Show Journal 2003-09-19
Wow, who expected such a rocking show in Sandy? Fun show tonight. After some sound issues the first band with the ever changing name was pretty good. Countdown sounded damn amazing as always. Their fine assortment of new and amusing stickers was priceless. Plus it was probably the loudest I had ever heard them as well. I actually missed all of Idle Class as Justin and I decided to venture over to Taco Time. We paid the price though as both of us became ill within minutes. Should of stuck with the cookies instead. We got back just in time for Statch’s first song and I’m amazed they played as well as they did with all of what Tim referred to as “distractions”. Think about their name for a minute and you will understand. Good to see the mighty Statch on stage again as they have been missed. Our set was fun. Justin lost his shoes, Dave insulted anyone he saw fit and somewhere in there we played two new songs that only a handful of people have heard before. Huge thanks to Alex for hooking up the show, as well as props to our friends from Longview, Newberg, Bend and Clatskanine.
Show Journal 2003-09-10
I gotta be honest I was totally hoping to play on the big stage upstairs but it wasn’t meant to be as they ended up moving the show downstairs to Lola’s Room. Initially I was worried because our first show there back in ’99 completely sucked. Fortunately they have improved the sound system and added a stage. Much better. Best thing about the Crystal is that they help you load and unload your gear. Next best thing is that you even get free food and a backstage area. Not that we really used the backstage area or anything. After so many years of not going backstage I still feel like I’m not supposed to be there so I usually hang out in the crowd with everyone else. Anyway, no problems to report during our set and it was very nice to get such a good response on a weekday night. Irish Car Bomb was ok but was plagued with bad sound. Useless ID sounded great and more importantly since they are from Israel we can add them to our list of international bands we’ve played which I think now comes to 5 different countries. No Use For A Name sounded awesome. It had been a while since I had listened to them so when they started busting out the old songs I was completely impressed. After the show we ended up going to the Montage with a rather large group of people. Pretty fun until the German guy started crying. Never mind. Thanks to everyone who showed up especially the message board crew who will be thanked despite their “gift” to me that was a black ribbon that reads ‘old fart’. The ribbon wasn’t bad but I ended up sitting on it which did not feel good. Oh yeah, the diss of the night belonged to Mocephus. Jeremy and Jeff from NSR were selling our merch this evening. I asked how it went and they proclaimed from across the room “Dude, we hooked you guys up”. In front of everyone and without hesitation Rick immediately chimes in “Yeah and about 5 other guys as well”. Guess you had to be there. Thanks to everyone who came early to see us and to all at Thrasher Presents and the Crystal.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Show Journal 2003-07-06
I never thought I could have such a fun and fulfilling day on so little sleep. I swore that we’d check in, find out our slot and then I was going to sleep or just relax in the van until we played. No such luck. Let me describe what’s it’s like behind the scenes at the Warped Tour for a smaller band. It’s utterly and totally confusing. “You need to go to the promotions building”, “you aren’t on the list”, “we don’t have the schedule yet”, “we don’t know what stage you are on”, “we don’t have a set time yet”, “who are you again”, “you can’t park here”, “no more vehicles on the field”. That pretty much sums up the first two hours. Finally at about 11, Dave became so fed up he took matters into his own hands. With an determined look in his eyes he walked to the main building and 5 minutes later came back with our passes as well as our set time and stage information. I’m still just assuming he pulled some Obi Won Kenobi jedi tricks on the staff. We still had to figure out how to get our gear from one far corner of the parking lot to the opposite corner of the field where our stage was located. Again, Dave took matters into his own hands. We were standing around scratching our asses contemplating how difficult it would be to move 1000 pounds of gear across a 1/2 mile grassy field and then out of nowhere Dave rolls up in an ATV with a trailer. Amazing. That’s why Dave rules … he’s the kind of person that can just pull shit off. Anyway, we found a tent spot, unloaded and got settled in. By then it was almost noon and time for the music. Good lord there were a lot of good bands this year. The only act I was just dying to see was Andrew WK. In a cruel twist of fate we played at the exact same time he did so I didn’t even get to see one single minute. Not even a suggestion of partying for me. Sigh. Musical highlights for me were Less Than Jake, Suicide Machines, Thrice, Tsunami Bomb and the Dropkick Murphys. I also really enjoyed the Used until the singer spewed the following load of crap from his mouth “if you are in rock band keep playing music and stick with it because eventually great things can happen for you. We’ve been a band for two and a half years and …”. I can’t remember what was said after that because the collective groan of disgust from every small, unsigned and independent band there overpowered whatever else he was saying. Two and a half years? On behalf of every band who have busted their ass for far more than two and a half years we have four words for you … fuck you little man. So how did we do? We did great and I can’t thank everyone who watched us enough. There were so many 800 Octane shirts around it was amazing. We actually had the best turnout of the day on our particular stage. (Yes, it’s a small accomplishment but we were proud.) If you were one of the people who took the time to watch our set with all those other great bands playing we’d really like to thank you … it meant a lot to us to get so much support on this show. Extra special thanks to the people from other bands who watched us including EPD, Spare Lead, Virus 9, Countdown to Life and of course SDS. One more thing about SDS … we just wanted to say thanks for playing all the shows with us and we hope the rest of your tour goes well! Again, thanks to everyone who watched us play … it really meant a lot. Extra thanks to PJ for being our roadie/merch/slave for the day. Oh yeah, if you read last year’s Warped Tour review I’d like to point out I remembered sun block and a hat this time.
