My name is Mark, and I’ve been in the hardcore punk scene for thirty years now. Of course I have my fair share of stories, from being shut down by the cops, to unruly crowds that could have killed someone if I didn’t get security to calm them down. Strangely, none of these compare to the experience I had while touring circa 2003, and the string of horrific incidents that occurred. The whole time, I had not realized what was right under my nose. I’m surprised I’ve decided to continue touring, albeit with some lineup changes. For confidentiality reasons, I will refer to my band as simply “my band”, and I will refer to the band I was touring with as Band-X.
My band back then consisted of me, Alice, and steve. Of course all the names we will be using are fake as well as the names. Alice was an old girlfriend from my small town in ________ Nebraska. She was our drummer, and we had an on and off again type of relationship. Steve was a college dropout who played the bass guitar. I was the lead guitar and vocalist, since our original vocalist Tommy succumbed to agoraphobia or something along those lines. As I’ve mentioned, I want nothing to do with Band-X after our trip together. I should also apologize for my crass nature at the time. Looking back on it, we made a lot of preventable mistakes, and jumped into things we shouldn’t have.
I first met Band-x at a steakhouse in rural missouri. They had contacted us online and agreed to meet up with us to see if we were a good replacement for the other band that they had been touring with. Me and my band had our own van, and we were looking to tour with a more well known band. Band-X had a reputation for shock value and theatrics, which is fairly common in the hardcore scene. Their frontman John showed up to the restaurant wearing a plaid shirt and cargo shorts. I felt underdressed when he came in, considering I was wearing an old Minor Threat shirt and some shitty athletic shorts. Me and my bandmates were sitting at a booth together. I hadn’t showered for a day or two which made me feel even worse. John had slicked back, pitch black combed hair and a clean shaven look. He shook my hand with a firm grip, then sat down right next to me. “So yall are looking to be a supporting gig?” he asked.
I nodded my head. “Pretty much” I said. “Well, I heard two of your EPs,” he said with a supporting grin on his face. I lit up a little inside. “What did you think of them?” I asked. He pointed a thump up and said “good shit man”! I smiled, and then the waiter came by. “What would you fellas like to drink?” the waiter said, in a typical midwestern accent. “Just water please”. “I’ll take some unsweet iced tea,” said John. Alice and Steve ordered water as well. I sat there anxiously fidgeting, waiting for John to talk to me. Steve looked like he was about to pass out. The night before we played at some shitty venue in the middle of nowhere. Steve wasn’t able to get any sleep that night for some reason.
After an uncomfortable twenty or so seconds, John finally opened his mouth to speak. “So if yall are gonna tour with us, I have a couple of ground rules to follow”. I nodded my head, and waited for him to dispense the details. “Rule number one is of course, don’t be a jackass. Should be fairly easy to follow”. “Roger that,” said Alice. She rubbed her eyes and leaned her cheek on the palm of her hand. “Rule number two, don’t piss off Dave. He’s got anger issues or something. Never could figure out what the fucks his problem, just don’t piss him off or ask any personal questions. Also it’s not the best idea to open the door to his room. He’s probably beating off or getting high”. I chuckled at that comment. “Third rule is…”, Steve blurted out “have fun?”. John looked at him with this “dude seriously” kind of look, but then let out a light grin. “Anyways, the third rule of mine is to always stick together. You’d be surprised how many times we’ve had people get lost for a couple hours or something. It’s good to have a buddy system or something”. “Understood,” I said. I reached my hand out to shake John’s. He grasped my hand and shook it, and looked me in the eyes. “Bad shit might happen if we dont keep some semblance of structure,” said John.
I nodded. “Yeah i’ve lost these two dumbasses after shows a couple of times. Alice slowly raised her middle finger. “What, you’ve gone missing after shows to go quote unquote, hang out and come back a couple hours later covered in sweat and vomit” I said, jabbing at her side. “You’ve had more partners than a Mormon,” Alice said jokingly. John let out a small laugh. “Anyways, we have a show at this venue about twenty or something miles away from here”. John took out a ballpoint pen and a piece of paper. He scribbled down two addresses. “The top one is the motel we’re going to be staying at, and the bottom one is the venue we’re gonna be playing. Be at the motel around two thirty tomorrow. We’re gonna be setting up around five P.M tomorrow, so arrive there on time”. “Alright, sounds like a plan, ‘’ I said.
