3/18/13 – Detroit, MI at New Dodge Lounge w/ Spit Spewing Snakes, Hood Rat (PA), Raw Dogs

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Drew

“dude have you heard what henry rollins said about gay marriage dude he is so right i cant believe the singer of a seminal hardcore band is brave enough to speak his mind about a totally brainless and rational issue that is already widely supported amongst people who know who he is”

“dude have you heard what revolutionary internet punk drew from brain tumors said about henry rollins he is so right i cant believe the singer of a largely unnotable hardcore band is brave enough to speak his mind about a totally brainless celebrity”

i have Greg Ginn’s phone number. i havent used it yet but i am going to. to adequately explain how much of a fuck i give, let me explain: i have been calling him Greg “Gin” for a few years now. our guitarist, Pat, sometimes gets compared to him – probably for being skinny and playing noisy guitar. he gets pissed and mutters something about Greg Sage whenever someone says that. i heard that Greg Sage is a recluse who lives with a ton of cats now. but this came from someone who talked to the old drummer from the Wipers with Don’t when they came through.

alright, i’m going to post this video where the soundtrack is Wesley Willis covering Duran Duran and get on with it. hopefully you are lucky enough to get an advertisement for Olive Garden before viewing it – which just seems to work perfectly together. a dead genius tormented by schizophrenia and all the salad and breadsticks.

alright, well, i wrote some of this shit back when i was feeling good about life but now i am feeling bad about it again. so the rest of this will be uneven. and i just interviewed Marilyn Manson. this is not a joke, people. he was drunk and i could hardly understand him but he said some bullshit about Gucci Mane.

we woke up at Max’s looking like fat italians in shitty hooded sweatshirts that turned blue after attempting to dye them black. or maybe that was just me. i found a jumprope.

we unloaded and then drove out of chicago. 

then we broke down after trying to get gas at a place called Chesterville. i don’t know what state it’s in and i’m not going to look it up, but if you are from Chesterville, congratulations, you got mentioned in some band’s shitty blog.

as we sat, stalled at a light, we all hopped out and collectively pushed the van. it is the most physical thing we have done as a band other than hurt each other during shows. a man jumped out of a Dodge Charger, a car i always regard the owners of to be jock pieces of shit, and ran up to help us. he helped us push the van into a Burger King parking lot where i saw a woman wearing a jean jacket with a White Zombie backpatch. the man who helped us push the van was named Kevin. the Burger King was playing country western music. at a table, a woman was teaching a man how to read.

we waited for a while and then Perfect Patrick started the van back up. we drove through a light rain, listening to the windshield wipers squeak and squawk while Frank Black squeaked and squawked along with the rest of The Pixies, a band that is better than Sonic Youth.

we stopped at a gas station which displayed an extremely racist message in the front – although i believe this message was not displayed intentionally. the racist message was actually a result of the racist purchasing habits of the members of Michigan, a state i believe to be full of racist due to the abundance of trees. but if you’ll look here at the photo, you will see a bunch of black dolls hanging in the storefront window. there is one white doll, but that is simply because someone has not purchased the last white doll. in time, there will only be black dolls hanging.

but really, lets just ask the question of “why the fuck do we sell people dolls at the fucking gas station,” and leave it at that. lets not create The Racist Gas Station with scary truckers in this scenario where we drive to Detroit and try to eat Duck Blood Soup and play punk rock.

win an mp4 player. notice a fat italian man with an iphone.

we got into Hamtramck, which i gather is some sort of suburb of Detroit without actually being in Detroit while still being in Detroit. on the way, i took pictures of the things we passed. Detroit is something that needs to be seen to be understood, and even then it isn’t understood. but Detroit is not some Buzzfeed 30 Cool Buildings In Detroit article – it is a phenomenon and it is a fascinating story of what happens when there are no more stories.

we arrived at The New Dodge Lounge, an accommodating bar of nice people who managed to smoke cigarettes next to a “No Smoking Allowed” sign. we asked them where to go to eat. they told us to go to one of two Polish restaurants. we were in the Polish part of town. The New Dodge Lounge, if you plug it into the Google Search Engine, the first thing that will come up is “New Dodge Lounge Shooting”.

while this is a thing that happens to punk bands, i want you to understand that this seemed like a safe place to be and by no means is this foreshadowing some exciting event.

Dan tried ordering the Duck Blood Soup. the waiter initially left to place the order but then later came back after being informed that the shit took a long time to make and was not ready. in the kitchen were a number of motherly looking women speaking a language i would assume to be polish. we drank large beers and spent money. Rory and I split a meal that was not vegan which i felt would remedy the years of my life where i ate my meal and half my girlfriends meals. it did not.

i left my tour notebook at the restaurant and went back to get it. this is unimportant.
i did it after we went back to the bar and checked in. i discovered a confusing feature of the bathroom involving a plexiglass window showing a duct system. i cant remember if it was in the bar or the polish restaurant and you don’t care anyway.


i am listening to Planes Mistaken For Stars as i write this.  i don’t really know why as they’ve never been a favorite – maybe i’m trying to figure out whether or not to rid myself of them. i remember seeing them at The Triple Rock Social Club and noticing the singer had a bandana hanging out of his back pocket, which pissed me off at the time because i regarded it as “some bullshit hipster shit”. i was probably wearing a Mastodon shirt at the time. it was probably 2003.

we milled about and ordered drinks. i dont remember if we got tickets or paid full price, but i remember they were not free. i ordered a tequila and they served it to me with a lemon. i asked for a lime. i kept getting lemons. maybe this is why Detroit is crumbling into the sea and Robocop moved to Miami.


Spit Spewing Snakes played. i noted that they were super tight, funny, thrashy, and interesting. they were dan’s favorite band of the night and in retrospect, i have to agree.

then Hood Rat played. it was two guys and i got the impression they were a newer band and touring for fun, more or less. it sounded like Venom. they were fine. nice guys. i think we got asked to play with them when they were around the twin cities and we declined for some reason.

i also got to meet Amado from Bill Bondsmen, one of my current favorite hardcore bands. he had a distro at the club, set up. Andy from Minus 9, one of my current favorite whatever-the-fuck-you-wanna-call them bands was also there. we played with Minus 9 back in Minneapolis and in Appleton once and have since sworn an oath to never play after them again because of how good they are.

we played after arguing with the sound tech about some shit. maybe we argued about playing the slot that Hood Rat played, or maybe we argued about playing last. either way, i’ve grown pretty resentful of “sound techs” in general. my notes say that during our set, i made fun of someone for texting and threw her cigarettes across the room. i also kicked a cigarette out of some dudes hand who may or may not have tried to tackle/hit me subsequently. and i complained about how someone pissed all over the toilet seat and that i couldn’t take a shit before we played. afterwards people were very complimentary and nice, including two weird girls that a few people suspected could have been prostitutes because they were overdressed and too attractive to be at this show. Rory got one of their numbers and she texted him a lot.

then Raw Dogs, the obvious local heroes of the establishment, played a lengthy set.

the tall freak in the front, grabbing his head is perfect patrick. i dont remember shit about Raw Dogs other than they were the most rockn’roll band i’ve seen in a long time and at least one of them was wearing a wig. they were absolutely fucking ridiculous and pretty good. all members of Brain Tumors moshed during their set due to drunkenness and out of respect. according to what i have written down, Raw Dogs were GENOCIDE SS, DIMEBAG GUITAR, MOTORHEAD, MEGADETH. but i doubt any of this is correct.

we were also given a shitload of free food that couldnt be given to a homeless shelter or something. it was nuts. i ate a chicken sandwich from Wendy’s that couldnt have been fresher than 8 hours old – i went around and asked everyone at the club and they all told me they had eaten it all drunk and turned out fine as well. so i went for it.

