by Dave Hanthorn
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| THE VOICE OF REASON by Dave Hanthorn |
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| I love punk rock. I really truly love everything about it. (If you need further introduction to TRUE punk, read the first edition of the Voice Of Reason.) It's not just the music itself, it's also what the music stands for, which is hardheaded nonconformist views. You won't find any real punk in the top forty, which is great. Speaking of that pleasant bunch, I recently read how Christina Aguilera did not want to go on a three month tour because her shows weren't selling out, they were only at a sixty to eighty-five percent fill rate. I keep reading in magazines, and seeing on TV, and hearing on the radio, et cetera, about these supposed "punk" bands getting ultra-cushy tourbusses, fancy cars, big houses, and the like while putting on subpar performances, and complaining that their riders are not met, and refusing to play until they do, and so on. It makes me fucking sick to hear this shit. This is why I love punk. They don't care how many people are watching, they don't care the conditions they play in, they don't care what goes on before the show. They get up there, play their fucking balls off, kick in some people's teeth, and everyone goes home happy. No matter what happens, they get the job done. Case in point: November 20, 1982. This huge show was going down in Camden, NJ (just a half hour north of where I live) featuring Agnostic Front, SS Decontrol, Minor Threat, and several other hardcore punk bands. One hour before the doors opened for this show, an oncoming car careened into SS Decontrol's van (which was parked), and injured Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat, who was standing next to it. He was rushed to the hospital, treated for a concussion, a broken foot, and other relatively minor injuries, but he made it to the show and put on an incredible show, with a huge lump on the back of his head, and blood oozing out of it every so often. He even managed to diffuse a rather hostile situation in the crowd. Speaking of the crowd, despite this being a rather huge event, the crowd was small, about 300 people or so. About 45 minutes on stage, screaming at the top of his lungs, having people smash into him the whole time, all with a concussion? That's fucking ballsy, that's fucking incredible, that's fucking punk. Can you imagine what would happen if one of the poser pop-punks from Simple Plan or something had the same thing happen to him? He would haved stayed in the hospital for a week, with constant updates from MTV News, have the rest of his arena-rock tourdates called off, and would have put on an even worse show because his head hurt. So, you compare Mariah Carey's time in the hospital for "exhaustion" and Henry Rollins' time in the hospital because he punched a guy in the face and broke his hand, and you tell me who deserves to be at the top. You tell me how you condone that people who do half-hearted work, that milk every little obstacle that gets in their way, and who complain about their custom dressing rooms and millions of dollars, would be considered so much better than people who routinely break the mold, creating true art (not corporate bullshit), who have every possible thing happen to them and the only time they cancel concerts is because someone in the band died (e.g., D. Boon of the almighty Minutemen), and people who work their asses off, no matter how many people are there to watch them, no matter what happened before the show, no matter what time they are playing, etc. You tell me that, and I can tell you why America is in the toilet. 5/09/04 | ||||||
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