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Look what I just found buried on my hard drive! I wrote it in August of 2001:
To say that Sleazefest 2001 was the most fun I’ve had in a long time would be a gross understatement. I’d go so far as to call the experience nothing short of life-affirming! The sense of goodwill, community, and general supportiveness that I encountered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, this weekend was stronger than I ever could have predicted. The people were so warm-hearted and approachable, I almost found it intimidating. I lost count of how many deep, intense conversations I got into with people I had never met before and might never see again. And our talks were about any number of subjects beyond just music.
Not that the music was anything to sneeze at! With three different stages and at least two dozen bands performing at Sleazefest, my only regret is that I was unable to catch more bands than I ultimately did. But the acts I caught were uniformly excellent. Among them:
9TH WAVE, Connecticut’s own kick-ass instrumental surf band. It was because of these folks that I even went to Sleazefest at all. And I can’t thank the Wave enough for that!
EVIL BEAVER, a female punk duo from Chicago. If you had only ever heard these ladies rather than seen them live, you would never guess that there’s only two of them. Between Evie’s bass playing and guttural singing, and Laura Ann’s thunderous, lethal drumming, Evil Beaver reminded me of a hardcore version of the Phil Spector Wall of Sound.
As a side note, Evie and Laura Ann also happened to stay at the same hotel as 9th Wave and I. On Sunday afternoon, I spent a good hour in poolside conversation with Evie, who appeared to have her shit together and yet did *not* write me off as a total loser! Will wonders never cease?
SHEBANG, a young (and I do mean young!) female punk trio. From the looks of them, I initially thought Shebang might be some type of cheesy bubblegum group. But when they started playing, the ladies hit me in the face with a blast of some of the loudest, angriest rock ‘n’ roll I had ever heard. Looks damned sure *can* be deceiving!
SPEED CRAZY, a New Jersey-based psychobilly trio whose stand-up bass player was a petite blonde named Erica, who stood several inches shorter than her instrument. But her lack of height didn’t prevent the lady from playing the fuck out of that thing and at one point even riding it like a bucking bronco. She also took the lead on one song, which she sang in Italian! What can you say but, “at’sa one spicy meat-a-ball”?
THE BALBOAS, a Pennsylvania-based surf band whose sense of humor might even be more offbeat than mine. What can you say about a combo whose female bass guitarist piled her hair at least a foot higher than her head, and whose drummer routinely strips naked on-stage, only to cover up his naughty bits with whatever happens to be lying around—which, in the case of the nightclub known as The Cave, just happened to be a Styrofoam bust of Darth Maul? If that’s not enough to convince you of the Balboas’ essential zaniness, check out some of these song titles: “Christian Cowgirl,” “Grandma Sandbox,” “Delta Sonic Kiss,” and the oh-so-profound “Bring On The Surf Bitch.”
ME FIRST, (not Me First & The Gimmie-Gimmies), a hardcore/power pop-type ensemble from San Francisco. They delivered a great set despite some problems they encountered on their way to North Carolina, such as having to change planes three times, and the airline losing their luggage. Thankfully, another band, the 45s, were kind enough to let Me First use *their* gear.
THE BELLRAYS, a hardcore band with a black female lead who obviously has listened to a few Clara Ward and Mahalia Jackson records. Picture the MC5 backing up Tina Turner and you’ll have an idea as to what this breathtaking group sounded like.
I could go on and on about the other great bands I saw — including THE LAST VEGAS, JIMMY & THE TEASERS, THE BLIND PHARAOHS, BITCH, THE CLONES (who sported a Theremin player!), and THE WOGGLES — but I’m running out of adjectives. So, I’ll proceed to the biggest event of musical mayhem that Sleazefest served up--namely, the Friday-night performance of Chapel Hill’s own SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS!
SCOTS easily ranks as one of my favorite latter-day rock ‘n’ roll groups, and after Sleazefest 2001, I feel even more strongly inclined to say that. What made their performance a full-fledged excursion into madness and mayhem was the $500 worth of props that SCOTS bought for their set. The props included a full case of Silly String, an inflatable pig with an anal opening, a blow-up love doll without a vaginal opening(!), a pair of watermelons, a half-dozen or so boxes of Little Debbie cakes, a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, several trays of banana pudding, and other stuff I’ve probably forgotten.
Suffice it to say, as SCOTS’ “performance” went on, every damned one of those props became airborne. Lucky me, I was standing right next to the stage! Once the set was over, I asked the woman next to me if it was possible to have one’s self dry-cleaned. I got banana pudding on my glasses and watermelon in my ear, and was firmly convinced I would have to burn my T-shirt. At one point, I performed oral sex on the no-vagina love doll, while another guy stuck a can of Silly String up the pig’s ass and pushed it in far enough to depress the plunger. The sight of Silly String shooting out of that pig’s ass like psychedelic spaghetti will not fade from my memory any time soon! Perhaps after a few hundred hours of therapy....
But the events on-stage were only part of the fun. There also was plenty of activity out on the sidewalk. Sleazefest was the most harmonic convergence of strangeness that I’ve experienced since my early-1980s heyday as a “Rocky Horror Picture Show” cultist. I saw rockabilly rebels with tattoos, punks with piercings, surf-rockers in Hawaiian shirts, goths in black clothing and make-up, leather-clad dominatrixes with whips, and—-scariest of all--people who dressed more or less normally. Plus, in front of Local 506 (the club that puts on Sleazefest) was a forklift sporting a sign suspended ten feet in the air, which read, SLEAZEFEST 2001, CHAPEL HILL’S MARDI GRAS. For good measure, the double zeroes were painted to resemble a woman’s breasts. On Saturday night, an employee of Local 506 decided to offer forklift rides, in which anybody who wanted to could climb onto the lift and be hoisted ten feet into the air. Being an acrophobe, I passed on that particular pleasure, but quite a few others readily took advantage of the attraction.
There was just one problem: physically, this past weekend knocked the shit out of me! Along with dancing, walking around from club to club, and eating only about once a day, the heat and humidity were un-fucking-bearable. I’m firmly convinced that I sweated off several pounds in Chapel Hill. On Sunday night, I ended up returning to the hotel early and going to bed. To give you an idea of just how tired I was, when I went to the bathroom just before bed, I tried to flush the toilet with the light switch! That was right up there with the time I accidentally did my laundry with Liquid Plumr.
But the exhaustion aside, I still haven’t completely come down from the high of being at Sleazfest. On Tuesday, I even spent a couple of hours cleaning up my apartment, and I fucking loathe housework! Today, I began looking for a new job (since I hate my current one), and have decided both to get back to work on my novel and try to lose some weight.
All that from having attended a three-day rock ‘n’ roll festival in North Carolina! Not bad, huh?
Later ‘n’ stuff,
Dean
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