Man, it seems like forever since I've sat down at my desk and pecked away at this keyboard, and today I'm trying to put some words together to remind myself of just how truly beautiful things are. The laughter of a child, the shared moment with that special someone, or even just having a beer and a smoke with your Friends while telling war stories about playing gigs and being on the road, these are just a few things that make me appreciative of what I have and what's going on around me. It's truly fucking amazing. :-) OK, now that the hippy dippy sappy moment has passed, what the fuck is going on with the Occupy Vegas movement and the Double Down? LOL Apparently some cars belonging to patrons of that piece of shit establishment got towed on Saturday night because the Occupy Vegas movement, which consists of Hobos, Derelicts and Idealistic, Naive Youth, takes up all the Double Down excess parking spots in the car lot adjacent to that notoriously smelly and thriving human petri dish. Now sabres are being rattled on both sides, with the Occupy Vegas people threatening to report any and all suspicious activity they witness, including what people do in their cars in the parking lot and how drunk they drive once they pull away from there. Personally I support any attempts at being a bee in the Double Down's bonnet, because I can't stand the place but since I know the Occupy Vegas movement is a total joke and incapable of getting anything done, I can't help but feel that nothing will become of the groups idle threats. Sure would be nice though... heh Raiders... UGH!! ha ha ha ha Not only is it bad enough that the Fudge Packers beat our asses like we were a high school team, but then to have the Refs still cheat for them and make those obviously biased calls against the Raiders was just pathetic. How is this allowed to still go on?? I'm willing to bet that the Raiders are the ONLY team in the NFL this year who made a red flag challenge on a play that every replay on TV showed the runner stepping waaaayyy out of bounds on a 50 yard run back, but yet the Refs replay machine was supposedly broken and they were unable to review the play, so they just let the call stand and still charged the Raiders a time out for calling the challenge. Oh football, how I love you! XOXO I missed out on the Christmas benefit show @ the Beauty Bar on Saturday, with Deadhand and the Quitters and Battle Born (I think). I heard it was good though. I don't know why Jane's Addiction cancelled their gig at the Joint last week, but I'm sooooo glad I didn't go, because I would of been pissed off if I bought tickets to that concert. Oh, and speaking of concerts, the Darkness are playing the House of Boooooo's in February - HYPED!! Somebody just chipped in a few days ago with an update on the Mark Hornsby / Cheyenne Saloon thing, which you can read by clicking here, and while it totally sounds like a dooshbag move I could see him pulling, at this point I think it's pretty apparent to his Friends and people who know the Truth about what happened with all that shit with the Cheyenne Saloon that dooshbag moves like this are to be expected from him. Sad but True. Regardless, someone, I forgot who, reached out to me a while ago from there, telling me that I was welcome back to the Cheyenne Saloon anytime, and to please reconsider my stance about not supporting the place, which I did, by starting to list the Gigs they were having there again. It's a small gesture but the least I can do. I don't have a problem with the Cheyenne Saloon, per se. I had a problem with that dooshbag that worked there. Now that he's gone, I got no problem going there or playing there or anything. There just wasn't a gig worth going to playing there, so I've stayed away.  Which leads me to this. :-) Guttermouth is playing at the Cheyenne Saloon this Saturday night, and I'm planning on being there and so should you. Yeah, the whole 'Mark & Co.' schtick is wearing thin, but you can't deny that Guttermouth has some really good songs, and depending on how coked out the band is when they play, it's either going to be an absolutely brilliant performance, or a magnificent train wreck. In either case you're compelled to watch it - you can't help it. Local support is provided by Guilty By Association, F.S.U. and Lambs To Lions, whoever they are. There's another Local band opening this gig, but they have a bass player who is a piece of shit loser and so I don't support or promote them, even going as far as to take their name off of the flyer for the gig. Yeah, I'm petty like that. ;-) God may Forgive, and even I do occasionally, but what I never do no matter what is Forget. Never. Fuck you Sector 7-G. Fuck you.
