Show Journal 1998-07-04
So we get to Goose’s House and there are 5 people sitting around with some beer. Some party. After all it is the 4th of July and we were told to expect 100 people. So after about 2 hours of standing around watching some kid blow stuff up with gunpowder we finally took off to another house where more people were at. We get there and it’s like some weird alley way hippie/crusty punk Mecca. Of course they had no idea there was going to be a band, but the crusties thought we looked cool and the hippies were all too intoxicated to complain. So next thing we know we are playing on some dude’s porch to a group of people who didn’t seem to mind slamdancing on a gravel and stone driveway. I’ve never seen so many bloody wounds at a show before (well at least until Bomf! played). Most of the people there were actually pretty nice except for a few notable exceptions, but the annoying ones were the ones who kept ending up meeting the gravel head first. Unfortunately by the time the Bar Feeders played the cops were arriving to shut them down. Bummer for them, they drove from San Francisco and only got in about 10 minutes. Before we went home we did manage to light off a few fireworks. Very unimpressive. This evening’s highlight was the poor guy dressed from head to toe in stars and stripes riding a unicycle who made the mistake of riding by the party. The poor guy he tried so hard to keep his dignity but it was only to be shot down but a group of 15-20 rather vocal individuals who just didn’t care for his style of patriotism.
Show Journal 1998-06-30
Tuesday night at the Satyricon means a low turnout and a dull if not sleepy atmosphere. This evenings highlight was Dave’s frequent mumbling of incoherent if not bizarre sentences between songs. For example “I just got back from Louisiana … it sucks there.” How profound! Its been a few months but we got to play with the Leeches again. Of course I’ve seen them about 500 times since our last show together so it really wasn’t that special. If you see them on the street please offer to buy Paul a new amp. Dangerous Bob is a country/hillbilly/punk band that has very cool equipment. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you saw a bass amp disguised as a metalflake refrigerator with pink shag carpet inside of it? The guitar player’s amp is built into a stove! Try and try we just can’t compete with that and feel terribly inadequate.
Show Journal 1998-05-23
I had never been to Spokane before. I wasn’t sure what to expect and after it was all said and done I’m still not sure what I thought of it. Our Spokane adventure began at Dick’s hamburgers when we were greeted by Spokane’s local resident weirdo (benny?) who insisted on saying hi to all of us, showing us his collection of pennies and telling us about rock and roll and football. Apparently he’s something of a town icon. After collectively ingesting several pounds of burgers we moved on to Ichabod’s and prepared to … as Dave puts it get rid of several pounds of burgers. After clogging the toilet and upsetting the management the show began. We actually met and played with a band called Furburger. We also played with the Felons whom we had actually met last year in Kelso but never played with. We also spent a great deal of time listening as Dave fine tuned his “10 pound theory” at the expense of some poor girl who was dancing up front. As for our set it was probably the most fun we’ve had playing ever. I was jumping around, Dave was jumping around and if Bryan didn’t play drums he would have too. Even Nate busted out some hardcore roadie skills during the show … including the highlight – fixing a fallen cymbal stand in under 15 seconds. So anyway the show went great and as usual Bomf kicked some serious butt (I get tired of writing that, but its always true). After the show some Japanese foreign exchange students took our pictures. What an ego trip. I’ve done the sign an autograph thing, but pose for a picture? Rad. Well, thanks to everyone who came out and a special thanks to Donny for letting us stay at his place.
Show Journal 1998-05-22
Finally … our first show in Seattle. Interesting night to say the least. The sidewalk outside Gibson’s is a pretty good cross section of the homeless and insane population of Seattle. Another weird thing was that Sonic Youth was playing that night right down the street from us. The stage at Gibson’s is in the window, so when the show got out hundreds of people were walking right past the window stopping and looking in while we were playing. Despite it all we had a pretty good turnout. The Kelvis and his posse came out to see us and brought us all a late pass. Bomf played after us and fairly well considering the amount of alcohol they consumed.
Show Journal 1998-05-17
What a crappy night … we show up to the club and were informed that the previous night’s band blew up the PA. Great. We had spent all week putting up flyers and telling people about this show. Then to make things worse a few of us decided to go catch the Nashville Pussy show. We get there and its sold it. What a drag. Back to the couch for all of us.
