The third annual Juggalo Day has officially come and gone, and this time it was commemorated by a full weekend of flavor!   The fact that Psychopathic Records decided to move it to a weekend worked out phenomenally for me, and I was officially able to make it out to celebrate my first Juggalo Day!

This year, the festivities all took place in Detroit, Michigan, in what was definitely the coldest climate I’ve been since…well…EVER.  The day before I got there, it was -9°.  When I arrived on Friday, February 20^th, the high was somewhere in the teens.  To give you a point of reference, I left 70° weather in Dallas!  It didn’t matter though, the things that were planned for this weekend were sure to make everything worth it!

My wifey dropped me off at the airport early Friday morning, and including layovers, it took a little over 6 hours for me to get to Detroit.   Joey and his little brother from NC and I were picked up by Coral and Rachel at the Detroit airport.  I was greeted by a car full of honking, screaming ninjas, and I knew it was gonna be one badass weekend!

After getting some food at IHOP (love that place!), we stopped by some of the hotels to hand out Scavenger Hunt lists to those who wanted to participate for fresh prizes, said hi to some of the ninjas we knew who were staying at the Shorecrest, and were out!  We trudged along the snowy roads of the D all the way to the infamous Scrub House.  I have stayed here before for Hallowicked 2013, so I pretty much knew what to expect: utter insanity!

I won’t say much else about the Scrub House because, well, you just need to experience it for yourself. I WILL say thanks to Krissy and Rachel for having an open invite for me, and to Coral and Daniel for getting it all ready for the scrubs to invade Detroit!

After getting everything settled, it was time to head out to the Jack White Theatre at the Masonic Temple for the Big Money Double Feature.  We grabbed all of our gear and made the quick trip there and got ready to head inside.  Before doing that, we put a scavenger hunt flyer on every car in the parking lot in hopes to get some more participants!  At this point, my fingers were past numb.  You could have probably flicked them and snapped off like pretzel sticks…but I’m glad nobody did.

It was time to make our way inside the Masonic Temple, so we grabbed our gear, flyers, and lobster, and headed that way.  Lobster?  Oh, I must have forgotten to mention that the ninjas from North Carolina bought a live lobster at the Boston airport, and decided to tote it around like a pet. They brought him inside without even being second-guessed by security.

The lobster seemed to have a hell of a good time.  I mean we couldn’t really ask, but he was kickin’ it outside of a tank with a bunch of painted-up weirdos, and I’m sure will probably be the subject of an upcoming story from Vice.com, whose journalists seemed genuinely freaked out by it.  These were the same Vice journalists who just finished spending a weekend with Mike Busey.  Go figure.

Several dozen Juggalos were in the lobby hanging out, and I think at that point Big Money Hu$tla$ had already started.  I went to check out the exclusive Juggalo Day merch first, and they had some super fresh spins on classic designs that were ready for ninjas to snatch up!  I caught up with Will Sigler, J-Webb, KG and his girl Barb, Chop, and countless others who were all ready for an epic weekend!

I admittedly didn’t spend much time in the theater.  I would poke my head in and catch a scene or two, but I was having too much fun checking out the rest of the Masonic Temple, hanging out with Juggalos from afar, spreading the word about the scavenger hunt, and just kickin’ it with the Scrubs crew.  I did manage to catch the last half of Big Money Ru$tla$ and thoroughly enjoyed it!  KG and Jumpsteady were great hosts (from what I could tell by their closing statements).  I typically hate going to theaters because there are always going to be obnoxious assholes who can’t stay off their phones or whatever while the movie is playing, but having Juggalos and Juggalettes recite lines at the screen admittedly made watching the Big Money franchise on the big screen a hell of a lot of fun!

Afterwards, ninjas started to clear out of the Jack White Theater, and we did the same.  It was time to hit up the Stay Inn and Shorecrest to kick it with more ninjas, and hand out more scavenger hunt flyers! (It was a little dead earlier.)  We stayed there for an hour or so and then decided to head to the Scrub House.  We planned to go make a visit to our homies from Juggalo Nation in the morning, and we needed some shut-eye for the pinnacle of Juggalo Weekend: The Take Me Home show!

