My Time in the Trenches of The Underground Music Scene

Just like countless writers before me I got my ego stroked and stoked in collage, then I graduated, and then found out making a living as a writer is fucking hard as hell. Following again in past writer’s footsteps I was tending bar at a beer and shot joint called Logan’s Local’s Lounge (No wonder so many writers are drunks)I was your preverbal starving artist so after rent and bills my pay check left me enough cash to sustain my diet of  Ramen Noodles and Malt Liquor.

One of the prominent  customers was a guy named Thin Dizzy who was a local show promoter, and manager of several popular local yokel area bands. Thin got his nickname for being 6’4″,sickly skinn ,and he was the World’s biggest Thin Lizzy fan ever born. It wasn’t long until we became buddies talking about music late into the night after closing. Most of those nights we conversed over a bottle of Cheap Whiskey while chain smoking Cowboy Killer Cigarettes furiously debating passionately about all things musical.

Thin it seemed knew everyone and one day I asked him to keep a look out for any writing jobs and throw them my way if he could as tending bar in mundane mind numbing work. After a few weeks Thin came in and told me he had found a job if I was interested. It was a small publication called DFF (Drink, Fuck,Fight) that specialized in underground musicians/artists. DFF was looking simply for a writer to write up brief biographies of Underground Bands to “Help educate the sheep of society of how Utterly Idiotic They really are, to remove the blinders and let people see the truths a lie unto itself.” as stated by the Chief Editor Eddie Overdose (a old school hardcore punk and idol of the underground who had managed to survive to tell about it. The job paid dick but it got me out from behind the bar, and at least my expenses (i.e. Room and Board type shit) were being covered by DFF.

By this point in my life I had already developed a morbid fascination, shock and awe for such Underground Hardcore Punk Bands such as GG Allin, The Mentors, The Murder Junkies, AntiSeen, The Toilet Rockers, The Meatmen, and Anal Cunt, but I thirsted for more. I took the job on the spot, quit my job the next day and headed over to DFF’s main (and only Head Office) located in the City’s Industrial Zone full of converted factories. Their address was 1976 Butcher’s Way Road blending into the long line of converted big brick buildings that used house such companies as The Murphy Brother’s Meat Gristle Packaging Plant to The Tex Sex Warehouse (Sex toys targeted at Texans or Fans of Texas) to The Widget Factory of a gone by era.

This was my first actual professional writing job. I stayed with DFF for almost 4 years until its untimely demise due to inbreeding. During those 4 franticly chaotic years I traveled all over America and even parts of Europe covering countless acts along the way. Some of the acts I covered were:

Ox Sucker, Dope Hate, FuckSLut, The Fuck Me Pumps, Cunt-Fart, The Manginas, The Gash, Vag The Impaler, Beef Curtains, Buttmeat Penis, Feninus, The Furious Fist Fucking 5, SRA (Surgically Reconstructed Assholes, The Shits, Too The Tits, The Bastards, ManWhore, The Hungry Hookers, Hobocide, The Clams, Harry Taco & The 1 Eyed Worm, Anal Retention, Humphole, The Crackhead Junkies, Bollocks, Von Dire, The Benders, The Young Cocksmen, The DPs, Puking Piss, Pisser, The Fucktards, The Strippers, Fuck Your Face, Rectal Invasion, The Drunkards, Stank Breath, Anal Leakage Inc, The Salty Yogurt Slingers, Force Fed Feces, Burnt Toast, The Decapitated Swine, No Narcs, The Westend Bell Ends, The Shitters, The STDs, Jesus and Hitler, The Nerts, Shit Out Of Luck, Fucked in the Head, The Cock Ring Kings, Punks in Porn, MC Satan D, The Jizz Moppers Union, Cum Guzzler, Throbbing Taint, The Rim Jobbers, Kill Jill,Finger Fucking Francis, Sucked, The Chicken Hawks, Dolphin Rape, Cell Block 7, The Assholes, The Necrophiliacs, Whore Monger, Alien Orgies, Bloody Sod Bollocks, Womb Tomb, Speed Ball, The Overdosed,The Body Bag Bitches, Sexed, The Perverted, The Genitals, Muff Diver, The Dumbass Dildos, Shit Sandwich, Commie Scum, Americanized, Vaginal Vermin, Crotch, Nuke The Nazis, Violent Vasectomy,The Left Handed Cigarettes, Anti-All, Shit Show, The Bullshitters, Boner Puppy, Man Meat Sandwich, The Schlongs, Eat Shit, The Slags, UTS (Up The Shitter), and MANY, MANY MORE.

