Show Journal 2002-11-23
After 5 years in Portland we finally made it to the Crystal Ballroom. How was it? Put it this way … on a scale of 1 to 10 this show was a 253. Seriously. All four of us agreed it was the most fun we’ve ever had at a show. Our set was so much fun to play I almost felt guilty. The sound was amazing, we played well and the crowd … oh my god … the crowd was so rad. They bounced when we bounced, they rocked when we rocked, they shouted when we shouted and people even crowd surfed for most of our set. Awesome feeling to see so many people into our music especially after playing last night to 20 people! I was kind of amazed at the response because we had people coming up to us all night who had never heard of us before who wanted to meet us, talk music and hang out. Too cool. The other bands? Slick Shoes rocked. Bigwig was outstanding. I wasn’t sure if the Bosstones would live up to their reputation as a great live band but they did. I heard the opening chords “the impression that I get” and I was sold. They were so damn good. Serious thanks to everyone who helped out, hung out and made this such a great night!
Show Journal 2002-11-22
Damn fun show tonight except that all of the fun seemed to be at other people’s expense. First was the belittling of Dan. Well, that really hasn’t stopped since we added him to the band. Then there was the insulting of Rick which grew more and more abrasive throughout the evening and eventually culminated in Dave chasing him outside the venue and throwing him to the ground. There was a fair share of good natured smack talking between us and Rhythm of ’84 during both of our sets. At some point during ours Justin was violated by the headstock of Dave’s bass on stage. At another point during load out someone was “humped” by a guitar cabinet. I guess there was a show tonight too? A fun time was had by all and Rick learned the hard way to never to raise his hand at Dave again. Thanks to Darin and Tim for setting this thing up and even more thanks to the small percentage of people who actually stayed to see all the bands.
Show Journal 2002-11-17
Tonight’s lineup was almost a repeat performance of Friday’s show except in Portland. The turnout was extremely low but everyone seemed to be in a good mood. From the looks of it everyone seemed to enjoy all the bands which is kind of rare. Paint By Numbers rocked tonight and everyone knows it. They’ve gotten so damn good since we last played with them. Plus I am currently obsessed with the guitar part in the song ‘Bully’. Knockout and Near Miss both sounded much better tonight and seemed much happier than the previous outing in Longview. Our set was cool, people stood up front, sang along and generally made it fun. One funny moment was during load out when I spotted the guitar played from Near Miss walking with one of our t-shirt boxes towards the staircase. By the time I turned the corner I heard our box of merchandise rattling and bumping down a flight of stairs. The guy was laughing hysterically and announced that he had just thrown Knockout’s merch down the stairs. He had a good laugh until the box turned sideways and rather than seeing Knockout on the side of the box he saw 800 Octane written in huge letter. He shouted an obscene word and quickly turned around only to find myself and Dan standing right behind him staring at him. He turned bright red and apologized about a dozen times over the course of the night. The look of horror on his face was priceless and we all got a good laugh out of it. Thanks to Rick, Conor, Alex, Dan and crew, Jeff and all at the Meow Meow.
Show Journal 2002-11-15
Long night tonight. We arrived at 7:00, watched 4 bands and didn’t even start playing until almost midnight. The Laxatives were fun to watch and earned many punk points for smashing a guitar on stage. Rhythm of ’84 was depressing to watch, but that’s because they are so damn good. You either don’t get into them at all or your jaw is on the floor when they play. Mine was definitely the latter. I missed 95% of Knockout’s set because we went out for some Taco Bell. When we returned (during their last song) it seemed that about 3/4 of the crowd was outside. I thought it was odd, but the word was that they made some derogatory comments about Rhythm of ’84. Not cool … especially since they play in Longview a lot and even have a L-view native on bass. I didn’t hear it first hand, but if the rumor was true that was totally lame on their part. Near Miss was next and they did not seem happy to be there. They “joked” about the small turnout, cut their set very short and generally seemed irritated. I know they are on a real label and are used to much bigger crowds but it didn’t really seem like they even tried to have fun. The songs they did play sounded pretty amazing so I hope our show with them on Sunday goes better because they seem like they could of/would of/should of totally rocked. We played last (not sure why) and I can’t even begin to thank everyone who stuck around enough. It would have been a very lonely show but you all stayed and made noise and we can’t thank you enough for it. The highlight for me was when Justin announced that ‘Tina’ was a “good song to load out to” when we spotted the other bands moving all their crap by the stage during our set. Thanks to TJ and Chris Reid, bigger thanks to David for the cymbal, biggest thanks to everyone who stayed late and no thanks to the person who had to explain us the meaning of the “red sock”.
