Now mind you, this all happened while I was in the store. So they were only able to arrest Doug and John. Although they weren’t real drugs, for pretending that they were, it’s the same crime. So they had them for possession of drugs, with intent to whatever the fuck; I don’t even remember. They wanted $10,000 each to get them out! We were in this itty-bitty town where the precinct was connected to the courthouse where they did the sentencing. We knew we were fucked. They had Doug and John in a cell full of Mexican dudes just busted trying to sneak through something ’cause they were covered in mud; John claimed that they were covered in shit. It was like a fuckin’ movie.
So we had to get in touch with our record company to bail out these dudes. We managed to get the money. Needless to say, we never went back to court for those guys, so I think probably to this day, John and Doug want to stay out of Ozona. So, we almost missed the show. Motörhead and their management were raising shit: “If these guys don’t get to the show in time, they’re off the tour.” We got there just in time to play. All kinds of crazy shit went down on that trip; it could be a book in itself.
Our driver and main roadie on that tour was this guy Roger. We called him “The Horse.” He lost his mind on that tour, and got committed after! He was this big, strong ex-Army motherfucker with long hair. He would always be looking at himself, fixing his hair, and he always wore a backwards baseball hat. He was like, “Fuck, I’ll do five hundred push-ups, right now!”—and he’d drop and do five hundred push-ups right there, and then say, “I’ll do another five hundred!” The guy was crazy but was mad cool. He’d do these long-ass drives, and talk and talk; a lot of times when it wasn’t total nonsense, it leaned toward spiritual philosophy.
One day, I woke up, and Roger had this crazed look. He’d been vegetarian this whole time and was mad in-shape. He was inspiring in a lot of ways, but he wasn’t buying our whole Krishna consciousness thing. At that point he was an atheist. So anyway, he’d been doing a crazy all-night drive and had this crazy look in his eyes. I asked, “Are you all right?” And he was like, “While you guys were asleep, I pulled over to a McDonald’s and had a Big Mac.” We were like, “What?!” Then he said, “Yes. And I found Jesus!!” We asked, “Where the fuck did you find him? At the McDonald’s?!” He was stone-faced.
We started bugging. We were like, “How does Jesus condone hamburger? How does one thing have anything to do with the other? Eating meat, you might as well be murdering the cow—that shit is bad karma!” All of a sudden, Roger started swerving the van from one side to the other, and punching the roof of the van with his fist, real hard, going, “So you’re saying you’ve got a murderer driving your van?!” And we were like, “No, that’s not what we meant! Roger, what happened? Everything’s chill, dude; you’ve been a vegetarian for years, what made you pull over and get a burger?” And he was like, “I don’t know, man. I’d been driving and driving, I saw those golden arches, and Jesus told me to get a hamburger.” So basically, he lost his motherfuckin’ mind.
After the burger, Roger went on this fasting kick. All he consumed was warm water with salt. Now this fucker was jack-diesel; he was fuckin’ big. He didn’t eat for days, and his face became sunken in. By the time we got to Chicago, where he was from, they checked his ass into a mental institution! Chris Williamson later told me what had happened to Roger; it had something to do with his woman, another guy, a cat and the devil. I saw him years later, and he seemed normal, but who the fuck knows what’s normal?
That tour was one crazy thing after another. Because Motörhead was headlining, they were mostly metal shows. There’d be other metal bands playing and then there’d be us, and we’d always have fans and friends showing up. One show in Texas with Motörhead was at the Longhorn Ballroom where the Sex Pistols played back in the day. It had all these big oversized cowboys and steers out in front. It was funny as shit. Anyway, Marc Dagger was living in Texas at the time and was in full-on Skinhead mode. By then, he’d been to prison and was even crazier than I remembered. He showed up with a whole crew of Skinhead buddies, and he was like the “big boss.” Wendy O. Williams was also on the bill, who I knew from the old Max’s days. It was a lot of fun, but I remember Marc and his boys went nuts during our set. By the time we were done, all the Skinheads had been kicked out by security. It was crazy. By like the second song, I saw Marc get in a fight, and three bouncers jumped on him. He punched one in the face, and put him down. The other one tried to grab him from behind, and Marc reached over, pulled the guy over his shoulder and onto the ground, and tossed the other one to the side. And then he started pounding. It took like five bouncers to get him out. I was trying to stop playing the song. All I could see was him getting dragged out, and layin’ motherfuckers out the whole way.
