Sunday's American Buckshot BBQ went extremely well. The libations were cold and plentiful, the fire was bright and red hot, the hot dogs were bacon wrapped and the carne asada was piled high on the plate. Chips and salsa everywhere, and a crazy ass lightning storm to cap the evening. Yup. Pretty fun stuff. And the band practice went well too. Our resident Soundman / Roadie Bob said were finally starting to sound good. I think the three piece line up is starting to kick in. Finally. We have a gig coming up in a few weeks at the Double Clown, and I'm almost positive we are no where near being close to ready, but Dean is an impatient man, and he's itching to play a gig, so there ya go. American Buckshot on the 27th of this month. There's a flyer floating around somewhere but it's too crappy for me to post up on here... heh We're like the 7th band playing on a clusterfuck of a show, but we go on first @ 10, so thankfully I'll only be there for a short while, play the gig, and then get the fuck out of there. My Friend and I from out of town have better things to do. ;-) Speaking of clusterfucks, what's up with that Bane show? LOL It's no longer happening at the Knights Hall, because the venue cancelled it last minute, and so now it's been combined with an already established gig that was happening at the Sanctuary, and Unfair Fight is no longer playing, which is the only reason why I was going to go to the gig. Phooey. No offense to Bane, because they're an alright band, but their fans are some major Tools and Dooshbags, so yeah, no Unfair Fight, no Bane gig for me! It's not worth the trouble. If you are still going though, bring some comfortable shoes because the gig has 9, count them, 9, bands playing. Ouch! Speaking of ouch, does anyone have anything good to say about the Bouncing Souls gig? LOL What did you seriously expect? More songs from Maniacal Laughter? The Good, The Bad And The Argyle? Yeah right. Those days are long gone and over, and the new material the band is touring on is just atrocious. I can't even think of the last new Bouncing Souls release that I enjoyed, and that's sad. Sorry, I guess I'm not a True Believer... hahaha Speaking of sad, the new Green Day single sucks ass. Listen to it here: soundcloud.com/greendayI spent the tail end of my Monday evening listening to Dave interview Haywood J. from the Mapes on No Sale radio ( www.nosaleradio.org). The music selection was eclectic, and the chat room lively. It was pretty fun. I don't know if it's a weekly ongoing thing or what, but if it is, you should definitely tune in next week and give it a listen. You can even request stuff! My requests for KISS and the Germs could not be fulfilled. Maybe next week, no? ;-) hahaha Everything is updated. Lots of Gigs going down this weekend - including N.J. Pete's Birthday Party happening this Sat. at Motor City. The Fat Dukes Of Fuck and The Civilians are playing. Should be a fantastic time...
It's Tuesday morning, I'm catching up on emails that I'm like a few months behind in answering, and I'm checking out the video of the Queen concert that went down this past weekend in Russia somewhere. The band had Adam Lambert, some homo that's apparently only famous for being gay and being on American Idol I think, standing in for Freddie and the bands performance is just terrible. Everything is played too slow, the 2 founding members Brian and Roger who took place in this farce look terrible, and yeah, it just sucks. That dude Adam Lambert can sing, but he sounds more like Tim Finn from Split Enz than the fabulous Mr. Mercury. Ugh. Oh well. Sometimes it's just sad to see a band you adore look so out of place. The smell of Desperation