Well, that was fun.
Many thanks to those that come out to the show last night. We did upload two photos. Quite honestly, they aren’t very good pictures but our last photo uploads were back in April of 2010.
Show Journal 2012-02-25
About nine months had passed since our last show so we were pretty stoked to play tonight. All in all the show was pretty awesome. Cool venue, decent sound, good sized crowd and quite a few familiar faces. In fact, we saw some folks tonight we hadn’t seen in many years, some in almost a decade. It’s weird to think we played a few songs that were older than some of the people attending. Our set was pretty uneventful and drama free. We snuck in Ghosts of Monochrome, which we hadn’t played in years. Of course when you only play once a year that statement is pretty meaningless. Now, this is the part of the review where I comment about how much I liked 48 Thrills. To mix it up, we’re going Mad Libs style. 48 Thrills sounded _____ tonight, which is no surprise since they are _____. They have been one of our _____ bands since we met them in _____ while playing with _____. Hopefully your interpretation was positive and didn’t involve any phallus jokes. Speaking of phallus jokes, the highlight of the show actually occurred during the load out when at least 3/4 of the band members noticed and made inappropriate comments about what Dustin later dubbed “the world’s hottest tranny”. Stay classy Old Town. Thanks to Jeff and Backspace, all the other bands and the people who came out of a cold and soggy night. We really do appreciate everyone who comes to these shows and lets us keep playing. Next show in 2013?
Saturday Night Fever
This Saturday we are playing at Backspace in Portland w/ Burnside Heroes, Mourning Bed Head and our partners in crime 48 Thrills. This will be our first show in nine months. There are no new songs to debut, but a few rare ones may be performed. If you get a chance stop on by and see the effects of time and irrelevance on our once proud band. All ages? Yes, all ages.
Do NOT get in the van!
Yesterday at practice it dawned on us that we haven’t used our van in 17 months. The engine doesn’t even think about starting and one could contract black lung within 3 minutes of entering it’s damp and moldy confines. No way we’re taking that thing to the next show unless it includes 4 hazmat suits and a canary.
All your gnome are belong to us.
The gnome liberation movement continues.
Driving straight into the sun
Last night our dear friend Nate LeQuieu passed suddenly in his home in Hawaii. Nate has been a part of our band since we met him back in early 1998. Dave and Bryan worked with Nate, thought he seemed like a cool dude and invited him out to a show. The next thing we knew we had an unofficial roadie who came to every late night, poorly attended, drive until dawn and sleep in the van show we had that year. In the fall of 1998 we all found ourselves crammed in a van heading out on our first tour together. Those few short weeks have left us all inextricably linked for the rest of our lives. For those of you who have ‘The Kelvis’ on CD, you can find Nate’s picture is printed in the liner notes. It’s hardly a fair representation of the impact he had on our lives. Gone too soon, but we’re all happy that we had some time with you. Raise your glass and give your thoughts to the original Nate Dogg, the one and only Doggfather and our friend, Nate.
Friday night was awesome.
Thanks so much to everyone who attended our show on Friday. Let’s see if we can get another one in before the end of the world in 2012!
Show Journal 2011-06-03
This show was a long time coming. The last time played was last September of 2010. Our intentions weren’t to take so much time off, but it just sort of worked out that way. We did practice a handful of times over the past few months, but between the ridiculously cold and wet past winter, one marriage, the beginnings of additional child rearing and the ever present fact we aren’t getting any younger, it’s just been slow going when it comes to getting shows. Aside from the lack of shows, the lack of practice had sort of worn all of us down. When you have spent over 10 years of your life practicing 2-3 times a week, slow periods like this can really get in your head. Why are we still doing this? Does anyone still care? For me this past nine months has felt like about three years. Well, was the wait and months of anticipation worth it? Absolutely. From the second we walked in the door we knew it was going to be a fun night. Before we even played I could clearly trace the history of our band through the folks in attendance. There were people from the EJ’s and Kelvis era, friends we met around the time of the Return, people we knew from the Rise Again years and some folks from much more recent years. Perhaps the best surprise for us was the reformation of what was once known as the Message Board Crew. Gad to see everyone is old enough to get into bars now! It may have been an average night for all those in attendance, but I think we all agreed that it meant a lot to us. The show itself was great. Dartgun and the Vignettes were fantastic. If you aren’t familiar with them, they are a rough and dirty rock band that is a perfect soundtrack to a hole in the wall bar. Their secret weapon? The Vignettes, a trio of female singers that has the moves and sounds of the Supremes but with the attitude of The Stooges. Very, very cool. 48 Thrills was up second and they never really disappoint. They played some of the newer stuff from Hand Claps and Ass Slaps, which was excellent. I’ve said it a dozen times before, but they are always fun to watch and have really built up quite the arsenal of great instant singalongs. We played last and in a very rare move we played for a long time. Last time we played for over an hour was our second year as a band. We swore we’d never do that again, but it seemed appropriate tonight. We played about 18 songs including some older ones we hadn’t played in years and we even worked out a Bad Religion cover for the evening. The response from the crowd was fantastic. Fists, shouting, clapping and even an improvised stage dive. We’ve certainly entertained the idea of packing it in and calling it quits, but nights like this sure makes it a challenge as it’s a reassurance why we do it in the first place. Many thanks to everyone who trekked out to the show and Katie O’Brien’s for having us!
“You guys still play?”
Yes, it really has been nine months since our last show. The laws governing band membership require a yearly show, so here we are. Can we expect anything new and exciting from this show? Not really. Same crap we’ve been playing for years now, only being projected from older and more weathered looking bodies. With a sales pitch like that, why wouldn’t you come to the show?
This one time at band camp…
We’ve just uploaded our last 4 albums to bandcamp.com, which offers album and song downloads in MP3 and a variety of other high quality and lossless digital formats. Songs are $0.89 each and since we get to set the price all of our albums are listed for the very low (and equally awesome price) of $6.66. It’s about time something like this came along since after all these years we’ve never seen a penny from iTunes or Amazon. If you are interested in downloading one of our albums check it out at 800octane.bandcamp.com.
Latest Photos