The Loudest Band I Ever Saw
Posted on June 22, 2009
Filed Under Guitar, Terrorism, Creativity, Music, Advice, Art | Leave a Comment
Up until the night in question, I had seen many, many, really, really loud rock ‘n’ roll acts: The Sex Pistols, Patti Smith,The New York Dolls, The Dead Boys, The Rolling Stones, etc. So, I knew loud, and I loved loud. Or thought I knew and loved loud, until I saw…The Plasmatics, with Wendy O. Williams.
They were playing at Bookie’s, a small club I used to hang out at in Detroit, and they had been all over the newspapers. A few days before, Wendy had gotten arrested for some kind of obscene behavior onstage, with a microphone.
The Plasmatics were the most notorious act in the land at that time, and I was eager to check ‘em out.So, I went down the club with my girlfriend at the time, Maria. Maria was a total rock ‘n’ roll babe, an utter rock ‘n’ roll bomb pop! She loved a good show, so she was pretty stoked to see them too.When we got there, the place was so packed; I could hardly believe it.They had removed all the seats from the club so they could squeeze in more people, and everybody was just squished in together on top of each other.
So, I was squished up against the front of Maria, which was very nice, and we kind of squeezed our way past a few people while the warm-ups were playing, so by the time it got to the headline show we were in about the middle of the club.By this time, a lot of babes were riding on their boyfriend’s shoulders, so they could see a little over the crowd. The place was really crowded, the stage was really low, and it was really hard to see.
In the middle of the club, there was a partition. This is what remained in the club after they took out the banquet seats and tables, in their desperation to shove in more paying customers, and this partition had been a part of the banquet seats. It was covered in ugly red vinyl.
Maria and I got over next to it, and I had just climbed up and sat on top of it, to try to get a view, when the band came on stage. I hadn’t had a chance to boost Maria up on to the partition yet, so she was still standing holding onto my sleeve, ready to be pulled up, when the band came out.Now this band was just the craziest outfit.
I had seen lots of out-there, over-the-top acts over the years. Wayne County, the first transexual to make a name in rock music was pretty wild, and Skafish, an extremely effete singer from Chicago was pretty out-there too. But The Plasmatics were just the total cheese in wild-looking, crazed rocker thugs. They were utterly nasty, pissed-off, surly fucks, with shitty, angry, humorless attitudes.Which was totally undone by the preposterous way they dressed.
For one thing, the bass player was just this enormous mountain of a black guy. Huge front-linesman type material: like 6′ 5″ and about 280-300 pounds. I kid you not; he was a very substantial, mean-lookin’, scowlin’, angry-lookin’ BIG DUDE. Think Mister T, but without the underlying benevolence and humor. Menacing, scowling, enormous black guy, in a very crowded, hot, sticky, cheap, mainly white bar…in a bad part of Detroit.This is the man…the threatening figure of American Urban Drama…plunked down and pissed off in the middle of a huge crowd of hairdressers, artists, fairies, junkies, and other white derelicts…whose threat is completely mediated by his stupid clothes.He was completely outfitted in a pristine, old-fashioned, ironed and pressed, white nurse’s uniform! With the ugly white shoes and the little goofy cap, and the white nylons and the whole deal. A white nurse’s uniform! This huge guy was in this dainty little Miss Priss outfit.And he also had a perfectly lovely little green Mohawk hairdo sticking out the back of his cap! And one big, sparkling earring!
The guitar player was just the skinniest, scrawniest, pastiest-faced, sallow, pale, white guy I’d ever seen. He just looked sick and starving. He made Ron Wood (who gets skinnier and skinnier every tour! The Stones don’t have to worry about getting old; they have to worry about Woody just disappearing.) look like the picture of robust manly health. This guy was just utterly pitiful and anemic in appearance. And he’s wearing a nurse’s uniform!
And his legs were just these pale, slender sticks that hung out beneath the skirt and went into the top of his shoes. And the nylons he was wearing just sort of bunched and hung there, because he was so skinny the stockings wouldn’t fit right. He was just this utterly grotesque sickly looking guy; it didn’t seem like he’d be able to lift his guitar, let alone play anything.So, these guys are walking onto the stage, and I saw them over the crowd and started cracking up. I just thought they were hilarious.
