The scene fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories…
“…that mother fuckin’ school bell started ringing again and the joyous screaming of teenagers was snuffed out by the harkening of another school year. The Krusade demo tape was making the rounds, buzzin’ through cheap car stereos in and about Placer County, and school or not, Identity Crysis was available for basement and backyard gigs, wherever and whenever possible. We were making a splash on the local scene, slappin’ homemade stickers on sign posts and scribbling our name on the backs of booths at Carrow’s Family Restaurant with permanent marker. It was this full-on promotional marketing blitz that made Identity Crysis the darlings of the Roseville skatepunk community… “
It was a time of chaos, rebellion, and dreams. But most of all, it was a time of punk rock…
“...wrapping up their songs, they flew into a surprise encore; a chunky, metallic version of 'Airraid!'. I snapped to attention and instinctively grabbed a mic. We took multiple stabs at the Crysis standard as the weight of their chops pulsed through my body like ultra-magnetic waves. My vocals slithered right in the mix, their more than ample PA system allowed me to finesse the words instead of battling just to be audible. Over and over again, Gravelgut's 'Airraid!' shook the ranch house walls, and I felt myself being acclimated to their relentless brand of hardcore. It was fuckin' beautiful, man! Even now, right this minute, I'm shedding a single, salty tear...”
To understand punk rock you have to go back to another time; a time when music was powered by damaged degenerates, Kamikaze cast outs, and alienated souls…
“…Bill showed up to practice with his gear, plugged into his Marshall stack and made like Tommy Chong in Cheech and Chong's Next Movie. Judas Priest flavored rocka rolla smoked out of the speakers as he ripped through a thirteen bar boogie, forcing dogs and indigenous wildlife to hightail it away from the horrendous sound of overdriven mayhem. The half-crazed grease monkey looked like he was just released from a nut house, stretching strings and delivering the goods at dead waking volume. He was off the fucking chain!! And way out of our league…”
“…the sound proof room was sizzling with high voltage excitement as we kicked out a couple backup takes of our signature jam. The simplistic, 60 second thrasher rattled through our headphones and filled our ears with clean, crisp production. The sound was so full, so rich! The drums and cymbals moved in this strange new fashion they called ”stereo,” the guitar and bass had a distinct separation, and my vocals were smooth as melted Parkay on an English muffin. Hearing our music through the refined, multi-track process blew up like an A-bomb in my brain! A transmutation occurred, a neurological firestorm swept my being and awakened a sensory buffet unknown to most mortal men!...”
Hardcore punk touched off a blaze which engulfed his very being, but without the bands he was nothing…
“…I found each band experience to be the same spinning Teacups ride; an initial burst of adrenaline, laughter, and exhilaration, until I'd spun in circles so long I wanted to spew burrito chunks. In every instance I was sapped of enthusiasm, tapped of resources, outvoted, or otherwise brought, worn, or taken down. I felt like a used tissue in a strip club dumpster. Every consecutive project seemed to out-bomb the last, and this whole run of bands was like the Splash Mountain log ride; an exciting, multistory freefall ending in a lukewarm pool at the bottom. I have no idea where the state fair similes are coming from…”
The thundering music sputtered and stopped. He tried and tried and tried, but nothing could stem the avalanche of failure…
“…it only took half a month before my newfangled musician replacements had me as frustrated as the very humans I hoped to vanquish from my creative cosmos! MIDI hell swallowed me whole, I couldn't "interface" to save my life, and sound cards danced about skewing me with tiny halberds and pitchforks as I helplessly spiraled into the 666th plane of Digitech oblivion. The "floppy disk" became an obstinate square of inaccessible information and LED screens doubled as shelving displays for a proxy hobby of dust collecting. I was confused, disorientated, and Casio curiously turned into a four letter word. As quickly as it began, the music revolution was over…”
The scene crumbled. Punk rock imploded. A whirlwind of posers, a firestorm of defeat…