we sold merch to some very nice people. we sold merch to one of the bartenders, even. some dude told me about having sex with one of his friends mom – the kid whose cigarette i kicked out of his hand. i noticed the urinal dividers swung, which i had never seen.  Rory hurt his thumb and fell off a table while people cheered. i played Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” two times on the jukebox and the girl i made fun of for texting apologized to me. the bartender played Nine Inch Nails and Dragonforce and cheered when i confronted her on it. someone vandalized the bathroom.

joel talked to a progressive racist (?) and the dudes from Raw Dogs invited us to go sleep at their practice space which was about 40 minutes away. it was good because we got to see how fucked up and decimated Detroit is.  we got to their practice space and it was good because i got to laugh at the practice space door of The Black Dahlia Murder (who hate me from the internet) and Joel accidentally wandered into the practice space of this shitty band called I See Stars and spooked one of them. I fixed a hamburger cowboy with a sharpie.

after realizing that Hood Rat was sleeping in the practice space and that people planned on partying there all night long, we left. i dragged Rory away from some girl who was professing her love for him and talked to some dude about Anal Cunt and the Village People on the way out.


we drove away in the direction of Cincinnati to find a hotel while i listened to Joel and Dan argue about fucking Ron Paul, despite neither one of them supporting him. at the hotel, Joel opened his Marvel trading cars that he got from Max in Chicago.

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3/17/13 – Chicago, IL at Albion House w/ Bedsores, Kontaminat

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Drew

CHEERS:

i got some free fingerless gloves which were left in a paper bag with my name on them at Extreme Noise, probably by Antoine from WILD CHILD. make sure you check out their new record on DERANGED RECORDS.

i finally listened to the new MUCH WORSE LP on FORWARD RECORDSx and decided that i like it. i listened to the new NEGATIVE DEGREE on DERANGED RECORDS and decided that i like it. i listened to the new THE FUNERAL AND THE TWILIGHT and decided that ITS FUCKED. seriously, i don’t understand it. sounds like a mariachi band playing NAPALM DEATH songs in a castle. totally baffling, engrossing music. i think i like it.

do you like this CAPITALIZING BAND NAME bullshit? i learned it from writing for PIT MAGAZINE, which was purportedly run by methheads in Colorado. i quit writing for them after they asked me to give a good review to some horseshit goregrind band because they spent a bunch of money advertising for them. but i quit only after writing the review, like the internet punk poser that i am. to make matters worse, i think i interviewed fucking FEAR FACTORY for them once.

and some visionary artist created this

KATE MOSS AND SOME PIZZA SLICES

JEERS:

i chipped my already chipped tooth at a show. it wasn’t even some super punk shit, it was fucking Gun Outfit from Olympia who sound like Neil Young. but i walked in and went to put my beer in my mouth (to hold it with my teeth) – but instead i just smashed myself in the tooth with my beer. so now it’s fucked.  you cant tell yet, but its gonna be lopsided in a few months. the tooth is fake too, from an accident i had while biking. when i was 8.

anyway, on to the bullshit. we’ve played chicago twice before. our first Chicago show (and first tour blog post), booked by Negative Kevin, was good – people were into it enough but not totally won over as we shared the bill with CULO, MUCH WORSE, SUBCLINIX, and MALE NURSES. our second show, which we played with CULO, SHIV, KONTAMINAT, and DIVINE RIGHT, was probably booked by Ryan Lowry to spite Negative Kevin. it was well attended but i think we sold one 7″ – it was in a tight space and i felt like we terrorized a lot of people which is always something to be proud of. most of those people are probably into industrial dance music now or some bullshit.

but this Chicago show was probably my favorite because everyone seemed to like us and we seemed to like everyone. on with it, then.
—————————

i woke up in the van as even the floor of the almighty Aaron Skufca could not accommodate every last loser who partied until 5am. i searched for my phone but it must’ve fallen out of my pocket while i was asleep, so i was a bit concerned but mostly hungover. so i ventured out into the world that does not want me.

my feet were fucking freezing – so cold that i couldn’t walk right. frozen and dehydrated, i stumbled around trusted members of the community attending church for St. Patrick’s Day (the version of the Zombie Pub Crawl where people dress like assholes instead of morons) and went back to that co-op that served all the good vegan food. i bought a burrito and a blood orange which i would later leave in gratitude to Aaron for being the best dude.

in the co-op restaurant, i asked a dude to wait two minutes and then call my phone a dozen times. i left and moved my adequately warmed feet back towards the van and searched frantically, hearing the dutiful calls of the vegan college-bro. but i couldn’t find the fucking thing. eventually i flagged some woman down on the street to call it and i found it. she was happy to help.

then i went to church. meaning, i walked around in a church that had finished services and contemplated fucking with the holy water the way i did when i was 14, wearing an Entombed shirt at a church on a field trip. i got eyed suspiciously for a minute or two as i suspiciously eyed admirable stained glass art and statues of people whose importance was probably overestimated for a few thousand years. and then i found a picture of a dude named JOHN BENDER, which was fucking cool.


SMOKE UP, JOHNNY.

i went back to the house and back into the basement to charge my phone. Don Hertzfeldt was still playing on the TV, so we watched the DVD again. Brain Tumors and Total Trash left to go get food, i laid on the couch and slept. then we went to the van and took off to go to Chicago.

on the way, Joel lost a ten dollar bet to Perfect Patrick over the presence of a Panda Express at a highway oasis. as we arrived at the oasis, i opened the door for a clearly struggling overweight man with fucked up legs. i stood at the door and held it open for him while he grumbled at me, clearly pissed that he had fucked up legs. i shrugged and said something to the tune of, “life sucks enough, let me hold this door for you, okay?”

i took a piss in a bathroom stall. i dropped my notebook on the floor somehow and when bending down to get it, dipped the drawstrings to my hooded sweatshirt into the urine water. i washed it good, then remembered how often i stick those things in my mouth. so i cut them off and thought about Evil Dead 2. i also ate a black bean burrito with no cheese from Taco Bell and had to stand behind a woman in an M&M RACING HAT in order to get it.

on the way to Chicago, Joel told us a funny anecdote about a girl hitting on him at Quarters, so his way of getting her to go away was to talk about mathematics. she briskly walked away.

we got into Chicago where the first words i heard after getting out of the van was a couple remarking on a dogwalker,

“that jogger is strangling the shit out of that fucking dog!”

ah, chicago. then i violated my half-assed dedicated vegan edge at a Korean/Mexican fusion place called Del Seoul. it would be the first of many violations because i don’t particularly enjoy eating vegan, usually. the place was delicious and the owner was nice, giving us free appetizers because we had to wait for rice and talking to us about Coldplay or Aerosmith or one of the many infuriating “rock” groups that well-intentioned people mention when they find out you’re in a band. we also watched a dude in a Green Bay Packers shirt steal the key to the bathroom.

we got to Albion House which we found by a giant pantera mural in the living room that we could see through the living room. then we loaded through the basement where i lost a bet with reality on whether or not we had played there a few years back (we hadn’t). feeling dead, me and joel sorted and marked the HAVOC DISTRO upstairs while hanging out with Max, a great dude who was at our last two shows.

we also saw Scott, who is another swell guy who was at our last two shows. he is also famous as being one of the people whose names i forget the most. at our last show, Scott gave us a ton of loaves of bread which were later hijacked from us when we intended to attack the crowd with them at a show at the bowling alley in Minneapolis.

the lovable Liz from LIBYANS/BROKEN PRAYER/probably more bands helped set the show up with Alec from BEDSORES (who i have also seen referred to as Alec from The Internet). so we saw her and met him. it was cool because i had set up a show for LIBYANS on St. Patrick’s Day exactly a year earlier. i also met KALE MOUSER, who has an unforgettable name and used to play in GRASSEATERS, if i’m not mistaken.

