Nostalgiamania

1994 - 1998

2008-11-22T12:48:00.008-05:00

I was lucky in 1994. My cousin was married to a Beastie Boy and you know what that meant? Backstage passes, boyee! Not just for me, but for my parents, my grandparents (they set up a couch for Grandma at one of their Florida gigs), my friends, you name it.

But the best part wasn't just seeing them for free or experiencing backstage shenanigans, it was the hanging out BEFORE shows that rocked. If the gig was in NYC, we'd most likely meet up for dinner before a show at Adam's sister Rachel's Manhattan apartment and I'd just sit back and people watch. I think his old bedroom still had some graffiti on the wall that he did when he was much younger. And since my cousin lived in LA, it was always a treat to see her in NYC and hang out (still is!).

The funny thing about 1994 is that I didn't even live in NYC. I lived in Lawrence, Kansas and got to see the Beastie Boys play Lollapalooza that summer at the Sandstone Amphitheatre in nearby Bonner Springs, Kansas. My good friend Colin flew in from NYC to experience this whole backstage thing, and he wound up playing basketball with the Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest and Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins).

We saw most of the line-up from behind each band, literally standing on stage while they performed. There's nothing quite like seeing the audience from the perspective of very popular bands; thousands of kids going absolutely APE SHIT on a beautiful summer day while their favorite band rocked out. Such an awesome spectacle to behold!

A month later I would come back to NYC to visit, and of course, milk the Beasties/Lollapalooza connection even further. I had no shame!

As the cooler weather approached, I found myself returning to NYC at the end of '94. Blackout Books was just opening up on Avenue B, Moon Ska Records was opening their first storefront around the corner on East 2nd Street, and my friend Christina hooked me up with a job at the New Prospect Cafe in Park Slope, which led to a $400/month apartment on Sterling Place from their liquor guy and ANOTHER job as babysitter for their accountant. This would equal four jobs (three paid and one volunteer), so plenty of cash on hand to go see...Skarmageddon!

This was also around the time that I awkwardly shaved my head with a #2 comb (that's REALLY short), leaving a ring of bangs, payes and a mild case of mullet on my nape. No, this wasn't a Jewish Upsherin ceremony, but rather my own initiation into a slightly lesser known club: skinheads! I know, images of nazis and Geraldo Rivera are filling your mind, but if you know anything about anything you'd know that real skins aren't racist and listen to reggae. Confused? Of course not. Eventually I would get the haircut right, but somehow still be mistaken for a young Jewish man while drunkenly roaming the streets at night in Williamsburg (back when Hasidim still lived there).

I'd keep this look up for the next five years, which may or may not be obvious with my ticket spread, but it sure was fun. Most of the time.

I only have one gig from '95, which of course, is another Beastie Boys show:

At least the backstage pass has a Vespa on it...

And would you believe I have nothing to show you for 1996? Strange. Probably spent all my gig money on pitchers of Dark at Sophie's...

1997 starts off not with a concert, but with a show much more entertaining (and not all in a good way): a D.C. United vs. Metrostars away game:

Okay, so the day starts off at a bar where we all get beer buzzed before heading for D.C. Most of us have shaved heads, Metrostars jerseys, soccer scarves for one country or another, and are feeling boisterous and proud about attending an away game in support of our home team. We get to the stadium in D.C. and enjoy the first half of the match without incident.

That was the first half.

By the time the second half rolls around, most people worth their weight in Lotto sneakers are wasted, us included. The first sign of trouble was the ice. Someone seated above us was throwing ice at us from their soda cup. This quickly turned into the rest of contents of their soda cup, packets of mustard and ketchup, and then full cans (of beer? soda? I don't remember). We had to get the fuck out of there.

