Fuck DORK the Band

Holy shit everyone I'm FEUDING with a band on Warped Tour. This whole saga with me and a band called Dork (best known for the song they had in that hit movie "American Pie: Band Camp," yeah the one with none of the original cast and went straight to DVD) started off in an email I wrote.

Dear Dork the Band,

I am a 16 year old kid currently getting a band off of the ground rather quickly. I live in Arvada as well, and in previous bands have played at one of my personal favorite venues, Rock Island. I was told that you guys are in the process of suing the club on the grounds that a member of your band was pushed by a bouncer during your CD release show. Quite frankly guys, that's fucked up.

Because I just moved here a year ago, I wasn't aware that you guys were a local band and thought that the little incident was just a tour show. When I found out that you guys were from Arvada I was disgusted. Your band is going on the Warped Tour and you have to sue (and possibly close in doing so) Rock Island, one of the only clubs in Denver that will book smaller bands, and therefore totally fuck up the entire scene's support for upstart bands trying to get out there. Because you guys are from Arvada, I was hoping you would understand how important Rock Island is for forming bands like the one I have, and how much fun it is to play there, and you're just going to get it closed because you're a bunch of fucking babies. Go back on the Warped Tour (sponsored by Energizer Batteries and Vans! Two of the most corporate companies in this country), get signed, and shit on everyone below you.

Do Denver a favor and don't get Rock Island closed.

-Jesse Cooper

Looking back on the email, sure I may have been a little harsh on the guys. Actually, I retract my previous statement because this is a promo shot of Dork. The band. On Warped Tour.



Oh, haha, I get it. It's one of those gimmick bands that NEVER FUCKING GO ANYWHERE. That guy ALWAYS wears his sweater vest at shows! He wears a bandana but still dresses like the trombone player of a ska band! That guy doesn't even WEAR a shirt! Whoa! Watch out for Dork, the wackiest group of pop-punkers on the planet! Go back to 1999 where your bland excuse for a band might be successful to a generation of people who need an alternative to Limp Bizkit but don't have the intellectual capacity to get Methodrone by The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Dork, however, being the souless over-exposed, tough guy pieces of shit actually had the unmitigated audacity to answer me in email form. It doesn't really bother me that they answered me, it's the fact that this is the response I got.

Jesse,
this really isn't any of your business but you don't know shit. i am only
writing you back because you are from arvada. did you know that one of us
was hit in the head from behind with a flashlight 4 times? did you know that
one of us was jumped by 4 bouncers? did you know that we had issues getting
paid? the only reason I am telling you is because you are in a band and we
wouldn't want this to happen to other bands. don't throw insults my way when
we have paid our dues kid. sorry to be harsh, but nobody should have to go
through that. its offensive to come from a fellow musician.

It's not my fucking business? I'm like two weeks away from booking 8 shows a month in a new band and it's not my business that one of the only clubs in the downtown area that books underage agentless bands is being sued by a bunch of New Found Glory wannabe assholes who are a month away from leaving town to go on the tour that destroyed punk rock as we knew it? One of you was hit in the head with a flashlight FOUR TIMES by the BOUNCERS? Get beat up and robbed by the same group of police twice a week and we can talk about "emotion scarring," you vapid asshole.

What really got my blood a pumpin' was that he actually complains about not being paid. Welcome to being a musician, dummy. None of us ever get paid unless we get invited to go on Warped Tour to play for middle schoolers who didn't get the message that AFI went mainstream and 40 year olds who used to beat off to Joan Jett when they were in college. Nice job on proving that you're a bunch of greedy, money-hungry fucking wasps. To have the balls to tell me that they have "paid their dues" really aggrivates me because I've been through more shit than their whole van full of their horrible members sniffing each other's asses ever will. Fucking up an entire music scene for every upstart band in the city is just counter-productive.

Dork, I encourage you to have a few beers while you're out pandering to eighth graders, get behind the wheel of your van and plow into Rise Against. And while you're at it, kill yourselves.