98 the damned maritime hall / more shit

Unity Is goin' Down....

1998- 1999



1998 was a kickass year, 'cept for some bad stuff.


Even if I was broke and messed up my car like hell in like, Novem,ber of 98 it was a very very good year. I cannot for the life of me know why so much shit went on that year that happened but it did.



I stopeed doing Meth on 7-7-98. I did it from October of 96 till then. Off and on. Fuck You Lucerne.


I went to the most Psychedelic rock show i had ever been to in my entire life.


San Francisco: Febreuary 28


8:12 pm I pull into town looking for Maritime Hall. The Damned are playing tonight. With Dave on vocals, good stong lineup, smart hooks, good riffs, and from what I had been hearing about their current state, they'd be able to hit me as hart as they were hitting in 76. Awesome. I'm so pumped I'm not reading signs for roads at all, I missed 4 blocks of signs... Lost. I asked some hell of nice people where the fuck Maritime Hall was. Found it.



As soon as I parked the car and slapped the gear into shut-down, I sparked the only bowl of killer green I had. Hot Boxed the car while people (who appeared to be on the same wavelength of musical pursuits for the evening), walked by and looked at me like I was a martian or somethings, with my discman in my lap and banging my head with headphones on, wires from stereo hanging out like the car vomitted them from the hole that housed the AM/FM Stereo Cassette player, or it was maybe before that (not in real time), when i had the stereo still, the point is, it was feb 98, and maybe i had a stereo, but i was listening to the Damned's New Rose over and over. It was a kick.. Prepping to go see a band I had wanted to see for freaking eons. The first time I heard The Damned .... I can't remember. I fell in love with their clean, sharp, and twisted delivery. My "friends", back in Lake County hated ... more like Full On Loathed The Damned. They hated punk. They hated psychedelic music. They hated a lot of the stuff I liked, and didn't get that they needed to get the fuck out of my life because i wasn't on the same page. I was trying to spread my wings and find myself and spend more time out of lake county and around people that liked me and I liked them, but it was sooo pointless to these scum that they should have left me alone. They're dense as bricks. And 2wice as mean.


anyhooz.


I was like the ONLY person who was wearing a "Machine Gun Etiquette". shirt. I got alot of nice comments from a lot of different people regarding the shirt and how hard it was to get one at that time.



I hope that things have improved and that people have been able to get the shirts that they've wanted and made all their dreams come true and that they're not running down a damn dark tunnel of chaos and confusion pushed to thrust forward with blind force due to social pressure and socio-eceonminc frustration into an ever changing exit.


Sitting about on the floor, i was smoking cigs and a roach and drinking beer, and some girls came up and said "hey, you got a lot of fucking balls to do that", I said "no way, i ain't stopping I need a head change". "I hear you", she said, and her and her two cohorts parked their carcasses by mine, i passed out 3 extra marbs and passed the roach to the chick i wanted to fuck the most. A lovely young woman who said she was 30 and a couple of other beauties.... O damn this could be fun. We smoked, her friends only talked to me for a moment about the opening band, and then it was one on one time with this hot thing. Becoming stoned and belligerent, We all agreed that the opening band was going to suck after the weed kicked in, and the 2nd beer went down. I invited he to the bar to have a brew with me, I offered Red Tail, from Hopland and Ukiah, she accepted. I talked to her about the Ukiah bands and how every weekend there was a party or a show somewhere and there were raves and we gigled and laughed, and she got damn fucking close. I should have kissed her. GRRR. We went back to a spot that we think we were sitting at before, (draw a line from bar out to middle-ish area and right across from doorway... bingo) and parked it again, she gave me a Marlboro 100 that time, 'cuz I only had like 3 or 4 left of my own stash. Three security guard people came up and addressed the 4 or 5 pods of sit-down groups, telling us that there was No Smoking allowed indoors, of anything. SHIT. We got up, and continued to talk walking over to extenguish our cigs where we were told to do so, we bantered about HOW badass SF was and HOW Badass it was to see a Band that respected psychedelic music and ENJOYED playing it... THIS GOT ME SOOO FUCKING HORNY you have NO IDEA. my brain started rushing, bits of words started sliding in and out of my head then... lust in bliss,... beer n weed kicking in... full throttle. the last stuff she said to me was "I hope they play White Rabbit, AIRPLANE, you know, they came from the UK, this is..."....me: "I KNOW, TOTALLY", I over-flamboyantly and over exuberantly, jumped in "SANFRANCSICO MOTHERFUCKER, THE PSYCHEDELIC AGE NEVER STOPPED ... WOOOOOO!!!". ... "hell yeah", she barked back. Just to piss off the Elitist Goths that were walking by looking at me like I had a seizure. "THEY"RE Not gonna play that SAD SHIT from the 80's FUCKERS. THEY"RE IN San FranFucikin' Cisco We're Getting Psychedelic HEAVY SHIT.. WHITE RAAAAAAABITTT".... I spat back at them ... she shipped in, too "WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT, FUCKIN" GOTHS FUCKIN' GOTHS!!!" walked to the bar giggling like hell.

