Man, Weds. night gigs are the biz! :-)

I had sooooooo much fun last night! Much better turnout for a mid-week excursion than I thought there would be, and seeing soooooo many beautiful, happy, brightly blonde and freshly sober faces that came out to check out the gig was marvelous. Jenn, Alex, the guys from Deadhand, AJ, Dean, Bob, of course, and anyone else I'm forgetting, big Thanx to you all for coming out and making things fun. It was also Billy from Guilty By Association's birthday, so there might of been some drinking and drugging going on in the vicinity, but my memory is a bit hazy on the details... heh heh

All the bands that played were exceptional. Aluminum Falcon debuted their 'Wall of Sound' stage configuration last night, and guess what? Everyone said we were loud - good and loud! Go figure, right? And the band after us was War Called Home, and they were pretty good. Their front man can certainly sing. Jeremy used to be the bass player in that band, and I can see why - lots of riffing and noodling involved musically. I dug 'em. The band from Oakland called Weekender were up 3rd, and they sounded A LOT like Thursday... that's all I'm saying. ;-) Their drummer carried his cymbals in a Godfather's Pizza delivery bag. You gotta love that. And TheCore (or TheCore., or The Core, or however they're spelling it these days) played one of the best sets I've ever seen them do. The mix was great, the energy level on stage was through the roof, and they sounded fucking great. Those of us who stuck around The Dive (or Favorite's, or The Divebar, or whatever they're calling it these days) were treated to an impressive set of Music from those guys, and that's saying a lot from someone who's seen them quite a few times in the past. I was beyond hyped. It was definitely worth the wait. They closed the night down with their cover of True Believers by the Bouncing Souls that had everyone in the place singing along and rocking out. I headed for the door when all that happened... heh

Everything's updated. The Dirty Panties, The Quitters (of course), The Seriouslys and Tiger Sex, a band featuring Kei from the Tinglerz on guitar, are playing the Double Clown on Fri. night. If you got nothing better to do, it's a pretty good line up to check out. :-)

OMG! OMG! Oh em GEE!! I love waking up at the crack of 4 in the afternoon and finding out that one of my favorite bands has released a new song for us all to listen to, and boy is it a dooozy! The sexy beasts in Deadhand have posted a brand spanking new song on their Soundcloud page called Giving Up The Let Down and it's a killer. It's part NOFX, part Weezer, and it's all 100% kick ass. Give it a listen and see what ya think!

The best things in Life are always worth waiting for, and new music from these guys is all I'm pretty much living for at this point... LOL I'd love to pontificate upon that longer, but I have double band practice duty to perform today, because my band mates are a bunch of insecure dooshbags who can't seem to find the will or the want to practice on separate days. No, they all wanna practice on the same day, at the same time, and I'm just supposed to go along with it like the idiot that I am. Oh well. Enjoy the tune. I gotta go. Oh, Aluminum Falcon is playing with the bearded men of TheCore tomorrow night @ Favorites, The Dive, whatever that place is calling itself this month, so, if you have nothing better to do on a Weds. night, come on out and hang. It's gonna be interesting, to say the least... ;-)

Man, when did you ever get so tight with the gossip??

It was an offsetting question that the X-Master Bass Mistress had asked me recently, and now that I think about it, I don't really know when I did. It just sort of happened. I'm all about sharing a juicy, tantalizing tidbit that defames someones character if it's someone I don't like, but if it's someone I know and love, like it is in this case, and she asks me not to say anything about it, then yeah, I guess I'm tight with the gossip then. So be it. I mean, I told her what the gossip was anyways, but only after she told me some better, juicer, idle gossip first... heh heh heh

Hey! Today is Thursday! That means that tomorrow is Friday! What does that mean? Well, fuck all really, but what it does mean for this particular Friday is that the Vegascendents are playing @ Bar 702 with a crappy Misfits cover band called Horror Business and a what I can only imagine to be a crappy Social Distortion cover band called  The Knock Outs. Le sigh. I'm hoping they'll be sort-of OK as opposed to tolerably tepid. I mean, what are the chances of them just tearing through an intense version of Lude Boy, instead of a predictable crowd singalong, by the numbers version of Ball And Chain? Yeah, zero to none, I know, but still, you give the people what they want and apparently, what some people want these days is to hear cover songs, and if you're one of them, you should stop by and get your fill on what's sure to be a cover filled evening of Bacchanalia, Booze, and Boobs - both male and female! ;-)

