Mental Housecleaning, Part 3

[Part 1] | [Part 2]

25. Born Against: Saw them several times, though the most memorable was at Middlesex County College, when a mini-stampede erupted in the wake of their performance with a bunch of dopey straightedge bands. B.A.'s bassist never showed up, but they played anyway—with most of their fans on stage with them for safety's sake. (Violent moron crowd in full effect.) Tempers flared, the band played maybe five or six songs, Sam McPheeters chastised the crowd, and then some Jersey hardcore meathead revealed a gun tucked into his sweatpants, which sent dozens of punk rock kids scattering into the night. During my hasty exodus to the parking lot, I passed a girl who'd had her face pushed into the water spigot she'd been drinking from as a crowd ran by. She was pitched forward, wild-eyed, and grappling frantically at the bloody space where her front teeth had been a moment earlier. [Born Against photo by Sgsf. Licensed for re-use via Creative Commons]

26. Smart Went Crazy: A brilliant and totally underappreciated band from DC who were responsible for one of the best and weirdest albums released by Dischord Records. Musically, they could be called off-kilter or left-of-center pop, only their lyrics often usurped any sense of familiarity inspired by the instrumentation. (Tuneful songs about killing people and stuffing their bodies into car trunks can have that effect.) They played at Brownies to almost no one, and the guitar player looked weirdly like a guy who'd appeared on Conan O'Brien the previous night for his ability to mimic classical music by making farty sounds with his hands. I only remember this detail because it freaked me out to imagine that maybe it was the same guy.

27. Barbara Manning: Terrace Club. Can't remember if this was solo or with a backup band, but it was totally great. She ate dinner with a bunch of us WPRB people and regaled us with stories of New Zealand and hanging out with all the cool Dunedin rockers. [Listen to Barbara Manning & the SF Seals perform "Ipecac"]

28. Bettie Serveert: Maxwell's, early 90s. Tomboy is one of those records that reminds everyone of college. It doesn't matter if the person has ever been to college, or if it happened to be in the early 90s when the album came out. There's just something about its wistful tenor that feels in step with the age at which most of us leave home for the first time. Most of the WPRB crew was pretty psyched to see them, and that included one guy who was also a member of the campus mime club. Yes, that's right -- mimes. They of the white face paint and I-don't-seem-to-be-able-to-find-my-way-out-of-this-glass-enclosure gags. Hours before our departure from the station, he announced to us that mime club was meeting until late in the evening, and he "might not have time" to take off his makeup before the show. Recognizing these words as a very real threat, we all spent the next several hours gripped by the kind of fear that is exclusive to humans who have just learned they are to be seen in public with a guy in full mime regalia. Not surprisingly, this rather crippling terror has overpowered any memory of the band's performance. I can't even remember if the mime came with us, or if we banished him to a rest stop somewhere along the Jersey Turnpike. I did get to see Bettie Serveert again many years later and they were still real good (and still made me think of college.)

29. GWAR: City Gardens, Halloween, 1988 or 89. Like Jandek, GWAR is better to talk about than to actually suffer through. This was before they became heroes of the doofus-metal scene, and were just regarded as a bizarre, performance art group who had a record on Shimmy Disc. (The guys at the Princeton Record Exchange consistently filed all of the Jim Nabors records in the GWAR section.) I wore a "Jersey Beat" t-shirt to this show which got soaked with blood and other, less glamorous body fluids during the set. I kept it, unwashed, for years afterward as a trophy piece of sorts. I think I finally threw it away in 2008, pissed that I'd wasted the energy to move it in and out of various apartments over a span of twenty years.

30. Arcwelder: Maxwell's, 1996-ish. None of the annoying Steve Albini worshippers ever seemed to like these guys much,which is a shame because they released some of my favorite records on their beloved Touch n' Go Records. Nevertheless, I was happy to see them include a stop at Maxwell's while on tour for their just released Entropy album. Too bad hardly anyone bothered to watch them. (Those there for headliners Skeleton Key—who were at that time relatively unknown— didn't seem interested in checking out any other music, as they stayed on the restaurant side of the club for most of the evening.) As such, Arcwelder was visibly pissed off, but they channeled that aggression into their instruments and played one of the most furiously awesome sets I've ever witnessed. The ten or so people watching hooted and hollered at 'em between songs, and at one point, we were all invited on stage to "perform" with the band for the enjoyment of the soundman and bartender. [Arcwelder picture by Larrybobsf. Licensed via Creative Commons.]

"Captain Allen" by Arcwelder

31. Man or Astroman?: At the D-Bar, in Princeton, 1999. The D-Bar is a mysterious hangout for Princeton grad students which one must produce P.U. identification in order to be admitted to. I had friends who were grad students, and so was able to attend as their guest. This was the same night that Hurricane Floyd tore through New Jersey, and I observed three very peculiar things over the course of the set. 1) A drunk man who appeared not to understand how to drink out of cans. He kept pouring beer on his shoulder—clearly not in the physics department. 2) A shockingly lengthy fistfight between two patrons. 3) A guy inexplicably wearing a full Santa Claus outfit. (It was September.) The band was good, even though the storm knocked the power out about 1/2 way through their set.

