Refuse to Lose

"I think he'll be a punk icon one day," Visneau says.

But he also has his share of enemies. After a show at Double Wide a few months ago, the management claimed in widely circulated e-mails that Christy absconded with about $50 he was supposed to share with opening bands. "Not cool that you guys took off with what little money there was to go around!!!!!!!!" read one e-mail from the booking agent for Double Wide. Christy says management told him the money was his.

Mark Graham

"Anyone who says they don't want to be popular and famous and have as many people listening to their music as possible is full of bullshit," Christy Darlington says.

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• Christy Darlington
• Darlington
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• Punk Rock
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There is usually a part of every story in which the hero questions his decision to keep going, in which he takes a hard stare at his life and wonders if all his scars have been worth it. That doesn't happen in this story. Look at the words tattooed on Christy Darlington's hands: LOVE and LUST. It says everything about his relationship to his music and the major labels that still elude him. His friends may tell him to quit. His family may want him to quit. But who said he wanted their lives anyway?

"The rest of my life, I have a big bag of nothing," Christy says. "This is what makes me feel good. This is what I do."