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D:
So Choke, I sent you that email about the Hoya thing? I ain’t
trying to be all gossipy, but I heard...
Choke:
Hey people want to know, right? All I got to say about that
is listen to The Last Laugh!
D:
Did you check out the stuff I sent or the site?
Choke:
Nah, I pretty much left it alone.
D:
What was the deal with Exploited way back.
Choke:
Everything with Slapshot has always been kind of tongue ‘n
cheek. We were supposed to play a show…wait let me think…one
of our guys; guys that hung out with us, way, way, way back
came to one of our Channel shows, which was a little pub near
Boston, with a home made shirt that said Punks
Dead You’re Next on the front and on the
back it had a picture of Wattie (The Exploited front man)
with a gun site over it. We liked it you know and he made
a few for the guys in the band and whatnot. We’d kind
of forgotten about the whole thing and we were supposed to
play a show in NY at…I want to say Irving Plaza, but
I can’t remember exactly…with Raw Deal,
The Exploited, and 2 other bands or something….
So I guess it got back to Wattie, in his hotel or whatever;
that the band that made these t-shirts he had heard about
with his face in a gun site was actually playing the show
that night. So he refused to go back to the show and play
if we were on the same bill. So basically the promoters made
us go on first, you know before anybody else. Before the Exploited
heard that we were playing the show, as he heard they were
going to cancel. So after that we were pretty much like still…
I mean we really didn’t give a shit one way or the other,
but we just decided to step it up a little as he made us...he
invented this feud. So in the Step On It sleeve we wrote,
“No thanks to: Wattie (we’ll get you)”,
but we never gave a shit. We never gave a shit really with
any of the feuds; Youth of Today, Bold and all that…yeah
sure they were dicks at the time, but ya’know, you’re
kids.
D:
Now I had heard you guys were on tour behind The Exploited
chasing them around the country and were going to beat them
down when you caught them?
Choke:
I had heard there was another show The Exploited played in
Boston and some of our supporters at the time kind of went
and I don’t know if they caused trouble or were talking
about causing trouble. A lot of the stuff had very little
to do with the actual band members themselves. You got ‘hangers
on’ that like to impress or take what the band says
as gospel or whatever and then they’re out they’re
like mercenaries for us whereas we never had anything to do
with it. There was an incident; I don’t think it was
Youth of Today, maybe Shelter,
or one of the other bands that came afterward, played at TT
the Bears. Wrecking Machine an old guy that hung around
us a lot, he was one of CB’s original bouncers’
way, way, way back. They went to some butcher shop and gathered
a bunch of meat scraps and actually went to the show and tossed
them at the people in line. We had this whole…yeah we
were straight edge, but we were meat eating and you know when
people take a certain stance on something, sometimes it’s
fun to take the piss out of it. They’re so serious about
everything, you say any little thing, and you make any little
comment, they are going to get all bent out of shape about
it. So I think over the years it’s been one of our points
some people have really liked and other people have taken
too serious and it’s gotten us in trouble.
D:
Any premise to what was behind the YOT thing? I remember a
Superbowl show where a few dudes apparently from Boston and
Porcell from the stage were screaming back in forth during
the set. Another show was Bold, Beyond, Collapse,
and Wrecking Crew (as I remember, The New Breed comp
came out that day) at the Pyramid club and I remember some
dude heckling the Bold drummer so bad he came out from behind
the drums and apparently these were both extensions of the
situation.
Choke:
That was probably old Wrecking Machine, our old roadie Pat,
Hank Pierce. These were all guys that were old parts of the
scene; they would go to a lot of these shows. Whether it was
us or, and we never really, really got along with Wrecking
Crew, but they were Boston guys and they (Wrecking Machine,
Pat and Hank) would go wherever they were kind of playing
and you know take the Boston Flag with them and of course
they liked to create conflict and stuff and rub it in to those
guys (YOT, Bold) especially, as they were so easy to get to.
You know this, no one ever…this NY Crew song that Judge
had was just an out right blatant lie. And you know I told
Porcell to his face one time. It might have been AF’s
last show I went down for, I forget what show exactly, but
it was something at CBs.
D:
So there wasn’t like one incident that ignited the whole
NY Boston thing?
Choke:
What happened was our first time ever playing in NY was a
show at CBs and it was us, Gorilla Biscuits, Bold,
and Youth of Today. And what we understood both Bold
and YOT purposely showed up late…Bold was supposed to
open for us, we were supposed to go on third and Bold and
YOT purposely showed up so late that they made us go on second.
The promoter was like you guys gotta go on, these guys aren’t
here yet. So honestly I really didn’t know what
went down ‘til after when they ended up stiffing us
out of whatever money we were supposed to get and the story
was Porcell and Ray went right up to Steve our old guitar
player and said, “If we had a show right across the
street from this one, no one would even be at this show if
it wasn’t for us.” They were just total A-HOLES.