“…I understood punk as a cosmic blanket, a patchwork of individual expression and rebellion knitted into a singular quilt of consciousness. Punk rock itself was the unifying factor; it didn't need the uniformity of "unity." The bands I listened to didn't all sound the same, they didn't look the same, and they didn't necessarily agree with each other. They exercised musical freedoms that didn't have to pass a litmus test. The punk rock I knew had no rules and wasn't chained down by exclusionary perimeters. That's right kids, my punk rock was the big tent! It was a high-spirited carnival where some of the clowns were scary, some were sad, some were funny, but we all still rode around in the same tiny car…”
Punk rock began to feed on itself. In the clubs it was a pop-punk nightmare. Only those
loyal enough to hardcore, brutal enough to stand on their own would survive…
“…in order to facilitate this unpleasant necessity, Greg and I started from the ground up using the bare minimum in music gear. The drum machine was plugged into my PA system and turned up to garage door rattling volume. A 1-2 check of the microphone found my vocals barely squeezing their way past the bass drum battering, but workably audible in the mix. So far, so good. Then Greg fired up his SG and gave it everything he could throw at those pummeling beats. He belted it, melted it, rode it all over the fuckin' ceiling…to no avail. The singular crunch of one measly guitar disassembled our music to a sad, emaciated tone. Limp as a playboy's alibi. The tunes had no bottom, no balls, no dice. It was as transparent as The Amazing Transparent Man that if we were going to bother doing this at all, we would need back up...”
The kids took over the scene, ready to wage war for an opening slot on a weekend show. In this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed. Men like Shane Stuart. The TruckPunk.
“…borrowing inspirational direction from PW's "Paper Bag Studios," I purchased a Roland R-70 drum machine and Yamaha four track cassette recorder from locally owned Skip's Music Center. Then I withdrew into the confines of my garage to do what every wannabe musician does. Fire up an electric guitar. I banged away on the six string only to find my lack of talent crashed like a multicar pile up against the R-70's unforgivable clock. But that didn't stop me! John Dykstra-like special FX blasted out of my fingertips as blinding green electricity crackled through the dead calm of the garage. Wailing away with three chord tenacity, I rode the lightning through the night as if mounted upon some winged beast from the pages of Heavy Metal magazine. 'Twas in that very garage I learned to harness the infinite power of these affordable, compact music machines. With my new electronic band mates, I wasted no time cranking out a number of experimental mediocrities…”
In a few short years, he lost everything. He became a shell of a man; a burnt out, desolate man. A man haunted by the glory days of punk rock. A man who wandered out into the “third wave scene.”
"...our eyes peered from black wool masks, connecting with the unblinking stares of a confused crowd. Each 70 second avalanche of sound dragged us further into Arctic winter-wear hell, with the stage lighting and sizzling summer temperatures cooking our brains like so much microwaved cauliflower. The blood-crazed frenzy relentlessly pounded, it was an aural massacre of blustering brutality without so much as word one uttered before, between, or after songs. Then, abruptly as it all began, we walked off the stage in silence, leaving a swathe of stunned onlookers with frozen looks on their mugs that seemed to say: "What…the fuck was THAT?!"
And it was here, in this blighted place that he learned to live again...
"...the Milk Dud-brown delivery truck rounded the corner, brakes squealing to a halt. The driver started unloading nondescript cardboard boxes as I bounced foot to foot, clapping and giggling like a giddy school girl. I tore open one of the packages and pulled out a single, solitary record from its dust sleeve. Toward the marbled pillars of Olympus, I raised my latest band triumph like the severed head of Medusa, and the smallest of sunrises eclipsed the vinyl curvature. A chorus of angel-throated voices carried a breathless, symphonic note as the sun crested the rounded horizon of record's edge…
"LOOK! LOOK UPON MY SYMBOL OF CONQUEST! MY CREATION! NOW BEGINS A REIGN OF TERROR UPON THE LANDS! A GOLDEN AGE, WHERE MEN SHALL GROVEL AT MY FEET!! A NEW WORLD OF GODS AND MONSTERS!!!"
