11/22/04’s illustrious band:

No Kill I

Brought to you by No Kill I, an actual band. Specifically, they're an actual Star Trek punk rock band based in Sacramento.

No Kill I -- along with one of its spin-off bands No Kill I: The Next Generation -- is living proof that there are people out there way, way, way geekier than I am. No Kill I is a group of "adults" who dress up in Star Trek costumes and play booze-fueled punk music with Trek-themed lyrics. (Or did, anyway, until one of the founding members took off to ride a 40-year-old Ducati motorcycle around the world.) They've been featured in the documentary film Trekkies 2 and banned from several performance venues for infractions "ranging from the merely uncivil to the patently offensive," according to their web site. I caught their set in T2. They're very loud.

The name "No Kill I" comes from an original-series Trek episode titled "The Devil in the Dark," in which a monster that looks like a giant sausage pizza with extra cheese scuttles around mining tunnels killing the miners with the acid it secretes from its underside. Kirk and company are called in to dispatch the creature, but when they back it into a corner, it etches the words "No kill I" into a rock. They can't figure out whether that means "I'm not going to kill you" or "Please don't kill me," so Spock mindmelds with the pizza, as anyone would in such a situation. Turns out the thing is just an angry mother Horta protecting its eggs, which the miners have been breaking. With the lines of communication opened up, they all make peace and live happily ever after.

No Kill I seems like a perfect name for a punk band, then, since they can't seem to figure themselves out or to communicate clearly, and their shows appear to have all the trappings of an acid trip. Oddly enough, although the band members dress as various Enterprise crew members and Trek monsters, no one performs dressed as a Horta. One of those unexplained mysteries from the deep dark reaches of space, I guess.

Today around the world: November 22 marks both John F. Kennedy's assassination and National Stop the Violence Day in the U.S. No kill I, dude.

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