Show Journal 1999-10-17
Today’s show was a little weird right from the get go. First off, it was at a chinese restaurant. Second it was early and all ages (which is also a very welcome change from typical portland shows). If you are familiar with Stach and the Rapes or Antiworld then you will understand the strangest part of all. Let me explain a little. Statch plays punk rock straight out of 77. Antiworld plays goth punk rock straight out of 83. Thier fans like music straight out of 77 and 83 and dress like they are straight out of 77 and 83. In simpler terms we played to a club (ok, restaurant) full of spikes, mohawks, dyed hair, ripped clothes, safety pins, makeup and tattoos. And then there was us. Don’t get me wrong everyone was totally cool and fun to hang out with but for the casual observer it just looked a little wrong. It got really funny when we started playing, because you could just see it in their eyes … “Do I like this? It’s fast and it’s loud and it seems cool but I’m not sure if it’s punk.” By the end everyone seemed to dig it but I do think we caught a lot of people off guard. That’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about this show, but the bottom line is that it was still way fun. Statch played real well, and Antiworld’s halloween props could not be beat. Shows like this always make stop to think about how un-punk we truly appear but at the same time it’s always cool to playing to people that might not normally come see you. The only thing that sucked was that I forgot my camera to take some “pictures” for Statch.