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![\"photo_02_zoltan_szirmai\"](\"https:\/\/www.skerp-music.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/photo_02_zoltan_szirmai1.jpg\")
\nWe get to the gig around 9:30 p.m., a pack of twelve or thirteen kids with spiked hair, faded denim jackets covered in a chaotic splash of color and band logos. Assorted cases of beer in tow, we walked more than a mile through neighborhoods often hostile to people like us to pay three dollars and stand in a backyard filled to capacity, get drunk, and raise a little hell as our friends line up in varying band formations every half hour or so and tear through their sets. Their efforts are lit by a single lamp strategically placed on the makeshift stage at the back wall of the house. After a little searching, we find the other heads from the neighborhood\u2014who came to the gig in two carloads\u2014in the far corner of the yard with a keg between them.
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\nWe are collectively the punks from NYC, but we are by no means alone in the backyard. Kids from\u00a0Montebello,\u00a0Huntington Park,\u00a0Highland Park,\u00a0South Gate,\u00a0Alhambra, El Sereno,\u00a0Monterey Park, and other areas have also come out tonight to see the Sex Pistols, who are rumored to be making a rare appearance. I make my way through the crowd, can of Bud in hand, place my very scrawny self squarely in front of the stage, and begin heckling the members of Side Effects, who are friends from\u00a0Whittier.
\n\u201cYou guys are too stupid to play and your drummer is a gimp,\u201d I shout at them through the din of tuning instruments. Behind me, another critic chimes in with \u201cGo back to\u00a0Whittier you has-been scumbags.\u201d
\nTheir singer smiles. \u201cGlad to see you guys, too,\u201d he deadpans into the microphone. Their drummer four-clicks and, as the band begins their first song, the backyard erupts into the sea of ritualized violence we call dancing. Many fall to the ground, but are quickly picked up by watchful friends and relatives. Somewhere in the middle of the set, I make my way back toward the keg, parched, sweaty, and loving every minute of the night. Two bands later, my brother informs me that he\u2019s talked one of the bands into lending us their equipment and that we will be playing after Anti-Social, who are currently onstage. We find Scott, our singer, and make our way back toward the stage. Anti-Social finishes and we tune up the borrowed instruments. Scott introduces us as \u201cjust another band fromEast L.A.\u201d and we begin our set amidst a hail of reciprocated insults from the members \u00a0and a shower of wasted beer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"