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Our dream of playing with Zeke just got up and walked away. Turns out they had to reschedule their show to a day we couldn’t play. Bummer.
Show Journal 2003-09-05
Finally, after 5 years of application letters and application fees we were deemed worthy of playing MusicFest NW. Was it worth the wait? Yeah, I think it was. The last time we played the Cobalt was about 5 years ago (before Justin and Jim) and at the time it barely even had a stage. I’ll admit we were a little surprised to get a bar show with all of these old school punk bands but it worked out great because it was a big crowd (100+) that most of whom had never seen or heard of us before. The only real downer was that I missed all the other bands at our show except for the Hazmats (who were great by the way). Thanks to the MusicFest NW folks. Maybe we can do it again in another 5 or 6 years.
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This won’t really be much of a surprise to anyone but Jim is once again “officially” in the band. Despite our efforts at hazing and public embarrassment he continued to stick it out. Why so long for this seemingly inevitable announcement? Because we’re guys and guys don’t like to talk. Well, that and we had to wait for him to cancel all of his prior engagements with the Shriners.
Show Journal 2003-08-21
Tonight’s show was a benefit for the dog poisonings in Laurelhurst Park. If you aren’t from these parts there was some slimeball that went around putting poison in food and leaving it for the dogs to eat. It ended up killing a bunch of dogs and many more are still sick. As Dave would say … “scumbag”. Anyway, the show was cool. Ever We Fall was really good. Kind of technical emo-ish stuff with a slightly heavy edge. They don’t really sound like anyone else and it’s kind of refreshing. The next band up was SYX and inexplicably we had to follow them. They are heavy. Real heavy. We are not. We felt like wusses but what else is new. They sounded great and it was kind of nice to play with a band with a different style of music. Highlights of our set included me pouring water in the ear of Mocephus while he sang, Justin jumping off the drum riser and stumbling face first into the monitor and Jim horribly messing up a song but since it’s so new no one besides us (and Dan) realized it. Thanks to the Paris and all who supported the cause.
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Big shows to mention! First off is our appearance on Musicfest NW. If you are going to be in town for it please check out our set at the Cobalt. Yeah, I know there are a million other good bands playing but the Cobalt is a cool place to hang out and by 11:00 you’ll probably need a short break from all the sensitive indie rock bands. Bigger show news is that we are playing with No Use For A Name and None More Black at the Crystal Ballroom! I certainly never thought we would ever get a show at the Crystal, let alone two. Yes, we are totally lucky and yes, we are totally excited. Even though it’s two months away the last show worth mentioning is the Halloween show in Longview. If you live anywhere within 100 miles of Longview go ahead and mark your calendar now because you will be foolish to miss this show that is being lined up for you. Oh yeah, anyone need a new lunchbox? Don’t ask.
Show Journal 2003-08-11
Tonight rocked. Seriously, it was totally fun. I was stoked for the skate demo and had been rambling on about it excitedly for at least a week and it didn’t disappoint. It really brought back memories of the old days when I was coordinated, flexible and not scared of falling and breaking my hip. The skate park there is in an old movie theater and oddly enough was a pretty good place for a show. The bands setup on top of a large flat ramp on the side of the room and the people can watch from the floor area. Much better than our ill fated trip to Utah back in 2001 where we were on a 10 foot high ramp playing to a dozen people who were 30 feet away because of the banks. Of course that show sucked for a number of other reasons, none of which I really want to think about right now. Anyway, the crowd tonight was awesome and this show was right up there with any of our best Longview shows. I missed Unlisted perform. By the time I decided to abandon our merchandise and watch them they had already finished. A Time To Many sounded rock solid and hopefully we’ll get to play with them again sometime soon. As I implied earlier our set was a blast. We ended up playing 4 songs from the Kelvis which was cool for us. We hadn’t played ‘On My Side’ live in literally over 2 years. Lots of crowd participation including the always creepy vision of people other than Dave singing Berserker. To be honest it’s still creepy seeing Dave sing it but these are the things you must accept playing in this band. Huge thanks to Derek and the Board Room, the CTL boys, the message board faithful and the large group who stuck around to see a band they had never seen before.
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Ok, the videos are all back online! Thanks to New School Records for the extra bandwidth.
Show Journal 2003-08-01
So tonight was the first show at a new venue in Vancouver called the Vertigo Gallery. It’s actually a tattoo and piercing shop that has a stage and shows. The first band was an acoustic duo that made me realize how poorly I play the acoustic guitar because they were good at it. It was a little weird when they got done and one of the two announced she would give $20 piercings. Piercings aren’t weird … you just don’t usually hear them announced at a show. Compact was next and sounded tough as always. The highlight of their set for me was when Attom fell on the ground, Spinelli picked his up by his shirt and threw him down again onto the floor. Very rock and roll. No blood this time but that’s ok with me. We were last and I feel like I should apologize for our performance. There were some major technical difficulties with the vocals which really sucked the life out of us. You know it sounds like shit when Dave is talking between songs and all you hear is a sound similar to that of the bus driver from Charlie Brown. After every song we had to take a long pause which is hard because you lose your energy. You start a song, you’re playing well, people’s heads are bobbing, you’re getting into it and then you go to start another song and have to stop for 3 minutes to fix the squealing or worse yet the non working mic. Yeah, I know … boo hoo. Anyway, after we got done things picked up … we hung out for a bit, saw Dan for the last time before he moves to NYC, made jokes about having intercourse with Dave’s amp and I finally met my wife. Perhaps the highlight of the whole night was when Travis taught us how he survives on $40 a week which he makes exclusively from donating plasma. Amazing. Thanks to Attom and all the Vertigo Gallery … despite my ramblings about the sound it was still definitely a good night and we would like to play again for sure. Also, thanks to those who came from Longview as well as all the regulars from the message board!
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Like a bad rash the ‘Ask The Band’ section has returned but this time without the Mr T influence. Amazingly this is the 5th version of it. If you remember the ‘what would justin do’ section then consider yourself old school.
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Wow. We finally got accepted to play Music Fest NW. We won’t know the lineup for a few more days but after 6 years of applying for it (and NXNW), 6 years of application fees, and 6 subsequent rejection letters I’m glad they finally gave us one out of mercy.
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