Article: Dave Brockie Naked at GWAR show (Thanks to TupelloMiss!)
Christian Hunter McClain
Thanks much to TupelloMiss who sent me a copy of this article and some
other cool hometown GWAR stuff.
From Richmond Music Journal October 1994
GWAR GAFFES RESULT IN REVEALING SHOW
It's 45 minutes past 8 o'clock "doors" and there's a line down the block
outside the Flood Zone. The first band, X-Cops, doesn't come on until 9:43
and even though the Slave Pit, command central for Gwar, said Gwar was
going on promptly at 11 because it's an all ages show, it's closer to
midnight and by then I'm not timing anything anymore because I'm totally
engrossed in a spectacle that's going to end with Dave Brockie naked on
stage.
The next four hours are like rough seas on the Carnival Cruise Line. I
hang on the rail the whole time because if I move I lose my spot and it's
a good spot, scientifically selected in advance by guys from Mystic
Biscuits and Digits who studied the terrain based on previous Gwar shows,
computing the exact distance you need to see yet not get slimed.
Their computations are on the mark. Toward the end of the show when
Brockie points a hose upward, we can see the haze of red droplets heading
our way, but they dissipate before impact
X-Cops play first in order to give them time to change into their Gwar
costumes. Their music is loud with titles like "Paddy Wagon Rape" and they
heap abuse on the restless youth of America jammed six-deep at the
barricade. Guys are brought up on stage and clubbed until their faces are
bloody (an illusion, although I can't tell how they're doing it). The
keyboard player in charge of ominous noises stays back at the soundboard.
Another guy is beat up and shot to "You Fucked Up." We can make out the
lyrics to that song. They go "you fucked up. " X-Cops leaves the stage at
10:23 and Hose Got Cable comes on at 10:37, getting us momentarily excited
by tuning up to "Smells Like Teen Spirit," but then they don't cover any
Nirvana.
What sounds like a warm-up turns out to be their first song, one that
never seems to quite get started. They play with their backs to the
audience. At one point the drum kit needs an emergency application of a
lot of Scotch tape
The crowd at the barricade is now 21 bodies deep and 20 wide in
anticipation of Gwar, four-deep at the upstairs rails. We spot members
Letters from Earth and Bucket in the crowd, but we can t move to see what
other local bands are in the hail. The comic book-sci fi crowd is down on
the first floor in force. Hose Got Cable has broken one of its guitars to
bits. They go off at 11:12.
"How much did they suck? Did they suck? They sucked," the Digits-Mystic
Biscuits contingent around me decides.
After another long break, Gwar finally takes the stage in their monster
costumes their stagehands scurrying around naked except for
dicks-on-steroids cod pieces.
"This is the biggest collection of losers since the Nuremberg Trials",
they announce to the devoted, who I bet don't know what the Nuremberg
Trials were, and as Oderus Urungus sings to more loud stuff type music, he
moves frequenty to the edge of the stage so eager hands can bat at his
fierce looking, yard-long penis.
Somebody is disemboweled and intestines are ripped out and eaten.
Somebody's head is split open and their brains are eaten. Oderus shoots a
stream of green liquid out of his penis. None of it is particularly gross
because it's so obviously fake, like Pee Wee Herman Meets Night of the
Living Dead, but as theater of the absurd is vastly entertaining
nonetheless.
If Hose Got Cable, then Gwar Cot Hose. There's ample Galli-gwar warning
because you can see the stagehands plug in the costumes when a squirt-down
is called for in the script. But tonight the script has gone wrong. Being
a first-time Gwar attendee, I could not tell, but Gwar veterans tell me
later the show went badly amiss Brockie is obviously frustrated.
"I made one mistake and now I have to suffer for the rest of the set?" he
says to the band. Something isn't functioning. But the show keeps rocking
to Brockie's repeated confessions that he has deviated from the script and
is ad-libbing.
Three Neo-Nazi skinheads are decapitated and blood spurts out of their
necks. Then Slymenstra Hymen impresses the hell out of me by doing a fire
dance without burning her hair off or setting the Flood Zone stage ablaze.
Smoke pours through the hall.
