Weekly Mailbag! Vol. 1: Margo A-Go-Go

Welcome to the first edition of Local Commotion's Weekly Mailbag!

I get a lot of interesting responses to my column, ranging from the hostile to the supportive to the flat-out hysterical.

This past week's column on Margo seems to have raised the hackles of a lot of their fans. And there are a lot of fans.

In case you didn't see the column, you can catch it here. The gist: Margo is an excellent local metalcore band with a cocky frontman. They are one of two bands whose fans are held largely responsible for inciting some pretty serious fights/injuries a few weeks ago in Torrington. I went to the Hamden Elks Lodge last Thursday (Feb. 2nd) to see if they were the provocateurs people said they were.

My problem with Margo is not with their music -- I loved their songs, and I think they make some of the heaviest, most degrading, make-you-feel-dirty-inside metal in CT. My problem isn't even with their fans, per se. My problem is with artists who don't take social responsibility for their work.

Allow me to explain.

Hardcore, punk, and metal are aggressive music, and they attract aggressive fans. For the vast majority, the music helps them burn off some steam and get rid of some of the anger that troubles them. But there has always been a minority who just use the music to multiply their anger -- they jump in a mosh pit and pick a fight with the first kid who bumps into them. (Here it's important to differentiate between true moshing -- which is an aggressive, non-contact form of dance akin to breakdancing -- and slam dancing, which is the stupid, watered-down, pro-wrestling inspired dance for kids who think they know what moshing is, but don't. In moshing, you may very well catch a stray fist or elbow -- but you're just as likely to get a clap on the back and an apology from the person who did it. In slam dancing, you beat or get beat. In moshing, if you fall, people will immediately stop dancing and help you back on your feet, asking if you're alright. Slam dancing pits are where people get trampled at large-scale, arena-rock venues.)

Aggressive music breeds aggressive dance forms. Duh. So let's take it as granted that if you come to a hardcore or metal show and you mosh, you stand a small but significant chance of getting accidentally hurt.

The fact remains that your chance of getting hurt is substantially higher (or lower) depending on the band. New Haven's Hatebreed, who over the past few years rose to national prominence, has a reputation for violent, thugged-out mosh pits. If you go to a Hatebreed concert and you clock in at less than 200 lbs., jumping in the pit is about as smart as lighting your arm on fire.

So why is it that, within the same genre of music, you can dance safely to some bands, and have to fear for your safety with others? As with anything, it's a combination of factors. Some frontmen, like Hatebreed's Jamey Jasta, actually demand their audience to spill blood. Still others (lest we make the scene sound like a complete bloodbath) will stop their set at the first sign of a disturbance, ostracize the violent kids, and even run them out of the venue. Other factors include the sound and attitude of the band, the fans who associate themselves with the band, the location of the show, and the attitude of the locals towards the band/show/fans, to name a few. Hardcore fans who start beef in the mosh pit often take the concept of loyalty to particular bands/geographical areas a little too far: they claim to "rep 203," or claim membership in the "Buried Beneath The Ashes of November Mosh Crew," or they "represent Waste Haven/Wallyworld/T-Town/[insert witty nickname for town here]."

(Hmm. Wait. "Represent"? Isn't that rap slang? And doesn't "represent" also carry a secondary meaning of representing a particular gang? And you mean entire *crews* of these dudes will take over a mosh pit during a given band's set, and clock non-crew-members in the face with fists and folding chairs? Yes, Virginia, let's call a spade a spade: hardcore and metal, like rap, serve as crystallizing points around which young, angry, security-seeking, emotionally- and/or economically-deprived kids form gangs. Gangs. There, I said it. They're no Bloods/Crips/Los Solidos/Latin Kings, for sure. They're not selling drugs or murdering. But they ain't playin' patty cake, neither.)

What's clear is this: Margo and Deadgirlsdiary, both of whom gig in the south of the state and have large fanbases there, came up north to Torrington. So did a bunch of their fans. Fights broke out during their part of the evening. Some poor dude left in a neck brace and an ambulance. Cops came and pulled the plug.

The next week, when I saw Margo, lead singer Dave Avery was making fun of Torrington and those events mid-song.

In my column, I compare Avery to Eminem. Like Eminem, Avery is a talented young artist who, to some degree, divorces himself from the traditional styles, images, and mannerisms associated with his music's culture. Like Eminem, Avery also disavows any responsibility for what fans do during his set. It's an attitude most of his band seems to share. In an unsigned message to me on MySpace, Margo wrote "if we were at torrington to be security we would have done something." Which, to me, reeks of "I was just following orders"-style complicity. Margo may not have been brought onto the bill to stop fights -- but they certainly weren't brought on board to start them, either.

The online response to the column has been pretty astonishing. Margo scanned and posted the column on their MySpace, and within 24 hours there were pages upon pages of replies. If you're a member of MySpace, click on this link and log on to see Margo's fans' responses.

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=6433855&imageID=487995985&Mytoken=CA2AC357-BB45-89C9-386557B86ABBAF4421916673

(Bonus points if you can find me among the snide commentors .)

If you're not a member of MySpace, you probably have good reasons to stay away. So I'm reprinting some of the more interesting responses to my column:

Jimmy Two-Step

February 8, 2006 9:22 PM
Eminem= Dave avery? This guy is trying too hard to make this more than it is.

p.s FUCK TORRINGTON

For someone who doesn't think Margo played a very big role in the recent mosh pit fights, Jimmy Two-Step sure seems to have a vendetta against Torrington.

!!i am up to my neck in glitter and vodka!!

February 8, 2006 8:29 PM
hahah thats funny.

you guys should be dicks and make a big deal about it and demand an apology and a retraction or some shit.

Glitter/Vodka's killer hangover prevented him from attending the class where they taught big ten-dollar words like "slander" and "libel." Otherwise he would know my column is hardly out-of-line enough to be grounds for an official apology. It's ok, GlitVod -- for my next column, I'm going to print offensive cartoons about the prophet Mohammed. The column will be titled "Fun With Retractions" -- keep your eyes peeled.

WHMC Joe

February 9, 2006 11:39 AM
Yeah since dave doesnt wear shitty clothes hes an outcast right. Dan Barry is a clown. Violence is everywhere and since not everyone can be calm and obviously one person out of a room of 200+ is gonna have an attitude about something. Let Dan Barry keep mocking good bands and fuck himself in the ass with his type writer.

Mmm. Deep. "Violence is everywhere." Yes, WHMC Joe, you're right: neck-breaking mosh injuries are just a fact of life, and as such, we shouldn't worry our little heads about them. That one loose cannon out of 200 is going to do what he's going to do, regardless of any outside provocation. And, adding insult to Joe's injury, my typewriter broke this week, forcing me to write my column on a personal computer.

In what is perhaps the most fitting end of all time, Margo wrote me a follow-up message in which they, once again, poetically divorce themselves of any responsibility for their fans' actions. "Just so you know we didnt ask anyone to write any of those comments," they wrote. "Those our our fans."

Indeed, they are.