Show Journal 2000-11-03
So this is probably going to be our last show at EJ’s ever since it’s supposed to close next month. Bummer. So how was the final show for us? Average at best. We had a few problems at the beginning of the set including a broken string and a guitar amp that stopped producing sound. Because of that I think we came across as a little irritated on stage tonight. I’m not sure but I think that made it a little unentertaining for the crowd. It’s too bad because it felt like a really energetic set (I always think we play better when we are a little pissed off) but still a few songs ended in complete silence from the crowd. Like I always say, a bad show at EJ’s is still a good show. Anyway, thanks to everyone who stayed up late and also a shout out to The Regulars.
Show Journal 2000-10-21
Three weeks ago we played to 1000 people and tonight we played to 30. Back to reality for 800 Octane. I guess on paper it was a good show. We played pretty well despite the fact that half of us are sick. One interesting event worth mentioning is that we got an official noise complaint from the neighbors who live around the club during our set. The Tonic has bands every weekend of the year and we were the first one to get a complaint this year. As Dave always says “if you can’t play good, play loud.” Part of me thinks the noise complaint is kind of cool in a real punk rock sort of way but part of me wishes someone would tell us when we are playing too loud. We can’t ever tell because we all wear ear plugs. Well, all of us except for Dave. In fact, way back in the day Bryan and I used to have a running bet about when Dave will actually be deaf. If my guess holds true he’s only got 3 years left.
Show Journal 2000-10-06
In the 6 years we’ve been a band I always go to big shows and wonder what it would be like to play on a huge stage with some huge touring band. How would it go? Would the crowd like us? Would we sound good? Would we be nervous? It’s always seemed like we were just one step away from being up there. In the beginning I just assumed we weren’t good enough to play the big shows. Then for a while there I started to think we deserved to be up there. After enough years of hollow talk and empty promises it started to feel like these bands are on a different level and we just aren’t good enough. By some strange twist of fate we finally got a chance to prove otherwise. We managed to get a slot on a sold out show at the Pine Street Theater opening up for Face to Face and Saves the Day. Needless to say we’ve all been pretty damn excited about the whole thing. That’s close to 1000 people on what’s probably one of the bigger punk shows of the year in Portland. So how was the show? After all the years of watching, waiting and wishing I’ve got say it was everything I hoped it would be and more. There must have been something in the air tonight because we actually had a pit going by the second song which is almost unheard of for an opening band in Portland. From there it was just like I hoped it would be … people liked the songs, they moved, they danced , they cheered, and the other bands seemed to dig it as well. We even had our first official stage diver tonight! The best part of tonight for me was when we finished our set and everyone kept cheering and yelling our name. It was the first time I honestly felt that all those crappy nights of long drives, no fans, no money and people looking to screw you over was all worth it. If we hadn’t played so many crappy shows I could never have appreciated that moment so much. What’s funny is that I’m talking like we just conquered the world. In reality it’s probably back to our usual circuit for who knows how long again. Still though, for one night all of the arguments, headaches, miles and sleepless nights were all worth it.
Show Journal 2000-10-01
Back to Longview again. You drive 30 miles and get 10 times the crowd. Go figure. Real good show tonight. We finally got to play with The Eyeliners which was totally cool. We’ve seen them several times and crossed paths in the past so it was nice to finally be on the same bill. The whole show was pretty cool but I think The Jimmies impressed us the most tonight. Could their drummer rock any more? People really seemed to dig us again tonight which is always encouraging. A couple of people said they saw us last month and wanted to see us again! We got to sign a bunch of stuff and even a few body parts. (Ok just some arms, but that body part thing sounds way more exciting) Thanks to TJ for setting up the show and thanks to the Longview music scene … again. Oh yeah, joke of the night … the singer for The Jimmies (who is a Longview native) offered the commentary “Longview is a great place to come for the terminally ill … every day here lasts a freaking eternity.”
Show Journal 2000-09-30
Interesting story … the show tonight was put on by Emily who was a girl we actually met on tour in Chattanooga of all places. At the time she introduced herself to us and said that she had seen us play in Portland before. She also said that she was going to have a big party with a few bands and wanted us to play. We were thinking “yeah, whatever” but a few days ago she actually called us and asked us. Pretty cool. It’s been ages since we played a party so I was kind of nervous about it. I think the last one was that god awful new years 1998 party. Usually parties have bad sound, too many drunks and you never get paid for your effort. Oh … wait a minute. Anyway, the party was totally cool. It was nice to see and hang out with the Burning Cindy’s again. I wish more people would have watched them. Our set went pretty well and everyone seemed really into it despite the cramped space and incredibly loud room. There’s always a special place in my heart for nights when you see a pit break out in a living room. We got to play encores tonight which was really cool. I think we played 5 more songs than our set list had. A few people came up afterwards and said it was the best show they have ever seen at a party. They probably just don’t get out much but we’ll take it as a compliment. Thanks to Emily for the chance to play, thanks to Pete and Paul for coming out and thanks to the drunk guy who “sang” backup vocals for the last 10 or so songs.