She rips a gigantic bloody tampon out of her crotch and losses it into the
crowd, who tosses it back. Then she has one of those Maximum Maxi Pad
Heavy Days right on the stage in one cascading splat and breathes fire.
The entire Flood Zone has literally heated up. You can feel it at the back
rails. We are damned impressed.
A big-headed Michael Jackson dances out to "Beat It" and is encouraged to
jerk off. His feeble effort gets his dick lopped off and he sprays a ton
of alternating red, green and blue liquid into the audience. In a
patriotic display, it becomes red, white and blue all at the same time.
There's a transvestite space alien. and then a big monster which looks
like a giant uterus with pointed teeth in the cervix and two octopus-like
ovaries attached by fallopian tubes on either side The ovaries are sliced
off and then a Hitler head comes out of the cervix and does battle with
Oderus. He cuts it off. More blood spew s.
Finally, the big worm World Maggot, which has been sitting quietly in
front of the drum set, comes alive and stretches out. Girls and members of
Hose Got Cable are jammed into its jaws, and then the Maggot is
decapitated and there's more hosing down of the front rows.
This concludes the show, but whatever the encore is normally, we never
find out. Something has gone amiss with Brockie's costume and he rips it
off before leaving the stage, so when he comes back wearing nothing but
the huge dick G-string, the rest of the band has to match him by pulling
off their costumes.
Gwar veterans tell me the encore numbers were more Rawg than Gwar. Gwar's
uncostumed counterparts, and it is uncharacteristic for Brockie to break
character in a Gwar show. They say he began doing it from the first
miscue.
There's a delay in getting the drummer to return at all. It's hard to tell
whether the anger and frustration on the stage is real or part of the act,
but if it was real, that might explain why Brockie pulled off the last
piece of his costume and paced the stage restlessly, completely naked,
sometimes singing, mostly fulminating, and at one point, pulling a bag of
golf clubs and taking a few practice swings.
(I glance across the Flood Zone in a news flash panic and my photographer,
having exhausted her allotted time on the perch, has climbed down. Shit!!!
She's on the floor somewhere, her view blocked by uplifted hands. A
photographer from France is up there now shooting away. France gets naked
photos of Prince Charles AND Dave Brockie. This is not fair! It is our
punishment for Euro-Disney.
I am way too far back to get a clear photo with my dinky camera and the
room is still full of smoke from Slymenstra. My worst fears are confirmed
when the film comes back a few days later. Brockie is barely discernible
in the haze and my negatives are mysteriously missing, so you're all going
to have to take my word on this.)
Did he feel the show had not been up to its usual standards and offered
himself like a naked Christ as a human sacrifice to the audience? It was
the most amazing dramatic theater ever, and there was almost no response
from the floor. Does he always do this??
No, the people around me shake their heads, silent.
Is that his real penis?
Seems like it.
Perhaps the problem is if you've been strutting around for over an hour in
a yard long monster dick, suddenly unveiling your real one is like going
from Disney World to Tweetsie Railroad. As penises go, Brockie could win a
bronze in the White Boy Olympics. But compared to the satanic majesty of
his alter ego organ, it loses something in the translation. When he went
to the barricades with this one, no hands reached up to bat it.
What he intended to do next will forever remain a mystery. One of the
guitar players is repeatedly yelling that he needs a beer. An empty beer
bottle goes flying onto the stage and the band immediately becomes a
Kennedy Assassination tableau, all pointing up at us as if we were the
Texas School Book Depository.
Hey, it wasn't us, we pointed back. It came from down there, the Grassy
Knoll, and we all pointed down. The last thing we would have done is throw
n a beer bottle at such a magnificent spectacle. But the band is in an
uproar about this Single Bottle Theory that has killed whatever is left of
the Naked Encore and they're convinced it came from upstairs. They're not
going to play anymore they scream.
Brockie is handed an apron or shirt to cover himself. He announces the
cops have arrived, drapes himself, and the show ends suddenly as they
scurry off the stage. The people upstairs rush to the windows to see if
cop cars are on the street, but there's nothing.
The place empties out and cool air whooshes through the windows, finally
breaking the heat and smoke from Slymenstra's torches.
"Brett," I say to the major domo Cassis, who has come in w ith the cleanup
squad. "Did you see that? What was that all about?"
