Swine Flu

Ha!

Ooooh, I'm sooo scared!!

De-Storaging

I've posted pictures of my jam-packed storage room here before. At present it's down to a little under half-full. But now, I'm finding boxes and boxes filled with old power bill receits, credit card statements and such. I've always been paranoid about throwing out anything with personal info on it, but this is totally out of hand. I'm glad I own a paper shredder now. And some WD40.

Last Call

The folks at the house on North Street where I used to live are all moving out and going their separate ways. To commemorate the occasion, one final big party was thrown last night.

It was a classic party like the ones we used to have. Festivities started in the afternoon with barbecuing and homebrew. Bands and solo artists performed sets. JWO and MVH were particularly amazing. Briantology crowd surfed from the living room to the kitchen during the latter. I played in two bands; the first was a loose new project where I play drums. That seemed to go well, but I was kicking myself for forgetting my earplugs.

ECT played later on. We were looking for some redemption. There was the botched cover at the art opening last weekend, then an open mic fiasco on Monday (this involved the drums being very loud in the PA, but the three of us being too far behind the speakers and unable to hear the beat... leading to a train wreck of a set). We had to kill at this show. Five minutes before playing, N and I came to the realization that our drummer was back at the house. I was in no condition to go get him, so another solution needed to be found, and fast. Our friend 'Bango' agreed to bail us out and be the first human being to play drums in our band. With literally NO practice, he was perfect. He did not screw up a single beat. HUGE kudos to him for that. The set went well, it was a little trashier than usual, but we were all feeling it.

I know this is going to happen, but hopefully people won't encourage us to "get a real drummer" full time. We deliberately chose to used canned beats, it's an important part of how we want to sound. I'll make a mixtape for anyone who doesn't understand.

I brought along a cigar I had been given as a gift. I was rather eager to share, and definitely in the right frame of mind to do so. God knows how many people smoked that thing. Dozens. It was a good stogie, but you'd have to be drunk to be the 36th person to smoke it.

I don't know how long the party went on. We left around 1:30 and it was still going strong. N and I tried to be good citizens and bag up some bottles and cans before leaving. We gave up after two full blue bags. We didn't even touch the backyard.

It was a fitting send-off to the house. Everything was perfect as far as I could see.

Look at those guys. Now THAT'S rock and roll.

Celtic Music

I have to admit... and I mean no offence, here... I hate almost all Celtic music. But there are two exceptions.

There's some cool stuff going on at the RG right now, you should check it out. My band played the art opening there tonight. Kinda weird. We were under the gun for time, and I felt like we were in a bit of a rush. I think the sound was ok? We played our usual songs well, but the new cover was a wreck. A WRECK. I could only laugh by the end. It was weird, because I was watching another band and thinking "these guys would be good if they had a little more practice". Glass houses, Von Foolishness. Glass houses.

We ended with our "danse punque" song and I decided I had to rock out more than usual to make up for our sonic gaffe. So I got all



on everyone.

When N and I got to the show I was pretty excited. There were a lot of people there, and a lot I didn't know. There were people there who looked too young to get into bars, and therefore could never have seen us before. "This is our big break", I thought. But in the end, most of the faces in the crowd were familiar. Not complaining about that though. Our friends understand us and we love them for it! Also, I love playing different venues. I hope we can make that tour happen this summer.

The record will be out in 2 weeks.

Delicious... and inexpensive!

I'm trying to book a tour for the band. It'll be short but awesome. I can't be a career rock musician, so I'll have to take it one week at a time. People should try and do things like this while they can. If you have the chance, do it.

The Little Black Poodle, Oh So Naively In The Bunch

I'm gonna post this here, too. Mark my words, I'm going to form a cover band and play this at open mic night. German and all, Verdammt!

I'm too dumb to embed this so click here.

I pick the oddest bands to be blown away by. Here's another.

Headlining

Conventional rock wisdom says that the headlining spot on a bill should be the one everybody covets. This is not the case around here. No band seems to ever want to headline, and a significant number of audience members don't want to stay for the last band.

I guess I'm no different. When band order was discussed tonight it was like a reflex. "Well, obviously we can't go last". But tonight it made sense. We were the veteran band of the bunch!

Is it like this in other cities? H_x definitely has its music scene quirks.

Our sound was not good at the start. I like to run the drum machine into the PA as a stereo signal, but the sound system at the bar does not like it when I do this. I like the drum rolls to... well, roll from left to right. That's why I set it up that way. But a mono signal is what I should be using because that's the only way you can hear the drums properly at this venue. I never learn.

So about 4 songs in we were sounding like ass despite playing reasonably well. The drum machine has to be bumpin'. That's what we're all about. I switched to mono and things got better. Note to self: ONLY USE MONO AT THAT VENUE. Absolutely god damn right. And never get out of the boat, either.

People liked it anyway. It's funny how a band can melt the ice if they play enough. Like Old Band... everyone HATED us at first. HATED. But by the end, I think we had earned some respect. That didn't surprise me too much... we were playing a very accessable type of punk rock. But GS and BB were able to do the same thing to a lesser degree, playing far less accessable music. Especially GS... that's a band I thought NO ONE would ever get/like. But a surprising number of people did in the end.

ECT (which isn't a the most searchable band name) is also a band I would not describe as accessable. We play punk rock using a drum machine, write lyrics in french and sing almost exclusively about fucking. We do it our own way, popularity be damned. Yet tonight, several people from outside our group of friends paid us kind compliments, even with the shitty sound at first. I find strangers are harder to impress than friends. They're less likely to understand what we're trying to do. But I'm feeling more and more like there are some in this city who get it. It feels good.

I had to write a self-critique of my radio show tonight. I think I do a good show. It's a show for punk rock nerds. I don't know how many of those there are in this city.

I'll keep the faith though. I'd like to make the city seem bigger if I can.

I have to admit, the guy's funny. Now.

Friday night we had multiple friends over to the new place for the first time. It was fun. I have to admit, I enjoy showing the place off. Things are starting to normalize in terms of looking like we have finished moving. Now I'm trying to empty out the storage room. The one in the Tetris post.

I've dumped a lot of stuff in the garbage or at the VV. I've kept some of it. It's hard to stop being a pack rat, but if there was ever a time to stop, it's now. It usually doesn't take me long to decide what stays and what goes. I found a whole bunch of papers that required shredding. The shredder overheated twice tonight. Why all the power bills from 2002?? Sheesh.

Most of the memorabilia I'm keeping relates to music. Old gig posters and such. There is a lot of this, but it's history that's important to me. MRRs from the early 90s... setlists... I'm storing these things in the future jam room in the basement. It'll add to the rockness.

Then I'm going to start brewing again, but not the way I did at the old place. There, I brewed so that we could have crazy parties with free beer for all. Now, I just want to have some cold beverages around the house, on the cheap. Summer beer for the summer. I'm going to get into winemaking too. For us, it just makes sense. Gonna make some of these and some of these.