 Well, since I'm hyping up Gigs, why not mention this little piece of amazement going down right here: The Naked City Romeos and The People's Whiskey @ Motor City Cafe this Friday night. I will definitely be attending this one, because I have to pick up a copy of that new CD The People's Whiskey just released - I'm dying to hear it! :-) Man, I bet it's just phenomenal. Reverend Lord's Unholy Saints are opening, but I don't know a thing about them. I heard there might be a Drama connection with them, but you know how rumors are, so until I verify it for myself, I believe nothing! LOL Regardless, this is going to be a great gig and if you're not too burned out from Christmas shopping and all that crap than stop on by and have some fun and maybe a drink or 2 or 3. There's no snitches hanging out in the parking lot @ the Motor City Cafe... heh heh
So yeah, I think I've written enough. It's breakfast time and I gotta get some sleep. :-) Everything's updated, a bunch of new stuff was added to the website but damn if I can remember what any of it was, nor do I care. Browse around and find it for yourself. Think of it like an Easter egg hunt or something... hee hee hee See you at the gigs!
Wow. I had soooooo much fun this weekend. The past week as well. The practices with S.F.T. are coming along nicely, although they're already saying I'm playing the songs too fast, which is pretty much what every band I've ever been in has said to me. Go figure, right? :-) I didn't make it to the Mapes gig @ the Motor City Cafe on Friday because I threw my back out after band practice, but luckily I have an amazingly rad chick who's a Masseuse as a Friend, so I told her I had an emergency and she fixed me. Straightened me out and worked me out and because of her I was able to make it to the gigs on Saturday. Thanx Babe! XOXO I owe ya one! ;-) And the gigs on Saturday? FUN!!! Going back and forth from the inside lobby area to the pool area outside to check out some diverse bands was cool. There wasn't any drink specials at the bar, which sucked, because the booze was waaaayyy over priced, but it didn't matter, because they were letting everyone walk in with whatever they had stashed in their car in the parking lot. Security didn't seem to mind the smoke sessions out there either, which is always a plus in my book. The Sound dudes were on the ball, everything sounded great, and with the weirdly eclectic turnout of people for this event, which was for the 107.9 radio station Birthday party, gave the place a nice chill vibe and people were just hanging out and walking around like it was a backyard kegger party or something. Very fucking cool. And the Bands? Oh, the Bands were killer! Well, most of them were anyways. ;-) The People's Whiskey just blew me the fuck away with their set, just fucking amazing shit. Am I the only one hyped on this band right now or what? They're so exceptional as to what's going on out there right now in the Vegas scene and I just dig their sound, I dunno. Ministry Of Love were easily the most entertaining band that I saw. They have this kid Ryan who's like a monkey on speed when he plays, throwing his guitar around with reckless abandon, jumping on top of everything he possibly could and shredding away on it, and doing complete back flips in the middle of a song. Seriously. And, of course, he jumped in the pool after the band ended their set. Pulsar and Meg followed him right in. Rad. :-) I saw this band called The Lips who were really fucking Ace, playing this infectious Indy Pop New Wave music that was really New Order / Cure like, and I dug the shit out of it. Really impressive stuff. They were like the Killers if the Killers didn't suck. :-) And Guilty By Association played their second to last gig ever with Bingo Billy behind the drum kit. And it was definitely something to see... hahahaha I'll save the details for the Show Review I wanna write about it. ;-) After Guilty By Association finished up their set, I made a beeline for Yayo Taco for a carnitas taco plate and tequila shots. Yummmmm! The place was packed with the dinner crowd, and the wooden tables were sitting out, not to be moved the entire night. Whatever. Permanent Failure played a set full of Punk Rock tunes that sounded like every Punk band you liked when you were 16! LOL So fun to watch, but I had to leave when they played that Bad Religion cover mid way through their set. Is it too much to ask a band to play their covers at the end of the set, like