Courtesy of Impose.

We‰’re more than midway through the semester so it‰’s time to switch it up. Next week The Tough Crowd will return to it‰’s usual informational shenanigans, but this week it gets more personal.

Being a senior in college means life gets busy. Too busy in fact, to go to four punk shows a week and still pass every class. At some point in my college career, four shows a week was normal, but so was getting 10 hours of sleep a night. As life gets busier I find myself looking back on that beautiful time I wonder, how did it begin?

It all started freshman year here in D.C. I had been to small local shows at the youth center in my home town but nothing like the gritty D.C. diy shows I have now come to expect. Attending my first basement show wasn’t something I planned, or even expected to go to.

The night started as any other. A boy* had asked me to go “record shopping‰” with some of his friends. Too trusting was I, looking back on it. When I met this boy on campus his “friends‰” were actually his friends… but only sort of at the time. Two were his friends and the other two were their girlfriends. Wow. Awkward, right? Anyways, the intention was always to go record shopping, which was comforting to know considering the strangeness of the setup. The boys didn’t check the closing times of any local record stores so that plan was short-lived. We ended up in near the IHOP in Northeast, and despite the obvious blind date-esque set up I tried to pretend this was the average platonic hang out.

But what does this have to do with basements?

Well, the back-up plan, unbeknownst to me, was to go to a Columbia Heights basement to see a one-man band called Globsters. I found myself with five borderline strangers leading me through D.C. The walk from the Columbia Heights metro stop to the show felt like hours while wandering the dark suburban streets. Approaching the house is still my most memorable show moment. As we walked up to where one boy said the house would be, we all stopped in front of an empty alley. “Here it is, guys!‰” he said as we all confusedly looked into the darkness. In that moment a lonely rat scurried across the alley. It was a scene straight out of an ’80s thrasher movie. Not even this, though, could prepare me for what I was about to experience.

To put it briefly, Globsters is a band of one man from Hazard, Kentucky. He was wearing some sort of Charles Bronson merch and womens’ jeans and shrieking over noise played through a PSP. It was the best thing I‰’ve ever seen. Nothing on earth will ever top it and I will never forget my first basement show.

*This may or may not refer to someone named Tyler, but for confidentiality’s sake, all identities may be changed