So recently I went for a drunken stroll down memory lane and got nostalgic as fuck so what I did was I looked up a shit ton of these old reviews and interviews with some of the all stars of the Underground music scene. I have also decided to post some in the interest of personal prosperity.

Thanks for READING,

Les Sober 

 

I Was A Teenage Murder Junkie pt.3: Here Come The Cops

As suddenly as they were switched off the stage lights burst back on. The confused and intoxicated crowd mingled around desperately trying to figure out what the fuck was going on with the on and off again lights. Just then the basement door flung open with such impact that when it slammed against the wall it sounded like a goddamn concussion grenade. The Bar/Club owner bum rushed into the room like a bull released from its pen at a rodeo. He strode to the middle of the room and promptly announced that do to “The Destructive Behavior Bullshit” and ” A Totally Fucked Up Band Lead By A Bald Degenerate Fucking Nightmare” was shutting the show down immediately. This did not bode well with the fans in the least. Instantly the Owner (and the 4 or five bouncers he had brought with him to work security, mainly his own) was plunged into a barrage of insults, violent threats, and pro GG Allin rhetoric. Needless to say the Owner made an extremely hasty retreat back upstairs to his bar. GG then took this pause in the pandemonium to address the crowd.

“Fuck is this Shit?! We want to keep playing but these motherfuckers keep cutting the power! The owner wants to shut our show the fuck down, do you want us to stop?!” GG yelled belligerently at the still awe struck audience. The unanimous answer of the crowd rang out like riot as fans screamed over each other like methhead auctioneers.

“FUCK NO!”, “GG IS GOD!”, “FUCK THIS SHIT!”, “RIOT TIME MOTHERFUCKERS!”, “WE WANT BLOOD!”, “BLOOD FOR YOU!”, “EAT MY FUCK!” and so on and so forth.

This incited GG like gasoline being pissed on a fire. GG was scowling in intense hatred apparently for everything and everybody present. GG was pacing the stage back and forth like a caged fucking animal as he quickly picked up his pace. GG grabbed a crushed beer can from the side of the stage and then used it to slash his torso preparedly  like some primitive caveman’s knife.

From what I had reseated about GG Allin this kind of shitshow common occurrence at GG’s concerts. GG Allin concerts/shows on average only lasted 15-20 minutes total before (like now) the Club owner cut the power or the venue was stormed by the police. GG had been at this point in career to be arrested 52 times for lied acts, indecent exposure, obscenity and even shitting on stage. I had watched the infamous GG Allin documentary films called “Hated: GG Allin and The Murder Junkies” by a young Todd Phillips in 1994 (a year after GG’s death due to surprise, surprise a Heroin Overdose on June 28th 1993) In the documentary GG’s older brother Merle Allin and bass player for The Murder Junkies is interviewed rather extensively throughout. In one of the interview clips Merle even states this fact further.

Merle commented that”When you went on tour (with GG) you never expect to finish the tour and thats for one of two reasons either The Hospital or Jail.” referring to the fact due to his stage show GG not only could/would be arrested , but due to his intense performances GG could also just as easily end up in the ER.

Thats when a small calvary of cops started to slowly file into the basement show venue like the fucking gestapo. Apparently the Owner had fled back upstairs and called in the cops ASAP to bail him and his Bar out of serious trouble. The crown seemed to split into to distinctly different groups this point. The one group were the ambivalent and angst filled Anarchistic fans who stood their ground while antagonizing the cops relentlessly. The second group were the polar opposite as the scrambled for any exit out of the show before getting beaten and arrested by the militant police personnel.

