Battle of the Bands at James Madison University

Some cynics argue that every rock critic is merely a failed or wannabe musician. Not true. I have never aspired to that kind of glory, but I was recently re-minded that this month is the 15-year anniversary of the only time I rocked the stage—and tried to destroy rock ‘n’ roll in the process (which, I discovered, was a more difficult task than I imagined).

It was a formula for disaster: fronting a sacri-legious, cross-dressing noise band that crashed a fraternity-sponsored “Battle of the Bands” at a state university located about 30 min-utes from the border of West Virginia. In fact, it was borderline suicidal. You see, in 1991, I enlisted six other friends to en-ter the annual James Madison University Battle of the Bands contest, a slick and professional affair that I distained, especially because I had recently dropped out of a mu-sic industry program at another school after wanting to strangle all the horrible indus-try-creeps-in-training who crossed my path.

The majority of our “band” couldn’t play any instruments, so we naughtily turned in someone else’s demo tape with our application. In fact, that demo contained a song whose chorus provided an intentionally lame band name: Don’t Panic!. (We were especially proud of the exclama-tion point; it was a nice touch.) Because I was the one who filed all the paperwork and fol-lowed through with this stupid idea, I decided that I would be the lead singer. Phil and Tapio were on bass and guitar, respectively. Dave performed lead guitar licks, Mary bashed the drums, Jeff added keyboard sounds, and we also had a male stripper named Chris, who wore women’s undergarments beneath his clothing. Each band was allotted 15 min-utes for its sets, so we planned to perform “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” as our final song—which we rightly assumed would get us kicked off the stage.

Don’t Panic! was third in a lineup of six groups. The band that preceded us—who concluded its set with an emotional version of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me,” and ended up winning the competition—pretty much stole all our moves, though they per-formed those flourishes sincerely. I was sim-ply a sarcastic asshole who spouted rock ‘n’ roll clichés (in my best high pitched hair metal voice and with foot planted on the stage moni-tor) such as, “How y’all doin’ out there?” and “There are a lot of pretty ladies in the house toooo-niiiight!”

Before the audience could process the fact that I was wearing a dress and was masked by a confederate flag bandana (remember, this was rural southwestern Virginia… Deliverance country), Chris began stripping down to a bra and panties. Up until this point, we led the event’s organizers to believe we were an am-bitious though mild-mannered alternative rock band, not a group of spazzes who were out to make eardrums bleed and their mothers cry. Nor did they have any idea that anyone would enter this competition for the sole purpose of ridiculing the serious dudes who were hop-ing to win prize money by showing off their “chops.” Boy, was everyone mad.

Our performance consisted of trying—trying to play the songs we wrote for the oc-casion, such as “Score Score Score: Do It In My Datsun.” The refrain went, “score score score/ do it in my Datsun/ score score score/ elemen-tary my dear Watson.” (Click here to see a clip of "Score Score Score Do It In My Datsun.") We also attempted a cover song, an inept reggae version of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water,” which had some attendees streaming out the front door and about 40 other fans/friends screaming in rapture. At the end of the set our tall, imposing friend Sander—bare-chested with the word “DEAD” written on his chest—walked onstage with a hammer and nails. (Sander Hicks, by the way, founded Soft Skull Press and channeled all his subversive energies into building one of the U.S’s premiere indie book publishing houses. Other members of the group who could play instruments went on to form awesome bands such as Blast Off Country Style and the Rah-Bras.)

In addition to the hammer and nails, Sander brought with him a large wooden cross, and he began mock-nailing me to the wood while the fraternity stagehands stood slack-jawed. The organizers squirmed in their seats, and at this point we had totally offended everyone who wasn’t in on the joke. During the performance of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” (which obviously exceeded our time limit), to compli-ment my crucifixion, audience members threw confetti in the air with the word “Satan” writ-ten on each piece of paper. Marilyn Manson, eat your heart out. Soon after, the organizers literally and metaphorically pulled the plug on Don’t Panic! by cutting the sound and turning on the houselights.
 
Click here to see a clip of my crucifixion and the chaos it provoked.
 
I wouldn’t classify our little excursion as a media prank; really, it was simply just a prank because no newspapers reported on the incident and the intended audience included only the unsuspecting audience members, our friends and the poor organizers, who refused to talk to us. A week later, when I received the contest judges’ scores via campus mail, I was pleasantly surprised (actually, shocked) to discover that we came in second to last place. Despite the sacrilegious theatrics, cross-dress-ing and lack of musical ability, we were not considered the worst band that played that night. Even stranger, while digging through used record bins later that week, I discovered an independently released LP by an utterly obscure San Francisco band that called itself Don’t Panic! (also spelled with an exclamation point!). My mind was officially blown.