or “TRASH CITY RULES” or “VINDALOO…BUCKET!”

Phoenix Arizona Saturday 19 September 1998 – All Freaking Day…….

The Phunk Junkeez - out on 'work furlough'

Let’s see.. where do I start? Picture this: A baseball stadium, big enough for 30,000 humans – and several more sub-humans – harboring a music festival of epic proportions, in an area of Arizona bordering a retirement community, which houses only ONE policeman. Picture the old farts paying extra money to hire Phoenix police as serious backup just in case we get a little ornery. Hehehe… Then, picture one of the bands being very late for the concert because they got busted in Buckeye, a town south of Phoenix, for “smoking controlled substances”, and being given a “work furlough” in order to make the concert at all.

Then, picture quite the number of strange and unusual people, some carrying inflatable dates (I witnessed that) and quite the number of vendors selling everything from stickers that said “nice people swallow”, to adult novelties (which included to my utter delight an inflatable sheep that came with its own KY jelly), to free condoms and old, used cd’s… Where else to find the tent for Trash City? Right in the damn middle of it, where else? Yes, folks, your American Ambassador squatted her team of Trash vendors and journalists here, at the Peoria Sports complex for “That Damn Show” sponsored by a local alternative radio station and a local American beer company. All my fans who read my stuff on a regular basis should recognize the Peoria Sports Complex when I had to take my son’s class on a field trip there to see a baseball game and wrote about it.

The festival itself started at 11:00am and went on till almost midnight. I arrived at the stadium at 7:00am to set up our tent. The bands were great, let me try to remember all of them, here goes:

Harvey Danger, not sitta-ing on a flagpole

• Urge
• Harvey Danger
• Cake
• Fuel
• Jackie the Jokeman
  from Howard Stern’s show
• Blink 182
• Sugar Ray
• 7 Mary 3
• Goo Goo Dolls
• Phunk Junkeez
• Lenny Kravitz

There were more, but I can’t remember…my brain was fried. The temperature was 109 degrees and I got a serious-ass farmer tan on my neck and shoulders. There was a ton of people and I set up the camcorder to do “man on the street” interviews for Trash City. At some future point we will show you photos of just how weird people can be and just how willing they are to do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, in front of a camera, if they have the smallest inkling that they may be on TV. I just neglected to say that it would be MY television they would be on, not network TV of any sort. But hey, you know my favorite saying: “fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”

And we all love vindaloo...

I got a good 28 minutes of hysteria on tape. Lots of TC fans telling the camera just what they think of Trash City and most of the responses were funny, witty, neglible, ignorant, unintelligible and downright obscene (may be considered offensive by British Customs and Excise). But despite the moral turpitude, one of the best parts was introducing the fans to the exercise of learning the lyrics to your pep rally song “Vindaloo”. [Oh, dear. I have to raise my hand at this point as the guilty party who sent Chris the CD… JhM] They began to think it was part of “Trash City Rules” so a lot of them used the chant “Vindaloo… Bucket!” in the videotaped interviews. Some day we may make that tape available for viewing to the general TC public, perhaps a “director’s cut” with everything left in, including a special wide-screen edition of “Trash City Bloopers”. But that’s only on the back burner of this American Ambassador’s charred flesh-for-brains.

One charming thing that stood out was “Miss Kathy’s Concessions”. I was reminded of the nostalgia days of ballroom dancing, of Fred Astaire dancing in night clubs, of the atmosphere of the 50’s and the romanticism that were “night clubs”, except these were Concession girls “Retro style”! They pulled up in a hot pink van and piled out of it, inflating plastic furniture and changing into costume: sequined miniskirts, fishnet stockings, 7″ spike high heels and bustiers that pushed their cleavage out into huge mounds under their chins. Then they hung trays from straps around their necks, filled to capacity with all manner of concessions, including lollies, chips, cigarettes, cigars, Ultra-sour Mega Warheads, and each girl went out into the bleachers spouting Betty Boop-like “Cigars, Cigarettes, Candy”. They were constantly selling out. I wonder why. I thought the concept was brilliant. It was retro, it was nostalgic, it was perfect. They told me they travel all over the country to different festivals doing this. I was impressed — and I am a female, and NOT a Lesbian. After saying that, I am sure that a huge percentage of the male populace enjoyed the visual displays they had on offer. And I don’t mean the trays around their necks… I just thought it was original thinking on Miss Kathy’s part.

All in all, a fun day, full of wild fans, great music, crappy food and expensive beer. This is the second year for this concert and judging from the enthusiasm shown, more than likely to become a tradition, unless the old farts from Sun City have any say about it. But we know what we’ll say if they try to stop it next year:

TRASH CITY RULES! VINDALOO…BUCKET!

Chris Fata