Show Journal 2001-02-15
It’s been a long time since we played a decent bar show. The last few shows were un-promoted and empty. Thankfully the lineup tonight was really good (and well publicized) so the turnout was pretty good … especially for a Thursday. The Muddy River Nightmare Band kind of got the shaft by having to play early and ended up playing to about 8 people. Quite a few more people lingered in for Lopez to whoop their asses. The place was really full by the time SK and the PAB took the stage. Those guys are so good they just make me feel like quitting. Even though we played last quite a few people stuck around which was cool to see. The highlight of the show for me was about half way through our set when Justin stepped up to the microphone, pulled a pancake out of his pocket and proceeded to wipe the sweat off his face with it. Yes, in case you thought you misread that I did say a pancake. Why was a pancake in his pocket? I don’t know. Why did he decide to rub it on his face? Again, I don’t know. But, yes, it was a pancake. Anyway, after soiling his breakfast treat with sweat he tossed it into the crowd and said “this is for you baby”. It turns out it landed at his sisters feet and Dave was quick to point out to everyone in the crowd that Justin had just referred to his sister as “baby”. Creepy. Thanks to the other bands who played and everyone who stuck around late. No thanks to The Satyricon for not paying any of the bands and not letting Lisa in.
Show Journal 2001-02-10
What a cool party. Too bad it got busted by the cops after only four of our songs.
Show Journal 2001-01-13
Another cool Pine Street balcony show for the records. Nothing too spectacular happened this evening that is worthy of reporting. Just a good solid show with a pretty energetic crowd who seemed to dig us. No complaints here. Gotta make a special mention of the Diablotones for totally amusing us and being fun to hang out with. The whole naked singer thing was kind of pushing it, but we’ll forgive them. Oh yeah, thanks to the girls who made us 800 ball cookies!!!
Show Journal 2001-01-12
Holy crap, what a rad show! We arrived late and walked in the door only to find about 350 kids absolutely going off to No Excuse. It’s so cool to see so many people going crazy for smaller local bands. That doesn’t happen it too many towns and I always think it’s so cool when a small town like Bend has a good music scene. So anyway, we’re walking in and No Excuse announces they are playing their last song. We ended up setting up right away and were on stage in a few minutes. Our set was amazing … definitely one of the best we’ve ever played. There were so many people with so much energy, it was great. People were just mashed against the stage shouting along with the words they already knew or could figure out. Stage diving, circle pitting, knocking stuff over, you name it. I am actually kind of surprised we lived through the set though. The entire right hand side of the stage was made of 3 sheets of dry wall with carpet on top. I jumped up during the second song, came down and sank about a foot down into the carpet. After the song we looked under the carpet and sure enough I put a 3 foot wide hole in the stage. By the end of our set the entire right hand side of the was broken through and I was playing on a suspended piece of carpet dangling over the floor. It was like playing on one of those moonwalk things. The drum riser was also a spectacle of modern engineering. It was a wide flat piece of wood with supports in the middle, meaning that it wobbles and leans when you get near the edges. In a practical sense that means if any of us stand on the drum riser for more than a few seconds you can spill the entire drum set onto the floor. We has 3 close calls tonight, including one where the drum set lurched forward, tapped Dave in the back and fell back into place. Justin had some stage issues tonight and ended up toppling over onto the ground after tripping on a monitor. Of course his side of the stage was solid and functional, he’s just extraordinarily clumsy. All the broken stuff just made the show that much better and seriously it was one of the most fun shows we’ve ever had. After us the Secludes came up and showed Bend what’s up. They got the same energy as us and the first band and I think they probably had as much fun as we did. After that we packed up and drove through the blizzard like conditions and unplowed roads on Mt. Hood to get home. Super big thanks to No Excuse for setting up the show, the hall, the stage and the PA … it’s hard not to have a good music scene with people like that setting up shows.
