11-15-80

Two days ago—on Thursday the 13th—we went up to Cleveland to play at Fitzpatrick's—that is our band, the Bursting Brains—being Tommy Destructo-Strango, Dr.? Bass, Massive Dickhead, and myself, Svenn Diagram. (Unfortunately, James Ego couldn't attend—being down to Columbus at OSU.)

Coming two weeks after our inspirational concert at the Perkins High Halloween Dance—this, our first performance in Cleveland, came as a surprise to us. Billy Corigan from Cleveland called and said could we do a benefit concert for a film student to raise money. We said “sure” and drove up there Thursday evening in the big Mercury, carrying our equipment. Bechtel also drove himself, manager Suter, Tommy, and their respective girlfriends, and a wild, heavy-drinking girl from Port Clinton. On the way: Svenn: How do the lyrics in “Something Else” go? Massive: Here comes that girl again, she's the cutest since I don't know when... Everybody: The car's out front and it's all mine—it's a '41 job, not a '59... Hey, where's Bechtel? Yes, Bechtel had been following us, and now his car was not to be seen now— We soon arrived at the bar—we had to pee bad—in the parking lot—

We enter the bar—a strange young man meets us—he is dressed as a Punk Rocker. Us: Hi—we're the band—The BURSTING BRAINS. We unload our equipment thru the back door—and The Basics show up with equipment. Finally Bechtel's car makes it there. A band called Headkeeper plays first. The bass player for The Impalers (record recording artists) comes in. Mike: (lead singer for The Basics—aka: Hap Hazard, Johnny Knothead) See that guy that just came in with the beret? Watch him—he's real negative—he radiates swastikas.

Next they show a film about contraception—and Massive narrates: “We will call them... Adam and Eve...” Then we start—“Zod Squad”—and cook thru a half hour of music—finishing with “Batman”—to which people were DANCING! We fucked up very little—but Massive did throw his mic stand into the audience—nailing a fellow in the leg (barely missing his head—a terrible injury, and an inevitable lawsuit). Then the girls with the injured fellow threw chairs at us—but they settled down later—after all it was just an accident. Massive also crashed through a wooden railing at the front of the stage, rendering it broken—not an accident.

Then The Basics played and they showed an excellent short movie called Chimpmates—about chimps playing musical instruments. By the time we played again it was 12:30 and everybody had left. A Basics keyboard player played synthesizer with us... so loud that was all we could hear—so our music was fucked up.

We finally left and headed home. Tom and the girl from Port Clinton, Mary Ann, with us this time. But she lost her purse so we had to go back and find it—laying among empty beer cans in the parking lot. We didn't get home 'til 3:30 and Jeff didn't go to school the next day.