Embedded Files
an article by Griffin Meehan:
photo cred: simon levine
disclaimer: this article is best enjoyed on a horizontal monitor but you do you
photo cred: silverlakesophie
a piece regarding culture,
counter-culture,
and the basal human necessity of the mosh
welcome welcome welcome, mouse magazine content consumers, this one is all about THE PIT! + the thrashers within, and the thrashers without. something i figure you'll all be familiar with.
in this article we’ll get through a brief history of the mosh plus its positioning within mainstream american media-culture.
we’ll also get into some of the major problems facing the scene today, internally and externally, and how together we work to construct an environment of safety and connection with the objective of better exercising the primal necessity to fucking rage.
photo cred: silverlakesophie
after thousands of years of human history, through generational triumphs and century-defining catastrophes, the great warrior empires of antiquity are all but a memory to our contemporary, (and comparatively docile), post-industrial societies.
in our natural bourne urge for violence, the civilizations of our global ancestors built theatres to act out (and spectate) humanity's most carnal desires unfold in front of their eyes; from the great ball-game courts of the Mesoamericans to the towering colosseum of Rome.
but brick by brick, time has worn away these ancient arenas, and we have learned to adapt. in the era of modernity, faced with ever-existential domestic and planetary crises, we have traded our bloodied sand pits for asphalt, concrete, and spilled pbr.
photo credit: see footnotes 1-3
some say that the age of gladiators are behind us
you decide
the pit: an article by mouse magazine
october, 2024
photo cred: letmethankyouinphotos (Victoria Y.)
before we continue,
i’d like to dedicate this blogpost to the adolescent pit constituency of the Alex G show i just saw this past august at the House of Blues in Anaheim.
shit pisses me off man.
ms. allen’s 10th grade homeroom all glaring at me like i'm the unemployed twenty-something dickhead dancing too hard to DSU and killing everybody’s stand-around-and-look-moody vibe
like come on man i dropped the bag on tickets AND burned a quarter tank of gas getting here i'm getting my full experience and you cant stop me.
(upon reflection I do remember hiking through a big-ass shopping center on the way to the venue from my car. so maybe aerated mall-vibe followed me through the front doors like a pungent Anaheim GardenWalk fart).
pic related
"oh em gee is he going to play treehouse please please please"
"bro i think my pen just died"
"dude bummer"
"i wish he'd at least play something from trick like literally all he's been playing is his new record"
"hey watch it, timmy turner lookin-ass, yeah man on your left, im trying to get me and my friends up there in the front and ur blocking my approach"
anyway...
it was here, when i had finally made it to the front,
that a passing moment of irritation brought to mind the frequent complaints from scenester old-heads i often see proliferating our shared digital textspace.
amazon prime subscription-holders, sadly lamenting in reddit and instagram comment sections the loss of the good old days: gatekeeping and myspace.
ok not exactly like that but i know you see this kind of stuff too. online rhetoric attacking gen z concert-goers for their lack of etiquette:
“the kids don’t know how to mosh, they don’t carry the vibe or wear deodorant, they only make annoying song requests, they don’t put their phones away, (plus my current favorite), they keep bringing packed lunches and picnic blankets!"
blah blah blah
i pity these people
to me, the truth is evident, though easy to disguise with doomerism. the kids ARE alright, even with a few extenuating circumstances indicative of our ongoing apocalypse (red-40, nutsack microplastics, PFOAs, PM2.5, penjamin-induced neurological chemical imbalance, short-form thirst traps, etc.).
and ok fine maybe they’re a little insufferable sometimes but that's pretty normal i think i mean come on i know i was annoying as hell in junior high.
let people live, make mistakes and embarrass themselves
there's no better place to learn a valuable lesson than the pit
alright no more anecdotes lets get this started
article begin:
article begin:
“Moshing” is an extreme form of what's sometimes called “dancing” - typically characterized by target-ambiguous karate in an arena demarcated by an encircled ring of willing (or-unwilling) constituents. In practice, this model varies widely depending on the internal and external variabilities of the moment. Internal variance from the audience themselves (willingness to mosh, accepted cultural norms, experience at similar music shows, sharp jewelry etc.), and the external variance, (energy of the band, available space for dancing, amount of alcohol in the venue, temporal proximity to election season, etc.)
Above: Henry Rollins of Black Flag outside his alma mater (go pirates!)
Below: D. Boon (left), George Hurley (center, obscured) and Mike Watt (right) of Minutemen
photo taken by Craig Ibarra, at Dancing Waters, San Pedro, 1981
see footnote 4-5
The mosh, as we know it today, originated in the late 1970s in the Southern California Harbor area. The hotspots of activity centered on the San Pedro, Long Beach, and Orange County punk scenes, with highly acclaimed local bands like Black Flag, Descendants, and Minutemen leading the movement. Vocalists like Henry Rollins, of Black Flag [Right] and D. Boon of Minutemen, would become legendary figures within their respective scenes, considered by many within their circle, to be the glue that held the fledgling culture together in its infancy (A Wailing of a Town, Craig Ibarra, 2015).