Show Review
Next was 800 Octane. This hard hitting punk band from Portland rocked the Eagles Lodge so hard. They kept the crowd into it for their whole set with lots of energy and crowd pleasing acts. I think their bodies were afloat in the air more than on the stage. They put on an excellent show. (Dead Even)
Show Journal 2000-12-16
Back to the Rat Skellar after nearly 2 years. Unlike our last visit there was actually a crowd tonight. A pretty rowdy one at that judging by all the fights. The show was cool, we got to hang out with Greasecutter and Burnout again. Shows are always so much more memorable when you like the people in the other bands. Our set was ok, no projectiles this time and minimal beer spitting. In the course of our last 2 songs Justin managed to break a string on both of his guitars (!) and lose his guitar strap not once but twice. I find it amazing how many ways one can mess up a guitar on stage. It was kind of fun watching Justin play the rest of the set completely motionless in fear that something else would break. One strange moment this evening was when Greasecutter’s singer insisted that someone other than Dave play bass on a song. Rather than offering Dave’s bass to the increasingly drunk crowd Justin volunteered to play bass on the song so we played ‘Radio’ with one guitar, Justin on bass and Dave singing. Pretty strange. Loading out in the snow and putting chains on the van was kind of a drag but what do you expect when you play on top of a mountain?
Show Journal 2000-12-08
Wow, after a year and a half we finally made it back to Seattle. I guess it was worth the wait since this was probably our best show at Gibson’s to date. The crowd was 1) present which is sometimes not the case at Gibson’s and 2) very receptive to our music. The only downer for the evening was that our set get cut to 25 minutes which kinda sucks since we drove 3 1/2 hours to get there. Still it wasn’t too big a deal given the good atmosphere. Also, it was cool to see the Jimmies again. Of course next time Justin offers to buy them a pitcher of beer, he should check the prices first! Thanks to all of friends who ventured out in the cold to see us.
Show Journal 2000-12-07
Dammit … this is two shows in a row with absolutely no promotion from the club. We had this show booked 2 months ago and they didn’t run one single ad in the paper. The promoter is a nice enough guy (and a good guitar player) but he’s gotta be one of the most absent minded promoters in town. Since there were no ads, no flyers and the headlining band cancelled yesterday I guess it’s no surprise that only 5 people came out tonight. After the first band started the bartender actually asked if we wanted to go home instead of playing? Shouldn’t he have asked us this before we loaded in? I can think of a dozen things I’d rather do than move 500 pounds of crap up and down a set of stairs in 30 degree weather. Despite the typical Tonic Lounge bullshit the show was ok. I thought we were pretty tight until Justin broke a string and then proceeded to break the world’s record for seeing how many times you can say ‘fuck’ in a 5 minute period. Eventually we got back on track and finished off the set without incident. In fact our set was topped off by Jim’s harmonica rendition of “I’ve got the 5 people came to our show blues.” Seriously though, thanks to the 5 of you who did stick around and also thanks to the Tonic for finally spelling our name correctly on the marquee.
