i swear i get this weird indescribable wave of electric deja-vu every time i even hear that name Medusa's. so strange. enough time has gone by that i now know that i don't miss anything more than that place. there's no person place or thing that can replace it.
i can push play on any of the 4 tracks above and i swear i can smell (and taste) the fog machine there. Ministry's You Know What You Are or the 1st 30 seconds of the last track Push by The Invincible Spirit would possess me like the Exorcist. i can't really explain it in words. The force of it in a proper club setting was just so dense & powerful it made me want to break shit. i wanted to run out the front door to one of the local houses in the neighborhood and piss on their front door. i wanted to be every mother's worst fucking nightmare.
But i digress because it really was about the quality & originality of the content i encountered in that place. it wasn't like i could hop on the internet and find it on random cyber corners with the click of a mouse.
It was truly obscure because simply put: IT WAS THE FUTURE and (most) everyone was definitely not invited OR welcomed.
people from the cock rock scene would ask me why i never ONCE came over to hang out with them and my only answer was: BECAUSE YOU'RE IN THE WRONG PLACE WRONG SCENE WRONG SETTING WRONG MUSIC WRONG CLOTHES WRONG HAIR WRONG WOMEN WRONG ATTITUDE WRONG EVERYTHING.
and time has proven that to be correct. whereas that cock rock scene died a death the spawns born from and because of this scene like Trent Reznor & Marilyn Manson still exist to this day. but also remember when Brian Warner is interviewing My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult (from this same scene) before he ever formed and became Marilyn Manson that occurs AFTER all of this. none of us are like HIM. he's like US with no disrespect intended.
a variety of bands like D.A.F., Die Krupps, Skinny Puppy, Nitzer Ebb, Ministry, Front 242 & The Invincible Spirit (and others i won't try to present a complete list) were already fully established but everyone else was late to this particular party. all i know is there was a notable period for a year or two where i walked in and out of Medusa's each week and no one on the planet had ever uttered the words Nine Inch Nails including Trent Reznor himself.
to me & this is my opinion i know people who actually know their shit will start dropping names like Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA, Nocturnal Emissions, Whitehouse, Nurse With Wound, SPK, Leather Nun, Big Black and a bunch of others but whereas they had the concept and vibe down they didn't have the songs. Not one of those bands had any body of work no matter how rebellious, deliberately obnoxious, or unique they attempted to be that could stand up to the visceral intensity of The Land of Rape & Honey from start to finish. all those bands and anyone else can say anything they want about Al but he kicked all their asses by that point.
there were only two distinct groups in this corner of the musical world by/in 1987: AL and EVERYONE ELSE.
i invented OMG that night. didn't ya know ????
i wanted to combust.
when Medusa's would close at 2AM we would move the party to the infamous Pink Palace Motel located on the not-so-glamorous South Side about 15-20 minutes outside of the "city" city. 10 or so of us would chip in $6-7 dollars and rent a room until checkout the next day at 11. we had to take what we could get but if it was available i always preferred the room with the space pod bed. The red velour room with the heart-shaped bed was always a reliable runner up.
DISCLAIMER: it's not quite the same seeing it in this picture with the lights on. that's not the place i visited. besides who turns on the lights in a seedy sex motel except for the asshole who snapped this picture ??? not me said the proper degenerate so turn off the fucking lights, let's climb in the tub fully clothed, crack that bottle, put a shitty beer chaser in my other hand, and if you've got something else to ingest we can discuss that as well. THANKS.
Medusa's left the world (and it seemed like such a sudden death at the time) RIGHT after that "Kurt Cobain" thing and it never slept with any of those whores known as MySpace or FagBook or Twitter or Instagram or cell phones. no lame cracker ever "checked in" for their social network and not one photo was ever tagged.
in fact now that i consider it i can not think of anything lamer than being some asshole walking around that place taking pictures with a bunch of other assholes mugging for the camera making peace and metal signs. the LAST thing on my mind would have been oh wait i need to go grab my camera before we jumped in the car & headed out.
that's the come-lately thinking of some social network wannabe who would have been too intimidated to enter at that time in REAL history if truth be told. besides who would i have needed to show what happened ?? everyone who needed to know would have been standing right there with me.
funny thing is there was never any real danger. once inside you would have encountered some of the kindest most intelligent individuals who operated like a true tribe for the one real agenda at hand which was having the BEST time but no one wanted the wrong people to KNOW that...and the shaved heads, combat boots, and not-so-smily faces never hindered the process either.
the social media LOOK AT ME ME ME roaches never got to ruin this place like they ruin every great secret now. it will always be pure and free of those come-lately STDs and politically correct worms and that pleases me.
at least for me Traxx at 63rd & Pulaski would replace Medusa's for a little while. it was great for what it was. along with a few familiar faces i met a whole new gang of characters (those people you knew but never EVER saw in the light of any day) but it was also in no-man's-land too far from the city to make a proper dent so it was never quite the same.