is deep. 14:58 and counting... My last post included a new video from The Dirty Panties, and today I have a new video from Demon Lung to talk about! :-) I shared that Dirty Panties video on the onethirtyeight.org Facebook page, and was surprised that I got those 2 negative comments about it. Oh well. I dunno how people will react to this video after seeing it, but it should be interesting, because this video is twisted! ha ha ha It's from the just released album called Pareidolia by Demon Lung, and it's for a song called Lament Code. I have no idea what the song is about, but it sounds slow and heavy ala later day Corrosion Of Conformity or even Type O Negative, I dunno. The video for the song is just nightmarish, and a great job of using CGI effects and cool puppetry to create one amazing looking video that I'm almost sure was not too expensive to make, although it sure does look like it. Kudos on a job well done on this one Demon Lung. You've certainly set the bar very high for the next Local band who does a video, that's for sure. :-) Speaking of videos, the Gashers are going to premier their new video Panic, from their upcoming Squid Hat Records release called Law Is Not Order, next Tuesday @ 11 am on Facebook, and you can click here to go to the Events Page for it and get yourself in the loop. I'm told I won't be disappointed. I doubt that I shall be. ;-) Hey! Did you see the piece that Jarret Keene did on Battle Born in last weeks Seven magazine? Click here to read it if you haven't already. It's a pretty good piece on a hard working band that definitely deserves it. And like it says at the end of that write up, there is a little bit of a 4th of July shindig going down there on Weds., and you're all invited. BBQ, Beer, Bands, and they're gonna be filming a promo video too, so get your ass down there and have some fun and get drunk and blow stuff up. The view of the strip from there is pretty sweet, so you can watch those fireworks too if you're sober enough to remember to... heh heh heh hahaha OK, just one last thing from the emails before I go. Apparently, a few weeks ago the L.A. Times posted a fluff piece by some dooshbags about the 20 Greatest L.A. Punk Rock Albums of All Time (click here to read it for yourself), and their choices were more than a bit baffling, to say the least, and just as a point of reference, I jotted down their Top 20 list and then made one of my own, and here's what I came up with. Took me all of 10 minutes to do so. I think my choices are pretty good. Of course, I'm nothing but a Homophobic, Bitter Old Poseur, so take anything I say with a huge grain of salt, because what do I know, right? ;-) L.A. Times List- Black Flag - Damaged
- X - Los Angeles
- Germs - G.I.
- Descendents - Milo Goes To College
- Bad Religion - Suffer
- Circle Jerks - Group Sex
- X - Under The Big Black Sun
- Black Flag - Nervous Breakdown
- Wasted Youth - Reagan's In
- The Dickies - The Incredible Shrinking Dickies
- Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal Tendencies
- Vandals - Peace Through Vandalism
- T.S.O.L. - Dance With Me
- Circle Jerks - Wild In The Streets
- The Nerves - One Way Ticket
- NOFX - Punk In Drublic
- Social Distortion - Mommy's Little Monster
- Despise You - West Side Horizons
- Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime
- Angry Samoans - Back From Samoa
| onethirtyeight.org List- Germs - G.I.
- Black Randy And The Metrosquad - Pass The Dust I Think I'm Bowie
- The Plugz - Electrify Me
- X - Wild Gift
- Circle Jerks - Group Sex
- Black Flag - Damaged
- Descendents - Milo Goes To College
- Fear - The Record
- Wasted Youth - Reagan's In
- Bad Religion - How Can Hell Be Any Worse?
