Episode 1 of the 3 part mini series
"We're not going to suck anymore." I was on the phone away for my junior year of college when Ben called me up in the middle of the night excited. My response normally would have been something akin to "cool", but that night I could tell it was something different. What I didn't know is that this was the beginning of something that has had an imprint on almost every day of all of our lives since then.
The first Dillinger Escape Plan show was also the last show for Arcane, (which contained Dimitri, Ben, and Chris) a band that was all together typical and just average, and the sad thing was that we all knew it. Adam Doll filled in on the bass guitar duties that night along with a fellow named Derrick Brantley who manned the other guitar opposite Ben. The band decided that to truly be a "new" band, the name Arcane had to go (The bands moniker actually came from a then friend of the band named Matt Makowski,, who has long since disappeared). The show was at a VFW hall in central New Jersey with Overcast and Turmoil. At that point Dillinger was still playing the last two Arcane songs ever written along with songs of the yet to be released "S/T" CD on Now or Never Records. I don't remember many of the details of that show, other than that there weren't that many people there and that the next night was a show in Moosic, Pennsylvania with Earth Crisis. These would be Derrick Brantley's only two shows with the band, right before the recording of the first Dillinger release (essentially their demo) Derrick mysteriously stopped answering his phone. We think he may still be alive, but there is no way of telling.
At that first show, an old friend by the name of Matt Beckerman approached the band ranting about starting a new label. That was the beginning of the very successful, Now or Never Records Company. The band agreed to release the recently recorded demo on Matt's label, and plans to tour the East Coast/Midwest were made. None of us knew what to expect, I for one was happy to be traveling a bit with my friends, everyone else was just happy playing music.
Booking the tour was one of the most trying, yet funny experiences ever. It was Ben and I sitting at Primavera Pizza, while Dimitri made deliveries, (he had a job there at the time) on the pay phone outside using a Robby Redcheeks phone dialer to use and abuse the Bell Atlantic public phone. We called every fucking number we had and no one gave a shit, except for 13 people. So that's how many shows we had: thirteen. Bad fucking luck man, we should have known. Right before tour, a new guitar player was enlisted: The Fultron 3001, a.k.a. John Fulton. John had played in bands with Adam and Chris for years and was finally completing his run as "King of Chris's Basement".
The first show of that summer 1997 tour was in Syracuse, New Yoirk. On the bill were Iceburn and 78 Days. Lots of granola kids showed up for Iceburn, and they just stared at the band from a 20-foot distance. It didn't go over well. They didn't get our dead hooker jokes. It's o.k., we didn't like their sandals. There was an all nude go go bar across the street though, so Syracuse wasn't all that bad.
The tour had its ups and downs, as all tours do. A hole was put in the wall at the Victory Records store, we got to know Syracuse really well, we couldn't siphon gas for shit, and Jon's spelunker light was driving everyone fucking nuts. At one point no one had showered for 11 days, and we started sleeping outside the van. In Detroit, some of us slept on the asphalt of a Kmart shopping plaza only to be awoken by police telling us that we shouldn't be sleeping outside, and that the homeless shelter is down the street. Later on that night the band played a Detroit coffee house, yes there were people sitting there, drinking cappuccino. At some point Dimitri ran to the back of the room and jumped on a table full of coffee, and to the chagrin of the hippy girls drinking their little mochaccinos, knocking the whole table over; coffee, cinn-a-bons, and all. No one liked us that night either. In Rochester, New York the show was cancelled and no one called us, in fact when we got there not one person was there. Not the promoter or anyone else, and the town was deserted. No show, no gas money, no food, no bathrooms: which meant that we were fucked again. Being that Rochester had about as many people walking around as the Moon does on a Sunday, Dimitri thought it would be a good idea since there were no bathrooms, to take a shit on the sidewalk in front of McDonalds. Well the lady with the poodle thought it was a bad idea, and she let us know. Ben scooped the shit up with his bare hands and threw it at her. We got out of Rochester fast. Finally, the band made it home alive and in one piece. Sometimes life is funny. Although the total amount of people that attended a Dillinger show that summer may have added up to a whopping 75 people, I remember those guys always playing like it was their last show. They played hard.
During the Dillinger "we'll drive anywhere if we can play" tour, the band played a show put on by our pals Mike and Phil in Warminster, Pennsylvania called the Auto Body Shop. It was just that, an auto body shop. The show was a disaster, Chris had some technical problems and freaked out, equipment was breaking, and everyone just wanted to get home. In attendance that night was the man behind the legendary Philadelphia club Stalag 13, Tony Pointless. For some reason Tony took a liking to the band, and invited Dillinger to play a show December 5th with Brutal Truth and Today is the Day. This would be one of the greatest and scariest performances I've ever seen by any band. Tony later said "I had to have you guys played, when I saw you last a piece of the ceiling fell on my head".
If you've never been to Stalag 13, you missed the greatest club that existed during the late 90's. It was basically a garage, turned into a house, turned into a space. It also became the club that we all loved the most. It was as punk as you can get. We showed up to a full club, feeling like we walked into the "Get In The Van" cassette that Chris kept playing. During equipment setup there were some hecklers, and out of the back of the room came brilliant insults like "fag" and the sort. Then it stopped though, because Dillinger kicked into their first song: the yet to b released "Mullet Burden" and it all went away. The next half hour consisted of guitars being hurled through the air, chairs striking people in the shins (Adam's shin still bears a 6 inch scar from this show) and the drunken and sweaty masses screaming, "fuck yeah!"
This show was also the bands first contact with Relapse Records. While no one from the label actually saw the band that night, some people told them it might be worth checking out. We convinced them to go the show at the infamous Alexander T's house in Reading, Pennsylvania later that month by telling them that we would have lots of drugs and girls with us. So of course they showed up. They showed up and Ben was already naked smacking his balls with one of Chris's pedals. Some say that's what got the band signed. TO BE CONTINUED…