LAUGHBOY dropped off the show because i think maybe someone died or some real bad shit happened. too bad because they sound interesting as hell. so BEDSORES played first and it was their first show. and it was a damn good first show. probably one of the best “first shows” that i’ve ever seen. Alec is fun to watch because there is something wrong with him, similar to Dustin from TOTAL TRASH, where he squirms around and acts like a freak when he is playing guitar.


KONTAMINAT played next and blew everyone in Brain Tumors away again. tightest band with the fastest, hardest hitting drummer ever.

we played a reasonable set. i think i remember saying some funny shit and then knocking over a giant speaker with a PA mounted on it. i remember looking at Max during our set, apologetically, while he had one of those, “fuck, all my shit just fell over” looks. but then after we played, the weirdest thing happened that has never happened in Chicago.

PEOPLE BOUGHT A BUNCH OF OUR SHIT

it was confusing, but i went with it. i sold our records and ugly shirts to attractive men and women. Liz made some comment about how she wished the show had been bigger but hopefully our reassurances that we were happy with how shit turned out were adequately communicated.

Negative Kevin also showed up, missing our set but giving us more records and i hope i told Kevin that i love him. but there is the chance that i just called him a piece of shit and tried to give him a noogie or something. ah well.

we rounded up rory (who was sitting on a couch listening to Robert Fripp) and then we all went walking to go get Indian food. Rory walked with some girl on the way there and  someone found a bowling ball in the grass and started tossing it down the sidewalk. i had accidentally ditched joel, pat, and dan over a miscommunication but they met us up at the indian place which was insanely cheap and decent. like fucking, four dollar kinda cheap indian food. we tried to thank the dude at the counter because of how pleased we were but he did not give a fuck.

we went back to Albion. later, i found out Rory was hitting on/being hit on by one of those girls and he got angry and weird and quoted Kafka to a bunch of them. i dont remember which one, but here are a bunch and you can read how fucked up and depressing they are. so take that shit out of your toolbelt of seduction unless you’re one of those people that gets sex through being an emotionally uneven prick. which totally works, by the way.

my notes from the next morning are:

“Max rules”
“Albion is surprisingly clean for how punk it is”
“Max’s roommate makes incredible art”
“Joel to Pat: “You definitely farted into my butt.” ”

i woke up the next day and took a shitload of pictures of Max’s roommates art. i didnt catch her name even though i met her. what else is new


oh, and max gave joel some fucking comic book cards. i have probably thousands of these goddamn things at home, but not in unopened packs.

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3/16/13 – Milwaukee, WI at Quarters w/ Soup Moat, Strange Matter, Total Trash

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Drew

this is some shit that my work goes to every year. it is in St. Louis. my girlfriend is still watching Desperate Housewives. all of the women on this show look like puppies and all the men on this show look like dudes with goatees.

last we left off, it was morning in Appleton, a place where even the Mexican restaurants sell gyros. down this entire strip was places that sold gyros. within a few minutes of exiting the van in the “downtown” area, we managed to find a farmer’s market where i bought some shit i probably lost in the van. we also met a dude named Hippie Wayne. he sold us some…uh…what are those fucking pickled beans called? they have some name like HAPPY BEANS or something stupid. well whatever, we ate them and he was cool. and we ate at a place called The Green Gecko where wisconsin wives were drinking red wine at 10am while wearing packers jerseys and the food was local fair trade organic whatever whatever. good joint. nice people. but no vegan shit.

“aw, that’s so sad,” i hear my girlfriend in the background say while some dumb shit happens on Desperate Housewives

i was eating vegan at the time so i ventured out to find some fucking muffins or something with the guiding words of the counterperson from The Green Gecko, telling me to go down an alley into some yoga studio/vegan bakery. i had to stop to take a shit at a coffeeshop. because i was on tour and thats what you do every single day. when i found the vegan bakery, it was like a closet with cookies in it. i left, awkwardly. i think i may have taken a shit there, too.

but all of these events were overshadowed by one rough thing. our road-dude, Mike, was missing and not answering his phone. we called, we texted, we called, we texted. it was confusing. eventually i posted on facebook and tagged him and he must’ve realized we were truly worried about him. so he called.

“hey man. just wanted to let you know that im okay.”
“uhhh…what happened to you?”
“well, i didnt feel good for one reason or another so i had to keep moving. so i left. i fell asleep in a chair.”
“in someone’s house?”
“what? no! that’d be rude. show up somewhere and just take a nap?”
“okay. so, where can we get you?”
“oh, dont worry about me, man. i’m in another place.”
“where?”
“milwaukee.”

he rejected any attempts we made to meet up with him in milwaukee and keep him on the tour with us. we were forced to party across the country while mike partied in a more confined region of the world that was luckily, not jail.

that thought of jail just reminded me to send this image to someone i know who is in an abusive relationship.

so we lost mike to the punk rock abyss and carried on to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. we left while debating on whether or not Ratsak played a Minor Threat cover.

so we drove and saw signs for “Cat Toys For People – Cat Dancer Products” and observed dudes whipping donuts on Lake Winnebego. for the uninitiated (people who dont live in miserable arctic climates), whipping donuts or “shitties” is when you pull your emergency brake and crank your steering wheel, sending you spinning around in circles. one time i was with my friend and we did a hit and run to a subaru that was backing out of a driveway. his ability to navigate due to whipping shitties was the only thing that allowed us to escape from a large truck that was pursuing us, presumably to write down the license plate.

before we got to Milwaukee, dan revealed to us that he is descended from Alfred the Great. he also told us that according to an inside source, Mike Portnoy (from Dream Theater, a band actually worse than Avenged Sevenfold) got kicked out of Avenged Sevenfold for stealing signed guitars for charities and sending them to his family members. also, Avenged Sevenfold are evidently all nice guys and not politically conservative, although they play one on Mountain Dew Presents Rockstar Energy Monster Stage.



we got to Milwaukee and headed towards Quarters Rock N’ Roll Palace. but ended up Riverwest co-op eating some awesome vegan philly cheesesteaks and stuff. outside was a girl on the phone asking her partner how to use her bike rack. then we went to Fuel Cafe and met up with the nice youngsters in Total Trash.

note the dudes in the back playing MAGIC: THE GATHERING

“dont write about poop hand,” my notes say, referring to a nameless member of the band having to wipe their own ass with their hand WHO THEN FORGOT TO WASH IT BEFORE EATING.

we sat around, people ate burritos, and eventually we organized records for the Havoc Distro we were entrusted to carry and sell. i talked to Amanda from Enabler, which is the first band Brain Tumors ever played a show with (as Teenage Impotents, this is actually our first show ever). one time I told Greg from Southern Lord Records that Jeff Lohrber was our manager and insisted we talk to him about our future with the label. sorry, jeff. sort of. but not really. at all. we also found out that we had a write up in THE ONION in Milwaukee.

brilliantly, they used our facebook picture. which is a picture of one of our favorite bands, Leather, from Philadelphia. “they’re really trying to help – I swear,” remarked Aaron.

we went to Quarters and saw Aaron Skufca, who is such a great dude. and we saw Brian and his girlfriend, Lindsey, who are such great dudes. and Bubba, who is such a great dudes.

i went to this tiki bar near Quarters and tried to get a drink but waited ten minutes and had pre-buyers remorse, so i left. it was just some fucking tiki bar.

the rest of my notes look like this:

“SOUP MOAT – GREAT”
“BUBBA + BRIAN”
“TALKED ABOUT DEADBEAT RECORDS RIPPING PEOPLE OFF”
“FUZZED GUITAR, GOOD SHIT”
“ERIC FROM HOLY SHIT”


Soup Moat had a song about riding tall bikes. Bubba told me a story about hanging out with Origin of M (ex-Gudon) and them being offered some poppers. the singer responded by opening up his fanny pack to reveal that he had his own supply of poppers.

