Nerd Pride Radio

In a year in which David Bowie and Prince have died, it's perhaps weird that John Stabb's death has hit me harder than either of them. His music just meant more to me. But it's not just that. His music was certainly excellent, but it was also his character and attitude that impressed me. A man much more skilled with words than me (one of my heroes, J. Robbins) said this about Stabb: "If the great value of punk is that it gives misfits and weirdos permission to be who they truly have it in themselves to be, and to create the beauty that they carry inside them which would otherwise die, drowned in the current of the mainstream, I can think of no example more perfect or singular than John Stabb. You literally changed my life, John, more than once in fact. Sweet and fearless weirdo. I will be grateful to you forever." I may never do that--I may never be comfortable with myself or let any beauty out--but Stabb and others like him made me think it was possible.

I came to punk later than most--around 20. And I didn't fit many of the ideas of what a punk should be--I certainly never dressed the part. But the idea that punk is about being your weird self is what grabbed me. Stabb lived that. In the early 80s, in reaction to the increasingly rigid punk "rules," he began to wear lime leisure suits and outrageous flower prints on stage. And he poked good-natured fun at punk's tendency towards self-importance. In response to the at times very pretentious Revolution Summer in D.C. in '85, he called for "Degradation Winter." And he rejected violent asshole, even when he could have been beaten up for it--for example he once told a huge skinhead to go home and burn all of his GI records because Stabb didn't want a racist idiot liking his music. And everyone who dealt with him said he was a genuinely nice person.

I never met the man, and I never saw him perform live. But he meant a lot to me. I still can't believe he's dead. This one is hitting me harder than Bowie or Prince, even if only a few thousand people know who he was.

To make matters worse, some of his musician friends scheduled a benefit concert to help defray the costs of his cancer treatment. The show is tonight, the day after he died. I don't if they'll perform or not; I hope they do so as a celebration of the man.

Goodbye, John Stabb Schroeder.

"In October of 1988, Ignition did a show with Government Issue and NOFX in a gymnasium in Lincoln, Nebraska. There was a neo-Nazi “safehouse” not far away, populated by desperate skinheads from all over the country. Many of them came to the show, bumrushing the door and doing their best to intimidate folks in the crowd. They did not enjoy being directly mocked from the stage by John Stabb. A half dozen skins were about to drag him outside after the set, presumably to communicate their displeasure in the only way they knew how. I somehow got in between them and him and distracted them long enough for John to get away. It happened fast and didn’t seem like a big deal to me at the time, but he never stopped thanking me for “saving his life” that one time in Lincoln."

This was a really nice line from farther above:

"Everybody dies, but not everyone truly lives. John Stabb lived to the fullest. We can all be inspired. To really honor his legacy, seize the day and be yourself. Listen to every kind of music. Have fun."

This seems like another one of those situations where the death hits hard because even though one might not know the person "personally", he represented some kind of freedom and creativity we seldom seem to encounter in the world anymore, and when such a person goes it seems like the world gets smaller and less free and beautiful.