Show Journal 2004-03-20
We’ve had a real hit or miss relationship with Spokane over the years. A few hits way back in the day and a series of misses for the past few, oh, 3 or 4 years. For the first time in many moons we actually a) had more than 8 people in attendance and b) saw a glimmer of interest for at least part of our set. This was very encouraging since after completing the math we realized for each minute of playing we spent 22 minutes in the van. The first two bands were pretty entertaining. The first band played ‘Sex And Violence’ by The Exploited which oddly enough we covered a few times back in the NC days. The second band was a little tighter and was also pretty entertaining to watch. We were up third and I think the general reaction was “ok, what the hell is this?”. When we started there were only a handful of people up front (several of which had driven from Richland) and by the end of 4 songs, there were still only a handful of people up front. We decided to unearth our cover of ‘Halloween’ which thankfully seemed to wake everyone up (even starting a pit) and also seemed to grant us a temporary approval rating from the initially uninterested crowd. The second half of the set was much better for everyone involved and made the drive worthwhile. It should also be noted that to the left of me was a guy with a mohawk shoving his hands down the pants of a younger girl. At first I thought “ewww” but later the lecherous and seedy side of me hoped for a second look. Ahhh, teenage romance. The Creeps played last and holy crap they rocked it. Despite the small crowd of 50-60 there was seriously painful looking circle pit which just added to the chaos of The Creeps already energetic set. Afterwards we stopped at Dick’s where Dave consumed 3 whammy burgers in less than 5 minutes. The drive home sucked ass but what else is new. Major props to the Richland crew who made the drive to see the show, Josie for bailing on her play to see us, and the Creeps for helping us out with our first decent Spokane show in a long time.
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Recording for the new album is complete. Now it’s off to get mastered w/ Rodney Mills in Atlanta. Also, it looks like we are shooting for an early June release date. Thanks to Conrad Uno at Egg Studios and also to Kevin and Sam for the place to crash!
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We’re headed back up to Seattle this evening for the final 4 days in the studio. On a different note, check out the show list … we finally have a Portland show confirmed. $2 show yo!
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New interview posted with Justin and Eric for a webzine called Artsy Noise.
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Like poster art? We’ve got some cool devil girl posters for sale on our merchandise page. They were designed by Matt Dye of Blunt Graffix. The posters are silk screened, signed and numbered and were made in a limited run of 100.
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The Uberfan title and chance to appear on our next album is awarded to Alex Cook from Sandy, OR. We got several e-mails from Alex during the course of the contest. One e-mail displayed lyrics to a song written about us and another contained audio clips where he actually performed the song. Later we got some threatening e-mails from his friends but the clincher was a 35 point plan explaining why he should be the uberfan. Congrats Alex, you rock. Now, please promise not to suck on our next record! Honorable mention to Ben 56 for his Photoshop based “artwork” which depicted a XXX lesbian scene with Justin’s head superimposed on both of the female bodies.
Show Journal 2004-02-21
My love of the band Zeke has been rekindled and I’d like to thank Dustin and Atomic Productions for making it possible. Zeke has always been one of my favorite bands (I’ve got 5 of their CD’s) and since they went on a hiatus a while back I hadn’t seen them play in about 3 years. Needless to say when we got the offer for this show I was pretty excited. The show was huge. Easily the biggest I had seen at Ray’s and the crowd went nuts for all the bands. Since we just got out of the studio we decided to try out some of the new material. Jim was doped up on Vicodin, Justin had worked all day I was running on just a few hours of sleep. I think it’s safe to say that we were a little sloppy. The good news is that since it was mostly new songs I’m not sure if anyone really noticed. Either way I was stoked to be playing the newly finished songs and it felt great to play to such an appreciative crowd. Also, it felt good to play live again since it had been over three months since our last show! Jet City Fix was second and pretty much rocked. Looking at them I was expecting a generic emo-type band but they were a real poppy version of the Dwarves or Supersuckers. Zeke was last and they killed it. My other Zeke experiences were all limited to about 15-20 minute sets but this set was huge. They must had played about 25 songs. Granted they are all 1-2 minutes long but holy hell it was insane to watch. Zeke’s singer has to be one of the most bad ass guitar players ever. I can’t even explain it. All you can do is throw the horns, do the finger rolling thing or just stop and say holy shit. It’s insane to see in person. Anyway, thanks to the Richland crew for showing up early, the Atomic City folks for having us on this show and those who traveled from far and wide to check out this show.
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3 more days until the end of the Uberfan Contest and your chance to sing backups on the new album. The deadline is Feb 22nd so act soon if you want a shot!
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Phase 1 of recording is officially done. Truth be told it’s not actually a ‘phase’ rather than we just had to split the recording into 2 sessions. Phase just sounds much more impressive though. Anyway, we go back in March to finish up the background vocals and then mix this thing down. We should have an idea of a release date when the recording is completed. It sounds great so far and we are certain that at least a handful of people out there will be impressed.
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Tomorrow morning we are off to Egg Studios to start recording. We are going to attempt to document the endeavor with updates and pictures. Strong emphasis on the word attempt. Should we actually manage to post some updates they will be posted on Eric’s page. On an unrelated note it should also be known that we got our copies of Universe 2 on DVD which features ‘Day Of The Dead’ on it. The subject of the DVD? Extreme unicycling. Seriously. The stuff is in-freaking-sane and big thanks to Syko Productions for getting us the hookup.