Sleep that night…didn’t happen.  Between the constant thud of bass from downstairs, snoring, random screams, etc, I would be surprised if I actually passed out for more than 10 minutes.  I ended just getting up at around 7:30 Saturday morning, slamming a 5 Hour Energy, and getting ready for the day.  I don’t even remember what time we left the house, but we had to make it to our homies house and back (a 1.5 hour round trip), get some food, stop at the Psychopathic Records office as part of the scavenger hunt, and then be back to the Masonic Temple in time to judge those who entered the hunt!  We were getting updates from various teams throughout the night and right up until the point of tallying points, so we knew the competition would be close!

I’m getting ahead of myself though.  We made it out to Danielle and Dave’s place a little before lunchtime, and hung out with them and their new baby girl, Olive, for probably close to two hours!  They have a nice spread out in the country, and we were honored to have been invited over there to kick it with them for a few hours! They even made us breakfast burritos, and supplied a kitchen sink for a scavenger hunt entry!  Pure Juggalo hospitality!

We had a scavenger hunt to judge, and were running a little behind already.  So after making a quick stop at Psychopathic to leave a love note, it was on to the Masonic Temple!  The Morton’s List crew, the SCRUBS crew, and a team that we dubbed Team Idunno were the only competitors that racked up hundreds of points for our scavenger hunt. That’s not to say that more didn’t partake in the festivities though!  We heard several ninjas say that they started and either got caught up in one of the hunt items, or just eventually gave up thinking they had no chance.

We first tallied up the points for the SCRUBS crew.  They were working alongside us for quite a bit of the previous several hours, though we threw no help their way.  They came in with a tally in the high 300s as far as points go!  A truly valiant effort!

Team Idunno was up next. We asked the two competitors for a team name, and they said “I don’t know”, so that’s what we went with!  For a two person crew, they fuckin’ SCHOOLED it!  They racked up over 300 points themselves!  One of them shaved their eyebrows, and they had several pictures to prove that they had been exploring Detroit to cross items off of the list.  Much props to you guys!

Team Morton’s List won our challenge last year, and they weren’t fuckin’ around about this year’s either!  They came up with over 400 points, and ended up winning the grand prize yet again!  The Listalos just have a crazy drive inside of them that doesn’t allow for second best!  For their efforts, they took home 2 giant 6 foot Dark Carnival Tarot banners, the butcher’s apron that Violent J wore during their 2004 Dark Lotus performance at the Gathering, a DC Tarot deck, a Bluntman charm, and I know that there were some other goodies in the mix too!

After taking a shitload of pics of all of the contestants, it was just after 4 PM.  It was a clusterfuck trying to get into the Masonic Temple to see the JCW show, so we just decided to go get some grub and check back in about an hour.  That day, we went to Bucharest Grill which was fucking INCREDIBLE, and cheap too!  We’re talking 5 bucks for a shawarma, which I had no idea what it was before this trip.  The line was out the door, we waited for at least a half hour, and there was no room to eat inside (so we just ate in the car)…but it was all worth it!  There’s your free plug, Bucharest!

By around 5 PM, we got back to the Masonic Temple and walked right in!  We dropped off our case of canned goods, and I got my photo pass for the night which was right next to the donation table.  There were PILES and PILES of cans as you walked through the door.  Good shit too!  Ravioli, canned lasagna, Spaghetti-Os…not a single can of Lima beans was seen!  Much props to the Juggalos and Juggalettes who took that to heart, and donated over 5,000 meals to the needy!  Now it was time to catch some JCW action!  As with most of my Gathering reviews, I’ll reiterate that I’m not big into wrestling at all.  I always manage to catch some of it though and the JCW superstars really know how to put on a great show!  If you like violent, bloody, high-flying, and action-packed wrestling, then you already know that JCW is where it’s at!  Add on commentary by the hilarious KG, his right-hand man Scott D’Amore, and spinning by DJ Clay, and you have yourself a fantastic fuckin’ event!  I caught a few matches while making my way back and forth around the arena bumping into ninjas that I haven’t seen since the Gathering, or just met for the first time!

After the last match ended, there was a mass exodus from the wrestling arena to the 4,500 capacity concert hall inside the Masonic Temple!  Everyone waited probably 20 minutes or so for doors to open, and you know how Juggalos do…we were piled right on top of each other just waiting.  There were chants, pleas for doors to open, and yelling…but nobody was really sour about it. It was all in good fun!

