when i was a sophomore in high-school i started a band with some friends(john farnsworth, chip moody, jim spadacinni). eventually we became ‘the vatican commandos’, but before that we were:
uxb, the banned, the red beats, brave education, etc, etc.
in the original line-up we had 2 guitarists(john and i), a drummer(chip), and a vocalis (jim).
we were a bit inexperienced, and we didn’t know that more often than not a band is enhanced by the presence of a bass player(eventually jim learned bass).
we rehearsed in my mom’s basement and also in john’s barn. or, rather, john’s parents barn.
i think we also rehearsed in jim’s mom’s basement for a while, as well.
our first show was in a field adjacent to john’s house. we got a really long extension cord and set up our 2 tiny amps and 1 tiny drum set and 1 tiny p.a in a field and invited some friends over to listen to us perform.
the only, uh, problem was that we didn’t really have too many friends and the few friends we did have probably had better things to do so they didn’t exactly, to use contemporary parlance, ‘show up’.
so our first show was for an audience of 0.
even john’s sisters(tara and cynthia) and dog(sparky)chose not to come and watch us play in the field(as a word of explanation, it was march and it was pretty cold outside).
so maybe it was more like a conceptual performance at a conceptual festival?
we did actually perform. we played our original songs(‘housewives on valium’, ‘wonderbread’, ‘it’s so scary’)and some covers(‘white riot’, ‘feast on my heart’, ‘sex bomb’).
oh, ‘sex bomb’ by flipper, not the tom jones version, as good as it might be.
we did get a quasi/erstwhile review, though. one of john’s neighbors called up and asked john’s mom what the noise was. when the neighbor was told that it was a performance to an audience of zero the neighbor then asked: a-if it was going to last long, and b-if it could be quieter.
we did eventually get to the point where we performed in front of other human beings (although, sadly, john’s dog sparky never got to see us perform. sparky did once swallow an entire stick of butter, which was impressive/disgusting because sparky was a tiny little dog, maybe weighing 10 pounds maximum. so sparky swallowing an entire stick of butter was the equivalent of you eating about 5 pounds of butter in one sitting). we eventually even made a record(‘hit squad for god’ by vatican commandos). and vatican commando’s went on to be a relatively well known band in the mid 80’s hardcore scene(at this point john and i had left, sadly).
but our first show was, as i wrote above, to an audience of zero in the middle of an empty field on a cold sunday in march.
so if anyone ever says that they were in the audience for my first punk rock show you know that they’re lying, for there was no one in the audience for my first punk rock show, not even sparky the dog(as i said, it was pretty cold, and sparky, like dick cheney in avoiding military service, had other priorities).
-moby