Show Journal 2000-09-16
First things first … tonight’s show wasn’t really a “local punk showcase” as advertised. In fact it was actually a contest between 6 local bands to see who gets to open up for Good Riddance next month. I’m not knocking contests or anything but I think this one was total bullshit. First off you weren’t actually judged by how well you played you were judged by how many people you brought in. At least one of the bands tonight brought in half of their high school class so no matter how well we or the other 4 bands played we all had already lost the “contest” before anyone even played. The other thing that sucks is that the Pine Street Theater usually has between 5 – 10 good punk shows a month. Shouldn’t all 6 of us get a chance to play there at some point? Anyone who knows Portland knows that probably won’t happen. In fact I can probably list off about 30 – 40 really good bands in Portland that deserve a chance to play there. They always argue that we “don’t have enough of a draw.” If you gave some of these bands a good slot on a big show and I’ll bet we would all have a draw in no time. Anyway, politics aside the show was actually pretty fun. The band changes were all pretty quick and it certainly didn’t feel like 6 bands which was nice. We finally got the see Looking for Link who gave us a tape back in ’97 and has been eluding us since. Also we got to see Thirty-3 who practices down the hall from us and totally rocks. The Deadlines were the big surprise for me. Imagine the Misfits and the Murder City Devils complete with fire and blood. Somehow we ended up playing after them but I think we held our own. By the time we played all the high school friends of the other bands were long gone so from what I could tell every one still there was really into us or really into seeing a new band. In fact we even had a few guys who saw us with All come out and hang out the whole night just to see us play. I think we caught a few people off guard with the new and improved version of our show which evolved on tour. Most of the people who had seen us before weren’t used to seeing us jump around so much and seemed impressed which was cool. I like it when we get compliments for things that come naturally. Anyway the show was fun and I want to thank everyone who stayed the whole show (4 hours!). I still think the contest thing was total crap but it was still a fun night.
Show Journal 2000-09-03
Day 17 – Well, as much as I hate to see it coming it’s the last drive of the tour. This morning we had to say our goodbyes to Same Day Service and wish them good luck. They are playing one more show in Boulder on the way home I wish we could be there to see them play. Hopefully we will see them again soon. As a parting gesture Dave left a few more stink bombs in their trailer. Best wishes to Maggie, Sarah, Naomi, Lisa and her spleen. They are a really good band and worth a listen to. I wish we could play all our shows with them but they would get sick of us soon enough. The drive home was pretty uneventful. Lots of laughing and reminiscing. I guess to wrap it up the cool thing about tour this year was how smooth it went and how fun it was. Most of the shows went good, we played great, we got gas money at almost every show and managed to laugh pretty much non-stop for the whole trip. In the end the painometer finished a little over 7000 miles. Can’t wait until next year.
Show Journal 2000-09-02
Day 16 – I realized this morning I am out of boxer shorts and socks. I confessed this to Dave and he confessed to having the exact same problem. We found it particularly odd that we were both out of boxers and socks so we decided that either the girls are up to something or Jim is stealing them for himself and befouling them with his odor. We ate breakfast at Denny’s and went to K-Mart so Dave and I could pick up some new boxers. Going commando without a shower is a very, very bad feeling so thank goodness for the blue light special. Oh yeah, I saw a 300 pound version of myself in Denny’s today. Everyone laughed because the person looked exactly like me in the face. I was not amused and just found it to be really creepy. It was cold today and mostly overcast. We drove through a very ominous looking storm in Idaho which made you feel like the sky was caving in on you. Dave put a stink bomb in the SDS truck which was absolutely hysterical. We watched in horror as Lisa chased Dave around the parking lot hitting and kicking him yelling “I hate you Dave.” Tonight in Boise we went downtown to eat and we met two people on the street who had seen us play with All last month in Portland. Weird. It feels like the tour is just getting started and here it is the last show of the tour. Same Day Service sounded great tonight. They sounded pretty aggressive and played really tight. So tight in fact that at one point we thought it killed Lisa. We played with Napkin who was from Portland. We had never seen or heard of them before but we knew a lot of the same people … very strange. Thanks to Keith for hooking us up with the show … again. Keith is the man. That’s the 5th time he has totally set us up with a show and crowd. Amen. Since it was the last night of the tour we all splurged and got hotel rooms. No broken TV’s, no holes kicked in the wall and no mud sharks. Just a quiet evening with SDS and 800 Octane (aka – the world’s most boring band).
