









Good points about tonight’s show … The Watts, FSU and the fog machine positioned between my legs. Everything else sucked.
Tonight’s show was a whirlwind of lameness. We arrived at 9:15, watched the other band finish up, set up, played and were done and packing up by 9:55. Including the owner and other band there was about 15 people there in all. They were all there to see Shallow, who is as far from punk as you can get, so I wasn’t surprised when they quickly shuffled out the door during our set. One guy actually stood up for about two songs, but he sat down, taking our last shred of enjoyment with him. On a more positive note, Shallow (from Kansas) were pretty good and fun to hang out with. I wish we had shown up earlier to see more of their set.
Well as much as I hated to see it happen, it finally arrived, Bomf!’s last show. If you haven’t heard me rant and rave about them before, hands down, Bomf! is one of the best bands I’ve ever seen. All of their songs totally rock and more importantly they are by far some of the coolest people you will ever meet. We first met them back in July of 1997 and since then, I can count the number of local Bomf! shows I’ve missed on one hand. They play their music in a way unlike anyone else … they are aggressive enough to make you want to go out and break things, but at the same time you want to stand along side your friends and shout out every chorus along with them. We’ve been fortunate enough to spend a lot of time with them over the past two years, and we will miss them. It’s not like they are dropping of the face of the earth, I know we’ll still be in touch, but mostly I am going to miss their music and their shows. Thank you Bomf! for showing us what it’s all about.
The Rat Skellar is a little club up on Mt. Hood. All the times we had been up there we didn’t even know it existed. Pretty cool little place with good pizza. Our set was ok … not too many people there but the soundguy seemed to like it. Afterwards he came up and said “man that was … uhh … loud.” I guess that’s compliment. The Secludes set was a little more interesting. They had their own cheering section in the corner of the bar that threw beer cans, made spitballs and yelled at them the whole set. Despite the occasional wayward projectile it was a really fun show.
Today we drove through the rain and snow (literally) to Boise to play at Keith’s Basement, which exactly as the name implies … is a basement. Why would we drive that far for a house show? The last time we were there was on our tour and it was a blast and we had been itching to return. It’s funny because everyone there think the Boise scene is lame, but for us it’s a welcome change. People just cram themselves into this little basement and watch each and every band, local or out of town. Not to mention a lot of people show up. It was cool to see SFL again … we played with them last time through. Summerjack was the other band and they too were very good. After the show we sat around with Keith and watched videotapes of the Tom Green show and listened in horror as Bryan introduced the Boise locals to the finer points of the donkey punch. Thanks to Keith for the place to stay and to the Mrs Butterworth crew for leaving up pancakes!
The first stop on this weekend’s excursion was Richland , WA. If you’ve read any of these other reviews from Richland (or have been there) you know it doesn’t have a real strong music scene. Well guess what … it still doesn’t. But what it lacks in size in makes up for in character. They work harder at promoting their scene harder than anyone we’ve run into in a long time. Heck they record the shows there and give out promotional CD’s of them. How cool is that? Also, we’re starting to recognize the people at the shows there, which is pretty unusual. We also managed to get re-acquainted with Count Chocula … the Bosnian drunk. The show went fine and afterwards Dustin let us stay in his mobile home. Don’t laugh just yet, the thing rocks. It easily sleeps 6 people. Of course we don’t have any groupies yes, so only room for 3 was needed.
Ashland is a long way from Portland. In fact it’s almost 300 miles. It really sucks when you drive all the way there to find that the show has been cancelled. It sucks even more when your friends in the band Bomf! also drove that far only to get shafted too. Seven hours in the van, no sleep, no show, no money, no fun.
Tonight’s show was lame. Nothing more, nothing less, just lame. Thank god for Belvedere for rocking us all.
Not one, not two, not three, but eight bands played tonight. It was a record release party for a new comp we are on put out by Last Chance Records. Witch Throttlegush and Topsider seemed to be the biggest crowd pleasers but everyone played well. The whole thing went pretty smoothly too … it actually finished right on time. Thanks to Brent and Kelly for making it all happen and thanks to Xan for putting on the show. Buy the comp and re-live the magic (in less than an hour).
Tengoku Jack. Tonight’s show was all about Tengoku Jack. If you haven’t heard of them they are a “drastic rock band” from Japan. First off they are nice as hell and very cool. Secondly they rock … and they rock really hard. Getting to play with these guys was a treat for all of us. Our set went really well … but once again it was all about “the Jack.” Watching the singer cover himself in candle wax was definitely one of the wildest things I’ve seen a band do in a long time. It was just one of those night where everything clicked and it was great. I wish them all the best on their trip back to Japan and I can’t wait for them to come back over to the states again. However there is one small downside … neither Tengoku Jack or 800 Octane will forgive Kevin for missing the show!