Not to detract from the history of The Control that I posted over
the weekend, I thought it would be fun to trek down memory lane again. In December 2000, The Control embarked on our first tour with
our newish drummer, Steve. The tour was
2 ½ weeks down the east coast and up the Midwest. I don’t have a complete
recollection of every show, but there are a few and most notably, two of the
most insane/ weird shows we ever played.
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| Steve and the Author on tour, chilling |
The tour started off OK, but the weird thing was I had
contacted this band Strong Intention about booking a show in Maryland for us
and they started popping up on like EVERY show we had booked for our winter
tour. When we got to a show at M and M Hall in Old Bridge, NJ to play with The
Degenerics, Down In Flames and Let it Burn, the promoter asked “Where’s the
band you’re on tour with? They’re playing first and late." Pissed, I was like; “we are
NOT on tour with those guys, and they somehow keep getting added to our shows.”
Apparently they were calling or
emailing promoters from the itinerary on our website and finagling their way
onto shows, which I felt was not cool. Also, they cherry picked shows that were
close to where they lived and would drive to the shows after work, then drive
home. Anyway, I digress. We played the aforementioned NJ show, then Philly the
next day with Kill The Man Who Questions and Runiation, then continued down the
east coast, playing a great show in Norfolk, VA with a band called Facade Burned
Black, who had a member of the band Time Flies, who I liked a lot at the time. The
next day was a show at a place called “The Foundation House” in Raleigh, NC
with Facade Burned Black again, our friends in the First Step and a band from Massachusetts
called Melee. The guys in Facade and us decided to caravan down, but the guitar
player, Craig, said “I think I know this place. If it’s the place I think it
is, I’m not playing.” We made the 3 ½ hour
drive from Norfolk to Raleigh and turned to head to the show. The winding road led
up into a mountain/ forest and turned from pavement into dirt. After some
confusion, we found the concrete shack/ chicken coop we were playing at, which
looked like a place straight from the film Deliverance. The Facade Burned Black
van paused, turned around and left, never to be seen again on that tour.
INSANE/ WEIRD SHOW #1:
The Foundation House was a tiny concrete shack in the middle
of the woods. If you type in the address, to this day on google maps, it shows
woods and more woods, though it looks like there was some development in the
area in the 16 years since this story transpired. There was broken woodfire
stove in the “living room” that was missing a cover and just billowed smoke
into the room out the side, how the residents didn’t asphyxiate, I have no
Idea. There was a refrigerator door, as an actual door, leading to the only bedroom
in the house. The house, er, shack, was overall, tiny and we were told the show
would be out back, around a bonfire. Once the sun went down, and it got cold
(it was January in the hills of North Carolina) I was very adamant about
playing in the tiny smoke filled living room. Also, as the sun went down, we
were shown the opened trunk of a derelict car; it was teeming with unopened liquor
bottles and condoms. The girl sitting on the bumper explained that they would
shoplift the stuff in the weeks leading up to the show, so that the patrons
would spend their money there, instead of at stores in town, so that they would
have money to pay the band. I thought “OOOKKKAAAAYYYY.” I had no idea what we
were in for. The 4 band show that we were booked on turned out to be actually 8
bands, and that was AFTER Facade Burned Black had already left.
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| the show was here. |
After dark is when people really started showing up and the
show began. I thought that no one was going to be at the gig, but hundreds of
people showed up, though I’m not certain they were there for the music, but to
party. Actually, not to party, but to FUCKING PARTY, if you know what I mean,
you know what I mean, right? About 3 bands in, people just started getting
naked. Like Naked as the day you were born, like some Woodstock footage, except
they were moshing around a bonfire and on the roof of the house/shack. One
young man was spitting fire off the roof, that is, until he jumped off, right
into the center of the bonfire. Thankfully, he was spared any real injury and
jumped quickly into the, uhh, circle pit.
My friend Mike Gifford, who had moved to NC from Buffalo
some years earlier, came out to see our set, which was a nice surprise,
cramming himself into the smoke filled living room with 20 or 30 other people. I
don’t remember how we played, just that it was cold. What I do remember is that
our singer, Kevin, was definitely drunk by the time the band after us played. At the end of the gig, there was a topless punk
walking around to each band, first trying to pay them/ us in liquor and condoms, and
then asking what kind of gas money they/ we needed. Kevin, trying not to be rude
and stare at her breasts or the birthmark/ mole on her chest, and trying to end
the awkward situation as soon as possible, accepted $40, then brought it to me.
I went to find her to see what the breakdown of money was, as I had assumed
that 300 plus people would have brought in a little more $$ than that for the
out of town bands.
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| A cool gig the night before Cleveland |
Sure enough, she confirmed that they had collected around
$500 dollars that night, with about $40 going to each band, except one. I was
like, “oh did one not get paid?” and she point to Melee’s van as they were
driving away; “Those guys said they needed what money was left ($250) for their
gas.” THOSE MotherFuckers! At that point, my hatred for Strong Intention left
and Melee became the most fucked up fuckers in the world. I guess all’s fair in
love and tour, but still it would have been nice to afford some Taco Bell that
night. Still, we soldiered, on playing a
show with Tragedy in a living room/ kitchen in Atlanta. During our set, Kevin
walked over to the fridge and got a jar of mayonnaise out, which he made like
he was going to drink and I actually attempted to. Tragedy was one of the
loudest bands I had ever heard, I had to go outside and watch them through the
window. We played another week of shows until the last show of tour landed us
in Cleveland to play a show with Gordon Solie Motherfuckers and, sigh, Strong
Intention. The show was at a place called Speak in Tongues, at which my old band Halfmast had played
a terrible pop punk show at years earlier. It was The Control's first time in Cleveland
and I didn’t know what to expect, but had heard some stories about GSMF shows,
after this show, I can confirm that they were all true.
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| Atlanta house show |
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| Atlanta house show |
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| Atlanta house show, Mayonnaise |
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| Atlanta house show |
INSANE/ WEIRD SHOW #2:
Speak in Tongues looked like it was an old theater space,
and has an illegal bar set up inside, with many patrons “BYOBing” anyway. It got
later and later into the evening and finally at 11pm the “hillbillies from
Baltimore” Strong Intention played and feel flat. Killed in Action from Columbus
played and went over a little better but things were looking grim for our set.
There was a drunken guy everyone called “Jeff the mess” walking around the show
whose pants kept falling down, he was loaded beyond loaded.
The turnout was good, well over 100 people and when we
played, the place went off. Fire crackers were thrown and the intensity was
there from the crowd and us. I saw a young punk couple drinking 40 oz malt liquor
and making out in front of the stage
during our first few songs. Towards the end of the set, the more feminine of
the two smashed her 40 on top of her once partner’s head, then proceeded to repeatedly
punch him in the face until they were swallowed up into the back of the crowd. I
was dodging m-80s and lady fingers as they were exploding on stage and in the
crowd, and I have no idea how no one lost an eye. While people were slamming
into each other, Jeff the mess fell down a flight of stairs, only to have a jar
of Cheese Whiz smashed over his head once he had righted himself. Total
carnage, total insanity, totally scary; this was Cleveland.
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| A flyer as wild as the show |
If our set was a 10/10 for crowd carnage, when GSMF started,
they took it to 11. I legitimately feared for my safety after one song and went
outside, with I recall, only Steve and Kevin watching the entire set. It was a
great way to end our first real tour and something I’ll never forgot, all
thanks to Tony Erba.