So, what does stadium security do for us? Escort us out of the stadium, but to the parking lot EXACTLY OPPOSITE from where our bus was parked. You can imagine what the walk back toward the bus was like: drawing the ire of every drunk D.C. United fan (some of whom were also bald and boisterous, just like us! Yay!) and a few pushes and shoves along the way. We get to the bus where we're confronted by a sizable posse headed by some real local winners (friends who were there will remember the clowns I'm referring to) who threatened all kinds of nonsense if we didn't get out of there quickly. Well, we WANTED to get out of there, so later skaters! But before we left, the bus driver cleverly emptied the very full contents of the on-bus toilet out onto the parking lot...

The drive home consisted of our own internal squabble where I ended up punching someone in the face. For what? I don't remember. This would be a common theme for me during the late '90s... Oi!

But being a skinhead didn't mean we were traditional dorks about it. We loved other kinds of music besides the obligatory oi, punk, ska, reggae, etc. Some examples include the Chemical Brothers and Rage Against the Machine:

The Rage show was awful. Wu-Tang Clan opened and they just sat on stage with 40s in their hand while poorly lip syncing the lyrics to all your favorites from "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)" which were no longer your favorites because they fucking destroyed it.

The sound was bad, too, which you wouldn't expect from an arena gig (or would you?). At least we knew Rage would be amazing, because, well, they're Rage. But what happens, like, two songs into their set? Singer Zack de la Rocha slips and twists his ankle while jumping around on stage. He lays there in agony while the band keeps playing for a second until everyone realizes he's totally fucked. The band stops playing and escorts him off the stage, the crowd starts booing thinking "that's all folks!" but Zack limped back on a few minutes later and they completed their set, sans Zack's usual maniacal hopping around.

Now, gigs at Wetlands didn't typically have ticket stubs (at least I don't remember it that way), but this Slackers gig had a nice line-up:

The singer for the Adjusters dropped down on one knee and proposed to me at this gig. I said no.

We end 1997 with an Atari Teenage Riot gig:

We took them out drinking afterward and all I remember is Carl Crack talking intelligibly about nazi skinheads in Berlin and me swooning hard over Alec Empire. Alec would stay in touch for another year or so by sending me mix tapes of his private party sets in Germany, and unfortunately, Carl Crack would die of a drug overdose four years later.

See? Swooning!

And since I only have one item for 1998, we'll end with a gig for which I have a VIP pass but no memory of:

How could I forget about (A).P.P.L.(E).?

2008-11-06T13:03:00.004-05:00

I started things off with the False Prophets gig in '88, but I need to talk about the (A).P.P.L.(E). gig in '87.

I was 12 in '87 and just starting to get all politically active, thanks to my commie parents (and grandparents). I organized an anti-racist rally at my junior high school only to have the principal cancel it over the loudspeaker. I think a bunch of us walked out anyway, handing out fliers about the KKK in the hallways as we did.

This same year there was a "Biko Lives!" festival at a park in the South Bronx that I attended with my parents. There's some video footage of me spray painting a banner at this thing, if you can find it (on some old VHS tape called "They Say They Will"). There's also footage of the punk band (A).P.P.L.(E). playing, doing a cover of Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind." I remember really liking the singer's bleach blonde hair, but thinking the bass player's American flag skirt was weird. Here's a pic of them from that show from (A).P.P.L.(E).'s MySpace page:

This was probably my very first exposure to a live punk performance. At the time I heavily preferred hip hop, and got to see KRS-One play at this same gig, but in just a few years I would come to feel very lucky that I got to see this show at such a young age because eventually my punk taste buds would mature and I'd buy (A).P.P.L.(E).'s "Neither Victims Nor Executioners" EP (that I still own).

Listen while you work.

2008-07-17T11:46:00.002-04:00

I find that if I listen to some of these bands while I write about seeing them live a million years ago, it's as if I'm closing the gap of time, balding, beer bellies and emo.

I was a senior in high school in 1992, thinking about nothing but graduating and getting the hell outta there. It's funny, because I started out as an "incoming sophomore" and was really into my classes, like algebra and Spanish. I did really well that first year, but come junior year, the Gulf War (the first one) busted out and we were all like "fight war, not wars" and demonstrating and freezing our asses off. My grades tanked, but boy was I politically active.