All the other Skinheads followed his lead, and started getting in fights on the dance floor. So by the time we got off stage, they were all outside in the parking lot, drinking beer and waiting for us. Marc’s like, “I’m sorry, bro. I just started dancing, and they jumped on me!” Which is pretty much what started it. Those Texas bouncers didn’t know what to do when they saw that shit.
But anyway, we got invited to a party, so we loaded out and started driving. We got to within about two miles of the place, and we saw Marc and his girlfriend driving away. He pulled up to us, and said, “Yo man, you guys need to get the hell out of here; the cops are on their way!” I’m like, “What happened?” Well, the party was at this Skinhead chick’s house. Her roommate was a college girl who hung out with all these jocks. So when all the Skinheads showed up, this girl already had a bunch of people over for a kegger. Well anyway, eyeballs were getting exchanged. The two girls got into a huge argument, and some jock said some shit about Skinheads, and the shit hit the fan. Marc laid him out! The place erupted into a full-on brawl; people got stomped badly. People were running down these suburban streets, holding their heads with blood gushing out. Motherfuckers were passed out on lawns from the beatings. And Marc was like, “Y’all need to go, bro! I’ll catch you guys next time you’re in town. Love you man!” Yeah, good ol’ Marc.
The first and one and only time Cro-Mags ever went to Europe on tour to support Age of Quarrel was in ’87. It was me, John, Parris, Doug and Pete Hines. It was an incredibly short European tour and it would prove to be our downfall.
It only lasted from December 11th ’til December 21st. Our first gig on that tour was in London on the 11th. Then we played Leeds, Hamburg, Bochum, Mainz, Eindhoven, Katwijk, Antwerp, and ended in Paris.
We were in Motörhead’s old tour bus. We also had their old driver, this old biker-looking dude. I loved seeing new places, and getting off the streets of New York. So for me, everywhere and every gig, I always put 110% into it; we really had intensity when we played. We didn’t fuck around. I was proud of that.
We played a big festival in Leeds called Xmas on Earth. Megadeth was headlining, Nuclear Assault, Overkill, Virus, Kreator, Lääz Rockit; Voivod was supposed to play but didn’t make it. It was a pretty historic event—all these thrash metal and crossover bands on the bill and then us. We were the only Hardcore band on the bill, and we were the first Hardcore band most of them had ever seen.
It was an insane gig. We pulled up at like noon and it was already nuts—people were already drunk and throwing up in front of the place. There was mud everywhere. The venue was huge; it looked like a big hangar. It was originally a tram and then a bus depot.
All the bands were all staying at the same hotel. It was total madness in the lobby, lots of fans running around, all the bands hanging out, press, everyone, milling around. I had never been in that type of environment before; it was my first show like that and the first big metal event or festival I had been to. That’s probably normal for everybody into the big-time rock scene. But for me, that was a new thing.
I remember hanging out with Dave Mustaine, and everything was cool. There were mobs of adoring metalhead fans. We get on the elevator, the door shuts, and Mustaine goes, “Fuckin’ assholes,”
shaking his head and laughing. I thought to myself, “What a dick.” Those people are your fans! They may be acting like a bunch of groupie losers ’cause they were so over-the-top heavy metal, but I felt that he didn’t appreciate the admiration of those fans. To me, that was always the big difference: Hardcore is “of the people,” while metal is more of a “we think we’re hot shit” type thing.
Then we had some crazy smaller shows after that: several in Germany, some of them full of Nazis, and a few in Holland.
One of the first gigs we played in Germany on The Age of Quarrel tour, Nina Hagen showed up at sound check with a bunch of Hare Krishnas and with a huge feast of vegetarian Hare Krishna food for us ’cause she had heard we were devotees. She didn’t speak any English, we didn’t speak German; it was funny as shit if you can picture the Cro-Mags, Nina Hagen and a bunch of Hare Krishnas having dinner.
