cryin’/Muslims raped & Christians dying/It’s Post-Omega’s Anti-Kingdom Come…”
Through the back alleys of a warehouse despoblado & adjoining the river you’ll find Duffs
Brooklyn, world-renowned as the greatest metal bar in The States. It’s like a landing port for any
touring band in the extreme metal underground, and the major hub of all activity in the Tri-State
area. This is the very birthplace of NYDM (New York Death Militia), the extreme metal
equivalent of The Hells Angels.
Most NYDM members sport black-leather vests covered in patches, the NYDM logo
itself featuring a skull with battle-axes as crossbones. Will Rahmer of Mortician started the
organization in the early 90’s, and chapters have spread worldwide. Outside of New York, the
club transfers to the title USDM (United States Death Militia).
The NYDM guys consider it a blood-oath to accept membership, and one must always
sport their colors. Most of the members have NYDM tattoos. A breach of contract is a messy
occurrence, ending in bloody street fight or disgrace. In any instance, the excommunicated ones
patch will be forcibly removed.
Everyone in the fraternity is sworn to uphold its rituals, and if there is any NYDM
associated band touring an area the chapters take care of promotion, provide lodging, and salute
one another like members of Project Mayhem. There are no screamo, nu-metal or metalcore
bands allowed in the paradigm -- it’s all death, thrash or black, and all commercial trends are
stomped.
Duff’s Brooklyn reminds me of The Old Miami in Detroit – there is an outdoor patio with
a BBQ grill, leather couches and Lazy boy recliners; interior walls covered in bumper stickers
and classic tour posters. It’s quite possibly the only bar in NYC with $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon.
There is barely anyone here except for a small gathering of Slavs speaking whatever
language it is they do. One guy has a Requiem Aeternum shirt, which is an excellent obscure prog
metal band from Uruguay that I thought no one else had ever heard of. He turns out to be an
immigrant that actually hung out with those guys and designed their live banner.
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I get a phone call from the band Bone Crushing Annihilation, who has called off the
interview which was about to take place. 48 hours of pure movement is now inevitable & the
crowd here is wafer-thin because Emperor are playing their first US gig since 2001. There are
only two reunion shows -- NYC & LA – and that’s where Will Rahmer himself is this evening.
I grab another beer and am relaxing on the patio when a black hearse rolls up. This big
fella with a snakeskin cowboy hat pops out; he’s at least 6 foot 6 with a scruffy beard and
feathered fedora cap. Speak of The Devil -- it’s the owner & name-sake of the establishment,
Jimmy Duff himself: “This bar originally started in Hells Kitchen as ‘Belleview,’ which at the
time was still gritty. This is back in ‘99. I’d been working in nightclubs for years and someone
needed a partner.”
“It was always a dream of mine to have my own bar. I didn’t set out to make a metal bar,
just one that I felt comfortable in where I liked the music, the way it looked, the bartenders. It was
a very organic thing. It took off because there was nothing else like it in the city… This is where
all the bands come, it’s a pit stop. You have everyone from Rob Zombie, Pantera, Iron Maiden,
the newer death metal bands. We have every genre come out.”
“Did you play in any bands yourself?”
Jimmy Duff: “No, I’ve just always been a die-hard metalhead. I moved to Manhattan in
‘90. I didn’t know any metalheads out here because in Manhattan there’s not a whole lot. Back in
the day it was hard to network. I met people online, we’d go to shows. When I opened the bar my
friends thought it was the place to go before and after shows. That’s how it happened.”
“Tell me about the NYDM thing.”
“From the outside looking in people aren’t sure what it is, but it’s basically a music club.
People think it’s a gang or something, but it’s just a group of like minded people who’re
dedicated to the scene, the more extreme side of metal, the death side. It’s a small circle.
Everyone works together as far as promoting, going to different shows. This guy has a recording
studio so we can help you out with this or that. It’s like a family and everyone sticks together and
supports each other. There’s nothing else like it. It is the largest metal club in the world. There are
chapters in Ireland, France, all over the US, Puerto Rico. Let’s say you’re NYDM and there’s a
festival in Maryland. There’ll be people to meet you, pick you up from the airport, crash at their
house. It’s all about sticking together.”
“Tell me about your webzine on duffsbrooklyn.com.”
