry off the wires.It was getting late and we knew we had to get out there whether the gear was dry or not and at least say something to the kids if we couldn't play. You don't play in the rain unless you want to die. But you walk out to the kids just to say "Hey we fucking tried, ok?"Finally, the rain stopped dripping out of the sky. Any last hopes that we could get out of this night were dashed. It was time to start putting the gear together and dragging it outside. The last beers were downed and I started moving. By the time we set up, I had already downed a few 40s and people were filing into the backyard - mostly to get to the keg, not to see us.Someone smiled down on us that night because the gear all turned red when we hit the button. We were a new band and we really had nothing so far as our own material. Yeah, that's the way it works folks. Not many bands start out playing their own music. Well, they do, but basically all of the songs are subtitled "Crap I Wrote When I Was Drunk."So you play a lot of covers. That night we started the gig playing the Circle Jerks' "Back up Against the Wall." If you have ever heard that song you know it is kind of mellow up till the kick. Then it goes. When that kick hit, the place exploded and things started getting out of control.This was a party house that had three other houses connected to it. People from the other houses pushed over the fences to get to this party and the fences came crashing down. Wood that was meant to separate the yards was now just something to walk over to get to where we were playing.The main focus of the party was the beer. In all honestly, our band wasn't that great. We were just there to entertain while the keg was being tapped. Even so, the music and the atmosphere was something you can't take lightly. When you see all the girls and guys having fun while you are ripping it up on stage, it's a bit awe inspiring, especially when it's one of your first live gigs.My friend Jimmie had been sleeping in a bedroom that was right behind the set. There was a sliding glass door on the room that was covered with a sheet to stop the sun from shining in on him in the mornings. He thought it would be fun to turn a backlight on and dance naked as we played so everyone could see his shadow as he danced sideways and held his cock up. If Jimmie didn't get laid that night, then surely god did not exist.So here I was, just a kid playing bass at one of my first live shows, and I had people waiting in line for beer cheering for this huge, dancing cock behind me.The party had gotten out of hand at this point. Fences were beaten down and three separate pits started in three yards. I knew they were happening but I really didn't care; I was experiencing the rush you get from playing in front of a crowd. You get scared of that feeling, but you get addicted to that rush, too. You want to stop to savor the moment, because every time a song ends you can feel that rush leaving you, like the last drips of your blood are escaping a cut vein and you have to hold on to the vein so you don't die.You need that feeling - you don't know why, you just do. So you towel your forehead off and wait for the lead while desperately trying to get a smoke in, to get the last drag of a cigarette into your lungs before you know you have to spit it out and move again.A yell. A scream. A fight broke out and there's a body on the ground. I walked over and tried to pick the kid up off of the floor while I was getting hit in the back of the head. The same time I was trying to get the kid out, some asshole walked up and nailed him with pepper spray.The fumes hit me and knocked me back. I recovered, dragged the kid to the front and shoved him out the gate. My night was done. I really didn't care because after driving all day, drying off the equipment, then playing all night while being sweat soaked in the cold air, you really are kind of done.I got a towel and went inside to sit on the sofa. The people who weren't scared off by the cops were still running around. I was out of cigarettes, so I walked back outside to find someone who was smoking. The party had broken up. The show basically ended when the police showed up. This was up in the top ten rough days for me, yet I walked out of the gate wondering why I still wanted more.

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.

We Have a Date With the Underground, Part 3

Michele Catalano — Fri, 12 May 2006 09:58:27 EDT

This is the third in a series. It is the beginning of someone else's story, told to and transcribed by me. Basically, he gave me the details and atmosphere and lot of the words and I put them together in my magic hat and pulled this out. His voice, his story, my translation. This series will have enough stories that they will eventually get their own page, but for now they will appear here at least once a week, most likely more than that.I've Got Blisters On My FingersIf you've ever been to a punk show you know the thing that takes your breath away is the bass. The guitar will just blow your ear out. The vocals are ignored by most of the people in the show. This isn't The Who; this isn't The Rolling Stones. We could give a fuck less what you are saying, you don't run this show. The only reason the crowd moves is the bass and the drums, and the drums will numb your brain. But the bass, it will reach into your chest and suck the air out of your lungs.I'd watch John Entwistle and I'd stare in awe at his three finger playing. The way his hands moved, the intimidating attitude and stance, the man became a god to me. I'd watch him play and study his movements and it was always like he was holding the set together. While everyone else was having fun, he only had this intense half ass smile on his face that said, "Yeah this is fun but where are we going after this?" Townsend could jump all over the stage and Daltrey could flip his mike wherever the fuck he wants, but without Entwistle the set dies, and he was so cool about it, like he didn't give a shit about anything. Yet he ruled everything. I got the same feeling years later when I saw Black Flag and Kira Roessler was playing bass, and I was awed at how mellow she was amidst all the chaos. Entwistle was the same way, but even more intense, because you could tell he had the power of the music in his hands, that the grind of his bass held the music together. His sound held the music hostage. I wanted that power. I wanted to play an instrument that could shake your bones. Something about that hit me hard and etched the thought in my head that this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to play bass. I was 15 when I got my first bass, a Fender knock off. The first night I had it, my brother told me to play with my fingers and to just keep going, even though I didn't know how to play, even though it was going to hurt like hell. So I spent that first night, unplugged and in front of the TV, playing until my fingers ached, watching them first blister and then bleed. I did that every night for about a week and my fingertips became so hard I could make sparks fly if I dragged them on the asphalt.I started to play with other kids, mostly in a garage at one guy's house where he had a makeshift set. There was a guitar, a mic running thru a guitar amp, a set of crappy drums, and my bass. We sang songs like "Sexual Snoopy" and "I Hate Tuna Casserole."The first time you hear your amplified voice boom across the neighborhood so everyone can hear is intimidating. Most kids will step back when they hear their voice pushed through the neighborhood and say "Hey, whoa, this thing is loud!" I was into it. I would talk on the mic about my new comic book and or just laugh and not care that my voice was being carried down the block. In fact, I liked it. That's how I knew that life on the stage was for me.

