If it were appropriate, I'd write about how, when on tour with TAD in the spring and summer of '95, things got so dangerously out of hand that we, the band, didn't know from one minute to the next just where we were or why, our nerves were so traumatized by repeated lawsuits (more than one related to controversial CD cover art), unhealthy habits (not excluding various addictions to a diabolical assortment of hard drugs), all-day drives in the relentlessly heat-scorched Eastern seaboard and the shimmering rust-belts of the Midwest, the under-handed wiles of crooked former managers, bad label relations (with 3 consecutive major labels) that led to no label at all, more lawsuits (one against a certain former manager), physical debilitation (including serious and long-term physical injury), mental confusion and disorientation (due to the harsh touring conditions as well as the high stress levels induced by much bad luck), and still more unhealthy habits (horrendous food, no sleep, still more drugs), that it seemed completely natural when our show in Philly one night in the thick sticky summer heat was over-run by an at least loosely organized herd of rabid skinheads, a black-leather clad rabble of wild-eyed and anarchy symbol-tattooed shaved-scalped miscreants that, with much recourse to strategically deployed tactics of ruthless violence (many a flying elbow gouged many a vulnerable eyeball on that midsummer's eve), managed to incite a riot and turn the gig into a bloody free-for-all that resulted, eventually, in the arrival of the Police (too late to prevent more than one heinous injury; I'll never forget the scene in which the house sound-man lost an eye to the sharp leather-sheathed elbow of his attacker, which had blind-sided him right in the eye-socket) and the subsequent closing down of the show. Left behind were several seriously wounded audience members and club personnel, but the mutant thug army had escaped into the night city unscathed. Concussions were as de rigueur as corsages at the senior prom that evening, and you were lucky if you'd been able to hand one out yourself instead of...

What? Well, it appears I am writing about that brutal spectacle after all, it being a tangent I can't quite justify for the purposes of this blog, but then again, what the hell? There it is.

Violence of this savage variety isn't common here in Seattle, but, judging by the Police presence at many clubs on Capitol Hill these days, you might be inclined to think so. It's been my experience (although there are exceptions to this rule)--and I say this with all due respect to the Police Department--that when you need the cops, they aren't there, just as when you don't need them, they are. If you like, you can take the case in point above as an example of the former. All I can say is that nothing lays a clammy bummer on a social scene like a fleet of fully-illuminated squad cars blocking the streets outside a club for no apparent reason, except maybe the menacing presence, inside the club itself, of a contingent of under-cover as well as uniformed cops, also there for no apparent reason, who thread through the sweating nocturnal crowds, fully armed, casting eyes lit with hostility around the shadowy rooms, the identities of those undercover as obvious as a third eye on a baby's forehead because these guys stick out a mile. It's a phenomenon that can put a damper on anyone's action, because nothing that's any fun can happen in its presence. The enjoyment of music is not enhanced by cops. Fair enough? OK.

Of course, nobody wants to be vulnerable and unprotected in the corrosive eye of a seething riot; but since protection is only a cell-phone call away these days, there's no reason for it to be already there, before the fact, ruining the atmosphere with its rancid stench--that is, if anything truly dangerous might actually be in store, which is rare, so rare, in fact, that the heavy cop presence seems not only out of place but inappropriate and sinister, even provocative. Besides, an element of risk, even of danger, can make an evening on the town quite a bit more interesting, and police presence kills that risk as quickly and efficiently as penicillin kills a yeast infection. Most often, it seems to me, the recent heavy cop presence is designed to make a statement, to pose a threat, and quite often, according to what I've read in various publications (a recent issue of The Stranger, for example), that statement is directed not at the crowds (much less at any violently disruptive elements therein), although the crowds must deal with it, but at the club-owners, because, allegedly, some clubs have been accused of overcrowding and thereby violating city fire codes. If that's the case, then what's the purpose of all the cops? Who are they threatening? Why the militant approach? You don't need a dozen cops to deliver a message of that kind, and in addition, their presence sends an entirely different and perhaps unintended message, more unpleasant than any hangover, not to mention the attendant bad vibes. A certified letter would do it; a gaggle of cops overdoes it, and it lays a chilly shadow on the paying public, a shadow spiked with the memory of billy clubs and tear gas and blood in the streets. It seems a very heavy-handed way of getting a very simple message across, and it's one your average music fan doesn't need to see or hear, especially at a club where all they want to do is enjoy live music without getting hassled by The Man.