I don't really know EXACTLY how it started , but both the 'Punk rock Hokey Cokey' and the 'Power Chug' were born around the same time and were intrinsically linked.
The Power Chug was a great GTA tour bus invention designed for killing the endless travel hours , which I'm firmly crediting to Ritch & Ralph
It went something like this -
The Band member keeping time would synchronise their watch and tell the ‘Chugger’ to start – the chugger would then instantly beginning drawing as many fast and deep breaths as they were able to in a 60 second period –
Occasionally for reasons of either cruelty or mirth, the timer would arbitrarily go way past this allotted 60 second time, thereby nearly giving the Chugger a fucking aneurism.
As soon as the time was up they were passed a bottle of spirits (usually Jack Daniels, but slight variations were permissible as long as the drink was spirit based) and without pausing they then had to continually drink from it until their burning lungs demanded they stop to breath.
At this point they would come off the bottle opening their mouth, but instead of inhaling fresh air - either a ready lit Marlboro red or big spliff was inserted forcibly into their mouth by the timer for the first gasping breath inward
– it was up to the Chugger to nominate which, but either would suffice.
The Chugger would then usually choke down a lungful before finally managing to exhale.
The hit gave you a strange and almost psychedelic ‘ballooning’ feeling in your head a bit like you just swallowed a bottle of poppers in an airplane descending in a spiralling emergency dive. Your guts would try and come out through your nostrils and your brain screams for an emergency exit , but is just too fucking numb that point for you do nothing other than 'Mew' like a very sickly cat.
The chugger usually then crumbled into a stream of gibberish as fresh air finally hit their oxygen starved brain, the booze took effect like nitrogen , and they became instantly , and terminally incapacitated pissed.
I think it was as a result of this brainchild , our second dumbest idea ever was then born -
The Punk rock Hokey hokey was something Jay would organise , usually during his nightly forays into the middle of the crowd .. as with the traditional version - it involved first clearing the centre of the crowd into a circle , then everyone holding hands ... the music would stop - and on Jays count back it would come crashing back in and the 'circle' would rush inwards all holding hands to collide at terminal velocity .
Unlike the childhood version however , where there would be maybe 5 or six people colliding, this would often involve numbers upward of a hundred at a time .
Have you ever seen that amount of grown people smash into each other at full speed?
It's a bit like recreating the battle scenes in 'Braveheart' but with more halitosis, DM's and Patchouli oil and resulted in several horrible concussive scenes.
It took Jay until finally experiencing his own brilliant head injury somewhere in Seattle - which resulted in about 2 months of memory loss and a detached retina - to realise this was the shittest idea since soft porn and digestive biscuits and to stop being such an idiot .
But - whilst they reigned - the Power Chug and the Punk Rock Hokey Cokey were something to behold .
Levellers of both the mighty and the meek.
Incredible dangerous stupidity for entertainment value.
Destroyers of young brains.
Now everyone just does it the easy way with social media.
And that my friends , is progress.