Every once in a while we feel like we have to get back to our roots. It’s become even more important in this time of When We Were Young festivals and Machine Gun Kelly printing his own money (he calls them GunBucks) to remember the sort of independent, budget-less chaos that got us into punk in the first place.
We decided to check out a random house show in the shitiest Bed-Stuy neighborhood we could find and somehow we ended up spending all $300 in petty cash we got from our editor. Well, shit.
We tried to break this down to figure out exactly where the hell our money went, because there is no fucking way that a show featuring the bands Funt Dumpster and Dr. Cheesepenis & The Testicle Informants is the reason why we can’t afford rent this month. For shit’s sake, it was a suggested donation at the door. This is stupid.
Did we spend it at the merch table maybe? When we checked we realized we only bought a patch and two faulty enamel pins that the guy running the table assured us were cruelty-free. So that might have been part of it but definitely not everything.
We ate food at one point. Does food cost $300 in Brooklyn? It wasn’t even good food!
Maybe we spent more on drinks than we had expected. Brooklyn certainly has some expensive bars, but we seriously doubt that a shot and a to-go six-pack of PBRs, which we drank under the L train later, cost us more than our intern makes in two months.
Actually, we did end up buying a shirt too. No wait, never mind, we stole the shirt off that poser we beat up. So really that comes out to more of a net gain in our favor.
Well, we have no idea how we spent so much cash on a small-time DIY show, but at least we were still able to get back to our roots and walk away with some memories. That’s right, just new memories and an eight-ball of cocaine.