i remember the first time that i ever sort of went on tour.
it was senior year in high school and i was playing in a hardcore band called the vatican commandoes.
we got an invitation to go and play in akron, ohio, so we piled into a van with 2 other bands, reflex from pain and cia?, and drove 12 or so hours from connecticut to ohio. 12 hours in a small and cold van with 15 people is a long, long time. and we ended up performing at this little punk rock club in akron and i believe that 10 people showed up.
then we piled back into the van and drove back to connecticut.
and, ironically enough, the house where we stayed in akron was a straight-edge, vegan house, and at the time (i was 16 or 17) i only ate junk food. i remember looking at a plate of brown rice and tofu and thinking to myself, ‘they want me to eat this? where’s the nearest mcdonalds?’
and, of course, i ate akron mcdonalds and proceeded to get food poisoning.
so on the drive back i kept having to stop the van so that i could throw up. ah, the good old days of ct/hc.
i’ve written about it before, but i really did have fun in the early days of the hardcore scene.
seeing agnostic fronts first show at pogo’s in bridgeport. making up pseudonym’s for our bands so that we could play a show at choate/rosemarry hall (ray cappo’s band was pseudonymouslly called ‘reflections of poetry’, if memory serves).
seeing minor threat at great gildersleeves. seeing black flag over and over and over again cos they were just so fucking amazing. i still have a tiny scar on my head from stage diving at a black flag show in new rochelle. no one caught me. i landed on my head. and yes, it was fun. i might go listen to a void 7″” just to take a walk down memory lane.
moby