Eighties Insanity: Episode Two--"Rockers on a Half-Shell"

Do you remember your first concert? From pop junkies to teenyboppers, the first band you see live becomes an irrevocable part of your childhood, an unshakable testament to the first time you really moved beyond listening to Raffi on a “My First Sony” and joined the ranks of people who could rattle off a “top five” of favorite bands without thinking. (Elvis Costello and the Attractions, The Beatles, The Cars, The Who, Led Zeppelin.—Ed.) There are as many first concert experiences as there are music elitists; maybe your parents took you out to Jones Beach to see Bon Jovi, or maybe you waited until you were in seventh grade to see Hanson at The Beacon. As much as I’d like to tout Bouncing Souls at Coney Island High or Les Savy Fav kicking me in the head at CBGB, I have a deep, dark secret lingering in October of 1990. That’s where my first concert is holding court on a half-shell.

My first concert was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Coming Out of Their Shells tour.

Now, I know the Turtles phenomenon seems incredibly stupid from our vantage point in the mid-naughts, but it was truly all the rage back then. Anyone who was between, say, five and fifteen at the turn of the decade can attest that nothing was as cool as these four wise-cracking amphibians who inexplicably learned their ninja skills from a gigantic talking rat. While I still hold a rather impressive amount of admiration for these characters, I’ve begun to think that the ancillary pieces of the franchise were what brought kids screaming to the Turtles, and not the characters themselves. After all, the toys were numerous and incredible (well, all of them except Leatherhead), and the video games weren’t the usual rushed crap we were used to associating with licensed products. You know as well as I that all the money we spent playing TMNT: The Arcade Game could have probably ended poverty in America or balanced the federal budget or built a wall around Mexico or something. The toys, games, and bedspreads were a damn sight better than anything allotted to Toxic Crusaders or Widget or Teen Wolf, and that’s probably what kept the series on longer than any of its competition.

So we all presumably stuck around for all the goodies that would come from the TV series, and the live concert Turtles might have been the greatest of all these treats. I still remember entering a near-empty Radio City Music Hall on the last day of their tour in New York, guided by my father to the first row mezzanine in order to grab the best seat in the house. (That’s one of the great things about being a fifth-generation New Yorker—if you don’t know all of the ins-and-outs of any given place, there’s a good chance your immediate family does.) I perused the souvenir program over and over again waiting for the show to begin, studying all of the portraits which were rendered in that oh-so-nineties pixilated style. Around the seventieth time I read the article on how much Donatello loves playing the Keytar, the lights dimmed and a strange voice boomed over the Radio City sound system—

When there’s music inside of you, someday you know it’s got to come through. . .

A blast of fog as they came rising from beneath the stage. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Granted, this phenomenon had also happened when my dad had taken me to see the first performance of the Moscow Circus in the US, but these were the Turtles! Live! On stage! Who cared that they were Bedazzled-out more than Homer’s “Disco Stu” jacket? Donatello was there, and he was totally rocking out on a Keytar! I was transfixed from word one, especially since “word one” was here represented by one of the catchiest opening ballads that one could ever hope to hear out of a quartet of three-fingered cartoons. Seriously, kids, “Out of Our Shells” rivals at least Warrant or early-stage Extreme, if not Van Hagar.

Out of our shells. . .we’re coming out of our shells. . .

Anything could happen from this point. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Sam Rockwell, reprising his role as “Douchebag #2” from the first TMNT movie, had entered from Stage Left doing cartwheels while Eastman and Laird set fire to a pile of hundred dollar bills. This event would not have seemed out of place, because the Turtles were real and they were here in Radio City Music Hall right now. So of course they took this opportunity to shill their album, which was only available at Pizza Hut.

Those bastards. This announcement was particularly offensive to me for two reasons. First of all, I lived in New York, and there were no Pizza Huts on any part of Manhattan. We have the best pizza in the world, so you’d have to be a complete putz to want a pie from a chain store. Secondly, they had already sold all of them, which I was not aware of until I was informed by another kid at school who had attempted to track this cassette tape to the end of the Earth. If the advertisement for Pizza Hut wasn’t enough to annoy me, there was a sudden change in the concert. Instead of hearing the Turtles sing their songs, which had been more than satisfactory for this star-struck boy, we got a side-story involving April losing her voice through the implementation of the same sort of ground effects you’d find on a Datsun, and an appearance by the world’s gayest representation of Shredder. I remember distinctly thinking this guy reminded me of “the man who sings the song which helps Flash save the world,” which meant that I thought Shredder was played by Freddie Mercury. All due respect to Queen, but you’ll understand if I wanted Shredder to get out of the way so that Donatello could rock his Keytar a bit longer. And don’t even get me started on the April plotline; I already didn’t like her as much as the Turtles, being that I didn’t care for girl characters who didn’t serve on the bridge of the Enterprise, but my distaste was compounded by the fact that this woman was obviously not April and by the part of the show where she begged the entire audience to clap so that they could break the machine and she could get her voice back or some junk. Now, I don’t know if it’s the fact that I had some disastrous encounters with audience participation when I was a kid (thanks, Bob McAllister), but I hate when I feel obligated to do something from my seat in the audience to keep the performance going. I don’t care if Tinkerbell dies; don’t get in my face about not clapping. I also will not clap to get April’s voice back, especially since she’s not Paige Turco, and especially since her song sucked.

Anyway, the show got back on track with Skipping Stones, Splinter’s chance to front the band and present a ballad which was just this side of Corey Hart. I remember not being as into this song as I should have been, mostly because I was eagerly awaiting the return of Donatello, but it’s the most vivid memory I have of the show. I have no idea why this number lodged itself in my brain much longer than the totality of the “Tubin’” and “Sing About It” segments, but “Skipping Stones” is today one of my favorite songs performed by the Turtles.

All things change as time goes by, moving onto bigger seas and not quite knowing why. . .

The heroes on a half-shell were back with a vengeance when they showed up to perform “No Treaties.” Basically an excuse to fire off pyrotechnics indoors, “No Treaties” carries the jingoistic sentiments of the last throes of the Cold War. You’ll find that most of the rockers of this period contained a “fuck all of our enemies because we’re totally wicked awesome” message, and this one is no exception. Declaring that there will be “no treaties after the war,” the Turtles finally grab their weapons and prepare to kick unholy Shredder ass. No letting Casey Jones strike the killing blow this time; it’s all TMNT, all the time. Man, if only our fictional characters had this sort of outlook today. I still think the first Iraq War lasted three whole seconds because we were still so jazzed that we brought the Berlin Wall down, and our music reflected this same self-centered elitism. The War on Terror would be over right now if we just ditched whiny pissants like the jackoff from Bright Eyes and hip-hop screamers like T.I. in favor of over-the-top arena rockers. Gary Cherone, I’m looking at you.

Anyway, the Turtles solve it all with a trendy hip-hop song, and a young boy goes away with his first taste of live pop music and of the legendary Radio City Music Hall. Six years will go by before the kid dives into “the scene” fully, and by that point his obsessions will range far and wide, bringing him face-to-face with every act from Gary Wright to Le Tigre. He’ll never forget that autumn day in Manhattan, gripping his father’s hand as they climb the arching staircases of that wondrous palace. Nothing will ever match that sensation.