Album Review
800 Octane is a very high energy band live and you can see this high energy on their CD which totally shows that they are not fake whatsoever. The singers voice is one of the main factors keeping them in a field of their own, and keeping them original. I can not compare them to any other local bands or even non local bands at the time. 800 Octane can be well classified as an “Super Rock Punk Band.” With lyrics ranging from girls to bullets to the brain. An easy vocal band meaning a good band to sing along while jumping threw the pit at their shows. They redid two of their old songs for this CD, “Day of the Dead” and “New Song #2” Which were a good amount of spice to get this CD going. 800 Octane is definitely a live band but, this CD does them justice, a good amount of justice. I would suggest buying this CD as soon as you can. If you like “Punk Rock” you will love this CD. Well done guys. Score : 9 out of 10 (Matt / Punkin’ Around)
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So what’s new? Not too much. We’ve had tons of great shows over the past two months and we’ve been selling lots of the new CD’s. Most people really seem to like it which is encouraging for us. (Speaking of CD’s we are down to our last 25 copies of ‘The Kelvis’ … better buy one soon!) I can say that we are looking forward to getting out of the Northwest for our one week “tour” in June. The midwest has always been good to us, so we’re excited to go back even if only for a few days. We’ve got a few appearances on various comps in the works, plus we are putting the wraps on our first 7″ which should come out later in the summer. Thanks to everyone who keeps up with us!
Show Journal 2002-05-25
Cool show tonight. It kind of felt like a repeat performance of the CD release show but that’s a good thing. Rhythm of 84 totally rocked tonight. Perhaps more so than last time. Seeing OTR was cool since they are on our label (never thought I would be able to say that). Fast, tight, solid … very cool. Spare Lead sounded good as usual and NTTY was equally incredible as well. Our set was fun for us. Lots of jumping around and lots of guest background vocals which is always a good thing. It’s cool that people know the lyrics to the new CD already! As good as the show was, the highlight of the evening was watching the video taped breakdance battles on the lobby! Priceless entertainment! Not much else to say except big thanks to everyone who came out and made this a good show for everyone!
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We appeared on NRK’s Blackjack Radio this evening and did a quick interview and played a song from the new CD (which was cool because we ran into Krist Novoselic there). Interestingly enough we were asked to come back and play acoustically on June 2nd sometime between 7:30 and 8:00. We think this should be highly amusing for two reasons … 1) since 1994 we’ve only played acoustically once and it was only for 30 minutes in front of a very intoxicated audience and 2) no one in this band has ever owned an acoustic guitar so our skills range from bad to terrible. Be sure to tune in to hear us sink or swim!!!
Show Journal 2002-05-18
I’m going to cop out and give another abbreviated show review. First things first, Iknowkungfu rocks as a 3 piece! However, they should learn that a CD release show is no good without new CD’s! The High and Mighty have a very, very, very good guitar player. CSG were insane as usual. Words really can’t describe them so I won’t attempt to. You just have to see them to understand! Thanks to all who came out for Justin’s birthday surprise and also to everyone who paid to see us play but thought we were playing third and missed us!
Show Review
Next up was 800 Octane. This Portland crew has built up quite a local following, and it seems like they always manage to secure a good turnout at their shows. Their great sound, and catchy lyrics draw new fans to every show, and tonight they put on a great one. Their set list was a killer mix of stuff off of their latest release, The Return, and several of their older tunes. Including crowd favorites like ‘Berserker’, ‘Day of the Dead’, and ‘Get In The Van’. And they gave props out to their street team, which is always cool. (of course they forgot to mention the FIRST person to hang flyers for this show in town, who shall go unnamed) Overall this was a great show, and all of the bands gave everything they had to please the crowd. (PJ / Kick Back Punks)
Show Journal 2002-05-17
We’ve had so many good shows recently that we are just waiting for the evil hand of karma to come deal us a nasty blow of bad luck and ill will. Not yet though. Despite the fact that the Melvins and Dead Low Tide were playing across town we had a pretty amazing turnout! Thirty 3 played first and rocked. I’m not sure what the crowd thought of them (they were probably expecting a straight up punk band) but we all know they rocked a monkey’s ass. It was nice to see them play without mullet wigs for once, but more on that later. The Confederats were up next and we were stoked they could play the show on short notice. We actually played with Greg’s old band (Thrust) in Bend quite a few times back in ’97 so it was good to see him again. They play fast, aggressive, old school skate punk and sounded great. Last up was us and we had another good show. Hell, every show we’ve had recently in Bend has been amazing. The Bend crowd rules and as Forrest Gump would say “that’s all I’ve got to say about that.” As I mentioned earlier I thought we had escaped seeing Thirty 3 in their heavy metal alter egos, but alas it was not so. During ‘Day Of The Dead’ the Thirty 3 guys appeared in matching heavy metal wigs sporting monogrammed t-shirts. I can’t remember what all of their shirts said, but I do recall that Crys’s said “I fuck on the first date.” When I think of classy people, Crys and that shirt now make my top ten list. Rumor has is they all had a choreographed routine for that song but sadly I didn’t really notice. Whenever we have a crowd of people shouting all the lines to ‘Day Of The Dead’ at us I have a hard time concentrating on anything else. Anyway, all in all a rad show. Thanks to our homegirls who hooked us up with flyers and cookies, the Rats for playing the show, Thirty 3 being cool as hell and helping clean up, and everyone in Bend who always comes to see us play. A special shot out to PJ from our street team who modified our posters to include the logos of all the bands, put the aforementioned posters up and helped get the word on the streets!
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We’ve got about a dozen new pics from early 2002 posted. If you have more e-mail us! This really sucks to say but sadly we are going to have to cut our tour short. In fact we have to cut it waaaayy short. We are still going to play the first handful of shows in the Midwest, but everything else after that is going to be postponed until Fall. Why? Well, we had a whole bunch of bad timing issues sort of hit us at once. Work schedules, personal schedules, and a few potential show opportunities for later in the year that we couldn’t afford to pass on. Total bummer because it’s like 3 freaking weeks away. Argh. Some good news to report is that our new CD is available online at Revelation Records and Interpunk! That helps to numb the pain a little
Album Review
Local PDX Rock and roll dish a new album just to keep the fans on their feet. It’s been a long wait for 800 to come out with a new album, but the wait is no more. And you can’t go wrong with this release!! They keep-you-rockin’ through this 12 song full length. They even re-did “Day of the Dead” & “New Song #2” for it. I would say this is some good Rock & Roll on this CD. The guys in 800 have a great talent for song writing; they seem to write songs for fans. Anthems some might say
Show Journal 2002-05-04
Our last show in Richland was so much fun I actually consider it in the top 3 shows we’ve ever played. Believe it or not, this one was actually more fun. Man … it was such a good night. Everyone in Richland is so much fun because they all seem to get involved. Whenever we play there Dave always says “I wish you guys lived in Portland” and it’s so true. The first band was quite amusing with straight up punk rock songs about everything you can imagine. They also said they were really stoked to be playing with us which was cool to hear. I wonder if they realize how normal and lame we really are? Man oh man, our set was so much fun to play. We got to play 18 songs tonight which is amazing because we usually only play 10 or 12. We didn’t want to stop and most people didn’t seem to want to leave so we just kept playing. One really cool thing is that it was one of the local high school’s prom night this evening and I swear to you that a few people came to the show in tuxes and prom dresses! So cool to see! Thanks to Lyle for coming along to the show and being so easy to dominate at Mario Kart. Another big thanks to Dustin and everyone at Atomic Records, thanks to “our peeps” on the street team and huge thanks to everyone who came out to show despite the absence of D.O.A.!!!
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