Show Journal 2002-11-15
Long night tonight. We arrived at 7:00, watched 4 bands and didn’t even start playing until almost midnight. The Laxatives were fun to watch and earned many punk points for smashing a guitar on stage. Rhythm of ’84 was depressing to watch, but that’s because they are so damn good. You either don’t get into them at all or your jaw is on the floor when they play. Mine was definitely the latter. I missed 95% of Knockout’s set because we went out for some Taco Bell. When we returned (during their last song) it seemed that about 3/4 of the crowd was outside. I thought it was odd, but the word was that they made some derogatory comments about Rhythm of ’84. Not cool … especially since they play in Longview a lot and even have a L-view native on bass. I didn’t hear it first hand, but if the rumor was true that was totally lame on their part. Near Miss was next and they did not seem happy to be there. They “joked” about the small turnout, cut their set very short and generally seemed irritated. I know they are on a real label and are used to much bigger crowds but it didn’t really seem like they even tried to have fun. The songs they did play sounded pretty amazing so I hope our show with them on Sunday goes better because they seem like they could of/would of/should of totally rocked. We played last (not sure why) and I can’t even begin to thank everyone who stuck around enough. It would have been a very lonely show but you all stayed and made noise and we can’t thank you enough for it. The highlight for me was when Justin announced that ‘Tina’ was a “good song to load out to” when we spotted the other bands moving all their crap by the stage during our set. Thanks to TJ and Chris Reid, bigger thanks to David for the cymbal, biggest thanks to everyone who stayed late and no thanks to the person who had to explain us the meaning of the “red sock”.
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Shows galore
Show Journal 2002-11-09
The drive to Pullman was really long and really boring. We had never been to Pullman before and were duped by Mapquest into thinking it was a shorter drive. To pass the time we watched movies, insulted Dan and listened to Justin belch for the better part of the drive. You can always tell when Justin falls asleep because the burping stops and a sense of peace comes over the van. Then suddenly it begins again and you realize he has awakened. The show itself was cool because a) it ran smoothly b) there was a decent crowd and c) we all got free cake. I felt like we played well but it’s hard to tell sometimes in a new location with a crowd that’s never even heard of you. It was definitely fun though and that’s all that counts. The drive home was not as fun though. Dave drove the last leg of the trip. As he got more and more tired his driving was becoming more and more erratic … crossing lanes, slowing down and speeding up, etc. We offered to drive but he refused telling us it wasn’t much farther to Tri-Cities. Finally Dave pulls over and throws in the towel saying he couldn’t drive anymore because he was seeing things. “Seeing things” I inquired? Dave mentioned that he thought he has seen “a large group of cats crossing the road”. Suddenly I felt much better that I was driving. Literally after about two minutes behind the wheel we reached a truck stop, pulled in and called it a night. I slept maybe two hours tops and out of sheer boredom got up and decided to start driving. It was nice to actually see the Gorge in the daytime for a change. Thanks to Yotes for having us play. Even bigger thanks to Dalene and her crew for finding us the show and promoting it!
Show Journal 2002-11-02
Totally fun show tonight. I didn’t know what to expect with the mix of bands but it was a blast. Aside from Dave breaking his bass fun was had by all and we even got the debut a new song affectionately known as “the metal song.” Mad props go out to the following: Pornstore Janitor for rocking the stage, the guitar playing Janitor for teaching us the machine gun guitar technique, props for Antiworld and their props, the drunk guy who stage dove alone, and especially big thanks to our friends who came out to the show early.
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The Gwar show was a success. The Stavesacre show was not. The destroy ‘Swank’ contest was completed this weekend in a climax that involved 350 CD’s, 10 guns, 400 rounds of ammo and a small armored vehicle. Video highlights will be coming within the month. There are only 50 copies left of the ill fated CD and you can get one at our upcoming shows if you mention the secret phrase: “Dude, can I have a copy of Swank”.
Show Journal 2002-10-28
I don’t even know where to start. I loved and hated this show at the same time. I loved it because we finally met and hung out with Flatus. They have in depth knowledge of Dio as well as Digital Underground and we therefore see them as equals. Plus they rocked. Believing in June played a great set and although they were definitely not my usual thing Stavesacre put on a solid set as well. So what was the bad part? Our set. 30 minutes of torture for us and apparently the audience as well. Technically we played well but the crowd response was zero. Nil. Nothing. Nada. Literally we would finish a song and out of a room full of people I could count the number of people clapping on one hand. By the second song some people started heading towards the door. The clincher was when some dude in the front of the crowd sat down and covered his ears for the last two songs. I’m not a violent person but I have never so badly wanted to walk into the audience and just kick someone in the fucking teeth. I can’t stand kids who are too cool for punk. To lower my opinion of the show even further as we were loading out a friend of the second band said that the show was “awful” because “the other 3 bands all sucked”. Thanks asshole. To put our utter and complete lack of connection with the crowd into perspective out of 150 people we sold $2.50 worth of merch. Ten more cents and we can each buy a taco. There was one highlight though that is worth mentioning. During ‘New Song #2’ Justin fell off the front of the stage and flat on his back! Right down to the concrete! The cool thing was (and I swear this is not embellished) he continued to play the song perfectly while laying on the sanitationally unsound floor of the Meow Meow! Extra big thanks to Flatus for being cool as hell.
Show Journal 2002-10-26
I just spent the past 15 minutes attempting to scrub off a mixture of blood, semen and urine from my face and arms. This means either one of two things … I just got back from another bukkake party at Dave’s house or I just saw Gwar. Thankfully it was the latter. Seeing Gwar is a pleasure enough for me (this being my 5th time) but getting to share the bill with them totally made my day! The show tonight was very unique and very cool because there was so much happening. On the ground floor they had a small stage open for the bands and performance art groups plus an even smaller stage for go-go dancers in between acts. The second floor had the main stage for the “real” bands and the bigger performance art groups (body modification … ewww!) and two more platforms for even more go-go dancers. Since it was a Halloween show we decided to get into the act and play with zombie makeup and blood. Not quite as gory as the album cover but pretty gnarly for sure. (Did I really just say gnarly?) We kind of thought we were getting screwed for a while because we ended up having to play on the considerably smaller lower stage and at the same time as another band played upstairs on the main stage! In fact when we started our set there were maybe 30 people watching us at most. However as we kept playing more and more people kept rolling in from upstairs and by the end of our set the whole room was packed with people watching and cheering which was an amazing feeling. It’s not nice to be competitive with other bands but I gotta admit it was very heart warming to know there were more people watching us on the small stage than watching the band in the main room! I could talk at great length about how good this made us feel but this review is getting too damn long. All in all the show was fantastic. Thanks to Daria and Gustav for helping us get and stay on the bill, our Seattle posse of zombies, our Portland posse of doctors, witches and those who arrived sans-costume, Lee for the rad makeup job (again), Lyle for hanging at the merch table and of course Severina for making everything run so smoothly.
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Has anyone in Portland seen the ad for the Gwar show in the local papers? Our name is so small it’s practically indistinguishable to the human eye! Still it’s the same page as Gwar so we are very happy. Anyway, if you are coming out to the show be sure to arrive early as we are playing first. Also, for those of you who aren’t 21 we just added an all ages show at the Meow Meow for Monday the 28th.
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Thanks to all who attended tonight’s chat except for Tim because everyone hates him! Oh yeah, Swank destruction has been rescheduled for Oct. 27th.
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The new shirts and patches are in and ready for sale. We’re still working on getting some real photographs!