Now, Maria is right next to me, but she’s still down in the crowd; she hasn’t gotten up onto the partition yet, and she can’t see anything over the people in front of her.So, she tugged on my sleeve, and I turned to look at her…and just then the band started to play and oooooooommmmmmiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggoooooooddddd weretheyloud!! I’m looking Maria square in the face, and she starts to say something…and just at that exact moment the band starts!
Did you ever get hit a cheap shot playing football or something? You don’t even see it coming, and you just get smashed onto your ass, and the half of your body that gets hit hurts like hell, and the other half of your body that gets smashed into the ground hurts like hell, and you’re so surprised, you don’t know what to do?And you kind of stagger a bit trying to figure out what happened, and if you need to do anything about what happened?A moment ago everything seemed normal and right, but now everything is horribly wrong?
At that exact portion of a moment, when that band started to play, everyone in the place suddenly got that horrible, confused, blind-sided feeling! I was looking Maria square in the face at that exact portion of a moment, and her face went from this wonderful, beautiful, smiling bit of loveliness into this confused look of repulsion, confusion, and nausea!
You know how when a show starts in a crowded place, there’s a sudden surge toward the stage? Everyone stops talking and looking at each other, and turns toward the stage, and everybody scoots up a little to get a better look? Everyone takes a half step forward?Well, when The Plasmatics started to play everyone took a half step back.And then they backed up some more. Everyone instinctively backed up slightly to get away from the menace of that enormous, powerful sound.
Maria, at that moment, was about to say something to me. But, that was pointless now, of course. She cupped her hands around her mouth, and was yelling–with great exertion and effort!–toward me.But, that was equally pointless too.
She was instantly reduced to trying to mime to me the universal expression for “Jesus Christ! Are these guys ever loud! Do you think we’ll be OK?”That suddenly, obviously became a huge concern: “Will we be OK?” People in the crowd were all suddenly looking at each other, visibly concerned, and somewhat confused. “Will we be OK?”"This is such a powerful, overwhelming sensation. Will we be OK?”
It was so loud; all these punks and hipsters were actually concerned for their safety!Well, I quickly got down off of the partition, and deliberately got back into the crowd, just so I would have something…anything in front of me to absorb the force of the attack.I immediately realized I wouldn’t be able to take it without some kind of cushion, some kind of shield.I got down, and stood next to Maria.
She now cupped her hands around her mouth, AND around my ear, and tried to scream to me. But I could hear nothing! It was like she was playing some kind of mime gag. But she was trying to scream in my ear. And I would just look at her and shrug? Because I couldn’t tell what she was trying to scream.
After she tried this, with no success, several times, we both looked at each other and pretended to laugh.It was so strange. Here we were, two normal, healthy people. Standing right next to each other. And we couldn’t communicate verbally at all!
And as the band continued “playing,” (who could tell? the sound was just so overwhelming and undistinguished and blended together? You could see that Wendy O. was standing on stage, apparently screaming into the microphone, but no one could distinguish what, if anything, she was adding to the sound.), people continued to back away from the stage, and shot worried looks at each other.
And a few people started to leave, then more people were leaving, then a lot of people were gone. They left because the band was so loud. Now, this wasn’t like Guns n Roses playing at a PTA meeting, or something. This was a very hardcore punk club in a nasty neighborhood in Detroit.
And even the flintiest heart of the hard core was leaving–because the Plasmatics were so loud.It was incredible.Pretty soon, there were no people in front of Maria and me. What had been a mass of dozens of people between us and the stage quickly thinned out to a mere handful of people, who were looking around, wondering if they should back off, too.
But, the band had quite a presence. Wendy O. was really animated, dancing around, trying so hard to sell each and every song with everything she had. The two nurses were such freaks. They were interesting to just look at. Like zoo creatures, they were so outside the ordinary daily experience of human existence, the only appropriate reaction was to stare.
