Iron Age At Charleston from Nicholas Gazin on Vimeo.

Here’s a poor video of Iron Age’s first song of a set that was fraught with hardships.

Mikhail invited me to go see Iron Age and then revealed that he wasn’t going and also told me to blog about it. The show sucked but I’m going to try my best to wring some sort of show report out of the misery.

This is my friend Zach Hazard and his girlfriend, Allison Arsonist. Zach’s a hilarious cartoonist and funny guy. I wish more punks were like Zach but punk isn’t like it used to be. That’s oretty good since most punks were smug, self centered assholes who lived only to lecture and feel like they were changing the world by drinking, getting stoned, riding bicycles and smelling bad. I no longer miss that era of punk.

This is the show’s promoter standing with my first girlfriend, Elfie. I met Ian, the promoter when I took this photo and I met Elfie when I was seventeen while we interviewed Leftover Crack. Leftover Crack are a fine example of smug punks who peddle lies. The weather sucked and so did this show.

Elfie couldn’t get in because the door guy wouldn’t let her although legally you don’t actually have to verify that people are over twenty-one to let them into a bar. So she screamed at the guy and told him that she looked forward to seeing him in ten years when he’s still working there. I hate the Charleston. I hate most bars, and I especially hate the bars that are on and around Bedford Avenue and of those bars I think I hate the Charleston the most. The Charleston is a dirty, cramped alley bar that smells like mildew and piss. It’s infested with rats and unfriendly jackoffs. The bathrooms are grosser than the ones at CBGBs since they’re so narrow that you are constantly brushing up against people. Seeing a show there sucks since the shows take place in a dark, cramped, ill-lit basement with no stage.

Here’s one of the bands that went on before Iron Age. They were okay but I forget their name. It was freezing and wet outside and inside it was packed, filthy and sultry. The only pleasant thing was watching the Yankees/Angels game on the TV. They were playing in a torrential downpour and the game went into it’s 13th inning while I was watching. At least those miserable titans on the field went home to many millions of dollars and comfort. What did I have waiting for me at home? More low and non paying work, more rats, more cold. Why the fuck did I come to this place?

This is the best photo I got of Iron Age. I’d received an invitation to do drugs and drink with some nice people at a clean and warm apartment nearby but I couldn’t leave the Charleston because I had to write about shit. Most of Iron Age were ready to go but they couldn’t find one of the band members. Then they couldn’t find a guitar. Then the played one song. Then they blew up one of their heads. They think that it’s the clubs ungrounded outlets that caused the destruction of their gear. Then they borrowed Naam’s gear and blew that up. Twenty minutes later they played a second song. I couldn’t stand the waiting or the heat. The singer made a joke that went like this “Why do girls wear make up and perfume? Because they’re ugly and they smell bad!” This led to this humorless bitch punk I used to see around barking back at him. She used to work at Alt.Coffee and had no manners or any good qualities. Why did people like that like punk? Why couldn’t they just get into law or something as awful as they were? So being the kind of person who probably says,”That’s not funny.” more than any other phrase she started a back and forth argument with the band who seemed confused by this. Some jocky punk guy was taunting her about how this should be a “safe space” and how he was going to report them to Maximum Rock N’ Roll. I liked him better but man, it took me back to why punk sucked. Uptight assholes, jerky jocks. Fuck the past. Everything in the past is garbage. The only thing that exists is what is right now.

I stand by my claim that you can list all good cultural phenomena of the nineties on both hands. There’s Ren and Stimpy, Eightball, Pete and Pete, Nirvana, two or three movies, and that’s pretty much it. I think the part where the country had so much money might have contributed to the shittiness. I am still trying to understand why that decade is the worst decade of all time, culturally.

This is Carson from the band Tombs, the drunkest guy from Iron Age and Chase their rad tour manager. Iron Age can clearly tear it up but this show was the fucking pits.

- Toilet Cobra