Pearl Fat

I used to love to collect show flyers when I was back in high school and keep a collection in a scrapbook. The flyer below has to be one of my all time favorites for a number of reasons and their is a pretty good story that goes a long with it. The flyer is from a Scarlett's show from around the early nineties and from my estimation that would make me a freshman or sophomore in high school. Around this time m friends and I had just discovered punk from some of the older kids in our school. I remember buying my first Descendents cassette at Play It Again around this time and getting whatever was recommended to me by the McCallums or their friends. We didn't really know a whole lot at this point, but were really into it. Our friends were in Aisle Nine who were pretty much a pop punk band until later on in their career when they took a more political slant on things. I'm not exactly sure how Plow made it on this bill, seeing as they were really the only legitimate band playing the show, but another reason I like the flyer is that it is before their name change to Plow United. The Natural Disasters, if I remember correctly, were made up of some big dudes who went to Liberty High School with us and pretty much played bad classic rock and Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, etc. They could actually play their instruments too, which was a big negative. And of course their was the almighty Palace of Meat. They basically worshiped all things GG Allin and had hilarious songs titles and were a complete mess.

Most members of the bands all went to the same high school and things started buzzing around mid-week that one of the members of Palace had made a special flyer for the show. The flyer depicted one of the members of the Natural Disasters in an unflattering picture and apparently word had gotten out to him and he was pissed. I can't remember who had the flyers at lunch the one day, but we crowded around to check out the flyer. At first I didn't think anything of it. It had a bunch of monsters drawn on it and said something about the Ick with the band names on it. Then it was folded over to reveal the flyer's genius. When folded over it revealed the message "Rick is Gay" and a drawing of Rick complete with a Pearl Fat t-shirt, flys buzzing under his armpit, and standard chain wallet that Rick always sported. . The drawing was dead on and we could not stop cracking up. Adding to the controversy was the fact that Rick was at least six two, two hundred plus and thought he was the man when it came to music or anything in general. I somehow convinced either someone from Palace or Aisle Nine to give me a copy.

The whole week was spent discussing the different rumors, threats and jokes that were going around about the show; in other words, a great week, especially for someone who hated high school. Of course, things were anti-climactic, the show went off with little or no drama, but I am glad that I snagged one of those flyers for my collection.

Unfolded:


Folded: