Yeah, look at what you missed out on... heh heh

I know! A new Mapes song! And it rules!! ha ha ha It's worth watching just to see Haywood J. putting his mouth around a beer can and guzzling it down with no hands involved! LOL Now that's Sexy times 12! ;-) Oh man, Friday night was sooooooooo much fun. Yeah, I know everyone and their Mom went to that Adolescents / Youth Brigade / Vermin gig @ LVCS (sheep), and I heard it was a pretty OK show (what was up with TheCore cancelling?) but the gig @ the Arts Factory had better bands and a record swap meet, with lots of crates and boxes full of colored vinyl goodness! I was in Heaven!! ha ha ha I easily blew hundreds of dollars stocking up my vinyl collection with stuff I used to have and stuff that I never had before. F-U-N. Phooey to the elitist record collecting scum dogs who wouldn't take my money for their records. I lost out on a few choice pieces of vinyl because of it, but that's OK because it was their loss. :-) All the Bands that played were cool. Vanish Twin from AZ. were easily the highlight of the night, playing some twisted Neurosis type ambient noise grind-core shit. Here's a video of them doing a song called Looking For Flames. I stopped recording at the end of the video because I thought they went into a different song. ;-) They continued playing for like 3 minutes after I stopped filming... heh.

Yeah, I was just hanging out and walking around doing my thing and observing the happenings and goings ons and whatnot. Life's Torment kicked things off with a blistering set of Noise not Music that was just broooootal as fuck. Why don't these guys just pack the places they play in with fans going ape shit over their music is beyond me, but whatever. I'm all about catching small, intimate performances with little to no one there, as opposed to big HOB corrals full of automatons and sheeple. Lame. Watching Bob play drums is a trip, because he's a lefty, but his technique is destructive and he's got a good sense of timing and fills which is cool to watch. Larry looks like he's channeling demons when he plays his guitar and screams into the microphone, and Travis acts like he's being tortured and mutilated while he shreds the bass and screams along. Life's Torment are fucking Ace and they just get better and better every time I see them. They're pretty fucking sick and you should check them out each and every time you get the chance. If you like your Punk music chainsaw fast and just as delicate, then look no further than Life's Torment. They bring it each and every time. I posted the photos I took that night already, and they're over to the left of these words. ------------------------>

Speaking of checking things out, check out this thing that Fuzz, one time bartender extraordinaire at the Legendary Cooler Lounge (R.I.P.) has going on. It's a solo project called Fuzz So Low (get it?) with Fuzz playing guitar while accompanying himself on a kick drum and set of high hats. It was pretty cool stuff and it's always fun watching Fuzz kick out the jams. Kick out the jams... get it? Oh, the puns are flying fast and furious today! :-)

Fuzz So Low played inside, and everyone else played outside. Good Greens ( a total Sublime rip off band) played inside, and Spotted Dick And The Love Stew cancelled. Again. Do those guys just sign up to play gigs and then don't play them or something? LOL Sabertooth Snatch (from AZ.) played, and they were pretty good, in a Victim's Family kind of way. I don't think they went over too well with the majority of the crowd, either because they were a bit different then what Die Laughing and Life's Torment threw down, or because everyone was inside checking out the Record Swap Meet. Either or, not a lot of people were checking out Sabertooth Snatch, which was a shame because they were pretty good. Check them out for yourself and see.

_And last but not least is Die Laughing. They were pretty good but their set kind of just meshed into the Life's Torment set, because they played back to back from each other and they're basically the same band but with a different bass player. How Bob pulled that one off I'll never know. ;-) The music they play is kick ass though, so it makes it worth it. Their set was short but sweet, ending with a Black Flag cover that brought Travis from Life's Torment back on stage to handle lead vocals. Check out the video and see how well they did thrashing out Gimme Gimme Gimme.

So yeah, there's my little video wrap up of everything that was going on at the Arts Factory last Friday night. It was a great time and if you weren't there, then you're lame. And if you were at that gig at the LVCS instead of this one, then you're stupid - real stupid. :-)

This will probably mean nothing to the majority of you out there, but for those of you who get this, you will know EXACTLY what I am talking about when I say this:

OK, now that I got that off of my chest, time to focus on the Positive. I had a great time this weekend. If I hear that I'm 'beaming' from one more person I may just vomit. :-) Yeah, Fri. night @ the Motor City Cafe was fun. The People's Whiskey just fucking killed it with an intense set of songs that, as always, just blew me away. Nice to see Cody rocking the onethirtyeight.org shirt I had just given to him minutes before they played. LOL The drummer Luis is nothing short of phenomenal, and the other 2 guitarists are just ace. I could listen to this band for hours. I bought 2 copies of their new release 8 Tracks And Dub Sacks, because I figured I was gonna wear one copy thin after like 3 weeks of solid, non-stop listening! So far it's only been 3 days but damn, this CD is really, really fucking good. Holy shit balls is it good. Here's the video to one of the tracks on the CD called Tall Can. If you're ever in Hendertucky you better watch out for the Water Street Werewolf! He's been know to lurk in that area, stealing unsuspecting tall cans from intoxicated beer drinkers. ;-)

_There's a song on The People's Whiskey CD called Pills that could of easily been written about my psychotic ex-wife! LOL I can tell you've been taking your pills again / And drinking vodka already, yeah... Man, can I ever relate to that sentiment! hahahaha Thank Gawd those days are over. Well, for me anyways. As for my Friend that she's hooked up with currently, all I can say is you're a stupid, stupid man. And after all the Drama you know she put me through, all the Games, all the BS, you choose to get involved with that? Man, you really are retarded, aren't you? LOL Whatever Loser. Good Luck with that.