Once the doors opened, I think everyone who hadn’t been there before was shocked at how nice the venue was. You mean the Masons were going to let two clowns drench THIS PLACE with diet soda?  There was a big general audience standing area that I would guess held about 2,000 people, and the rest of the place had seating.  Only the first two rows of seats were covered in plastic.  The rest were not protected, so I don’t know if Psychopathic agreed not to get to crazy with the Faygo punts, or if that’s all the Masonic Temple was worried about.  ICP has been doing this shit for nearly a quarter century…they can get some distance with those bottles!

We still had a ways to go before the Wicked Clowns graced the stage though.  There was a whole night of performances planned tonight, and each artist is based out of Detroit!

After kickin’ it with Juggalos and Juggalettes for a bit, Jumpsteady, KG, and DJ Clay came out to introduce the first act!  They would be our hosts for the night, and they all looked giddy as fuck to see so many thousands of Juggalos and Juggalettes in the audience!  After welcoming everyone to the show and thanking everyone for their donations, they brought Big Hoodoo out!

Hoodoo donned white Dickies pants, a Dickies workshirt with a Hatchetman on the back, red Detroit T-shirt, and a voodoo mask for his pendant.  I stayed up front snapping pics during his set for the first three or four songs, and then left the photo pit on my own.  Usually security is pretty strict about that rule, so I just figured I’d save the confrontation and split.  Hoodoo performed for at least a half hour, and as always was a great way to get the show rolling!

Next up was Detroit native Trick Trick of the Goon Sqwad.  After a worthy introduction from Jumpsteady, KG, and DJ Clay, Trick Trick took the stage complete with a full live band!  I don’t know if he was nervous to be performing in front of nearly 5,000 Juggalos and Juggalettes, but he sure didn’t show it!  I didn’t know anything about him before seeing his set, except for the fact that he volunteered to perform for absolutely FREE!  That’s fresh in itself, so much props to him and his entire crew!  Track by track, Trick Trick had the audience dancing with his funk-laced beats!  I wasn’t a fan of his taking breaks between songs.  It kind of killed the flow of his set.  But other than that, he had that building jumpin’!

As a Juggalo for the better part of 20 years, I know one of the complaints in the earlier days was the amount of time you had to wait in between sets at a Psychopathic show.  That hasn’t been such an issue in recent years, but tonight’s show seemed to have an inordinate amount of waiting.  There were 5,000 ninjas there though, so there was always someone to talk to and pass the time!

 

Jumpsteady and Too Tuff Tony came out to introduce the next performer!  I thought that the Axe Murder Boyz would have been here, but they surprisingly weren’t ever mentioned.  The next artist to hit the stage was the Native warrior: Anybody Killa!  I can’t imagine that many of you haven’t seen Killa perform before but if not, you don’t know what you’re missing!  Whether in front of a crowd of 100 or 10,000, ABK puts on a fuckin’ show all his own!  He’s one of few who can keep the audience’s attention while on stage with nothing but a few banners and a mic.  Tonight was no different! He spit Juggalo classics for the better part of an hour!  Kudos to Killa for another flawless set! Make sure to check him out on the next tour if he comes through your town!

 

And now…now it was time!  After another lengthy wait, the wicked clowns were set to let their presence be known!  After a brief introduction, the curtains parted, and Violent J and Shaggy walked from their respective sides in the stage, met in the middle, and started into “Night of the Chainsaw”!  The eager audience was treated with gems like “Chicken Huntin’”, “The Show Must Go On”, and a barrage of others!  I do want to point something out though.  I don’t know why attitudes changed when ICP’s set started, but a few of the security guards were being entirely too aggressive with crowd surfers who made their way into the photo pit.  They were visibly angry with them, shook a couple of them that I saw, and were just being grade A assholes.  When I spoke to them before ICP’s set, they had never worked a clown show before.  So maybe their nerves got the best of them when the Faygo started flying.

That was the only bone I saw that night.  The Juggalo hits continued with “Bazooka Joey”, “Rainbows and Stuff”, “Halls of Illusions”, “Play With Me”, and “Bitches”!  One of my all-time favorite tracks was played after “Bitches”.  Violent J grabbed the mic stand in the middle of the stage and started in with “Burning Up”!  Ninjas in devil costumes filled the stage with pitchforks as J and Shaggy spit that wicked shit!  The rest of their set looked like this:

• Tilt-A-Whirl
• Birthday Bitches
• The Neden Game
• Boogie Woogie Wu
• Dead Body Man
• Under The Moon
• Let’s Go All The Way
• Assassins
• Get Ya Wicked On
• Fuck The World
• Down With the Clown
• Take Me Home (with Sugar Slam)
• Bang! Pow! Boom!