- Infest - Slave
- Flesheaters - No Questions Asked
- CH3 - Fear Of Life
- Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal Tendencies
- The Dickies - The Incredible Shrinking Dickies
- NOFX - Ribbed
- Angry Samoans - Back From Samoa
- Butt Trumpet - Primitive Enema
- Youth Brigade - Sound & Fury
- The Mentors - Live At The Cathay De Grande
| So yeah, if you ignore the fact that the L.A. Times list has bands from Orange County on their list, and a few compilations from bands that were comprised of singles and live tracks, and a couple that weren't even albums, then I guess it's a good list! LOL Honorable mentions go to Slayer - Reign In Blood, Red Kross - Born Innocent, 45 Grave - Sleep In Safety, Cryptic Slaughter - Convicted, Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime, Christian Death - Only Theater Of Pain and everything the Screamers never recorded. :-) I can't wait to do another list for the Top 20 L.A. Punk Rock Singles of All Time - now THAT would be fun!! :-)
Everything is updated - the Peter Murphy gig is happening at the LVCS and not the Beauty Bar as I falsely reported last Friday, all sorts of shit is getting added all the time, so keep coming back. And if I don't post anything tomorrow, I'll wish you all a Happy 4th of July now! Try not to blow any appendages off it at all possible! ;-)
I woke up this afternoon to this link in my email: an intelligent story written by my friend Jarret Keene about Curl Up And Die and their most excellent album from like 10 years ago We Are All Robots that reflects a bit on the bands legacy and the whole awesomeness of that seminal release. It's on the Punks In Vegas website, which is a whole contradiction in terms that I don't even wanna get into, but it's definitely worth a read and you can click here to check that shizzle out. It's really good. Oh, I remembered what I wanted to bring up here - the Madness stuff! :-) As you can see, the Pictures are already posted, and you can click here to see those, and I finished the Show Review for the gig too, and you can click here to read that if you're so inclined. I'm no Jarret Keene but I do alright with the words. LOL I'm not a Writer, nor am I a Photographer. I'm just a music fan who wants to let people know about all the cool things that go on here in Vegas, and to give you an opinion on things I know about and observe, that's all. Take it or leave it, I don't give a fuck. Anyways, yeah, the Madness show review is the 1st one of the year that I've made public. I write lots of them, but I don't publish them because they're just gonna cause Drama with whatever band I'm critiquing, and really I just can't be bothered. I got better shit to do. Too many people take what I write seriously. It's pretty funny. Everything is updated. New stuff added, old stuff taken off. I fixed the Videos page and linked everything up to my YouTube channel, which you can find by clicking here. I made Public some videos that I had no info on or didn't hear back from the band about, like the Pigasus @ the Cheyenne video, the Dirty Panties @ Vamp'd video, The People's Whiskey @ Motor City Cafe and a few others I can't remember about right now. Anyways, they are all linked up and available on the newly updated Videos page, and you can click right here to check all of those out. It's a nice way to spend an afternoon at work, or so I'm told... heh heh. I gotta get ready for band practice. Go to that Deer Tick gig @ the Aruba tonight to support Zach Ryan & The Renegades, a bunch of cool guys that now feature Danny, the Prince of Drummers, on keyboards. He may have to relinquish that title pretty soon if this keyboards thing keeps up... heh heh heh
If I have to hear one more dooshbag football announcer say how "The Bills are for Real", or that "It's time to Bill-ieve", I think I'm gonna puke. Buffalo got majorly lucky catching Tom Brady on what was possibly the worst game of his career. Fucking Bastards. Fuck you Canadian Bills. And again, Fuck You Danny!! Enjoy it while it lasts motherfucker!!! hahahahahahahahahahahaha The Raiders looked good yesterday in beating the Jets. Sanchez had no time to be eating no hot dogs on the sideline this game... heh heh heh. People are calling it an upset. I never had doubt, but that's just me. I think the Raiders can beat anyone on any day, New England, our next opponent included. They're gonna be scary good once they get their starting receivers back. McFadden - leading rusher in the NFL - Yup! :-) And if this doesn't illustrate how out of control the Refs are in the NFL right now I don't know what does. Click here to watch the video. Where was the hold? Seriously?Criminal Trespassing? Vandalism? Really? Wowsers. You have GOT to be kidding me!!! I'm still waiting for some verification / proof, but if it's true, I'll be ecstatic to have been right about that idiot and his shitty ass Metal club.The last night of Deadhand's month long residency @ the Hypnotic Lounge came to an intimate