There’s a bit of a fatigued adage designed to make those of us rocketing through our middle-age years feel a little bit better around our encroaching decrepitude, and that is “I May Be Old, But I Got to See All the Cool Bands.” I may not express that in so few words (I tend to go the windier route), but I’ve certainly belabored that exact sentiment.
So, I’m sitting around, last night, with some old grade school pals, and discussion turns to that very subject. Back in the posh confines of our Upper East Side school, St. Davids, there was a specific coterie of what I considered preternaturally informed classmates who were always at least two steps ahead. These guys were listening to The Ramones and the Dead Boys while I was still wasting time with Kiss and Boston. By the time I’d caught up and gave up arena rock for Devo and the Sex Pistols, they were already digging into Black Flag and Bad Brains. I’ve mentioned some of these guys before, but I'm talking about guys like John C., Rich K., Zachary T., Chris H. and Brad O. (some of whom recently immortalized here), and while they’d laugh about it today, their counsel was both informative and invaluable.
In any case, we’re there last night, and talk turns to a particularly tumultuous gig at CBGB by Washington D.C.’s own Minor Threat in 1982. I spoke about that show here. I wasn’t at that gig, as I was probably safely sequestered back uptown playing “Pitfall” on my Atari 2600. Brad and John, however, allegedly were. I’m not going to say I was incredulous at this claim, but it’s a bit like saying you saw the Beatles at the Cavern Club.
But then John showed us the picture.
As presumably captured by maverick photographer Glen E. Friedman (my former neighbor), here’s my friend Brad … his face obscured by Ian MacKaye’s microphone wire.
Fucking TOP THAT! I can’t.
ADDENDUM:
So, in the wake of this revelation, I went back to that post I linked to from 2021. As mentioned, there, photographer Glen E. Friedman used to be my neighbor and, at one recent point, he'd decided to publish some never-before-seen pics from the early `80s, and shared some photos with me from that 1982 Minor Threat gig (again, the one I wasn't at). I started to look at this pics again, and was again blown away, specifically by this pic.
Armed with the knowledge that my friends were in attendance for that show, I spotted my friend Brad AGAIN in the throng. That's him far-left in the Necros t-shirt.
As a side note, my allusion to "Pitfall" was initially hastily apocryphal, but I looked it up and the game was indeed introduced (by ActiVision for the Atari) in 1982, so there is a MORE THAN tragically LIKELY chance I was indeed at home playing this stupid game rather than getting the wind knocked out of me while slamming around to the melodious strains of "I Don't Wanna Hear It," "Bottled Violence" and/or "Small Man, Big Mouth."
...instead of...
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