Guilty By Association did @ the Royal Resort with that Billy Joel song? Is it also too much to ask a band to KNOW their cover before they play it? LOL Awwwww... It was Permanent Failure's last gig, and it was a good way to go out. People dug them, and they showed all us old guys in the room what being Young and Punk Rock was all about! Surrounded by Thieves have turned into a MONSTER with Brandon from Betting On Tomorrow on lead vocals and rhythm guitar. They sounded soooooooo fucking good it was frightening. They have this, ' don't give a fuck - let's just play and rock out and have fun' attitude that's contagious to everyone in the room. The songs are outstanding, and Brandon is the perfect fit for Surrounded By Thieves. They just rocked the salsa out of Yayo Taco, and it was the Guitar player Andy's Birthday too, and there were chocolate and vanilla cupcakes being handed out to everyone who wanted one. I took 3. :-) And, of course, you know what happens when you give a room full of drunk Punx stuff to abuse or throw around - a cupcake fight broke out, with everyone in the place getting pelted and marked with sickly sticky sugary frosting. Yeah, it was that kind of night. Anyways, check out Surrounded By Thieves each and every time you can. You won't be disappointed. The touring band from Reno, Machine Gun Vendetta, were pretty fucking good. They had that sound that reminded me of like, every band that was on any of those Maximumrockandroll compilations from the 1980's, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible! LOL Lightning fast Punk Rockage that was pretty cool stuff. After their set they were handing out business cards with a Link to a free download of some slamscene.com compilation album they were on, which is always good. Bands - download cards are the new way to get your music into the hands of the fans. Just saying. ;-) And Guilty By Association ended the event by playing their 2nd set of the night, and Officially their last one with Bingo Billy. I took video of the last song they played, and I'll post it up on here sometime soon. It was a melancholy way to end the evening, that's for sure. Speaking of video, here's one I forgot to post up on here from the night of Vandalism @ the Cheyenne Saloon. :-) It's blurry, shaky, off centered and hard to see, but I think it suits the music well. It's Dead Neon performing Advisory (Go To The Boneyard), Downwinder and Cratered. They were soooooooooooooo fucking on that night. Their music makes me wanna give up on the world and just head out to the desert and grow my hair out while waiting for the Apocalypse to come. Yeah, it's that moving... to me anyways. I got more Videos to post, but I need to get a hold of the Bands to ask them what the Hell the song is called that I filmed! hahaha Keep your eyes on the Videos page to see whats what. Everything is updated. Yeah, I added the Pictures of the Happy Campers and Ministry Of Love from that Royal Resort gig, and as soon as I finish writing this shit up I'm gonna head out to more S.F.T. band practice and maybe to Artifice for a night cap. Who knows. What's everyone doing for Labor Day? Me? I'm heading Home... <3
All that separated the Fools from the Cools was a 5 foot high chain link fence! hahahaha I'll leave it to you to figure out which side was which. ;-)
It was while walking around downtown Friday night that I decided on really having nothing to do with this PRB fiasco. It was while watching them set up the stage in the middle of a parking lot and at the El Cortez watching the Sheep trying to get their tickets in the Fiesta Room that I realized how absurd this all was. Here you had a supposedly rebellion oriented little sub-culture of independent free thinkers all looking the same and acting the same and being nice and organized and obeying the rules and conforming to whatever was asked of them, all just to see some bands from hundreds of yards away and to be confined in a little corral like space where they willingly waited around for hours to be flocked and fleeced of everything and anything they had of value. Expensive bottled water? Check! Over priced beers? Check? $5 cover charge to use the GOOD bathrooms? Check! All that over priced liquid has to go somewhere, right? Right! Might as well make a buck or two off of it. There was no In's or Out's, no studded anything allowed in, stupid metal bleachers to sit on, all the band merch was visibly over priced, and that stupid Larry And His Flask band of