35 Years Ago This Month...

I put on my first show of many

I remember the first time I got caught air guitaring when I was a child. I was jumping around like a maniac, attempting to put on the same level of show that Kiss, my favorite band at the time, would put on. Mom walked in and I was mortified. She laughed. My big brother, Kim, was a massive influence on me. His passion for music was obvious and infectious. It was his Kiss records that had me dancing around the house in my underwear, screeching into a broom handle. He gave me the first piece of music I ever owned. He took me to my first concert: Kiss at the Mid South Coliseum in Memphis, my hometown, in 1979 on the Dynasty tour.

He also got me into punk rock. I remember articles cut out of magazines and newspapers that he saved about the Sex Pistols. I would spend my formative years sitting in his room, watching him draw cartoons, listening to whatever records he’d bought that week. Alice Cooper, The Ramones, Roxy Music, Be Bop Deluxe, Queen, and Blondie were all regulars. Through grade school and junior high, Kim stoked the fire he started by taking me to the record stores on my birthdays and to see my first punk show at 14 years old (Black Flag - Antenna Club, Memphis), then smuggled me in to see the Circle Jerks a year later.

The Antenna started having all ages punk shows right as I got my drivers license and it wasn’t long before I started seeing kids my age getting on the same stage that I’d seen my punk rock heroes grace. I was excited for them but also jealous. Jealous, because I wanted to be up there but excited because I saw it was possible. In 1986, my love of punk rock mutated into a love of crossover thrash metal like Corrosion Of Conformity, DRI, and Suicidal Tendencies. That year, Metallica’s Master Of Puppets came out and they opened for Ozzy at Mid South Coliseum for their first appearance in Memphis.

In 1987/88, my senior year of high school, I made friends with David Connelly. He was a heavy set guy who sat next to me in math class for dummies since we both needed one math credit to graduate and neither of us were going to risk staying in high school longer than necessary. We shared a very silly, sarcastic sense of humor and we both discovered Metallica at the same time. We’d gotten close over the school year. Turns out, David had been playing guitar since he was 7 years old.

Turns out, David was good.

David and some mutual friends and classmates had a band: Deadly Intent. They were just starting to play together and had been working on some Metallica covers. I went to David’s house to watch them practice and again I was filled with jealousy and excitement. Excitement because my new friend who I really hit it off with could play his ass off on guitar and jealousy because I wasn’t in his band. Not to mention the fact that I had zero musical talent, a non-requisite in the punk rock world.

We graduated May ‘88 and I hung out with David and Deadly Intent a lot that summer. They got up enough cover songs to play a battle of the bands at the New Daisy Theater on Beale St. I filmed it. On Beta. Still unwatched to this day. I hung out enough that they named me their “manager”. I did nothing managerial. I don’t remember what made Deadly Intent flame out but they did. It was nothing dramatic. That meant David was a free agent!

Side note…

I made my first best friend in 2nd grade. His name is Patrick O’ Hearn and he’s still 1 of about 3 best friends I have left almost 50 years later. We lost touch when I changed schools but got back in touch towards the end of high school. We shared a big-brother-influenced love of Kiss when we met at Holy Cross Elementary which was a tough find back then. When we reconnected later, we discovered that we still liked a lot of the same music. He really liked Rush because of the drummer. It made him want to be a drummer which I found out was something he was working on. He had a drum kit and had been playing a while. I had no idea if he was any good.

I don’t recall when I had the idea to put Patrick and David together. I know I enjoyed being in their company and that when I was with either of them, we laughed and laughed. How much would we laugh if all three of us hung out at the same time? I told each of them about each other and a jam session was arraigned. As expected, they hit it off well and we were all feeling good about starting a band. Since I couldn’t play an instrument, I was to be the front man.

Over the next 12 months, these things happened:

• After a grueling process of trying out other guitar players and bass players, David and I found an old classmate who was into metal and played guitar named Tim Climer and a bass player named Josh Killett. Josh answered an ad. We didn’t know him at all. He was completely adequate.

• We practiced on covers first to develop chemistry. Originals came next.

• We started attending local shows. We befriended the only other thrash metal band we knew of in the area, Chemical Youth from West Memphis, AR. Before long, we’d made friends with enough local bands to put together a decent metal/punk show.