And they had an act, and they were going ahead with it, and just act like this was a normal part of the show…that a lot of people would leave, after having paid, and waited, and waited. A lot would leave because they were so loud.
And now I had a good view, and I knew I’d never see anything like this again, so I struggled on watching the band.Maria went to the bar, but there was no way to order a drink. She came back, and we sort of decided, with hand gestures, and shrugs, to watch a little more, because it looked like it was going to get outrageous.There was a stack of TVs on the stage. They were all on, tuned to the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. And Wendy kept making threatening kicks at them.
At one point, I turned and looked at Maria, and we shrugged about something or another, and when I turned and looked back at the stage one of the TVs was gone.The big one at the top of the stack was gone. For a moment, I wondered what happened…and then I saw that there were pieces of it lying around, and a guy up in front of the stage was picking up part of the thing. And there was a bunch of smoky dust. Wendy had kicked in a TV set! The thing had blown up! Parts were all over the place!But I hadn’t heard anything like an explosion…I soon realized that although the TV blew up, I couldn’t hear that over the band.
Soon, the skinny guy came out with a chainsaw. It was big. He seemed to have trouble starting it. Wendy went offstage for a few moments and brought out several armfuls of cheap guitars. She stacked them in the middle of the stage.
The chainsaw seemed funny, because it didn’t seem like the little shrimp could start it.It looked like a toy, and he kept waving it around, and it just seemed silly. Then Wendy kind of stepped back and held out her arms like Vanna White, like “Ta Dah!” at the stack of guitars.And the shrimp in the nurse uniform has this toy chainsaw, and he waves it at the stack of cheap guitars, which suddenly start falling apart.It was so puzzling. “What’s with the guitars? Why are they falling apart like that? The shrimp looks like such an idiot with that toy chainsaw…”
And then it hit me: it was a totally real chainsaw, really sawing at this stack of guitars, but I couldn’t hear it over the band! The band was so loud, that a chainsaw (!!) cutting through guitars could not be heard over the band!It was like watching a silent movie. I kept seeing things that didn’t seem real, because the “sound” part of the picture was completely drowned out by that ferocious noise coming from the stage!
That was what it was like to see The Plasmatics.
Comments on the problems in Detroit
Posted on April 3, 2009
Filed Under Responsibility, I don't get how, Terrorism, Money, Children, Advice, Creativity, Design | Leave a Comment
A friend of mine thinks the problem with Detroit cars is styling. I think the problems go deeper than that:
- I don’t think building attractive cars, and making money in the car business are the same thing. Toyota makes stylishly awkward cars, and they’re top of the heap. Honda’s styling is not great anymore, but they seem to do well.
- I think a lot of the problems with GM have to do with their enormous cost structure and spread of brands. Toyota and Honda do quite well with one model in each class. Following that idea probably makes a lot of sense. Make one two-seater sports car, one two door, one hatchback, one sedan, one van, one small SUV, and then a line of trucks, etc. But that would mean eliminating a lot of dealers and brands, and that would mean becoming even more unpopular in the marketplace.
- Reputation and customer loyalty seem to be king now. It takes a long time to build up. Toyota, Honda, Mercedes and BMW have it. Mercedes couldn’t “give” their reputation to Chrysler–which shows that it’s a hard task. GM had that reputation, but squandered it over many, many years. Is it possible to get rid of a bad reputation? I don’t know. (Ask a slutty girl if getting married saved her reputation.)
- So, I don’t think coming out with a magical stylish model or two is going to cure Detroit’s ills. Or a good ad campaign. It’s going to take real work right down the line: engineering for durability and quality, manufacturing excellence, better dealers and salespeople that don’t seem like hucksters, better service and maintenance, being nice to customers and not treating them like numbers.
- Pretty much everybody I know dreads the experience of buying a car. You feel like you’re getting fleeced and pressured every second. The first outfit that makes buying a car as nice as shopping at Neiman Marcus is going to be a big winner. I’ll tell you something about business: I get treated a lot nicer going to a nice department store and spending $100 on a sweater, or $50 on cologne for my wife, than I ever get treated spending $800 on service at any car dealership!! Or spending $30,000 on a car!!