“We have so many bands that come though here on a regular basis that it just occurred to
me that I can interview these people in a natural environment. Where it’s not some publicist
involved, it’s not over the phone, there’s no pulling strings. One metalhead talking to another,
bullshitting, having drinks. Not hard hitting journalism or anything of that nature. This place isn’t
about a marketing strategy. It’s not a business, it’s a lifestyle. I’ve been very successful and
people have said ‘lets open an Irish bar.’ This is real, this is what I like, and I can’t fucking fake
it. What am I going to open an Irish bar and play a shillelagh while I’m in a leprechaun suit?
What the fuck is that? Is it what it is, the real deal, I live it 7 days a week. If I can pay my bills,
that’s success. Right now I’m talking to you, drinking a cold beer, listening to music, I’m quote-
unquote working. No one’s telling me what to do. I’m free.”
“What are some random musicians you’ve met here and some of the crazy stories?”
“We have to consider the statute of limitations (laughs). I’ll have to call my lawyer for
advice... Type O Negative had their DVD release here. I’ve met a lot of bands not even one tenth
as successful as they are and they’ve had rock star attitudes, been stand-offish. Those guys are
just the coolest, no special treatment. Peter Steele bangs out here as a regular on off nights. He
knows he can come down here and not get ganged up on by people. He’s a very introverted kind
of guy. He just wants to hang out, not get on that whole trip of where he’s being bothered.”
“In NYC are people more open minded?”
“In New York, to not be open minded is a luxury. The population is so diverse, at the end
of the day you take the punk rockers, the metalheads, the hardcore people… We’re the dying
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breed. They’re trying to get rid of us. The mayor has said he wants to make New York City a
‘luxury product.’ Guy’s a fucking billionaire. You put a gun to his head and he couldn’t tell you
much a carton of milk costs. He’s out of touch with the regular people. This is a blue collar town,
it always has been. You break your ass and you want to go to a show, you wanna drink some
beer, you want to jump around and yell your lungs out -- it’s a primal thing. I think there’s
camaraderie. Were the outsiders, we’re the tattooed fucking freaks. We’re the last of Mohicans in
New York City. Anything goes here, it’s for the fringe. Just look around, no one here looks like
they don’t belong. But even if someone is wearing a button up shirt we don’t cop attitudes. We
don’t judge people by the way they look. Every once in awhile you get an asshole but very rarely.
I’ve been at this location over 2 ½ years and I’ve only had to physically remove one person. I’ve
had to ask a few people to take a walk or come back tomorrow. But in terms of actually getting
physical? One person. That said I’ll probably get shot tonight, ‘cause that’s the way it goes.”
“Do cops fuck with you down here?”
“This is the only bar in New York City where you can step outside, legally have a drink
in hand or a cigarette, and you won’t get a ticket or arrested. The mayor’s an ex-smoker. When he
was running for reelection he didn’t say anything about smoking laws. First thing he did when he
got in office was push through the no smoking law, which hurt bars tremendously and the
business at large. You got a bar and everyone’s inside drinking and smoking, now all of a sudden
they have to be outside. They’re a little buzzed, they’re getting loud, you’ve got neighbors
complaining, you got cops. It’s a whole fucking mess. The common-sense approach would have
been to pass ventilation laws. I know other ex-smokers that have an axe to grind. ‘Fuck it, I can’t
have my cigarettes anymore, fuck you, you can’t have yours either.’ So that’s his attitude.”
“What’s the weirdest thing that happened to you and when you tell people they think
you’re a pathological liar?
“The funny thing about the lifestyle I lead is I’ve been doing it for years. Every weekend
is crazy in it’s own way and when you live it week in and week out, you don’t pay much
attention. You could be here tonight, it could be something you remember for the rest of your life,
and I might not, because I’ve done it so many times… At the old place, I had friends that were
police officers. We were hanging out particularly late and just for kicks we destroyed the place. It
wasn’t so fun cleaning up the day after, but at the time it was very primal. So we’re raging, just
fucking raging. There’s a couple ceiling fans, I rip one out. The other one was spinning so one of
the officer’s started trying to shoot it out. Bullets are flying all around, they’re going through the
wall, and we realized there’s a diner on the other side. Everybody shut the fuck up. I get myself
together and go get a coffee next door, looking at the wall. Luckily 9mm’s aren’t that
powerful…”
6am, SATURDAY MORNING
I was able to get a few hours of rest on the patio couch before the staff booted everyone. Before
leaving a street kid explained to me – in between puffs of M-5 grade government issued
marijuana – that smoking or possessing weed in NYC is now a minor felony, which automatically
bars anyone from leaving the United States thanks to the Patriot Act.