Total Trash played a great set despite their guitarist Dustin being sick as fuck. and Strange Matter absolutely killed it in about a thousand ways, eliciting the quote of “this band is proof that Tony can do whatever the fuck he wants” from Aaron Skufca, referring to Tony from Holy Shit/Strange Matter.

Strange Matter sounded like Rich Kids on LSD meets The Melvins. so fuck yeah. he also yelled “Vote Subway, Vote Arby’s” at some point during their set. so i felt a strong kinship. here is an article about the show:

http://expressmilwaukee.com/article-permalink-20770.html



even during their set, some girl played The Simpsons Iphone Bullshit Assface Game while pretending to enjoy them, which is a proof of it’s dark power as warned to us by our gear fixer, Dusty Miller (thanked on the back of Fuck You Forever)

afterward, Bubba and I took shots with the bartender. i think of this bartender often because he is the only bartender to ever ask me to wait before serving me because he was too busy playing Mortal Kombat on the TV above the bar to grab my drink. i also met the best homeless dude ever outside. his name was John and he quoted only the nice parts of the bible that everyone agrees with.

i dont remember our set but i remembered it was fun. i think i tried to throw some girl’s cell phone and her name was carol. i met a dude who looked like Billy Zane from a band called Quitters who came to our show just to see if we were better than his band. he reluctantly stated that we were.

after drinking free beer all night, us and Total Trash went back to Aaron’s about a block away. some dude almost hit us but then stopped his car to ask for Grey Poupon and redeemed himself.

Bubba stole (bought?) us a bottle of shitty tequila because he is the best dude ever and we partied until way late. two of the bartenders from the tiki bar came over with pre-made mixed drinks, so i got my bullshit tiki drink after all. rory and i colored our mustaches (and my eyebrows) with mascara in a tribute to john waters. i talked to a guy and his girlfriend with facial tattoos about our show in New Orleans which they stated would be doomed (it wasnt). they also said theyd talk to their friends to put it in a better spot (they didnt). but whatever, nice people.

and all the while, Aaron blasted Nasa Space Universe and Venom and insisted that we take showers or do laundry.

i also met a guy i wrote down as “hank with the one stud”, as he had one stud on his jacket – just like me. we ain’t punk enough to have all the studs just yet.

we went to sleep on the floor with the madness a Don Hertzfeld dvd playing all through the night. he is amazing.

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3/15/13 – Appleton, WI at The Maritime w/ Ratsak, Bag of Gremlins, The Cheep N Easyz, Sandusky Kids

Posted on April 13, 2013 by Drew

as i said before, we completed another tour. i am going to try to be better about updating this in a timely way so that i am not still writing about last tour when we are preparing to go on another tour. anyway, ahead is our Appleton, Wisconsin shit. it contains death, disappearances, and a personal meltdown related to wordpress failing to embed a Helloween video. also, i am still writing for the Riverfront Times, the most punk weekly of the Village Voice series because it is based in the most punk place, St. Louis. here is an article i wrote about commercials terrorizing my fucking brain

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/rftmusic/2013/04/sixteen_songs_forever_ruined_b.php

 

minneapolis mainstay/our friend Mr. Empty recently recorded a set of ours at 7th St Entry, where i took a picture of our friend Sean Dail from North Carolina’s band’s sticker. you can listen to our set here if you want to hear us drunkenly fumble through nonsense music while i drunkenly mumble through nonsense words. seriously though, i am fucking annoying. but i’m used to it by now

http://www.emptystapes.blogspot.com/2013/04/brain-tumors-entry.html

but its a little sobering in that David Hasselhoff eating a cheeseburger kind of way.

well fuck, maybe not like that. but maybe if there was a crowd around Daveyboy when this was happening he’d be a one man punk band. i’d sure pay $5 to watch some slobbering hunk eat a cheeseburger while his kid berates him. speaking of which, someone oughta marry that girl. seems like a good egg. i think her name is Taylor Ann Hasselhoff and if you throw her name in Google, the fifth auto-complete entry is “Taylor Ann Hasselhoff feet” which proves that America is becoming more and more progressive in the way we objectify women

we woke up and threw all our shit in the van. while trying to rig up our donated CD/AUX player (thanks, Jared Total Trash) with some zip ties, i cut my finger open with a knife. so that meant tour had begun. drew drew first blood.

we picked up Rory, who was with us in the short midwest tour we did last may (?) where we went to Omaha, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Iowa City. Iowa City was the show where i tried to get Pat to play the Home Improvement theme and we all got mad at each other because we couldn’t hear anything in the basement we were playing in. and then i yelled at a bunch of people in the living room who were smoking weed and reading Adbusters or whatever real college people do.

i mean Vice. fuck.

after picking up Rory, we went and met up with our good friend, Mike (from Minneapolis band Despise), who texted us the morning we were leaving asking if he could come. we agreed because we felt it would be good for his mental health and he has at least one Aus-Rotten patch which would make us appear more credible as a punk rock band.

we drove next to some Monster Energy Drink decal cars and went to some stupid gas stations. dan told us his stories of the road (comments on various gas stations) and we ended up in some of the same gas stations as before, including the one where we had to ask a cop for directions, once. pat drove a lot and wore dan’s  Dale Earnhardt Jr. hat. joel put on Helloween.

 

WHY WONT THIS FUCKING MOTHER FUCKING HELLOWEEN FUCKING VIDEO EMBED WHEN I FUCKING PASTE IT INTO FUCKING WORDPRESS. WHY THE FUCK DOES FUCKING TECHNOLOGY SPONTANEOUSLY STOP FUCKING WORKING THE WAY IT IS FUCKING SUPPOSED TO. I HAVE FUCKING DONE NOTHING WRONG TO THIS FUCKING BULLSHIT AND IT IS FUCKING ME. WHY IS IT FUCKING ME. WHY IS IT NOT FUCKING EMBEDDING THIS SHIT LIKE THE FUCKING DAVID FUCKING HASSELHOFF FUCKING BULLSHIT

ok

we got to Appleton late in the evening under shit weather conditions and went into the Maritime. after glancing around at the dimly lit towny bar, we unpacked all our shit an set it up at a table. Troy from Ratsak set up the show and arrived shortly after along with a ton of people. before any bands started playing, we sold merch to some young kids (who i dont even think stuck around and saw us). i overheard one of them say “you should have them autograph it” after his friend bought a 7″. we didnt have to autograph it, luckily. im not sure what any of us would’ve done if we had to.

the 3 piece known as Sandusky Kids played first. i wrote “great poppy garage shit, frail, gawky, perfect vocals – weird melody.” i liked it.

then Bag of Gremlins played, who we played with once in Minneapolis although i think all of us were blacked out at that show. they were good. and hilarious. i think they had a song about Garfield called “Mondays Suck” – but i could be making that up.