• Metallica scheduled a show in Memphis, TN on the “Damaged Justice” tour for the …And Justice For All record on Jan. 13, 1989. This was a huge deal. Everyone I had been hanging out with since I graduated high school plus every metalhead in town and quite a few punks camped out for tickets at Ticket Hub in midtown Memphis.

• That ticket camp out is a story all on it’s own, but I’m not going there here. Let’s just say that still to this day, I have never been more drunk and sick than that night. I drank half a pint of vodka. Straight. Vomit everywhere.

The entire scene was energized by that Metallica show. Thrash metal was new and it was rare to see someone wearing a metal shirt outside of Motley Crue and Iron Maiden in Memphis at that time. Yet, there were thousands of metalheads and punks all gathered at the Mid South Coliseum. I remember being excited and optimistic about our band, “Cruel Injustice”. The only thing I recall about how the name originated is two people had two word names for the band and we all took our favorite word from both names. Deep, huh?

After months of practice, we had a set list of 8 songs. Half covers, half originals. We felt like we were ready to play our first show but who would book us? The Antenna would book anything if it could draw 40 drinkers. We could not. Since I came from the punk rock world, which is very DIY, I suggested that we should find our own space where we had control. Other local punk rock promoters were renting out VFW halls to put on local/regional shows, I said we should try that too.

Remember that math class for dummies? One of those dummies was a class clown type who would do anything for approval and whose dad managed the Southaven Jaycee Building (Southaven being a suburb of Memphis in MS) and you could rent it for events. We met with his dad, Mr. Adams, told him our intentions, told him we’d be good boys, told him we’d throw down a deposit and we shook hands. We booked the venue in April for Cruel Injustice’s first show in June 1989 with whoever we could get to play on a bill with us.

I had absolutely no idea how much this event would affect my life.

We had 6 weeks to put together a lineup, hire a sound company/engineer for the evening, hire a lighting company, make up flyers and pass them around town (back then, the internet was the inside of your swimming trunks), hire door staff and security and, lastly, come up with about $150.00 in $5s and $10s just for bank at the door. The Jaycees had a concession stand and they got the money for the venue rental and 100% of the food/drinks (no alcohol sold).

Chemical Youth were the first band we asked and they accepted, since they had Deadly Intent’s original guitar player playing for them, which, come to think of it, might be why they broke up. They were instrumental in helping line up sound and lights. They had been gigging regularly and had more experience playing live and more production contacts. They asked Serpentine if they were interested, a predominately female metal band who were just getting started too but they were a couple shows ahead of us. Patrick knew the bass player of the best punk band in town, Private War, from high school and he got them on board.

We added a fifth band, Melodic Slaughter, to the bill. They were mainly Metallica and Misfits covers. A perfect addition as the opener of the show. Jody Hill was the lead guitar player/singer and everybody knew him. With the lineup finalized, we decided to call this show the Thrash-A-Thon and the bill was this:

7p: Melodic Slaughter - 7:40p: Serpentine - 8:25p: Private War - 9p: Cruel Injustice 10p: Chemical Youth

Now, it was time to promote this show. I believe each band made their own flyers for their area of town and places their crowd hung out. I probably have a copy of the flyer I made but I don’t know where it is. I know exactly what it looks like and it’s so prehistoric, if I did find it, I wouldn’t humiliate myself by making it public. There were (ideally) 22 band members all telling their friends about the show and passing out flyers.

Looking back, I don’t remember being nervous about not selling enough tickets to cover the expenses, something that became a regular occurrence in the future. I probably should’ve been since my name was on the venue rental. I was working two jobs at the time and living with my parents. I had enough money to cover the losses but it wasn’t even on my mind. Rookie ignorance was mainly responsible but it was also that I was on track to make my childhood fantasy come true and, to me, that was money well risked.

With about a week until the show, we had been practicing hard on our set and putting out flyers wherever we went. We started getting some feedback from our marketing efforts, mainly from record store clerks. They said they’d heard that people were actually planning on going! Great! They also said there were a number of nazi skinheads planning on attending; that they like to attend DIY shows and start trouble since the promoters are usually kids themselves and aren’t prepared for the trouble they cause. Not great! I had waited to hire security until I had a decent gauge of what attendance would be like. With this recent news, I had to prepare for the worst.

