Before alien technology graced us with the Internet, we did a few things differently. I was heading west, getting closer to Atlanta, traveling across country with two musical acts known as The Locust and Jenny Piccolo. This was fortunately (or unfortunately) before such entities as Myspace and even before band websites. The information super highway was something for crunching numbers, or exchanging corporate business information, which might as well have been gibberish to me at that point. We had a show at a venue called Under the Couch with the infamous Dropdead. A nice change from the half assed local acts that were becoming routine on bills night after night. I mean Dropdead did do a spit 5” with the legendary Crossed Out, so we were getting close to home in some respects. Gabe and I had been listening to US Maple’s “Long Hair In Three Stages” quite a bit on this particular tour, and the word on the street was that Dropdead was touring with some band that sounded like US Maple… but even better. Whatever that meant, who cares, all factors pointed to good in our collective book. After a brutal drive and being absurdly late, we rolled onto campus where the venue was. The show was well attended with a fine mix of crusties, punks, weirdos and freaks. The venue felt like San Diego’s Che Café, where the percentage of actual students attending the event at the their own campus where the venue was located on was next to none. The venue was a dump, full of filthy couches with a plethora of germs and odd looking stains placed on any areas that I could park my skinny ass on. Anyhow, this much talked about band that was opening the show was apparently about to go on. I remember stepping out of the van and a friend who lived there urgently said to me, “Dude, you gotta see this shit”, as I pushed my way up front to the empty stage. Sure, there were weird amps that I was not familiar with on both sides of a huge silver metal looking drum kit that was minimal pieces. But there were no people to play the instruments. Just as my mind started to process the situation, a door just off to the right of the stage opened a little and I could see into what was the “backstage” area. All I saw was four janitors and some tall blond haired lady standing around. The crowd waited a bit longer and eventually the door flung open again as one of the janitors came out on stage and started to mess with one of the guitars. I quickly lost my concentration on the janitor as I noticed that the blonde haired lady in the room was topless. The door was propped open by another janitor’s foot. The five people in question all came out and grabbed specific instruments. It was the band, and the situation was already weird, confusing, and kind of rad. I remember excitement sort of turning to some sort of fear almost instantly, as the singer, also dressed in janitorial attire spoke to the crowd, saying something about 7”s. He stated that the area where bands sold merch was a pointless spot in the room as he was certain that he had all the 7”s that anyone in the crowd would want. I watched this guy rub his crotch obsessively until the drummer, who sat at a huge (in size) but minimal pieced drum kit, screamed “ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR” in a voice that was almost too high pitched for a man to spew out, and then the bands set hit us like a knife stabbing you in the neck. The first mind blowing chunk of sound known as a song ended after hearing lyrics about eating yellow snow and hearing actual stringed instruments sound more like sheets of metal grinding and tearing to a punishing and manic drum beat. The songs were totally absurd, and with foreign tones made info perfect hooks. Next, the singer’s shirt came off. Just before the following song started, he walked the perimeter of the slightly scared and/or confused audience. Everything that came out of this guy’s mouth was sexual in nature… but sort of disgusting sexual. That fact coupled up with the guy puling out the hair surrounding his nipples and sort of flicking it towards the crowd as he made me feel like I had just been raped (sonically) or was about to get involved in something so wrong and twisted that I needed to walk away. The only problem was, I was seeing the best band to have ever existed: Arab On Radar.
