all photos by Nate "Igor" Smith

ICP and the Geto Boys, together at last

There's the Juggalo whose annual tradition is barbecuing naked, except for an apron. There's the Juggalo who walked all the way to the Gathering from Oregon. There's the Juggalo with the Batman mask, the Speedo, and the protruding belly named Mikey who dressed that way on a dare. There's the devil Juggalo, the Bane Juggalo, the babydoll Juggalo. They're only a handful of the Juggalos we met this past weekend at the 13th annual Gathering in Cave-in-Rock, Illinois. Meet the rest.

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Juggalo wisdom

It's an annual tradition to tag the Port-a-Potties and shower trailers at the Gathering of the Juggalos. This year was no different, except that the graffiti's message shifted from its usual slate of insular rallying cries ("Whoop Whoop," "Down With the Clown," etc.) to focus on this past year's major development: the FBI's insistence that Juggalos are a national 'gang' who pose a security threat to this nation. Insane Clown Posse begs to differ, announcing on Friday they will challenge this gang-list distinction in court; as Shaggy 2 Dope told us "We're doing the American thing--we're suing." Juggalos don't agree either, and have a point: who's really the gang here?

Please enjoy the rest of this weekend's FBI-related graffiti below. Also, "Fuck the FBI" accented with a smiley face? Essential Juggalo.

Nate "Igor" Smith

The faces of Juggalo justice: "Juggalo lawyer" Farris Haddad, Violent J, and Shaggy 2 Dope

"At first, I laughed! Just like everybody else," Insane Clown Posse's Violent J admits, seated on his tour bus. "Now I just realize how fucked up it is." It's this past Friday afternoon at the Gathering of the Juggalos and the Detroit horrorcore emcee is recalling his initial reaction to the news that the federal government officially considers his band's fans a national security threat. Less than 30 minutes ago, Violent J and his partner-in-rhyme Shaggy 2 Dope announced their plans to sue the FBI at their annual seminar and they're both still visibly reeling from the audience's joyously moving reaction. (Shaggy got goosebumps. Violent J's hand visibly shook.)

Spend an hour wandering around the Gathering and you'll hear story after story after story about cops, schools, and bureaucracies discriminating against Juggalos for wearing Insane Clown Posse gear and their label's Hatchetman logo. There's the guy who lost his kids to a foster home because of his tattoo. There's the Juggalo who was discharged from the United States military for having a Psychopathic Records CD. There's the Wisconsin kid who was forbidden from wearing Insane Clown Posse shirts to school, but didn't have money for new clothes, so he kept getting suspended.

"I know it's just Juggalos and to a lot of people out there, that's the lowest life form," acknowledges Violent J. "But they're being fucked with heavily. And this is some extraordinary shit that's happening to us."

The FBI's distinction also has personal and professional implications for the two entertainers: If their fanbase is a gang, that effectively makes them kingpins. For two fathers and ruthlessly independent company owners with real families and real names (Joe Bruce is Violent J, Joey Utsler is Shaggy), the 'gang' stigma could have seriously crippling consequences.

"You're trying to grow love in your country and shit," says Shaggy 2 Dope. "Then the head of your country--the FBI--just turns around and fucking kicks you in the nuts. How are you supposed to respond to that?" He and J could only identify one option. "We're doing the American thing--we're suing."

An edited excerpt of our conversation follows.

This is an actual figure from a U.S. government document.

Last week, the U.S. Marshal's Service issued a press release with this headline: "Gang Member Removed from New Mexico's Most Wanted." The apprehended menace in question was 20-year-old Mark Anthony Carlson, a white 140-pound male wanted on a felony bench warrant for missing probation. His gang affiliation? The "Insane Clown Posse 'Juggalo'" gang.

photo by Nate "Igor" Smith

Wonder if the horn on this car goes 'beep beep' or 'whoop whoop'

The Gathering of the Juggalos, a post-apocalyptic five-day wicked-clown festival we may have told you about once or 379 times, begins tomorrow in Cave-In-Rock, Illinois. Tomorrow, as in not today. Yet this has not stopped Insane Clown Posse fans from traversing the far ends of the Juggalo universe to find family love more than a day early. Right now, there is currently a very long line of cars backed up along the local road that leads to festival grounds HogRock Campground, full of overzealous clowns waiting for the gates to open.

