Ok, you had to fucking know this was gonna happen. Especially after that Marilyn Manson post! yeesh! Lets get fun! If you don't know this band, I am really really sorry and I suggest you give them a try for the best 'phase' of yer God Damn life! I am going to be honest though, I think everyone into weird stuff has had a Misfits phase! Much healthier than the Manson phase haha, and like... I didn't like, become obsessed and cultish haha.
I couldn't find a tagged version so this is Courtesy of @FranksKidArt
"Hey! We had the God Damn name first! We are going to sue Jem, we are going to sue Gems, we are going to sue the TV stations"
Anyways, So I was like mentally ill and in Manson recovery. I had to reprogram from it, and to do so I had to go back to my punk rock roots, only thing was, I knew like Punk O Rama albums, well.. haha, that was going to change. It started innocently enough. I had to revamp my wardrobe. All I had was Marilyn Manson shirts. So off to the mall we went. Along the way my Mom had said the words I live by to this day.
"I love you, for you, be as weird as you want. But if it hurts you, it hurts me"
I had come searching for GWAR shirts, an impossibility, was GWAR much better? Well, yes, they were, plain and simple. They weren't actively trying to kill me, they made sure to make it satirical enough. And then, I saw it. It hung off a rack all on its lonesome. And I had found a new attraction, that was about to start a healing process, my first actual one, the first of many but still. I owe a fuck ton to these dudes. The shirt? Earth A.D. the description? Love at first sight! WOOH! I had seen some like Cannibal Corpse stuff but to be honest, not really my thing. Fucking weird right?!
You know what's weird? I put this here and the song came on Spotify, stop your VOODOO Glenn!
If you read my other blogs (read them!) You know my fascination with ghouls. I had given it up though after my cousin died. I lost a will for horror all together. I was heading into 8th grade, I had to make a statement, and honestly, I thought it was simply a shirt company. I remember tripping over myself to show my mom, and with a sigh, she agreed to let me get it. As we were checking out, the dude at the register squinted at me in approval as he said "Great choice! Great band!" as if I passed his gatekeeping... wait.. BAND?!
I was torn, was it Death Metal? Trashy suicidal stuff? Well, I had it now. My best bet would be trying to get some sort of approval on music, however with my newfound illness I was kept on a leash with what influenced me. So with a little coercing, I was able to make our next stop the local record store. There they were! I remember it well! Both Collections 1 and 2 stared at me in cassette form. The covers caught the most of my attention, until I started reading song names. I WAS FUCKED! How was I ever going to get ANYONE to let me listen to a fucking song called "Die Die My Darling" after just getting out of my first psych ward stint!
Out of pure desperation, I showed my mom anyways while she was looking at some Bob Seger "Best Of" stuff for the car. The next moments were like breathless for me, But I had a new fixation without even hearing a single song. She gave me the long mom look. My mom had grown up on KISS, and also like Woody Guthrie and that. She is an old, wild soul. I have learned all of my rambling in life, and moods from her. She finally had reached an answer. I was about to get a response, I was shaky in the knees.
"I know who they are. And honestly, you wont be able to understand the guy so they cant hurt you that bad"
I thought I was molded for Manson. I was fucking wrong!
What attracted me? The names, simple, I was still, even though I held it in, a horror hound. Obsessed with monsters, thinking I could never love them again. Honestly? I was sold at the names "Night of the Living Dead" and "Horror Hotel" I was still expecting like 'Deathy Death speed' metal. What I got, well if you know you know. The bebop catchiness to a dude belting out some sort of jib jab who could actually like sing really good? I was officially, 100% growing into a subculture. My first relation to the misfits sound? A band my aunts had listened to in the car time and time and time again, I knew them well. Only, psychotic...
R.A.M.O.N.E.S
Guess who the dude in the hip leopard pants is!
Yep, to me it was happy and catchy and bouncy, in a completely different way. I was a little less depressed and well, yeah a bit more weird and unapproachable. Which was OK, I didn't wanna be approached. I had delved down the official Punk Rock rabbit hole! I have been here close to 24 years, it is a very broad, fun, imaginative rabbit hole. I should've expanded beyond Epitaph records the first time but, I had found one way to truly express myself through music without getting hurt.... welllllll..... without hurting myself.... WELLLLL without uh.. you know, doing it on purpose? That will do I guess.
That summer, with my new found lifestyle and outlook. I made some of the best friends ever, over a simple shirt. I had officially been embraced into all of this. After spending so much time wanting to die, I had found my first 'reason to live', I wasn't the only person Like me, there was a lot, from all different walks of life. It was music with a purpose, REAL PUNK FUCKING ROCK! I am a traveler of scenes, Punk, Metal, even SOME country. I owe it all to these Fiends, and I still have my 'Fiend Club' shirt, and always will.
VIVA!!
Has it become a total cartoon? Yes! lawsuits, really.. like.. dragging it out over these years. Totally turning it upside it with reunion shows! I can produce meme after meme and joke after joke because I have honestly, expanded so far beyond The Misfits, I feel its almost a rite of passage into punk rock Dadism to bag on the new gen of the band that REALLY brought me into the scene (Sorry Green Day, but uh, thank you anyways!). I still have them well circulated into all of my Spotify playlists, I griped but still went to the "Punk Rock Retirement Plan" shows when they came to town. They were the first band to actually STICK with me. Thank you Gentlemen, for truly saving me and making it OK to be totally weird. You rocked in like 2011 or whatever, COME ON! SOMEBODY READ THIS!
Thanks for all the late night lyric hunting!
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