If you think that performance venues are nothing but safe spaces where snowflakes are being coddled by their fellow social-justice warriors, check this shit out: Motherfuckers are literally giving themselves enemas on stage out here. At least, one guy did at Houston’s AvantGarden last Friday, throwing the venue into chaos and ruining a benefit for an artist with cancer.
Houston Press has the whole weird saga, as told by AvantGarden owner Mariana Lemesoff and the enema-giver himself, Michael Clemmons. According to Lemesoff, midway through the event, “Bowl of Ice Cream Benefit Show #1,” she received a text from one of the venue’s bartenders saying, “it stinks in here. What’s going on?” What was going on is that musical duo Sonic Rabbit Hole were on stage, and that they had added a new element of “performance art” to their set—namely, singer Michael Clemmons giving himself a chocolate muscle-milk enema on stage. And as he evacuated, so did the audience.
After a confrontation with one of the venue’s employees, Clemmons and his bandmate William Foisy left AvantGarden, allegedly breaking a window with one of their amps in the process. (They say a member of another band broke it in an argument.) The police were called to the scene of the scatological crime, but it was far too late. The show ended early, the benefit fell well short of its fundraising goal, and the staff not only missed out on tips, but they had to stay late cleaning up Clemmons’ mess.
Lemesoff says that she would never have approved this particular piece of “performance art,” but Clemmons disputes this version of events. “We had gotten booked as a band, but we told them that we were doing performance art, and they said that was perfectly okay,” he says. “We had this sort of piece that we’d been sort of joking around [with] for a while. So we decided to make that a reality.” He also says that what everyone else involved is saying was poop was actually protein-shake drippings and a stink bomb, and that he found out that the event was a benefit shortly before the show but “when I set my mind to do something, I do it.” So yeah, maybe don’t book these guys for your kid’s birthday party. Or at all.