The Aftermath: post ROLLER BOOGIE 5 ephoria and musings

And so, four days deep into the solo clean-up and salvage efforts, I write to you with hands covered in open sores (zip-line injury), a mild case of H1N1, and still perhaps 4 or 5 blue recycling bags away from a clean living space. Skates are still strewn about. I’ve found only 1 out of 10 people’s missing items. The most popular item thus far has been wigs, four in all. I’ve reserved first dibs on all ground scores, and the best find has been a pair of fake, dork-dork glasses. I’ve been rocking them off and on since Sunday. I’ve picked up a grand total of 17¢ in pocket change. The most popular ashtray, by far, is a drink container. There’s nothing more enjoyable than draining the sluice from a gnarled Colt 45 can and have a barrage of cigarette butts Niagara Falls-ing into a bucket of the foulest concoction that a team of wicked witches would never be able to produce in the most disciplined groupthink. But was all this worth it? Fuck, yes!!!!!

We had a party, and it was the greatest party that time has ever known. I could have went to this party everyday for a month straight, Groundhog Day-style, and still not even have come close to experiencing the whole (something-like-a) phenomenon that was, is, and forever shall be ROLLER BOOGIE 5. There’s eight-million stories to tell, I’m sure, and I’d like to hear every single one. Actions speak louder than words, of course, and pictures capture our actions, telling the story far more accurately than anyone’s words. So on that note, check-out these bad-boys:

Photos by Los:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=42608734&id=14228324&fbid=755871869693#!/album.php?aid=2370648&id=14228324

and

photos by Ashley for yinzerparty.com:
http://yinzerparty.com/index.php?option=com_joomgallery&func=viewcategory&catid=75&Itemid=54

and this RB5 attendee (who shares the same name as the HG’s bass player) captures another dimension:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?page=1&aid=2119991&id=4807254

here is the official RB5 promo video (BAM!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKHAJHXcvG0

My personal highlights: wow… so many… I feel like I’m accepting an Oscar or an MTV Music Award (in the 90’s, when it still mattered)… hey, sit back down Kanye… you’ll have yr turn to weigh in… we all will:

1. Naturally, I must talk about the Hood Gang’s set because we sure gave them something to talk about, right, Bonnie Raitt? There were some major firsts that would have made everyone from the Wright Bros, to the Spak Bros and from Andy Warhol to David Lee Roth proud. In this historical set the Hood Gang has defined yet another sub-sub-genre of music: DIY Arena Party Rock. Here’s some of the key aspects:
- Flying. In case you missed it, Drunk Monkey and I flew on zip-lines over the crowd of well over 200 awestruck onlookers to begin the Hood Gang’s set. Talk about home court advantage!
- Once we Houdinied (Harry not the proto-rap group) out of our harnesses, I hurriedly, with the help of my lovely assistant, Morgan, slipped into my gold-sprayed-skates to circle the stage while we performed the song, ‘Roller Boogie’ off of our 2007 release Everyone’s in the Hood Gang.
- A reoccurring problem we’ve had playing ROLLER BOOGIES is mid set power outages. It happened again at RB5. Only this time it took way longer to figure out how to turn it back on. We covered at first with a drum / percussion solo. But after five minutes… we started losing our momentum and patience. That is when Drunk Monkey took matters into his own hands. He made the entire audience crouch / sit down on the floor and chant, “We want power, we want power” and then “Hood Gang, Hood Gang”. Then the crowd inevidibly started up the good ol’ “Let’s Go Pens” chant. So Drunk Monkey gave the crowd exactly what the wanted. “Let’s go Pens, huh? Well, I got something your going to like.” He crawled under the stage and pulled out our HG20 gold-sprayed Stanley Cup and raised it high over his head. The crowd roared like they would have if - Sidney Crosby had gone top-shelf to win the finals in overtime and Santonio Holms caught the Super Bowl 43 winning touchdown pass at the very same moment. Drunk Monkey snatched a beer from someone-in-the-front row’s hand, poured it in the cup, drank, then passed it around the crowd. I few seconds later the power returned and the Hood Gang launched into their power-anthem, ‘The Greatest Party That Time Has Ever Known’.
- We capped off the set with a heartfelt rendition of ‘I Had the Time of My Life”... a tribute to the late, great Patrick Swayze and to every single person who’s ever attended a ROLLER BOOGIE, originally performed by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes on the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing.
2. From what I gathered, Totally Michael, Leif Kolt, and Muluca w/ DJ Dirty South Joe all killed it… but I missed the majority of all of their sets… Blasted responsibilities! Grrrr…

3. However, I was able to catch Ninja-fuckin’-sonik / Sonik-fuckin’Ninja. They destroyed! I love these guys! The whole crowd packed into the back and Ninjasonik performed their original concoction of tight-pants-wearin’-ass punk-rap. It was great to get to hang out with them again and especially to see them play. They also performed live remixes of songs from some of my other favorite d.i.y underground high energy bands such as The Death Set and Team Robespierre and a cover of my all-time favorite punk song ‘Attitude’ by Bad Brains. Needless to say, I lost my shit, danced my gold lamé covered ass off, and crowd surfed.
4. Somehow the VIP turned into a rave complete with house music and lazers.

Those are my major moments that are jumping to the forefront of my recollection. What are yrs? I can’t wait to run into as many of the 360+ guests as possible and hear the crazy shit yinz all did and saw. Feel free to post yr RB5 post game on my wall or email me at hoodgang@gmail.com.

There are still plenty of official, limited edition, hand numbered, ROLLER BOOGIE 5 / HG shirts available in a variety of American Apparel sizes.
http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z47/hoodgang7/rb5shirtshanging.jpg
Contact me if you want to grab a piece of party history or they’ll be available (while they last) at upcoming Hood Gang shows.

So everyone’s asking, “Sneaky, is this really the last ROLLER BOOGIE?” I’m afraid so, homies… at least at my spot. It seems as though we’ve outgrown our britches. It’s too big (that’s what she said). There’s so many of us, BOOGIERS. Which is fucking awesome… but given the amount of people and high-energy performances, dancing, skating, zip-line flying, it was just too hot and too hard to breathe. Don’t get me wrong I love sweaty parties but we might have some causalities on our hands (namely, Sneaky Mike) if we were to push it any further at my current location. That being said I might be convinced to pull a Brett Favre if the right, bigger, venue came along… I suppose you’ll just have to stay tuned. Same party time, same party channel… the newly syndicated Hood Gang show. And we’re all part of the show, you know?

Remember;
Everyone’s in the Hood Gang
You are special
And I love you all very, very much.

Peace, love, and greatest partying
Forever,
$n€åK¥