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sunglasses, and we march like a terrifying army about to go to war. We clomp to the main nerve
and wait for the trolley to swing by. So long as a trolley cop isn’t riding we won’t get hit with
tickets. It pulls up and all 12 of us rush board like Indians into battle, dogs & all…
Which is a fantastic commuter moment. The trolley car we’d hijacked is filled with the
audience of a Huey Lewis concert. We’re drinking 40’s, talking loudly about assault and
narcotics. Then I start ranting about my pussing, leaking genitalia -- the oozing, the rashes, the
scabs & ticks. The compartment riders are pushed to the side of the trolley. Some whigged out
punk girl unassociated with us is neurotically cutting off clumps of her purple hair, throwing
wads of it on the floor. “Can I have a DNA sample so that I can clone an army of you and attack
the White House?” She smiles and hands me a messy clump which I drop into my pocket.
At Panhandle Hill Clownface Jus-Ten got $10 at the health clinic for taking a Hep C
blood test which we use on King Cobra and Sparks. I yank out Trolley Girl’s hair clump and ask,
‘Does anybody wanna do a shot with me?” The look of confusion on Ulysses face and the horror
on the rest is unparalleled.
I swallow this giant hairball, take a big slug of the 40 oz, and can’t help but envision one
of those Drano commercial cartoon explanations of what it does to clogged pipes. The soaked
hairball bespews like a fountain -- projectile vomiting alcohol and laughing simultaneously.
Booze is dripping through my nose. I keep laughing at all the yuppies walking baby strollers and
rush up to the pool of chime, get on my knees, and go ‘luh-luh-luh’ licking it with my tongue like
a thirsty dog. I couldn’t stop laughing and everyone wanted to vomit.
A crotch-rocket cop rolls up on all of us. All the crusties say, “Hi Officer Dan!” He just
sighs and says, “Ok, caught you drinking. Whose gonna take it for the team?” Jus-Ten happily
agrees because all he has to do is drop the ticket at the Homeless Youth Alliance Center. They
always pay for them because they receive state aid for that purpose. Tattooed officer Dan says
some kind words and zooms off on his bike, popping a wheelie in the street like Evil Kenievel.
Free meal at the Youth Alliance center where punk rock socialism & ablutophobia is
deep in orbit -- open medical, food distribution, 9-5 shelter… There are 15 street kids hanging
around. Some are deranged loners, and the younger girls have that sexually-abused teen runaway
vibe to them. We kill time with egg sandwiches and VHS features of Return of the Jedi &
Ghostbusters…
STORMDRAIN
Later that night and chilly in The Fillmore; 3 layers of pants still haven’t done the trick. I tried to
nap at Panhandle but it was too damn cold, and I’ve barely been able to shake off the
discombobulation from earlier alcohol. I’m posted outside a bar awaiting Scott Reyns from the
industrial band Stormdrain. He overlooks me during his initial entrance, since I’m so haggard
he’d mistaken me for a bum.
Scott kind of looks like Trent Reznor; the saloon a moderate version of the Skinny Puppy
Too Dark Park stage-show: “Live drums, but it’s augmented with an electric kit – triggers, an
electronic pad for different sounds. It has a big OGHR drum sound. A lot of things are
sequenced, but not the rhythm. The beats are more break-beats, trip hop beats, a little more
dance. I’m like 10 years younger than Trent Reznor, so where guys like that were growing up on
Alice Cooper and Kiss I was growing up on The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Smiths. We’ve done
film shows, robotic lights, video montages…”
“Tell me about the San Fran scene. You’re the first industrial guy I’ve talked to.”
“San Francisco is a tight scene -- a really good scene -- but it’s actually a really bad one
for industrial. The real heart of it is DNA Lounge. Also Stepfield, which is an 18+ club. Bottom
of the Hill is mostly known for punk and indie, but we get in there. You got The Independent and
you get VNV Nation in there. Every once in awhile something will come through Mezzanine, but
they do more electronic like Meat Beat Manifesto. Each club has a different voice and vibe, but
they don’t lock themselves into one genre. You can’t do business like that.”