Show Journal 1998-05-12
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … Bomf rules! Let me say that one more time … Bomf rules! Although I really enjoyed filling in for them on guitar for the past 2 months, I’m really glad to see that Scotty is back and they are kicking out the rock again. We’re stoked to be playing with them in Seattle and Spokane next weekend. Now if they could only play nintendo as well as they could play their instruments.
Show Journal 1998-04-26
Finally a new place to play in Portland. Cool place – lots of neato spot lights. Really small stage. I mean really small. We’re talking honey, who shrunk the stage? Anyway Tenpin is very good and has very cool glasses for sale.
Show Journal 1998-04-07
I had heard that Bluetip and Kerosene 454 were awesome bands. What I heard was right. Both bands are from Washington DC and on Dischord Records and both totally rock. I’ve never heard anything like them before. Bluetip was just awesome live. As for us, our set went well. It was a slightly different crowd than usual and they seemed to enjoy themselves. We played some new stuff without messing up too bad. Of course we did get a surprise when Dave sang the wrong words to Pimp Ray, but in the right vocal pattern and even in key. I don’t even know what he was singing and neither did he. In fact he didn’t even know that anything was wrong until a couple of people asked us after the show. This reminds me of a dumb story … when we first started playing together, Dave would change the words constantly. He would sometimes change them the day before a show. We had this friend named Chad that really wanted to be in the band but couldn’t play anything. Anyway, for the first couple of shows we used to make him stand up front and hold the lyrics so Dave could read them. Crazy thing is that Chad didn’t mind doing it … I think he kinda liked it. Now that I look back we must have looked like the biggest fools, Dave having his words written out and some random dude standing right up beside the microphone holding a sheet of notebook paper with the words scribbled on it. I’m rambling. One more highlight, we got to play our song Kelvis for the Kelvis himself. Did you know he has impenetrable skin?
Show Journal 1998-03-27
I should have known something weird was gonna go down when we were told the show was moved to the American Legion. I’ve always had an idea what the inside of an American Legion would be look but never figured I would actually see it. We walk in the door and I swear it was exactly what I had pictured. Lots of gray hair, lots of war memorabilia and lots of drunks. It was like going to a bridge game at grandma’s house except everyone is liquored up and smoking. If we were hanging out it would have been cool, but we thought we were there to play a show for what we had assumed would be a bunch of kids. Looking around there was nothing but an empty stage with lights on it and a bunch of people who obviously had no idea what they were in for. We’re thinking ok, fine, we’ll have every one turn off their hearing aids, say something nice about veterans, play and get the hell out of there. I mean we have had some weird shows before, but to a bunch of world war two veterans? In the words of Dave that would be ‘wack.’ So just as we are starting to try and remember the pledge of allegiance, the owner comes up and says, “oh you must be in one of the punk bands for later tonight.” We say yes and she assures us that lots of kids will be showing up around 8:30. So, basically we are left to stay there and kick it with the 55 and over crowd for about an hour. Dave made some new friends because of his military time, but other than that we just hung out at this big pimp ass velvet card table that was located in the trophy room. (Yes, the trophy room.) So at about 8:30, just like she said, they close off the bar, the veterans leave (probably to go intimidate the Elks who are located across the street) and sure enough the kids start rolling in. It was amazing, by the time we went on there was well over 100 people there. And remember this is in Longview, WA of all places. Longview is basically just a glorified rest stop between Portland and Seattle. It is a tiny little town … but their music scene kicks ass. We played, felt like big time rock stars and had a blast. Lots of people really seemed to like our music and people were really friendly and talkative afterwards. A couple of the vets even hung around! Even in Portland on a good night you rarely … ok … we rarely see that many people, and if you do not that many of them are totally into the music. What can I say … Longview rocks.
Show Journal 1998-03-12
Hmmm … not much to say about this one. We played pretty well, a few new faces came out and we got the token “watch everyone stand with their arms crossed and slowly bob your head thing” going. I think the highlight of this show was before we played when Bryan had to sit on stage by himself for 25 minutes because Dave and I were running very late. We came in and saw him sitting there all set up and ready to go and felt like idiots. Sorry Boss. That was probably not a highlight for Bryan or the crowd, but at least it was different.
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