{"id":893,"date":"2017-07-27T14:14:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-27T14:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=893"},"modified":"2026-06-27T14:16:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T14:16:47","slug":"bad-brains-toxic-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=893","title":{"rendered":"Bad Brains, Toxic Reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

March 1987, Cameo Theatre, Miami Beach, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love slam dancing, I do (or did, my body isn\u2019t so keen on it nowadays). Back in the \u201980s, when what I consider to be punk music flourished, slamming was part of the culture, with Doc Martins and mohawks. I didn\u2019t really ever have a mohawk (I tried and failed), and Doc Martins weren\u2019t my thing, but man did I love slam dancing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s what got me into the punk scene in full, the release that slam dancing provided for each show \u2014 punk shows were music and athletic events. I didn\u2019t have 7 Seconds or Agent Orange albums, but when they were in town, I went to the shows. Cameo Theatre was the scene for these punk tours, and I\u2019m sure I saw plenty of bands I don\u2019t now remember.<\/p>\n

The Bad Brains show was one I could never forget.<\/p>\n

I was on spring break during my freshman year in college, a time when people go to exotic locales and sun on the beach, and since I grew up in one of those places, I just went home. I did go up to Daytona Beach for a few days (MTV was there, it was quite exciting), but made sure I got back for the Saturday show at the Cameo. I went with my friend Adrian, who wasn\u2019t full into the punk scene but was game for anything.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know much about the band, though I was aware they mixed reggae with punk, which sounded too good to be true. Months before the band released I Against I<\/em>, which was more rhythmic than previous albums, employing some funk throughout the 31 minutes. But it was still fast as hell, and loud, and rambunctious \u2014 it\u2019s what you want to hear when you\u2019re 18.<\/p>\n

The four came on stage \u2014 H.R., Dr. Know, Darryl Jenifer, Earl Hudson \u2014 plugged in and tore the place apart. As lead singer, H.R. was manic and dynamic, moving across the Cameo stage with furious intent, spitting out words as he kept pace with the swift sound behind him. \u201cRight Brigade\u201d from Rock for Light<\/em> gave way to \u201cI Against I\u201d and \u201cHouse of Suffering\u201d before \u201cRe-Ignition,\u201d one of the slow tunes on I Against I<\/em>, slowed the room down a bit.<\/p>\n

I was on the floor, getting bounced around the massive pit in front of the stage. Cameo still looked like an old movie house inside \u2014 fold-down wooden chairs lined up in rows in three sections rising from front to back while a larger standing-room only space was built in front. People sat on the back of chairs in the front row, taking breathers before entering the fray in front of them. The cool thing about moshing back in the day is that when you fell down, people picked you up \u2014 it was not an activity meant to harm one another, it was meant to be a community-releasing of aggression.<\/p>\n

For the first 40 minutes, it was absolute madness. What followed was one of the greatest concert moments of my life.<\/p>\n

Darryl Jenifer started up the bass, and with a casual ease the band slipped into its reggae classic \u201cI and I Survive\u201d. The pit was a confused mass. For a good part of an hour we were violently slamming into one another, but now what do we do? The answer, of course, was the same thing \u2014 only slower. What followed was five minutes of a slow-moving, laugh-inducing, rhythmically-choreographed mosh pit the likes I\u2019ve never seen before or since. It was beautiful.<\/p>\n

And then, with the quick strumming of Dr. Know\u2019s guitar, the pace returned to normal with \u201cThe Youth Are Getting Restless,\u201d which seemed like a planned song. The rest of the show was a blur, as many punk shows in those days were.<\/p>\n

In recent years I\u2019ve heard troubling reports about the band\u2019s overt homophobia, which doesn\u2019t make sense in the scene they were in, and it\u2019s made me think much less of the band. How can a band which created such a unified concert moment be so dismissive of people because of their sexual orientation? I\u2019ve read reports where the band, which still performs to this day, has changed its beliefs. I hope so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 1987, Cameo Theatre, Miami Beach, Fla. I love slam dancing, I do (or did, my body isn\u2019t so keen on it nowadays). Back in the \u201980s, when what I consider to be punk music flourished, slamming was part of the culture, with Doc Martins and mohawks. I didn\u2019t really ever have a mohawk (I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":894,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[133,135,134],"class_list":["post-893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-bad-brains","tag-cameo-theatre","tag-toxic-reasons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":895,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions\/895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}