damage ink

by EUGENE S. ROBINSON

A HARMONIC CONVERGENCE

Fuck Converge!”

If truth be told, at the time, I had not only not heard Converge, but I also thought that the Boston scene that they allegedly came from was some fantastical make-believe place since the last bands from Boston I had paid any attention to were SSD (a band I was unreasonably devoted to), Kilslug, Slapshot and Anal Cunt (who, technically, were from Newton and not Boston at all.)

But you see, like all hardcore cats, there was a rigid pecking order, and it was structured around, “Where the hell were you?” If you weren’t first-wave, even if you were 8 years old then? Step to the back. I mean, Harley Flanagan, later of Cro-Mags, was touring Europe when he was 8 with his first band.

So, the fact that Converge were hardcore and from Boston and I hadn’t heard of them immediately earned a snobbish sniffle and the above imprecation. “Fuck Converge” indeed.

However, my assholitis notwithstanding, as we drove to the venue where we were playing with them in Bordeaux, France, our tour manager discovered that they had gotten the show order wrong. Turns out through some perverted twist of fate, Converge were now headlining and we were playing support. So, my high dudgeon was making more sense than not.

Right up until we pulled up to the main boulevard where the venue sat and we saw a four-personwide line stretching three blocks outside of the venue. One thing that being in OXBOW does for you, always and forever, is to introduce you to reality in the hardest of ways, and no one on this planet Earth was standing four-peoplewide and three blocks long for the kind of love we give.

So, where do we make our stand? In the dressing room.

It may have been theirs, but it didn’t matter. We were going to squeeze in for some good ol’ band togetherness. And to be assholes.

I sat next to Nate Newton. I glanced over at him and asked him if he had a mirror.

Nate had no mirror, and I could see it flash through his head that I wanted a surface for coke. Which sort of ratcheted the tension up to a wonderful sweet spot. A sweet spot that was in no way lessened when I pulled out my eyeliner, eye shadow and lipstick. See, I went through a phase when I was wearing make up onstage. Something I continued until one fan too many started asking me for naked photos (true) and whether or not I’d be interested in fellating them.

But then we got the call to play, and play we did. Our asses off. Some measure of “teaching these kids how it should be done”? Why, yes.

Then they, a band we had not heard or heard of prior to this very night, played; and like in poker, they met and matched our call. Royal flush style.

They fucking killed it. They crushed, they killed and they destroyed.

And I was in love.

I almost felt like I should apologize, but who wants their assholishness codified via a formal apology? And, realistically speaking, I got an adjustment I very much needed.

By which I mean, if you think about how old some of your favorite musicians were when their greatness became apparent, you know that great musicians are like great mathematicians: likeliest to do their best work in their 20s. So, no harm at all in thinking/believing/ knowing that people who were younger than you can mine a nongenerationally bound vein of magic.

Over the years, I’ve since fanboyed out and interviewed Jacob Bannon because, well, who knew that he was an MMA judge and muay thai guy in his spare time? But in terms of ride and die? The man I first asked for the mirror.

And the last time we hung out at an OXBOW show in Boston, what did we talk about? Like any other two old guys: our kids.

So, fuck Converge? Nah, bro… not even a little bit.