That night, we slept at a cheap motel that had a roach problem. The water was a slight brownish hue. I rinsed my toothbrush with a bottle of water from the vending machine on the first floor. “What do you guys think of John?” I asked. Alice hesitated for a second then said “I don’t know, he seems nice. Not gonna lie, haven’t heard a single song they’ve done”. “I have” Steve said with a wide eyed expression. “It’s shit”. I gave him “the look”. He slumped back on the mattress and laid down. “Dude you can’t say that around him” I said. “Yeah no shit” said Steve. He tossed and turned trying to get into a comfortable position. I laid back on my bed, which I had covered with a tarp to keep the bedbugs from getting me. “So why do you say it was shit?” I asked. Steve scratched his head while Alice hopped in bed next to me. “It’s just shock value for the sake of shock value. Not quite GG Allin level, but it doesn’t strike me as particularly musical”. Alice sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah this is punk. Its not fucking King Crimson. It’s about the message and aggression man” said Alice. I laughed a little. “I mean the bassist is good,” Steve muttered.
Steve wasn’t the greatest bassist, but man he tried to be some virtuoso musician sometimes. He went to college and played in the jazz band, but got sidetracked with drugs and partying. In the early days of my band he would throw in these bass solos and Tom Morello type scratching tricks. Eventually he stopped doing it after a drunk person in the crowd broke his nose with an unopened beer can.
It always pissed me off when he would try to be flashy. “Maybe if you’re lucky you can catch him beating off” I said. “Why dont you beat me off?” said Steve. I couldn’t see it, but he probably was holding his middle fingers up. “I think you do that well enough” I said, sneering at him. He proceeded to throw his dirty sock at me. It hit me square in the face. Alice started laughing hysterically and I got out of the bed. Steve got up and tackled me, not in an aggressive way, but he still tackled me. I shoved his sock in his mouth and he spat it out and ran to the bathroom and took a swig of whiskey to get the taste out. “I think we’re equal,” I said. Steve looked at me and charged towards me, knocking me on the ground. Alice watched us in our stupidity like it was a fucking nature documentary. Of course this was around fifteen years ago, and back then I was a stupid twenty year old kid who just got out of the rural Midwest. I kicked him with my bare feet and he stumbled back and banged against the wall.
“FUCK DUDE” he said in pain. I struggled to keep from laughing at the time. Alice was cheering Steve on. I looked at her and gave her the full middle finger. “What, it’s a real underdog story!” she said, almost screaming in laughter. After that we heard a banging from the wall. “Keep it down ova there” yelled a man with a strong east coast accent. “Stop jumping on the bed then” yelled Steve. “Dude, calm the fuck down” I whispered to him. “Fucking smartass” said the guy next to us. The creaking from the bed next door continued and we all had to keep from laughing. “Ayy I’m full of gabagool” Alice said, holding her stomach. “My sausage is gonna explode”. I cracked up and fell on the floor. It’s funny how some of my best memories came from stuff like hearing a fake tony soprano get off with a woman in a shitty motel room. Life is strange that way I suppose.
The following morning we set out about fifty miles south. I made the mistake of giving Steve control over the music selection. He’s always into some experimental shit that maybe a grand total of five people listen to. We would always try to listen to stuff that wasn’t punk related. In this case that meant listening to avant-garde jazz nonsense. By the end of the trip I was ready to strangle him. Alice fell asleep in the backseat, and we arrived around two outside our motel. This was a slightly nicer motel room by the look of it. I didn’t see any boarded up rooms or broken windows which was a good sign. I parked the van and hopped outside, shielding my eyes from the sun. Alice was groggy and miserable, while Steve hopped out and looked ready to go. “We made it, ‘’ Steve said, rushing towards the door.
