6/22/2003
Okay, here's the story as I remember it: several friends and I were at CBGB for a matinee headlined by one of my all-time favorite bands The Crumbsuckers. If memory serves, this was during the summer of 1987. Tons of kids in the NYHC scene loved the Crumbsuckers. Not only did they have anthemic songs that you could scream along to with their supreme screamer Chris Notaro, they, along with fellow Long Islanders Ludichrist weren't afraid to show the traditionally snobby HC crowd that they could actually play the shit out of their instruments. One of the first great crossover bands for sure. Now enter Straight Ahead front man Tommy Carroll. Don't get me wrong, Tommy was a good friend of mine, but to say he was an extremist is an understatement. He was most definitely on the "keep it real" tip and if he liked a band which was straight edge for instance, his band had to be MORE straight edge. If they played fast, his band had to play faster. If someone was a hard dancer, he made sure everyone felt his presence on the dance floor. You get the picture. So on this particular afternoon, Scott Ian from Anthrax, also a friend of Tommy's, brought Kirk Hammett from Metallica to CB's to turn him onto The Crumbsuckers. Long story short - Kirk loved the band so much he asked if he could join them onstage for a song, and the band was only too happy to oblige. I'll give you one guess who this little situation didn't sit well with. So Kirk is up there ripping shit up with The Crumbsuckers and Tommy makes his way to the stage, grabs the mic. and yells "get that fuckin' rock star off the stage!" He then proceeds to rare back and spit right in Kirk's face. Again, Tommy was my boy, but I couldn't believe what I had just witnessed. So Kirk is freaking out and the band stops playing. Then from out of nowhere, Billy Milano, ALSO a friend of Tommy's, barrels his way through the crowd and gets to Tommy. He grabs him by his shirt and drags him outside the club. Many of us followed to see what was going to happen. Ultimately, not a lot went down out there other than Billy scolding the shit out of Tommy like an angry dad whose kid just got expelled from school, repeating to him over and over how stupid and disrespectful and embarrassing what he had just done was. You could tell Tommy realized what he had done was dumb, but something tells me he would have done it all over again. FYI - Tommy went on to become a struggling Golden Gloves boxer and Kirk Hammett...well he's still a "fuckin' rock star." Not that there's anything wrong with that.
How*Nice
2/27/2012
Awwwww yeah - I remember this well. By the time this happened, many of the CB's matinees were attended by a large contingent of Metalheads. Some were cool and respectful of Hardcore and others, not so much. Ever since Agnostic Front released the Cause for Alarm album, it often felt as if you had to choose a side with regard to "pre-Cause for Alarm" AF, or "I still love them even though this album is totally Metal" AF. It's around this time that the straight edge revival led by Youth of Today was in full effect and most of those bands went out of their way to let the world know they were HC and the crossover thing was not for them. Tommy Carroll, god bless him, was totally against the Metal invasion of HC, even though he and the noise he made with NYC Mayhem helped bring it about, and I think Kirk's presence at a matinee was his moment to let everyone know where he stood. No one saw it coming because most were psyched Kirk Hammett was there to see the Crumbsuckers. If you were there for the music, it was awesome. If you wanted to preserve the essence of the CBGB matinee...I guess it was also an awesome moment and Tommy made sure to seize it. I don't want to dissect this all too much because I'm not Tommy Carroll's brain, but after it happened, those who know Tommy weren't so surprised. He stepped right the fuck up and spit in Kirk's face! Think about how fucking ballsy that is. Hundreds of people watching...BOOM!


