The first thing you need to know is that the God Damned Skunks aren’t a band really. They were formed to deal with the need that certain members of Singapore Sling had to “go on a case” or extreme bender, in public.
On Thursday, July 1st, I witnessed one such occurrence. The evening began with forty minutes of feedback, interrupted briefly when the drummer stood up and beat a drum a couple times, then wandered off saying he needed his drugs.
He got his drugs. Everybody got their drugs. They returned to stage and began playing admirably raw psycho-hillbilly-style rock. With two guitars, overdone echo vocal effects, and a snare and bass drum, they made it through one song. Then they were interrupted when a shirtless man attacked the lead singer. Amid the broken glass and feedback, I witnessed Einar, guitarist for Sling and salesperson at 12 Tónar who was there only to support his band mates, come over midfight and support the shirtless man. He did this not by fighting, but by grabbing and patting the belligerent drunk’s hand, as one might do to a sick boy in a hospital.
When the Skunks resumed playing, they were distracted and less in control of bodily functions. Henrik the singer repeatedly dropped his guitar. He once confused the mic stand for the mic. The band tried to struggle through the songs—all of which consist of the same chords, E, A, B—but they just couldn’t quite make it. Einar stood by, fixing the sound, putting the guitar back into Henrik’s hands, and nodding his head to the beat.
A friend described the recent Peaches show as an anything goes event. The Skunks demonstrated what it means to do an anything goes show. The result, for those of us without Einar’s demeanor, was extreme discomfort fading slowly into ecstatic joy at not being a member of the band, at knowing that our livers might still be functioning tomorrow, our skin might be free of bruises and glass shards.
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