"What""
"Brockie was naked on stage. Can you do that in Richmond?"
"I didn't see anything. I don't know anything about it," he says wisely.
"Did you throw the bottle'?"
"No! It came from downstairs!" We would never throw a bottle at something
we were got ing to vote for in the polls.
_Best Other Instrument_
1. Dave Brockie's dick
No contest. Hands on winner .
--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will
offend me."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
lilwhip
>Incidentally, as a point of interest to all of you who like GWAR,
>there's another band whose stage show is over the top mayhem at its
>best. If the "Impotent Sea Snakes" ever come to your town, see them and
>you won't be disappointed. The music's not as good as GWAR, but the
>show is right up there.
I agree there with you,except I like their(Impotent)music alot.With
songs like "chicks with dicks",and "Felching",it makes for lots of
enjoying listening.I saw them this weekend and jumped up on stage with
them to be part of the mayhem.You know you have had fun when you are
wearing less than you came in,and covered in feathers,syrup,choclate
sauce,alcohol,ect...The show was one of their best ever.
Also,I was there at Dragon-Con and got the pleasure of hanging out
backstage with the them.I thought the show was great,and Dave looked
DELICIOUS!!I hope they make it back to Atlanta soon..VERY SOON
Trevor Conn
This was a really funny article. I only saw them get out of costume
during an encore once. The first time I saw GWAR was just after "This
Toilet Earth" came out, and they did an encore of "Detroit Rock City"
where Balsac and Flattus had removed their gear. The show was long as
hell and I bet they get uncomfortable. At DragonCon, they had a booth
where you could try on old costumes and stuff. They were heavy. It was
neat seeing all the old stuff (like old Flattus and Beefcake costumes)
Also, every time I've seen GWAR (except for Dec.31, 1994 -- one of
the best, most far out shows I've ever seen) there've been some sort of
mistakes -- microphones come unplugged, or blood doesn't shoot right
away, or once they just could not knock the head off the flesh column.
Since I'm always right up there in front, I have noticed the
exasperation on Dave's face a couple times, or he'll make disparaging
comments. To me, these flaws in no way detract from the enjoyability of
the show or make them seem a cheap "Spinal Tap" sort of phenomenon. In
the comics (the latest "Surf of Syn" strip is GREAT!!!) GWAR are almost
bumbling in their attempts to wreak havoc or prevent themselves from
being destroyed by forces of greater evil. It's like they succeed in
spite of themselves. When technical stuff goes wrong at the shows, I
think it fits right in. It exemplifies that sense of humor that is so
great about Slave Pit.
Incidentally, as a point of interest to all of you who like GWAR,
there's another band whose stage show is over the top mayhem at its
best. If the "Impotent Sea Snakes" ever come to your town, see them and
you won't be disappointed. The music's not as good as GWAR, but the
show is right up there.
Go see "THE FRIGHTENERS"!!!!!
TSC
Christian Hunter McClain
In article <4sv0rj$8...@dfw-ixnews4.ix.netcom.com>, mah...@ix.netcom.com
(Trevor Conn) wrote:
> Incidentally, as a point of interest to all of you who like GWAR,
> there's another band whose stage show is over the top mayhem at its
> best. If the "Impotent Sea Snakes" ever come to your town, see them and
> you won't be disappointed. The music's not as good as GWAR, but the
> show is right up there.
> TSC
I saw a CD by Impotent Sea Snakes at a local record store. I looked
though the lyric sheet and there was a song called "Felching" or something
like that. It was about butt fucking your girlfriend/boyfriend, and then
sucking your own cum out of their asshole. Pretty disgusting stuff. I
almost bought the disc.
Daren
>
> Also, every time I've seen GWAR (except for Dec.31, 1994 -- one of
>the best, most far out shows I've ever seen) there've been some sort of
>mistakes -- microphones come unplugged, or blood doesn't shoot right
>away, or once they just could not knock the head off the flesh column.
>Since I'm always right up there in front, I have noticed the
>exasperation on Dave's face a couple times, or he'll make disparaging
>comments. To me, these flaws in no way detract from the enjoyability of
>the show or make them seem a cheap "Spinal Tap" sort of phenomenon.
I agree. One time when I saw them Oderus shot blood instead of cum.