Fighting with Danzig

July 3^rd – What you need to know when touring in the music biz is when not to piss people off. People blame it/excuse it on the adrenaline thing, which often isn’t helped by hangers-on pumping up the egos and hormones side stage just before the performer goes on in the mistaken belief that this is what they require in order to give a great performance, which is bollocks, frankly. If you’re in, say, the music biz, doing what you love then you’ll not need any form of stimulus, internal or external, to give a great performance; trust me, there is no finer feeling than gigging it right; if you don’t do it right then it’s down to you not the substance.

There’s a lot of smoke blown up a lot of arses in the entertainment industry and no more anywhere else than in the music side of things. There’s a lot of folk doing it who’ll tell you what hard work it is, particularly those in the classical genre of the form. No it’s not. It may be physically draining due to the pressure of getting it right but that’s purely a mental thing. When you travel to a gig on the train, get a taxi to the venue and are able to walk in to where you’ll be seated, sit on your ass and play then do the whole thing in reverse…well, let’s just say it’s not like hewing coal for a twelve-hour shift, OK? It’s technique. Tiring it may be, but hard work it aint. The same works in the upper echelons of the rock business. When your every whim is catered for, down to what to wear and when and how to wear it, when the meals are always ready and the water always cold then, in honesty, whether you fling yourself around on stage or not, it’s not hard work. It’s technique. Tiring possibly, but hard work it aint. That’s probably pissed a lot of music people off…and don’t get me started on actors.

Fights caused by artistic differences are not the same as fights caused by being pissed off with someone. With the former there is, at least, a modicum of the artist mingled in with a lifted joint to the testicles or a push on the breasts that lends the whole attack a level of wholesomeness, a sort of holding back in deference to one’s artistic sensibilities. Without that artistic bent both assaults just become the result of being pissed off with someone; either a knee to the balls or a smack in the tits, and that makes all the difference if you’re on the receiving end…not that I know what a smack in the tits feels like, I’m just laying it alongside a knee to the balls, which I do have first-hand experience of.

Fights because you’re pissed off with someone can happen at anytime, even on stage. When the Messers Davies and Avory, of The Kinks fame, had their contretemps on stage…live at Constitution Hall, they were just showing their less than sensitive side and at least, although spit was thrown, no punches were well, not until they made the wings post gig anyhow for, in truth, hell hath no fury like a rock band member scorned.

On this day in 2004, Glenn Danzig, vocalist in the band Danzig…you know you’re in ego-trouble territory when the band is named after the singer… Glenn Danzig got into a fight backstage when he was confronted by a seriously pissed off member of the support band they’d dropped from the tour. A push from Mr. Danzig (person, not band) resulted in the other band member punching Mr. Danzig (person, not band) in the face. Which just goes to prove that there was no artistic input into either side of this disagreement; just big, fat, overinflated egos.