we said our check ya laters after we finished our cold ones and wandered about, never to see each other again I was supposed to maybe give her a ride up to Petaluma or Healdburg, i can't remember, but she didn't meet up with me at the end of the night. If she's dead 'cause of me. I'm sorry and feel like shit.


When the announcer came up and told us that a commercial radio station that had been pumping plastic into the air since before Cobain offed himself was one of the sponsor's, and Captain Sensible looked on from the side, when we as a crowd heard that, and as Cap's face looked over in disgust at this plastic pusher, the resounding sound bouncing off the ceiling was a rain of arrows of foul words, statements and angered boos and graonings "get off the fucikng stage PLASTICBOY".


Someone else then took center mic. They announced that the band that's opening will be on soon. within 2.5 minutes.

Okay. Good. Opening band comes in and plays some sloppier stuff and gets offstage.



I went tot he mens to leave a piss. Done, got the fuck outta there fast. smoked on way back to dance hall room.


lights go down.


...

WHOAH.

On a back projected screen above the field of view on 3 or four backdrops, we saw a movie for a few seconds... "abandon hope all ye who enter here", i think, popped up on screen, and i see Lugosi... OHHHH SIIIIITTTTTTT..... THE crowd starts up like a cold subaru on a winter morning. WOOO's start up, clapping. The techs have arrived to tune for the Damned!!!


Pills are being popped, chased by Buds and Red Tails. I'm offered blue ones, white ones, yellows and pinks. "GOT ANY CODEINE, MAN Threes DUDE, THREES!?", I yell at the pill dude who is nervous looking. He fumbles about for a bit in his jacket pockets and pulls out a small tin mint box, opened it up and finds... "Fives, I GOT FIVES MAN", he pulls out a white pill with a 5 etched into the surface. "NO WAY. I NEED THREES, MAN, NEVER DONE FIVES", I pop back at him. "DAMN, DUDE", he pauses, "you never done Fives, FUCK.", he looks around frantically and taps on the shoulder of a girl who looks like the girl that the principal thought was Ferris by the Karate Champ Arcade game in that eatery right before the baseball game, only she was wearing a tight brown leather jacket and a Rudimentary Peni shirt. "Janet, you got any Number Threes?? This is Olly, he's cool.", Pill Dude says, who I think his name was John, can't effing remember. Janet bums a cig from John and pulls a pillbottle from her handbag. Grabs two pills with the signature 3 on them and passes them to John. Who slides me the pills and i slide 'im a 5 and a promise for a beer. We seperate, John and I going to the bar to pay him off in booze for pill, and Janet off to go BS and do god knows what with some skinny mean lookin' chicks..

I return my focus to the bar, slam my beer, order another, and walk out to chill and pop a 3 and watch tuning. Bitchin' High.


Bitchin High. Soaring. Fuckin' Soaring.


The waves of energy slid in and out of my face and brain and body even before the music started. Just in tuning, when my high was on an uplhill scmush peaking and splashing back into a slime puddle of bright colors and feelings. warmth and unity. Calm before the powersurge.


The lights in that SHOW were AWESOME. WRAP AROUND psychedelic light show, from the ceiling to the floor, every wall, every inch of that place was a pumping rainbow (not gay) dripping in and out and watery and slipping like brains.



I cannnot remember the track/ set list. They did every song from their 1st album, they did encores. They played psyc songs from the 60's, they played the extended version of "Smash It Up", from "Machine Gun Etiquette", they played SOO MUCH DAMN GOOD STUFF. I think they played some Eric Burden and some really far out rando \m jamming and Captain Sensible GOD DAMN he knows how to play.


There were so many people pogo-ing that the floor felt like it was going up and down in waves from the front to the back and back to the front, UNDER YR FEET you're feeling this. Standing still or not. TONS OF ENERGY.

10 out of 10


NO fuck that 15 out of 10


-om-

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