The Breakdown Breakdown: No Justice’s last show
Let us take a closer look at one of the best live sets on the internet.
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Today’s post kicks off a new REPLY ALT series called The Breakdown Breakdown, in which I engage in one of my most cherished online hobbies: overanalyzing videos of ridiculous, rowdy, and/or hilarious hardcore shows. This was always a favorite pastime of mine, but now that there are no hardcore shows to attend, I can no longer observe in person. The internet it is.
For our first candidate in the series, we shall be examining No Justice’s last show from December of 2000. Specifically, the first minute of it, which is perhaps my favorite way to spend 60 seconds on the entire internet. More action happens in the first 60 seconds of this show than every Michael Bay movie combined (I know what you’re thinking and yes, even Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen!). I once tweeted a video of this show and it went moderately viral for some reason, even getting reposted by the internet’s most popular sports website for guys named Logan who are on academic probation, Barstool Sports. (Naturally, I did my civic duty and told the website to shut the fuck up.)
Some background: No Justice was a shortlived youth crew hardcore band from DC. They had a famously reckless live show, stemming entirely from their indefatigable frontman, Timmy No Justice. It was a boundless energy the band never fully captured on record. Their lone seven-inch did the band’s wild personality—forgive the pun—no justice. Their brief discography aside, all you really need to know about No Justice is contained in this video:
Some people will tell you this isn’t even the craziest No Justice set. Many will point to their University of Chicago show. There was also a benefit show thrown in Timmy’s honor after he underwent brain surgery. Well, Timmy showed up to that show in a motorcycle helmet, sang a Negative Approach cover, and threw his cane into the crowd.
But back to No Justice’s final show. Now, normally when I watch videos of chaotic hardcore crowds, I treat it like a fishbowl, following each person around for a while and trying to imagine what Their Deal is. But in the case of this No Justice show, and every No Justice show, there is only one fish in the bowl and it is Timmy. He is a show-stealer. So, let’s take a look at Timmy, shall we?
Here’s how he kicks off the set:
What I love about this is, the song has not even started yet. In fact, the drummer hasn’t even counted off and Timmy is already on the PA. By the time we hear the sticks click, Timmy is already literally bouncing off the walls, leaving the speakers wobbling in his wake.
Timmy immediately pulls himself back on stage and before he even has his footing, he is eyeing the drumkit. This look right here tells you everything you need to know about the way this man’s brain works. Just pure, concentrated ADHD in human form. It’s blurry, but that’s sort of the point. He never stands still:
Once Timmy is on stage, the most baffling mystery of the entire video occurs. He grabs the cymbal, stand and all, and cocks back to throw it into the crowd. The cymbal falls off the stand in his backswing, which might have prevented someone getting decapitated like Raiden from Mortal Kombat. But the stand does in fact get launched towards the back of the room and, in a bizarre twist, disappears completely. WHERE DID IT GO? I have watched this video dozens of times, maybe even hundreds, and I’m still confused about where it lands. It looks like he threw it so hard that the molecules just disintegrated in mid-air:
Here it is from another angle, which is not helpful in solving this mystery, but hell let’s watch anyway:
For a long time I had built a little conspiracy theory in my head around this cymbal stand, imagining that it ripped through the fabric of time, into an alternate dimension where it landed in a Tim Horton’s parking lot in Vancouver or a Florida woman’s living room. It wasn’t until I saw this video, from a third angle, that my theory was disproven:
Turns out, there’s no real mystery here. Just your classic case of Guy Getting Hit in the Head with a Cymbal Stand. (Although, much like Flat Earthers can be shown a photo of our very round Earth and remain unbelievers, I choose to deny the evidence contained in this video and will continue to imagine that this cymbal stand is still floating out there in the ethers somewhere.)
Anyway, let’s hop back to Camera 1. Fewer than 20 seconds into the set, Timmy has jumped off PAs on both sides of the stage, thrown a cymbal stand off this mortal plane, and has yet to sing a single word. As the intro is wrapping up and the song is about to begin in earnest, he leaps towards his drummer, does a 180 midair, and takes out the entire drumkit. What I love about this is that he lands on the snare drum, and the drummer, being a true pro, hits him on the ass for two beats:
And lastly, after Timmy demolishes the kit and leaves everyone else to fix his path of destruction, he immediately climbs up the PA for the third time, stands there, and looks back at the band with body language that says “Why’d you stop playing???” IT’S BECAUSE YOU KAMIKAZED INTO THE DRUMS, MY DUDE! The band then regroups, continues on, and Timmy is pleased about it. He turns back to the crowd and hurls himself into the unknown, like he always does:
OK that’ll do it for today’s inaugural edition of The Breakdown Breakdown. Got a favorite pit video you’d like to see analyzed until it’s lost all its fun? Send it over!
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You don't know the half of it -No Justice guitarist
Oi