It was one of my first punk rock shows out of town. I was 19 and a half at the time. We were playing alongside our partners in grime, the Rain City Schwillers. Our destination: Bellingham, Washington. A small college town, just south of the Canadian border. The bar in which we were set to rock, was called the Rogue Hero. Silly name for a bar if you ask me. The Reverend Pope, drummer for the Schwillers, had arranged for a friend of his to drive us the two hours from North Seattle to Bellingham on his bus, which he occasionally lived in with his wife at the time.
Morale was high when we left Seattle. Joseph and our former drummer Barry were having some sort of contest with each other: to see who could spew out the most grotesque, derogatory comments about women the fastest. It was a close match. Aside from Joseph, Seth, Barry and I, there were several others along for the ride. The Rain City Schwillers which included the Rev. Pope, guitarists HaHa and Johnny Heartbreaker, as well as bassist Andy aka “Mic Jameson.” The Schwillers brought along several of their friends to share in the festivities. Joining us from our crew was our faithful Jew roadie Devon. Devon brought along his good friend from Kentucky. He went by the name of cheap whiskey (I can’t even remember what kind, just that it tasted awful, even for whiskey!).
One thing I should probably mention, is that in Washington state at least, it is perfectly legal to drink alcohol in a privately owned bus, as long as you don’t get too close to the front seat with your booze.(The booze bus!) So you had 2 of Seattle’s most alcoholic bands along with their comrades in an enclosed space, with 3 fifths of liquor and a seemingly endless supply of beer. And we were on our way to a bar!!! Needless to say, it was a very interesting night.
Now to be fair, not everyone of the bus got completely shit-faced drunk. Just two key people who happened to be in The Them. Jimmy Hall and Joseph Christ. Everyone else apparently had the foresight to pace themselves with the alcohol, but not me. Not Joseph. I started taking shots of whiskey and chasing them with Pabst Blue Ribbon almost immediately after we left Seattle. I wasn’t really watching Joseph so much, but his jokes kept getting dirtier and dirtier, and his voice kept getting louder and louder. Starting to slur too. The Schwillers, who looked as if they were enjoying everything at the beginning of the trip began to look a little apprehensive. The looks on their faces said: “Ok, seriously? Are you guys done yet?” But of course we weren’t done.
By the time we reach the club, I’m ripped, not blacked out drunk or anything like that, but by no means in any position to do anything that requires hand eye coordination. Like playing guitar. Or walking in a straight line. As the time to kick off our set drew closer, I began to get nervous, and how do I deal with nervousness and stress? Drink some water and noodle around on my guitar? Nah, not really my style that night. Instead, I continued to drink and smoke pot. By the time I actually started warming up, my hands felt as if they were made of rubber, clumsily moving up and down the fret board of my guitar.
While I’m hanging out in the bus by myself (because I’m underage at the time) Joseph comes in and joins me for yet another drink. His eyes are already as red as a fire truck, but what the hell, it’s a plush road gig right? And we’re rock stars, right? We assure each other that we’re both cool to play, and that its going to be a great show, when Joseph breaks a glass he happens to be drinking vodka from. Joseph thinks nothing of it, and continues to be belligerent. It’s only after I explain to him that we’re guests in some guys bus, and that the guy is nice enough to drive us, so maybe we shouldn’t leave a heap of broken glass strewn about his bus. Then he gets it and starts to help pick up the glass. He promptly informs our bus driver/host for the evening, that his wife happens to be the kind of woman that Joseph is attracted to. Oh Joseph, have you no shame?
The stage at Rogue hero was tiny, leaving only enough room for the drums and our amplifiers. Joseph begins by setting at least 15 open water bottles on the floor, next to the stage right beside him. I figured he must be dehydrated somewhat from all the booze, but come on. By this time, a sizeable crowd has assembled at the bar. It’s a Friday night, and the place is packed with potential fans.
Now begins one of the most shambolic performances in my, as well as the whole bands short career. Aside from being sloppy drunk….Well, there is no aside from being sloppy, shit faced drunk…Bad things usually happen when you reach the drunken stupor that half of our band succumbed to. At this point my memory gets a little hazy, but I’ll point out the highlights, or “lowlights” if you will.
