“Off the pigs, this is a song about killing cops” Stza Crack, lead singer of anarcho-punk band, Leftover Crack, yelled to a legion of several hundred punks gathered for a concert in Tompkins square park late Sunday afternoon. The all-day concert, with a line-up also including thrash punkers Witch Hunt, and Stza's side project Starfucking Hipsters commemorated the 20th anniversary of the riots there. With his bellicose introduction, the lead singer launched into their pop-inflected anthem “One Dead Cop.” The crowd, mostly in there late teens went wild, crowd surfing, moshing and waving 40’s of malt liquor in the air while singing along to the chorus of “kill cops, kill cops.” Two boys in blue, NYPD's sole representatives near the stage area, stood leaning against a nearby-fence chatting placidly. As Chris Flash, publisher of the Shadow said on stage the week before, "these are not the same cops as 20 years ago."
Leftover Crack gave an energized, infectious performance with almost no barrier between the band and the audience. It reminded us that despite a flag burning, and the half-baked revolutionary rhetoric being spouted by activists that took the stage in between acts this event was, as a hip 40 something woman – by far one of the oldest in the crowd – described, “an exuberant party with a backdrop of political protest.”
The idea of activists using Rock and Roll to spread revolutionary consciousness goes back to Sixties figures like John Sinclair, the Yippie “Minister of Information” for MC5 and NY folkie, David Peel, who’s birthday was actually celebrated after the concert. Last weekend while the kids careened around in the mosh pit the old radicals advertised the significance of the day with placards, flags and hawking copies of the Shadow, a decidedly retro zine dedicated to railing against the establishment.
The attitudes of Doreen and her four crusty friends, who drove down from Buffalo and were sleeping in the park, seemed to represent where the kids’ heads were. Although aware of a riot in ’88 caused by cops, who they expressed hatred for, they had come down to see Leftover Crack, not to protest anything. Getting wasted, unsurprisingly, was important. Although Doreen was high, “I just did a bag an hour ago,” she grinned; the rest of the crew was finding it disappointingly difficult to cop heroin. “I’ll take any drugs you can put in my hand,” one of them told me a little hopefully. “We missed it man, I wish we were here in ’88,” one of them piped in, the others grumbling in assent. "We missed it;" the clarion call of every generation since Woodstock.
During the earlier bands that the crowd wasn't familiar with, and in between sets the kids seemed aimless and uncomfortable. A decidedly un-punk looking photog snapping pictures of the audience was told by a short, pimply, tattooed girl with brightly died hair that her boyfriend was going to smash his camera if he didn’t stop taking photos of them. “I’m not afraid of your fucking boyfriend,” he hissed, while snapping a pic of her, and for a second we thought there might be some trouble, but the girl only scowled and slunk off.
The older activists stayed on the periphery of the show; like Richie, a green anarchist waving a huge black flag and Chris Flash who told me, his eyes gleaming, that he thought a huge crash would shut down “Yuppie businesses” and bring the rents back to where they in the late 80’s and 90’s. When I asked him how that would benefit the teenagers who had traveled here on a punk rock pilgrimage he sighed and admitted, “the damage is done.”
Just read your NY Press piece..I'm their ex-Sex Columnist. I really liked it. I may have a crush, although I'm assuming it would be me having a cougar moment as I suspect you are young.
Posted by: KK | August 13, 2008 at 07:01 AM
I also just read your NY Press piece ... I'm an ex-reporter for them ... sorry, but no crush here.
I did enjoy your Web site and I'm looking forward to more.
I don't live in the city anymore, and despite only living there for 18 months, it's nice reading relevent non-pretentious writing from someone that's not a transplant.
Posted by: Bret | August 13, 2008 at 11:47 AM
Think you could post an email address or something? If it'd be possible to get in touch with you, not through a public comment, I really appreciate it. I
Posted by: jen | August 13, 2008 at 08:55 PM
God almighty, I am tired of drugs.
www.forgotten-ny.com
Posted by: Kevin Walsh | August 18, 2008 at 04:20 PM
apparently others have crushes on you. I bet you didn't know you were so crushworthy.
Posted by: KK | August 19, 2008 at 07:25 PM
It was our flag that burned and we held that Black flag all day.
The old heads were drunk.
Give us a chance to speak on the podium and dont discount the youth.
We are a new wave of red guards.
Posted by: 229 Brigade | September 27, 2008 at 12:34 AM