Bash Compactor: Muscle and Hate

Those bastards in Nitzer Ebb always knew how to get me to dance and shout, and the good news is they still do. After a long 15 years, the band is back together, on tour, with a new album out. When I heard the group was playing at Gramercy Theater and I was invited for a meet and greet before the show, I said to myself, Let me get on down there and “Join In the Chant.” It’d be the perfect way to shake off the Tuesday blues.

Naturally, it was pouring out, I forgot my umbrella and, by mistake, I told the taxi to go to Irving Plaza, which was closed. Luckily I brought along Defacto Obsolete of The Blackbombs, a fledgling industrialelectro band. Naturally, he knows more about hardcore music than I do. “My friends are all jealous I’m coming,” he confided. That’s what was good about the show: the old hardcore fans were mixed in with the new kids. I stumbled down the stairs where the reception was in the lobby. No one told me it was a cash bar, but that was OK, because I had a few crumpled dollar bills in my pocketbook. The band’s publicist was waiting there with two out of the three members, Bon Harris and Jason Payne. I’m not sure where Douglas McCarthy, the vocalist, was in the jammed room, but these two guys had plenty to say. I was surprised these two firebrands were both my height, a mere 5-feet 7-inches.

“We started out as punk antiestablishment skateboarders,” Bon Harris told me. “That’s why our music is so physical.” How have things changed since a decade-and-a-half ago, I asked them. “Nowadays, you have to be your own label promoter and publicist. Some artists love to self-promote, some don’t. Revenue streams have all changed. It’s separated the men from the boys. You have to put your nose to the grindstone. You’d better love music!” Harris warned.

Well, I love music, and that’s why when it was show time, I shoved my way through the packed crowd to the very front so that I was practically on stage. I like to be in on the action. It wasn’t exactly a mosh pit like in the good old days, but the leather-jacketed and pink-Mohawked fans were definitely jamming. In fact, they all knew every word of every song—and yeah, I was joining in the chant. Who cares that I’d been at work all day sitting at a desk. I was swept up into the rhythm and raising my fist in the air along with everyone else in the front.