The nine lives of the Spazzatorium Galleria (and why they might not be enough)

Where the Buffalo Roamed - Lollipop Factory - Gray Young - Hammer no More the Fingers - May 29th @ the Spazzatorium Galleria (Greenville)

This picture is the only evidence I have of the show that never happened. In this picture we see Ohio's Lollipop Factory, a fantastically talented and wholly original two piece, at some point during their three song set at Greenville's new Spazz... and may it rest in piece.

Part I: Here's what happened.

We arrived in good time at the Spazz that night. I had been at work all day and I had been to sleep late the night before, putting me in the ideal mindspace for a show. Lollipop Factory and Gray Young were there and we had some good conversations. Some of the music faithful I knew from my time in Greenville were showing up. Hammer no More the Fingers came to town and life was good. There was beer and a promise of rock and roll. The night started with Lollipop Factory launching brutally into music as inspired by Tim Burton as anything else, all Pee-Wee's Big Adventure goes to hell, all Beetlejuiced out... Bekah played drums like no one I've ever seen. Sporting gigantic heels and a zombie ballerina outfit, she played a little trapkit standing up and never lost a beat. One of her cymbals rattled like a hi-hat but she only had a single pedal (her bass kick), resulting in a very original and engaging percussive approach. David, for his part, played through a deceptively simple pedalboard... a wah and two Boss OC-3s. Also, he played through what appeared to be at least sixty amps. The rollicking textures hooked me and the vocals knocked me for a loop, Bekah and David's harmonies spot-on and bliss-inducing... and that's when the cops arrived. They infiltrated the crowd before we knew they were there, and the crowd had grown to a healthy size. We all played it cool, I was never prouder. People were looking at them, but they only glanced and then returned their attention to the true meaning of the evening... the very real and very well composed rock and roll filling the room. David broke a string and their third song ended. He told us to hold on, that he'd be changing his string, and the cops said they were "shutting us down."

Really? Is this a movie? Can we deliver our lines with a little less flair for the cliched?

I got mad. I got Hulk mad. The Spazz has been shut down more times than I can count, but this? Brand new space, Jeff went to hurculean effort to get the place firecode legal, and only three songs into the set. It's in a practically abandoned neighborhood, especially at this time of the night, so who tipped them off? Was there a crackhead asleep in the burned out remnants of the tobacco warehouse who we'd disturbed?

So I rushed to Bekah to make sure I could buy a Lollipop Factory shirt before we were all scattered, as that was their tactic.

Tactics tactics tactics. This was all tactics, but I'll get to that.

Jeff said that everyone who wasn't in a band had to leave and I didn't get to say goodbye to a lot of good people because, you know, we were just socializing and that's what civilized people do when they socialize. The bands were told to wait in the space. Lollipop Factory packed up as the cops smirked and laughed. One of the cops wandered over to the merch table and started making fun of the shirts.

I don't think any cop anywhere has any ground to stand on when it comes to making fun of how people are dressed.

"I wonder how many people got mugged downtown while they were breaking up this show?"

I wish I remembered who said that... or anything.

So we were standing around and I was pretty pissed and one of the fire marshalls (I think that's who the ones in white were) came in and said something vague about how we were "supposed to leave" or maybe it was "didn't you know we're closing this place down?" For some reason he looked directly at me when he said this so I said "We're in the bands. Jeff asked us to stay here." He repeated himself, same vague statement, so I said "Are you telling us to leave?" He nodded.

Dan and I were discussing this night a few days ago and Dan told me he thinks this guy was doing us a favor. The cops were trying to trick us into sticking around so that Jeff got a bigger fine and this guy apparently hadn't even wanted to shut us down in the first place, so Dan was of the impression that he was being intentionally vague to force one of us to make him tell us to leave. Good tactics, if that's the case. I think this is the same guy who was making little semi-apologies with which I have a gigantic gripe, saying he was "just enforcing code." Screw that, he chose his line of work. His entire line of work, the reason his alarm goes off in the morning, is to put on a jackass uniform and go out to "just enforce code." No one held a gun to his head and made him become what he is. Apologizing for a major conscious decision that you have no intention of reversing is asinine, is disingenuine, and it insults my intelligence.

