Guess what punk rockers, people over 35 still go to rock shows.

And we can afford babysitters and tickets AND merch, so there. Even though I’m seven years south of 35 and my kids are almost old enough to go to rock shows with me, I still love The Ramones, The Misfits and The Dead Milkmen.

Old school Joe Jack Talcum. (From the artist's Facebook.)

So, you can imagine that I was all types of happy to go see Joe Jack Talcum at 37th and Zen this past Friday the 13th. It had been 18 years since I had seen Joe Jack, who was then performing with The Dead Milkmen. I had seen The Milkmen three times prior to that show. They were a barely-musical-not-really-easy-to-listen-to band, a band I would put in my own made-up musical category of “Totally Unnecessary Music.”

I was fortunate enough to have a roommate in the late 1980’s who not only wore the same size clothes as me but appreciated similar loud totally unnecessary music, danced like an idiot, and indulged in occasional self-alterations through chemistry. Our fair share of rock shows were not so much excuses to pose and dress up, but to sweat and scream and drink, which was easy because in the mid-late 80’s Ohio’s drinking age for beer was 19. We were lucky enough to live in a big college town with a few precious music venues that had live bands seven nights a week (which are the key to making a local music scene thrive, by the way).

It was our own gilded age for punk as budding alcoholics, and live music venues took advantage of loose libation laws. The many willing participants were lovingly devoted to using Kool Aid as hair dye, and were willing to save up for a pair of expensive Greasy Black Doc Martens (still the best shoes). Even though we now live 500+ miles apart, she would have been at the Joe Jack Talcum show at Zen, but she was at the Black Keys show in Columbus.

From a 1987 show in Mass. (Photo | Bruce W. Siart)

Thankfully I have managed to acquire a husband who will scream, dance, and act like an idiot with me, probably because he had been living a similar 80’s punk existence waaaaay out west. It’s important to have someone who knows where you’re coming from at a show like Joe Jack Talcum or you may just end up looking like a total raving idiot.

Which is a long winded way of explaining why 37th and Zen is a venue that is, well, for me, uhh… problematic. Don’t get me wrong it’s a nice place… a very nice place. The staff is very nice, the bathrooms are clean, and though parking isn’t ample it is easy enough to find a spot. It is a nice place. Nice. But I am not so sure a rock venue feel nice. Rock isn’t nice. Punk rock certainly isn’t. I was distracted by the precious ambient lighting and ruminated over who would be the first person to bang a head right into the golden Starbuckishcafe cafe lights.

Maybe it’s the mom in me. Maybe I’m too midwestern. But I like my rock clubs a little more forbidding. I’m old school like that. I want to know that there is a difference between a bagel shop and a rock club (exception made for the Jewish Mother and Bernie’s Bagels in Columbus, which both somehow manage to be great Delis and terrific venues). And the crowd was a little too pretty, too. I can’t help but giggle a bit at the three or four Misfits shirts I saw. Do you kids know how old that band is? Glenn Danzig is a marketing genius! That skull logo is a macabre goldmine. I’m managing to stuff the urge to remind these kids that they only way I could procure a Misfits shirt in the 80’s was to go to a show or go to a grungy record store and BUY one from a nasty employee who was about as approachable as a nun with shingles.

OK, Who am I to judge? I was there to see a show… but first the opening bands. So there were two bands before JJT:

Shinerunner and The Unabombers. Shinerunner was cute and I’m not just saying that because the singer’s Mom was in the audience. I hope that they: a) keep playing out and b) that they never play that “love till you die” song. Take a hint from The Unabombers and play songs that say stuff like “Burn it Down.” And please, no screaming… you’ll get those nodes on your vocal chords, you really will.

On the other hand, The Unabombers were not cute. They were, instead, great. Starting the show by saying, “If you’re not feeling good right now, you’re doing this shit wrong…” is a great idea. And kudos to the crowd for moshing a bit, with extra kudos to the club owners for letting the crowd get away with it. It’s a punk rock show, not grandma’s living room. As my friend Jodi always says “it’s not a party until you get sticky.”

Joe @ Zen (Photo | Dave Munoz)

I did get a chance to talk a bit with Joe Jack. I told him that a mutual Philly friend of ours is doing well and after the sad suicide of fellow Milkman David Schulthise (Dave Blood) in 2004, it’s important to touch base. He also graciously signed a CD of mine and one for my 16 year old. I know that there were other Dead Milkmen fans there. They were the other OLD people in the room. Old, fat, happy, bald and dancing. For as inane as that music is, as stupid and unnecessary as the Dead Milkmen were, they struck a deep, serious chord in the teflon age of Ronald Reagan for me in a way that Fugazi and Bad Brains never did.

And in a strange twisted way, their music is more relevant than ever. In the middle of the show, my husband said that JJT reminded him of “a idiot Jonathan Richman.” Whatever. He’s old and balding. Still, I went home with the warm fuzzy cynical feeling that has kept me going all these years. I’ll be back to 37th and Zen in the future. While it’s in walking distance of my house, I’m really waiting for the day someone cracks their head open on those hanging lights and I’ll be there with a box of band aids in one hand and beer in the other.