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citizen bravo - have a nice time lyrics

january 2005. the dead of winter in st. john’s, newfoundland. minus 20 degrees celsius. snowbanks as tall as houses. it’s dark outside even though it’s only four in the afternoon. dozens of punks, metalheads and indie kids were braving the cold to get to the masonic temple located on a steep road downtown. middle+aged men with mohawk haircuts and beer bellies were sliding down the street, losing the fight against black eyes and gravity. the crowd was there to see ian mackaye, co+founder of the washington dc label dischord records and frontman of the legendary hardcore bands minor threat and fugazi. he’d been flown in to do a question+and+answer session for a local music festival celebrating diy culture. it was a sold out event, and the masonic temple was packed with music makers hanging on every word of his recollection of his career. how he used to work in a washington dc ice cream shop with his friend henry rollins. how he had never experienced stage fright apart from a one+off stand acting in a high school play. how as a teenager he and his pals created dischord records in order to release a 7+inch final record of their own band, the teen idols. how they cut out and glued together ten thousand individual record sleeves by hand in their living room. near the end of the session a young fan asked, how come fugazi never came to newfoundland to play a show? ian nodded, explaining that it’s always a challenge to play gigs in faraway cities. st. john’s is a 24+hour drive from dc and across the national border. but he went on to say fugazi did try their best to travel to small remote places whenever possible, especially when they knew there was a vibrant hardcore punk scene in these areas. in fact, one of the best shows the band ever played, he said, was an all+ages show in a small canadian village of new maryland, new brunswick. he described how the ticket for the gig was only seven dollars, how the small hall was packed and sweaty with people, how there weren’t any drunks or bouncers getting in the way, how there wasn’t any violence, how the energy in the room was inspiring. i knew this story all too well. i was raised in that small town. i was 18 years old when fugazi came to play. it was the most legendary gig of my high school years. the only problem was that i had missed the show. i had a summer job in a nearby city of fredericton. an awful evening ghost tour where i had to dress up as a phantom pirate and scare the customers. what can i say, i needed the money and i was exactly understudies for my role. i was a music nerd, not a punk, but i regretted missing that gig ever since. and i couldn’t believe that years later i was now listening to ian mackaye telling a salivating audience what a great time it was. at the end of his story he looked around and asked if there was anyone in the room from new brunswick. the friends i was staying with looked at me. ian noticed this and suddenly our eyes locked. you, he said. where are you from? new maryland, new brunswick, i mumbled, mortified. so you were at the show then? he asked. i couldn’t lie, not to ian mackaye, legendary ethical punk rocker that he was. so i told him, no, i had missed the show. this was one and only time in my life i heard an actual audible gasp from the audience. it was like a nightmare come true. trapped in the masonic temple in the middle of winter, in one of the most remote cities in canada, surrounded by the lead singer of fugazi and three hundred punks, being interrogated on how i could have missed the gig. i told him my terrible reason, the summer job as a pirate ghost. ian looked bewildered at first. but having earlier described how he too had had an uncomfortable acting experience while in high school, he mercifully responded: well i can understand that. but if you had told me you were working in a pizza hut i would have had to come over there and mess you up

and that is how i learned that if faced with a choice between pirate ghosts and hardcore shows, choose hardcore every time

- citizen bravo lyrics

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