Cheep N Easyz were “competent”. i didnt have a lot of notes on them aside from that other than Dan said they sounded like Jawbreaker and Crimpshine and that the drummer was clearly on mushrooms. i asked him later and he insisted he wasn’t, but there was a fucking kid on the show who WAS on mushrooms and would come up to our merch table, mumble some weird shit, throw stuff off the table, then stomp away. and yeah, the picture is sideways and this blog is free so fuck you

there was another show going on that night that we all wished we could’ve seen – Tenement, Trauma Harness (St. Louis, members of Shaved Women), and Negro Spirituals. luckily, all those fuckers came out to the Maritime so we got to at least meet/hang out with ‘em.

Ratsak played last, who i remarked as “great – moronic punk in the best way”. it features this dude we refer to as The King on vocals because i think last time we were here, he was wearing a Burger King crown or something. no one else in Appleton calls him The King.  anyway, they tore the place up. i think they had a song about being raped by a dolphin.

i think we played last. i can’t remember. right before we were about to play, Pat started screaming obscenities and looked upset. he had just gotten a text that his friend/friends father/good dude in general, Dave, had died in the hospital. he had one of those out-of-nowhere heart attacks about a week earlier and seemed like he was going to pull through. so we played a very intense, emotional set. and i stole at least two shots of tequila from some girl at the bar who was not paying attention to anything. when i went to take a third, she pleaded with me not to.

i dont know if our set was good but the people in Appleton are so good and wonderful that they wouldn’t have told us if we weren’t. plus, i imagine pat was probably crying during our entire set so i can’t imagine it being an un-engaging show at least. a bunch of people bought merch from us and i gave some girl i didnt know some advice about her forlorn, unrequited love story.

i was also told that the owner/sound guy tried to stop the show and shut us off mid-set, which none of us noticed because half the time someone is unplugged or our gear is broken anyway. suckerrrrrrr

i bullshitted with some people outside a bit about how much Appleton changed since they produced Tenement before going to Shane and Erin’s house, lured by the prospect of watching Home Improvement. we drank and spilled wine and ate food. mushroom guy was there too, listening to Kreayshawn.  i chased Briggs the dog around the house and watched a very sad and despondent pat sit quietly with Salt N Peppa’s “None Of Yo Business” playing before pat demanded Nirvana’s “In Utero” to be put on.

we stayed up very late.

when we woke up, we realized that our road-dog, Mike, had disappeared in the middle of the night and was not answering his phone.

Peter Steele from Type O Negative died on April 14th, 2010. he was the creator of the count off, “ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR – I DON’T WANNA LIVE NO MORE.” he also once casually swept the stage while Pantera played, as evidenced in that video above. and wrote xenophobic lyrics on some Agnostic Front songs.

i was lucky enough to see Type O Negative with my friend, Antonio, in Charlotte, NC on my birthday in 2007. Type O Negative opened up with a cover of “Magical Mystery Tour” by The Beatles. Celtic Frost and Brand New Sin also played. i dont think i saw Brand New Sin which is good because i’ve always hated them. i later threw up all over a bar countertop and the bartender made me clean it up. It was a great show.  Antonio is much loved and currently has brain cancer.

 

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8/30 – Omaha, NE at West Wing w/ Gag Reflex, Diamondz R 4Eva

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Drew

much like carving “megadeth” into the side of my car, i dont think i will ever regret sending emails like this. surprisingly, timmy, vice records, nor greg from southern lord responded to this email.

hey greg, have you ever listened to James Plotkin‘s Old Lady Drivers (ft Jason Everman from Nirvana and Soundgarden? shit kinda stands up


when we were just in Omaha, someone mentioned to me that they felt a little robbed because i hadn’t written about the show we had out there the year before. which was probably because by the time we got to Omaha at the end of last year’s tour, i was incapable of forming thoughts or doing anything aside from eating, drinking, and screaming. tour baby. baby’s first show

so much so that my notes on Omaha are as follows:

“WAITER SAID TOP FIVE BANDS TO KILL: NIRVANA”

that is seriously the only thing i have written down about Omaha. so i’m going to do my best to piece together what i remember to be an enjoyable evening.  but this is the Stephen Malkmus looking fuck in Omaha who hates Nirvana.


so the safest way to start out this post is to say that we drove a shitload from Denver to Omaha. on the way, we stopped at a taco bell/kfc where i got a black bean burrito, which is pretty good. not to get political on you, but why the fuck would you buy meat/dairy shit from taco bell? i guess if you are a crazy slob who knows the world is doomed. but here is an untouched gem that the next batch of planet-destroying cretins will unearth thousands of years from now:

i was tempted to vandalize this piece of art by scribbling the implied racial segregation but resisted. so we drove, and drove, and drove, stopped at gas stations, ate bullshit, and who cares.

we have a fondness for Omaha and part of that fondness is for West Wing, the legendary house where tons of forgettable douchebags with synthesizers and art school dreams played shows. as we never venture much further out from the few block radius and the people who go to punk shows, we don’t encounter the dark and presumably boring side of Omaha. instead, we are always surrounded by good things.

down the street from the house is a place called Brothers Lounge, which is probably one of my favorite bars. the owner stuffs the jukebox full of old punk and serves everything from cheap beer to specialty cocktails. also has a fucking stage in the back where i remember some Burger Records band was due to play sometime in the next few weeks, according to a flyer.


we drank and observed some possible hipsters while talking to the owner/bartender about his connection with Minneapolis bands. such as STNNNG, a decent band ive always liked (despite some of them not liking me very much)

then we walked to The Grand Ol’ American Big Burger Brewpub & Eatery Tap-Room. i dont know what the name is (Omaha Tap House?), but you know the kind of place. locals say theyre famous for their wings or some shit, blah blah blah, art school, stephen malkmus, drank scotch, probably played Pink Floyd’s “Echoes”. good food though, nice way to blast a hundred dollars with your loser broke friends


we went to West Wing and then walked to a gas station to buy beer. i saw this fucking sign, which reminds me of my favorite Mitt Romney moment. then i imagine we stood around in the alleyway while talking to best dudes, JD and Alex.
i took a lot of pictures of Gag Reflex which means they were probably good. i didn’t take any pictures of Diamondz R 4Eva which probably means i was drunk. i still cant figure out if “Diamondz R 4Eva” is the best band name i’ve ever heard or the worst. i think the fact that im contemplating that means it’s the best. but anyhow, theyre a good band. and i’m 90% sure they were smoking weed in the middle of their set.

then we sold a bunch of shit. then i dont know what happened, but i am certain we were paid well and taken care of because Omaha is a fantastic place. the next pictures i have are me at the Minnesota State Fair two days later. it was not the best time i have had at the fair because some dude groped my girlfriend (i was not nearby and wisely dragged away from the guy upon finding out) and later i watched another guy dude with neck tattoos grab his girlfriend by the hair and pull her down, then chase her as she ran away. we tried following the dude without being noticed but it was sketchy shit. but on the plus side, i got a picture of this white guy wearing a dashiki. note the tag.

also worth mentioning is the show we played shortly after getting home with legendary freaks, COCK E.S.P. (on tour now), our pals in Cognitive Dissonance, and the honorable Kenny Millions (http://www.kennymillions.com/). click his name to read about what an amazing career this guy has had and go see him if you ever have the chance. and yes, that is hardcore pornography he is playing on a screen behind him while he holds a child’s saxophone, guitar, and adult blow up doll.


