when i was 17 (which sounds like the beginning of the frank sinatra song, and here’s a simpsons trivia question: who is brian mcgee?) i played guitar in a hardcore punk band called ‘the vatican commandos’. we were suburban punks and there actually was a connecticut hardcore scene of which we were a part. some of the other bands in the scene were ‘chronic disorder’, ‘violent children’ (featuring ray ((another nice vegan)) capo who’s now in shelter), ‘cia’, ‘reflex from pain’, and others.
in february of my senior year we, along with a few other hardcore bands from connecticut, had an offer to play in akron, ohio.
so we all piled into a van (roughly 15 people piled into one little metal van, along with all of our equipment and no seats, very comfy) and drove 10 hours to akron (the birthplace of devo, by the way, and in many ways the source of the appeal of driving 10 hours in the freezing cold with nothing to sit on crammed in with a bunch of chain-smoking punk rockers).
we arrived in akron at 4 in the morning and found a litttle piece of floor to sleep on. we were staying in a squat (an abandoned house being occupied by punk rock kids) that, of course, had no heat in february. and it was a vegan squat. the kids were all vegan, environmentalists, and members of the akron hardcore scene.
and nowadays i’d be thrilled to stay in a vegan squat. but back then i didn’t even know what vegan was, so when we woke up in the morning and someone living in the squat said that he had just made a big pot of soybeans my friends and i immediately went to the nearest mcdonalds…
we performed that night at a local pizza parlor (no stage, just clear some of the tables away) and i believe that 4 or 5 people showed up.
but it was fun. we were in a different state and we were playing at a venue that wasn’t in connecticut (up until this point we had never played anywhere other than pogo’s or the anthrax in connecticut. both great places to play, but both in connecticut). we sort of felt like mini-adults, cos this was the first weekend that we had ever spent away from home without parental supervision, and that was exciting.
so after the show we went back to the squat and found another little piece of floor to sleep on and the next afternoon we woke up and piled into the van and drove 10 hours back to connecticut.
but here’s the irony…to avoid eating the vegan food that they were cooking in the house my friends and i went to mcdonalds again and i got a raging case of ptomaine (food poisoning).
so for the entire 10 hour trip back to connecticut i kept having to jump out of the van to throw up while my friends threw snowballs at me.
ah, punk rock.
and we got back to connecticut and our high school paper, the ‘neirad’ (look, it’s ‘darien’ backwards, clever, huh) wrote an article on us (newspaper circulation: 500 copies) and we felt like rock stars. we had played a show in akron, ohio (to 5 people), and our high school newspaper did a story about us, so in our minds we were famous.
i left the vatican commandos soon after (to play in a band called ‘awol’), and the vc’s actually went on to become quite successful in the hardcore scene.
thanks,
moby