Kickin' Ass

Sewer Zombies (Psychotic Motor Punk)
Track: They Died with their Willie Nelson T-Shirts On (Subversive, 1985)



There’s something insanely, psychotically thrilling about bike wrecks - especially if you happen to survive one, I guess.

One time I was on the back of Sean’s Kawasaki GPZ burning up Pacific Coast Highway. We were totally fucken' ripped after partying all night with some Irish girls in Torrance. We struggled to stay awake as the sun rose over the Santa Monica Mountains.

Taking a hairpin curve outside Malibu we hit a patch of oil and felt the bike slide from under us. Sparks ignited as the tailpipe scraped the highway.

As we were going down I knew I was gonna die, but strangely enough I couldn’t help thinking about the red-head I'd spent that night with and the small baggie of grass I had stashed in my back pocket.

Time seemed to stand still as we skidded along PCH, parts of the motorcycle scattering in our wake.

But then a miracle happened. Operating on pure intuition, Sean somehow managed to pull us out of the skid.

We coasted to a rest area near Zuma Beach. As we dismounted we were laughing our asses off. We knew we’d almost bought it.

When we got home we rolled a joint and played Sonic Youth's In the Kingdom #19: “Screeching along the guard rail, scraping paint and throwing sparks like sheets of pure terror/Suddenly all is quiet there in the sunlight on the highway.”

There’s a million great rock ‘n’ roll songs about road accidents: Leader of the Pack by The Shangri-las, Come Back, Jonee by Devo, Always Crashing in the Same Car by Bowie, Airbag by Radiohead.

My personal favorite is the fantastic noise orgy They Died With Their Willie Nelson T-Shirts On by Sewer Zombies. It describes a gang of down home boys hell-bent on destruction as they haul ass to the next saloon.

You can smell it all: the exhaust, the flaming tires, the grease. Pedal to the floor, firing up 400 horsepower of pure NOIZE, these Florida thrash maniacs go out in an heroic blaze of glory.

Like the day Sean and I almost crapped out on Pacific Coast Highway, it's a deliciously edgy experience.

LISTEN to Sewer Zombies here