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8/29 – Denver, CO at Mouth House w/ Negative Degree, Nose Bled, Gravetorn

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Drew

good old fanky malloon – posed for a picture at his favorite vacation spot, Casa Bonita.

never thought at the age of 29 i’d be listening to a new Mudhoney song.

we finished another tour. we licked the plate of life clean. it was…easier on us in a lot of ways. easier on the van because of no fucking mountains that scare the shit out of flatlanders like us. easier on me because i didn’t get my arm ripped open on a nail in a basement or my jaw dislocated and learned how to warm up my voice (seriously, do this). easier on our wallets because of pockets of losers who like losers with instruments and buy their shirts and 7″s

kinda at the point where i just want to do a tour and only stop in cities that people skip. do a whole Flying Saucer Tour, to quote Bill Hicks. not that we don’t like playing in big cities, but big cities have an interesting way of expressing their gratitude or appreciation. the do the shit i’m guilty of – standing around, nodding your head in the back. maybe yell some Weird Al song titles if you’re really on your game. but people in overlooked places seem to do dumb shit like swing from pieces of carpet from rafters and spray paint “fuck you” on their chests.

anyhow, we had fun and the only real bad thing that happened was that my hip got dislocated in New Orleans, causing me to lean on a broken bannister piece outside of a club that was forcefully overtaken by Pink Floyd’s “Echoes”. i ended up going to a chiropractor who agreed to adjust me on a Sunday for $60. not a miracle, but i’ll take it.

i’ll end this precursor meandering to the real meandering by encouraging you to listen to Pregnancy Scares’ last record on Deranged. came out around the same time as Fuck You Forever but kinda kicks our records ass.

what the fuck is with this video, though? was this filmed at a show or one of those “show reenactment” music videos? hmm.


we woke up and drove, in case you couldnt figure it out from those pictures. the terrain was dirt colored and stupid. undoubtedly we stopped at many stupid places and many stupid gas stations.  i wrote “little america – fantastically slow” – another mysterious note that escapes me while compiling a tour journal over six months after a tour. but here is a great picture of a gas station and joel.

joel also bought these fucking nuts. i dont know what they are but we all couldnt stop eating them. that doesn’t mean they were good – mind you. they weren’t.

i have ordered from the company that makes them, called “Nutty Guys“. the company name makes me want to commit violence. just dont buy these nuts. and yes i am also thinking “deez nuts” in case you were, too.

you can also buy a fucking Pavarotti cassette tape for six bucks in this part of the country.

we soldiered on, listening to what i call “Danny Shithead’s Tales from the Road” which are his miscellaneous stories about going to various gas stations. after driving for probably ten to twelve hours total, we got to Denver. Denver is also Dan’s favorite city. Denver also has Dan’s brother who helps me continue believing that everyone in Dan’s family is the best. Denver also has a bar called The Satire Lounge where the server is in love with Mark Masters from Negative Degree and calls him some name like “Snookie Beaver” or something equally insane.


Denver also has a place called Casa Bonita. let me tell you about Casa Bonita – this place is not a fucking joke. yes, i know South Park apparently made an episode about Casa Bonita. but Casa Bonita is not a funny place. Casa Bonita is not a cool place. Casa Bonita is not a place you go “just to experience”, unless you also do things like drive nails into your genitals “just to experience” the sensation.

we arrived and all contemplated turning around. the hostess was apathetic and shrugged, kinda indicating that she wasn’t impressed by the joint. understandable for anyone who works anywhere, truly. but eventually, i ponied up the money and decided to cover people “just to experience” Casa Bonita. and the fucking place sucks.

ever been to a giant mexican restaurant run by white people? this is the whitest, worst, shittiest place in the world. they have a gimmick which is that there some some man-made waterfall where some poorly paid olympic reject dives off of and into a pool. there are “actors” which perform skits that no one pays attention to. and there is the blandest food ever. and it costs like, fucking $10. there is nothing good about Casa Bonita.  do not go. there were also future fratboys there. high schoolers. idiots. fuck you

after our dumb fucking meal, we all got sick. i threw up on the side of a building next to the place we were playing. i also felt my stomach trembling in terror. luckily the place we were playing, The Mouth House, was the only house ive ever been to that is BYOTP. Bring Your Own Toilet Paper.

see, though – that “luckily” shit was a sarcastic joke. you get it? because i was not lucky because i ate at casa bonita and it fucked up my stomach.


so i booked it to a 7/11 and used their bathroom. i think i may have gone back later that night and done it again. i also had to take a shit at the Mouth House, the house that expects fucking touring bands to bring their own toilet paper. so i ended up having to use the little American flag that Dan in Oakland stole off of a grave as toilet paper. punk rock

the rest of the night was good. there were a lot of normal dumb pricks like us so we felt a little more at home. we set up merch on the stove and sold shit in the dimly lit kitchen. Nose Bled was good and i think i bought their cassette (which im sure is lost) for $5 or something dumb.  Gravetorn sounded like Entombed. we played our set and joel bit me in the face because someone pushed me into him or something and he interpreted it as aggression because he has the brain of an alligator that can do theoretical mathematics.

have you ever been bitten in the face? it is scary. so i freaked out and we fought for a bit. but we continued our set and had fun, then relaxed and watched Negative Degree finish tearing up the already trashed house.

i also met famous award winning director Daniel Schneidkraut’s sister, who was cool. i believe she told me more stories of Dan beating up assholes, which is one of Dan’s hobbies aside from listening to hardcore and metal and making movies. i did a movie with Dan a few years back called Invincible Force which was fucked up. google it and buy it if youre curious. it won a film festival in Hamburg, Germany.

i dont remember anything about the rest of the evening and i cant remember where we slept. but i took one more odd picture.

mark masters is also posting on facebook right now on the RETOX band page. here is what RETOX is:

CMON MARK

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8/28 – Salt Lake City, UT at The Underground w/ Gnawing Suspicion, JAWWZZ

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Drew

i feel a little stupid now, seeing as how we are leaving for tour again at the end of this week and i havent finished my punk rock homework of writing about all these places. i still have Denver and Omaha to hit, which I’m really hoping I should be able to bang out in a few days here. luckily, the longer tour goes, the worse my notes get and the more pictures i forget to take, allowing me to pretend that less happened than actually did.

i dont think any of us had ever spent time in Salt Lake City, Utah. I’ve driven through Utah maybe three times, including the time myself and a few friends were driving to Los Angeles from Minneapolis and got pulled over in Fillmore, Utah. the cop claimed to have smelled pot in the car and the incident ended up putting my two friends in jail for the weekend while i slept in a Honda Civic. i spent most of my time hanging out with a girl from Fort Collins, Colorado, whose friend was also in jail for a similar thing. she had whatever that skin condition is that makes your hands look all spotted. it was charming.

but, as many bands as famous and important as Brain Tumors will tell you, Salt Lake City can be a difficult place due to…the lack of alcohol. Not because you cant buy alcohol there anymore, but more because of the prevailing attitude towards alcohol. whatever, lets just cut the shit and say we played a sober space and no one had enough to drink because of how wrecked people got in Reno.

on the way to SLC (an abbreviation i hate due to that fucking SLC punk movie), i recorded that we stopped at a McDonald’s. as we had seen in many places, there were some leftover shitbags from the Burning Man Festival hazily flopping around and a freckle-faced girl hooked us up with extra food. i think Pat chatted her up or something.

also, Joel almost lost his keys because he left them in the door when he was unlocking the van and we drove off. innocent mistake.

we drove through the salt flats, which is some strange shit. here are pictures that someone else took:

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=salt+flats&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=pjE9UYv-F9KAygHjp4CQDw&biw=1224&bih=620&sei=qDE9UZaZJKqgyAGn7ICIAQ#um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=salt+flats+utah+&oq=salt+flats+utah+&gs_l=img.3..0i24l5.29291.30188.2.30455.7.7.0.0.0.0.77.372.7.7.0…0.0…1c.1.5.img.IQlFKfus5bE&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.43287494,d.aWc&fp=2282948ea49385ed&biw=1224&bih=620

i wonder what satanic advertising bullshit is embedded in that url.

we stopped and looked at some other stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

we got into Salt Lake City and struggled to find The Underground. probably because it was located in a fucking storage facility amongst a whole slew of makeshift auto repair shops.

i can tell you that it was nearby a Hardees where i saw a man hassling people to let him use their cell phone. he did not ask us. so we showed up and looked around and felt nice about the place we were playing. whatever the show would turn into, at least we could say we played there in a storage garage of some sort.

we met the guy who set up the show, Jared, who is a good dude who you should contact if you stop in Salt Lake City (email us for his contact info). SLC. bro. we didn’t know shit about the bands but we were grateful to play with them. JAWWZZ was a two piece that i noted “should drop the reverb, make the guitar harsher and would be good”.