attention whores was more than annoying with their playing everywhere they could around the event. Fucking dooshbag Scenester hippy acoustic Beard Core bullshit. I fucking hate it. Bite me. Yeah, the Descendents stole the event, and I heard good things about Cock Sparrer, but I thought the Singer was a bit "off" and the drummer was just boring and playing the songs without accents. Boooooo. N.J. Pete told me Stiff Little Fingers killed it, and he knows what's up, so I'll believe that. I didn't make it to any of the Club events, because I'm not a Tool, but I heard All was pretty good from Jeremy, who was drooling over Karl Alvarez all weekend like the sexy fan boy that he is, and Christian told me that Fishbone rocked it pretty good too. Heard nothing else about any of the club shows. Nothing. Oh well. The whole PRB thing was a giant clusterfuck anyways. I felt sorry if anyone paid to stand around in the parking lot and pose for pictures to post on Facebook of you and your friends looking stupid, when everyone knew that you could see everything just fine from various places around the place, like the Motel 8, or the El Cortez parking lot, or even just by standing on the sidewalk. Shit, people were giving away tickets, and the scalpers were selling them below face value. I guess that's what happens when you over sell all the events by 30%, because you anticipate people buying the tickets and not using them. Yeah, the huge battle I was anticipating didn't break out between the Crusty Punx and the Skinheads on the last day, but oh well. I guess that means Punk Rock Bowling will be back next year to fleece the sheep of Las Vegas and I, as always, will be on the outside looking in. Yup. Thanks to Monica and Rebecca for making me miss the gigs. LOL
The gig with the Loud Pipes on Saturday was a hollow victory at best. Beard Core was in full effect with the opening bands all sitting around playing acoustic guitars and singing Bob Dylan hippy shit while throwing in the occasional Punk band cover. Yeah, because I need to hear what Fuck Armageddon, This Is Hell by Bad Religion sounds like slowed down and acoustic. What the fucking fuck is wrong with people nowadays?? I might have to declare war on Beard Core, because this shit is getting out of hand. By the time we played, people were just dying to hear SOMETHING good, and we gave it to them, of course, even though we got out-shined by Rawkmom's band, who I think are called Lazer Wolf. Pretty fucking impressive they were. It was a good night. Thanks to Bree for all the jokes. How was that drumming again? :-)
The Vegascendents gig on Monday was CRAZY! I've never seen the LVCS so fucking full of people. They got rid of the Bull (awwwwww) and have more than 2 bartenders working there now, making getting a drink a breeze. The legal capacity for the place is 700, and the staff there said there was close to a thousand people there for Cock Sparrer the night before. Crazy. Anyways, we played pretty good and got a great crowd reaction from everyone, which was both weird and nice. I still don't understand the 'Covers' thing, but apparently a lot of people do, because by the time Punk Rock Karaoke got on stage, the place was primed and ready to go off. Who knew that the appeal of seeing drunken people warble along to and forget the words to songs that should be burned into their brains from years of overplaying was such a draw? LOL I mean seriously, how do you flub the 'Hey! Ho! Let's Go!' intro to Blitzkrieg Bop? hahahahaha Well, some guy did, and there were plenty other mistakes made, but who cares? It was all in good fun. Some people did good though, like that chick who sang Sonic Reducer without a lyric sheet! Dick Lucas from the Sub/Hum/Ans snarled his way through New Rose by the Damned. Shawn Stern totally flubbed Amoeba, and Amy Carrelli nailed it when doing Cherry Bomb by the Runaways without a lyric sheet! Like I said, it was a fun way to end an epic 4 or 5 day run of drunken, drugged out debauchery with Punk Rock Bowling as the background to it all. Thanks to Michaela for making me miss everything and nothing. :-)
There was no way I'm gonna make it to Guitar Wolf tonight. No fucking way. Like most people, it's gonna take me days to recover from this, so I'm gonna go pop some pills and go get some rest. Hibernation time, I believe it's called. Later.
"I feel sooo old right now."
"Seeing all these kids here makes me feel old."
"I have never felt more old than I have at this show tonight."