Overall, they racked up over an hour of stage time!  We’re talking over 70 minutes of that wicked clown flavor including a 10 minute Faygo Armageddon!  Pure Juggalo bliss right there!  While onstage during the Armageddon, I ran into the ninja who proposed during the VIP session with ICP earlier in the day (he actually told me about it during the pandemonium), and right at the end, Vinnie the ICP kid and his fiancé!  I also bumped into J-Webb who was making his rounds backstage too!

Now was the fun part.  I was soaked from head to toe in Faygo, seemingly lost in the Masonic Temple, and it was less than 10 degrees outside with the wind chill.  FUUUUCK.  Luckily, I had sense enough to bring a change of clothes for the bag check.  After seeing the line for that though, I knew I didn’t want to have to fuck with it after the show.  I asked Bake Lo to hold onto it for me by ABK’s merch, and he did. Much love to you for that homie!  I went and grabbed my bag of dry clothes (including socks, shoes, and drawers), and headed to the nearest bathroom!  I was stopped several times along the way just to say what up to people, but I was beyond freezing, so sorry if I seemed like I was in a huge rush (I was!).

I found the restroom, wrung out all of my soaked clothes, wiped off with paper towels, and threw on my clean, dry clothes. That whole process took entirely too long, but I’m glad that I went through it!

It was closing in on 2 AM, and Rachel wanted to hit the Shorecrest to try to sell some more Dark Carnival Tarot decks.  She, Coral, and the zombie-fied version of myself made the trek out there, and to be honest, I don’t even remember that whole part of the night.  Remember, at this point, I hadn’t slept since landing in Detroit the morning before.  After spending about a half hour there, it was off to the Scrub house!  The single shower was occupied when we got there, but at that point, I could give a fuck less. I laid down on my little floor pallet, and passed the fuck out!

You’d think that was the end of the journey for Juggalo weekend, but you’re WRONG! I still had another day to kill, and Sunday was Rude Boy’s party!  Sunday was definitely more of a recovery / chill day.  Some of the Scrubs were making their way back home, and we decided to take in some of Detroit’s fantastic scenery.  We rode the People Mover (Detroit’s monorail), went to Belle Isle, saw the “Transcending” ring statue and the “Spirit of Detroit”, and grabbed some pizza too!

After a few hours out on the town, we went back and kicked it at the Scrub house until it was time to head out to Rude Boy’s “A Night Of Juggalo Brotherly Love” party!  That was supposed to happen at around 8 PM that night, and while we were all hype to go kick it with Rudy, everybody was dragging ass after a long weekend of partying. We started getting texts from Rudy like “Where my Philly Scrubs at?” at around 8:30, so we rounded everyone up and headed out the door.  I’m extremely glad to have made it to Rudy’s party!  There were probably 30-40 people there just for the party at this small bar called Confetti’s.  Rudy was so hype to see us when we walked through the door!  They were selling pitchers of beer on the cheap, and I don’t know that I saw anyone without one for the whole night!  If you’ve never kicked it with Rudy before, he’s one of the most humble ninjas that you’ll ever meet.  He almost always puts something together if there’s a big Juggalo event in Detroit, so don’t miss it!  Much love Rudy!

I’m pretty sure we left Confetti’s after seeing live music, playing pool, dancing, and just having an overall fresh time by 1 AM.  I got 5 or 6 hours of sleep the night before, but my schedule was wrecked!  We all went back to the Scrub house, kicked it for a little longer, and I crashed pretty early.

The next morning, everyone else had to make their way back to their respective homes. The Philly scrubs all took off, and my flight wasn’t until later Monday evening.  Luckily, I had some pit stops to make before heading home!  Coral lives in the Scrub house, so she wasn’t going anywhere. She graciously continued to drive me around, so that was awesome.  Prior to my trip, I had lined up office visits to both Majik Ninja Entertainment and Psychopathic Records.  The first stop: MNE!