And then on Saturday, oh yes on Saturday, there's a gig going on Downtown that is NOT to be missed, and that's TheCore, Deadhand and Fredward @ the Bunkhouse. They're all playing with some band called Lariats, who are in town for the weekend, playing an all ages gig out in Hendertucky on Friday as well, and it's gonna be a great gig, to say the least. Babe, I know you read this website, why I don't know, just like I wonder why anybody reads this tripe, but I digress, and babe, I'm telling you, publicly, right here and now, that I cannot miss this gig - no way, shape or no how. Nope! I need a Deadhand fix like, oh so badly, and I've been oh so good as of late, so why can't I get a dosage of some boner inducing, death from above, righteous tuneage from one of my favorite bands ever! So sexy and stinky, sickly sweet, such dirty, nice boys, or is that nice and dirty boys? Hmmmmmm... oh Deadhand, how I love thee! <3 And if anorexic junkie man-boys aren't to your liking, you can always embrace the super sexy teddy bear cuddliness of the bearded, manly men in TheCore. Those guys look like they know a thing or two about snuggling, that's for sure! ;-) So much meaty sexiness in one room! Oh, be still my beating heart! ha ha ha See ya there!

Sunday afternoon there's a righteous beer and burger skate sesh going down at a super secret location in North town somewhere, but, in the words of my friend Ena, you can't go. Invite only. I'm sure if you ask around you can find out about it, and it should be an interesting little gathering, to say the least. You just never know who's gonna show up and what they're gonna do, now do you? heh heh heh

Everything is updated - new photos of Unfair Fight just posted, and you can click here to check those out. A Show Review from Karl Bakla on the Eat The Turnbuckle gig that went down a few weeks back, and you can click here to read that. Life is Good. Hope it is with you too. Have a great weekend! :-)

Free time? What's that? LOL

In between incessant girls demanding that I watch their videos the instant they post them, or the constant Skyping, or people popping in to see and hear what I'm working on, or band practice, which, although I'm taking it easy with that because of my leg, is still a bit of a drain, with all that going on, I really don't have time for shit! Although I'm only in 4 active bands at this moment, they're all in a spirit of Creativity right now, which has me both brain drained and physically wiped out. Then I spend hours and hours on end mixing and remixing stuff I record at these band practices, trying to get the best sound I can out of what I'm given to work with, staring at the florescent green glow of the Adobe Audition workspace until my eyes bleed and I'm tone deaf from hours of listening to the same thing over and over and over again. Then I have to break them up into MP3's and post and share them with the bands so that we can work on and expound upon these ideas and bring them to fruition. And then the cycle starts anew. I try to sneak in a gig or a hang sesh with Friends and whatnot when I can, but that's waaaaay too far and in between happenings to be comfortable for me. Whew! Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but it's just that with all this going on, the website kind of suffers by being relegated to the bottom of the totem pole of Importance. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.I think I need a vacation. Hawaii or Seattle? Hmmmmmmmm...

I bought a bag of oranges from some Mexican street vendor last week, and I've been eating them non stop ever since. Best oranges I've eaten in a long ass time. :-)

Hey! Neon Reverb is in town, and I could give a fuck less. Fredward is playing the kickoff thing tonight @ the Bunkhouse with Silver Snakes and the Marquees, so if you're in the mood for some Downtown carousing, then stop by and see what's up. Those 2 tracks the band does on that Cash For Clay compilation are cool. If you haven't heard that collection of Local musical greatness, then please click here and grab yourself a copy post haste. Tomorrow night your new favorite band the Pluralses are playing with a band called Lenguas Largas @ Hellpop! comics, and if I'm feeling up to it after band practice, I may just stop by. Friday night Fuzz SoLow is playing the Clydesdales CD release party @ the Bunkhouse, Brendan from Deadhand's beardcore project Mercy Music is having his CD release party @ the Beauty Bar on Sat., playing with Old Man Markley (ugh), and Sun. Milk Music is headlining a 2 stage blow out going down @ the Beauty Bar on Sunday. And that's about it for Neon Reverb. The rest of it can go fuck off.