Another side note: I made my 2nd best friend in the world in 5th grade. Joel Gallagher. He’d just moved to town and came from military stock. He was bigger and more athletic than most of the kids. We met in little league baseball and we became best friends pretty quickly and remain such to this day. Joel played football and didn’t stop til after college. I never stopped listening to punk music through school and in Southaven, MS in the 1980s, that got you bullied. Without Joel protecting me, my scholastic years would’ve been a complete nightmare. This meme (one of my very favs) sums up the experience:

Time to call My Bodyguard.

Since we grew up together, Joel had an understanding of abrasive music, and while he didn’t care about it, he didn’t find it meritless. I told him about the Thrash-A-Thon, my first show ever, and how we were expecting trouble from skinheads. I asked if he could help us out, be my head of security and see if he could find a few more dudes. Minimum wage was $3.35 an hour at that time and I offered up $20 a man. Joel rounded up 3 other fellow football players who were slightly familiar with Metallica but weren’t fans of punk or metal. They were informed about the potential for trouble and prepared.

DAY OF SHOW

I’m so grateful to my brother for so many things but one thing I’m really grateful for is that he documented almost all of my early rock show exploits, starting with the Thrash-A-Thon. My memory of my first show is greatly helped by the footage that he shot that evening. I remember pretty much nothing from that day outside of these videos.

With that, I’m going to post 2 videos. The first one begins right after Melodic Slaughter played and Serpentine are gearing up to play. I’m not posting any of the performances, just the scene around the show. It’s pretty Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

The second video starts when the show was abruptly ended after a report that “the cops are on the way” and the band had stopped and house lights were turned on.

I will watch and post relevant commentary below:

0:03 - The guy with the vicious mullet and DRI shirt is my high school alumni, Rick Wade, and he was attempting to MC here. I seem to remember him doing a decent job.

0:10 - Head of Security: Joel Gallagher

0:25 - They showed up!

Here are most of the nazi enthusiasts that attended. Some were off camera. I called them skinheads earlier, but all these folks have hair. I never saw these people before or since, so I’m going to guesstimate that they’re military. Especially, with those haircuts.

0:45 - That is “Bonz” Rogers, our lighting provider/director. I later ended up working with his little brother, Jimmy, for years at The Pyramid Arena and later, FedExForum. Quality human beings, both of them.

1:15 - Let’s get something straight: These are not real nazis. These are dabblers on liquid courage. Not one of them has a nazi tattoo. Other than the Skrewdriver shirt, the “white power” utterances, and the zieg heils, you can’t tell them from any other punk. I firmly believe that if I had not hired 4 very large young men to keep the peace, that event would’ve gotten violently out of hand. The fauxzis caused ZERO problems.

1:30 - In 1989, video cameras in public were not a thing. If you were carrying a camera back then, people asked you “What TV station are you with?” which is what happens here. When they realize he’s not with a broadcaster and he’s just shooting for the bands, they lose their nazi zeal (nazeal?).

1:46 - My first girlfriend, Patricia, Joel, and Lynn.

2:00 - All of our security were carrying axe handles or baseball bats. Not exactly orthodox crowd management, but, hey…I argue it wasn’t an orthodox crowd. Plus, my guys were outnumbered. I believe the tone was set when you paid your admission to 2 mean looking human beings shaped like Coke machines brandishing bludgeon tools.

3:02 - Cruel Injustice drummer, Patrick O’Hearn, who is then flipped off by Cruel Injustice guitar player, Tim Climer.

3:19 - Yours truly. Remember hair?

After another 4 minutes of documenting the scene, the video ends.

From the end of that video to the end of the show, the following happened:

• Private War played after Serpentine. All the punks in attendance (around 40) came in from outside. Big circle pit. This is who the fauxzis came to see.

• Cruel Injustice’s first show happened. All I remember is having an absolute blast. We played well and the crowd responded. Lots of stage diving. We felt like we got the best response out of everyone. In fairness, it was sort of our home turf and we benefitted from having the sweetest spot in the lineup. Everyone was good-time-drunk and cheerful. The last pleasant stage of drunkeness before it starts to get messy (vomiting, pissing), more dangerous (slip n falls, accidents), and more potential for violence (“You wanna GO?!? HUH?!?”).