Show Journal 2000-11-29
Fuck the Paris Theater. We’ve played at the Paris several times over the last few years and it always sucks. We’ve never gotten paid whether it’s 2 people or 200. Local shows sometimes cost $8 on a weeknight and we have never seen a dime. Water costs too much, the sound always sucks and the employees are usually assholes. Fuck the Paris Theater. Despite getting dicked around on a regular basis tonight’s show was the final straw. The Teen Idols are the biggest band to play at the Paris in a few months and there were no flyers, no ads, no promotion and they weren’t even listed on the huge marquee out front of the club. Fuck the Paris Theater. The sound usually sucks at the Paris but tonight it was particularly bad. It started bad and with 5 bands in all it progressively got worse throughout the evening. Squealing mics, shitty monitors, ringing drums, it all kinda sucked. By the time we played the soundguy asked us to turn up our amps because he didn’t have enough mics for 2 guitar amps. How weak is that? So the sound had gone from bad to worse and finally here comes the Teen Idols who I had been looking forward to seeing for several months. They have 3 singers so needless to say vocals are pretty important to them. During the first song 2 of the 3 vocal mics went out. They tried to swap the bad mics around and try another song. That song went ok except this time the “working” microphone stopped working. They made a few jokes about the situation, probably hoping that the soundguy would remove his head from his ass and try to help, but to no avail. They tried to stumble through another song and this time had absolutely no vocals what so ever and had to stop in mid song. Now there were zero working vocal mics. By this point the band was visibly pissed. They asked the sound guy for some more mics or cords and no shit the guy says “can you play with out them?” The band then brought up the rather obvious fact that a club with live music should probably have working microphones and extra cords. Now this is classic, the soundguy says “well you can play without them or you can not play at all.” Fuck the Paris Theater. Realizing there was no other option the band just put down their stuff at this point and gave up. I don’t blame them. Some people were kinda pissed since they did pay $8 and sit through 4 bands only to endure an abbreviated 10 minute set with no vocals. The bass player and singer for the Teen Idols started telling the people in the audience (which was only 30-40 people since there were no god damn flyers) to ask for their money back. As soon as the first person actually asked for their money back the Paris staff immediately went into asshole mode and started forcibly throwing people out. They yelled and screamed at everyone (including us) and they ended up calling the cops. I’m not exaggerating, 6 police cars showed up out front of the club and were ready to kick people out! Fuck the Paris Theater. People who paid for the show and wanted money back tried to explain the story to the police but it was a lost cause. What can they do? I was hoping they could at least serve up an NYPD broom stick reaming for Hugo who manages the Paris. So as it turns out no one go their money back and worse yet, none of the bands got paid. It was no surprise for us (since they haven’t paid us in 4 years) but the Gamits and the Teen Idols are on tour and had a signed contract! Conveniently the owner (and contract signer) was absent tonight. Fuck the Paris Theater. The Teen Idols and Gamits were pretty cool about the whole situation after the show, but as a third party I just have to say how much that sucks. The Paris is the worst club I’ve ever seen. It’s the only club I’ve seen which doesn’t promote, doesn’t advertise, doesn’t pay bands, doesn’t honor contracts, overcharges at the door, and just basically just doesn’t give a fuck about anything. The best observation of the evening was the bass player for Teen Idols mentioning that “they have overpriced water and ice cream for sale but no working microphones.” Fuck the Paris Theater. Oddly enough I feel embarrassed by the show. A handful of die hard Teen Idols fans showed up and paid $8 only to see a 4 botched songs with no vocals and then watch them get pissed at our hometown. It’s really frustrating to see a band you look up to get screwed like that. It sucks for the bands and it also sucks for the people who came to see a show on a Wednesday night and have to endure all that crap. To sum up I guess I just want to say Fuck the Paris Theater.
Show Journal 2000-11-17
Oh man what a killer show. I gotta say up front that I was totally impressed with Guttermouth. I had seen them once before and they were cool, but good grief they rocked tonight. I’ve never seen so many people stage dive for a band. At any given time there was anywhere from 1 to 5 people on the stage dancing around or jumping. Some guy even puked on stage. Punk rock. Even without playing this was a pretty rad show. Our set went over pretty well. We played a little sloppy but we were way more energetic than usual. Even Dave got into the act by jumping off the drum riser. Of course Justin had to one up him and jump off Jim’s bass drum. One really cool thing was seeing people singing our songs. One real cool moment was seeing the guys from My Goldfish Ned in front of the stage shouting along all the words to our songs. What a cool feeling. I should mention that 98 Mute was really tight and really impressed me, but again I’ve got to say that Guttermouth just laid down the rock. One surprising thing was that they were amazingly polite tonight. Well, at one point the singer asked people to beat up some poor guy with long hair, but other than that they were fairly subdued. However, as I write this the rest of my band are out drinking at a strip club with the guys from Guttermouth so I’m curious to hear what stories they have to tell. Thanks again to every one who came out early and have been supportive of us!
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