But it isn't like there's nothing else going on this weekend that isn't Neon Reverb related. Nope! There's plenty going on, and it's a varied grab bag of stuff to do. Tomorrow night is the Shotguns & Gasoline CD release party @ the LVCS with Shotguns & Gasoline and the Quitters, that should be pretty cool. Fri. there's a killer gig @ the Double Clown with the Fat Dukes Of Fuck and the Seriouslys, who, just like Fredward, have a couple of great songs on that Cash For Clay compilation I was talking about earlier. Have you bought it yet? If you haven't, shame on you! Then on Sat. Slow Children , from Riverside, CA. is playing with Unfair Fight and the Randoms, who I'm pretty sure are not THEE Randoms who sang the classic Dangerhouse single Let's Get Rid Of New York, but you never know. ;-) It doesn't matter because I'm going to be there regardless, and so should you. If you're not, you should go see the return of S.F.T., who are playing with Three Chord Radio, who feature Cody from The People's Whiskey, @ Favorites. So you see, there's lots of stuff going on this weekend musically, so choose wisely and get off your ass and have some fun! :-)

It's not like there isn't anything else going on that night, stuff that was planned weeks if not months in advance, and it's not like whoever put the gig together couldn't of looked on the Interwebz to see if anything was already scheduled that night and maybe picked a day where a lot of bands that were already playing gigs weren't playing gigs, a day where nothing else was going on, ya know? It's not like Clay is going anywhere, right? That motherfucker is here to stay, for a very long time. I wish I could be there. Badly. Whoever scheduled this gig needs a calendar. Badly.

The gig I'm referring to is Clay's Benefit Show going on this Sat. @ the Motor City Cafe. Take off that ghey ass Thee Dickless Bastards yawn inducing farce and you have one Hell of a line up there. The Civic Minded Five reunion is worth it alone, and having Shark Pants on the bill just makes this incredible. Plus the Seriouslys (who just finished recording this weekend somewhere in L.A.) Fredward (who I haven't seen yet but have heard nothing but great things about), and the Stormtroopers Of Dirk and Fuzz Solow just make it even more fun. Le sigh. I wish I could be there. Hell, I would LOVE to be there, but alas, I have a previous commitment I must attend to first, and that's the destruction of the LVCS that evening with J.F.A. <3 Anyways, it's a great gig for an even greater cause, and if you're like me and can't make it out to the gig that evening, a PayPal account has been set up by No Sale Radio for contributions, and you can click here to go to the page with all the info you need about donating to the cause. Give until it hurts motherfuckers.

I didn't see this when it came out, I guess last week or whatever, but there's a great quote from me in the story Jarret Keene did on Mercy Music, which is Brendan from Deadhand's acoustic Hippy beardcore project, and you can click here to read the whole thing. I love that guy something fiercely but I still stand by my comment stated in the write up. Also the tag line above the website header says it all perfectly for me. I hate that beardcore shit. Playing power chords on an acoustic guitar does not make you a thoughtful train hopping troubadour. What it makes you is a Hippy. Not Johnny Cash, not Hank Williams, not Woody Guthrie, but a Hippy. Welcome to the world of Peter, Paul And Mary. You all should be very proud... heh heh

It's too late for this announcement to mean anything, but Deadhand will NOT be playing @ the Bunkhouse tonight, due to unforeseeable reasons. This sux because I was seriously planning on going down there to get my fix on from them sexy beasts in that band. They were playing with Burning Agrestic, who are a good band, but just not good enough to get me to go downtown on a Sat. night. Phooey. Now I got nothing to do. I'm not going to Club Scarlett, and I'm definitely not going to the Double Clown. But then Roxie sends me a text saying that Union 13 (from East Los) was playing tonight. I suddenly got hyped, but just as quickly it went away once I saw who they were playing with. Ugh!

This is the flyer she sent me for the gig. No offense, but can you believe this shit? It clearly looks like Union 13 got added to an already established bill of mediocrity, which is something that Favorite's is notoriously known for; adding too many bands to one gig, and add this to the fact that that fucking place never promotes any of their gigs or events from like all 3 of their Facebook pages and you can see how I can get pissed about this shit. I love Union 13. I've got everything they've put out, well, everything up to before their original lead singer left, and I've been supporting them since their Boyle Heights / City Terrace backyard party beginnings, but despite all that, I don't love them enough to go see them at this gig. I couldn't stand through the opening bands suckiness and low energy levels, even though Fuzz So Low is pretty good, but not on a bill like this. Union 13 needs a good line up of angry Punk bands to play with, not a line up of a bunch of bands compromised of mature Musicians showing off their chops. Oh well. Better luck next time. I messaged the band on Facebook, telling them if they wanted a good gig to hit me up. I'm hoping they take me up on the offer.

