I was strolling through Google Images this afternoon looking at all the classy photos of Seth Putnam when I somehow stumbled across this funny
review of the art opening written by my pal Ian Smith (weird, somehow all roads on the Internet lead back to...ME!). Ian managed to get a decent shot of the
Weregoat stage so I'm re-posting it here in case you're too lazy to click the link and read the actual article (you have lowered the bar once again with your non-existent comments, dear reader).
And by the way, here's my Seth Putnam story...
Way back in 1994 I was stumbling through the streets of New Orleans on Fat Tuesday and managed to make it over to the Dixie Tavern where
Eyehategod was
fixin' to perform their hits for the locals (mostly unsavory crack dealers and undernourished hookers). I had already been celebrating for days and some sympathetic comrade let me catch a nap in the
Sour Vein van before the show. I'm not entirely sure what happened next but I awoke suddenly- some unknown length of time later- and quickly inhaled my last short breath of air. The van was on fire and completely filled with thick black smoke. I groped my way through the toxic plume and made an attempt to escape but, naturally, the inside door handle was missing. My hand landed on a bare screw where the handle should have been. Desperately, I rolled the window down manually and plopped out onto the street like a derelict abortion with flaming afterbirth (there's a potential new drawing there). This spectacle fortunately caught the attention of the
Buzzoven dudes who were milling around outside the venue and immediately rushed over to help stomp out the flames. You know you're in real trouble when
Buzzoven comes to your rescue. Somehow the plastic engine cover between the driver and passenger seats had caught fire while I lay comatose in the rear. I can only guess that at some point someone had unscrupulously left a lit cigarette on the engine well and it eventually ignited the plastic which dripped and bubbled in thick
carcinogenic rivulets like Steve West's face in
The Incredible Melting Man.
As we were stomping out the flames from both sides of the van, the back doors sprung open and out fell a couple of haplessly entwined lovers that I didn't even know had been passed out behind all the gear the whole time. They blinked dumbly into the hazy night and lit cigarettes to calm their nerves. Within minutes the flames were extinguished and someone handed me a flask to wash the acrid taste of smoke from my throat as the first notes of
Eyehategod erupted from the tavern across the street. We slammed the doors of the still smoldering van and raced inside the club, me reeking like a terrible campfire with a filthy soot covered face that had all the local Oliver Twist
scumfuc types frowning with envy, just as the band squealed and buzzed to twisted life. What does any of this have to do with Seth Putnam? Well, Mike Williams was living up in New York with Alicia 13 at the time so Jimmy Bower and the boys had Seth on vocals that night. He unceremoniously threw a chair at the audience to get things started and the rest of the event was a violent blur. I think the Hickey dudes may have been there too but maybe I'm just making shit up now. Anyway, it was a very memorable night (so memorable in fact that here I am retelling it all these years later for absolutely no reason) and I'll always associate Seth Putnam's
shitbag antics with my own near death experience in that seething southern ghetto.
And by the way, here's my Seth Putnam story...
