The Termination of CM Punk by The Coward Tony Khan

[Johnny Sorrow]

1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

Dude City Gardens is legendary, even had its own documentary made about it. A concrete bunker practically made for hardcore shows. Jon Stewart used to bartend there! And take in mind, Ramones in '89 had nearly outsped the bands that were current, they had cranked the live tempo up to minutes faster of a full set. You experienced quite something there.

It was awesome. I hate being smashed up in a crowd, so the only spot where I had enough room was all the way to the left in front of the speakers, right by the bathrooms and the door to go outside and get some of that Trenton fresh air. I had to fold my earlobes into my ears and secure them with the bandana I had around my head. Oh, and The Dickies opened, and they were a blast.

Edited September 9, 2023 by Johnny Sorrow

[Curt McGirt]

As I get older I've had a hell of a time with bigger live shows. Finding space, standing for long periods of time, balancing the drinking. My favorite ones have been at Reggies in Chicago recently because they have a balcony with a back wall of seating and actual Lay-Z-Boys up against the rail. 

EDIT: And god, I might've mentioned this before, but do yourself a favor and START WEARING EARPLUGS. I've got tinnitis and still listen to loud music all the time, though I don't play guitar barely at all anymore. I am in trouble for the rest of my life now. You'll also find that you will hear things clearer with plugs in quite honestly, even other people trying to talk to you during sets. 

Edited September 9, 2023 by Curt McGirt

[Johnny Sorrow]

That was the only time I went to City Gardens, but I heard about the place since I was in High School. My punk friends talked about it all the time. 
There's also a great doc about The Wetlands out there. Wherever this thread goes, I'm ready to tell some Wetlands stories. It was where I learned how to hang in NYC. 

[DJ Hero Morganti]

Chiming in on the music stuff.  I was a raver in my 20s so no mosh pits just a black dude and his asian friends doing DBZ glowstick dances to trance music on Xtc

[Curt McGirt]

Oh fuck yeah, I'm watching this! Thanx Johnny! 

 

[Johnny Sorrow]

11 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Oh fuck yeah, I'm watching this! Thanx Johnny! 

 

You're welcome. My favorite parts are when the staff I remember complaining about shows going on too long.

[Dog]

Y'all should go to metal shows. They're fun.

[Curt McGirt]

I'm sitting here thinking of weird or bad times at any metal show I remembered me getting bored with and leaving...

Spoiler

GWAR. Yes, GWAR. 

I'm serious. I just walked. It wasn't fun, I didn't like the music, I appreciated all their hard work and inventiveness, but I just got bored. All of you will probably be incredulous at that. 

The only other bad times have always been a result of me drinking too much and forgetting shit. Never seen any violence at metal shows either. 

Oh! Funny stagediving incidents. I was watching Metalucifer at I believe the third Classic Metal Fest. They came over from Japan, brought two German dudes (one of whom was the spitting image of Nigel Tufnel from Spinal Tap) and rocked the place. I'm up front, we're all smashing the rail on the floor to the beat, and all of the sudden something just bashes me in the head. The singer and legendary leader of both Metalucifer and the great Sabbat, Gezol, has just dove onto my head. A short Japanese dude that I was speaking to in broken English an hour ago has me forcing his body above my head to be crowd surfed. 

The other one was seeing Wolfbrigade and Pisschrist. Pisschrist were Aussies with a Singaporean (I think?) dude named Yeap on vocals. I'm standing towards the back. Dude has been stagediving the whole time and I see him take this HUGE leap, and completely wipe out my friend Lainey, who was like five foot nothing. It was like he was aiming directly at her. The other day, Al Quint from the old zine Suburban Voice posts on Facebook that he saw Yeap's new band Enzyme and I tell that story; he says Yeap was begging people to come up front so he could stagedive haha

[zendragon]

3 hours ago, Peck said:

"Who the hell are you all talking about??" - 41-year-old still in tears over the death of Jimmy Buffett

I don’t know if the Hawaiian shirt industry will ever recover from losing him and the singer from smash mouth in the same week

[Hamhock]

3 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

On a semi-punk related note, one of the best times I've ever had at a show was seeing the Rollins Band and having some dude drunkenly singing "Liar" in my face. 

This reminded me that the only time I ever went into a mosh pit was during a Rollins Band show in 1992 in Florida while they were playing “Tearing”, which was the equivalent of throwing myself into a cement mixer.

[Ace]

I went to a show 20some years ago, with Andrew WK as the semi-main act and Flogging Molly at the top of the bill. During AWK, there were moshers, but it was easy to stay out of it. During Flogging Molly, I was almost crushed in the crowd during a ballad.

 

[dokdoyle]

All this Punk Music talk and I'm the 44 year old listening to Jelly Roll and Ashley Mcbride's new album.

We all can get along being different 

[YouHaveUntil5]

I hate to go back to Rick Ta Life after he hasn’t been mentioned for a while but when my friends’ band played their first show in like 2005ish, 25 Ta Life was also on the show and Rick told them they were just as good as when he saw them at CBGB’s in the 80s. Also, there’s always this gem: 

http://www.ricktalifeonahorse.com/

Scene-wise, NEPA had a good one for a long time. Lots of good punk and hardcore stuff came out of here, like Wisdom in Chains and Strength for a Reason who are both still going today. 

[JLowe]

My first big punk/hardcore show was 1989, 7 Seconds with False Prophets at CBGB. This was the Ourselves tour so not the early hardcore 7 Seconds but still amazing. I’ve seen them probably 10 times since. I was in the pit and stage dove last year when I saw them twice, even got to sing along on stage to Young Till I Die (I think Kevin liked seeing a grizzled dude).