Show Journal 2002-11-09
The drive to Pullman was really long and really boring. We had never been to Pullman before and were duped by Mapquest into thinking it was a shorter drive. To pass the time we watched movies, insulted Dan and listened to Justin belch for the better part of the drive. You can always tell when Justin falls asleep because the burping stops and a sense of peace comes over the van. Then suddenly it begins again and you realize he has awakened. The show itself was cool because a) it ran smoothly b) there was a decent crowd and c) we all got free cake. I felt like we played well but it’s hard to tell sometimes in a new location with a crowd that’s never even heard of you. It was definitely fun though and that’s all that counts. The drive home was not as fun though. Dave drove the last leg of the trip. As he got more and more tired his driving was becoming more and more erratic … crossing lanes, slowing down and speeding up, etc. We offered to drive but he refused telling us it wasn’t much farther to Tri-Cities. Finally Dave pulls over and throws in the towel saying he couldn’t drive anymore because he was seeing things. “Seeing things” I inquired? Dave mentioned that he thought he has seen “a large group of cats crossing the road”. Suddenly I felt much better that I was driving. Literally after about two minutes behind the wheel we reached a truck stop, pulled in and called it a night. I slept maybe two hours tops and out of sheer boredom got up and decided to start driving. It was nice to actually see the Gorge in the daytime for a change. Thanks to Yotes for having us play. Even bigger thanks to Dalene and her crew for finding us the show and promoting it!
Show Journal 2002-11-02
Totally fun show tonight. I didn’t know what to expect with the mix of bands but it was a blast. Aside from Dave breaking his bass fun was had by all and we even got the debut a new song affectionately known as “the metal song.” Mad props go out to the following: Pornstore Janitor for rocking the stage, the guitar playing Janitor for teaching us the machine gun guitar technique, props for Antiworld and their props, the drunk guy who stage dove alone, and especially big thanks to our friends who came out to the show early.
Show Journal 2002-10-28
I don’t even know where to start. I loved and hated this show at the same time. I loved it because we finally met and hung out with Flatus. They have in depth knowledge of Dio as well as Digital Underground and we therefore see them as equals. Plus they rocked. Believing in June played a great set and although they were definitely not my usual thing Stavesacre put on a solid set as well. So what was the bad part? Our set. 30 minutes of torture for us and apparently the audience as well. Technically we played well but the crowd response was zero. Nil. Nothing. Nada. Literally we would finish a song and out of a room full of people I could count the number of people clapping on one hand. By the second song some people started heading towards the door. The clincher was when some dude in the front of the crowd sat down and covered his ears for the last two songs. I’m not a violent person but I have never so badly wanted to walk into the audience and just kick someone in the fucking teeth. I can’t stand kids who are too cool for punk. To lower my opinion of the show even further as we were loading out a friend of the second band said that the show was “awful” because “the other 3 bands all sucked”. Thanks asshole. To put our utter and complete lack of connection with the crowd into perspective out of 150 people we sold $2.50 worth of merch. Ten more cents and we can each buy a taco. There was one highlight though that is worth mentioning. During ‘New Song #2’ Justin fell off the front of the stage and flat on his back! Right down to the concrete! The cool thing was (and I swear this is not embellished) he continued to play the song perfectly while laying on the sanitationally unsound floor of the Meow Meow! Extra big thanks to Flatus for being cool as hell.
