A flier for the GBH/Accüsed show at Natasha’s in Bremerton on October 3rd, 1987.
 
The “riot” that went down on the Washington State Ferry M/V Kitsap on Saturday, October 3rd, 1987, made its way to the pages of The New York Times. The paper published a short report on the incident (via the Associated Press), detailing how fans of local Seattle band The Accüsed and British punks GBH went bananas with an ax and skateboards, destroying defenseless tables and chairs during a ferry ride back to Seattle. According to the article, when asked for his thoughts on the destruction at the hands of his fans on the M/V Kitsap, GBH vocalist Jimmy Wren responded he was “quietly proud” of what went down.

Before we get to the story itself, it is necessary to be aware of how the Teen Dance Ordinance (or TDO) passed in 1985 in Seattle contributed to the angst of young music fans during the years it governed the underage music scene. The passage of the TDO required club owners to obtain a $1 million liability insurance policy for any all-ages event. Another requirement was all underage events were to be staffed by two off-duty SPD officers, a sure-fire buzzkill at any party. Nearly every club was unable to take on the insurance policy, so underage shows in Seattle city limits became a rare occasion. Also important to note is the fact the TDO was a response to some very, very bad things happening to kids hanging out at underage clubs. Specifically The Monastery, a club/church run by George Freeman, an accused predator of Seattle’s homeless youth. When the TDO became law, Freeman referred to it as the “George Freeman Law.”

Four months after the TDO went into effect, the SPD showed up at an all-ages gig at Gorilla Gardens after receiving reports of fire code violations. The club was packed and waiting for the Circle Jerks to take the stage. The fire marshall cut the power at the club, and the crowd flipped out. As they poured outside into a freak Seattle snowstorm, they started hurling bricks and Molotov cocktails at the cops. So it’s safe to say underage music fans, especially the punks, were not feeling fond of Seattle during the days of TDO. When GBH and hometown heroes The Accüsed came to Washington during the Panic in the Casket Tour, they opted to play the gig at Natasha’s (aka Perl’s) in Bremerton, where clubs were not subjected to the rules of the TDO. And what could go wrong when 150 or so drunk punk rockers board the 1:50 am ferry for Seattle following the show along with two off-duty Seattle police officers?

Fucking everything.

According to several accounts, it all started with some sort of disagreeable conversation, which led to a female passenger to start stripping her clothes off on top of a table. One of the punks on board then decided to whip his dick out urinating in a planter or on a bench. The rowdiness does not go unnoticed, dicks out in public normally don’t, and a worker on the ferry grabbed the territorial pisser and pulled him into a large utility closet and closed the door. The mood of the crowd changed in an instant, and people started yelling at the ferry worker to release their friend. One punk got close enough to the door to get pepper-sprayed by the ferry worker inside. By now, some of the more level-headed passengers are calling for help to free their friend. The off-duty cops arrived, and then things went completely to shit. Some of the punks began to spit at the cops. The situation continued to escalate rapidly. When someone got the idea to break the glass protecting the fire ax in the wall with a skateboard, the cops retreated to the closet where their friend was locked up with the ferry worker. While inside with their guns drawn, a guy with an ax went full, “Here’s Johnny!” on the door, while others screamed, “KILL THE COPS!!!” KILL! KILL! KILL!”
 

Turn it up, man! It’s FERRY ROCK!
 
Forty-five minutes later, as the M/V Kitsap pulled into Seattle, the rioters had done about $40,000 worth of damage to the inside of the ferry, destroying tables, chairs, and parts of the asbestos-filled ceiling. Word spread through the ferry that as many as a dozen police cars were waiting for the boat to dock in Seattle, aware of the current situation on board. This sent some of the punks scrambling to hide in the trunks of cars to evade arrest.

Continues after the jump…

This kid.

Knowing firsthand that MTV didn’t always totally suck asswater really dates you. When I have occasion to mention how, once upon a time, that justly-reviled network actually played some seriously cool shit, I half wonder if I’m coming off like my grandma used to when she talked about the Great Depression. But it’s true, even before long-running bones thrown to the weirdos like 120 Minutes and Headbanger’s Ball found their footing, MTV broadcast stuff like IRS’ The Cutting Edge and Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes, which often rivaled even the USA Network’s mighty Night Flight for genuinely informative freak-scene value.

One jaw-droppingly excellent MTV show was the one-off special Punks and Poseurs: A Journey Through the Los Angeles Underground. A big mover behind its production was Charles M. Young, who, as sad fate would have it, passed away this week after a standoff with a brain tumor. He’s the guy at the beginning of the video, speaking with early VJ Alan Hunter, and while he looks for all the world like an unreconstructed Little River Band fan, don’t be faked out by appearances. Young was one of the first mainstream music journalists to take punk’s aesthetic merit as a given, and for that, we owe him a debt of gratitude. May he rest in peace.

At its core, “Punks and Poseurs” is a narration-free concert film, but it’s cut with terrific interview footage that explores the changing nature of punk, from insider and outsider perspectives. There’s a lot of great footage with writer/performers Pleasant Gehman and Iris Berry, torpedoing the influx into the music scene of neophyte phonies who just didn’t get it, explaining title of the program. (After this first aired in 1985, a bunch of the new waver/Durannie chicks at my high school—which is to say all the girls who were trying their suburban Ohio best to look like Gehman and Berry—started calling everyone “poseurs,” which was pretty funny.) There’s also a hilarious interview with employees at a store called “Poseur,” which sold punk fashions and accessories—people had to get that shit somewhere before Hot Topic forever banished punk to the mall, no?  Also keep an eye out for the kid giving a primer on how to fashion liberty spikes with Knox gelatine.

The performance footage mostly focuses on excellent, high-energy sets by The Dickies and GBH —the latter of whom were quite radical by MTV’s regular programming standards (and British, contra the program’s subtitle, but the concert took place in L.A., so whatever, I guess). There’s also an early glimpse of the excellent and still active Italian hardcore band Raw Power. I harbor serious doubts they’ve ever been spotted on that network again.
 

 
Many thanks to upstanding journalist and total fucking poseur Mr. Erick Bradshaw for this find.

Previously on Dangerous Minds
‘Way USA’: Sleazy punk comedy travelogue is the greatest cult video you’ve probably never seen
The time Ian McKellen jammed with the Fleshtones on MTV in 1987
Debbie Harry, Ramones, Nick Rhodes, Courtney Love and more on MTV’s ‘Andy Warhol’s 15 Minutes’