by Dave Brigham

 

 
 
How could I resist the Red Worms’ Tour of Superhot Lots?
 
My high school buddy John and his brother Dave, rabid Butthole Surfers fans, had decided in early June that they would quit their jobs and follow the band up and down the East Coast for the summer. I gave notice at the grocery store, which didn’t go over so well with my parents, but I assured them I could live off my old paper-route money for a month or two. In order to defray costs a little bit and increase our opportunities of hooking up with friendly folks who might offer a couch or two for us to sleep on, John and Dave decided we should form a band and busk in parking lots outside the shows.
 
After a week of less than intense jamming, John singing and banging on a snare drum, Dave thwacking away on a bass and me playing guitar, we knew a few Surfers tunes and partial songs by the Stooges, the Circle Jerks and the Partridge Family, enough to make complete idiots out of ourselves. Our first set, in front of a Dumpster behind Boston’s Channel Club, consisted solely of a 10-minute version of the Surfers’ “Lady Sniff,” a stomping, warped blues masterpiece featuring rude bodily emanations and absurd lyrics about broken teabags, bacon and the city of Detroit.
 
We played before the show. The overflowing garbage was rank in the early afternoon heat, and there were puddles of putrid liquid lapping at my amp, but I was thrilled that a dozen or so people stood and watched, a few even dropping coins in my guitar case. One guy gave us a problem, though. He was like a punk-rock Kurt Rambis, easily 6-foot-9 with long brown hair and shop teacher glasses. He glared at us the whole time, and unceremoniously ended our impromptu gig by unplugging my amp from the lamp post as the feedback grew louder and louder.
 
“Hey, don’t touch my amp,” I said half-heartedly.
 
“Who do you guys think you are?” he snarled.
 
“The Red Worms,” John answered snidely. “Wanna buy a tape?”
 
“You guys weren’t cleared to play here,” he said.
 
“You’re a cop?” Dave asked, looking way, way up. “Wow.”
 
“I’m not a cop, dickhead.” Again, the snarl. “I’m from The Wave.”
 
I had no idea what he was talking about, but a shiver went up my spine. The Butthole Surfers scared me. John and Dave had seen them once before and owned almost all of their albums. Between their stories and what I’d read in SPIN magazine and heard on college radio, I knew that the Surfers lived, Manson Family-style, on a ranch in Texas, took lots of drugs, sometimes performed naked and wrote insane psychedelic paeans to “creeps in the cellar.” I’d heard about people in the crowd at their shows getting in fistfights and jumping on stage and being bloodied by acid-crazed biker/roadie types.
 
“Oh, OK,” John and Dave said in unison. The big guy loped away, looking back at us every few steps until ducking inside the club.
 
“What the hell is The Wave?” I asked.
 
“They’re kind of like the Kiwanis Club,” Dave said. “But instead of meeting in lame-ass all-you-can-eat restaurants once a month to discuss how they can help homeless people and sick kids, The Wave regulates the freaky vibe at Surfers shows.”
 
“So we’re not freaky enough to play?” I asked.
 
“No,” John said, a bit dejected. “But at least we got through one song.”
 
“I thought the Surfers were all about anarchy and shit,” I said. “Why do they care so much about ‘regulating the freaky vibe’?”
 
“They don’t,” Dave answered. “They don’t give a shit about The Wave, but they also don’t not give a shit about them.”
 
As we packed up, my college buddies Jim and Jeff, and Jeff’s girlfriend, Laura, shuffled by.
 
“Jim! Jeff!” I yelled.
 
“Holy shit!” Jeff said. “What’re you doing here? Were you just playing?”
 
“Yeah, you remember my buddy John?” I pointed to him. “That’s his brother, Dave. We’re the Red Worms, and we rocked this parking lot like crazy!”
 
“Sorry we missed it,” Jim said. “How long did you play?”
 
“About 10 minutes,” I said.
 
“The heat?” Jim asked.
 
“It’s not the heat, it’s the Wave,” John said.
 
Jim, Jeff and Laura waited for more.
 
“I don’t know,” I said. “This crazy tall guy came up and told us we had to stop playing. He said we weren’t ‘cleared’ to play here.”
 
They shrugged their shoulders. Laura chugged the rest of her ice coffee, and we walked into the club. I forgot instantly about The Wave and their tall bastard envoy. The sound system was throbbing with a garden-variety punk song that I couldn’t identify. I looked at John, and mouthed, “What is this?”
 
He listened for a moment. “GG Allin,” he said with a big smile. John and Dave were kind of into GG, but from the stories they told me about his disgusting debauchery and dangerous stage show, I had no desire to hear his music. I covered my ears.
 
“You’re a prude!” Dave yelled at me. The two of them laughed at me.
 
“Get me a beer, ya weirdos!” I yelled over the din.
 
We turned to the bar, where Jim bumped into a few friends from high school, some of whom I’d met when they visited Jim at school.
 
Roaming to the other side of the bar a few minutes later, I got tackled by my friend Heidi from college, who was there with two other buddies of mine, Pete and John, and Pete’s friend, Joe, whom I’d met a bunch of times.
 
“Hey hey!” I said. John thrust a Rolling Rock into my hand and we toasted and laughed about how great it was we were all about to lose our Surfers virginity.
 

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