On December 22nd, Detachment Kit frontman Ian Menard was assaulted at the Joe Strummer tribute show at Irving Plaza in New York after a botched attempt at covering the Clash. Here is an eyewitness report from Punknews.org user Keith, who found himself in attendance:

"They [Detachment Kit] were the second band to go on (after a blistering set by a group called Dirty Mary) and were hard pressed to match the intensity of the band before them, so maybe that had something to do with the events that transpired. They opened their 3-song set with a slightly reworked version of "Straight to Hell" which was fairly well done, the crowd was into it and things looked to be working out alright. After the song, Ian started saying he was disappointed with the crowd, and that the only people who seemed to be celebrating were the 10-20 people in the mosh pit in front of the stage. This didn't go over so well, and the first of many half empty beer cans flew towards the stage, to his credit, the singer picked up the can chugged down the rest of the beer and told the crowd "he didn't need any help".

The band then launched into one of their own songs… this did not go over well with the crowd as they were waiting for another Clash tune, more beer cans were thrown, just missing the singer and smashing into the drumkit behind him. The band finished up, and before they started the third song, the singer made some snide wisecracks to the crowd… I definitely heard him say that "he wished Joe Strummer wasn't a dead guy, but at least they have his music" which in all honesty doesn't sound that bad a sentiment when it's written down, but the way he said it really turned the crowd completely against him and people started booing, throwing more detritus at the stage.

The band weathered the storm and launched into Spanish Bombs, the problem being the singer pulled a lyric sheet off the mic stand and was reading the lyrics straight off the page, I mean, c'mon.. you're playing a Joe Strummer tribute concert and you can't bother to learn the words to one of the two songs you've been assigned? I appreciate the fact that the bands were playing for free for a good cause, etc… but I felt and the rest of the crowd seemed to agree that it was somewhat disrespectful and insulting.

Anyway, midway through the song, a rather large gentleman in a grey sweatshirt climbed up onstage in front of the singer, for a second I thought he was going to dive back into the crowd, but he quickly turned grabbed the singer in a head lock and started punching him in the face, pandemonium ensued as the the rest of the group rushed to the aid of their bandmate and quickly piled on the attacker… it was chaos for a couple minutes."

If we hear any more information about this incident, we'll be sure to bring it to your attention.