Gnawing Suspicion were fucking weird. in a way that i personally enjoyed, giving me a stupid grin the entire time. pretty clearly a bunch of older punks who have decided to do whatever they fuck they want to do and recruiting dudes to play drums on gas tanks and use grinders to propel sparks into the crowd. then play reggae. then all switch instruments.

Even weirder, Gnawing Suspicion is Aldine Strychnine, known for his work on Poison Idea’s “Feel The Darkness”. i think unanimously, Brain Tumors are more of a “Pick Your King” kind of band.

i encourage you to click their other links, too. also, im sure my father would like it if you watched this performance of Canned Heat from 1969.

singer kinda looks like he could’ve been in Poison Idea at one point. anyway, shit was pretty interesting and people were very nice to us. i don’t think we played our finest set, but then again, it’s hard to say what a “good” Brain Tumors set really is. us breaking shit? pat rolling around on the ground and not playing any of our songs? me and joel fighting? dan throwing his drums into a crowd of people?

anyhow, we sold merch and got paid enough to keep moving. and keep moving we did off to my cousin Bo’s house in Park City, Utah. he gave us his last beers and made some macaroni and cheese. Cousin Bo is a nice fella. make sure to check out this note his kids wrote him (look in the lower left corner)

Namaste, internet punks

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8/27 – Reno, NV at Ryan’s w/ Otis, DG Kicks

Posted on March 3, 2013 by Drew

update on tour and shit.

3/15 Appleton, WI w/ Ratsak, Bag of Gremlins
3/16 Milwaukee, WI at Quarters w/ Total Trash, Soup Moat, Strange Matter
3/17 Chicago, IL at Albion House w/ Kontaminat, Bedsores, Laughboy
3/18 Detroit, MI at New Dodge Lounge w/Hoodrat, Raw Dogs, Karmic Lava
3/19 Cincinnati, OH at The Chameleon w/White Walls
3/20 Lexington, KY at Al’s Sidecar w/ Mayonnaise and Blood Pheasant
3/21 St Louis, MO at Bonerville w/Overdoser, Who Fucking Cares?, Killer Blow, Coaxed, Nos Bos
3/22 Birmingham, AL at Bottletree w/Anwar Sadat, Legion
3/23 New Orleans, LA at The Mushroom w/ Anne Frankenstein, New Lands
3/24 Houston, TX at White Swan w/ Iskallt Reg, Hel-Razor
3/25 Austin, TX at Hotel Vegas w/ Recide, Breakout, Crystal Shit
3/26 Denton, TX at Bruiser’s Dojo w/ Mean And Ugly, Chainchomp, Krokodil
3/27 Kansas City, MO at The Begle Shop w/ Occult Detective Club, Night Moves, Bad Mouth, Broken Rites
3/28 Omaha, NE w/ Bright Eyes, The Faint

come on out and dont hurt us because we dont have obamacare yet

i have realized upon writing this blog and spreading it around that not everything i say is accurate or not everything i say is something i should’ve said. it would be cool of me to take the “fuck you” stance as a response (which i still do, partly, which is something i shouldn’t say), but uhhhh

well, i dont really know. i guess all i have to say is NOW YOU KNOW HOW PHIL ANSELMO FELT ABOUT THE DECEPTIVE PRACTICES OF THE HEAVY METAL MEDIA

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=53115

this link also shows that Vinne Paul’s last words to his brother before he died was likely “Van Halen”.

we drove away from the nice and sunny and hilly land of San Francisco and towards the weird and sunny and not hilly land of Reno, Nevada. i was in Reno once, with my father. we hung out with his old friend, a Oscar winning technical director who toured with Michael Jackson. we did not talk about Michael Jackson but i recall we had a nice meal in a scenic restaurant.


on the way out, we stopped for gas at the most expensive gas station we had ever seen. the “homo depot” shirt was also located in this gas station, although i am hard pressed to find it’s significance. is it a bigoted artifact from the west? is the gas station marketed towards the homosexual community the same way as the Village People were upon their conception?

did you know that the Village People was formed after Jacques Morali, the brain behind the group, had a dream that singer Victor Willis would sing on his album and it would be a success? did you know that i have only been arrested once?

we had trouble setting this show in Reno up. i contacted a few people and didn’t get a lot of help in general. there was one dude everyone told me to get in touch with, but i don’t think he ever replied to the emails. Or he did but had nothing helpful to say. im not criticizing him as i dont ever have anything helpful to say, either.

we ended up getting this show through Tim from the Minneapolis grind outfit known as Ambassador Gun. Tim also recorded our second demo, the fuzzier weird sounding one. Tim’s car had broken down in Minneapolis and i saw him wandering around, so i picked him up and picked his brain and landed a show.  as we drove for the show, i saw the flyer and cursed.

i’m dead fucking serious, this was the flyer for the show.

but, as they usually do, things turned out surprisingly well. we got into Reno and after assessing the taco situation of the city, proceeded straight to the bar. we walked in to one of the most memorable bars filled with “scary locals” that i have ever been to. and it was GREAT.

we shuffled in and sat down at the bar and ordered beers. the beers arrived with green olives floating in the bottom. shortly after sitting in the bar, i met a skinhead who eventually relieved me after describing himself as a SHARP (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice). then we talked about our African girlfriends and their mothers’ cooking along with New York Hardcore and his hatred for jazz music.

thats when the DG Kicks showed up.

the DG kicks were a bunch of old timers who all grew up playing live music at the casinos in Reno. they were also there to play a show scheduled at the same time. so technically, we had a big band/jazz ensemble open up for us. this cued my skinhead friend to leave.


i also found this sign with a limerick on it. i had the same limerick printed on one of those old amber mugs from the 70s. the kind with the wooden handles. if you know what i am talking about you likely also appreciated me spelling out the definition of a SHARP for you.

the DG Kicks were not bad and played for only slightly fewer people than we played for. they had an elderly couple sitting in the front and center for the entire show.