A quick subway jump and back to the Lower East Side. The streets are depopulated save
for lurkers with that meth-zombie swagger. I burn some time at McDonalds, but all the black
coffee in the world doesn’t help how dead tired I am.
I head into Tompkins Square long before it officially opens hoping to locate some
crusties and perhaps a guide to the legendary C-Squat. It’s a small warehouse that Leftover Crack
bought for the community, and is run as an anarchist co-op. Whoever the main guy is running the
show, I was told in San Fran to march right up and say that Frankie Helvis sent me.
But there are no punk rockers to be found. The park is dead except for a few piss-
smelling vagrants, and as I walk past the bench tables a Harlem mob start shouting: “Hey you
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fucking white bitch! That’s right motherfucker, you got a problem? Say something motherfucker,
I’ll fucking slit your throat!!!”
I don’t bother to acknowledge them, but they’re hopped up on something. One guy starts
trailing me. I have the blade slid open in my pocket, and the first thought that jumps in my head is
to instinctively whip it out, slice open my arm, and start yelling: “You want AIDS motherfucker?
YOU FUCKING WANT AIDS!?!” I look back and no one is there, stunned by my primal reflex.
Instead of hanging around as a target, I head back to the streets. Since vagrancy is an
arrest-worthy offense, I have to camouflage myself. I find a senior apartment complex and plop
on the bench, writing some poetry before spreading a newspaper on my lap. So long as my head
is down and it appears I’m reading, I should be safe. My theory works, but I can’t go under
because my neck is killing me, and the bench structure is poking my spine and sending throbbing
waves of pain…
My eyes burn & my brain is bubbling. I walk another 7 blocks trying to find any nook
outside plain view. I come across a black timber wood-box nailed to a brick wall that halfway
encloses a dumpster. I curl inside the refugium and utilize my backpack as gruff pillow…
CRUST HAVEN
“No coincidences, just an ocean of collision.” At least that’s what I keep telling myself as I’m
passing the 40 oz to Acacia in the shade of Tompkins Square. We’re drumming rants in our first
reunion since January. I’d only briefly met her once before, yet I feel as if I’ve know her for
aeons.
While waiting in line at the San Diego Greyhound for the Albuquerque bus I spied her
out the glass door. She came tumbling out a parked bus with that Marla Singer stomp-and-hustle.
She was a 5 foot 3 crustie with dyed red hair that could easily pass for 16. She looked fried and
discombobulated as if she’d been sleeping on the bus for hours. She swung like an airplane with a
fucked rudder, her coat dangling half-way off in the rain. I could tell this one would be fun,
especially after she flashed the 666 tattoo on her butt cheek.
She’d been living at some squat called The Meat Locker in SD that no one had ever heard
of. These were the super-secretive pyrate crusts that were just as far underground as The Villa
Winona. She had just broken up with her boyfriend and was off to Phoenix to stay with her
family, gearing up for a summer of train-hopping, hitch-hiking, multi-state panhandling fun. We
knew we’d collide again somewhere, someway…
Now its New York world, and three days ago she got married in Tompkins to her new
man-friend Brandon, a short fella with a labrae piercing, stretched ears, and a dread-locked mane.
They are like two cartoon characters that’ve been tooling around the country since Phoenix, and
have just been cooling it at Tompkins, which I’m now convinced is the double-negative of
Golden Gate Park.
There are no acid-headed hippies or jovial Ulysses. These are the elite East Coast crusts –
dirty mean fuckers, hardboiled from the brutal nature of New York: “I went back to San Diego for
a month. I came there with a kid and we tried to hitchhike from Riverside to Vegas. From Vegas I
met up with a friend with a van. Than we went through Arizona, went to Phoenix, broke down 20
miles outside of Tucson. First the tire blew. JP, the old drummer from Leftover Crack -- he was
the only person that stopped. He helped us go buy a tire and put it on.”
“So the guy from Leftover Crack just randomly appears on the road?”
Acacia: “Yeah, I didn’t know he was. He was just the only person that stopped. Nobody
else gave a shit. He was ‘ah, I saw a bunch of crustie kids with a van, figured I’d stop, blah blah
blah.’ So we’re on the way to get the tire, and he’s like, ‘ever listen to Leftover Crack? I used to
be their drummer.’ We thought he was bullshitting. Later I went on their MySpace and it actually
was h