I can still remember thumbing through the news print pages of that issue of Maximum Rock N’ Roll so many years ago. With every page the ink transferred itself to my hands as I searched the pages of the “Punk Rock Bible” looking for something that spoke to me. And there it was…With their mow hawks and spikes, FILTH.

Most of the punk kids where we lived were listening to Dag Nasty, ALL, Bad Religion and NOFX. A division had started to push the punks into two camps. We didn’t like most of that shit (I like Dag Nasty J). We liked the Exploited and GBH and the Subhumans. We had mow hawks and leather jackets and spikes and studs. But, we really didn’t know much about more underground punk, the “real” punk scene if you will. I was starting to discover Nausea and Destroy but really it was Filth that captured the times and united our gang or bratty, ratty punks. Their songs became our battle cries!

I read the interview and read it again and again. I don’t think I had ever really written to a band before, Filth was probably the first one. I wrote a letter complaining about our struggle, the “real punks” versus the ALL punks. I sent the letter.

Not in a million years would I have expected what I got in return. They sent me fliers, patches, the “Stand Back and Feel the Pain” demo and a letter that basically encouraged my friends and I to not “let them grind you down”. They said they knew where we were coming from and told us to stay punk! Fuck yeah! Filth became huge in our crowd. People carved their name into their flesh, we got Filth tattoos, we Lived the Chaos! They introduced me / us to the punk community and the world of “real punk”. We fought hard and drank hard and listened to the FILTH.

‘The list’ has grown longer and many of the people who I used to circle pit around the fire drinking cheap beer and mad dog with have been added to that list, but thankfully I am not one of them. There are still a few of us! I’ve sort of given up living the chaos and am more politically charged now as I work to take care of my family in a dilapidating world. I am still very active in punk, but not so much about getting wasted anymore. Here I am almost 20 years later (???!!) looking at priceline.com pricing flights to San Francisco so I can go see Filth reunited. I plan on catching the Gilman show and the Haz Mat show. Fuck yeah! “So fuck you!”!!!!