Twelve Minutes

A thousand years ago, when I was in a band with Ramon named Bongtooth (don't say anything, I already know), we had the incredible fortune of being asked to open for a new band no one knew about yet called the Jesus Lizard. I got a call from JR over at the Axiom asking about the bill.

"Hey John, I've got a show you might be interested in. You would be opening for the new band for two of the guys from a band called Scratch Acid. Ever heard of them?"

"Fuck yeah I have, and yes, we'll do it."

"Cool. It's over at Pik-n-Pak because something else is going on at the Axiom that night. I hope you don't mind."

"No, not at all. Which guys are in this band?"

"Umm, I think the singer and the bassist."

"Wow, I really appreciate it by the way."

"Sure. Hey, I have their first record if you want it, they have a drum machine, it's a little weird, but it's ok. Want it?"

And so off we went expecting to play with Rapeman/Big Black junior, which would be totally fine in itself. Of course I had no idea what I had in store.

The opener was this shitty-assed local band whose name escapes me at the moment. They found it to be incredibly hilarious to act like pirates while loading in, performing, and breaking down after their piss poor, interminable set. In fact, they played for so long that people were leaving before we even had a chance to play, let alone the Jesus Lizard.

Now you have to understand that we were more than thrilled to get the chance to open for some of our heroes, and so we had practiced ourselves silly in preparation for the show. We even had the trump card of using Tom Carter to play sax on a couple tunes if memory serves me well. But the thing was that since the opener played for so god damned long, and since JR didn't seem to think it was his obligation to get these dickwads off the stage, when all was said and done, two long hours after those guys took the stage, JR turned to me and said the four words that burn my ass to this very day. He said:

"You have twelve minutes."

"Excuse me?"

"I said, you have twelve minutes."

"Twelve minutes to play?"

No, twelve minutes total. Twelve minutes to setup, play, and get off the stage."

"Are you fucking joking?"

"Nope."

"Wow."

Looking back over this moment, I am struck by how surprised I was at the time. I am surprised now because I clearly was green enough back then to actually think that there is some sort of dignity in the way that people conduct themselves in the scene. Naturally, I have since seen that people are just as shitty and lame, if not more so, in the music scene as they are in the world proper. You don't have to have played in a band to know that it is impossible to set up a guitar amp, bass rig, and drum kit, play a set, and then get off the stage in twelve minutes. We couldn't even play four songs in twelve minutes. Guys like Ramon however, see things differently from me. He and Tom insisted it could be done. They said that JR could go fuck himself if he thought we were going to do it all in twelve. Let's just set up, they said. Once we start we simply jam and then we refuse to stop for about twenty minutes or so. Hmmm... I thought. Ok, fuck 'em, let's do it. And so we did, and it was retarded, but we didn't care. We were too loud, and we didn't act like fucking pirates, and we clearly didn't give a shit. And like true rebels, we played for a good fourteen minutes, so in your face mister JR assbag!

Following that fiasco I had the impending urge to go home. I had had enough. And then I was approached by David William Sims.

"Hey, that was great."

"Yeah right."

"No, I'm serious, you guys were great. I mean you clearly were pissed, but it worked to your advantage."

"Well, the booker told me we had twelve minutes."

"For what?"

"The whole deal."

"Well, you pulled it off."

"Thanks, I really appreciate it."

"So, are you guys friends with the first band?"

"Oh no, they're just some local band, I don't know..."

"Oh ok, because they sucked. I mean sucked, as in real bad."

I decided to stay. And thanks to my decision to stay, I was treated to the best rock show I have ever attended/seen in my life, bar none. Of course Steve Albini's Roland was nowhere to be found, unceremoniously dumped as it was by a one Mr. Mac McNeilly, a real motherfucker of a drummer. And seeing them in so small a venue, packed though it was, was a religious experience. Nobody owns the stage like they did that night. They did everything just right. It was sheer brilliance. David Yow assaulted the crowd, terrified us, and made us his friends all at the same time. Sims, stock still, ready to consume whoever was in his way (as always). Duane Dension showing equal parts technical precision and brutal, crushing muscle. It was a clinic for how it should be done, for the promise of electric music, and the embracing power of rock. Legions of metal/hard rock/punk/heavy/whatever bands have all gotten it wrong since. That night, and many more for that matter, the Jesus Lizard were all things at once, and for one small window of time I was able to forget just how much I wanted to go home and wallow in my disgust for a culture that I would eventually learn to avoid with a fervent passion. Man am I glad I stayed.

PS- You can see the flyer for this show in my MySpace pictures. Lyman Hardy did it and it's lovely.