We start '92 with another fab Pixies show.

Who the hell is Barkmarket? I wish maybe I had been more open minded about opening acts, but unless I already knew who they were, I wasn't very good at standing around and listening to one band when all I wanted to do was see the next one.

Fugazi played the Palladium in April of '92, and I got to see them (again). I'm pretty sure the Radicts opened for this show and during their opening number I got a big Doc Marten boot planted firmly on my forehead and was knocked out for the first half of Fugazi's set. I'm probably exaggerating here, but I do remember coming to and hearing one of Fugazi's many amazing opening bass lines and I quickly ran right back to the pit, regardless of my Doc Marten induced headache.

Every now and then you'll see a ticket from a different kind of event, like this Les Miserables show.

My parents got me and my boyfriend-at-the-time tickets to see this for my birthday, probably because of the whole revolutionary angle. I hate to admit that not only could we barely fit into the seats (long legs are sometimes a curse), we were bored to tears. I probably would have appreciated the show more a bit later in life, but at the time I was way too punk to dig it.

Look! Another Bad Religion show!

I know, All is the headliner, but I didn't know jack about them and probably left the gig right after Bad Religion's set.

After the Les Miserables debacle, boyfriend-at-the-time one upped the parents with birthday tickets to see Blue Man Group. They did their awesome thing, we were totally wowed, and one of them made it a point to play with the huge nose ring dangling out of my nostril.

The awesome thing about Blue Man Group is that they're still doing this at the very same theater years later, and I've had brunch with Steve White on more than one occasion (his wife Susan is a good friend of mine). And now Susan is on Broadway. Shut up.

I don't remember if the Pixies were splitting up yet at this point or what, but I do remember being very psyched that the Deal sisters were going out into the world with their new band, the Breeders. I was all up in that hizzy (hizzy = show).

But wait a second. Wait just a god damn minute! That ticket says Bogarts, so I guess I saw this gig in Cincinnati? I honestly don't remember the deal with all that, and I probably got in trouble for crossing the boyfriend streams (wouldn't be the first time...).

And then I think I saw my first Consolidated show. They were so much fun. If they were just a little bit more nerdy, they could have usurped MC Frontalot's claim to founding nerdcore.

My first ticket from '93 comes from a Henry Rollins spoken word gig.

I don't remember much from that gig other than him talking about his buddy Joe Cole. I saw him again not too long after that at Wetlands where he basically gave the same spiel, but it was still cool to see him.

'93 seems to be the year I started clipping show ads out of the papers. Before the interwebs, I relied heavily on the Village Voice (and word of mouth) for knowledge of all upcoming shows. Here's one for Consolidated.

Ohmygod the Goats! They were awesome (or at least I thought so back then). That might have been the first I heard of them, and I'm pretty sure I nabbed a used copy of their CD at my local record shop (now an online retailer).

Hey, is that Walt Jabsco?

And it looks like I was at Skalapolooza the very next day!

1993 was a great year for ska in the US. Shitloads of bands, some from the 80s, some new ones, all touring together. These shows were tons of fun because they were always packed with all kinds of different people, who mostly wanted to dance the entire time and I was all about that. I would meet some people about a year later who were at these same shows, but had shaved heads and wore Fred Perrys (a club I would soon join thanks to their combined influences).

But my head wasn't shaved just yet, so I saw Digable Planets in March of '93.

They were horrible. Nothing like the one-hit-wonder video we all saw prior to the show. One of many examples of how hip hop doesn't always translate well in a live show (you'll hear about Wu Tang Clan when we get to '97).

I loved the Sugarcubes, so when Bjork toured solo, I went to go see her at Webster Hall.

I didn't have a great time at this show. Granted, it was only $10, which was awesome, but it was way too crowded and you couldn't get near the actual performance area and the sound wasn't good and just meh. Can't win 'em all.

