Show Journal 2000-08-22
Day 5 – Another day, and thankfully another shower. We went out for some breakfast and record shopping with Chuck this morning. It’s still overcast and we haven’t seen a sunny day yet. The drive today was short and mostly pretty boring. We got to Wisconsin Rapids early and drove around for an hour looking for the show. We were doing a u-turn in the mall and see a kid with spiky hair and a Misfits patch on his jacket. Turns out it was the guy putting on the show. The show was odd to say the least but it was still kind of fun. Here’s the situation, Wisconsin Rapids is a really small town. We played in the basement of a bar. It was hot, it smelled and there were no flyers. In fact the guy putting on the show had never even seen the club before. The place was not wired for a show. The power kept going out on the opening band who had pretty small amps. We roll in with 3 huge amps and blew the power in the first song. Eventually we figured out the power situation and got things rolling. I think there was probably around 25 people there tops, but they all stuck around and seemed to enjoy themselves. I see a lot of bands and I have to say the Shut-Ups are the best bands I’ve seen this year. Kind of like Zeke … super fast and very raw. We were all totally impressed with them and couldn’t believe they were playing this tiny show. They were so damn good. After the show we drove 3 hours to Oshkosh to stay with their drummer. Their bass player insisted on riding with us since we had Nintendo in the van and I think he played it the entire drive. Thanks again to Justin for the place to crash.
Show Journal 2000-08-21
Day 4 – I woke up early and took my first shower in 4 days. Dave woke up with a small piece of cat excrement stuck to his arm. Our van has been stinking pretty bad and we finally identified the source of the smell. It wasn’t Dave’s arm, it was actually Jims sleeping bag. It now resides in the back of the van as far away from us as possible. During the drive we stopped in a small park in Minnesota today to kill some time. We were playing on the playground rides and were suddenly approached by a small girl who thought Justin was weird. Pretty perceptive for such a young girl. So we kept playing on the swings and carousel thing with this little girl following us around from ride to ride asking us dumb questions. Finally we got over to a set of those little spring loaded animals that you sit on and rock back and forth. Anyway Dave, Jim and this 7 year old girl are all sitting on the springy animals and Justin decides to get freaky with one. He’s standing in front of the horse shaped one and starts rocking it back and forth in front of his crotch to simulate … well you can guess what. Anyway it suddenly dawns on us that he’s doing this in front a 7 year old. Dave and Jim just about fall over laughing and Justin quickly realizes what he’s doing and tries to play it off like he was doing something normal. I hope the girl’s mom wasn’t watching. That poor girl is going to be scarred forever. On to Minneapolis. We were all amped to play with Wesley Willis tonight but it turns out he cancelled. Total bummer. Despite his absence the show as he would put it, it “rocked a cheetah’s ass.” We played awesome, even more energetic than last night. Everyone seemed to dig it. Plate O’ Shrimp were cool guys and fun to watch. I’ve said it before, but 7th Street is such a cool place to play. Cool thing this year was that the club had made some massive 4 foot posters for the show which we quickly removed and acquired for ourselves. Huge thanks you to Chuck for hanging out, hooking up the place to stay and just being Chuck. No thanks to my stomach for being upset until dawn.
Show Journal 2000-08-20
Day 3 – Today started off nicely with a visit to the world’s largest Holstein cow in North Dakota. Justin got a warning ticket for speeding somewhere in North Dakota … 41 in a 25. Pretty good for an amateur. We ate at the Space Alien cafe in Bismarck. The food was good but Justin hanging the video camera over the stall door during my bathroom visit was not. I wish we had a show in Bismarck but it just wasn’t in the cards for us. The show tonight in Aberdeen rocked. I can’t remember us all being so energetic during a show before. Ferd Mert rocked even busting out some AC/DC at one point. Tonight we stayed with Kim and her 3 cats. She told us we were the most boring band that has ever stayed with her.
