One More Song
Dec. 17th, 2007 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonStar Bar. Friday. The kick off night for the Tenth Annual United States Marine Corps Toys For Tots Benefit Weekend.
It's been a brutal show so far. The last two songs - "I ain't no pretty boy" and "Kill Yourself, We'll Both Feel Better(which is kinda Christmas-y in a 'It's A Wonderful Life' sorta way) - have kicked my ass and taken my name as well!
I'm not a young man anymore. I'm in no condition for a pit. Years of nicotine, bourbon, thc and junk food have reduced me to living off back up energy. The cardio's gone punch drunk, throwing wild jabs up against the ribcage, working speed drills into my chest turned punching bag. The lungs fight to drag down quick shallow pulls of air that do little more than singe the lining of my esophagus. All I get is a rattling cough for the effort. I'm sticky with sweat - cotton and denim soak into the flesh so I can't feel where one begins and the other ends. I'm doubled over, hands over thighs and craning my neck around the bar to make sure no ones gonna sucker punch my sorry ass between songs. I don't need much... just a minute to catch my breath, s'all ... a few hits off a Camel... a swallow of Jack to wash the bile down. Shit, not even a minute and i'll be good to go!
But the band has no intention of giving me that minute.
"Alright lissen up, we're gonna do one more song for ya... but i'm warning you right now... it's gonna be BRUTAL!!!!" the lead singer, Rot Knee, growls the words out with all the charged menace of a church service sermon on Hellfire being delivered by a pitt-bull geeked out on cheap whiskey and "Trucker Pills".
Punk Rock Dave (who makes the cats in Poison Idea look positively skeletal) and "Mike Ness lookalike" Matt Matson lay down the most familar opening chords in all of Metaldom - the drag-race bassline of MotorHead's Ace of Spades!
Instinct loves me. It really does, but tells me to run far too late.
Out of the Black & Blue this brick shithouse of a skinhead comes pushing through the crowd, vice grips my neck in a good natured headlock and bellows out with his hillbilly twang -"Alright Brother, we're goin' in!!!"
I throw my arm over his shoulder- then next thing I know the two of us are spinning around in a whilwind of kicking boots and flailing arms into the crowd - into the pit - into anyone dumb enough to get in the way...
If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man
You win some, lose some, it's -all- the same to me
The pleasure is to play, it makes no difference what you say
I don't share your greed, the only card I need is
The Ace Of Spades
The Ace Of Spades
I'm taking linebacker shots to the spine and stomps to the shins off other old schoolers. Everything spinning - crowd-band-ceiling-wall-crowd-bar-smiling face-crowd-band-wa...OH-SHIT-FIST!!!
Playing for the high one, dancing with the devil,
Going with the flow, it's all a game to me,
Seven or Eleven, snake eyes watching you,
Double up or quit, double stake or split,
The Ace Of Spades
The Ace Of Spades
I break free from the head lock and go spiraling backwards, tumbling back down, the band view swings into the barrels of the lighting system and before I finish the drop a series of disembodied hands snatch me up under my arms and throw me back in...
You know I'm born to lose, and gambling's for fools,
But that's the way I like it baby,
I don't wanna live for ever...
...and don't forget the joker!
This is no longer music! This a live firefight with machine gun nests manned by the drummer while the guitarists play Air-Calv with a napalm guitar solos as Field-General Rot Knee channels the Ghost Of Lemmy Past in an electrified aggro-seance! I'm ricochetting off elbows and shoulders, finally I side-step stumble, grab a shirt collar and swing the body as a shield into some especially gung-ho Mohican. Someone goes to push me back in but I take them by the wrists, 'dosey-d'oh' them around and swing them back into the crowd to take my place.
I can't hear anything but a steady busy tone in my ears.
I push through the tribal inked rockabilly vets and their feather blonde Buckhead Betty's slumming for tattooed Strange. I find my drink untouched at the corner of the bar and inhale it with three gulps. I find my buddys drink as well and slam that down next. The Makers & Jack mix comes up in a belch that fireballs in the air just like in the cartoons. I wipe the taste off my lips with a swipe of my wrist and light up two smokes - like Nicholas Cage in Wild At Heart!
I scan the crowd, the whole damn bar in one sweep. Over at the door, manning the big drum of donated toys, there's a Jarhead standing at Parade Rest in his Dress Blues. A baby faced black kid, stoically taking in the bushy bearded skins, porcupine headed punks, the occasional hair farmer or two decked out in their Turbojugend patched denims, the Sailor Jerry girls that have magically come to life off of a pair of tattooed arms and all the other stray drunks flailing, charging, stumbling, tripping, punching, pushing around to the last chords of the song.
Finally it's all over and a wave of applause rise out of the crowd and slam into the band, already dismounting guitars and guzzling back beer!
That's when I catch it - young Marine Machine gives this little shake of his head and a 'I-Can't-Believe-this-Shit-is-Happening' smile. I give him a quick toast with the last dregs of my buddies drink. From my angle the framed photograph of a young Johnny Cash giving the world the finger salutes me back for him.
Well, best catch my breath... that was just the opening band and you best believe that an all Santa Clause punk band doing Jingle Bell punk covers fronted by Big Jim Stacey (who looks more like a cross between Conway Twitty and the Wolfman from those old Furniture Gallery commercials) is going to finish off whatever the Despised coudn't put down.