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.

We Have a Date With the Underground, part 2

Michele Catalano — Wed, 10 May 2006 08:47:41 EDT

This is the second in a series. It is the beginning of someone else's story, told to and transcribed by me. Basically, he gave me the details, atmosphere, and lot of the words and I put them together in my magic hat and pulled this out. His voice, his story, my translation. This series will have enough stories that they will eventually get their own page, but for now they will appear here at least once a week, most likely more than that.The Cobra Bites BackI wake up at noon not wanting to move, feeling the pains of one of my first hangovers. I wonder why I ever thought it would be a good idea to drink vodka - why the hell do people drink this crap when it makes you feel so bad? Despite my hangover, I grab a warm Bud from the case my father forgot to put in the fridge. I wander out into the living room, sit down and stare at the TV, my head spinning. The phone rings. Do I want to go to a show tonight? A few hours later, I'm sitting outside the house smoking, waiting for my ride. A primer grey 68 Chevelle pulls up. I toss the smoke, slam the car door and wonder what the hell is gonna happen tonight. I'm 14 years old and on my way to my first punk rock show.We have some time to kill and some new areas of town to explore, but, being the way we are, the only thing we explore is an alley next to a liquor store, armed with a few 40s of King Cobra and a pack of smokes. We hang out there for a while drinking and smoking and by the time we're ready to roll out to the show, that one 40 oz has rendered me shitfaced. We had long ago ditched the Chevelle at the Midtown Market, so we walk the five blocks - I'm mostly stumbling - to the Oasis Ballroom. G.B.H and Cro Mags. It's show time. We get inside the gig and it's dark and I don't know where I'm at; the only thing I know is that the doorman is my neighbor and I can get into a 21 plus show for free even though I'm only 14. I spot my neighbor and he pushes me in.I'm standing by the side of the pit. I know I'm too small to go in, but the lure of the pit - and the fact that I'm too drunk to care - is too much and I attempt it anyway. I get hit immediately because the small are preyed on in those places. I'm nailed right in the face, on my left temple. The hit drops me and suddenly I'm covered by bodies of older punks because that's what they do when someone small goes down, they protect them. Hell, if someone bends over to tie their shoes in the pit in between songs, two people automatically stand around them as a shield. So I go down, but I'm picked up before I hit the ground and pushed back up. I realize I've had enough and stumble out of the pit. The second wave of a King Cobra drunk hits me. Hard. G.B.H. is just starting their set and I can't stand up. I'm about to puke and my eye hurts where it got hit. Suddenly, I'm being held up be the doorman, who knows I shouldn't even be there. I'm digging around in my hurt eye for my contact lens. I can feel it in there, I figure it got moved around when I got nailed, but I can't get to it. I'm throwing up, looking for my contact lens with one hand while trying to cover the spray of my vomit with the other hand and wondering, not for the first time, why I was there. The stench of the show is unbelievable. I move my head so as not to inhale my own vomit when I breathe, but I only smell sweat, beer and well, piss? Yea, I think that's piss.I've got puke all over my shirt and I'm still clawing inside my eye for my contact, still being held up by my neighbor, GBH still playing in the background and I'm sure I'm going to pass out any second and then it dawns on me that I was never even wearing my contacts So what the fuck? In my drunken stupor, it occurs to me that the thing I was clawing for in my eye was not a displaced contact but a cut I got in the pit. I shake myself off the doorman and head outside, smelling like a fetid mixture of my own sweat and vomit.I ask myself again, why am I here? Why did I do this? And despite the fact that I am about to go down hard and despite the cut in my eye and the stains on my shirt and the sweat stinging my eyes and despite choking on the smell of piss and beer, I know I'll be back. Something inside that place -- the music, the lights, the pit, the rush, even the violence and the pain -- something makes me want to come back. Something tells me I need get back in there and be a bigger part of what I just experienced, because what I just had isn't enough. I need more.GBH:"Race Against Time" "Alcohol" "Knife Edge" "Drug Party"

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.

