House Party
By around ‘82 or’83 it seemed like there wasn’t a club left in Austin willing to book punk bands. The schism had happened between punk and new wave, and new wave bands had no problem except that there really weren’t any…It seemed like maybe that was the case all across the country; I really don’t know.
So a band like the Offenders might have an album or two out and be pretty “highly regarded” but the only place they could play in town was at house parties.
I remember getting a press clipping in the mail from bass player Mikey Offender (who also played in MDC, and still does) when they were off on tour, from the newspaper in some Midwestern town, quoting the Sheriff: “Well, they were doin’ this new dance they call the slam dunk, where they line up aginst the wall and then run at each other as fast as they can and crash in the middle, see, which is dangerous for the kids, so we had no choice but ta shut ‘em down.” And shut ‘em down he did.
If I remember right, this party, like most of ‘em, was at someone’s house out in East Austin—the barrio—(how come the wrong side of the tracks is always the east side of the tracks?), and the cops had a tendency to leave the folks in the barrio alone, reckoning they’re not really worthy of attention as long as they stick to their part of town…
I think this party was around Halloween. I have some recollection of Spot and I endeavoring to use an electric drill and assorted other power tools on a pumpkin in order to make a jack’o'lantern. I remember the drill flinging pumpkin flesh all over everybody who was in the kitchen, and I remember little Felix Griffin the 14-year-old drummer of Crotch Rot lighting his farts on fire, which was something I’d never actually seen done before that night. (Felix later went on to become the drummer for D.R.I.)
Felix of Crotch Rot
The cops finally did show up. Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” was playing loud while we threw everything goopy and sticky we could find at their squad car, dumped beer and garbage in it and then all took off running before they ever knew what hit ‘em, the cops standing there flabbergasted, covered in goop and garbage and pumpkin innards looking like something from a wet-and-messy fetishist’s love-a-man-in-a-uniform fantasy…
Check out the sign behind the stoner in the kinks t-shirt: it says “No skating inside”. Somehow I’m not totally sure that anyone paid much attention to that sign.