Sounds like i'll need another round.
It's been a brutal show so far. The last two songs - "I ain't no pretty boy" and "Kill Yourself, We'll Both Feel Better(which is kinda Christmas-y in a 'It's A Wonderful Life' sorta way) - have kicked my ass and taken my name as well!
I'm not a young man anymore. I'm in no condition for a pit. Years of nicotine, bourbon, thc and junk food have reduced me to living off back up energy. The cardio's gone punch drunk, throwing wild jabs up against the ribcage, working speed drills into my chest turned punching bag. The lungs fight to drag down quick shallow pulls of air that do little more than singe the lining of my esophagus. All I get is a rattling cough for the effort. I'm sticky with sweat - cotton and denim soak into the flesh so I can't feel where one begins and the other ends. I'm doubled over, hands over thighs and craning my neck around the bar to make sure no ones gonna sucker punch my sorry ass between songs. I don't need much... just a minute to catch my breath, s'all ... a few hits off a Camel... a swallow of Jack to wash the bile down. Shit, not even a minute and i'll be good to go!
But the band has no intention of giving me that minute.
"Alright lissen up, we're gonna do one more song for ya... but i'm warning you right now... it's gonna be BRUTAL!!!!" the lead singer, Rot Knee, growls the words out with all the charged menace of a church service sermon on Hellfire being delivered by a pitt-bull geeked out on cheap whiskey and "Trucker Pills".
Punk Rock Dave (who makes the cats in Poison Idea look positively skeletal) and "Mike Ness lookalike" Matt Matson lay down the most familar opening chords in all of Metaldom - the drag-race bassline of MotorHead's Ace of Spades!
Instinct loves me. It really does, but tells me to run far too late.
Out of the Black & Blue this brick shithouse of a skinhead comes pushing through the crowd, vice grips my neck in a good natured headlock and bellows out with his hillbilly twang -"Alright Brother, we're goin' in!!!"
I throw my arm over his shoulder- then next thing I know the two of us are spinning around in a whilwind of kicking boots and flailing arms into the crowd - into the pit - into anyone dumb enough to get in the way...
If you like to gamble, I tell you I'm your man
You win some, lose some, it's -all- the same to me
The pleasure is to play, it makes no difference what you say
I don't share your greed, the only card I need is
The Ace Of Spades
The Ace Of Spades
I'm taking linebacker shots to the spine and stomps to the shins off other old schoolers. Everything spinning - crowd-band-ceiling-wall-crowd-bar-smiling face-crowd-band-wa...OH-SHIT-FIST!!!
Playing for the high one, dancing with the devil,
Going with the flow, it's all a game to me,
Seven or Eleven, snake eyes watching you,
Double up or quit, double stake or split,
The Ace Of Spades
The Ace Of Spades
I break free from the head lock and go spiraling backwards, tumbling back down, the band view swings into the barrels of the lighting system and before I finish the drop a series of disembodied hands snatch me up under my arms and throw me back in...
You know I'm born to lose, and gambling's for fools,
But that's the way I like it baby,
I don't wanna live for ever...
...and don't forget the joker!
This is no longer music! This a live firefight with machine gun nests manned by the drummer while the guitarists play Air-Calv with a napalm guitar solos as Field-General Rot Knee channels the Ghost Of Lemmy Past in an electrified aggro-seance! I'm ricochetting off elbows and shoulders, finally I side-step stumble, grab a shirt collar and swing the body as a shield into some especially gung-ho Mohican. Someone goes to push me back in but I take them by the wrists, 'dosey-d'oh' them around and swing them back into the crowd to take my place.
I can't hear anything but a steady busy tone in my ears.
I push through the tribal inked rockabilly vets and their feather blonde Buckhead Betty's slumming for tattooed Strange. I find my drink untouched at the corner of the bar and inhale it with three gulps. I find my buddys drink as well and slam that down next. The Makers & Jack mix comes up in a belch that fireballs in the air just like in the cartoons. I wipe the taste off my lips with a swipe of my wrist and light up two smokes - like Nicholas Cage in Wild At Heart!
I scan the crowd, the whole damn bar in one sweep. Over at the door, manning the big drum of donated toys, there's a Jarhead standing at Parade Rest in his Dress Blues. A baby faced black kid, stoically taking in the bushy bearded skins, porcupine headed punks, the occasional hair farmer or two decked out in their Turbojugend patched denims, the Sailor Jerry girls that have magically come to life off of a pair of tattooed arms and all the other stray drunks flailing, charging, stumbling, tripping, punching, pushing around to the last chords of the song.
Finally it's all over and a wave of applause rise out of the crowd and slam into the band, already dismounting guitars and guzzling back beer!
That's when I catch it - young Marine Machine gives this little shake of his head and a 'I-Can't-Believe-this-Shit-is-Happening' smile. I give him a quick toast with the last dregs of my buddies drink. From my angle the framed photograph of a young Johnny Cash giving the world the finger salutes me back for him.
Well, best catch my breath... that was just the opening band and you best believe that an all Santa Clause punk band doing Jingle Bell punk covers fronted by Big Jim Stacey (who looks more like a cross between Conway Twitty and the Wolfman from those old Furniture Gallery commercials) is going to finish off whatever the Despised coudn't put down.
Sounds like i'll need another round.