Show Journal 2003-07-05
We got a real late start on the way to Bend and missed the first band. We did see Syris and they were kind cool. Sort of a new school / technical / stoner rock thing. Definitely different but that’s fine with me. Third up was our friends in Spare Lead. Very solid set and quite honestly it was probably the best I’ve ever seen them play. People were moving so they must have been rocking someone other than me. SDS was definitely the hit of the evening and they totally stole the show. A full set of moshing and stage diving impressed us all. I actually have a picture of a skinhead stage diving to them from this show … classic. Mad props to them for laying down the rock. Much like sex with a one legged hooker our set was difficult at first but ultimately rewarding. We had lots of technical stuff go wrong including broken guitar strings, un-tunable instruments and even a knocked over guitar amp. We barely manged to hold it all together but somewhere during our last song the stage turned into complete chaos. I can’t even describe it. People everywhere, jumping up and off the stage, only to be eclipsed by someone standing next to Dave shouting “you guys fucking rule” at him. A wild ending to say the least. After the show we headed back to PDX to get in a good 2-3 hours of sleep before the Warped Tour. Oh yeah, Jim got a real bad speeding ticket in Sandy. $305. Once again it sucks to be Jim.
Show Journal 2003-07-04
Atomic Records is one of our favorite places to play so we were a little skeptical to play some place other than the beloved record store. Would the new place live up to high expectations? The venue (Ray’s Golden Lion) was a little weird because it’s stage is sort of off center in the room. It did have some perks which included two raised dancing stages with poles and more importantly a big stage with an even bigger sound system. (I did kind of miss having people two inches from us while we were playing though.) Absent Minded was first and sounded pretty good with some cool guitar parts. SDS was next and sounded great as usual. People seemed to enjoy them but no one was really moving which made us a little nervous. After about 30 seconds of our first song we realized the show was going to be just fine. Normal Richland chaos ensued for the rest of our set and we loaded out with gigantic smiles on our faces. Our lesson learned tonight was that it’s the people that make great show and not the venue itself so props to Tri-Cities for rocking. After the show we headed over to Denny’s and watched a Richland local (anonymous for his protection) willingly drink Dave’s evil concoction made of syrup, jelly, tobasco, ketchup, salt, sugar, coke and a few other items likely to make your stomach churn. Mmm mmm good. Thanks to everyone who skipped the fireworks and family stuff to see the show. Next time we’ll pick a day that isn’t a holiday! Oh yeah, shameless CD plug … on the drive up we listened to the new Dave Attell CD called ‘Skanks For The Memories’ and laughed so hard it was embarrassing. If you like slightly crude and somewhat disturbing humor I couldn’t recommend a better CD. We just about wrecked the van when we got to the track which revolves around getting a hernia from trying to take a crap too fast. I know … too much information.
Show Journal 2003-07-02
God bless the Solidstate. You can have a pretty small turnout and it still feels packed. Do that at the Paris and it feels like you are playing in an empty barn. (Granted that barn actually has a stage but that’s beside the point!) Anyway … totally fun show. The Civies were first and man they’ve gotten good. Not that I thought they sucked before but they really impressed me this time around. The Altarboys were lots of fun to watch as well. I wasn’t so fond of Nate wearing a mini skirt but beggars can’t be choosers. SDS played next and man it was nice to see them again. We did a week of our 2000 tour with them along with a few shows here and there (mostly here) over the past few years. Not much to say that hasn’t been said before … rock solid poppy punk. I can’t speak much for their acquired taste for day old pizza but that’s another story. Three more shows with them this weekend so hopefully I can dig up something less generic to say about them over the next few days. We played last and decided to take requests for our set which actually ended up working out pretty well. No one requested ULS, Shabba Time or anything from Swank so we had it easy. Not too much crowd activity but everyone seemed to be paying attention and only minimal yawning was observed. Big thanks to Jessica for hooking us up at my new favorite all ages venue in Portland!
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