We Have a Date With the Underground, Part I

Michele Catalano — Mon, 8 May 2006 10:37:27 EDT

This is the first in a series. It is the beginning of someone else's story, told to and transcribed by me. Basically, he gave me the details and atmosphere and lot of the words and I put them together in my magic hat and pulled this out. His voice, his story, my translation. The series will run about two stories a week, sometimes more.Sometimes you have to wonder how you ended up where you are. Your mind wanders to the distant past and to distant places in a vain attempt to find out who you are today by searching for who you were in the past.How could you know that something you did -- something so small -- would be the catalyst to a lifestyle? How could you know that an idea you had on a boring Sunday afternoon would open your eyes to the beginning and make you see everything in bold new colors and a brand new frame? That you would look back on that seemingly insignificant moment and realize it brought you to the precise instant when you first felt something click, something that shouted "you better forget your past because we are hitting fifth gear. Forget everything you have seen before this, because the next turn is coming and you better fucking hold on."If and when you look back on your life and wonder how you became this person who stares back in the mirror at you in the morning while you brush your teeth, you are lucky to get even a small feeling of how it happened much less a full clue of when your path moved from one to the other. When you stare at yourself and question how it started, why you wanted to get tattoos, why you liked the bright lights and the smell of sweat and the bodies climbing over you to reach for the stage only to jump back in the crowd, you have to wonder where the beginning of all that was, don't you?For me it was spending one Sunday morning when I was 14 years old drinking a beer and drawing up a cover of a Meatmen album (We're the Meatmen and You Suck) on a white t-shirt to wear to a gig. I placed the album under the shirt, turned a bright light on it and drew the outline, filling it in with black Sharpie. I got picked up for the show and spent the ride there wondering why the hell I was sliding around the back of an El Camino with a German Shepard on my way to this punk rock show; something that scared the shit out of me. My two previous experiences with shows left me nervous about going to another. I do remember that I felt different about this one, that this was something big. Maybe it was making the shirt; I felt a connection with the scene that I hadn't felt before. My feeling that something big was happening to me intensified as I got into the gig. I found myself sitting on a staircase with a skinhead whose only happiness that evening had come from drilling a hole through his steel toed Doc Marten to fit a nail in it. I sat drinking a beer with him and being blown away by the weird pride he felt in bragging about that. Hell, when you are 14 you drink with whoever buys you a beer. The feeling I got as I looked at the guy as he pointed out the nail made me think I might be getting into something that was bigger than I could handle.Despite that, I still had that sense of something big about to happen to me and was feeling the rush that comes with being at a show, It was the stage and the lights that dragged me in, the moving with the crowd toward the stage, the girls voices in your ear, not talking to you but just talking, wanting to move up and get closer to the stage.It was the feel of the stage cutting into your chest and you just wanting to get up there and look at the crowd just to get a taste of what is was like. And once you are in, you can't just stop. You have to keep going. Everything in your body says for you to go home and just go to bed. But you know this is you. You were meant to be there, even if it meant something like hanging around with a guy who puts nails in his boots. I was living the moment that changed everything for me and anyone who has lived this life and feels like they were born to do this will remember that click, when the music starts and your beer spills and you are pushed forward, and people are crawling on you to get to the stage. For the entire show you are covered in bodies and beer. If you aren't drinking a beer, you have one coming at you.If you aren't in the air or on the stage, you are on the ground. You ask yourself again Why am I here, why am I doing this, but you can't leave. Something deep in you, whatever it is, tells you this is what you are born to do. Not to be in the crowd, but to be on the stage. When you stand on the floor smelling the sweat and feeling the heat of the lights, and you look at the stage and think that's where I want to be, it's life changing.You imagine the feeling of the band. Being out there on the floor has given you such a high and you think about how high the band must be just on adrenaline and not only are you jealous, you are envious. You want more. You want to feel that. Standing there on the floor, the heat was so intense I felt as if it was suffocating me. Sweat ran down my face and stung my eyes.. As the crush of people pushed into me, my t-shirt - soaked with the sweat of myself and everyone else in the pit - stuck to me like glue. The heat and perspiration soaked the fresh ink of my shirt onto my chest. I reeked of Sharpie. As I walked out stinking like ink, beer and sweat, a girl came up to me wearing a silk screened version of my shirt and asked if she could have mine in exchange for hers.That was when I knew something was different. That this was where I needed to be . I knew the smell of sweat and smoke was going to be on me forever and I had better god damn get used to the bright lights cause they were only gonna get brighter. Meatmen Stomp 1 Down 3 To Go Tooling for Anus Blow Me Jah Mr. Tapeworm

Michele is from Long Island and writes about two of her favorite things - punk rock and fast cars -along with her better half at Faster Than the World.