Show Journal 2002-10-26
I just spent the past 15 minutes attempting to scrub off a mixture of blood, semen and urine from my face and arms. This means either one of two things … I just got back from another bukkake party at Dave’s house or I just saw Gwar. Thankfully it was the latter. Seeing Gwar is a pleasure enough for me (this being my 5th time) but getting to share the bill with them totally made my day! The show tonight was very unique and very cool because there was so much happening. On the ground floor they had a small stage open for the bands and performance art groups plus an even smaller stage for go-go dancers in between acts. The second floor had the main stage for the “real” bands and the bigger performance art groups (body modification … ewww!) and two more platforms for even more go-go dancers. Since it was a Halloween show we decided to get into the act and play with zombie makeup and blood. Not quite as gory as the album cover but pretty gnarly for sure. (Did I really just say gnarly?) We kind of thought we were getting screwed for a while because we ended up having to play on the considerably smaller lower stage and at the same time as another band played upstairs on the main stage! In fact when we started our set there were maybe 30 people watching us at most. However as we kept playing more and more people kept rolling in from upstairs and by the end of our set the whole room was packed with people watching and cheering which was an amazing feeling. It’s not nice to be competitive with other bands but I gotta admit it was very heart warming to know there were more people watching us on the small stage than watching the band in the main room! I could talk at great length about how good this made us feel but this review is getting too damn long. All in all the show was fantastic. Thanks to Daria and Gustav for helping us get and stay on the bill, our Seattle posse of zombies, our Portland posse of doctors, witches and those who arrived sans-costume, Lee for the rad makeup job (again), Lyle for hanging at the merch table and of course Severina for making everything run so smoothly.
Show Journal 2002-09-21
I can’t believe it had been a year and a half since our last Satyricon show. Amazingly enough there were actually people there this time. Compact 56 started out and bludgeoned everyone with rock. Loud, aggressive, in your face and just awesome. They get better with each show. The Jimmies were next offering up good, solid, catchy songs but we’ve grown to expect that from them. Up third was the Hellside Stranglers. We practice down the hall from them so it was nice to actually see them play their instruments rather than hearing them through the walls. They rocked … good vocals and awesome guitar parts … very cool. Our set was good. People stuck around and cheered which is not the Satyricon that we remember. All in all a good show. After the show things started getting a little weird. We saw some good friends get in a fight, we saw people that we don’t know get in a fight, we saw some slutty drunk girls get in a fight, we saw another set of slutty drunk girls yelling at drunk guys, then we saw someone vomit outside the club, and the grand finale was Dave witnessing someone getting a hummer in a car parked next to van … it was just a weird night. I didn’t really want to leave because I felt like I would miss something. Trying to extend the excitment Dan and I cruised around the block for a while looking for more entertainment however we quickly realized the grasping hand of excitement usually passes right by two guys who smell like the Satyricon and are listening to Slayer while rolling in a station wagon. Thanks to everyone who came out to see us … you know who you are!
Show Journal 2002-09-14
Long show tonight but the diverse lineup made it manageable. High points included pretty much all of the 18 Fatal Strikes set. I’m always a sucker for old school hardcore, especially if that old school hardcore is complete with “bitchin’ solos”. (Their words – not mine!) In addition to rocking they have to be some of the nicest guys in the world. Well, unless of course you are standing up front and they almost start a fight with you. Blue Sky Mile rocked. Nuff said. Ambitious Career Woman was damn impressive too. It’s sad to say but I actually recognized their “name this video game theme” within six notes. Sad. Very sad. Our set was cool. Definitely nice to play somewhere new and actually have people there. Everyone seemed a little worn out after watching 5 bands (including us) so we appreciate everyone who stuck around. Big thanks to Nate for setting up the show and of course even bigger thanks go to Dan for filling in for show #4!
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