My buddy and coworker Chuck has decided being antiauthoritarian to the core of his basic being was siding with those who chosen to enter into the escalating conflict with the cops. Meanwhile my other friend and coworker Mike and I agreed it was in our best interest to skedaddle like our lives depended on it.

While the insanity ensued The Murder Junkies stood on the stage just a confused as anyone else caught up in the may lay. GG had abandoned the stage and immersed himself in the crowd to avoid initial detection by the conclave of cops. A handful of GG’s hardcore fans had grouped up and were now attempting to get GG out of the building before being apprehended by the asshole authorities.

 

“GG Over here, Over Here GG Come on lets get you the fuck outta here” yelled the group of hardcore fans desperately trying to get GG’s attention, and aid him in his escape from prosecution. Finally at last GG’s then girlfriend Liz (who was leading the group) managed to grab GG”s arm and redirect him. The problem was while the escape group comprised of die hard fans had united and caught up with their quarry still had no real plan for escape. The motley crew of super fans circled around GG and were aimlessly migrating through the crowd towards the stage at the back of the room (being the farthest point away from increasing police presence). Once they reached the stage GG pushed and shoved his way over to his brother Merle who was still standing on the right stage smoking a cigarette. Mike and I figured GG and his Mega Fans were experts at exactly this, and being we too wanted to bail the fuck out for the identical reason figured it be wisest to follow them. We managed to make our way through the small sea of human bumper cars to the back of the room by the left side of the stage.

By now the the fight the power fans  were locked in full on combat with the cops. Swearing at cops had turned into swinging on the cops. Beer bottles were being pelted at the police along with anything else that wasn’t bolted down. The police retaliated with excessive amount of mace and then upped the ante by taking their tazers out. As the first few fans were rendered enabled by the first wave of tazings the crowd got crazier. Fans were using chair legs and other various debris to club the cops like police piñatas. Some fans were flailing all over like snakes having seizures as the police used zip ties to restrain them. Others were continuing the chaotic carnage by battling the police, and others already detained and restrained were being led out of the show in a single file line. A security guard of the Owner had been leveled to the ground and was being mercilessly kicked and stomped by a growing gang of blood thirsty violent minded fans. The building noise was reaching a deafening level as all hell and high water had laid complete waste to any as resemblance of a concert.

Mike and I while following GG and his escape artist hardcore fans we had become stuck up against the left side of the stage. We could no longer move having been blocked in by a number of other concert goers who launched into a fan on fan full out fist fight. At this moment I looked over at Mike who shot his gaze up to the actual stage and I instantly knew what he meant. Mike hoisted himself up onto the stage accidentally bumping into the then guitarist for The Murder Junkies William Weber. Mike then helped me as clambered up on stage. The members of The Murder Junkies barely batted an eyelash at us as if to let us know they could care less who the hell we were. We weaved around behind the drum kit and the drummer Dino The Naked Drummer who was vacantly staring off into space or some shit. Once we had achieved moving across the stage Mike grabbed my arm. I asked him what the fuck could he possibly want, and thats when Mike directed my attention to behind the curtain hanging behind Dino. It was hiding the back wall where there to our enormous luck there was loading dock door. Its one of those street level doors you see walking down the street that opens from the basement of the building, and onto the street for receiving deliveries and such. This was the chink in the aggressive storm of utter anarchy that would be our escape to the freedom on the street. Just then Mike did something that surprised the shit out of me and then some. Mike fought his way over to the front right of the stage and blurted out,

“GG! GG! We can get you out right fucking now, COME ON!!”

READERS: Stay tuned For The Final Installment Of This 4 Part Piece.                       I Was A Teenage Murder Junkie pt. 4: The Salvation of the Street                 COMING SOON DATE TBD