Hello, Teenage America

The summer of 1990 brought an inchoate Nine Inch Nails to the old Peppermint Beach Club down on the oceanfront, their album Pretty Hate Machine already a minor underground club hit and steadily rising. But that night, one of the hottest, most sweltering pits I had ever experienced, Trent Reznor and Co. were cleanly and evenly blown off the stage by their own opening act, the as-then unknown to me Meat Beat Manifesto, with their pulsating electric rhythms, engaging floor show, and nasally call-to-arms rapping style of frontman Jack Dangers." Accompanied by musical partner Jonny Stephens the stage minimalist settings consisted of three male dancers in spiked, fleshtoned body suits attached to one another with a length of umbilical cord, tossing about a giant spiked ball that resembled the ball end of a spiked mace weapon. The sheer amount of spiky hilarity involved in the performance brought about many a gag with my friends who attended the show with me, so that every time we saw anything adorned with a number of lengthy spikes instantly acquired the appellation "Meat Beat ___" (shortly after when the movie Edward Scissorhands appears in theaters, we laughed heartily at a random clock with a sunburst of spikes in the family's living room when my friend Dave loudly proclaimed it a "Meat Beat Manifesto clock"). And somehow the joke just never gets old.

Intoxicated for weeks after the show we suddenly went on the prowl for anything we could find by the band. Tracking down a copy of the group's second album 99% was looked upon as an almost Grail-like accomplishment in discovery, and it wasn't long before Joe was spinning trax at Friar Tucks and reminding other patrons there who had attended the show exactly what it was that made so many people say "Nine Inch who?" Although the CD lacks some of the energy from the live experience, and the last two shows I had seen, although good, never quite achieved that first show moment of epiphany, I still get the chills every time I throw on the "Dog Star Man/Helter Skelter" segue and recall S. and I drenched in sweat flailing St. Vitus style in the pit ("Helter Skelter" was hers and my favorite song). And I gotta say Jack Dangers is by far one of the nicest, sweetest guys I've ever met in the business.

"Dog Star Man/Helter Skelter" - Meat Beat Manifesto (m4a file)

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