But that's okay, because there were more multi-band ska shows to go to! Like "Skavoovee."

I should have probably tried to get my dad to come with me to this show, because he was such a huge Selecter fan, but I was at an age where that just wasn't cool (he'd have to wait until 1999 when we saw Joe Strummer together).

Next up: the Beastie Boys years!

The 90s didn't totally suck if you went to punk shows.

2008-07-16T12:43:00.004-04:00

During 1990, 1991 and half of 1992, I was in high school, so my budget and freedoms were somewhat limited. High school marked the formative era during which I (and everyone else and their mother) found other kids that loved the Clash who ultimately introduced me to such punk bands as Crass, Conflict, Antischism and Nausea. Fugazi, too, but are they punk?

Speaking of Nausea, I saw them during one of the many Saturday afternoon matinee shows I frequented at ABC No Rio (still going strong) during the 90s. Their show was one of many that were once represented by a huge punk show flier collection, safely filed in a filing cabinet, but those (and everything else in that ill-fated filing cabinet) bit the dust years ago. We'll just have to settle for the bigger names that got fancy tickets printed for their shows at venues like the Marquee, the Academy, the Grand, Palladium, and the Ritz.

There are only two concerts here from (late) 1990: Skinny Puppy at the Ritz and "Special Beat" with the Toasters, also at the Ritz.

The Skinny Puppy show was PACKED and sweaty and I almost got crushed by the crowd of huge industrial dudes. But they were great. Tank Hog sucked. Or perhaps they simply weren't my cup of tea. I just couldn't understand why they were the opening band, a question I would continue to ask myself of opening bands to this very day...

I remember being pretty scared of being carded at this show, because I was only 15 and the Ritz had this stupid policy about shows being 16+. Luckily, being tall, I didn't get nabbed.

Growing up, I listened to my parent's Selecter LPs (among a few other albums of theirs) and had a vague idea of what Two Tone sounded like. In high school, I got heavily into the Specials, English Beat, Madness and Bad Manners (it was a great treat to learn that the Selecter were simply one of many bands churning that sound out of London all around the same time). When I learned that "Special Beat" included members of both the Specials and English Beat, and that they were playing, I was on that like brown on rice. The Toasters opening up was a bit of a bonus because I didn't know them from a hole in the wall, but years later would come to know them quite well.

1991 started off beautifully with a Nine Inch Nails show, in support of their Pretty Hate Machine album, which I (and everyone I knew) loved. I copied the lyrics to a bunch of those songs on my bedroom walls in big black marker and became a total NIN dork. The show was amazing, and I distinctly remember being impressed by the low-tech effect of seeing silver tinsel blown into Trent Reznor's face behind a dramatic strobe light during the entire set. We've come so far in concert theatrics since then...

Don't remember shit about Die Warsaw.

Another band that I got into in high school was Bad Religion, and luckily for me, they played all the fucking time, so you'll see them repeated a couple of times here.

Another band that played constantly was Fugazi. My friends and I went to every local show and even traveled to a couple, like this one at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

It's kinda nuts that I didn't have a proper ticket to save from the show, so I basically made one out of the cheesy ticket stub they gave us. I can tell you that I'm still in touch with at least two names on that ticket stub.

This next show represents the beginning of being heavily influenced by whatever band my boyfriend(s)-at-the-time were listening to. I dated a guy in Cincinnati (I know what you're thinking: she's 15, in high school, and dating someone in Cincinnati? That was the beauty of attending anarcho-punk protests outside of NYC - you never knew what kind of hottie you were going to hook up with), and in addition to being into all kinds of punk/industrial/hardcore music, he had a soft spot for electronica (and the Better Youth Organization, but that's another story) and got me into Meat Beat Manifesto. We'd trade mix tapes through the mail, and his tapes would always include bands like MBM, Pigface, Skinny Puppy and Consolidated. I was instantly hooked, because unlike a lot of the fast paced punk stuff, you could really dance to this shit. So, off to Cincinnati I went (via Greyhound) to see MBM with this guy.