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“What the weirdest response you’ve gotten so far?”
“I had someone post a comment on MySpace that said ‘your music is really awesome, do
I detect a hint of the Holy Spirit?’ You really wouldn’t say that if you read the lyrics…”
Scott jets and I’m left nodding off at the table. I tried to cajole him into hanging out, but I may
have unnerved him out by my bumminess. I need to shower and sleep, and I’m dreading going
back out there. All I gotta do is make it until tomorrow. Downtown Brown will nab me from
Golden Gate, everything will be happy-skippy, and then I’ll be going on… my first spoken word
tour…
Wow. That’s a head-trip I hadn’t even pondered. I’ve been too busy just trying to stay
alive here, and tomorrow I’ll already be on the road again, swinging down California through the
Southwest and into the Bible Belt, then boomeranging the Midwest.
I get lucky when an oldschool Detroit chum returns a distress signal I emitted 2 days ago.
I haven’t seen this girl since 2000 when she took off in a renovated school bus full of hippies.
They went everywhere in that thing, and seven years later she’s planted roots in a section of San
Fran called Fruitvale (which surprisingly is not a gay neighborhood).
She’s an editor at Locust Magazine, and is co-editor on a sci-fi anthology that features
fresh Neil Gaiman prose. One long shot on the BART and she rescues my decimated half-corpse,
feeds me upscale pizza, and I take the greatest shower in personal history, black water spiraling
the drain...
COHERENCE
Ok, I’m in a normal apartment. I’m on a fold-out couch with pillows everywhere -- clean
blankets, Glade air freshener. This is all so foreign to me…
The BART ride is of total coherence. I feel like a superstar, and keep chuckling at the
passengers who eyeball me like scum for eating a half-devoured pizza slice I trash picked on the
platform. 7 days on the street with every backup plan shot down with Red Baron certainty. I’m
still alive, and I feel better than I have in years.
Back at Golden Gate it is blissfully sunny, and my panhandling sign reads: “DETROIT
D.I.Y. GONZO JOURNALIST ROAD NOVEL HELP FUNDS NOT JUNKIE DEATH TO THE
FREEWHEELING MONKEY.” I’m stretched out shirtless, surrounded by half the crowd from
“ground zero.” One kid is working his second day on the street ever, and I’d spent the last hour
teaching him the ropes.
Ulysses and Chaos are nowhere to be found. It is a shame that I’ll be leaving without
saying goodbye. I kind of foresaw this yesterday and made sure to pop the question to Uly: “Look
man, when someone dies in our tribe at The Villa Winona, we snort their cremated ashes. It’s a
ritual, seriously. Actually, that’s how we spent Christmas Eve, but I’m saving that for the deluxe
edition of the book, ha ha... When I die, I want you to promise right now that you’ll snort me.”
Uly laughs: “Well, I tell you what. I never promise, I never swear -- but I will give you my word.”
We shook on it Viking style…
Out by the fountain Action Jackson & Whorehouse Mike chat with the extremely
clandestine land pyrates. Mike really digs the MABUS album and wants to start a grind project in
LA later this year. He’s busting out of here ASAP. Jackson is also set for a long haul to Chicago
within the week.
My last 30 minutes on the hill. “Hey man, it’s legal to trip in large numbers in this park
right?” “Well how crazy?” “Say 50 people on an eighth each convinced they’re on a
mountaintop, all of whom know too much, becoming their own diversions, prancing around like
The Marx Brothers meets ‘Lord of the Flies,’ and no one stops laughing for 10 hours.” I look up
and everyone on the hill – like ALL the circles – they’ve overheard my carrying voice. I lock
eyes with one of them, and hippie girl with dreadlocks: “Can we come?”
