TOO PUNK FOR PIRATES
ME FIRST AND THE GIMME GIMMES SINGER RECALLS WILD NIGHT AT PNC PARK
With baseball season back in swing, it’s a fine time to reminisce about the night Spike Slawson played for the Pirates at PNC Park.
Spike was a hometown kid — grew up in Shadyside in the ’70s and ’80s, went to Sterrett Middle School and Peabody High School — and in 2006, he was fronting Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, the world’s most famous punk rock supergroup/cover band. The Bay Area group led by Fat Mike of NOFX had been around for more than a decade, debuting in 1995 with a couple of hyper-speed John Denver covers, and by then had released its fifth album, “Ruin Jonny’s Bar Mitzvah.”
Their next move was to ruin Skyblast Night.
“The guy that organized the whole thing seemed like he was on his way out, and it was not the friendliest parting of ways. I think this was like his last shot at the Pirates organization and Pittsburgh in general,” says Mr. Slawson, who brings the Gimme Gimmes to the Rex on on the South Side Tuesday. “The way they devised it, it was to not only not be entertaining but to agitate the wild animals from Pittsburgh’s peckerwood suburbs. It felt a lot like growing up there, if that makes any sense.”
The Pirates picked the setlist from the Gimme Gimmes’ vast repertoire of covers, and then some, asking the players for their own selections.
“Like 95 percent of them said some Rascal Flatts song,” the singer says.
The format, he recalls, is that “One of them would say ‘ Sweet Caroline,’ and then we’d play the song and then they’d play the real song over the PA. And then fireworks would go off like bombs all around us. So we’re on a truck bed on second base with a panorama of the city I grew up in with fireworks going off like bombs in the outfield and from barges in the river. It was like being on acid.”
It quickly became a bad trip when the fans started booing, jeering and walking out while they were racing through covers of “Stairway to Heaven” and other beloved songs.
“In the present tense, I can’t lie and say it was a cool or positive experience, but in hindsight, it was one of the coolest things that ever happened to me,” he says. “We had to stay under the stadium in the locker rooms for a good two, three hours. And I’m glad that second base is out of projectile range.”
It was supposed to be the first of three consecutive Skyblast nights with the Gimme Gimmes, but the Bucs weren’t going to risk a repeat and fired them on the spot.
To the fans, it seemed as though Me First and the Gimme Gimmes were mocking the songs, and in a sense they were.
“Which is why it’s best to pick songs I don’t like,” Mr. Slawson says. “That way it winds up being something I can get behind a lot more.”
It’s worth noting here that the first show he ever went to was Black Flag and Saccharine Trust at the Electric Banana in October 1984. In the early ’90s, having moved to San Francisco, he was a member of the Santa Cruz, Calif., punk band Swingin’ Utters, whose debut album was produced by Rancid’s Lars Frederiksen for Fat Wreck Chords, the label run by Michael Burkett (aka Fat Mike) of NOFX.
Fat Mike and Joey Cape (of Lagwagon) had the idea for the punk rock cover band, which also features Chris Shiflett (Foo Fighters) and Dave Raun (also of Lagwagon).
“Mike and Joey would have said, ‘The best song on any ‘90s punk record is the cover,’ whereas I would have said, ‘The
only good song on one of those records was the cover.’ The great thing about starting a cover band is that there’s none of the indecision attached to it, none of the egotistical [stuff], no getting up your own [butt] about it. It’s just like, ‘This is a cover, this is how well we can play it and let’s see if it goes anywhere.’ The time between forming the band and playing our first show was surprisingly short.”
The band’s debut album, “Have a Ball,” focused on somewhat hokey hits of the ’60s and ’70s with songs like “Danny’s Song,” “Mandy” and “Seasons in the Sun.” Mr. Slawson’s favorite is the second album, “Are a Drag,” where they go back further to “Over the Rainbow,” “My Favorite Things,” “Cabaret” and the like. They’ve since done “Blowin’ in the Wind” (’60s hits), “Take a Break” (R&B), “Love Their Country” (Nashville sound) and “Are We Not Men? We Are Diva!” (divas, including Boy George), among others.
“To me, the AM Gold is the best song poll in my opinion,” Mr. Slawson says. “R&B, where the groove is the focal point of the song, that I wouldn’t say is our forte. That’s why the stuff like the AM Gold works a lot better for us: Paul Williams, the Carpenters. You could throw a 4/4 beat on it, but there’s not one there that’s well established, so when you hear it a little bit faster, it’s a surprise — hopefully a pleasant one.”
The Gimme Gimmes are touring behind the Friday release of “Rake It In: The Greatestest Hits,” which ranges from “The Times They Are A-Changin’” to “I Believe I Can Fly.” On this tour, Scott Shiflett of Face to Face is subbing in for his brother Chris, and Bad Religion’s Jay Bentley is in for Fat Mike.
“He’s finishing a musical.” he says of Fat Mike. “I think they may be in New York with it, about street punk kids in Los Angeles and weird sex. That’s been taking up a lot of his time and creative energy. He also runs a label and tours a lot with NOFX, so the less touring for him the better.”
For himself, the Gimme Gimmes singer has found a way to love the road.
“I do it with my wife, and she likes seeing [stuff] and she generally has good ideas about the things to see. One reason [people] don’t like to tour is because of the weird downtime. I think that’s where substance abuse begins, in that weird time, because you’re waiting for something to happen for this event that for a lot of people, makes or breaks them, or at least makes or breaks their evening. It’s the waiting and the downtime, and the nervousness and the downtime, so for me I like to get out and see stuff.”
On this trip, he’ll get to see landmarks from his past, including the spot where the Gimme Gimmes played their most famous gig.