Why should I read this shit?
A memoir… with guitar, NIHILISTIC – set against a backdrop of “Lawn Guyland” alienation, deeply dysfunctional families, and the early ‘80’s NYHC (New York Hard Core) music scene – tells the coming-of-age cautionary tale of Chris and Mike, who meet in a Junior High cafeteria and bond over MAD magazine, Monty Python, WWF Wrestling and the fact they’re relentlessly mocked as the fattest kids in school. When Cobra – his cover band – breaks up, Chris teaches Mike bass so they can play Clash and Ramones songs. Mike loses a hundred pounds – and his father, horribly – and the results are original songs like Grandmas Are Made For Kicking and You’re To Blame. Down in a basement, yelling into a Panasonic cassette recorder hanging from a low ceiling, Chris and Mike endure an endless search for a permanent singer and drummer. Mafia-adjacent Ron and dog-mauled Troy finally appear. Sharing a gnawing desperation to evade a dead-end blue-collar suburban fate, the four musically channel a bleak worldview… but can’t decide what to call their new outfit. In a purloined copy of Jean Paul Sartre’s Nauseu Chris discovers their name. With Ron’s salesman hustle the newly-christened Nihilistics are soon playing American Legion halls, VFWs and wherever possible. Bolstered by Tim Sommer’s WNYC-FM Noise The Show airplay of a rehearsal cassette, the band books their first real gig: a benefit for Lyle Hysen’s (The Misguided, Das Damien) fanzine Damaged Goods at legendary club Max’s Kansas City. When two Nihilistics songs are included on pivotal 1982 ROIR (Reach Out International Records) cassette New York Thrash alongside scene stalwarts Adrenalin O.D., Bad Brains, Beastie Boys, Even Worse, False Prophets, Heart Attack, Kraut, The Undead and more, gigs at better-known NY venues – CBGB, Great Gildersleeves, Irving Plaza, Mudd Club, Peppermint Lounge, etc. – follow. An EP, LP and constant playing out raises the band’s growing profile, opening a rift between Chris and Mike… with dire consequences.
A deeply disturbed “booster rocket" pulled down by manifold demons, Mike helps Chris achieve escape velocity from a horrible home life, mind-numbing factory job and stultifying small-town provincialism… then tries to murder him.
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