| because vedika says so (aka a lesson in buffalo hardcore punk) |
[May. 6th, 2007|04:39 pm] |
here's a post. or 2.
once upon a time there was a group of kids with short hair and questionable ideals who used to run around tagging "B.A.S.E." on everything they could hit with paint. B.A.S.E. for "Buffalo Area Straight Edge". it was kind of a fuck you to "BASH" and "BRASH" ,Buffalo Aryan Skin Heads and Buffalo Rochester Aryan Skin Heads. I guess rochester didnt have thier own thing cuz, you know, it would be "RASH". who wants to be known as that? so we were the "base crew", with straight edge being the "base to a better life". there were a handful of us, some lived in buffalo and others lived in the tonawandas and amherst. there was me, kevin (who wasnt really edge, but it was the 80's, who really was?), jeremy stone, holger, blake, wade (who, from what I understand, had a brother named lee who is to blame for unleashing jeremy smith on hardcore)... I think there was another couple kids, but I can't place thier names. and, of course, garret klahn. me and jeremy were the defacto leaders (even though me and kev came up with the name) and for whatever reason these kids thought we were the coolest things going. maybe cuz we were 2 years older than them and actually lived in buffalo, I don't know. but we would all meet up at the boulevard mall and hunt around for tweety (a local nazi who hung out there) and have garret and wade steal shit for us.
it was fun for the short time it lasted. jeremy and wade drifted into the whole nazi scene (I guess they figured out it got them more of a "rep" and the girls loved the "rep"), I got a girlfriend that I spent all my time with, kev went away to school, holger went punk rock from hanging with the manic guys to much and garret dropped out for a time after the infamous sick of it all show at the river rock. B.A.S.E. was revived for a minute that summer with me, john harris and rob peroti (I never knew how to spell it) and we added the tag "only the strong" to it cuz so many kids sold out. john and rob were 2 guys I went to high school with and went edge the summer of 89 cuz it was the "cool" thing to do. I took them to the manic house a few times and they started going by themselves shortly after that. and you guessed it, they sold out. now "manic" was buffalo's premier punk band, Manic Depression. the drummer who started the band went on to be in upfront. I always hated the drummer (tim shmeyer) and once he went to upfront, I hated them as well. as an aside, when I worked at bocce's pizza, he came in and got a cheese pizza. there were a couple of us there who hated him and saw our chance. he was veg, as all the cool kids were then, so we sprinkled meat shavings under the cheese for a little surprise! we heard later that it was the best pizza he had ever had. he sold it all out a few years later, the story I heard was that he "grew up" or some shit. fuck him. fuck him then, fuck him now, and fuck him tomorrow.
Manic went in 2 waves, the first had tim, jake (the singer), ben burns (bass) and a kid whos name I cant remember on guitar who went into the military and got a bunch of calvin and hobbes tattoos. a dude named Ari replaced him and he was replaced by another former edge kid, per vage (who I hear is a lawyer or some shit). tim was replaced by bronco bob christ. the per/bronco line up was when they did the most. they toured and put out thier own cd. 2 guys from avail have manic tattoos, if you ever see them, ask beau to show you his. I hear conflicting stories about what happened to all the guys from manic.... it would be great if someone got the scoop and passed it on. and a little known fact, I have tattooed 5 people in my life and 4 of them were in manic. I saw bob a few years ago and his has held up all right (considering) after all these years.
manic had 2 hot spots, some say 3 but I was only at 2. 1021 and kensington. the summer of 89. 1021. guidos, alex lee, the "drive bys", the craziness. the big thing in 89 with the italian youth of our fine city was to pull "drive bys" with pellet guns. I remember when a "truce" was called between the punks and guidos and derrick daniels (who played bass in zero tolerance for 5 minutes and was firmly entrenched in the guido camp) said "yo, we're not fucking around, we just did a drive by on alex lee's house". with pellet guns. I always laugh about that. me and jon just looked at each other like "you're kidding right?", but I didnt say anything. remember, I was 90 pounds soaking wet and attracted trouble like nobodies buisness so I didnt need to go looking for it. but I mean, c'mon.... PELLET GUNS, and these douche bags thought they were the crips or some shit. we came from a school where kids had 9mm's pulled from thier lockers (and this was 89), and you just got into a fight with that same kid last week cuz of your boots, and these wanna be's are acting like monster cody with pellet guns? fucking italians. fuck goodfellas, fuck the godfather, fuck the sopranos, thay all end up looking like Mario at some point. go save the princess you fucks! |
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