Show Journal 2000-08-19
Day 2 – Today started off in typical 800 Octane fashion … we took turns bathing in the sink of an interstate rest area and spent the morning making crude jokes about one another and their mothers. During the morning discussion Justin taught us many new terms including the rare and elusive Eiffel Tower maneuver. Ask him for a description some time. Kinda crummy drive because it was so overcast all day. Eventually we realized it was the forest fires that were burning away most of the state. At one point Justin started “driving” the van and we joked that his blind spot is the whole road. We stopped to eat at a good sandwich shop in Missoula where we actually ate on our first tour. Today’s show was a benefit for a skate park. Weak sound, half awake crowd but we were stoked to be playing. Afterwards we hung out with Switch Two 47 and learned they are popular in their hometown of Buffalo. Thanks to Gary for setting up the show. After the show we pressed in towards North Dakota. At one gas station we were parked in front of a wall right in front of the store. Jim sat down right in front of the car to have a drink and smoke. Dave quickly realized the van’s headlights were right about at Jim’s eye level, so he tapped me on the shoulder, yelled to get Jim’s attention and then proceeded to blind him at point blank range with the high beams. We both laughed hysterically for about 10 minutes. After that high point the rest of the drive that night sucked ass. We were on a small 2 lane road literally in the middle of Montana surrounded by lighting storms. Since it was about 1:00 in the morning and in the middle of nowhere we started driving totally fast. So we’re happily cruising along at about 90mph making great time and we pass a deer which was standing about 2 feet from the side of the road. Close call. We slowed way the heck down and started to realize there were deer all over the place. Big ones, little ones, horned ones, even a defecating one and every last one of them wanted to be as close to the road as possible or in the road. I never thought we were going to die so often as tonight. A fully grown deer hitting the van would be seriously bad news. I stopped counting them at 100 and the deer fest went on for 3 hours. We saw dozens smashed and dead in the road. What a scary drive. There was also raccoons and rabbits in the road and even a black cat. Tonight was another night spent in a truck stop.
Show Journal 2000-08-18
Day 1 – We’ve named this tour the Marked for Misfortune tour. The name sounded great until we actually sat down in the van and started driving. Now I can’t help but think how ominous it sounds. We actually had our first noteworthy encounter before we even left Portland. When we were packing up the van we met a homeless guy who decided to share his life story with us. I’ll spare you most of the story, but here’s the highlight and quite possibly the best quote of the year “I ain’t gonna lie to you all … I’m a drunk. I drink my breakfast, I drink my lunch, I have a snack and then I drink my dinner. In fact I’m drunk right now.” Oh man. Speaking of drunks our first show of the tour in Tri-Cities got cancelled so we kept driving all the way to Montana. No hail storms this year, perhaps it’s because we’ve been praising the almighty Bolthrower. We spent the first night in a roadside rest stop. For some reason Justin decided to try and sleep in the small area behind the back seat. Bad idea. Dave’s advice was to “just shut up and wait until you go numb.” Rather than listening to him complain we tried to convince him to go from truck to truck selling shirts but he didn’t go for it. The beard of shame contest has begun but we all know that Dave wins every year. Justin and Jim refuse to grow beards and as much as I want to I still can’t grow one.
Show Journal 2000-08-12
Tonight’s show falls under the category of “good shows that sucked.” We got to play with One Last Thing and The Secludes who are probably my two favorite bands right now. The show was at the Ash Street which was our first time there and a lot of people came out which was cool. It should have been a good evening, but no one really seemed to get into any of the bands. One Last Thing would have/could have/should have rocked any crowd on Earth but they got a few scattered cheers here and there and a few bobbing heads. We tried our hardest to rock everyone and got the same response. Towards the end of our set I swear you could hear chirping crickets after each song. Justin even jumped off the stage a few times and no one was impressed (besides me). It was fun, just a little frustrating when no one really seems to get into the music. By the way, the Secludes still rock harder than you.
Show Journal 2000-08-04
Wow, another killer show. It’s been a while since we played in Longview and thankfully not too much has changed … it still has a strong music scene with energetic kids. There aren’t too many places we play where everyone comes up right to the stage before the music even starts. In Portland there’s always this imaginary 10 foot barrier between us and the stage. Maybe it’s precautionary since Justin has developed a habit of knocking down any and all microphone stands recently. As for the show it’s my usual response … it was lots of fun. It took a few songs for people to warm up to us but by the end everyone seemed to like it. All the other bands pretty much ruled as well. Luckie Strike was really good and the Teen Idols was damn near amazing. I was the one in the band who hadn’t seen them before and I was totally impressed. You don’t hear catchy songs played that fast very often. They even got two encores. It was good too see Justin and the Moral Crux crew again since it had been quite a while. What can I say? Longview rules.