"It's going to take a lot of illegal shows to pay off this fine."

One of the Hammer guys said that.

So we went outside as they cleared and locked the place (they being the cops and the place still being rented out to Jeff... someone should explain the legality of this to me). Jeff was still in the cops' SUV for a while and when he came out he told us to reconvene at his house. Some of the others thought this meant there would be a house show, but I knew better. I've never seen Jeff like that. He'd been defeated and his sword had been cast into the fires, melted down before his eyes. Part of him knew the power of faceless bureacracy and the cowards who hide within it and utilize its strength to make up for some weird private shame... maybe they got beat up a lot as kids? Some kind of vicious puritan shame drove these freaks to hit Jeff with a $500 fine and simultaneously try and trick the bands into sticking around, causing more fines.

"Why don't you stick around and get another fine?"

That's a paraphrase, as I didn't hear it, of one of the more jackass cops out that night.

Anyway we headed to Jeff's house (HNMTF, Gray Young, Andy & me) and convened in the back yard. People were convinced there would still be a show, but I told them this wouldn't be the case. I railed like a madman, like some kind of schizophrenic badger chasing phantoms through the woods. The cops followed Lollipop Factory, we found out later. They were already freaked out enough and now this cadre of dangerous small town cops were hounding them? They went to the Wal-Mart parking lot rather than lead the aggressors to Jeff's house. Really, this isn't going to help. North Carolina is an amazing state, full of amazing people, but the actions of these joyless fucks are going to make two very good people think it's just a hole in the ground where all the Barney Fifes go.

Jeff arrived and told us there would be no show and, soon, no Spazz. We all encouraged him to come to the Triangle, but he won't... the man is going north. Greenville will take that which you hold sacred out behind the shed and shoot it with a sawed-off, Greenville's the kind of place to hold puppies under water and make you watch. I think Jeff's done with the entire state, if for no other reason than for the fact that it contains Greenville and the association is just too much.

I bought the new Hammer no More CD and we scattered. Hammer to Durham, Gray Young to Wilmington, as we pointed our headlights for Pittsboro. A long and brutal oddyssey ensued with Andy, his friend Lindsay, and me all crammed into the cab of my truck. In the bed of my truck, like an overheating nuclear reactor, all the potential energy stored up within the instruments that didn't even get to plug in rustled around and shifted its weight, forcing me to compensate to keep from sliding off into the median. Absolute madness ensued and 3:00am saw me wandering Cary, running on fumes, and unable to find a gas station. I headed back into Raleigh and gassed up at what felt like the last minute. Completely jaded, completely exhausted, wasted to the world by pressure and defeat, we finally made it home and that's where I lost my cool.

I'm not proud.

Part II: This is why the bastards will always win.

I rushed through the narrative because I wanted to break down some facts and especially because I want to break down the police tactics used against us this night and why they were especially effective.

We fell victim to a carefully orchestrated ambush. The Greenville Police Department used time tested war tactics in their raid and it worked. We were not prepared, we were not organized. None of us were prepared to use the same tactics (I mean psychological warfare, I don't condone physical violence). People did not know what to and what not to say or how to carry themselves and the invaders had dropped anchor and come ashore before we even knew they were coming.

I call it carefully orchestrated because the cops showed up only three songs into the show, so they can't possibly have come in response to a noise complaint. They would not have had time to arrive, much less arrive as well organized as they were (they carpooled).

When the cops arrived they immediately captured and isolated our general (Jeff) leaving us leaderless and demoralized. Just like in war, they took our captured leader to their command post (the police SUV) and issued terms of our surrender.

