The Greatest 3-Minute Punk Stories Ever @ Public Assembly

1. Tobias Carroll opened up the evening. 2. The crowd, including Tobias.

Last night Williamsburg’s Public Assembly saw a good turnout for Volume 1 Brooklyn’s The Greatest 3-Minute Punk Stories Ever. Founding Editor Jason Diamond hosted. There was more comedy than anything else. We were treated to a seemingly endless (though appreciated) compilation of reminiscences from the punk scene, and the punk not-scene — which many storytellers made a point of.

1. The crowd, including Temim Fruchter in red. 2. Sean Doyle, who survived being punk in Arizona.

“I am not punk,” explained Temim Fruchter, drummer for The Shondes, a sentiment many others would echo throughout the night. Many tales told of botched and strange initiation into the punk scene, marked by the teller’s confusion, self-conscious pondering, and general excitement for something they could not yet articulate. Basically, stories of punk (and not-punk, the punkest thing of all) are stories of teenagehood. Of the ragingly vaginal birth canal into adulthood, the press and confusion of the mosh pit, the transformative violence of the slam dance. It was all there . . . And more. The best moments took us behind the scenes and into the minds of our punk icons. Sean Doyle’s young punk dream came true when Ron Reckless, mighty singer of Mighty Sphincter, rushed in from the crowd to brawlingly defend Sean from the skinhead who punched him. What’s more, Ron offered his compliments to Sean’s music: “I liked you guys! You guys were fucked up! You wanna come to an afterparty?” And to Ron’s house they went. This was the storied punk of past and present, the punk where freaked out teenage rockers watched open-mouthed as Ron dropped trou and applied a cocaine enema, then as he proceeded to have a seizure, then as they themselves saved him by trying mouth to mouth and punching him in the chest repeatedly. Who could be surprised when the enema later exploded out of his ass, spraying “cocaine shitwater” on everything around, including the boys.

1. Samantha Hinds mused on “fundamentalism, our original injustice.” 2. Brandon Stosuy, storytelling. 3. Jayson Green — “When it feels right . . .”

Vol. 1’s event had a fantastic line-up, and many quieter observations managed to slip in, like Brandon Stosuy’s point that “the pre-internet era forced you to experience things more honestly, made you able to fixate on the same thing for years and years.”

And of course, further not-so-quiet observations, like the verbal instructional that storyteller Jayson Green, of the bands Orchid and Panthers, received from Matt Pike from High on Fire, on How To Have A Threesome:

Step 1: Get two girls in a room with you.

Step 2: Start drinking. Give ’em shots!

Step 3: When it feels right, say “You know what’d be cool? If you two made out!”

Step 4: When it feels right, take your dick out.

As Jayson pointed out, we could all learn a valuable lesson about punk rock, and about life, from this candid instructional. Go with the flow of things for as long as it takes, and when it feels right, “take your dick and/or beev out.”

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— Emma Rock is singer and bassist of the punk band Deerfuck. She can be seen at open mics and street corners throughout the city. She is a Brooklyn College student and writer.