32. The Poster Children: Everyone at WPRB had a crush on Rose, the Poster Children's badass bass player. After the show, we watched in horror as one drunken DJ attempted to impress her with his reenactment of the exciting butterfly kick used in final scene of The Karate Kid. Rose was patient and visibly amused. The DJ in question has denied frequent re-tellings of this story for the last 15+ years.

33. Lynnfield Pioneers: Under Acme, with Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments. Jen commented, famously: "They look like Muppets".
"Yos to Go" by Lynnfield Pioneers

34. Computer Cougar (by request): At a truck stop in rural Pennsylvania during a blizzard. Far and away, one of the oddest audiences I have ever been a part of, and not just because it included many proud-bellied truck drivers who stoically ate their chicken dinners amidst scruffy kids and their blaring guitars. Some guys who were WPRB fans had put the show together. I'd talked to them on the phone before, but did not realize they were twin brothers, which threw me for a loop when I met them in person at the show. Later in the evening, still not realizing they were two different guys, I asked one of them the dumbest question of my life: "Why do you keep changing your shirt?" That band Frodus also played, who were impossibly loud.

"190 BPM" by Computer Cougar

35. U.S. Maple: Crazy Girl Altercation #1. At the Khyber, 1998-ish. I drove into Philly direct from a week of lounging at the Jersey Shore. The Talker LP had just come out, and the band was being heralded as the next big thing for having been tapped to open for Pavement on their coinciding tour. As such, the club was packed with Pavement fans, anxious to have a look at their new darlings-in-waiting. My friend Greg and I pushed our way all the way up front and soaked up one of the more unsettling (and great) live presentations in memory. When they finished up, I turned around excitedly to talk to my friend Martha, and found that she, Greg, and maybe a dozen strangers were now the only people left in the room. Apparently, U.S. Maple was a bit too much for the indie rock scenesters to handle, which tells you most of what you need to know about the average Pavement fan. As we were preparing to leave the club, things went real bad as I made my way towards the men's room. Some random girl started yelling at me, calling me a faggot, and threatening to have her boyfriend beat me up. The boyfriend appeared, as per her prophecy, and I attempted to reason with him. Oddly, he instead joined in the name-calling and threats. Confused, I pressed into the bathroom and locked the door in order to consider my options. With judgment most assuredly clouded by whatever I was drinking that night, I emerged from the men's room, foolishly ready for "fight". In my absence, the crazy girl and her boyfriend had been removed from the premises by the bartender and good-hearted Philadelphians, they having apparently tolerated enough of this pair's idiocy. Nevertheless, I took care to hide behind Martha during the walk back to our vehicle. [Listen to U.S. Maple perform "Magic Job"]

36. Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments: Crazy Girl Altercation #2. This time, at Brownies. Some drunk woman came out of nowhere and tried to pry my camera out of my hands. She had long nails that were digging into my skin, but I would not relent. It was pretty apparent to others in the crowd that this woman was crazy, but no one would help me until the band stopped mid song, and the drummer leaped over his kit and into the crowd to find out what was happening. (A small circle had formed around us by this point.) It took some sincere explaining on my part to convince the TJSA drummer that I wasn't, in fact, "attacking" the girl, which is what he'd thought was going on. The band resumed their set, and she climed on stage and did that stupid and embarrassing "sexy dance" thing that drunk girls tend to do in such instances. I took a picture of her planting one on vocalist Ron House's cheek, but I have no idea what ever happened to it. Later in the evening, I was talking to some friends at the bar as the crowd cleared out. The chat turned into a series of post-show drinks, and as I watched riot gates being pulled down at the restaurants and bars across Avenue A, I suddenly realized that I'd stayed out much too late and had drank to excess. A random woman wandered in, convinced the bartender (who was trying to close up) to pour her one drink, and then turned her back to us. Her long hair accidentally dipped down into one of the candles on the bar, instantly igniting it. She jerked forward, and her hair flipped up and extinguished the huge flame that had been climbing from her neck to her scalp. She turned around in a cloud of putrid smoke, uttered the phrase: "was that you?", and then ran out into the night in a state of total shock and disorientation. The bartender, who was just as freaked out as we were, decided that *everyone* needed another drink after that and poured a round on the house. [Listen to the Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments perform "My Mysterious Death"]

Comments

[Tom Sarago]

Great idea. Keep these up please!!

[Martha]

Very accurate description of the US Maple show, they were awesome - though perhaps you ought to stay away from Philadelphia. Also, didn't we (you, me, and Greg) all see Man or Astro-Man at Terrace when the singer referred to Greg as Bill Gates for not kneeling with the rest of the masses on command - or am I remembering this one wrong?

[r:m:b]

Martha: I don't remember that one, but it certainly *sounds* like something our pal Greg would do! -mike

[Rose from Poster Children]

#32. Are you sure it wasn't me doing the butterfly kick? That would seem more accurate (and dorky).

[r:m:b]

Rose: Perhaps you joined in at the end. I can't be sure, as this was a long time ago. (Terrace Club, Princeton NJ. Maybe 1994?) At no point during the evening, however, were either of you referred to as "Daniel-san". -mike

[jen]

Haha! They *did* look like Muppets!

Love this ongoing series - you're jogging my own faulty memory in rather satisfying directions. More, please.