Snapcase And The SxE Graffiti Gangsters...

Due to a personal request, the dead dog story will not be told until halloween...


The DC scene always seemed to be a competition, who did the most shows and which bands they could get; neither Jon, Gabe nor me would get too caught up in the politics of being scenesters, we did what we did and that was that yet it seemed that there always people trying to "climb" by talking shit about us, I could, up to a point, accept criticism towards me since I was no angel, but Jon and Gabe didn't deserve any, and what ended up happening was that in the rush to try to get bands to play we ended up with half-assed shows and this particular one was one of them...

Eternal was playing with Snapcase at a VFW Hall in SE so obviously we all went, Eternal at the time was more than a band to most of us, they were our friends and also some of the kids we did graffiti with, I say that because its going to be relevant later on, and some graffiti kids that weren't all out hardcore kids would go see the local bands like Separation, Gauge or Eternal just because their friends played in the bands. So, onto the show, everything was running as ok as you could expect in a small place with a shitty stage, Snapcase got on to play and after a couple of songs of dancing I made my way towards the stage to catch a couple of dives and enjoy the band, as I step onstage a Depeche Mode looking kid who was roading for Snapcase puts his arm out like "Hey, dont come onstage", I point at the ground and then to my eyes like saying "I see the pedals, dont worry" and again tried to step, he again blocked my way and I slapped his arm away and got onstage, he kinda came at me and I grabbed him and we both flew off the and into the middle of "the pit" where I landed and underneath him while trying to swing punches, he was on top covering up and at this point Bob the bass player, who later I was told happened to be the roadie's boyfriend(althought I never confimed this), started kicking me, and Big Larry came out of nowhere with the knockout punch and left Bob with a huge shiner on his eye. Lots of back and forth, yelling, pushing, shoving and invitations to fight, all of us rolled outside and waited for the band to come out to settle this like men, we could hear Darryl talking shit on the mike about "Straight Edge graffiti gangsters" and a bunch of other shit. Really this had nothing to do with graffiti or being a gangster, up to that point I had a cordial relationship with them guys, booked a couple of their shows and even let them stay at my house, and to get called out for no reason other than trying to enjoy the band and do like anybody should be allowed to do at a hardcore show, dance and dive, was bullshit. I can't remember why they were "allowed" to leave, i think the cops might have rolled up. Anyway over the next weeks things got smoothed out and this ended up being this, another story...