Coral and I met up with Twiztid and Blaze’s manager George early Monday afternoon at MNE HQ.  They gave me a tour of the place, including all of the offices, the recording studio, the warehouse, and everything else that was there.  We even ran into The R.O.C. while we were there!  What up Bryan?  Mostly, we all just kicked it with George, reminisced, talked about future happenings, etc.  I have known George for a LOOONG ass time, and we have just never had a chance to sit down and bullshit.  It was long overdue!

After the tour of MNE, it was time to hit up Psychopathic Records!  This actually isn’t the first time I’ve been there, but it had been close to a decade!  We were buzzed into the front door, and Jumpsteady greeted us.  I told him how long it had been since I had been there, and he took us around the entire office to show us where the magic happened.  Kuma and Dean were there in the video department, J-Webb manned the phones, and Will Sigler was up there schoolin’ shit like always!  It was a light day at the office just due to the mass undertaking that was Juggalo Day.  Along the tour, I got to see the conference / costume room, which was insanely impressive!  They had cataloged every mask, banner, stage / video costume, prop, etc that they had ever used!  HatchetGear’s setup was pretty dope too!  They have a MASSIVE amount of merch there, and ninjas were there filling orders as we walked through! They also have a gigantic green screen where music videos, weekly freeklys, etc are shot.  The new Psychopathic Radio setup was fresh to see too!  Of course you see it if you tune into the show, but seeing it in person with their multi-camera setup, boards, etc was the shit!  Of course, the grand pooba was seeing the Lotus Pod!  Just seeing where so many of the classic tracks that I’ve bumped for nearly two decades were recorded was crazy fresh!  After seeing the entire office, Jumpsteady, Coral and I just shot the shit. We talked about the business, the lawsuit, gaming, the Gathering, etc.  We stayed there for a couple of hours total, and though I wish I could have stayed longer, I had a plane to catch.  So we said our goodbyes, and it was off to the airport and back to Dallas for me!

Whew, that was a much longer review than I thought it would be for a weekend worth of events.  Still way smaller than my Gathering reviews though!  Before I completely end it though, I’ve gotta give props to a few people:

Psychopathic Records: Thank You for putting this entire event together!  You brought me out to Detroit in February which is no small feat.  I froze my ass off, but couldn’t have had a better time!  Jumpsteady, thanks for letting me spend some time in the office shootin’ the shit, and much love to Kuma, Dean, J-Webb, Will, and the rest of the office ninjas!

The Scrubs Crew: Rachel, thanks for introducing me to these wonderful people!  Krissy, thank you for allowing me into the Scrub House no questions asked!  All the Philly scrubs, you know who you are and that you’re the shit!  Coral, thanks for playing “chauffer” for the weekend!  I don’t want to start naming more names because I will undoubtedly forget people.  Just know that I love you all!

George Vlahakis: Much love to you for showing me around the new Majik Ninja Entertainment offices!  Kickin’ it with you was long overdue!

Photo pit ninjas: Nik, Hazin, Josh, Cheryl, and Vicki…there are no others who I’d rather snap pics beside than you guys! As much as I know you’re jumping up and down wylin’ out on the inside, you’re always consummate professionals!  See you at the next event!

My Family: Amanda and Pierce…you are my world!  Thank you for putting up with my crazy adventures and being there to support me when I get back!  Also, thanks to Amanda for helping me with the photo edits! I love you both!

Juggalos and Juggalettes: I can’t name you all…the ones who came up to me just to show love to FLH and what I’ve been doing for over 15 years; the ninjas who I’ve talked to multiple times online but had never met until Juggalo Weekend; all of you who posed for pics upon request, and a majority of you who I never got to say hi to.  You are all awesome in your own right! I’m so proud to be associated with this Juggalo family, and that will never die!

That’s it from me!  I look forward to seeing everyone at the Gathering, if not sooner!  2Whoops!

Make sure to view our full photo galleries of Juggalo Weekend in our Live Pictures section!

Location:

• Masonic Temple
• Michigan
• United States

Guests:

• JCW Superstars, Kevin Gill, Scott D'Amore, Jumpsteady, Too Tuff Tony, Rude Boy, Necro Butcher, many many more!

Tour:

• Juggalo Day

Record Label:

• Psychopathic Records

Websites:

• InsaneClownPosse.com
• PsychopathicRecords.com

Reviewer:

• Scottie D

Review Date:

• 02/20/2015 - 02/23/2015