Banned Behavior
Written for the University of North Texas, 2007
© Layne Tisdel Martin
Written for the University of North Texas, 2007
© Layne Tisdel Martin
It’s just another typical Saturday night in the Dallas entertainment district of Lower Greenville and Monk E. Brainz is onstage naked. Brandishing a liberated pair of toucan-print boxer shorts, the brazen artist formerly known as Kyle MacConnell belts out a raucous Mr. Bungle cover tune with no semblance of shame.
Musicians get away with the darnedest things. It seems that these denizens of debauchery are actually expected to misbehave. With a name like Monk E. Brainz, who knows what random acts of absurdity an individual might commit.
Luckily, his acoustic guitar is precariously positioned in just the right spot. Uninitiated patrons are gawking and the bartenders’ heads are jouncing side-to-side faster than their martini shakers, but the small group of seasoned fans seated near the front of the room is not surprised. They know Monk E. Brainz. And they know that the solitary iota of decency afforded by the current placement of his trusty instrument is very likely one doomed iota.
Veteran onlooker Jordan Milliman isn’t phased.
“He’s just expressing his subconscious vulnerability,” Milliman waves her hand absentmindedly. “He has trouble with that, you know.”
By the evening’s end, Brainz decides to take his subconscious vulnerability to the streets. The crowd appears to have grown rather accustomed to his nude awakening, so he executes a closing crescendo, sets down the guitar and takes off running. Down the stage ramp and out the front door. Still naked.
Outside, Monk E. Brainz is sprinting down Greenville Avenue, yodeling. The mischievous glint in his coffee-colored eyes is masked behind the rhinestone-ringed smokescreens of his humongous, indigo-tinted sunglasses. He is a maniacally crooning, high-speed tsunami of exposed skin topped with a camouflage headscarf, its olive appendages flapping in the breeze. Passersby, brows all afurrow, exchange bewildered sideways glances as Brainz gallops gleefully past, bare backside receding into the night.
When he casually strolls back into the bar and begins to collect his discarded garments, the initiates still seated at the front tables barely even glance up from their Heinekens. While his friends seem to be habituated to his uncouth exposures, the less versed may wonder, why the audacious public disrobing?
“It’s art,” Brainz barks, now dressed and seated for a drink. “I do it to diffuse tension, to strip away the layers of conflict society creates.”
What exactly is it about taking off one’s clothes that constitutes artwork? He is vehement, but a logical explanation eludes him.
“It’s art! Everything is art,” Brainz bellows, slamming a fist onto the table top. A shot glass crashes to the floor and he jumps up, pointing insistently at the shards of the shattered vessel as if they have clearly proven his point.
“That was art.”
Thomas Dowdy is the touring manager for the Dallas psychedelic rock band Spoonfed Tribe. Having spent two years on the road with five rowdy rockers, Dowdy has seen it all.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that musicians try on purpose to make no sense whatsoever,” Dowdy sighed.
Spoonfed Tribe is known throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex for their outlandish costuming, novel stage antics and audience interaction that often borders on mayhem. The Tribe will infiltrate a concert hall from strategic points of entry all over the venue, converging in the center of the audience with alien-masked drum troupes and stilted fire-eaters, rousing the crowd to ever-increasing levels of near-hysteria.
But Dowdy said the Tribe’s shenanigans are practically sedate compared to notoriously gory shock rockers like GWAR, known for performing as demonically dressed mutineers who douse their audiences with artificial bodily fluids and encourage insurrectionary tactics of every sort.
“I get bored with shows that consist of nothing but hippies noodling around on guitars,” Dowdy said. “But going out and getting sprayed down with vomit by monster robots? Now that’s a good time.”
Many concert-goers might disagree. So, how far is too far when it comes to shock value? It’s amazing how somberly musicians regard the carefully crafted capers that viewers might see as mere mass entertainment.
EGG Nebula, lead vocalist for Spoonfed Tribe, perceives the sliding scale of high jinks as a rather weighty matter indeed. “That’s actually a very serious question,” Nebula said, with an unflinchingly grave gaze. “It’s a fine line. You run the risk of leaving people feeling either jilted or jipped. So what do you do?”
Five minutes later, he’s still musing.
Sometimes, the shock rock mentality seeps over into life offstage. Nebula remembers the time Joseph King, the notoriously eccentric front-man for the Austin goth ensemble Canvas, acquired a bottle of tequila with a venomous snake inside of it while vacationing in Mexico. After finishing the liquor, King became absorbed in a fit of residual showmanship and bravado, during which he broke the glass, diced up the critter and served small bites of its body to his fellow band members as a “rite of brotherhood.”
For the grand finale, King himself feasted on the snake’s head, the repository containing the creature’s most concentrated stock of poison, believing he would be invincible to its ruinous effects. Much to his chagrin, King found himself curled up on the bathroom floor for nearly three days straight, while the rest of the band went sightseeing.
