Besides, they weren't so much of a band as a strange trippy experience. One did not go to listen to No Kill I's show but to watch the endless theater of the Drunken On-Stage Disaster. That such fine gentleman managed to excuse it by blaming it on, say, "The Gorn" makes it fine theater indeed.

Kicked out of more places they'd been told would never book then again for the third time, you'd think people would know better than to try and suppress them -- or invite them in -- that many times around. You could not call yourself a justified club without at least one time booking NKI, somehow surviving the brunt and therefore be fire-welded with the brand that was the NKI experience.

No Kill I goes back beyond Star Wars to when it was just Star Trek. There weren't so many episodes and they all sort of sucked. Find some young slack musicians with funny ideas like: what if Spock and Kirk formed a punk rock band. Being somewhere on the ragged edge of mildly nerdious, NKI fulfilled the clean punk ethic of making it good in America.

Some of their fine foolery is captured forever on DVD in Trekkies 2 -- no URL plug 'cause we ain't like that. In any regard, the band trips, falls, slurs its speech and makes fine fools of themselves while frivolity ensues. One cannot capture the full essence of fourty-five minutes of Mike C. giving you facts that only the real Hard Drinkin' Abe Lincoln would know. Mike's performance is so complete you'd expect that he makes his living as a performance actor with exactly that sort of act.

Not that No Kill I ever was the sort to pay the bills, however you want to regard that. They all had real jobs, were all pretty nice folks, once you got to know them. One looked forward to a pithy Gorn or a pissy Captain, or both.

And man, they were into it. Swing that axe into action and perform with all the angst of a young, virile Captain Kirk: On a five year mission {NO KILL I} to the center of a green-skin girl," etc.

They were sent to send the gospel of Kirk and motley band. Just the sort of people you'd expect to have around.

Then came "Warp 11". No Kill I spawned several imitation bands. First and perhaps foremost are the guys from various nerdcore bands that formed NKI: The Next Generation, replete with Picard, Number One, Data, and so on. They Begat NKI: DS9 and so forth. Warp 11 was formed really in a self-defensive posture such as this:

Finding themselves young turks and in a position of Some Responsibility on the fading bubble that was DotCom, the future cast of Warp 11 found themselves with a rather pricey new-media production studio at their disposal and all the cash that went along with it and they built themselves an Enterprise set around the basis of a Star Trek-themed talk show.

I believe the idea fell rather flat, but that's not what's important about this story as told by the No Kill I camp. Warp 11 was founded on the belief that while their production needed a Star Trek band, they needed one that perhaps would perform best in this 21st-Century environment and maybe No Kill I wasn't it.

The NKI engendered a real-world lack of respect for authority that one would expect from James Tiberious Kirk, including Wenching and Whoring. Would they have respect for the shiny equipment after ten takes and fifteen beers?

Who could tell, Warp 11 was booked to fill the void but perhaps that's not all of that.

Perhaps beyond that is the NKI legacy of being perhaps the -worst- punk cover band you ever did see. This was something of a point of pride with them while Warp 11 put it out like they were the shiny pre-produced pop kings of Sacramento nerdcore.

I think not. No self-respecting Starfleet captain would so-deface his uniform, not unless it was accompanied with copious blood.

Not that I want to suggest anything there, boys.

Perhaps its because unless one comes on as Bad Kirk and one came on as Good Kirk in some failed time-warp possibility would there ever be two captains, and that just wasn't a possibility in the culture clash that was the two bands.

Too bad -- thinking like that could have prolonged the bubble a little longer.

Strangely Warp 11 sticks around to this day, some sideshow freak-fest of a time well past gone by. Even NKI has hung up the towel with the departure of core member/stunt guy Dave Smith -- currently on tour in Australia, folks. Catch him before he catches you.

That five minutes or so that are covered by the Trekkies DVD is amazing hobby software. Such a strange little documentary. The Serbian boy looks about to bust a move on the TNG chick. What gives?

A slice of all the bands that swum in either the wake of or the similar alignment to NKI showed up in full regalia. Stovokor, a Klingon freak show of the sort you've never seen before, made it down from Portland for the shoot. Apparently they are all really nice guys, but goddamn, what an act.

There's the Klingon Karaoke guy who I hear was a bit too weird for the crowd but appreciated nonetheless.

There's the various spin-off bands that spun off, now down to Voyager.

And there's them: Warp 11. All off by themselves.

Proving you have a chick who'll shake her shit on stage doesn't make it a good act fellas, it means you can talk to chicks. Congratulations. Must one forget the academy...gentlemen?