I stepped towards the front of the door, and opened it for my bandmates. We piled in and headed towards the kiosk. A woman with bright red hair and neck tattoos gave us our keys, and we settled in. We hung out in the hotel lobby for about fifteen minutes, and then we finally met up with John and his band. Right next to him, there were three other people. He introduced us to Alex, Dave and Tim. Tim had a spiderweb face tattoo across his chin, a full buzz cut, and was wearing baggy jeans and a Neurosis T-shirt. Alex had a mohawk, a stained white shirt and once again some baggy jeans. Dave looked like he was homeless, with a full beard and long overgrown hair and a jacket. His jeans were covered in rips and stains, which was fairly normal. I’d met my fair share of crustpunks, some of whom looked like the human equivalent of dust bunnies. I tried to get the image of Dave jacking off out of my mind, and faced John straight in the eyes with my chin held up.
“Y’all ready to go around four thirty” he said. “Fuck yeah I am” I said enthusiastically, getting weird looks from the elderly couple across the room. John smiled and gave me a fist bump. Dave scratched his beard and shook Steve’s hand. “Us bassist’s gotta stick together man” he said. “Hell yeah brother” said Steve, in a deeper than usual voice. I looked over at Alice and rolled my eyes. I expected Dave to be some sort of miserable stoic type, but weirdly enough he seemed to be the most energetic of the group. Tim and Alex were rather calm compared to him. The two just kind of stood there, spaced out. I looked down and noticed that Tim and Dave both had poorly done tattoos that looked like train tracks. Train Hoppers I figured. Train hoppers always had interesting stories to tell. I tried train hopping when I was younger, and I’ll admit it was a bit scary. I was able to see the full American wilderness, but there was something unsettling about being out there all alone. I’d met people who became amputated, or even worse, paralyzed after train hopping accidents. Combined with the hundreds of deaths each year, I figured that train hopping was a business I should stay out of. Anyways, I shook hands and introduced myself to everyone in Band-X. They all seemed decent to me, so I was perfectly happy with doing some gigs with them.
Later that night, we met up at the bar/venue that we would be playing at. Band-X were the openers for a much larger band. I thought of it as being the openers for the openers to be honest. Still, we got decent pay and a large enough crowd. There were maybe, I don’t know, between fifty and a hundred people in that room. Still when we got up and played, it went pretty well. People started a pit when we played one of our “hits”. I say this with a grain of salt since we’d maybe sold a couple hundred albums at the time. A few radio stations would play our tracks, but that was a rare occurrence from my understanding. We played for about thirty minutes, then we had to get off for Band X. I can confidently say that I was not ready for the onslaught that started.
Hardcore punk has a reputation for brutal mosh pits, and this might have been one of the craziest ones I’ve been in. I made the mistake of standing too close to the edge, and I got body slammed by a guy in a wife beater. I fell down, but luckily the people next to me were kind enough to pull me up. I decided to hang out in the back of the crowd for the remainder of the show. Crowd killing was a fairly common practice, and it’s only gotten worse over time. Fucking kids nowadays, they’re something else. I watched them play, and despite not being the most “technically skilled” or whatever you want to call it, they got the crowd moving. Dave played like a fucking monster. The bass had this crunchy, almost sludgy sound to it that sounded like molten steel being poured in your ears. The rest of the band made up for their lack of technical skill with pure balls-to-the-walls aggression. John let out screams that sounded like they came straight from the warzone. I was kind of jealous of the aggression they put on. Made me feel like I was playing with the fucking beach boys or something.
By the time they were done, the crowd was moving like swirling waters. I high fived and congratulated band-x when they were done. Tim chugged a whole liter of water, and the rest of them got drinks from the bar. The headliner went up on stage and did the sound check and all. After going to hundreds of gigs and such, you get used to the sounds of guitar feedback and all that stuff. Tim and Alex left to hang out in the lounge, and John and Dave showed up in the crowd. The headliner started with a blastbeat and a drum fill. Once the guitars and vocalist came in, the crowd went fucking nuts. Even in the back I could still feel the impact. I saw Dave and John moshing with the crowd. John tackled this tall skinhead looking guy. Dave was bouncing around the crowd and slamming into people. He got tired after around three minutes, and decided to head into the lounge. I watched John, and he did not hold back. He punched and tackled several audience members and even threw some on the ground. The place was filled with sweat, beer and weed. I didn’t dare to walk into the bathrooms.
