When I first got to Berklee, I always had some sort of moneymaking scheme happening at all times. Piano lessons, music tutoring, renting my sound system, selling weed — you name it; I’d try it to make some extra cash on the side.
During my first semester in the dorms we had this security guard downstairs and he was a pretty good artist. I asked him if he would make me a logo for my new sound company.
CLIFFSOUND.
He drew me a really cool picture of a cliff by the ocean with a cave on top and it had musical notes and a little guitar flying out of the cave. The logo was born! “Cliffsound: For Sound Ideas” was conceived!
I had this little sound system that I’d acquired in high school and it was worthy enough to be rented to other Berklee students for little gigs and recitals and what not. Fifty bucks here, 75 bucks there; it was supplemental income. Everyone at school knew who I was, so I always got little gigs and odd little jobs with that sound system. They knew who I was because I went to great lengths to advertise with my cool little logo. I’d make flyers and go around the entire school putting them up on all the bulletin boards. There was another guy in school who had some sound equipment, too, and he was my competition. I would pull his flyers down and he would pull mine down. We were fierce competitors.
One day I approached the guy and asked him if he wanted to join forces and combine our equipment and do bigger gigs. He said why not. Our first gig was at a punk rock club in Boston. This was during the early 80′s and punk rock was REAL It wasn’t just a thing; it was a lifestyle and people were really into it.

If you really think about it, punk music is mostly about punk people. A punk person is basically an angry, fear based coward, the kind of person that needs a group to do crazy things with, like Hitler was a punk. George Bush is definitely a punk.

So, we get a job to bring the sound system to this hard- core punk club. Everyone had giant Mohawks and face piercings and combat boots and they all looked tough and mean and angry.
Of course I was wearing a preppy light-blue alligator shirt and Docksider shoes. I completely didn’t fit in with that crowd but, hey, I was 6’4 and the sound guy and the punk rocker guys needed a sound system so we HAD to get along. Plus, I imagine the punk rockers LIKE being different, they probably didn’t care that I looked like a preppy. As long as my sound system was loud, that’s all that really mattered for these people.
Before the bands started, there were some punk beat poets that opened the night. I thought that was pretty curious; I’d never seen a live poet pontificate in public before.
One guy got up on stage and said, very slowly and carefully, “Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan.” Then he walked off the stage. I guess that was his poem. I thought it was pretty clever. No one applauded, but no one booed either. It was a neutral crowd, I suppose. While watching the beat punk poets I thought I’d also try to write a poem. It took me about 5 seconds and then I wrote this:

The Cold War

Was a cold sore

On the lip of humanity

I thought that it was pretty clever, too. After the punk poetry people finished, it was time to start the punk rock show. The first band goes on and there’s lots of screaming and people are moshing in the mosh pit. Moshing is basically where people bang and bash into each other in a frenzied dance. Usually some one gets hurt and blood starts flying. I had never seen this before, but in a weird way, I thought it was interesting.
For a while, that is.
Who am I to judge these people? They’re punk rockers and that’s what they do. I just didn’t want our equipment to get messed up. So far, so good. Our PA system was taking the abuse and holding up just fine. For a while, that is. Around midnight everyone is good and drunk and it’s time for the main act: KILL SLUG, to go up on stage. I had heard about KILL SLUG and they were supposed to be the meanest, nastiest punk rock group in the area. They were known to start riots and pandemonium wherever they played. I had seen their name spray painted in alleys all over the rock ‘n’ roll area of Kenmore Square.
I guess the whole punk rock scene was about more than just the high-energy thrash music; it was also the violence, blood and filth that went with the lifestyle. I think the music part of the punk world is just a front for a bunch of assholes to have an excuse to be assholes under the GUISE of it being a cool, artistic statement somehow — kind of like how George Bush is scamming everyone about “Operation Freedom.” He should spell it “Operation Free Dumb” because it ain’t working over there in Iraq and everyone knows it.
So, now it’s time for KILL SLUG to go on stage and everyone is all ready to see a circus freak show. About 300 crazed punkers are all liquored up, drugged on speed, and ready.
KILL SLUG start playing and jumping around and thrashing, like your usual punk rock show. The thing concerning me was, that they start knocking over the mic stands and the monitor speakers, which is NOT OKAY with my new buddy and me.
We jump on stage and put things back in order and then they keep on knocking the equipment over. The speakers were pretty indestructible, but even still, I didn’t want my first gig with my new partner to have all our stuff ruined.
No one tried to mess with us while we did our jobs though. I guess they were used to working with sound guys and pretty much didn’t care what they were doing because basically punk people don’t care about themselves, or anyone else. They just don’t care about anything. Not in a carefree way, but in an emotionally frozen, shutdown kind of neurotic way. Its almost like punk rock is a symptom of some form of mental illness.
It was stressful, to say the least. I barely knew my partner and here we were in a highly volatile situation with a lot of angry, drunken, wasted, antisocial crazy people getting off on breaking things and trying to ruin our valuable equipment.
I’m looking at my partner and we’re thinking that we gotta get the hell out of there soon before something goes dreadfully wrong. It wasn’t about making some extra cash on the side anymore; it was about surviving the night and getting out alive with our equipment in tact.
About halfway through the set, the lead singer pulls out a live chicken and pretends to bite its head off. Very funny, we all think.
Okay, now put the Chicken down, I’m thinking.
Everyone in the crowd is chanting and taunting KILL SLUG to bite the chicken’s head off. I can handle a lot of situations, but there are certain things I just can’t be around. So the lead singer from KILL SLUG lifts the real chicken over his head and the chicken is trying to get away and it’s flapping its wings and feathers are flying all over the place. Everyone in the crowd is mesmerized by the chicken.
The music stops and now it’s all about the crazy lead singer with his shirt all torn off, with his tattoos all glistening from his sweat and the lights and this crazy chicken freaking out. The guy has maniacal eyes and is marching all over the stage insinuating that he’s gonna do it. Everyone in the crowd is watching his every move and the fever is running high in the punk rock club. He finally grabs the chicken’s neck and opens his mouth like he’s pretending to bite the chicken’s head off and then he really does it! He really bites the head off of this poor, little innocent chicken. The chicken starts running all over the stage with blood flying all over the place and people are throwing up in the crowd and even the hardest core punk rockers are grossed out beyond belief. It was a horrible and disgusting moment!
Enough is enough!
Me and my partner pulled the plug on KILL SLUG and grabbed our equipment as fast as we could and got the hell out of there.
I had never seen anything like that before in my life. It had nothing to do with art and nothing to do with music. It was a freak show and I wanted nothing more to do with that scene. It was the most disgusting thing you can possibly imagine, and if there are any KILL SLUG fans left in this world then you should be ashamed of yourselves and rot in hell.