7
by Mark Lansing_Archive
In 1982, when I was in college (yes, that's right, I'm an old man), this girl I was enamored of asked me if I was going to see the Circle Jerks, who were playing on campus that weekend. I said yes, and she asked if she could tag along. I was thrilled but puzzled, because it hardly seemed like her thing. Come the night of the show, I appear at her place and she's wearing some adorably wrong-headed Zest-soap colored "new wave" outfit, and lets me know she heard that this was a "new wave" show, and since she liked Figures On A Beach (god-awful synth pop band from Detroit who made A Flock Of Seagulls sound like the Dwarves), this would a fun show to dance to.
Oh, dear ... the Crucifucks opened the show, and after Doc Dart poked a hole in his cheek with a knife, she turned white as a sheet. By the time the Circle Jerks had finished (who were fun, though hardly revelatory), the poor girl looked like a virgin who had been brutally sodomized by bikers for several hours. So ended the Romance Of The Century.
About a year later, I was dating a friend of hers and took her to see the Clash (in the post-Mick Jones era). She dumped me after the show. Can you spot a pattern here?