Show Journal 2000-09-01
Day 15 – Thanks to the person who’s house we stayed at (who’s name is escaping me). Also Justin thanks you for the hockey stick. We woke up to find that the SDS girls had written “I Love 800 Octane” on some maxi pads and attached them to the back of the van. We spent most of the morning contemplating revenge. The silliest idea was to cut open fish and attach them to their windshield wipers. It’s not destructive but it certainly would get a “what the hell” kind of reaction. Today is my favorite drive in the country, Denver to Salt Lake City. Awesome views and I especially love Glenwood Cavern. It’s sooo cool. Since there are tons of mountains and we both are driving heavy vehicles both bands agreed to meet at the first rest stop in Utah if we got split up. We did get spilt up and met them there a few hours later. When we met them they told us they were almost out of gas and had been running on empty for about 30 minutes. The next stop was 40 miles away so we drove behind them and waited for the inevitable. By some stroke of luck, it never happened and we managed to get to a gas station without incident. At one rest stop the SDS kids were assaulted by El Santo, aka – the condiment demon. El Santo has many shapes and sizes and throws many varieties of food, yet the familiar mask and feeling of terror are always the same. Later in the day they retaliated by putting jelly in the van’s door handles. (Later in the evening we discovered that the jelly was put there by Justin … do we have a traitor among us?) Unlike our last visit to Salt Lake City, this one rocked. Burt’s Tiki Lounge was a way cool place. SDS had a difficult night because of the hecklers and people who insisted on buying them shots. I guess being an all girl band they get a lot of that. They sounded a little tougher than the previous nights probably because of the atmosphere. People noticed that they played good and they sold a ton of stuff. We broke strings on 3 of our 4 guitars and Justin broke the bridge on the 4th one. That’s normally not too big a deal but this was all in the first 4 songs. Dave told some Mormon jokes while we got new strings and we finally got our stuff together and played what felt like a great set. I think we always play best when we are agitated about something. One guy told us that was the best show he’s ever seen at the Tiki Lounge. Cool. Thunderfist played after us a laid down the rock like they promised to. I though they played well but their singer said “we must sound like toy machines compared to the sonic maelstrom of 800 Octane.” Sweet. It was good to see Erik again and his new band. Hopefully they will make it to Portland sometime soon (hint-hint)! Thanks again the Erik for setting up and show and the place to stay. Sorry for pissing off your roommates!
Show Journal 2000-08-31
Day 14 – This morning was good. The campsite only charged us $10 since we were only there for a few hours. I had a shower this morning and ate the best breakfast burrito I can remember. The band vehicle food wars have begun. It started with our van throwing donuts at their truck. They retaliated with half chewed gummy worms. The van came back firing with coffee creamers. Then the 3 girls came up with the greatest vehicle projectile I have ever heard of. They got a tampon, soaked it in Gatorade and chucked it at the van. It landed square across the windshield much to the dismay of everyone riding in it. Set, point, match. Can anyone top a discolored tampon on your windshield? I don’t think so. We stopped at the ‘Garden Of The Gods’ which is a national park outside of Colorado Springs with a bunch of cool rock formations. I wandered off for a while to take pictures and kept everyone waiting for 30 minutes. Sorry. Since there are two cars and two bands we’ve been switching vehicles and people around frequently. We’ve also noticed that having a female in the car minimizes the frequency of humor based on bodily functions. This holds true unless you are Dave and then you just don’t care about who you are with. Before the show we went out to a restaurant which according to a guy at the club was only “a few block away.” It ended up being almost 20 blocks away and about 2 blocks into it, it started to pour rain on us. Thunder, lightning, downpour. It sucked. We thought Lisa’s spleen broke near the 14th block. We still had time to kill and just hung around the club. At one point before the show Dave went into a porn shop and accidentally made eye contact with two girls who were out dildo shopping. Rather than looking embarrassed or turning away he gave them a big smile and nodded approvingly. How creepy is that? We now refer to it as ‘the porno shop smile’. He doesn’t approve of that. The show tonight was weak. No flyers and no local bands, both of which we were promised to us by the promoter. Who the hell goes to a club known for bands on a Thursday night if there aren’t any bands listed? Apparently in Denver the answer to this question is 12 people. Some were drunks with mullets and the other half were regulars from other local bands. Both groups seemed to dig it and even the ‘Boozehag’ approved. The club was weird, you play right behind the bar and everyone watches from bar stools about 20 feet away. Same Day Service sounded pretty good and was fun to watch. We played ok. Justin played most of one song walking down the bar frightening the patrons. Outside the club we met another drunk who claims to drink his dinner (see day 1). Tonight we stayed with a friend of a friend of Justin’s. The following items were within 5 feet of me during the night … a bag of old swimsuits, a bag of dog food, a cat’s litter box, a panty liner, a bowl with broken glass in in and an ironing board with iron balanced on it. Ironically it was the best night of sleep yet on the tour. Probably because I was terrified of what would happen if I rolled over.
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