Punk Chairs

Essay for MYTO by Konstantin Grcic 
Edited by Anniina Koivu 
Abitare 476 October 2007 

A stocky, Mexican, teenage rocker thrashes around the dance floor. In a tantrum he kicks and punches, he’s an indiscernible cluster of torn jeans, greasy black hair, flannel shirt and creeper shoes. He barely avoids a collision with the only other guy dancing, a raging Texan; enormous, bald, twenty-something, in cowboy boots and overalls.

The band is playing next to them and the female lead singer is shouting, “I’m gonna burn, burn your house down!” Loud pulses of garage-punk emit from the band’s mess of cables, angry faces, rigid arm movements and sticker-covered instruments. 

The thrashing on the dance floor grows more intense. The Mexican rocker spins out of control and knocks into a table, sending a glass ashtray shattering to the ground just next to the booth where Konstantin is seated. As he dances the Texan kicks over the microphone stand and it delivers a shriek of feedback. The Mexican picks up a sturdy wooden chair in his hands and shakes it violently, stomping the chair’s legs on the floor in pace with the drums. He jumps, the chair falls, he kicks it, picks it up and then he wipes out on the floor. Again the Texan kicks the microphone stand – more loud feedback. The chair stands by itself and the Mexican is dancing wildly around it. 

Konstantin and I exchange a glance but say nothing. We are both impressed with the energy, the chair and the rockers. It continues. The Texan has now begun dancing with a different chair. Picking it up he points its legs away from him like arms and together they push forwards and backwards. The band leads one song straight into another, the dancing rockers and their chairs keep going and they all form a throng of loud sweaty chaos. 

Dimly lit pool table lights and a neon Budweiser sign cast their glow on a wall lined with full-scale posters of bikini calendar girls. I am attempting to make a movie with my camera, which I’ll later realize is only capturing noise because Joe’s Bar is so dark. Since the bar seems like it could easily host a bar fight, I’m careful not to point the camera for to long at the truck drivers playing pool or the locals seated at the bar. During this three day vacation in Texas we have observed that all bars have signs posted at their entrance forbidding firearms indoors, and this makes us slightly nervous. 

The band has stopped playing and is now packing up their gear. They announce that they are selling merchandise and Konstantin buys their CD. We learn that the punk band is called Sparkle Motion and are from Austin, Texas. Tired and satisfied the Mexican sits on the chair. 

Unlike Le Corbusier’s “human-limb-objects”, which he describes as “docile”, “discreet” and “self-effacing” servants to their human masters, the punk-chairs at Joe’s bar have conspicuously strong personalities and through aggressive animation they become active characters. I remember the lyrics of Elvis’ Jail House Rock: “don’t you be no square, if you can’t find a partner grab a wooden chair” It is clear that chairs still make good dancing partners.