The day began with a ride into Manhattan. As I was cutting through Lower Manhattan I passed by a Law Enforcement Car Show. It's always nice to be out, and find something you find interesting.
Normally I'd be freaked out by he shear number of cop cars, but in this case I was quite relaxed.
And wouldn't you know it, the Batmobile was there too.
To top it all off, at the end of the block there was a 1964 Dodge Dart 170. This particular car was a replica of those driven by members of the Seattle Police Department. "Although Chrysler Corporation did not offer a police package for the Dart or Valiant until 1976, Seattle P.D. was using Darts a decade earlier. In those days their marked fleet consisted of Fords, while the Darts were unmarked "pool" cars. By the early 1970's Seattle began marking their Darts, installing light bars, and using them for full time patrol", according to the information sheet tapped in passenger side window.
After indulging my inner car guy for a while, it was off to Governors Island ferry terminal. It was great seeing punks congregated in front of the terminal like it was CBGB's or gAyBC No Beer-O. I grabbed a map of the island and wrote down the locations of the bands I wanted to see. (Just so we're clear the names of the bands were not written on the map, and there was only one of list of bands with times and locations. You'd think that after coordinating this whole event someone would put the ol' photocopy machine to work, but I digress, it was the only disorganized thing I saw all day, so in all I guess it wasn't so bad)
I spent a good deal of time hanging out on the Brooklyn side of the Island. I caught Dealin With It, Olde York and Scum City. Gotta hand it to those Olde York guys, always a pleasure to see, always put on a good show, can't say enough good stuff about that band. Props to singer of Dealin With It. He told a good joke about Guliani's "Punk Island" that I paraphrased earlier in this entry. Take note of the container ship in the back ground, the thing was huge. It was pushed out of dock by a tug boat while Olde York was playing. First time I ever saw that at a punk show.
On the Manhattan side of the Island I caught Rabia, Death Mold, Hipster Holocaust, and Lost Locker Combo. To LLC's credit they looked fucking funny as hell on that island. I mean look at 'em, looks like they are at some prep school up north or something. In fact the whole day had a college campus feel. I was on my bike so I zipped around rather quickly all day until I picked up a piece of glass in my front tire. Everyone else sorta floated around with their respective groups of friends. People gathered in the shade as if they were all in some study group. I even saw a couple of dudes playing hacky sack. Imagine that, hacky sack in this day and age.
Total college campus.
So towards the end of the day I caught this band in front of a church. They had an early Epitaph NoFx, No Use For a Name sound. You may have hated it, but I dug them, lots of energy. I forget the name of this band. I talked to the singer for a few minutes after they played but at this point all the sun, weed and beer had gone to my head, and I really needed to lay down for a few minutes and catch the Nihilistics. I opted not to catch Fakin Youth. Besides I had some things to do later that evening and I wanted to nap off the sun, weed and beer I had consumed that afternoon. As far as I could tell things went smoothly and I couldn't imagine why they wouldn't throw another Punk Island next year. Here's Hoping.