“He thought he was Jim Morrison,” Nebula said, shrugging nonchalantly, as if it were an understandable misconception.
Eating the head of a poisonous reptile after mistaking yourself for an “immortal” rock star who happens to be dead? Now that’s art.
Musicians get away with the darnedest things. It seems that these denizens of debauchery are actually expected to misbehave. With a name like Monk E. Brainz, who knows what random acts of absurdity an individual might commit.
Luckily, his acoustic guitar is precariously positioned in just the right spot. Uninitiated patrons are gawking and the bartenders’ heads are jouncing side-to-side faster than their martini shakers, but the small group of seasoned fans seated near the front of the room is not surprised. They know Monk E. Brainz. And they know that the solitary iota of decency afforded by the current placement of his trusty instrument is very likely one doomed iota.
Veteran onlooker Jordan Milliman isn’t phased.
“He’s just expressing his subconscious vulnerability,” Milliman waves her hand absentmindedly. “He has trouble with that, you know.”
By the evening’s end, Brainz decides to take his subconscious vulnerability to the streets. The crowd appears to have grown rather accustomed to his nude awakening, so he executes a closing crescendo, sets down the guitar and takes off running. Down the stage ramp and out the front door. Still naked.
Outside, Monk E. Brainz is sprinting down Greenville Avenue, yodeling. The mischievous glint in his coffee-colored eyes is masked behind the rhinestone-ringed smokescreens of his humongous, indigo-tinted sunglasses. He is a maniacally crooning, high-speed tsunami of exposed skin topped with a camouflage headscarf, its olive appendages flapping in the breeze. Passersby, brows all afurrow, exchange bewildered sideways glances as Brainz gallops gleefully past, bare backside receding into the night.
When he casually strolls back into the bar and begins to collect his discarded garments, the initiates still seated at the front tables barely even glance up from their Heinekens. While his friends seem to be habituated to his uncouth exposures, the less versed may wonder, why the audacious public disrobing?
“It’s art,” Brainz barks, now dressed and seated for a drink. “I do it to diffuse tension, to strip away the layers of conflict society creates.”
What exactly is it about taking off one’s clothes that constitutes artwork? He is vehement, but a logical explanation eludes him.
“It’s art! Everything is art,” Brainz bellows, slamming a fist onto the table top. A shot glass crashes to the floor and he jumps up, pointing insistently at the shards of the shattered vessel as if they have clearly proven his point.
“That was art.”
Thomas Dowdy is the touring manager for the Dallas psychedelic rock band Spoonfed Tribe. Having spent two years on the road with five rowdy rockers, Dowdy has seen it all.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that musicians try on purpose to make no sense whatsoever,” Dowdy sighed.
Spoonfed Tribe is known throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex for their outlandish costuming, novel stage antics and audience interaction that often borders on mayhem. The Tribe will infiltrate a concert hall from strategic points of entry all over the venue, converging in the center of the audience with alien-masked drum troupes and stilted fire-eaters, rousing the crowd to ever-increasing levels of near-hysteria.
But Dowdy said the Tribe’s shenanigans are practically sedate compared to notoriously gory shock rockers like GWAR, known for performing as demonically dressed mutineers who douse their audiences with artificial bodily fluids and encourage insurrectionary tactics of every sort.
“I get bored with shows that consist of nothing but hippies noodling around on guitars,” Dowdy said. “But going out and getting sprayed down with vomit by monster robots? Now that’s a good time.”
Many concert-goers might disagree. So, how far is too far when it comes to shock value? It’s amazing how somberly musicians regard the carefully crafted capers that viewers might see as mere mass entertainment.
EGG Nebula, lead vocalist for Spoonfed Tribe, perceives the sliding scale of high jinks as a rather weighty matter indeed. “That’s actually a very serious question,” Nebula said, with an unflinchingly grave gaze. “It’s a fine line. You run the risk of leaving people feeling either jilted or jipped. So what do you do?”
Five minutes later, he’s still musing.
Sometimes, the shock rock mentality seeps over into life offstage. Nebula remembers the time Joseph King, the notoriously eccentric front-man for the Austin goth ensemble Canvas, acquired a bottle of tequila with a venomous snake inside of it while vacationing in Mexico. After finishing the liquor, King became absorbed in a fit of residual showmanship and bravado, during which he broke the glass, diced up the critter and served small bites of its body to his fellow band members as a “rite of brotherhood.”
For the grand finale, King himself feasted on the snake’s head, the repository containing the creature’s most concentrated stock of poison, believing he would be invincible to its ruinous effects. Much to his chagrin, King found himself curled up on the bathroom floor for nearly three days straight, while the rest of the band went sightseeing.
“He thought he was Jim Morrison,” Nebula said, shrugging nonchalantly, as if it were an understandable misconception.
Eating the head of a poisonous reptile after mistaking yourself for an “immortal” rock star who happens to be dead? Now that’s art.