It was nasty and unpleasant for the most part, but not any worse than any other shows I’d been to. It got old after five minutes or so, so I headed into the lounge. Everyone was talking together except for Tim and Dave. Dave was busy making out with a woman with blonde hair and tons of neck tattoos. I wasn’t sure where Tim went, but I assumed he was packing up the van or something. Dave was obviously drunk as all hell. I sat down next to the rest of my bandmates, and joined them in conversation. I recall we were debating what the best sludge metal band was or something along those lines. My answer has always been Melvin’s, but to each their own I guess. I was exhausted and couldn’t wait to get a good night’s sleep. I saw Dave holding a beer bottle and that woman making out. They left to go into the parking lot. I knew exactly where this was going, and I debated whether to offer them a ride. I was too tired though, and decided to lay back, half awake. After a couple minutes of going in and out between conversations, I heard the faint sound of glass shattering and yelling. Tim and Alex ran outside, shouting at Dave. I figured he had gotten drunk or something. They pulled him in and he screamed “fuck you, you fucking worthless whore”. Anger issues I thought to myself.
Dave eventually calmed down and they led him towards the van. Tim went to get John, and he begrudgingly walked out to the van. We weren’t far behind them, and decided to head back to the hotel. I let Alice drive since I was deadbeat tired, and Steve clearly wasn’t sober. We drove over the train tracks and that gave me a jolt. Once we entered our room, I passed out on the couch.
I recall waking up around three AM. I assumed that I was the only one awake, but to my surprise I saw Alice standing topless over the balcony. I walked up to her, and she got startled after I approached her. “Hey” I said to her. “Sup, perv” she said to me. “I mean I’m not the one half naked over a hotel building, but whatever” i said with a slight laugh. “You can join me if you want,” she teased. I laughed, and then said “nah, I don’t want to be recognized as a sex offender but thanks for the offer”. She laughed and pointed out to the stars. “You see those three stars to the right of Capricorn”. I looked at where she was pointing and said “yeah, what’s the deal with those ‘’? “That constellation is called scutum. Sounds like scrotum”. “Seriously?” I said. “Yeah, it actually has a cousin”. “What’s the cousin’s name?” I asked jokingly. She looked me dead in the eyes with a full grin and said “cock”. It was stupid, but admittedly funny. I laughed louder than I probably should have at that hour. We both took a second to pause, and then looked out at the view. In front of us there was an old train station and a forest. We saw some rustling in the bushes, and I assumed that it was some sort of animal. I pointed at it and said “I think there’s a bear or something” she gazed over and said “I don’t think there are bears in midwestern small towns”.
I looked at her and groaned. I replied by saying “Yes there is, I saw one when I was hiking out in Nebraska. We have more to offer than just corn you know”. She looked at me and rolled my eyes. We looked back over at the bushes, and I saw a man, covered in dirt and mud with a garbage bag over his head with two holes cut out. I could see the moonlight reflecting off of the opaque surface. I couldn’t make out any of his facial features, or even tell if he had a face. He didn’t appear tall, but he did look strong as fuck. To my shock, he turned and looked at us. I stood there, paralyzed. The wind blew cold against my face. The man sprinted to the back of the hotel, escaping our eyesight. I looked at her, and she whispered “lock the fucking door”.
I froze, then immediately ran to lock the door. We shoved the dresser with all our force. The scraping noise woke up Steve. “The fuck is wrong with you guys” he mumbled. “Get in the fucking bathroom” I said to him, pointing at the bathroom door. Alice got out her drumsticks, prepared for the worse. I was petrified, breathing in and out as slowly as I could manage. Steve asked questions, while Alice kept telling him to shut the fuck up. Eventually he stopped, and after about three minutes, I heard something. It sounded like muffled footsteps. My knuckles were white, and I felt the blood flush out of my face. I heard what sounded like groaning coming towards the door. Alice got ready to pull off the shower curtain rod. Steve looked at us with a feeling of both desperation and confusion. The footsteps came closer, and I heard the doorknob turn. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I had a feeling that we were truly…. fucked.