So where was I? hahaha Oh yeah, Friday night. Motor City Cafe. The Naked City Romeos were on the bill too, and they played really good (Dirk was fucking LOUD) and threw out a few new covers that I don't think any one in the place knew were covers, and they debuted a new Christmas song called Santa Is A Romeo. Fun stuff. They're a great band you should check out if you haven't already, and get their debut self titled CD because that's one excellent piece of digitally musically encoded plastic right there. I'm starting to really dig the Motor City Cafe. There's just some good people that hang out there, like Christy & Kei Tinglerz, Turbo & Kate Seriouslys, Mishelle, Skateboard Bob, and whomever else I'm forgetting. I'm always having fun there and never feeling skeeved out by the patrons or the lack of breathable air in the place. And, there's no dirty fucking hippies living in the parking lot next door to the place reporting on drug activity and drunk driving. Heh heh

Yeah, I mentioned that I found some of the onethirtyeight.org shirts with the Rorschach 'We do it because we are compelled' logo on them. I found a box of them in my garage, so if you want one, just let me know. I saw mens  M, L and XL's sizes only in there, so if you can't fit into any of those sizes, too bad. Just be careful when you wear them, because SOME people have very strong opinions about this website, and won't be afraid to share those rotten sentiments with you - or so I'm told anyways. :-)

Sat. night I was at the Cheyenne Saloon, where they apparently don't have adequate ventilation or anything other than Miller Lite on draft to drink, and there's still plenty of onethirtyeight.org stickers still hanging around the place! LOL Guttermouth brought out all sorts of freaks and weirdos to see them play, and it was good hanging out with people I haven't seen in a while, like Eastside Joe, Carlos S.F.T. and his lovely wife, all the guys in Guilty By Association, including Nick Battle Born, who I think is their new Official Drummer - Congrats Dude! I was also hanging out and drinking with my heterosexual Band Mate for Life George, who went from being the Hardest Working Man in Business to the Smartest Gambler in Las Vegas, and Punk Rock Zack, who I haven't seen since the Vegascendents Punk Rock Bowling sojourn to Oxnard a while back. That kid and I did some serious drinking that weekend, and he used me to sneak back into the place after one of the many times he got caught in the place after refusing to pay the cover price for the gig which was a bit steep. Glad I don't pay to see Guttermouth gigs though. ;-) If you watch this video I shot on my iPhone of the last 3 songs Guilty By Association did that night, you can see Zack getting roughed up in the pit and eventually getting thrown out towards the end of the Billy Joel cover they played... UGH! ha ha ha The video on my phone came out better looking than the one I took with my hand held HD camera, so I might start shooting with that more often. It was pretty handy to have around after the batteries on my HD camera died. 

Yeah, Guttermouth were really good, playing a pretty much standard set of 'Hits' even after Mark promised me they were going to be playing some new songs, which he described as a bit more 'dark and mature sounding' than the stuff they usually play, which is usually about fast food chicken places, crack hallucinations or transvestite donkeys. I think I heard 1 new song played, but I'm not even sure about that. The guys in the band are all cool dudes, and hanging out with the band in the luxurious backstage area of the Cheyenne, which consisted of the kitchen area full of Booze and Drugs and fold out chairs, just brought me back to how lucky I am to have such cool people in my Life. It's always great hanging out with guys like Mark and George, good old Friends that you've known forever and share so many wonderful memories with, guys like me who were there 'back in the days' and who don't sweat the small stuff. It's really rejuvenating, to say the least. It was a fun night! And ending the night eating lemon flavored hot dogs @ the 7-11 with Sin at 4 in the morning? Priceless!! <3

One of the many things Mark, George and I were talking about was the big Goldenvoice 30th Anniversary gig happening all weekend at the Santa Monica Civic. We are all old enough to have seen pretty much all the bands that were playing the event in their prime, back in the days when they were all good and they all had their original members, so the event didn't really seem like that big of a deal. I personally didn't feel the need to make it out there for the gig, which I totally could of went to, but it's funny hearing my Friends who were there carrying on about the Black Flag 'reunion' that went on. I'm sorry to say this, but it wasn't a Black Flag reunion, despite that being the way Jerry Roach introduced it as. No Ginn, no Rollins, no Black Flag, sorry. Just seemed like a group of Friends getting together and playing some songs they like to play, songs that they helped write, putting their differences aside and just kicking out the jams, and I personally know how fun that can be. <3 Speaking of Gregg Ginn, did you see the story about how he got a bunch of Punk videos pulled from YouTube and accounts closed because they posted SST related material on there? Yeah, what a fucking dooshbag. Click here to read the story if you haven't already.

Happy Birthday to Xtal, who, I think is turning the big 25 today! LOL Be careful though - once you turn 26 it's all downhill from there dear. ;-) Oh, and this is a bit of fucked up news, but apparently some Local neighborhood creeps broke into her house where her bands rehearse and stole some instruments and amps and shit, so if you see anyone selling off the Seriouslys band equipment, please, do NOT call the Police, but instead call Turbo, and he will take care of the perpetrators in a way that is fitting for the crimes in which they are partially guilty of. Yup!

Fuck, I either don't write anything or I ramble on like the idiot I am and write a mini novel or something. The fucking sun is out bright and early this Monday morning, and I got stuff to do today. I updated the Gig Calendar page with a whole shitload of new stuff, and I brought back the Tag Board after Weebly did some updates that made it really easy to put it back on here. The Comments feature after every new posting on here is cool and all, but not alot of people utilize it, either because they don't know about it, or they're just too lazy to do it. The Tag Board gives that instant gratification that everyone seems to crave, so I put it back up to serve whatever purpose it may, both Good or Bad. 2012 is gonna be FUN! Wait and see! ;-) OK, I'm gonna go kipper a nap and then hit the ground running. Everything is updated, and I hope you're all in a good place, because I know that I am. <3