Disinformation/Misdirection: This wasn't a serious charge, the charge was "unlawful assembly." I think this is unconstitutional bullshit, but I'm going to have to come at it from a different direction as it's already on the books. The cops were using intimidation tactics and their numbers to redirect our thinking. The cops were operating on the assumption that illegal and dangerous heathen things were happening at the Spazz that night, certainly fueled by all the 20/20 they watch. The behavior was that of moral superiority and they treated us like a bunch of 15 year olds they'd caught smoking behind the gym. However, when asked what the charge was they would puff out their chest and say something about how the Spazz is not a legal assembly space.

If this law were evenly enforced a lot of weddings and church services would get raided.

Intimidation: Aside from the obvious posturing, with the chest puffed out like some kind of ludicrous rooster and the thumbs hooked into the belt and the corncob-up-the-ass strut, the cops employed intimidation tactics not unlike your common schoolyard bully. Sana tried to talk to one of them to get facts and he demanded her full name. They spoke only in sarcastic soundbites taken directly from Die Hard movies and took up strategic points in the room as if they were breaking up a riot. This is ludicrous and would make me laugh my ass off if the stakes weren't so high. People who go to independent shows, in my experience, are about as prone to violence as your average toaster oven. Part of the intimidation tactic, a very important part, is the unwillingness to compromise or discuss their actions on a meaningful level. One guy asked some questions and had them answered, but the cops kept on rolling in their ceaseless quest to render Greenville a safe haven for mediocrity and the sad little hacks who crave it.

How do you convince someone that independent showspaces are essential to creative evolution when they're just going to hop in their cop cruiser and listen to Rascal Flatts?

Oppositionism: Most importantly, and most destructively, is the police mindset of "us and them." How can any department fairly enforce the law if they view themselves as a separate culture from the "general public." A commonly held belief among the Fraternal Order of Police is that "we can only count on each other" and that any non-cop can, in a heartbeat, turn on them and that they need to be in a constant state of vigilance. I've seen this kind of paranoia before and I've seen it in zombie movies, I've seen it in the Matrix. "If you're not one of us, you're potentially one of them." One bite from the infected and any one of us could have been a ravening flesheater, one of the Reavers from Firefly.

Give me a fucking break.

Part III: Endless implications.

Here is what we did. Here is our history and here is why this raid was pure, unadulterated harassment.

I've been actively involved with the Spazz since October of 2007, when I played my first show at the old location. That Spazz was shut down - twice - and both times it was shut down for fire code violations. When Jeff opened the new space he only did so under the guidance of the fire code to ensure that this thing not happen again.

During none of the previous raids and subsequent shut downs was anyone fined with unlawful assembly. The police never played all the cards in their hands because they wanted to always have another reason to shut the place down. Something terrified their shriveled little hearts and they saw the devil in everything we were doing. What could we possibly have been up to? Animal sacrifice? Satan worship? Necrophilia?

Here are some facts. In all the times the police have broken up the Spazz they have never fined or arrested anyone for the following things:

*Underage drinking
*Illegal drug use
*Violence

A lot of Greenville people who go to Spazz shows bike there and are thereby not going to be driving drunk. Downtown revelers are regularly fined or arrested for the three things listed above whereas, in all the Spazz shows I've been to, I've never seen a single fight. I can't imagine a night goes by downtown - especially on a weekend - without a solid dozen fistfights. True, there will be a few people driving drunk from the Spazz, but there won't be as many of them and they won't have been pounding Jagerbombs.

Every time I went to the old Spazz, which was in a much more conspicuous location, at least one cop drove by per evening and could easily see the back lot where the bands parked and where people went to drink and talk. If illegal assembly was a big enough deal to merit a horde of uniformed officers and a $500 fine then why didn't any of these cops stop? Either enforce the law or don't, but this begs a more dangerous thought... which is that the letter of the law does not matter and any action can be construed as illegal if the cops are creative enough. I talked to Brennan of the Bronzed Chorus in Greensboro and he knew these laws. One thing he knew, which totally burned my toast, was that "assembly" does not have a set definition (as in: an assembly is not explicitly stated as a set number of people doing a specific thing, the definition is quite loose). The cops come in, they see what we're doing, and they can call it "assembly" or not and there's absolute dick we can do about it. I'd better be careful next time I grill out...

