How to Photograph a Cancer Christ Show in Twelve Steps

1) SNAKE MOMMA WANDERS THROUGH THE AUDIENCE WITH A “GOD H8S COP$” SIGN

You adjust your camera strap and check your exposure settings. They’re good so you join a group of people milling around the driveway of the party house and see a woman emerge holding a sign that reads GOD H8S COP$. She’s wearing a nun’s habit and a snake mask. Her breasts are exposed with black “X’es” taped over each of her nipples. This is Snake Momma. You take a few pics and try to be modest remembering that, in real life, she’s Saint Anthony’s wife. All of this feels like sin but you say fuck it. It’s a Cancer Christ show.

2) THE ECSTASY BEFORE THE ONSLAUGHT

A man lights fireworks in the driveway. You jump. The crowd cheers. You take a picture. Snake Momma saunters past you with her sign and mounts the stage at the back of the party house’s garage. The garage is decorated with red Christmas lights. It smells like cigarettes, beer and sweat. All around you people are yelling. You stretch your quads to prepare for the onslaught. Church is now in session.

3) THE PROCESSION BEGINS

Speakers blast church organ music. You watch a line of people covered in blood and wearing snake masks emerge from the other end of the driveway. Their hands are in an unusual prayer position with palms clasped and middle fingers extended upward. You aim your camera and click the shutter. The snake people bow their heads as they pass. You bow back. You check the photos to see how they came out. Blood and tattoos fill the frames.

4) THE SNAKES TAKE THE STAGE

The snakes climb onto the stage and gather their instruments – guitars, bass, drums and a keyboard. People pack themselves into the garage. You take a test shot to make sure your flash is calibrated correctly. This may be your last time to do so before the volcano of music erupts. Your anus puckers at the thought.

5) SAINT ANTHONY EMERGES

A towering figure in priestly garb appears from the back of the driveway. This is Saint Anthony. He has a robust beard, holds a Bible over his head and is wearing a cassock covered in blood. He reminds you of a demonic Santa Claus. People in the crowd scream and push one another. You catch an elbow to the neck. Fawk! It stings. You keep photographing.

Anthony waves his arm across the dancefloor and looks at the crowd. Like a good front man he projects manic energy. His eyes are intense but gazing into them you feel calm in a way you haven’t in weeks. How is this possible? The world outside this garage is falling apart. With climate change, systemic racism, democracy in crisis, homelessness, income inequality, opioid deaths, covid, inflation and all sorts of other evil real life shit weighing you down, you wonder why you’re out late at night photographing a band that is pure chaos and makes you feel slightly sacrilegious. But Anthony knows more than you. He is in control now. The crowd is his cauldron and he knows how to stir it.

6) SAINT ANTHONY MOUNTS THE STAGE

He grabs the microphone as the organ music stops. You take a picture and feel an elbow needling you in the ribs. Saint Anthony then screams into the mic, “WELCOME TO THE CHURCH OF CANCER CHRIST MY CHILDREN! LET’S FUCKING GO!” You catch a boot to your hip and grit your teeth.

7) THE SERVICE BEGINS

Crushing guitar riffs fill the garage. The crowd starts writhing around the dancefloor in a frenzy. Anthony sings, “HAIL! CHRIST!” You hold your camera above your head and furiously click the shutter. Caught between two fat metalheads who pump their fists to the music, you pray that you can frame a picture of the band. Anthony rips pages from the Bible and throws them into the air. He then aims a crucifix at the crowd like a gun. For a moment it points to you and you swear you can feel your eyebrows singe.

8) RAPTURE

And this is the moment when Cancer Christ goes from mere band to ecstatic experience. Nothing else exists right now except this show. You feel impious. You feel guilty. You love it. People are sloshing around the pit as if it’s the last one they’ll ever be in. Everything starts shaking and, this being Los Angeles, you think it’s an earthquake. But then you realize that it’s the people around you who are vibrating, not the floor. Your feet involuntarily lift off the ground and you feel yourself turning horizontal. It’s getting hard to breathe. Your vision is going black. You imagine the crowd peeling your body from the floor at the end of the night after you give up and let the world finally grind you down. This is as good a place as any to die.

Not today, Satan! Everyone else is here for a break from all the horrible shit in the world too. This was why punk rock started. It’s about slam dancing with people who are just as fed up with everything as you. Fall down? They’ll pick you up. Take an elbow to the ribs? You’ll recover. Catch a boot to the head? It’s all love. Cancer Christ is the vessel for that passion. The crowd will follow Anthony to the punk mountaintop tonight and so will you. The photos are merely icing on the cake. It’s really about being here.

9) RUN YOUR TONGUE ALONG THE BACK OF YOUR TEETH TO MAKE SURE THEY’RE STILL THERE AND THANK GOD YOU’RE STILL ALIVE

“SATAN IS A BITCH!” Saint Anthony screams into microphone. You click the shutter, click the shutter, click the shutter. Then you lean against the meatball metalhead behind you and hope he doesn’t fall backwards. A spot in the pit opens up. You see the concrete floor of the garage beneath is littered with pages from the Bible. You take a picture. The music ends. The show does not.

10) THE BAPTISM

You run your hands from knees to neck, checking for injuries. You find some spots that will turn into bruises tomorrow but otherwise you’re fine. Bleary eyed, the crowd disperses through a haze of evaporating sweat and body odor. Some people wobble as if they’re leaving bed after hot sex. Your legs feel like putty too. You smile, relieved that you’re alive, but there’s more.

The crowd moves outside to the driveway. You follow and arrive at a coffin-sized metal basin full of water. Saint Anthony stands beside it. A group of photographers and onlookers surround him. He’s holding a Bible over his head. You pry your way in and get a good spot.

“WHO IS READY TO BE BAPTIZED IN THE CHURCH OF CANCER CHRIST?” Anthony says.

A woman with dyed orange hair, oversized sunglasses and tattoos up and down her arms approaches from the crowd. She steps into the metal bin, sits down and folds her arms across her chest. Anthony smiles and the yells.

“THREE.”

The crowd screams. You focus your camera.

“TWO.”

The woman takes a deep breath. You do too.

“ONE!”

You bite your lip and tense up for the shot. This is it! Anthony presses her into the water.

11) REBIRTH

You exhale with a gasp and photograph furiously as a phalanx of camera flashes pop around you. The crowd lets out an ecstatic roar. More, more, more! You can’t get enough. Anthony pulls the woman up into the air and screams.

“HALLELUJAH!”

She waves her hands. You click the shutter. Fill the frame! Fill the frame! She stands up, sopping wet but with a smile, and hugs Anthony. You keep clicking away. She turns to the photographers and smiles. The camera flashes bathe her in light. She glows. Your finger starts to hurt because you’re photographing so much.

12) THE NIGHT ENDS

And then night really does end. It’s two in the morning. Anthony disappears. The woman who was baptized talks to her friends and drips water all over the driveway. You pack up your camera and run your tongue along the back of your teeth again. They’re all still there. The bruises covering your body will hurt in the morning but not until then.

Your legs feel wobbly as you walk back to your car. Listening to the ambient noise of South LA, your mind is a sea of tranquility. Then you think of the show and are frozen by an absurd thought. The ripped out Bible pages and crucifix gun feel like sin. But how sinful could a Cancer Christ set really be if it brings you peace? Some find ecstasy in church pews, others at punk shows. You laugh out loud and resume walking.

If God doesn’t have a sense of humor then you are doomed. But you think She does.