Anyways, everything is updated. I just added a Gig Review from the Legendary Karl Bakla, a review for the Generators / Guilty By Association / Battle Born / The Seriouslys gig he went to a few weeks back, and you can go here to check it out. I also added some of the photos I took at the LVCS a while back, photos of CH3 and the Hard Pipe Hitters, and you can go here to check out the photos of CH3, and you can click here to see the pictures of the Hard Pipe Hitters, or you can just go to the Pictures page and seek them out yourself; either / or. I'll leave you with a video I took that night of the Tinglerz playing a damn catchy song that I don't know the name of. It's Super Bowl Sunday tomorrow and I could give a shit less. East Coast Rap Thug Mentality vs. West Coast Rap Thug Mentality. They can both suck it as far as I'm concerned.

It might be something most of you take for granted, but for a single guy like me, there is seriously nothing better than a home cooked meal. <3

Congratulations go to The People's Whiskey for winning the Squid Hat Records showcase event, rising above everyone else and being the lucky ones selected to join the labels roster. That band busts their ass all day every day and brings it to each and every performance they give, and to see their hard work and perseverance pay off in spades is more than just a moment of pride for me - more like a confirmation of what I've been telling people for years - that The People's Whiskey are one of the best bands gigging around Vegas right now. Period. So again, Congratulations guys! Can't wait to hear the album you're gonna put out. :-)

There is a shitload of gigs happening this weekend, which is maddening. Click here to see what I'm talking about. Friday night's choice is easy - Unfair Fight @ the Motor City Cafe. Dan is gonna be selling some of his artwork @ First Friday too, so if you're heading down there seek him out and check his work out. It's really good. Sat. is an easy choice for me too - Deadhand @ the Bunkhouse with Burning Agrestic, but man, that Stormtroopers Of Dirk / Fat Dukes Of Fuck gig is mighty tempting. Plus it's being recorded live for a future release, so if you're not at Deadhand you should be there. Seriously. Maybe do both? I dunno. Sun. is Super Bowl, and if I wasn't planning on watching football and being drunk and in a food coma somewhere I would be front and center @ Favorites to see Fuck The Facts and Nests level that place, but alas, that's not gonna happen. If you're going I'd love you to Death if you grabbed me a copy of their limited edition Misery EP. <3 Oh yeah, I almost forgot - there's a benefit gig going on @ Artifice on Sun. as well, for the doorman who works there, who's in dire need of some cash right now because of a death in his family, so if you're feeling generous and want to help out with a great cause, stop by Artifice and give until it hurts. Pay it forward and all that hippy crap... heh heh

There's a couple of cool gigs going on this weekend that I think you should be hyped about. The first one is going down on Friday with Deadhand and Three Chord Radio playing @ Favorites. Brendan is just back from his acoustic beard core crap busking tour, and so it should be a great night to catch the band rock the fuck out and blow the roof off the joint like they usually do. Three Chord Radio are a cover band that plays like, 90's Punk covers I think. I played a gig with them in Hendertucky but don't remember too much about them except that they played Rancid and Bad Religion covers. Phooey. Anyways, get off your lazy ass and check out a cool gig. I would be there, but there's no place for us handicapped people to sit. I should have a Photographer there though - if she's not too busy working on her Interpol pix... heh heh

And then there's this gig going down on Saturday @ the Bunkhouse. Off With Their Heads, who I think, last played here for Punk Rock Bowling last year? I dunno, don't really care. I think I saw them play at the Bunkhouse before, don't remember digging them too much, but I'm not too sure about that thought either. Alzheimer's ya know. Anyways, the bigger deal about this gig is that it's TheCore's CD release show for their new album called Thunder Makers. As a proud member of American Buckshot, who bring the Thunder each and every time we play, and have been doing so for years, I take a small bit of umbrage at these young bearded upstarts declaring themselves Thunder Makers - perhaps a thunder making dual performance might be necessary, hmmm? LOL All kidding aside, this is a cool moment for TheCore, and I'm hoping to be there to celebrate it with them. Sal one night @ the Double Clown played me some unfinished tracks the band were working on, and the stuff sounded fantastic then, so I can only imagine what it's gotta sound like now! And with Holding Onto Sound on the bill as well, that just makes this a gig you don't wanna miss - especially if you're a lover of Beardcore! hee hee hee If you're at this gig and you're not sporting a beard, then you will be the odd one in the room and possibly subject to ridicule - unless you're a chick, of course... heh heh So come on out and celebrate their latest release with ThcCore!