That said, I'm consulting Brennan if I ever start a venue.

Part IV: the dream is dead/long live the dream.

When I got home that night I slept the oddest sleep ever, which was complete oblivion. No dreaming, I just went away. No self, no world, no nothing, and then I was awake and I was myself again. No stronger and no more enlightened. Something sacred had been taken from us and we could barely remember what it was.

That day passed and Battle Rockets played Greensboro that night (see next entry). Gray Young and Hammer no More played Wilmington and the same goddamn thing happened to them. The place they played got noise complaints from the nearby bars and clubs and, despite its being in the proper zone, the Wilmington Police fined the owner and she can no longer afford to book bands. Then they got in their police cruisers and listened to Rascal Flatts and they didn't know the difference. Music is a thing made in some faraway laboratory to them. It's not a real thing, not a thing that sweats and cusses and makes mistakes. A show is going to an ampitheatre and watching ants and their pyrotechnics from a half a mile away. Musicians aren't these awkward people with their torn jeans and five day shadows, they're demigods and they're in the tabloids. It's like there's not even a common language... and the police act with impunity. They have the power to ruin people and to do so easily. In lots of places there is no review when it comes to noise complaints. A lot of noise ordinances require only a complaint and no evidence and the fine is automatically leveled at the "offending" party. Depending on the town and the ordinance, it can only take one fraudulent complaint to shut a place down (i.e. a bar complaining on another bar).

Part V: That night I had a dream and the dream was a parable.

I dreamed that I was in the lobby of a nice hotel where President Obama was holding a state event. I was dressed in the nicest clothes I'd ever wear, nicer than the suit I got married in. People were milling around, shaking hands, and Obama was having a casual conversation with a circle of people. Sana was there and, for some reason, she had known Obama for years. I wanted to give the President a CD I had burned so I asked Sana if she could give it to him. She walked over to him and tried to give him the CD and I was immediately swarmed by armed and armored guards... not just secret service but guys in helmets and flak jackets wielding assault rifles. What I had done could be construed as an act of terrorism, they said. A CD can bring down an airplane, they said. Then it was just me and one of the soldiers. He had steeled his jaw and his eyes were sharp and deadly things, bright blue as I remember them. I could see the President over his shoulder, still laughing and conversing, and I wanted to scream and shout and rectify this injustice but I knew the soldier would have no reservations about shooting me down. The President was right there... the bright and shining gleam of civilization's pinnacle, the optimistic core of our future, and I was shut out and suddenly I was in the street in my torn jeans again. The building was an inaccessible thing inside which the world was run and I was on the sidewalk and I was ineffective and I just stood there because I had nowhere to go.

I thought about it for a long time when I got out of bed. I tried to figure out what drove this dream. I'm excited to have Obama in the White House. I voted for him and I celebrated his victory.

Then I realized that the dream was not about him, but about the mechanisms that surround the office. I realized that it was a metaphor for what happened in Greenville. An illogical machine is in motion, fueled by laws and vague statements of purpose. Everything must be regulated, separated, isolated. Though we have elected a progressive and well-meaning president and though the Spazz brought the most amazing music in the world (literally - several international bands came through) to the little town of Greenville neither will be allowed to reach their full potential. The mechanisms designed to protect us, or so the drafters claim, anchor us to the puritan shame of this nation's origins and we come full circle. Though the nation's founding fathers, of whom an oddly high percentage were polymaths, governed the descendents of the pilgrims they remained outnumbered by the witch hunters, the Indian killers, the slave traders. We are found guilty of heresy and our crime is playing the devil's music. There are lots of men and women with guns and they've been tasked with protecting us... but from whom? From ourselves? I had no idea there was any danger.

There is no arguing with them, there is no logic and there is no justice. The door has slammed closed and we're shut out from the light.