That night the show was full of Nazi Skinheads. German Nazi Skinheads, in fuckin’ 1987! They were serious about that shit; they were Sieg Heiling and they meant it. The club security was all U.S. Army guys, and most of them were black. So you knew the shit was not cool; these dudes were trying to pull the security guys off the stage, to beat them up. Going, “Nigger! Come on, fuckin’ nigger!” It was so bad. Paul Thomas, one of our roadies, was black; he looked like Bob Marley in spandex pants, with a video camera, filming the shit. At one point, the shit got so hairy, John jumped into the crowd to pull one of the Army guys out of getting jumped. He was lucky he didn’t get jumped himself. It was definitely an ugly situation.
I remember this one club we played at: “Club Scum” in Katwijk, Holland. It was this little place in the middle of what looked like farmland. It was this little square shack or bar in the middle of a field. The gig was jam-packed full of Skinheads. The owner was this big kickboxer. He wound up beating up several Skinheads throughout the course of the evening and throwing them out. He laughed and said, “I beat them up and throw them out every week, they come back next week, I do it again.” It was a very funny gig. And the last gig on that tour was in Paris on December 21st with Motörhead.
Yes, that fateful gig…
The final The Age of Quarrel-era show with John was in France with Motörhead. Black Sabbath was scheduled to headline the show, but wound up not playing. It was around the time they’d played Sun City and had to cancel a bunch of shows due to boycotts and bad publicity. They never contacted the promoter or informed anyone that they weren’t gonna show up; they just didn’t show. So as the day progressed and it became obvious Black Sabbath was a no-show, they flew in Girlschool at the last minute. So there wound up being one or two opening bands, then we went on, then Girlschool, and then Motörhead. It was a great show—honestly, no one missed Sabbath not being there, because Motörhead just fuckin’ smoked. I was so excited, because it was right after Orgasmatron, but Phil Taylor rejoined for a quick second, so he was playing with them that night. I remember playing our set and being super proud, with Lemmy and Phil Taylor watching our set from the side of the stage. Both of them were digging on us. There I was, a poor-ass Lower East Side kid playing in front of thousands of people, with Motörhead standing on the side of the stage, grooving, with me and John running all over the fuckin’ place!
After that show, Doug Holland came up to me in the dressing room. He had a grin on his face, and he was looking all around to see if anyone else was in there. He goes, “Yo man, I found a wallet!” Now, Christmas was coming up. I’m like, “Yo nigga, hook me up—it’s Christmas!” So he goes, “Come here, quick.” So we went in the bathroom. Little did I know, Petey Hines was sitting in the stall, taking a shit. Doug looks at me and gets very serious. He pulls out the wallet, and he goes, “It’s Chris’ wallet.” Chris Williamson, our manager. I was like, “Oh shit!” He opens it up, and it’s $300–$350, plus his credit cards. Now mind you, Chris was sending us on tour in vans that were always breaking down.
We’d come home after two months of touring for no money at all, while he was living it up. Like I said before, I never forgot that time he dropped me off at Houston and Avenue A in the middle of the night after an eight-week tour, and was like, “There’s the subway.” He did such scumbag shit all the time. So my reaction was “Fuck that nigga, he’s been ripping us off for years!” I know it was wrong, but we were young, we were broke, and we knew he was ripping us off. It was a bad move, but we were like two schoolkids that just found a wallet, and found out it belonged to the principal. So we split the money, and it wasn’t much. I only got like $200. I knew I wasn’t gonna make shit at the end of the tour. That was the last show on the tour, and I was gonna stay and visit my stepfather in Denmark, and the rest of the guys were going back to the States. So we said “Fuck it.”
Anyway, the show ended and Doug and I split the money. Doug looked for a spot to drop the wallet, to make it look like it just “fell there.” We didn’t take any of the credit cards. By the time Chris found it, I’d already split. From what I understand went down, Chris freaked out, and knew that somebody stole his wallet because he never dropped it. Chris said it was taken out of his jacket. He said, “It was in the inside pocket of my jacket in the dressing room. Which means that somebody that was in the dressing room had to take it. Which means that one of you motherfuckers took my wallet, and I want it back, or else none of you are getting paid! That’s that, cough it the fuck up!”
Well, Doug wouldn’t cop to it. John started flipping the fuck out. Everybody was pissed. Then supposedly Pete took Chris aside and told him what he overheard in the bathroom. It was so fucked up. John was flipping; everyone was pissed off. This was such a downer for the last gig. And again, I’d already left the building; I missed the whole episode.
