 So it's Thursday, right? Lots of stuff going on tonight, like that Jimmy Cliff gig @ the Hard Rock with openers One Pin Short. $35 is a bit stiff for Mr. Cliff, so I'm staying away from this gig, although the set I saw him play @ Coachella was nothing short of brilliant. I hope he makes it back to Vegas sometime soon and doesn't pull a Dick Dale on us. On the other side of the spectrum there's this crazy Punk gig happening at the Bunkhouse tonight, with Nests, Retox, Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire and God's America AKA The Seeds Of Rape. I don't know anything about any of the bands playing, except for Nests, who are one of the coolest bands I've seen in a while and definitely worth the price of admission alone, and, of course, Retox, who play some short and sweet bursts of some harsh, unsettling, Sci-Fi sounding Hardcore math rock that's pretty damn good. They're not the Locust, but much better. If you don't believe me you can just check out the band's latest video for their song Thirty Cents Shy Of A Quarter. If I didn't already have plans with my Family for tonight I would definitely be at this gig. Hell, I still may try to get my ass down there hopefully before the last band is finished. It's gonna be intense! :-) Fucking Retox and Nests. Wow!
 Tomorrow night it's all about Primus @ the Joint. Fishbone is opening. Do I need to explain to you how amazing Primus is? I seriously hope not. I heart Primus. Like there's anywhere else I'm gonna be that night. :-) But, if you don't feel like paying $35 to see those 2 amazing bands, there is a heavier, less expensive gig for you to attend - 2 of them, actually. The first one is this sick gig with Demon Lung, Dead Neon, Author & Punisher and Black Elk, which is sure to shatter your eardrums and get you banging your head while being overwhelmed by the heaviness of all the bands playing. I'm sure they're gonna be asking for donations for the touring bands at the door, so if you're on some sort of budget or are even a bit of a cheap bastard, then you could go see the Seriouslys, the Gashers and Stagnetti's Cock at the Motor City Cafe. I don't think any bands will be asking for money at that gig. I think both the Seriouslys and the Gashers have new albums coming out sometime soon, so this is gonna be a good chance to hear some of their new songs before everyone else does. I don't know a thing about Stagnetti's Cock, but they may have a new album coming out soon too, so who knows? LOL Friday night is definitely not a night to be staying in and playing World of Warcraft or some shit like that. Friday night is the night to get off your ass and Support Live Music!
 And Saturday... well, if you're not at Hank's Beaumont Bunker Presents An Unfocused Rowdy Party Dog Production: Summer Time Pool Bash!, (click here to read all about that event) which is going to be nothing short of incredible, then I guess you could come out to see the Vegascendents play with Three Chord Radio out in Hendertucky if you're feeling brave. Yeah, I know it's in Hendertucky, and yeah, I know it's at the Gold Mine Tavern, but still, I hear that it's a cool place to hang out at, and someone told me that Three Chord Radio are pretty good, so yeah, I'm looking forward to this little gig on Sat. Of course, I'm not driving out there, because I'm not stupid, but my Lawyer says he might show up there, so if I get in trouble, he's gonna be a short distance away! LOL I can't wait to see him show me how he used to slam in the mosh pit like he did at some Pearl Jam Lollapalooza performance zillions of years ago... ha ha ha Fun is where you make it, so I'm looking forward to having some fun on Sat. If it's a good night, I'll make it home and sleep in my own bed. If it's a great night, I'll either end up in jail or at some $6 a night mobile home motel on Boulder Highway! ;-) Everything is updated. Looks like it's going to be an interesting weekend... Hopefully!
OK... it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Thankfully no one has gotten hurt yet so it's all still fun and games! hahahaha Was that really Tony the Soundman who got fired in the Comments section? Sure sounded like it... hee hee hee In the midst of all that Cheyenne Saloon Drama, I forgot to tell you that fucking Neon Reverb SUCKED!! hahahaha No fucking promotion whatsoever and Local Band support was pretty much non-existent and relegated to the precious Sunday night spots that everybody just loves to play. NOBODY was at Atari Teenage Riot that Saturday, NOBODY knew who was playing where and at what time, and NOBODY gave a shit about anybody that played. Every venue was pretty much vacant despite the fluff piece that appeared in the City Life this week, which pretty much set this tirade off. Click here to read that if you haven't already. If they're thinking about turning this into some sort of Street Scene kind of thing, they're definitely gonna need to step it up a notch or two or ten. Big Talk was the 'Coachella Moment' of the Festival? Oh fucking bite me. They suck. Ronnie Vannucci should go back to playing that stupid ass Jock Pit song with Attaboy Skip like he used to. Coachella Sucks. Your fucking Neon Reverb festival sucks. And City Life, you suck too. If you people that think that Zappo's buying the rights to First Friday is a good thing, just remember that I told you this right now - it's not. The Corporate Takeover is not to be embraced. Cindy Funkhouser is not a friend of First Friday. Nope! Since when is the 'Disneyfying' of a once independent, quirky gathering of Local Artists and Bohemian types a good thing, huh? When has it ever been? Yeah, exactly. Booooooooooooooooo OK, now for some Positivity! LOL You just can't be pessimistic all the time, ya know? ;-) I got pretty hyped when I saw this because I love these guys. Apparently, someone made a documentary about Fishbone, one of the coolest bands EVER, centering in on the tenacious relationship between Norwood and Angelo, and the film is now making the rounds at film festivals all around the world. Go to fishbonedocumentary.com for more info about the movie and to find out where you can see it in your part of the world. Fishbone are Rad! And BTW, that new Jesus Lizard - Club DVD is fucking AMAZING!! Wowsers! Age has only made those guys better. And it comes with the entire set as 320 MP3's as well, so you can download that shizz straight to your iTunes. Awesomeage. :-) This was a pretty OK article about Dirk Vermin in last week's Seven magazine, and you can click here to check it out. The picture they used for that article is a Photoshopped nightmare, but I always enjoy reading that cantankerous old bastards rants and raves about anything and everything. When's that damn Boredom Is The Reason book coming out anyways??? Everything's updated. Come by the Motor City Cafe tomorrow to see a pretty PFR gig with 2 good Local bands and then Us. :-) And don't forget about that All Ages gig @ Yayo Taco with the Gashers and Guilty By Association. It's somebody's Birthday party so I'm hoping that there will be CAKE there... heh heh  The Long Awaited Return of Da FALCON! :-)  Happy Birthday Haley!!
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.
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.
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