hee hee hee This sentiment seemed to be shared by everyone over the age of oh, I dunno, 25 I'm gonna say, and taking it all in was a bit of a laugh. The highly excitable contingent of Punk kids who came out to make the Guilty By Association 10th Anniversary gig the event that it was had the Vegas music scene Elders feeling every bit of their age apparently! And in that rare as fuck occurrence, I wasn't the oldest guy at the gig! LOL I think all the kids were there to see the opening band Permanent Failure, who were a bunch of young Punx playing some Casualties style of music. They massacred a Bad Religion song, but it was OK because at least it was off of How Could Hell Be Any Worse? LOL Holding Onto Sound are just incredible, and they added a second guitarist to assist in their sonic aural landscape painting. They sounded great and I could watch Vanessa play drums all day. Gawd damn she's good. Battle Born always impress the fuck out of me with their melodic face punches that had the kids inside Yayo losing their shit. They're such a good band it's sickening, and getting to watch Nick play drums is always a treat as well. Seeing Bob heckling him from behind the glass while he played was just an extra treat. ;-) Bingo Billy from Guilty By Association is fun to watch play drums too, and his brand new shiny black DW set was pretty sick sounding. I'd lose the rack though, because racks on drum sets is ghey. ;-) GBA brought the place down to it's knees with a rev'd up animated set that had everyone in the place feeding off of what the band was throwing down and making sure to keep the energy levels in the room maxed out into the dangerous red area, giving the kids something to bash into each other to, and keeping the old people standing off to the side and hiding in the back vying for a better vantage point to take it all in. Watching that guy in the wheelchair wrecking fools in the pit was funny as fuck. Man, it was a fantastic night. Guilty By Association have made it through thick and thin for 10 years, which is no small feat, and they should be commended as such. Anybody who's been in a band for any amount of time can tell you about how tedious and self destructive it is, and the fact that GBA is still here, still Gigging and Touring and Recording, says a whole Hell of a lot about the Love these guys have for the Music they create / play, and the Belief that they all have in the Band. Congrats to Guilty By Association on their 10th Anniversary. Let's hope Tom Jones holds on for another 10 more years! LOL
So how about that shooting @ Area 702 this past weekend? Of course, it happened at a Hip-Hop event, naturally. It's just like the Rock all over again. Remember that club the Rock on Maryland Parkway? Yeah, things were going just fine and dandy at that place with live Local music, and as soon as they started putting on those bullshit Hip-Hop and Rap gigs, then the place went to shit and was closed within weeks. Let's hope the same thing doesn't happen @ Area 702. Although I don't go to the gigs there, because most of the bands that play there SUCK, but at least it's an option for kids looking for something to do, in a town where those options are far and few in between.
Everything is sort of updated. I gotta go help set up a new P.A.. Later.
True story... I've been sitting here listening to the 45 Grave - Black Cross 7" on repeat now for like an hour... and it's great. I listen to this shit and I remember how good we had it in L.A. "back in the days". So many gigs and different styles of bands that it was sickening. You could go to a show and see a crazy band like 45 Grave on the same bill with the Angry Samoans or Fishbone or even Bad Religion. And I'm not gonna even get into how many touring bands came through there... U.K. '82 anyone? All those glorious shows at the Olympic Auditorium? Fuck we were stupid. We bitched about how the scene sucked and this club was lame and this promoter is an asshole... blah blah blah. Pretty much like I hear people complaining about the scene here in Las Vegas. Same bitching, different plane of existence. But at least I have the sense to appreciate it now. Things are great here in Sin City... there's a ton of diverse bands out and about now... it's summer so that means that a shit load of bored kids will be starting up bands... desert shows are coming back as a force to be reckoned with... house parties as always are fun, just as long as it doesn't happen at your house of course, and that piece of shit bar The Boston is crashing and burning. Woo Hoo! Hopefully the people that read that Mercury story from last week will aid in it's quick and timely demise. And did anyone even bother to read the City Life's Local Music Issue? The Killers? The Luv-Taps? WTF? Lame. So yeah. I have no idea what's going on band wise, and all I've been doing is sitting at home listening to 45 Grave and the fucking AMAZING new album by The Dragons! Holy Jesus... this shit just rocks like fuck, and it literally blew my fucking mind. Go here to read what I thought about it. Gigs Page is updated... if anyone still cares or gives a fuck I posted the next installment of the Tour Diary, and you can go here to read about me passing out drunk in the streets of Oakland... it's late, I'm tired... I'm going to bed.
The first song is officially done. God it's beautiful. It's called Insurrection (I think that's the spelling), and you'll never hear it on Extreme Radio or KOMP. Maybe one of our other songs, but not this one. Me and Pitt are supposed to be recording demos this weekend of future classic Loud Pipes songs. Should be fun. Went to the F-Minus show on Thursday... where was everyone else? lol. The order of this gig should have been reversed, with the openers headlining and F-Minus opening... man did they stink. But Pitt wanted to fuck the guitar player from F-Minus... I'll let you guess as to which guitar player. Added more stuff to the Reviews section... updated the shows... and I think I'm going to Bad Religion on Saturday... maybe.
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