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Last night we played our 365th show and tonight’s show will actually be 10 years to the date of our very first show at a radio station in Boone, NC. Weird how the timing worked out. Weirder still is that never in a million years would I imagine we’d still be writing songs and playing shows after all this time. If you told Dave and myself back in 1994 that we’d have 4 albums, have played shows with huge bands all over the country, had fans that knew all of our lyrics I would have told you straight up that you were crazy. I remember when ‘Swank’ came out and I thought,
Show Journal 2004-06-19
One night Richland, the next Seattle. One town we have a following, the other we definitely do not. Attendance wise the show tonight was totally weak. It was the 1year anniversary for Artsy-Noise, which is a NW based webzine and to celebrate they had back to back shows. Sadly both were sparsely attended as the headliners for each night bailed at the last minute. Speaking of bailing … as soon as the first band finished they packed up and then drove home without watching any of the other bands. When the second band finished, they packed up and drove home without watching a single song of the other bands as well. So on behalf us … fuck you both. (Note to any other bands/musicians reading this … unless you have a dire emergency you should watch at least some of the set of the other bands you play with. Seriously, even just one song, or having someone at least pretend like they care is always a good thing.) The band that did stick around was the Television Killers. Young, loud, fast and snotty would sum them up best. Judging from their song selection I hope they will consider that a compliment. Our set? 10 songs chosen by the Kelvis himself. We later determined 10 songs was almost exactly a one to one ratio with the people standing up. Thankfully Kevin, Robert, Al, Todd, Chris and the Artsy Noise folks did their best to remain enthusiastic and despite Jim’s efforts to dismantle the power grid, it was strangely enjoyable. There was supposed to be a headliner tonight but they decided not to play since “it would take too long to setup”. Nice. Thanks to Artsy Noise, Kevin and his posse, Fatburger, Beth’s and the crock pot. Also, Justin would like to invite anyone and everyone to “grab a slice”.
Show Journal 2004-06-18
I’ve stated that we love playing in Richland about a dozen times before but it still rings true. Toxie was the opener and we love Toxie because 1) they are named after the Toxic Avenger and 2) they cover ‘Kelvis’. They rocked it with a short, fast songs and a nice assortment of covers. Their drummer is crazy fast too. It’s kind of scary. Compact 56 was next and tore it up as they always do. The word on the streets is that they might be taking some time off to regroup and reorganize. Since that’s the case I’d like to take this small opportunity to say thanks to one of our favorite bands to play with and people to hang out with. Scary to think we’ve known them since the Animal Farm days. We played last and late and it ruled. I couldn’t believe how many people knew the words to all the new songs already. However in an effort to thwart the super fans knowledge of lyrics we threw everybody a curveball tonight. The past few times we’ve played in Richland someone suggested we play the song ‘Minnesota’ from Swank. We always politely refused, but as a surprise we practiced it for a few weeks and played it at this show for the first time since 1996. I hope they were in attendance because it probably won’t happen again! Good show. Thanks to the people that always make our trips there a blast … you know who you are!
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Is Richland ready to rock this weekend? I hope so because we’ve been practicing a song from ‘Swank’. Be prepared bitches!
Show Journal 2004-06-17
For years I had thought Conans was a little hole in the wall but it’s actually a pretty big venue with a huge stage and a big PA. It’s still a poorly attended bar with often mediocre shows but whatever. Before the show Dave, Justin and Adam (from C56) went to eat at a little Indian restaurant next door. When Dave returned I questioned him about the meal and he threatened to give us all a dutch indian oven. Compact was first and I’m glad they were able to claim redemption on this stage. Apparently at their last Conans show a monitor was thrown off the stage, the bass player was punched in the eye and only 5 people were there to witness it all. Kinda nice seeing them as a 4 piece again since that’s how we first saw them way back in the day. Everyday Victory was next and it seemed like it’s been forever since we actually played a show with them. In fact I think it has been. They rock. Plus they have nice guitars and they play them well. We played third and did i-ight. My wireless broke and I got a huge scrape on my leg from running into the drum riser. Can you tell I’m stretching for something else to write about? Thanks to Jeremy and crew for the show hookup.
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Don’t know if anybody is interested in this kind of stuff, but we cataloged some of our live audio recordings. Here’s the list of shows we have on CD. If you think you might want to score a copy of a particular show there are more details are on our merchandise page.
Show Journal 2004-06-11
I think I took about 3 years off of my hearing last night. Seriously, I can barely hear out of my right ear except for a faint whining sound. Super fun show in Bend as all the bands were fairly entertaining. Countdown absolutely killed it live and had people falling into the drums and jumping off the monitors. Berzerk was rad to see as well since we hadn’t actually played with them in 6 years. They’ve gotten very, very, very good in that time too. We played well and people stuck around which is all it takes to please simpletons such as ourselves. Dave broke his bass, my guitar wouldn’t stay in tune, and at least 3 of us of had freely flowing snot for the duration of the set. Definitely a punk rock show. Thank you Matt.
