More by: Karen

To get away from my family, I asked my friend if I could stay with her family for a while. While she went to work and her family was away, I’d watch television or read or vacuum the living room. On Wednesday of that week we went down to Blues on the Mall to make fun of the anime kids with their leashes and collars. We met up with a friend of ours who handed us a flyer for a show that was happening two days later at his mom’s house.

I remember being kind of nervous, because this was very unfamiliar to me, and also because I had never been to the west side of Grand Rapids before. I didn’t know what to expect. I was associating this feeling with the first couple of times I ever went to a show. I was a seasoned show-goer at that point, but I had never gone to see bands in a basement before (this was something that I thought kids in other cities did because it seemed so cooool and punk, and I didn‘t think GR was exciting enough for that). Would it be like going to skelletones? Is it a different crowd? Would it be like a real life jawbreaker song?*

A band called 17th Class, from Rochester, NY was playing, along with Another Terrorist Organization and the Ron Jeremy Sex Explosion. The touring band had to get their car fixed, so my friend and I just sat around awkwardly waiting till the show started.

I remember going into the house and down into the basement for the first time and feeling excited. Excited about seeing bands in a basement, but knowing that this was something different. This was something that most of the world would find revolting. Rich kids from your school hung out in the living room and drank fancy wine while listening to hip hop or whatever stupid trendy music was popular. If they did have a basement, it would be furnished with expensive furniture and nice paintings on the walls.  Most of the house shows I’ve gone to were poor people’s houses with cockroaches and spider webs and leaking sewage pipes. When the bands played that night, I felt a comradary with the people in the basement. We were deep in the ground, hiding away from the normal world, away from our problems.

That first show will always stay in my memory because it reminded me that I am a part of something. Punks are my extended family, and no matter how many years go by, it‘s nice to know that if I wanted to travel the U.S., all those kids that I met in various basements would let me sleep on their couch, no questions asked. I may not know 75% of my friends last names, but I know that they’d stand up for me in a heartbeat.

Punk is not safe. It’s not safe for ballrooms or fancy country clubs. It’s considered to be ugly, dirty and socially frowned upon. This is what makes punk so exciting, knowing that we can have shows in interesting places like basements of library’s or the living room of some 18 year old kid’s apartment (and accidentally smashing all his windows out from all the dancing…sorry ‘bout that) . It needs to be kept a secret. Having to know someone in order to find out where the show is makes punk more exciting. Keep it going by setting up shows yourself or loaning out your house for shows.

*look up the song “Bad Scene, Everyone’s Fault” by Jawbreaker.