COLUMBUS, Ohio — Aging hardcore guy and noted crowd killer Tom Reilly reportedly received a gold X Swatch for his decades-long career as a pit kickboxer at his mosh retirement party, sources with bloody noses confirmed.
“Wow! It’s hard to believe that I’m retiring from moshing already. Seems like just yesterday I was a young grom tomahawk chopping the backs of peoples’ heads at the Martyr A.D. show,” said Tom Reilly, 38, as he admired his mosh retirement gift. “I spent a lot of years running into teenage girls trying to avoid the pit but this watch makes it all worth it. It’ll look great on my wrist as I stand on the side of the stage knocking over kids as they try to do their first stagedive.”
Reilly’s coworkers at his actual job with his uncle’s landscaping service company say it’s great that he is able to have this retirement from moshing because he’ll realistically never be able to retire from his job.
“Yeah, it’s cool that he is able to retire from that mosh dancing at those heavy metal shows or whatever, because, with all the money he spends on band hoodies and baseball hats to cover up his receding hairline, he will be shoveling mulch until the day he dies,” said his coworker Josh Philips. “I don’t understand watch with the ‘X’ on it either. He says it means you are a ‘straight edger’ where you don’t drink or do drugs but me and him are blazing up in the back of his uncle’s truck every day. He says he is worried the other straight edgers will find out and it’s sad to me that some guy who is almost forty would worry so much about what a bunch of teenagers think about him.”
Scene historian Brian Roland says that he has noticed a trend recently that the average age of mosh retirement has gone up.
“It used to be standard for someone to retire from moshing at age 25 but in recent years we have seen that number spike up into the mid to late 30s,” said Roland. “We think that because of all the nostalgia reunion shows older scenesters are able to set it off well past their prime. If these trends continue the average age for mosh retirement could hit the mid-40s within the next few years which would just be sad for everyone involved.”
At press time, Reilly was seen creating a shoegaze playlist and was said to be looking at a Fender Jazzmaster on eBay.