I Want Somebody to Shove Me, or, The Other Runaway Train

Art Credit: Big Mosh Pit 2007 by Dan Witz http://www.danwitzstreetart.com/
oil and mixed media on canvas 46x70 danwitzstreetart@gmail.com



Imagine if you will: It's 1992. Two-hundred twenty-somethings in a something-or-other warehouse on the outskirts of our nation's capitol, plus me and my friends, fifteen-year old birkenstock wearing, angst-ridden drama kids feeling all grown up. I had been to Edie Brickell's solo show in D.C., and I could identify the angry, static-filled rants of Fugazi from across the Washington mall, so a Mudhoney show wasn't going to faze me.

The band had just released Piece of Cake, which as Rolling Stone described it, was filled with the sound produced when "tension between sexual longing and a disgust with the possibility that longing might be realized" mated and had a baby.

Tony Nam tells me what the hell, this mosh pit has the vibe we're feeling. We look into each other's bespectacled faces, and we jump. This is scary y'all. There are elbows and necks and shoulders, and even though most of the body clutter is draped in flannel plaid, it hurts to ride a mosh pit, and it hurts even more to find yourself in the purgatory of a between-fall of a mosh pit--half of your body is being supported, and the other half has fallen through the cracks. Three hours later, Tony is missing a lens and I'm missing a sandal. We soothe ourselves with "Somebody to Shove" on his cd player on the way home.

This is how writing feels sometimes! No, I'm just kidding. I just wanted to revisit some good, frightening times. If you were hoping for a discussion of Soul Asylum's Billboard chart topper, and the lead singer Dave Pirner, consider these nuggets:


Dave Pirner performed his 1992 Grammy winning hit, "Runaway Train" in front of audiences two weeks ago at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans. I was lucky enough to be there. One of my fellow dinner guests heckled him. During the song. The one about abused kids. That's right. And he stopped playing, and told her she wasn't allowed to laugh, that he wrote the song, and that it was not funny; it was sad. And then he finished the song, and left the hotel. This multi-layered performance, both literally and psychically, raised a number of questions for me about an artist and his or her work. Are the two ever fully severed?
Discuss.

You may remember the video. "Runaway Train" features still photographs of missing children, complete with names and dates, "missing since..." Apparently the video's popularity resulted in many children reuniting with their families, though some runaways report to have been forced back into abusive situations after people discovered their whereabouts. Who is responsible for that? (See Dan Murphy's interview in Pasadena Weekly.)

Discuss.

Pete Bilderback, who writes for Flowering Toilet, a blog "created to celebrate music that has fallen through the cracks," discusses the indie rock backlash to Soul Asylum's breakthrough to mainstream music audiences.

Discuss.

Some intellectual stimulation on this blog falls under DIY.