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Five Shred in Ohio
BHBs play the troubled teen circuit
by The Bookhouse Boys
Joe thought his uncle was a scientist. His family was always talking about “the laboratory deep in the Ohio woods”, and Joe told us the dude was forever dressed “like an ’85 John McEnroe” and carried various length’d antennae with him everywhere. It sounded promising, so we side-tracked off the tour to visit Uncle Rich and play with lightning. Rich was cool as shit, but he makes toys, not science. We quickly grew antsy because there were no Flux Capacitors to mess with, and miniature train sets can only take you so far. Rich gave us some diet pills (“Making model trains gets real boring.”) to keep our interest, and they helped us through a spazzy game of tag in the back yard, but that was it. We needed more action.
“Maybe you should head out to the Gorge,” Rich suggested. “That’s about all kids ever do around here, and there should be a lot of ‘em out there today, what with the unseasonableness of the weather. Go on down to the leather goods store and some of the locals’ll tell ya’ how to get there.”
It just so happens that the Bookhouse Boys love leather goods. We also love sweaty, dirtbag kids in long bowl cuts, black jeans and nüberty moustaches. We were lucky to come across all of the above on that street corner in Ohio, and we loaded them up to head out to the Gorge.
The leather goods were two belts and a vest, and the dirtbag kids were Chuck and Gem. They weren’t afraid to hop in a van with strangers because Brut sparkling wine isn’t candy. Plus, we weren’t gonna touch them anywhere but their hearts! We like new friends!
Once they were safely in the car, we drank some Brut out of new leather mugs (psyche, they were tin) and talked about being misunderstood youth. We lied and said we were a Metal band from Chicago called Giraffe. But it was the truth when we said we like to fuck shit up.
“What do you sound like?”
“We sound like a generator on jet fuel–One hundred sixty-nine OCTANE! We sound like amplified flesh. We sound like an elephant ear implanted to a tiny baby chick…LOUD!”
“You playing any shows around here?”
“No, we have to head out to Indiana tomorrow.”
“I bet you got all your equipment back there in the trailer.” We nodded. “I bet you’d like to play a outdoor concert at the Gorge.” Affirmative. “I bet Joel’ll be down there with his pickup–it’s got outlets. Joel likes Metal.”
“But will it be able to handle all our equipment?”
“It’s a diesel. And as far as I’m concerned, you just need guitar, drums and vox to play Metal.” Dude pronounced vocals like that, too: ‘vox’. “Lemme radio Joel and see what he thinks.” What…the…fuck? He did! He went ahead and pulled a walkie-talkie off his belt and fucking radioed Joel.
“I got this band, here, called Jack-Off [he apologized later for changing our name, he thought “Jack-Off” would go over better], they say they’re Metal. They wanna plug into The Tank and have a party at the Gorge.”
We expected to hear this big ol’ bull elk of a grunt come back on and say something like, “Sheeeeit YEAH, BOY! HoooooWEEE!” But it was more of a nervous Math teacher voice–all nose, “uh…yeah. ten-four. that sounds cool to me.”
We pulled up to the beach and were met with whoops and hollers and kids dancing and hobbling all goofy to an In Flames song. Joel’d gotten the word out, and all these kids were ready for some ass-tearing METAL. They were mostly drunk and completely fired up, and since we weren’t sure if they’d much appreciate our sound, France suggested that he and Joe play some Ruptura Chorõna (a Portuguese thrash band) songs that they’d learned in high school.
“This looks like a Ruptura crowd. We used to play that shit all the time; I bet we could remember them. You guys just make up some lyrics.”
So we plugged into diesel; Joe set up his drums; and Carl and Neila reworked Velvet Underground lyrics to sound more sinister.
“Hey you backwoods little turd-eaters!” Neila barked into the mic. “We’re Jack-Off! You know what the FUCK jack offs do!” And she shook up a bottle of champagne and sprayed it all over her face. “This one’s called ‘Aneurysm Mallet!’”
The double-kick bass rolled in first, then France hit us with a shit-inducing guitar wollup and Carl and Neila sang like a couple of slaughter-eyed, fur-burning gorillas, “WINE! in the MORNIIIIIING! and some BREAKfast at NIIIIIIIIGHT! Weeeeeell! I’m Be!Gin!Ing! To see! The LIGHT…”
Not to be left out, Alex performed some strange off-the-cuff floor exercises that looked like a cannibalic execution ceremony.
The end: Our first show on the outdoor festival circuit went over pretty well. Some kids ended up with sunburn and a pair of shorts lit on fire, but other than that, the only thing burning was our big boner rhythms and barf-thundering, panty-hot lyrical talent. We went for a swim after we finished playing and pulled off a nine-person underwater tea party.
(We’re all huddled around a computer kiosk at a truck stop, writing this now. We’re feeling jittery from trucker’s speed and Fritos. Who wants a decorative wall spoon from Indianapolis? Laters, BHBs)
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Volume 2, Issue 3 contents |
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