This is one gridlocked view of the scene, posted around one pm CST:

Danny Brown is down with the clown

The highlights of Danny Brown's 2012 summer performance schedule are fairly predictable bookings for the sort of skinny-jeans Fool's Gold rapper who's a part of what SPIN's taken to calling Rap's New Underground: Berlin's street-fashion orgy Bread & Butter, Chicago's indie party Pitchfork Festival, this past weekend's nu-rave grind Hard Summer. But then this Thursday, the Detroit lifer will play Insane Clown Posse's Gathering of the Juggalos, a five-day psycho-porn amusement park that Tom Green once compared to the cinematic disease-apocalypse 28 Days Later.

"It's kind of cool to me," Brown admitted to us last week over the phone. "I was like, 'Damn, you know, that's kind of crazy.'"

Never forget 2011

If the Internet meme machine has seemed a little slow this summer, it's probably because the Gathering of the Juggalos is less than a month away and Insane Clown Posse's industrious label, Psychopathic Records, has yet to release 2012's endlessly watchable Juggomercial. That's already more than a month later than last year, when the 27-minute "earf"-bound spaceship scene revealed the nearly complete line-up on June 3. But this time around, the Midwestern company has not only been preoccupied with the upcoming release of ICP's next studio album, The Mighty Death Pop, but its Michigan headquarters just endured a days-long power outage. So even though we haven't been able to watch Sugar Slam narrate this year's bill, a handful of booked performers have separately announced their Cave-In-Rock commitments. This amounts, as usual, to an amazingly random list of names that would basically never appear together anywhere else in the entire universe.

So far:

Ass Dan, again

If you thought (or hoped, depending) that public fascination with Insane Clown Posse had run its course, you would be gravely mistaken. Nevermind that strangely coincidental timing of Lou Reed/Metallica Lulu monstrosity somehow made Jack White's collaboration with Insane Clown Posse far more palatable--at least the latter was meant to be funny--Saturday Night Live once again spoofed ICP's infamous infomercials this past weekend. This time, writers Michael O'Brien and Colin Jost invented the Columbus Day ASSBLAST, another Gathering of the Juggalos-like festival with "preformances" (Psychopathic's never been known for its excellent spelling) from fittingly named acts like Sploik, Baby Nutsack, MC Hammertoe. Planned activities include: Play Farmville with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed! "Show your little-ass boobs to an old guy"! And "get high and cry"!

courtesy Jason Wade, Unitus Arts & Entertainment Festival

Jesse Waters a/k/a "Scarab," photographed here on August 7, 2011, didn't necessarily identify as a Juggalo.

His name was Jesse, but he went by Scarab or Drake. He was 24, stood five-feet, nine-inches tall, and had reddish-brown shoulder-length hair. He'd driven to the 12th annual Gathering of the Juggalos this year with his girlfriend, a young woman named Melody, who'd been handcrafting boxes with Insane Clown Posse's Joker's Card figures to sell at the festival for five bucks a piece. And then on Friday, he vanished.

On Sunday evening, a barricade fence inexplicably went up by the Gathering's Main Stage, in a stage-left area adjacent to the Ohio River. Rumor was that the Coast Guard found a floating person in the water near the Kentucky-Illinois state lines, a fact confirmed Monday by Illinois' Hardin County police. Yesterday, Kentucky's Union County coroner identified the body found on nearby Sturgeon Island as Jesse Waters from Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

The lineups for this year's Gathering included Vanilla Ice, George Clinton (in sequence!), Lil Jon, and a disgruntled Juvenile, to name a few. For more, check out our in-depth coverage of the weekend.

All photos by Nate "Igor" Smith.