Driven by the innovative (and oftentimes politically charged) energy of the performing bands, a culture of aggression and expressive dancing began to develop, fostering a unique set of unspoken social norms surrounding dance etiquette and interactions within the designated pit. This subculture would soon untether itself from its SoCal harbor roots and spread across the United States in the early to mid 1980's, with the national tours of Black Flag, plus other bands like New York's Bad Brains (who some also attribute to be the founders of mosh, aka mash*).
"Doing the music was like gladiator sport. I’d lose three pounds of water every show. I’ve ripped up my back and my neck, and my jaw clicks from being smashed around." - Henry Rollins, 2023 (The Guardian)
image: Black Flag performing in 1982. taken by Marie Kanger-Born/Alamy
i’ve been to a few LA shows in my time, and find that most often, people are just out trying to have a good time, not looking for violence or power fantasy in the same way i sometimes see detractors of the scene attempt to vilify the mosh (though there are some, and concerns are certainly valid to be had).
throughout this article, when i'm talking about the mosh, i’m talking about the average punk/diy/scene show of my fundamental understanding. somewhere between 20-200 attendees, with a 10-40% participation rate in the inner pit. normal stuff. none of these 10k+ attendee music festivals where you drop a mortgage on a ticket to stand in a big field and get crushed by a emotionally dissociative riot. (but more on that later)
the majority of audiences who come out to the local show (be it backyard or bar/venue) are just looking to listen to good music, and maybe dance around in a circle with some like-minded people. very rarely do i see a mosh in these types of environments embodying anything more than positivity between dancers and a collaborative emotional release. there's an invisible compassion people tend to hold for one another on these types of nights, something i find to be enthralling and unique to diy music. its why its so easy to build community, and its why i imagine people stick around
maybe you've heard something like this before. we, together, keep us safe.
photo cred: silverlakesophie
i believe this unique sense of community at local diy/scene shows is the result of an intentionally fostered sense of accountability, or a responsibility for our actions in the moment. to put it simply, at locals, people tend to know one another. they might be neighbors, coworkers, mutuals, or otherwise, and as a result, there might already be an invisible web of continuity holding things together. flagrantly breaking that trust, with unnecessary violence, harassment or similar, is an affront to regulars who seriously uphold the values of diy culture. also important to note is that at these types of tight-knit shows, there will likely be a higher concentration of mosh pit vigilantes and hall monitors looking out for the safety and well-being of their friends and acquaintances.
lets say you're at a local show and have been getting a little too aggressive in the pit; if you've already received a verbal (or non-verbal) warning from other mosh pit constituents for your behavior, and you pull things back a bit, you'll be completely fine, honest mistake. but, if you're still deliberately throwing kicks and punches trying to hurt people outside the ring (especially feminine-presenting non-participants), you can't just disengage and hope everyone forgets afterwards. the room is just too small for that, and everybody is going to know that you were the one who sent that girl home with the broken nose. awkward.
(plus i think her boyfriend's waiting by your car in the parking lot good luck w/ that)
this trend becomes clearer when contrasted against the average concert-goer's experience at larger, more established music venues (or most egregiously in the case of festivals), where a crowd can grow so large and difficult to control that its participants experience a sense of anonymity and deindividuation.
moshers experiencing this phenomenon may feel unidentifiable out of a crowd, and may commit deviant acts they otherwise wouldn't, feeling a sense of invulnerability and a lack of consequences for their actions. this deindividuation is responsible for the worst of what mosh pits are capable of producing, and unfortunately, these are typically the stories characterizing the pit that reach our mainstream news (famously in the exceptionally tragic case of Astroworld 2021, and also the truly repugnant actions of the crowd at Woodstock 99').
see our bibliography at the end of this article for further discussion on these topics
as holistically-thinking, conscientious scene-constituents and enjoyers, it is nobody's responsibility but our own to uphold the immortal values of punk and diy in every applicable situation.
while the rules are fluid, and the situations have certainly changed, some things always remain the same.
dont be a dick
thats it
anyways, i’ll cut it here, shorter is better.
i still have some more to expunge upon in the bibliography that i didn't feel like lumping in with the main article, so if you are interested in that, continue to scroll
otherwise, you have completed this month's mouse magazine timeline article. nice work.
i feel like if mouse mag is going to fit into the social media landscape, i’ll need to find a niche for an audience of attention-starved dopamine-addicts. i hope these bright pictures and flashing lights were enough to compliment my scintillating prose, or at least enough to get you to the end of the article.
sincerely, thank you for reading. we hope you enjoyed, and we'd love to hear your thoughts below.
comments
comments
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below are some of my sources and further notes regarding my research and bibliography. feel free to agree or disagree with my analysis and let us know what you think in the comment section above.
