Today's stories are from you. We asked for you favorite memories from any show and any style (from this post). If you were drunk, high seeing jesus or not, we asked for what made you think that was something to remember and why that stuck in head...and to a smaller extent, why you were email us about it....we are sadistic like that. But true to our words, albeit a day late, (hey it was "Taco Sunday", man..."Taco Sunday!!" 59 cent tacos, man!...give us a little break here, ok?) we are back to fulfill our promise and kick your stories out. You. The reader. As always, we ask for your favorite cars, shows and songs. Until then enjoy this reading from your fellow readers while we fight to see who gets on the toilet first for "Moaning Monday."

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Josh:

Strung Out, and Good Riddance - Modesto, CA. Packed everything I owned into my '84 Civic (another great topic for you - the beauty that is primer grey) one summer. Drove that little fucker from Houston to California, checked around for a good place to buy things to make my head feel funny, wound up in Yosemite slinging ice cream to tourists. Place was like the Betty Ford clinic for gutter punks. Everyone looking to clean up, everyone finding that little hair of the dog if it ever bit too hard. Five hours from civilization, so you bring one hell of a stash with you or you wind up relying on King Cobra 40's, since the rest of the beer was too damned expensive. So eight rehabbing punkers for life (I shit you not - one guy had ink he had given himself of himself partying, when he's dead and in hell, beer in one hand, bong in the other) pile into the civic and a Geo Tracker (a car that should never appear on your page unless you're talking about the antithesis of muscle cars) and show up at a punk show at the muni center in Modesto. Right down the road from a serious contender for meth capital of the US, Merced.

Ten minutes into the show, Phil's got a vein full, Jay's got a snoot full of boogur sugar, and Jim, Alan, and Sage found a fucking film canister of meth. All the anger that we've been bottling up for the last three months, smiling to the tourists, not kicking that hippie's ass who you've been working with and has been preaching the wonders of hemp, finds a release. It's pouring out of us. Good Riddance goes over well, beautiful show, but in between sets, we have a chance to find more fun and games. By the time Strung Out comes out, Jay's on stage calling the locals knuckle dragging mouth breathers, and Alan's trying to fight a guy twice his size that stepped on his girlfriend's toes.

The room is seething anger, the first fight before the first song is done. Show's over before the second song's done, and I don't know if a band stopping playing has ever stopped a fight, just gotten more people pissed off. But they try the theory again. Everybody's seen a donnybrook, that's nothing new. But when the evening ends with chugging bricks of Mad Dog through swollen lips, blood and cheap wine slushing around in your mouth, a clear sky above you, surrounded by mountains, ears ringing from the noise and the pumping, then watching raccoons lap up your vomit right before you go to bed, you know it's been an awesome fucking night.

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Pril:

This is what i remember about just about all the gigs i went to when i was younger: Blood, sweat, a pit, a loud band, more blood, booze snuck in filling big gulp cups, cheap wine, cheap beer, puke, leather. I mean i know theres more to them but really its all a hazy blur. Most of which centered around Fender's in Long Beach but often spread to Al's Bar and places in Hollywood whos names i can't remember, backyards in San Pedro and Sacramento and places in between.

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Kali:

Hardcore matinee at the safari club in DC. Swiz and American Standard ('88?).

The fucking place was NOT built for shows and whothefuckknowswhy they did it I just thank god they did. I think it was a restaurant by usual day, but on Sundays it turned into an all ages hardcore venue.

It was a very skinny single room so i stood on a chair to see. It was in the days when no one told you not to stand on your chair. I mean, the standing on chairs was the least thing they had to worry about.

By the time Swiz took the stage the place was fucking trashed. Cups and liquid all over the floors. Steam rising from the hot, bloodied, shirtless boys.

Also in the days when a pit was a pit and no one was trying to hurt anyone except maybe the skins.

it was my first real show (minus the local HS band firehouse shows -- which were grrreat too!)

I just remember thinking that i had found my place in the world. And I hocked a loogey right on the floor.

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coolrobc:

A friend of mine won tickets to see Gilby Clarke at Saratoga Winners. There were all of 8 people at the show, almost all of whom had won tickets to the show or were given tickets. (not counting the groupies at the bar, there were several more if you count them)

Anyway, no real pit to speak of, just to big (6'2"ish) hair-bags in leather jackets thrashing around in front of the stage. About halfway through the show during a guitar solo, one of them thought it would be a great idea to jump on stage and in the process he knocked the mic back and hit Gilby in the face with it, split his lip.

The lone bouncer working that night, he has maybe 6 foot, but built bigger than the incredible hulk, jumped on stage put the guy in a choke-hold and proceeded to drag him out of the bar, smashing his head off the doorjamb on the way.

The whole time his friend was walking behind, saying "he didn't mean it, aw c'mon man it's cool..." He was next to get tossed.

That left about 6 of us, not including the groupies at the bar.

To this day it was probably one of the best shows I'd ever been to(performance wise). I have a lot of respect for him and his band putting on such a great show in front of such a small crowd.

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mr b and w

First rock club experience was in 1988, 1st semester, freshman in college. The band was Soundgarden, supporting Ultramega OK and they were playing Axis in Boston, (this was the old, small Axis, not the Avalon mega-club or whatever it is now.) 5 bucks to get in.

I had never been in a pit, never surfed the crowd, any of it. A friend of mine that I had met at school, an old-pro at this stuff, basically threw me into the pit and said 'have fun!'

I did.

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Got a story to add? Have at it.

Strung Out - Ultimate Devotion

Update: Speaking of Fear (because the original show post was about Fear), Post Punk Junkie has up a post about Fear's infamous performance on SNL in 1981, including audio.

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