Listen :: Dropkick Murphy’s :: The Gang’s All Here
The Gang’s All Here
Distorted Operation Ivy crackles
through the café speakers :
murmur of
separate conversations
charges the room.
Kids with
multi-colored mohwaks spiked
with glue who wear hoodies plastered
with fraying patches and dented pins
crowd around
chessboard topped tables
as they wait for Bedford to play.
We sit
on the hand-me-down
thrift store couch. A pile of zines
sprawled between us –
screen printed covers :
photocopied pages : awkwardly stapled spines.
Filled with cut and paste artwork : 7” demo reviews :
interviews with local bands. You know, we could do this, Mandy says.
In our zine we should have funny lists… I say.
Yeah like, Show Faux Pas.
Mandy points to
kid in a Bedford shirt
the creases still crisp.
Number one : don’t buy a T-shirt at a show
then put it on over the shirt you are wearing.
Or we can have a Pick Your Clique thing.
Yeah, like you know you’re a crust punk if…
… your best friend painted the logo
on the back of your leather jacket.
You know you’re a skater if…
… you only wear skate company
and metal band T-shirts.
Dave sits on the coffee table
our knees almost touch,
his thumbs poke through the holes
in sleeves of his Thrasher shirt.
We watch,
a slew of punks –
crust punks : pop punks :
scene queens : skaters :
rude grrls : all a mess
of matted hair and damp faces
fresh from the pit,
walk through the door of the café.
You’re a hardcore kid if…
your New Balances
match your straight edge varsity jacket.
You’re a ska kid if…
you can play checkers
on more than half of your clothes.
I lean back on the couch,
pull the sleeves of my hoodie over my hands,
curl my legs underneath me.
The coffee table is cluttered
with empty bottles of root beer
and sticky milkshake glasses,
zines strewn all around, our coats fallen
to the floor.
back roads & city streets 