I guess if creating a dialog amongst the Locals was the aspiration, then this Squid Hat Records showcase thing has done it's job! LOL Loads of people are talking about it, everyone's got an opinion as to who the 6 bands to be chosen are, but the majority of them don't wanna go on record as to which bands they think should play, for fear of offending their 'Friends' for whatever reason. Cowards... hahaha So, with that in mind, I presented some Local people in the know about the music scene here in Las fucking Vegas this question:

If a Record Label rep were to ask you to recommend 6 Local bands to consider him to check out to sign to their label, who would you name off? Any genre.

The answers were interesting in bands named and bands not named. After reading the answers, and conversing with the individuals who came up with them, I even more so wanted to attach names to lists, but I told them I wouldn't, and if anything, I am a man of my word, so I won't, because being anonymous behind your words on the Internet is the cool thing to do nowadays, and nobody wants to cause Drama or Trouble or Controversy on the Internet, right? Yeah right... hahaha Anyways, here's the lists people turned in. I got some free D.I. tickets for their gig next week @ the LVCS to the first 5 people who can guess who's list is who. Possible suspects include a Writer, a Drug Mule, a Shit Talker, a Bassist, a Judge of Musical Talent, another Bassist and a Curmudgeon. First come, first served gets the tickets - post your guesses in the comments and make sure you leave a way for me to get a hold of you in case your guess is correct. I'll give you a hint - one of the lists is fake... heh heh

OK, well, since I have to go to American Buckshot band practice in like 5 minutes, because of my insecure band mates arriving early, and a bratty, oversexed girl that keeps me up all night (literally and figuratively), I gotta cut this short. Before I go I wanna remind you of this amazeballs gig happening mañana at the Sand Dollar (not the Bikini Bar) for Tony Batz, aka Grandpa Spooky, aka the Prince of pinche Darkness. He's ancient even for a Vampire and tomorrow night is when we're all gathering together to play a gig and hopefully have some cake and ice cream for him but yeah, I doubt it! LOL I'm just hoping the Hawaiian Hot Dog Lady (or, as Rusty refers to her as, his future wife) is there so I can get my grub on after I play my set. And yeah, I know there's something called 'Thrashgiving' going on at the Bunkhouse with D.R.I. headlining, but looking at the bands opening it up, I'm almost willing to bet that not one of them plays real 'Thrash', ala Napalm Death or Cryptic Slaughter or some shit. Matter of fact, there's 2 loser bands playing that gig that shouldn't be allowed to play anywhere, period! ha ha ha Fucking shit talking losers - crawl off to the desert and die like the diseased rats that you are, and quit polluting our Music Scene with your Drama and Bullshit. Fucking tweekers, I swear. I hate them. Anyways, tomorrow night, you can come to a great Local show with some cool bands playing, or you could go stand around outside and wait to see a band who's long past their prime, playing with some bands you shouldn't support in any way, shape or form. The choice is yours. See you at the Sand Dollar. :-)

It's probably a little bit too late for this, but Deadhand is playing tonight at the Beauty Bar with some bands called Candy Warpop and the Screaming Females who are apparently a big deal Punk Rock band, but I never heard of them but whatever. Any excuse to see Deadhand play is always a good one, so yeah, go check out this gig tonight if ya can. The Screaming Females Wikipedia page is here, and the Facebook event page for the show tonight is right here. A lot of chicks sure seem to be hyped on this gig, which has me a bit skeptical on it, but whatever. Girls can have good taste in music too, right? Right? Hello? Anyone? ha ha ha And I apologize for the crappy quality of the flyer below. I just got it this morning when I woke up, aka 6 pm for you weak humans out there, so I didn't have time to find a better quality one. I hate the Beauty Bar, I really do. They never promote anything unless it involves some half a fag with an iPod that thinks he's a DJ. Whatever. That whole dipshit Downtown dooshbag display of mediocrity can go die. Seriously. So yeah, if you read this, and it's before 9 pm tonight, go see Deadhand tear that place a new one. Their new material is fantastic. <3