Because I am so full of liquid courage, I think I’m going to compensate by giving a blistering performance; one with intense energy to make up for my lack of musical precision. That might have happened, had I not pulled my cord out from my amp. Now I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, so what, a guitarist pulls out his cord from his amp, what’s the big deal? Worse things have happened.” You’re probably right, but I pulled my cord out from my amplifier at least 7-15 times that night. One moment I would have full tone, then all of the sudden, absolutely nothing. And it would take at least 30 seconds to plug my cord back in and find the groove of the song again. When you consider half of our songs are only a minute and a half long, you begin to realize the severity of the situation. So imagine me, drunken and sweaty, with my metal face on in all my youthful glory. I take a few steps and BAM…No sound. ALL fucking night. And our set was just beginning…
So while I am repeatedly struggling to keep my cord in my amp, Joseph knocks over every single open bottle of water he so carefully placed in front of the stage. So not only are we drunk, the fucking floors are slippery! The set is not going so well at this point and people are beginning to walk outside to smoke, anything to escape the drunken excuse for a rock and roll band that is onstage. Joseph decides he’s going to fire up the crowd
(or make himself feel taller) by standing on a pool table and smashing a beer bottle on the ground. The Rogue hero staff does not like this one bit. They place one of the bouncers in front of the pool table for the duration of our set, just so Joseph will be discouraged to jump up on it again.
When that fails to rev up the crowd, Joseph then decides to pick up a small nearby trash can, and dump the contents on our formidable bassist, Sethalicious. To no avail. The crowd is not moved by the sight of Joseph dumping half eaten chicken wings and barbeque sauce on Seth.
Always the pessimistic realist, sensible Seth was begging Joseph to cut the set short that night, the damage had been done. He should have known better than to argue with a stubborn drunk. We continued playing our songs through the very end of our scheduled set, which was probably forty five minutes at the time. I don’t even want to imagine what that must have sounded like. I cringe when I start to think back to that night. They must not have even been decipherable as actual songs! Maybe it’s a good thing I can’t remember most of it…
To top it all off, during one of our slower numbers, “Demon Dance,” Joseph decided to strangle Seth with his microphone cord during one of the songs more complicated bass lines. Strangled him. With the FUCKING MIC CORD! The only thing I could ask myself later was, “how did he think that would make it a better show? How could that improve the quality of anything?” With that, Joseph slipped and fell flat on his back from the water that he himself spilled onto the floor, and our set was finally over.
Somebody who was filming both bands sets that night came over to us after we were done and explained that she stopped filming after our third song or so. We were that incoherent. In the parking lot, after we unloaded our stuff, Joseph was near hysterics.
“We sucked!” he yelled. Kicking the plastic Virgin Mary statue that we used to include as part of our stage props as he shouted. His speech dissolved into nothing but slurs and angry muttering, as he stormed off to be by himself. Seth just shook his head and smiled the way a loving wife does when her husband is being irrational, and she knows that any effort to calm him down would be futile.
Joseph is off trying to convince the promoter to let back into the Rogue hero, from which he was just barred. Barry our drummer took in a huff back to Seattle, opting not to stay the night in Bellingham with his then band mates and friends. They eventually let Joseph back into the bar, provided he sweep and mop up the mess he made.
Then came the only high point of the evening. Musically that is. The Rain City Schwillers probably played a typical frenzied set that won back what was remaining of the crowd. I say probably because none of us were present for the Schwillers performance. Seth and I were too busy dealing with drunken Joseph, who was busy kicking plastic statues of the Virgin Mary and trying to get un-banned from the club. So if any of the former Schwillers are reading this, thank guys!
The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful. After we packed all our gear back on the bus, The Them and The Rain City Schwillers headed back to our bus divers place for couches and floor spaces to crash on. I fell asleep on the bus and woke up next to the Jew. I heard Joseph drank a shitload of absinth and spent the rest of the night talking to a dog.
\ The next morning we all had breakfast at one of the greasy local diners. Everyone was red eyed and hung over. Me especially. I stuck to only water at the table and didn’t order anything when it was my turn, because my stomach felt queasy. Seth took the liberty of ordering a side of butter drenched hash browns on my behalf. Going against my better judgment, I ate some of the hash browns, then puked it up about 10 minutes later in bathroom of the diner. How many punk rock points do I get for that?
The mood on the ride back was a 180 degree turn from the ride up. No howling, drunken laughter, and smiling faces, but almost dead silence and hangovers for the lot of us. Gradually, the mood lifted, with Pope sharing an amusing anecdote about the time he went down on a chick and she miscarried on him. By the time we made it back to Seattle, most of us felt like somewhat normal humans again. Or as close to normal as people like us can feel.
We can look back on that show now and laugh, but it took awhile to get to that point. Every once and awhile, we’ll still run into someone who was at that show, or heard about that show. They are usually amazed that we’re still a band that makes music. They’re usually amazed we’re still alive. Sometimes I’m amazed.