St. Patrick’s Day and the Crap Music Association
Posted on March 17, 2009
Filed Under Responsibility, Justice, Terrorism, Happiness, Career, Advice, Creativity, Art | Leave a Comment
As long as you can manage to pretend you’re Irish without playing a fucking accordion, or a fife, or a fucking mandolin, dulcimer, out-of-tune fiddle, squeezebox, or any of that other useless Irish “Music” bullshit, you’re OK with me.
But once you start to make an ignorant, out-of-tune racket, and end each fucking lyric with “HEY!” I’ll have to fucking throttle you and your children, and throw your shit in the river!
Have we got this clear??
OK. Let’s say you die…
Posted on February 22, 2009
Filed Under Terrorism, Justice, Be Nice, Happiness, Creativity | Leave a Comment
and the newspapers use this picture of you to run with your obit:
Lux Interior is dead! What do I do now?
Posted on February 5, 2009
Filed Under Happiness, Justice, Terrorism, Guitar, Creativity, Advice, Music, Art | Leave a Comment
Look at these Bastards!
Posted on January 6, 2009
Filed Under Money, Responsibility, Justice, Be Nice, Career, Design, Advice, Any | 1 Comment
Can you believe the nerve of some people?
National Association located in Denver Tech Center is seeking a full time front end and back end IT developer and graphic designer with minimum of three years experience. Monday-Friday 8:30-5:30pm. Candidate must have networking skills including setting up and maintaining a server for web hosting. Must be able to design and maintain database functioning as a back end for a Web Portal. This individual will design, develop, and be able to install and administer database software and web-based applications. Must be proficient in MYSQL, PHP, Java, Dreamweaver, Photoshop,illustrator, InDesign, HTML and CSS. 30K per year plus bonus. High growth opportunity. Email resume to itjobs54@yahoo.com
- Location: Denver, CO
- Compensation: 30K per year plus bonus
- Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
- Please, no phone calls about this job!
- Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
Translation:
“OK. Here’s the deal: we want you completely qualified to take care of three full-time jobs. We’ll work you all the hours we’d normally require of two people. We’ll only pay you for half of one job, but since we’re anticipating a lot of growth, your responsibilities could increase over time. Doesn’t this sound great?”
Rules around the office
Posted on December 19, 2008
Filed Under Be Nice, Money, Responsibility, Justice, Career, Golf, Design, Advice, Creativity, Any | Leave a Comment
1) I’m in charge
2) No shit in the fridge
3) Tell ‘em I’m not here
4) Not until we get the money
5) Shut up or we’ll make the logo even smaller
6) That’s a great idea, pretend I thought of it
7) I told you to stop stealing my ideas
9a) There’s a set of steak knives in this for you
9) There’s a new Mercedes in this for me
10) We’ll make you wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice
Advice on Happiness
Posted on November 6, 2008
Filed Under Terrorism, Children, Happiness, Career, Advice | Leave a Comment
Happiness is one of those things, like Death, or your Significance in The Big Scheme of Things in This Universe, which, if you think about it too much, will drive you completely crazy.In fact, thinking about whether you are happy or not is probably a symptom of not having your amp turned up enough.
Design Jobs
Posted on October 31, 2008
Filed Under Happiness, Money, Career, Creativity, Design, Advice, Art | Leave a Comment
A friend says, “Let’s be serious here: you’re not at a design job to learn how to design. You’re at a design job to learn how a shop gets design work, i.e. clients. Once you learn how to get clients, quit. Then go get your own.” Is this really true, or just an exceptionally cynical take on the business?
Rules for writing your biography
Posted on October 21, 2008
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1) Table of contents should fit on one page. No need to puff things up.
2) Each wife should get her own chapter.
3) Be sure to spell the names of all the jurors correctly.
4) Never explain what you were doing in Montevideo.
5) Put the really scandalous stuff in the footnotes.