Excerpts from a fictional screenplay based on infamous Westford punk band A Kid in the Crowd. The names have been changed for Google's sake.
Heralded rock producer/Westford scene historian Archie Zimmerman on A Kid in the Crowd.
“I mean, they were really just revolutionary in what they were doing for their time. The scene at the time…you had band like Goblin Tear Goblet…they were blazing the trail for pre-goth, post-emocore progressive funk. You had Scrotal Skid…they were the first death metal band that I’d ever seen utilize the bass sitar. Another seminal act was Philip Mayhem and the Handjobs. I’d heard of three-chord punk, but this band…some of their songs only had three notes in the whole thing. They were a very rest-heavy outfit. "“The lyrics of Nixon Serby more or less changed the game in the Westford scene forever. Lines like “They wanna hurt you/Wanna bring you down/They’re gonna desert you/Gonna make you frown”…I mean, before that, you just didn’t see the ABAB rhyme scheme at all. Before that, it was all just a bunch of limerick punk, haiku death metal, and diamante jazz."
“Corey Sullivan…now that was a lunch pail, clock-punching bassist right there. Find me another man in the scene who could keep time on the sausage strings like that…you just couldn’t. Of course, most people just hear the name and think of his later political career, taking the Krist Novoselic, bassist-turned-politician route. Some call it selling out, but just think…where would we be today with him presiding over the Pumo Resolution of 2005. Those Graniteville drug wars had gone on for too long…all that young blood flowing down
“Ah yes…(chuckles)…Benji D. on the keys. You know, I talked to the old sound guy at the Mosh Mosque…guy by the name of Antony Teejadero. Anyways, guy told me out of all their shows they played there, not once was Benji D’s Casio plugged in. Legend has it if you’d done just enough blotters, you could hear the soft clicks of his fingers jamming the keys in tune to the beat. Truth be told though, Benji’s bloodstream was such a traffic jam of chemicals at all those shows, he couldn’t have care either way. And the band knew it. He was really their own sort of “Bez” figure…go out there, work the crowd, get the girls dancing, cash his paycheck, blow it up his nose, repeat.”
“What a lot of people didn’t realize with A Kid in the Crowd is that they actually used a drum machine on their debut album. But when they were playing their first shows at the Mosque, things just didn’t feel right…the crowd wasn’t getting into it…let’s face it, it’s not rock and roll if you don’t have someone mashing drumheads. Anyways, there was this little punk at these shows who called himself “TK the Dream” and would do some sort of B-Boy freestyle shit on the mic between sets, getting bottles and syringes thrown at him from the pit…he mostly just did it to piss off the junkheads. Before the Mr. Lucas Rehab Benefit Show, the band saw this kid shotgun a can of Surge and start raging on a kit in the practice room backstage. He was doing fills that made Buddy Rich look like Meg White. Benji D dropped his bowl of Cup Noodles on the floor right then and there...probably because he was loaded, but he had to have been shocked by the carnal kitwork, too. Serby swears to this day TK was doing something like 500 beats per minute. Right then and there, they all looked at each other and agreed, they had to get this kid on stage.
They went on stage ten minute later, TK, real name was Thom Kenneary…Christ, he was shit. The Surge wore off and TK lost his rhythm…he sounded like a series of car crashes in a china store. After that they kept him full of Yellow 6 and caffeine for shows and the rest is history. You don’t end up as Nickelback’s touring drummer if you don’t have natural talent.”