Bibliography and Footnotes
Bibliography and Footnotes
Footnotes
A pre-columbian Mayan vase depicting the Mesoamerican game Pok-Ta-Pok, scanned into 2D and photographed by Jared Kerr
Pollice Verso by French painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1872
The members of "Live Without", from the digital cultural touchstone youtube video, The Denny's Grand Slam
Craig Ibarra managed to promote and throw this show at Dancing Waters, a venue that had never held a punk show before. The Daily Breeze article is linked below
Testimony from Linda Kite, D. Boon's fiance. She was driving at the moment of the 1986 accident that took Boon's life, when their 1979 Dodge van's left-rear axle broke and the wheel came off. Their van flipped nearly twice and ejected the sleeping forms of D. Boon and his sister Jeannine into an empty stretch of the Arizona desert. The Minutemen would release one final posthumous album and disband afterwards. Peace to Linda, and the Boon family for their incredible loss.
This is Craig Ibarra's website. I used his book "A Wailing of a town" to source the origins for Black Flag and Minutemen. A fantastic read if you hold any interest in this era of punk history. You can also buy this book physically at The Sardine in San Pedro, and I highly recommend that you at least go check it out, and stick around for a show if you've got time.
https://consequence.net/2021/08/moshing-history-essay/
An interesting article from consequence with some nice quotes and background for the history of moshing. This put me onto the story of Woodstock 99'. I'd seen Limp Bisket's set from the festival on Youtube in the past, but hadn't known the background of what was going on in the pit (I was regrettably not alive to watch the cable news coverage, darn).
“[At Woodstock 99’] women were repeatedly assaulted and violated in the pent up, male-dominated crowds, and the anonymity of [the] concert allowed for the lack of accountability and personal responsibility." - author Paolo Ragusa, 2021
Footnote 4, Minutemen play at Dancing Waters, organized by Craig Ibarra, San Pedro, 1981
https://www.thenubianmessage.com/2021/11/18/the-dangerous-history-of-moshing/
This article was written at a very poignant moment in the timeline of mosh history, soon after an incredibly tragic, yet preventable incident during Travis Scott’s performance at Astroworld
What it was like in Astroworld Festival mosh pits
here’s a cable news clip of 2 anchors receiving testimony from a 19 y/o kid who went to Astroworld 2021 as his first live music show.
I think this is a valuable article to read, if not only to better understand the preconceptions and thoughts of people who might not be fully familiar with punk and diy mosh subculture, but to also consider ourselves and the culture our shared history has crafted from an external lens.
I disagree with some of this article (particularly surrounding baked-in American apathy for others within their communities), but I also agree with much more. At same time that I say that, I also recognize the distinct differences in lived experiences and identities between myself and the author of this webarticle. While I hesitate to call the events of 2021 Astroworld or Woodstock 99’ a true “mosh-pit” and more like an aggressive mob of pent-up toxic masculinity set to loud music, it is important to acknowledge that there are serious cases of sexism and gender-based assault attributed to the activities of a mainstream-defined “mosh”, and they must be addressed.
Equally important, is to draw clear separation between these mass acts of debauchery, and the community building principles of the local mosh. The primary difference between major festivals and the humble LA underground pit is the number of participants, but also the degree of identity separation those participants feel within the pit, and the percentage of those same participants who serve as mosh pit stewards, staying attentive for anyone who might need assistance. In the cases of Astroworld 2021 and Woodstock 99’, there were no hall monitors in the crowd, but instead a bunch of horny, repressed, young to middle-aged men, who allowed themselves to drown in the anonymity and hubris of the crowd. At the same time, the authors and news pundits who tend to write about this kind of thing, aren’t the ones in the pit, we are. And within the arena of our making, we are our only service of enforcement and safety.
There are no cops in the mosh, just you and all your new best friends. That puts the responsibility upon each of us, to hold each other accountable, and to expect action in the face of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, or otherwise. These kinds of incidents where people get seriously hurt, killed, violated, or assaulted happen under conditions where the unspoken rules of the pit are not internalized within their constituents. These rules exist to keep us safe, but most importantly, we keep each other safe, and we still have a better job to do. This kind of behavior is completely unacceptable within punk subculture, and anyone who’s actually spent any amount of time in the pit understands the primary motivations of punk as a whole: musical catharsis, community construction, and collective liberation.
thank you very much for reading <3
please let me know your comments in the section above, at my email mousemagazinecorporate@gmail.com, or at our instagram page @mousemagazinecorporate
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