LOS ANGELES — Citing the ever-increasing reality of their impending mortality, members of the iconic punk band Broken Tongue announced the original line-up was getting together to tour one last time before one of them croaks, sources report.
“I’m turning 60 and, to be honest, I didn’t think I’d live this long to begin with,” frontman Benny Timor reported. “I’ve been smoking two packs a day for god knows how long, I drink like an Irish sailor, and I’ve pumped just about any drug you can think of into my system. I’m not long for this world. Even though I said it’d be a cold day in hell before I played with any of those pricks again, we feel we owe it to the fans to let them see us live one more time before the inevitable, which, if you’ve seen our guitarist, is probably any day now.”
“Plus, I just refinanced my mortgage and the interest rates are killing me,” he added.
Fan reaction to the impending tour was mixed with some expressing interest while others were more skeptical.
“Something about this is a bit fishy, like is one of them actually dying,” a longtime fan asked. “My moral compass is pretty much non-existent, but pretending you’re on death’s door just to make a few bucks is pretty low, even for me. At the same time, while I’m not trying to encourage this kind of behavior, ever since Grant Hart and Steve Albini died, I feel like I should just throw aside my ethics and pay the $75 bucks to see them since I may never get another chance to do so.”
Scene experts note that many of these bands brought this situation on themselves by diving fully into the “rock-n-roll lifestyle.”
“Look, I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but these guys made their own bed, now they need to lie in it,” said zine editor Shane Dagan. “Punk isn’t about self-destructive actions, so I won’t be indulging this cynical cash grab. Nobody forced these guys to smoke ten packs of cigarettes a day and the amount of alcohol these guys drank was legendary. If they had tried the tiniest bit of moderation then they wouldn’t have to worry about dying of lung cancer or cirrhosis at 50. Look at Fugazi. They live healthily so they can continue to dangle the possibility of a reunion in front of us for decades to come.”
Reached for further comment, the band announced the tour was delayed pending results of the bassist’s prostate biopsy.