Bogarts was (is) a large venue along Vine Street near the University of Ohio in Cincinnati. The smaller places, like Sudsy Malone's, didn't print tickets, so I have no paper proof of having seen the Dwarves or BuBu Klan there, but I do remember wishing I had a load of laundry with me so I could have gotten in for free.

For my 16th birthday, my best friend Mishy bought us tickets to see Einsturzende Neubauten at the Ritz. They blew us away. Period.

There were a lot of older cats there to see Cabaret Voltaire, who I thought were total disco dorks. Little did I know that they'd been around a while and had a whole other fan base. See what I mean about mismatched opening acts?

A bunch of our friends in high school really dug Primus and were definitely influenced by them in their own bands. I remember being really impressed by how high, and how quickly Les Claypool could pump that one leg while he played bass and sang.

Now, for the juggernaut of all early 90s shows: the first, the original, Lollapalooza. There was tons of excitement amongst my friends about the possibility of seeing so many good bands (Siouxsie! Janes! NIN!) in one day in one place. It was like finally knowing what it was like to be European, what with their all-day (two-day, three-day) music festivals. Sadly, Siouxsie didn't play, but we got to see everyone else perform.

So much dirt got kicked up during each set that we were clawing black mud off our tongues all day (and night). But it was so worth it. Janes made me cry, dammit. I learned that day to wear sunblock to outdoor shows, and lots of it.

Another huge band for me during high school (and today) was the Pixies. Where Is My Mind? was my theme song way before Fight Club got its hands on it.

They were delicious! Don't remember Pere Ubu at all.

And now we close 1991 with yet another Bad Religion show.

Tune in next time when we cruise through 1992 (and maybe 1993)!

1988 and beyond

2008-07-15T22:37:00.005-04:00

I started furiously scanning ticket stubs this evening and I realized that my very first major concert isn't represented in the mix, unfortunately.

It was 1988 and the group Refuse & Resist! hosted a Resist in Concert! night at the Palladium. I was there with my parents, mainly to see the False Prophets, who I had previously seen perform the year before at a church (of all places) and MC Lyte. The performance that really blew me away, though, was by a tiny bald chick with a funny name (Sinead O'Connor) wearing overalls and a white undershirt. Most people in the audience didn't seem to know who she was, but I can guarantee you they remembered her forever after that performance.

The ticket frenzy, as promised, begins in 1989 with a Jackson Browne concert in Florida.
This was a birthday present from my Aunt Leah while I was visiting her in Florida. I had already been listening to my parent's Lives in the Balance LP (which I still have), so I was pretty psyched to see him live.

The only other concert ticket I have from the 80s was a Bangles show at Jones Beach. My cousin Dono was dating Susanna Hoffs at the time, so he hooked me (and my parents) up with tickets and backstage passes to see them. I wish I still had the backstage pass, but I all I remember of the show was going backstage and being really excited to see a tub of free bottled water (it was a hot, outdoor, summer concert).

And that concludes my brief ticketganza from the 80s. Next post: the 90s!

It has begun.

2008-06-13T22:45:00.002-04:00

All my years of collecting and saving shit has finally come to today (Friday the 13th): sitting in a bar in Williamsburg (drinking something called Druid Fluid) with my friend Megan and somehow getting talked into starting an insanely tedious project to scan all the cool (well, some of them are cool) ticket stubs, stickers, photos and who knows what else, so that I can post it all online.

Fast forward a couple of hours: I dug out some photo albums, went through my file cabinet, and even went hunting in some closets so that I can gather from all those random places my proverbial pot(s) of gold: every ticket stub, VIP pass and laminate saved from concerts I attended starting in 1989 (when my Aunt Leah took me to see Jackson Browne in Florida for my 14th birthday).

I can't promise when you'll see these gems, but I can promise that you'll see them. Just as soon as I start scanning and whatnot.

Until then, dif-tor heh smusma.