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It’s the phone call; my chariot has arrived. I light a rolled up Bugler in what seems to be
slow motion, and I’ve got that badass opening riff from Hammers of Misfortune’s new record
jamming in my head as I make my way like a champ through the pasture. All characters nod as I
float passed, like thankful Mexicans during the sunset ride of a Spaghetti Western vigilante.
Never have I arrived anywhere with more hatred in my heart for Californian populist living, and
nowhere else have I been overwhelmed by such charity in return.
A quick squeeze through the stalactite cave limping and beaten, I appear in plain view to
all three Downtown Brown members. They look discombobulated and somnambulist next to the
spewing fountain, flabbergasted to see me of all people stomp up the hill like a lone horror movie
survivor.
‘So boys, what’s the plan?’
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PART VI VI VI: COACH SNAKE
(& THE ALPHA FARCE VOLTRONIC TOUR)
APRIL 12TH-APRIL 23RD 2007
HARDWORN CHANGEOVER
All three members of Downtown Brown are just as displaced as I, zombified eyes burning a
whole in my face from across the plastic McDonalds table top. It’s their first experience with
California, and none of them have ever seen a world that doesn’t resemble the Midwest. It’s their
first USA tour, and guitarist/vocalist/dictator Neil P and I go way back.
He was there at the beginning of the Detroit press wars, and remained solid throughout
every ugly, momentous spiral. We are perhaps two of the most loathed individuals in the Detroit
music scene. Myself for all reasons Mr. Badoglio established, and Neil because Downtown
Brown are one of the loudest, shit-talking, ridiculous-beyond-belief punk rock comedy acts to
ever come from that city.
Neil is among the few sincerely magnetic live performers on the Detroit circuit, and
Downtown Brown are bar-none one of the most original and entertaining bands to come out of
“The Glove” in this decade, if not the entire United States. Hype is shit, and I wouldn’t put my
reputation on the line like this for 99% of extreme metal.
I’ve seen them all – nearly every major legend from every subgenre -- and never once
have I been bored with a DTB Performance. I’ve seen some piss poor ones where Neil tried to
play whigging out on mushrooms or had blacked out during one of his Eddie Van Halen guitar
solos, but never have I been sleepy or calm. Their aura terraforms the venue like mankind will
Mars by 2078.
The rest of the world does not know this yet. I know this, the Detroit scenesters & press
people know this. But either in jealousy, contempt, political correctness or insult, Downtown
Brown have been blackballed or blown off as a novelty act. But all the nut-hugging jean indie
squares in the world can’t hold this monster back. “Serious” rock journalists will one day cringe
before this goliath as they now do to the ghost of Captain Beefheart.
Downtown Brown are worshipped as the ultimate party band by a growing army of fans
ranging from the age of 9 to 57. It all goes back to Neil’s raucous sense of humor. He is like a
cross between a manic, gut-busting Jack Black and John Belushi in Animal House, between every
song bombastically hijacking the mic and launching himself into impromptu spoken word rants
on the president, poop, lazar beams, dinosaurs, Jungian psychology, artificially tanned “orange”
women. The music itself a cartoonish, hook-laden assault between MANOWAR, Sublime,
Tenacious D, Frank Zappa, AC/DC, Van Halen, Circle Jerks, & Mr. Bungle….
The spirit of this band is to indoctrinate all of the freaks, dorks & pimple-faced losers in a
reality where no macho meatheads exist, and all are encouraged to dress like robots, break-
dancers, zombies, mummies, or Pee Wee Herman. Downtown Brown has actually made the
mullet in vogue. This insanity slops into reality, and an entire mutant subculture has formed under
their masthead.
They aren’t tied to the ICP phenomenon, but the example of the Juggalo is adequate.
Their shows are like carnivals – sometimes literally – with a colossal repertoire of live
presentation, at times involving semi-professional wrestling complete with flaming table and