Going to college in racist bumfuck central PA, I missed out on a lot although when I first got there I had a friend who was into punk and he took me to some show out in the country by like a DQ with bands basically playing on a flatbed trailer. Fun just for that.

I finally got to see all my NYHC faves when I was much older thanks to reunion tours and festivals. Never could get into that 90s Victory records third tier NYHC chugga chugga preachy metalcore. I did see bands like Spazz and Los Crudos at house/warehouse shows in the 90s, those were fun and pretty calm. But I also remember going to see Face to Face at Liberty Lunch, which had a bunch of skinhead bouncers, and they let in a bunch of their friends to jump a group of rival skins which ended the show after 2 songs.

I think punk/hardcore/SxE etc. can really help save people who are lost and trying to figure out who they are, but some of them like Phil can still be troubled, unpleasant people. 

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

Yeah I too miss the old "scene", and especially the old gang. Potsie, Ralph Malph, the Fonz...

[JLowe]

2 minutes ago, GuerrillaMonsoon said:

Yeah I too miss the old "scene", and especially the old gang. Potsie, Ralph Malph, the Fonz...

Fuck Chachi though.

[zendragon]

Who was it that went up the stairs and never returned back down?

7 hours ago, Hamhock said:

This reminded me that the only time I ever went into a mosh pit was during a Rollins Band show in 1992 in Florida while they were playing “Tearing”, which was the equivalent of throwing myself into a cement mixer.

One minute your young and in the pit next minute you're hanging out near the bar being like 

[Sublime]

7 hours ago, Ace said:

I went to a show 20some years ago, with Andrew WK as the semi-main act and Flogging Molly at the top of the bill. During AWK, there were moshers, but it was easy to stay out of it. During Flogging Molly, I was almost crushed in the crowd during a ballad.

 

Flogging Molly pits are crazy. I started their set in the front and ended up in the pit and despite my best efforts I bailed by the end of the second song. Those folks were wild, I preferred to stand to the side and enjoy the music much better than feeling like I was fighting for my life.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

2 hours ago, JLowe said:

Fuck Chachi though.

Joanie wanted to 

[Lawful Metal]

12 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Ok, I got how we can keep this thread about CM Punk. Punk is the guy going to shows whose sole intention is to get into a fight.

There was always that dude in the friends group that was "Likes to Fight Guy."  No one was really friend friends with him, but he always hung around.  Lose at pickup basketball?  Wants to fight.  Guy awkwardly bumps into him?  Wants to fight.  Girl rejected him?  Fucking whore.  Really get sick of him until some other guy starts shit with you and he shows up behind you without a shirt on. 

Ideally he's a little more jacked / skilled than Punk, but yeah. 

[HumanChessgame]

16 hours ago, Greggulator said:

CM Punk gives the scene world we grew up in a really bad name. It’s because most of us grew up and became adults and took the best part of basement shows — you can make your own fun, you’ll find your tribe, etc. — with us into adulthood.

There are sadly a lot of dudes who never grew out of the scene "us against the world, fuck anyone who doesn't fit our exact mindset" stance (which is kind of hypocritical on a scene built around inclucivity but whatever). A lot of them are the people who peaked in their 20s as some kind of big name in whatever small scene they were a part of and can't let it go. A little while back the local independent paper had an article on venues that were up and running post-covid and there was a small blurb about house shows. It was something pretty simple like "a longtime staple of the punk scene, house shows are making a comeback with places like *insert names of a few places here* regularly hosting shows". Some guy makes a rant on FB about how "the scene doesn't need any promotion by any media outlet and if you don't know where house shows are then you don't need to know!" or something along those lines. Just a complete overreaction to a pretty innocuous comment.

[(BP)]

There were points when I was younger where I struggled every day to go to jobs I hated around people I despised, and I’m not ashamed to admit Punk’s work ethic and grit were something I aspired to, and it helped keep me going. To find out that he absolutely would’ve imploded doing my job for a single day is disappointing.

It’s like how I’ve been lifting for eleven years because when I started I wanted to be in Tom Hardy as Bane shape. Then recently he admitted he just worked shoulders and dirty bulked, and he actually looked and felt like shit. 

There’s a moral about self determination and being your own hero, but I guess my biggest takeaway is I’m better than Punk and Tom Hardy? 

[Curt McGirt]

6 hours ago, JLowe said:

Spazz and Los Crudos

Forgot to mention I stepped out on frickin' Kreator of all bands when they played with Mercyful Fate this year because they played the intro to "Awakening of the Gods" as a fake-out, going right into some crappy newer song. Assheads. 

[Brandon Bones]

I have to say I have a much higher appreciation for the crew of folks who post here with this talk.  
 

As a scene weenie most of my buddies were sXe but they didn’t give a shit that I was a stoner wastoid.  Think the guy trying to light his cigarette during the fight in Dazed and Confused.  That was me with my glass bowl in the pit.
 

They didn’t last at it anyway.  Nor was I the bad influence either.  Cuz some of my dudes got way into drinking, coke, and the big H.  That shit ain’t me.  But it was almost like they were just holding back and burst at the seems.

Being in the northeast in Merrimack Valley as a Masshole.  I didn’t really see too many skinheads and when I did they weren’t up to anything.  I have had some encounters since then that weren’t great.  But whatever, I got lucky I’d say.

Earth Crisis was something of a punching bag in our set.  We thought they were hilarious on “Firestorm” letting the “round ups begin” and all that wannabe Nazi horseshit.

But then again.  10 Yard Fight took the most brutal beatings in mockery with all their football metaphors for life and sXe.

We always wanted to do a parody band that was basketball themed call “Full Court Press”.

”You double dribbled over the edge!”

”You lost my TRUST… GO!”

[Curt McGirt]

This is sad and I hate to say it, but I thought about it earlier: this thread would be even greater if Dean were here with his show stories. Woof.