My son and I have been attending
local bands’ gigs for a while now. While not always impressed with the level of
musical ability I have been impressed with the fact that the original nature of
the punk scene seems to have made a come back. These kids these days do put a
value on integrity and there is the old feeling of appreciating where everyone
is coming from. I have seen bands of all ages and varying styules and
ethnicities on the same venue. Most of all they understand that they are
continuing something that was started by old folks like myself.
My son has never been embarrassed
to have his Mom along and I have always been greeted warmly and often with the
kind of manners that would impress June Cleaver. I admire anyone with the guts to express
themselves artistically and some of these kids are pretty darned good. My son’s
favorites tend to be mine as well, we do lean towards the same taste. He smells
hypocrisy immediately as well as commercial hype, always has. That's my boy. One band,
Chemi-kill has a song that I think is pure genius. It’s called Glass Jaw and
it’s so simple and perfect angry anthem. Now I know it’s
a teenage tradition to offend you mother with your music and since we have such
similar taste I have deprived my son of much of that fun. Nevertheless he will
find truly suck ass bands and play them loudly. It takes a lot to offend me but
bands like Anal Cunt do the trick.
So when Chemi-kill announced
their CD release party, Mike and I wanted to go. I decided to invite my friend,
Elliot too. Elliot and I met in high school; he was a pioneer of the punk scene
in Los Angeles back in the day. He even has the spoon that Germs singer, Darby
Crash, used to O.D. with. I wanted
Elliot to see how the scene is today. So Elliot joined us saying that he couldn’t
think of a better way to spend this “holiest of days” (4/20)
Elliot has let his hair grown
long and it is white so he has the look of an ancient sage. Needless to say we looked quite
different from the rest of the crowd. Mike
always says “Please Mom get in the mosh pit with me!” I protest that I’m too
old, I’ll break a hip and I don’t have health insurance to cover it. I never
liked moshing anyway or as we used to call it: slam dancing. But on this night
I did not go to the mosh pit, the mosh pit came to me.
Maybe I was having a senior
moment and stumbled too close to the pit but before I knew what was happening I
was down. My son claims he wanted to
gently push me but somebody fell into him and I went over like a bowling pin
with him on top of me. I’m sure the kids were thinking “Oh look the old lady
fell over!” but all were sweet in picking me up off the ground and handing me
my bent glasses. Mike apologized profusely.
For the rest of the weekend I was
fund raising for Precious Paws at an autograph show with a black eye and
painful (possibly fractured) rib. Other
Bradys (Chris Knight, Mike Lookinland and Robbie Rist) were there as well as celebs
I hadn’t seen in years like the Hudson Brothers; so there was a lot of hugging
going on. Ouch! Of course everyone thought it was great fun that I was
suffering from mosh pit injuries. I must admit I agree.