When I got back to New York, I heard the news that Chris had flipped, John had quit the band, and everything was in turmoil. From what I understand, John went apeshit, saying to Doug, “Motherfucker, I’ll strip-search you right here!” Doug was scared shitless. I’ve heard, but I can’t say for sure, that Doug rolled the money up, and stuck it up his ass! But as it turns out, there was $3,000 in the wallet but I only saw a few hundred. The whole band’s tour money that everybody was supposed to get paid with was in that wallet. And I only knew what Doug showed me. I guess Doug went in the wallet, took the majority of it, left a bit in there—maybe to make himself feel a little less guilty, or maybe so he wouldn’t get all the blame if he got caught. For whatever reason, he got me involved. But he sure as shit didn’t split it with me; the motherfucker gave me a few crumbs off the loaf he just stole. And I never thought for a second it would turn into what it did. Damn, that must have been an uncomfortable plane ride home for Doug.
So anyway, now shit was all fucked up. I knew I was gonna be walking into some drama and chaos and shit. So I was like, “All right, fuck it.” I went to Chris’ office with my head all slumped down, and I’m like, “Chris, I just want you to know something. Me and Doug stole your wallet.” He didn’t know I’d already gotten wind that he knew the shit had hit the fan. I kept going, “I feel real bad about it.” This motherfucker knew that I had no money and had nowhere to live—how fuckin’ mad could he be at a kid, who has no money? Especially when we were playing all these big-ass shows, touring, and not getting paid. I mean I had nowhere to live. I was broke, and he had a phat pad on the Upper West Side and had money. I sure didn’t think he was gonna take it out on everybody. So Chris forgave me. He was like, “Well, at least you’re sorry.” But that was the end of an era.
The only-ever Cro-Mags tour outside the States with John, Parris, Doug, Pete and me—ever. We never made it out of the country with Mackie. It was the end of an era and it was really the beginning of the quarrel. And as much of an asshole as Chris was with fucking us over, I do think he really did have some love for us in some strange ways. It’s just that he was a promoter and a get-over. He was a hustler; he couldn’t help it. But as much as he did to help us, he was also very responsible for turning us against each other, by ripping us off and c
reating a feeling of distrust that had never really been there before. He’d palm you a 20 in your hand, knowing you had no money and nowhere to live, and say, “Don’t tell the other guys.” Meanwhile, he had a houseboat and lived on Central Park West. And that was really the beginning of the end.
Chapter Eleven
‘BEST WISHES’ TO YOU
1984, BY KIM GRAF
Our friend Crazy Dave just got out of jail. He started bangin’ this chick that was staying with Roger Miret and some other friends of ours on St. Marks Place. John Bloodclot was there all the time.
Crazy Dave was a maniac. He called himself a “Skinhawk” ’cause he had a mohawk but hung out with the skinheads. He was a chaos punk, kinda like Wattie from the Exploited, as opposed to a hippie-punk or “crAsshole,” as I called them; there was a big distinction between the two types of punks in NYC. He was always trippin’ his balls off on purple mescaline. He’d be sitting on a stoop somewhere, just cackling to himself. And he’d be like, “You want some mescaline?” So you’d pop five or six hits, and sit there giggling with him all fuckin’ night.
Around that time, John started doing blow on the sneak tip with Dave. John and Crazy Dave moved in with Roger on St. Marks Place. Dave’s brother was sending Dave packs of coke in the mail from Florida, to sell and make money. I wasn’t down with that shit, but it wasn’t my business. I figured Dave’s just trying to survive, and John’s just chilling with him, they’re smoking weed, living it up a little. I had no idea John had started doing that shit too. But then some crazy shit went down; John said someone ripped off one of those packages from Florida. He blamed our friends living there, and caused a bunch of drama.
One day, John came up to me looking all wild-eyed and crazy. He was like, “These motherfuckers stole one of Dave’s packets that came in.” He started going off, blaming a bunch of our friends. He was like, “I swear to God, bro, I know they did it.” He even said he smacked Roger and called him out, which turned out to be total bullshit, of course.
Hard-Core: Life of My Own Page 23
