Who the **** threw that at me?
Published: Wed, 07/01/15
As I wrote yesterday, Youtube is providing me with a crash course in the history of popular music. Some great stories in there too. Dee Snider, lead singer of Twisted Sister (not really my kind of band I must admit) tells the story of how the group was playing a gig and someone threw a bottle top which hit him on the head. He immediately stopped singing and the band followed his lead and all fell silent. then yelled at the audience ‘who threw that at me? I am going to (some improbable threat) the ******!’ All very rock and roll. And then the house lights went up and the band realised that the audience was mainly composed of a large gang of hard core bikers. Right in front of the stage was the culprit, a huge and angry man, very ready for a fight and being restrained by two of his companions. Two rather smaller men who were not going to be able to hold the bottle top thrower for long. Dee turned to the rest of the band with a
look that clearly said, ‘what the **** do we do now?’ Horrible silence for a very long moment until one of the band members shouted ‘Born to be wild’ and struck up the first chord, the rest of the band did not hesitate to follow suit and a rousing rendition of the classic biker anthem was soon deafening the room. The bikers immediately started rocking along and all hostility was quickly forgotten. If you are not familiar with Born to be Wild, originally recorded by Stepenwolf in 1969 then you can catch it here as it was included on the sound track of Easy Rider. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMbATaj7Il8
Three useful lessons here: One, always be aware of your situation, two, don’t antagonise other people and three, if you forget the first two lessons think fast and do something to restore harmony before things get worse.
When I teach self-defence I always say that if you get to the stage where you are sorting a problem out by hitting someone then something has gone seriously wrong. Self-defence seminar on Saturday in Crewkerne. http://somersetstav.co.uk/sd.html
regards
Graham
PS Ivar has a good story about how he got himself out of a tight spot while travelling in North Africa years ago. I will see if he will tell it at the Stav Camp, so it might be on the recording, or you could come and hear it in person. http://www.stavcamp.org