Show Journal 2000-07-12
Those of you who came out to the show tonight know that we dedicated our set to our friend Myong who passed away recently. Dave said some nice words about him at the show and rather than repeat it all, I just wanted to remind everyone that you should always make the time to stop and just enjoy the time you spend with your friends, family and the people you love. Friendships and families can’t always last forever, but your memories can. Later Myong, we all miss you. Thanks for listening … ok, here’s the show review. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to play a really good show. We’ve played some big shows in the past for some ok sized crowds, but I mean a big show with a national touring band who you actually look up to. Well, after almost 7 years of watching and wishing we finally scored the incredibly rare and elusive “really good show.” We got to open for All! If you don’t know All maybe you’ve heard of the Descendents? If you don’t know them just stop reading now. (What’s funny is that I actually remember Dave and I listening to All for the first time back in ’91 with Bryan … too bad he couldn’t be here for this!!!). So here we are all these years later playing with (and I apologize for having to use this phrase) one of our musical influences. Needless to say I think we were all a little nervous before the show. In fact at one point Justin was actually shaking. I think it was excitement more than anything. Case in point — when we walked in with our stuff to set up the bass player for All was sitting in the back of the club. I’m trying to act all cool and pretending like it’s no big deal and continue to unload our stuff. As soon as he leaves I find that I have somehow turned into a 12 year old girl who just saw N’Sync for the first time. I’m running down the hallway towards the others saying “Oh my god it’s Karl Alvarez” … “Oh my god it’s Bill Stevenson.” … “Oh my god look at their guitar amps” … “Oh my god did you see the drum set” …. “omigod omigod omigod.” I was by far the worst off but I did get a few glimpses of the others being star struck as well. I caught Jim staring at the All drum set a few times. At one point Justin had to move one of Stephen’s guitar amps and he looked like he could have been handling the Mona Lisa while he was moving it. Dave held out on the cool guy routine the longest, but the brother was hungry, so you got to be cool when you got burgers on the mind. The show went great. I thought we played well. Everyone seemed to like us, we got a lot of compliments and even got to sign a few things! A bunch of people bought our CD which was even better! The highlight though was when two of the guys from All told us we “rocked.” Amen. The crowd liked us, the other bands liked us, and at least half of All said something positive about us. From there on out the rest of the evening was as perfect. Special thanks to Zack for helping with shirts, Thrasher for the show and the sound guy for finally deciding not to kick us off the show!
Show Journal 2000-06-30
This was the last of our three shows with the Kansas City Stars and The Secretions and probably the worst. Ashland is 300 miles away and 4th of July weekend traffic shoots the drive time up to almost 7 hours. Daddy O’s is a cool club and the owners rock so the long drive wasn’t really a problem for us. Besides, the drive was a good opportunity to watch Justin cringe in pain as we played the first Danzig album over and over again. On to the show … the Secretions had a lot of people around to watch them, probably 30 or so, which is pretty decent for Ashland. I would have been happy with that turnout but after the Kansas City Stars got done there was less than 10 people in the whole place. After another slow equipment breakdown (shouldn’t they move their own drums?) we ended up starting at 1:15 in the morning. By this point there was 3 people watching us play. That is not a typo … 3 people. Every now and again someone new would wander in for a song and then leave but 3 was in fact the magic number. Ironically, we actually played one of our best shows yet. If we had played like that anywhere else people would have loved it. Don’t get me wrong the 3 people seemed to dig it, but come on … 3 people? By the way, we only got paid 10 dollars tonight. That’s pretty weak considering the distance, but at least Daddy O’s pays which is more than I can say for the bend you over and ream you type dealings of the Paris Theater. Anyhow, we ended up driving all the way back to p-town that night. This all sounds like a pretty miserable evening but we actually had a pretty fun time with the whole trip. Complaining really just doesn’t get you anywhere, especially when you are in close quarters with 3 other people for hours on end, so we just laughed it all off. However, since this is an appropriate forum for complaining check this out … between our 3 shows this week we made 10 dollars. We sold nothing, we spent about 12 hours in the van and we spent just under 10 hours sitting in the various clubs and watching other bands play. The worst statistic is that between the 3 shows we played to an average of 8 people per show … a new low for 800 Octane. You could argue we are still paying our dues but it seems we’ve been paying our dues for several years now and I would like it to end.
Show Journal 2000-06-28
In all of EJ’s 10 year existence the lowest turnout ever was 3 paying customers. Tonight we almost broke the record with a total of 4 paying people. How embarrassing is that? No flyers, no press and we were listed on the marquee as “BOO OCTAIN.” But still, 4 paying people … ouch. There were a few more people at the show than that (maybe a dozen) but most were friends of or employees of EJ’s. In a real strange kind of was the show was actually pretty cool. Probably because no one was forced to gaze into the deep recesses of Kansas City Shawn’s anus again like last night. The Secretions were particularly entertaining this evening … even more so with the arrival of Scotty Potty from Witch Throttlegush. (Dave and I have always considered Scott to be the king of all hecklers … we’ve heard him talk smack about Canadians, Australians, Californians, punk rockers, teenagers and now people from Sacramento). Thanks to the few people who came out tonight and especially the 4 who paid which keeps us from being the worst show in EJ’s history.
Latest Photos