Guest Blog By Todd Ainsworth

By the time I heard that Ice-T was going to play the RKCNDY, I had been listening to him since “Power”, which came out in 1989; along with Public Enemy, NWA and others. Some of my “Rock Only” friends looked at me sideways and wondered why. I knew I was going to see Ice-Motherfucking-T!

You might remember the uproar over “Cop Killer” and the attention it got from then president, George Bush. Not “Mission Accomplished” George, but, “Read My Lips”, George. The chain of events that led to that song being banned and deleted from future copies of the Body Count Album are worth revisiting, if you are interested in how business, politics, religious groups and the First Amendment are thrown into a blender. The record company removed the CD from the shelves until they re-released it with out the “offending” song.

I still have my original pressing copy of the CD, complete with “Cop Killer” on it.

But I digress.

I had 2 tickets and as the day of the show came around, I was reaching out to my list of usual suspects until I talked to my good friend, partner in crime and guitarist for several metal bands ( more on that in a future article ), Russ, and told him, “Your’e coming with me tonight to see Ice-T.

There were 2 shows and our tickets were for the late show. We showed up and got in line along the sidewalk. As the early show got out people were streaming out, chanting “Fuck the police!”.

Russ and I looked at each other with shit eating-grins and said to ourselves, “This is going to be awesome!”

It wasn’t long before some guy ( lets call him “Douche” ) pulls around the corner in his newer Corvette, blasting out “Cop Killer”, with the convertible top down…right down the street in front of the club where we were standing…dropping the hammer and roasting the tires in a smoky haze…when he had to suddenly stop because of traffic waiting for the red light. That’s when a bicycle cop pedals up to him and makes him pull over to write him up. All of us on the street had a great laugh. The doors opened and we made our way in. It was perfectly ironic.

Ice-T opened up the show with “regular” stuff from his albums. The crowd was packed tight against the raised stage. RKCNDY’s stage was probably just under four feet tall and some of the band’s posse – including some women in very short skirts – were standing off to the side. Apparently, they didn’t realize that at that height, it was pretty easy for us on the floor to see that there was no underwear under those miniskirts!

After the first set was over, and an intermission, they came back on stage – with some variation in musicians – as Body Count. The room was sweaty and ready for Ice-T’s brand of Metal and we were moshing around to the point of Ice just looking like he wasn’t expecting this kind of reaction!

One chick got herself on stage and went back by the drums. Ice was just standing aside at this point and looking on, speechless. She swipes her feet a couple of times on the ground – like a bull getting ready to charge – and gets a running start to the edge, and just flies out into the crowd, who dutifully stood by to catch her. She took 3-4 guys down with her. Ice-T was laughing his ass off and just looked dazed…he stopped to say Seattle has the ” Craziest Motherfuckers I ever seen!” The show went on with some more stage diving, including yours truly; we exited the club chanting “Fuck The Police!”

Now, more than 27 years later, the RKCNDY is long gone, Ice-T has had a great acting career and reality series. I’m pretty sure that night was my last real stage dive. I still drive by there fairly often and can’t help but smile, thinking about all the great times we shared ( not just at RKCNDY ) now only existent in our memories.

Thanks for reading and there’s more to come…Rock On!

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