Battle of the Glands

The year was 1983 and I was the vocal lead for the band Dangling Units. We played a lot of dumps in Chicago; we were 15 and 16 and reasonable musicians for our age. We were all pretty smart students, so smart that we started a band without a drummer. We used a drum machine instead so it wouldn't smoke all our dube.

In 1984 my high school announced a "Battle of the Bands", a time-honored tradition where the kids with all the money fake their way through pop songs to the delight of football players and cheerleaders. I, on the other hand, had forged my niche in scum rock. I played in a punk band, a loud and hysterical band with clever lyrics. We were musicians, we knew how to play, we were tight and played a great set for kids. Everybody at my high school hated my band, but we actually opened for decent bands in Chicago- from the Effigees to Circle Jerks, so we had a following and I didn't care what suburban brats liked.

We submitted a cassette tape to our high school referees. They hated, "Skid Marks", a song about soiled undergarments and "First AIDS" a homophobic tribute to HIV (it was 1983 and AIDS was creepy). Our teenage edgy lyrics went over like a lead balloon. We were officially disinvited to join the Battle of the Bands. A penalty for coloring outside of the lines. They said our lyrics were "too obscene". What do you want from a band called "Dangling Units"?

If you can't beat them, join 'em. We knew lot of other rejects, other twits that everybody hated so they played their instruments all the time. We formed an alliance of dweebs and learned all of the most favorite pop songs of the time.

We dressed in ripped clothes and spiked our hair to the ceiling with ivory soap and eggs. We played crappy pop rock in our scumpunk uniforms, clean, happy and palatable like we just rolled out of Hot Topic. We were pefectly digestable for suburban Chicago. Everyone actually liked it!

It was time for the last song. We started into Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself" only we changed the words. The guitarist and singer was my friend Chris. We exchanged a knowing winks and started into the song. When we got to the chorus we replaced the sanitized vanilla lyrics with our own...

Playing with myself... (Oh, oh oh ohhhh)
Playing with my-sel-elf,
and if I had the chance I'd get inside my pants
and I'd be playing with mysel-elf
Oh, oh, ohhhh
Oh, oh, ohhhh
Oh, oh, ohhhh
Oh, oh ohhhhh

and with each "Oh, oh, ohhh" we made an exaggerated crank stroke in the air.

We kept it up for about two minutes when the power wound down and all we heard was drums. Our time was done.

The best part is, we finished second and would have finished first if the vote was not split between our stupid band and Denied Remarks, a band from Downers Grove North that actually was good. Some crappy metal act won with a tribute to Judas Priest. Go figure.

The best part is that we scammed our way into a contest and then shoved it up everyone's tail.