• Chemical Youth took the stage after us. 2 of them were really drunk and it affected the quality of their set. They started and stopped and started the songs over. They yelled about being drunk to the crowd and the crowd, drunk themselves, screamed in delight. No one cared about how tight anyone was at that point. Everyone was having fun. Until…

• A friend of Chemical Youth’s climbed on stage. People had been climbing on stage to dive all show, so security didn’t react until he pulled the mic out of the stand and placed it at his crotch and walked to the front of the stage where a very drunk member of a clan locally known as “The Limp Brothers” grabbed it and started screaming into it and the friend simulated him receiving oral sex whilst he screamed.

• The bass player of Chemical Youth tried to grab the mic from the friend to put it back since it was his mic and he had back up vocals coming. Joel saw this and jumped on stage and gently took the mic out of his hand and placed it back in the stand. Joel then tried to coax him off the stage without touching him. He didn’t respond. Joel placed his hand on his shoulder and he aggressively pulled away. Joel then shoved him off the stage forcefully with him landing on his feet and walking away smirking.

• Joel jumped down, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and walked him out of the venue. There were some heated words between some of the friend’s friends and my security but nothing became of it. Joel is level-headed, if anything, which is why I wanted him in charge.

• It was at this point, I’d found out that same guy had been spitting on David, my guitar player, for a lot of our set. I don’t think he knew it was happening at the time. We were pissed. There was a brief time in Memphis punk history when it was thought to be fashionable to spit on the band. I remember this happening at Lou’s Other Place when The Accused played with 3 other local bands, including the spitter’s band. Which is why he was spitting and disrupting the show. His band wanted to be on the bill but we simply had run out of room. That answer wasn’t good enough to quell hurt feelings apparently.

• It was at this point, we realized we needed to pull the plug on the show. Nothing positive was happening anymore. The band was not rocking. They were too drunk. There was talk of multiple people kicking multiple people’s asses, none of which involved the anticipated trouble-makers and trying to explain this to the band while they’re on stage would’ve proved a fruitless venture.

• So we lied. The Southaven Police Department had come by earlier and Mr. Adams, who was on site for most of the evening, allayed any concerns of theirs. They knew and trusted him. No one knew that but me. All anyone saw was a police officer sitting in the parking lot, talking on the walkie, so the crowd was apprehensive about their presence. We told Chemical Youth “The police are on the way to shut the show down. We need to call it a night.” Which they, in-turn, announced over the PA.

• I didn’t want them to announce that. I just wanted them to say good night and see ya next show. The below video is the aftermath of that announcement:

The show was a success in a lot of ways. At the end of the night, all the vendors got paid (venue, sound, lights, security) and we still had a pile of cash looking at us. We had over 300 paid on a $5 ticket from beginning to end although they were never all in the room at the same time. We split what was left amongst the bands. I was high as a kite but I had taken no drugs. Months of work and practice and preparation paid off in ways I never anticipated. I was completely and totally hooked on putting on shows from that point on.

I had a lot of help. I definitely didn’t do it by myself. If a member of one of the bands could contribute by bringing some stage monitors or helping in some tangible way, they did. The success of that show led to more shows in that venue. We did a Thrash-A-Thon 2. It was slightly less attended than the first one but still a success and a boat load of fun.

We started doing shows around town and, before long, we were playing the places we’d frequented. The New Daisy and Antenna Club. I started booking national bands and sticking my band in front of the ones we liked. We developed a small following of about 30 people who would come to our shows regular, which, in Memphis, is a minor victory. We went through line-up changes but it was always David Connelly and I. Patrick wanted to grow up and quit drums. We told him nanny nanny boo boo, stick your head in doo-doo, we ain’t never growing up. But we did. Eventually. After about a year of playing with another drummer.

I kept doing shows in Memphis in various venues from 1989 til the winter of 1994, when I opened my own dive bar/venue, Barristers. If this piece about my first show equaled almost 4000 words, then the story of Barristers would easily be a novel.

I was 18 when we put on the Thrash-A-Thon. I’m 53 at the time of this writing. I’ve spent my entire adult life and career either putting on shows or being paid to help others put on theirs, which is what I do, now, for a huge corporation that puts on concerts and events all over the world. If it wasn’t for this show, I’m certain I wouldn’t have the life I have today. If you’re reading this and you were there, I’m glad you were and glad you’re still here.

This is what the place looks like recently according to the Googs: