Like many other folks, I think the first time I ever heard of the storied Los Angeles punk band FEAR was via Penelope Spheeris’ 1981 documentary “The Decline of Western Civilization.” Hilariously obnoxious and inappropriate at every turn and actually way more musically accomplished than most of their contemporaries, FEAR became an instant favorite of mine, prompting me to immediately seek out their full-length debut LP, The Record. The band released further music – notably the “Fuck Christmas” single and a great follow-up album, More Beer in 1985, but if I’m being honest, The Record remains their definitive statement.
For whatever dumb reason, however, I didn’t get the opportunity to actually see FEAR properly play live until a decade or so later, when they plowed into New York City to play the New Ritz (the space formerly occupied by Studio 54) in the summer of 1992. I wrote floridly about that show here.
As mentioned in that reminiscence, however, I invoked a strange, pop-up acoustic performance I’d caught by them around the same time whilst mixing and mingling at the New Music Seminar at the Mariott Marquis hotel in Times Square. Here’s what I wrote…
Memories are slightly hazy, on this point, but I believe it was during this same visit in 1992 that I also saw FEAR deliver an incongruously acoustic -- but still endearingly objectionable -- performance as an impromptu event at the New Music Seminar in Times Square's Mariott Marquis hotel. Sadly, I've found no documentation of that performance, but a current co-worker remembers it well.
As I remember it, FEAR kind of appeared out of nowhere (they were pretty hard to miss) and set up shop on a random level of the hotel where badge-wearing attendees, at the time, were milling around schmoozing. Drummer Spit Stix (yep, that’s his name) merely whacked away on a cardboard box while lead singer/icon Lee Ving exhorted away. I can’t remember if Derf Scratch was still on bass, at that stage, but the band played a short, typically hilarious acoustic set to a gathering crowd of both the converted (geeked-out rock scribes like me) and otherwise bewildered industry types. I seem to remember standing next to singer/songwriter Vic Chestnutt and both of us enjoying it immensely.
In any case, while I’d gone on to recount the tale of this weird acoustic show many times, I could never find any evidence to corroborate its actual happening, although a former co-worker later verified that she’d been there to witness it, too.
Well, 33 years (to the day) later, my writer friend Jason Pettigrew – who was also at the gig in question – just posted the flyer…
For the uninitiated, this is FEAR…
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