So I had already left…we played and I got in my car
and went back home. So at that point I didn’t know exactly
what actually transpired, but after that we were pretty much
like, “keep your money.” We’ve always been
a patient bunch of guys. Ya’ know (laughs)...eventually…We’ll
get the last laugh! You know a lot of people forget about
feuds, forget about this, forget about that; we kind of hold
grudges for a long time. Eventually we finally find out you’ve
broken up or fallen down or something happens to you, we’ll
be the first one to send you a message, laughing at you.
D:
You mentioned that dude Wrecking Machine, I always remember
these couple big Boston dudes with names like Ivan the Terrible
being thrown around and this crew at Wrecking Crew shows and
Superbowl shows, once even heckling Porcell during the YOT
set I think Superbowl 88 at the old Ritz.
Choke:
Well, Starting from way, way back, the SS Decontrol
days, we always…you were wearing a uniform, wherever
you went especially if you went on the road or especially
if bands from out of town came to Boston. We didn’t
care whether they were a crappy band or a good band, we were
going to make sure that when they went back to their home
town and they were going to be like, “Holy
shit! You gotta see these Boston guys. It’s unbelievable.”
So I think when we, especially on the road, would go that
much harder. It was always that much, here we are, let’s
show them what we are, what we’re about. Ya know if
you went to just a regular old show, it may not have been
so ridiculous, but when we were on the road it was going to
be that much heavier and that much harder.
D:
Wrecking Machine, Ivan the Terrible who were these guys?
Choke:
John Golden was his name. He actually had a band for a short
time called Burden of Proof. There were a few guys that he
hung out with that originally started coming to Boston a lot
and hanging out with us…and he was one of the guys that
roadied for AF, and then he moved to Boston for a while. Wrecking
Machine was a term from his days at CBs. He was one
of the real troublemakers. He was one of the guys who was
in on beating up of Dickey Barret (of Bosstones fame) at one
of the first AF shows ever in Boston.
D:
Hardcore and Punk have been thrown together a lot lately,
going as far as calling or describing some music as hardcore
punk, what the fuck is that? I don’t think, as I was
always a hardcore kid, punk had anything to do with it.
Choke:
No. Not when you really…well hardcore now isn’t
hardcore anymore, it’s like mainstream rock. I mean
look at bands like Hatebreed, they’re playing stuff
that Madball’s been playing for years and years. And
Madball, those guys, are a natural progression from old Cro-Mags
and Agnostic Front.
D: First show that affected your course?
Choke:
Black Flag at Spit winter of 1980. Maybe January or February.
Black Flag had a show booked at the Rat actually. They got
to town early that day and tried to get into the club and
the bouncers wouldn’t let them in so they got pissed
off and flyer’ed around Kenmore Square saying, “the
Rat Sucks!” So the Black Flag show got moved down to
Spit, which was actually a better club. So it was there, the
first show I saw.
D:
Not to get too political, but I see some similarities in the
Bush administration and the 80’s Reagan era we grew
up in. We were a real reaction to society government, and
politics then. I see a turn to more brutal hardcore music,
hard-line stances, and lifestyles, bands like Terror your
labelmates, Madballl…
Choke:
Madball got back out there ‘cause Freddie got out of
jail.
D:
Hatebreed doing their thing, I wonder if I don’t see
a turn to the more brutal or hardcore as a reaction to society
and government and quality of life right now.
Choke:
Well everything has gotten more extreme, know what
I mean? Everything. The way people ride their bikes.
You can’t go anywhere without…you go to shows
nowadays and people get like…the worst we ever
had was a lot of bruises maybe a broken nose. Nowadays you
can’t go to a show without a fight. What happened to
the fun of it? Maybe these kids go home after some
of these shows and their like, “ Man that was a great
show,” but I don’t see anyone having any fun anymore.
It’s all about like, “Look at me,
I’m the hardest dancer,” or, “I’m
the baddest muther fucker outside.” Everything…kids
need more and more and more attention. Things have gotten
so extreme; people have like tons of tattoos and piercings
everywhere just doesn’t cut it anymore so they gotta
be even more outrageous to draw attention to themselves. I
don’t know. Maybe I am old. Maybe that’s that
sign ya’ know, “What the hell is wrong
with these kids?” And that’s kind of where
I am; I don’t get it anymore. And that’s pretty
much why we have decided to hang it up.
D:
Any new bands you like out there?
Choke:
UUUGGGHHH …no! (laughs) You know I had heard
some of Terror, I had seen them. I know we actually played
with them a couple of times. I decided to give…we played
with them on this last tour, one of the last shows…I
decided I would go out and catch a bit of their show and as
soon as the singer came out the first words out of his mouth
were, “Alright, yo, let’s do dis!”
And I turned around and I walked away. I had heard
enough! I’ve seen their video, it’s like
if you took the Cro-mags and Madball and jammed them together;
that’s Terror. They sound better, they’re younger
guys. They’re cool guys, don’t get me wrong, but
it’s just kind of same ’ol same ‘ol. They
just maybe do it a little bit better than some of the schmucks
that are out there.
D:
I can’t thank you enough for your time today, get back
to those kids.
Choke:
Later!
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