 

so we sat and drank our olive beers, gambling a few ones here and there at the video poker machines at the bar. i chatted with the bartender for a bit and gained a gigantic hamburger and a shot of Cazadores tequila with an ice cube and a lime in it. the burger was gigantic and the burger was served with approximately 10,000 french fries. i ate the entire thing.
so when you come here, if you are not a vegetarian or vegan, eat the burger at Ryan’s. so we sat and drank and ate and gambled and one of the DG Kicks told me that i reminded him of another guy’s son who talked to me until deciding he was not interested in punk rock. we also met Adam, the dude who set up the show, who informed me that i actually know him from an internet message board. which is not nearly as embarrassing in 2012 as it was in 2002. we’ve come a long way.

then i took a picture of Max’s arms. it took me a long time to realize why but eventually i remembered he is showing off his driving arm, not his dedication to wasting his paychecks on skin art. but i am glad Max has tattoos because we looked scarier when we were in rural towns.
i have some other notes here but i dont why or quite what theyre referencing

HAMMERFIGHT, GIDEON PURIFICATION BY FIRE (i think these are bands), SOLAR POWERED CHAINSAW CLAMPERS

dan, joel, pat – if you remember what these mean, please let me know. i’m pretty sure the solar powered chainsaw clampers refers to some dude at the bar who actually built some sort of solar powered chainsaw weapon. and the Clampers refers to some sort of fraternal order of miners that run Reno. Ryan’s was described as a Clamper bar.

we met the dudes from Otis and talked to them about metal. they were quite clearly a bunch of party dudes with long hair who enjoy hanging out in vans and listening to metal. they were A+ people and their death metal band was great. and we talked about metal. i described them as sounding influenced by Polish death metal.

we played our set and who cares. but somehow we sold a lot of merch. we hung out in the parking lot of the bar out back and talked to some pretty legitimate freaks outside including a guy who compared me to G.G. Allin and Jello Biafra. eh. i’ll take those comparisons, i suppose. we also talked about the old goregrind death metal scene after i noticed one of those NYDM (or whatever the local chapter was) patches on his leather vest. i am certain the band Anal Cunt (who, full circle, are actually the reason i learned to love The Village People) came up in conversation. i cant find the video where Seth Putnam is gushing about the Village People but here are some lyrics from the song, “If You Don’t Like The Village People, You’re Fucking Gay”:

Jacques Morali wrote the heaviest music ever
Glenn Hughes had a deeper voice than Will from Mortician
He wore chains before Slayer and Venom
Jacques Morali was portrayed by Steve Guttenberg

we went back to stay with Otis’. shortly after arriving, i realized how everyone was likely just going to be partying all night. so i slept in the van.

when i woke up to grab everyone to leave, i noticed someone had puked by the van. somehow everyone got in the van and we left.

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8/26 – San Francisco, CA at The Fortress w/ Caged Animal, Reckless, Coma

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Drew

if anyone can get us a show with this band, Barb Wire Dolls, i will pay you $200. bonus if you can arrange an interview with the Andrew Dice Clay looking guitarist. this is about the next best thing to my idea stated a few posts back.

there is a site called Music 180 where you can pay to talk to all of the soulless pieces of shit that spend their lives writing radio music. i found my arch enemy on this site, Itaal Shur. although his name looks like a black metal band, he is the co-writer of Rob Thomas and Carlos Santana’s song, “Smooth”. i will not post a link to the song because if you havent heard it, you should remain ignorant of it.

anyway, i found out that for like, $100, i could talk to this fucker on the phone. i still may do it at some point but the initial plan was to record the interview and post it, but after talking to customer service it appears some sort of legal thing could result of doing that. so another promising idea shit shot fucked down.

we woke up in Oakland and all panicked for a while as we could not figure out how to get out of Dan’s house. everything was locked. eventually, one of his roommates left to go to work and released us.

we left and forged ahead into the city of San Francisco. Pat looked on in wonder as we drove across some fucking bridges. meanwhile, i texted my insane friend Will to meet up with in the Richmond neighborhood after we grabbed some food.

we stopped and all got fairly miserable meals for being in a place renowned for its cuisine. i got coffee and a lukewarm sandwich. we parked on a steep hill and all quietly worried that the van would tumble down into Geary St and kill some people.

the van did not tumble down and kill anyone. so we got back into it and headed to China Beach.

we stared at a lot of things. then went to Will’s place nearby and watched this amazing VHS tape that i watched with will probably about nine years ago at his apartment in Richfield, Minnesota. it was a VHS tape of a local Minnesota morning show and Will had it because there was a segment where him and his karate dojo were there, showing off their ninja moves or some bullshit. Will forgets his age the segment, which is funny. but truly the best part of this video is that GILBERT GOTTFRIED is the guest star. GILBERT GOTTFRIED at the height of his popularity from the Problem Child movies.


i’ve tried to get Will to upload footage of the show but he hasn’t yet. but Gilbert Gottfried is fucking pissed that he’s on this po-dunk morning show with the two goober hosts. so he dominates the entire show, screaming into the camera and being as difficult as possible, making fun of the hosts the whole time. at one point, you see one of the hosts start to crack as his control of the show is underminded by a deranged superstar Gottfried. from time to time, the camera pans across the audience to reveal a gaggle of uncomfortable white-haired scandinavian old women.


so we fucked around with that for a while and ended up heading to the Maximum RocknRoll home base to meet up with our friend Amelia, (who briefly toured with us last year, if you recall), meet nice people like Francesca, Miriam, and Lydia. fuck, i never remember names. we also got to “JAM SOME TUNES” on the radio show:

http://maximumrocknroll.com/mrr-radio-1311/

Dan is not on there because he went out to eat tacos with Max. he described them as the best tacos they had ever had, making patrick angry again.

i think from there we went to The Fortress which was described to me as some sort of pagan gathering house. which makes sense given the decor. i want to note that the fake moon up on the wall is sold at the place i work at, Frightprops.

the Fortress was a cool spot though. Backyard area, blacklight area, little table somewhere for us to sit around and be antisocial, and even a small bar where i think i paid $4 for a shot or some shit.  so the place was similar to THE MED*****SA in Minneapolis, although MED is cheaper i think.

the place started to fill up and i ran into a dude named Jake that i met in Minneapolis from a band called Loma Prieta. guy was also playing in COMA, im pretty certain. i think he was also in Lewd Acts who i caught a few years back in North Carolina and he told me some great stories about their singer. one of them was about the dude putting a giant lock on his neck and having to do an entire tour because he couldnt get it off.

i think the Fortress is where we also formally met Kat and Jeremy from Effluxus, who are fucking great people with a fucking great band. but they helped us out and set up the show. also miriam and boo-boo and ruby and kevin and martin and even will, who is not into punk, showed up. blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah

about the bands, i wrote “Reckless were choked, Caged Animal were intense, Coma were tight.” our set, which was generated with some anxiety from pat and joel suffering from some sort of SPACE MADNESS, turned out pretty well. pat ended up rolling on the ground, breaking strings, and playing without a guitar strap while i screamed in peoples ears after breaking the microphone a few times. people were nice and receptive except for one super pissed white-pants wearing young dude who was mad that i was running into him, which made me happy.

then, due to tequila and other shit, there is a gap of time and memory until we resurfaced at Jeremy and Kat’s place where we watched their dog attack a boxing target (awesome), watched the Simpsons for hours, and went out for pizza and doughnuts.

it was a very positive experience for a group of dysfunctional dorks who usually feel out of place everywhere. thanks, San Francisco.

the next day we met up with Will and got some cheap and delicious sushi near golden gate park.

here are some pictures of the Oakland graveyard we visited and some weird pictures from Northern California, also from the Bigfoot Museum. i guess i forgot about them when i was writing shit up before.

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a message from Stressors:

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Drew

“Hey, it’s the guitarist of Stressors. Cool tour blog, I would write one if I had enough interesting things to say. However, the Hunting Party/No Statik connection is a little bit different than what you wrote. The singer of Hunting Party isn’t in No Statik, he’s actually married to their singer. I like the America comparison. Stuck in The Dessert is one of the few song written entirely by our singer, who was really into this weird Arizona band called Malignus Youth at the time. It’s from our old demo. Our other stuff doesn’t sound like that, though I’m glad you liked it.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W140_sWcxUM
The show you missed was sort of crazy. The singer for Urban Struggles not only broke a mirror at the space, he threw shards of it into the crowd and one kid got it right in the face. He was bleeding everywhere and has a facial scar now.

Anyways, it was cool playing with you guys, good luck in your future bands/tours/endeavors/life.”

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