[kj] Killing Crue Motley Joke

[Alex Smith]

It's stupid anecdote time, as once again, I am sequestered here in an internet cafe on a fucking freezing December day.  Rewind to the Summer of 1984. Joke-wise, I've only heard the 12" singles for "Eighties", "A New Day" and "Let's All Go to the Fire Dances" (and its b-sides, "Dominator" and the live "Fall of Because") and am hungrily snatching up all the old Killing Joke I can find before departing on a bicycle trip across Massachusetts (a cheap ploy by my family to get my ass out of the house for a month).  I spot a t-shirt in a local record store (the wonderful ROCKS IN YOUR HEAD on Prince Street) featuring a Killing Joke design (later on in life, I'd learn that it was sleeve design for TURN TO RED....Mr.Punch and the Centre Point, etc.) Not even caring, I of course purchase it.  The next day, I leave on my crappy bike trip.

And crappy it is. As wonderful as Massachusetts can be in the summer, I'm bunched together with a veritable chain-gang of other characters. I befriend a Bostonian metalhead named Josh (who turns me onto the Satanic majesty of Venom) and a fellow New Yorker named Mike (who, similarly, introduces me to the work of early XTC).  There are also two guys from a town in Long Island, appropriately named Dix Hills (and believe me, these guys are indeed dicks). At first, they strike up a conversation with me because I happen to be wearing a Motley Crue t-shirt (this time the white "Alleister Fiend" model, for those of you playing along at home).  A day later, I'm sporting the recently aquired Killing Joke shirt I mentioned in the first paragraph. "What the fuck is KIlling Joke?" asks one of the Dix Hill Dicks. "Oh, they're this amazing band I've recently discovered," I reply enthusiastically. "I've never heard of them," comes the reply.....vaguely suggesting that I have -- in fact -- made them up. "No, honest, they're fantastic, trust me!" Dix Hills looks entirely unimpresed. Later in the week, I play him a mix tape I'd made for the trip. On comes "Dominator". "What's this fagget shit?" says the Dix Hillzer. "THIS is Killing Joke, man!" I earnestly point out, getting frustrated. "Well, it's crap.  Turn off this New Wave disco fagget bullshit and put on some Motley Crue." Suffice to say, from that point on, myself and this idiot are no longer friendly.

Fast forward to 2005 and Killing Joke are to share the same stage with Motley Crue. Wonder what Dix Hills would think of that.

Alex iN NYC


-----Original Message-----
From: Graeme Rowland <crackedmachine at yahoo.co.uk>
Sent: Dec 14, 2004 8:57 AM
To: "A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)" <gathering at misera.net>
Subject: [kj] Man Whose Backass Expanded

No mention of Killing Joke on magazine ads & posters
round Manchester for Motley Crue gigs.

Never thought I'd go to a Morrissey gig, or a Motley
Crue one. Just back from Glasgow and now off to
BurningHum for the last PJ Harvey gig for a while.



=====
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"What one thinks of as extremes seldom are" :: BC Gilbert


	
	
		
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