My Audiobiography: Thunder Kiss ’65 by White Zombie
You can learn a lot about life inside a mosh pit.
Here’s a little known fact about me, which is a kinder way of saying ‘here’s something that people never thought to ask me about, because, really, who has the time or inclination to give a shit…’
In my younger days, I was an avid participant in the punk/hard rock/heavy metal rite of passage known as the mosh pit.
For the uninitiated, mosh pits were (and I assume still are) what largely white, pent up, misanthropic young males would partake in to compensate for a lack of real connection, sexual or otherwise.
On the spectrum of retrospective shame, I suppose the act is somewhere in the vicinity of spying on someone undressing, stealing $20 from a family member or lying in order to win someone’s affections.
But we’re not here to talk about those things.
Also, sorry about doing all that stuff, Nana. I was young and confused.
From the outside, it appears that moshing is nothing more than a frenzied, no-holds-barred sausage fest, brought on by a sort of testosterone-induced epileptic episode.
But you would only be mostly right.
There is, in fact, a strict code of conduct when partaking in the pit. For instance, lowering of one’s shoulder prior to impact is strictly verboten.
Same goes for punching, kicking, biting, eye-gouging or grabbing another dude’s junk. Save that shit for prison.
Or your next Young Republican Club meeting.
In my experience, another redeemable aspect to the pit (and I’ll stop calling it ‘the pit’ soon, I promise) was that as soon as a body hit the floor, it was immediately helped up off the ground, often by the person that put it there.
Call it honor among thieves or a bro-code Geneva Convention.
When a mosh pit reaches a certain mass and intensity, the activity gets ratcheted up in the form of crowd surfing.
Much like ‘The Wave’ craze witnessed at baseball stadiums before the turn of the century, the act is often initiated by a brave few willing to fall on their face before everyone buys in.
The largest mosh pit I was ever involved in was at a White Zombie concert, during their Astro Creep: 2000 tour.
I was there with my buddy Jimmy and a few guys from his neighborhood.
Jimmy and his boys were shit-stirrers of the highest order. There were always fights breaking out around these guys. The kind of fights that people would end up hurt bad.
A year before this concert, Jimmy had a party at his parents’ house. Fortunately, I left early, just before one of the guests who was collecting money to help pay for the keg, had his skull fractured from the beating he took.
Jimmy actually tried breaking it up, as I’m sure I would have, too. There were too many of them, though. And they were merciless.
As a result, a couple guys went to jail for a stretch and Jimmy’s parents got sued. I don’t think his father much spoke to him after that.
With this very much in mind, my plan was to separate myself from this wild pack as soon as we got inside the venue. I knew I could handle myself on my own and I really didn’t want to get into a brawl inside an enclosed space packed with alpha-males.
I was a big dude back then and probably a pretty imposing figure. But, I was no brawler.
I am, after all, a ̶p̶u̶s̶s̶y̶ Cancer.
The moment the pre-concert music stopped and the lights cut out, everyone who was ambling around on the floor darted for the stage.
Like a thunderclap, the concert unleashed itself.
And, man, it was a fucking scene.
Smoke and lights. Speakers so loud that it hurt your insides. Tattooed go-go girls dancing in glass cases writhing on both sides of the stage.
A sea of bodies hurling themselves into each other. Menace and mayhem, blood and sweat and noise mixed together to form this multi-sensory cocktail that you couldn’t help but imbibe in.
I loved it so much.
Over the next 90 minutes, I unabashedly bashed, raised, carried, screamed and celebrated the final days of my waning youth.
I walked away from that experience completely battered and drained, yet at the same time triumphant and fully alive.
Bulletproof like only a 24-year old can feel.
It was a very Tyler Durden moment that my mind revisits, often to escape the beige-walled conference rooms I’ve spent my subsequent years in.
Alas, everything in life has an expiration date. The hope is to be self-aware enough to sense that date is approaching and prepare a graceful exit.
You don’t want to be the last person at the party. Or the one struggling to hold up the corpse of a relationship that long since received its last rites. Or, perhaps worst of all, 40-something year old still trying to mix it up in a mosh pit.
Although it may seem idiotic to most (and even to me sometimes), I’m glad I have that memory. It reminds me that there are so many experiences to be had in this life. And to not let the sensible part of you get in the way of having them.
Idiotic, reckless, visceral, beautiful, fulfilling experiences.
Some of life’s greatest memories await you to just say ‘fuck it’ and hurl yourself into the unknown.
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