end this past Saturday, in front of a group of Friends and Fans which ran the gamut from under age, over age, and middle age. I'll leave it to you to guess which one I was! ;-) hahahaha Deadhand played an amazing set, as always, but it was a bit awkward to see Brendan struggle with playing The Cowboy Song by Thin Lizzy, a song he's obviously bored to tears playing. Yuck. Playing covers sucks - trust me I know! hahaha Aluminum Falcon played some Descendents covers, which, of course, sucked, because we hadn't practiced them in a little while, but I think they came out OK. Bikeage and I'm The One I think. We played them for the Punk Rock kids that I saw at the last Deadhand gig @ Yayo Taco. They had come out to support, and they were jumping around and slam dancing while we played. Rad. Holding On To Sound sounded great from the outside of the Hypnotic Lounge, where I think there was more people outside just chatting and chilling than there were inside checking out the band playing. Booooooooooooooooooooooo. Oh well. There was Skittles outside. :-) It was still a fun as fuck night, with the gig ending early Da Falcon flew around the Naked City after dropping off the band equipment in search of Food, Music, Drugs, Drink, Debauchery and Guys with eye patches. We were successful on all counts. ;-) Friday night I was hanging outside of the Bikini Bar, enjoying a nice Chicago style Polish sandwich combo that I had scored from the Sausage Fest food truck, fighting off the urge to go to that Pussycat's strip club and get into trouble when my partner in crime George strolled up. After he made fun of me for eating and not drinking we ventured inside for beers and Babilos, a band that I've always promoted but never seen before, and now that I have, I gotta say they were pretty good. Old school Big 4 Metal ala early Metallica and Slayer played by a scary looking group of hombres who were either Mexican, or Indian, or Filipino or a combination thereof, just pulverizing the crowd with their brooootaaal ass Metal music. They brought out a lot of people, a lot of really good looking people, like, chicks in club attire and the Jersey Shore types they attract, who all immediately left after Babilos was done blowing the roof off the joint. Sad to see but whatever. Poor Tinglerz played right after them to a virtually empty room, which always sucks. It didn't deter them from playing a great set though, but it just would of been nice if there would of been a few more people there to see it. Six Shooters To The Sky fared a little better in the opening slot, they had a few Friends there checking them out, and after watching them play I was a bit peeved that they broke up in the first place. They are sooooooooooo fucking good!! I don't remember them being that good, but then again, I can't remember the last time I saw them before Friday. University Theater? Slanted Clam? I dunno, but it's been too long. I hope they keep it together and do something with this. I was talking to them all before they played, and I asked them why they broke up, and they all gave different answers but all typical band shit - Sex, Drugs, Money, Drama. When I asked them why they got back together they couldn't give me an answer. But it was Liz, the bass playing Goddess, who after their set came up to me and said You know why we got back together? Honestly? It was because we were bored. That sentiment is the reason a lot of the great bands did it, and Six Shooters To The Sky may become one of the great Vegas bands, that is, if they don't kill each other first. Great little gig @ the Bikini Bar last Friday. That place needs some drink specials though... OK. I've on babbled long enough. Everything's updated, new Pictures of Unfair Fight, Tinglerz and Deadhand from their gig @ Hypnotic Lounge a while back are up, and I'm just getting around to doing those Motor City Cafe photos, which started off with the Seriouslys. Those chicks are kick ass and you should check them out whenever you get the chance. Lots of stuff coming up this weekend, so check out the Gig Calendar page and plan accordingly. I think I'm gonna go grab a pastrami sandwich. :-)
'Hey! You look pretty good for a guy who was born in the 60's'... hahahahahaha This would of been the best compliment ever if it didn't come from the doorman @ the Beauty Bar after checking my ID. LOL Yeah, it was that kind of a weekend, a lucky weekend, where the dice kept hitting 7's every time I threw them and my cup of Alcohol never seemed to get empty. If you stayed at home, you missed out. I'm not even gonna get into some of the more outlandish bullshit excuses I heard from people on why they weren't attending. Your Loss. Friday night the Rip Offs DESTROYED the LVCS, with a set so full of Punk Rock goodness that the Promoter threatened to pull the plug on the gig like, at least 5 times, on account of the Hatred and Abuse being thrown at the band in various ways, shapes and forms, from alcohol being spit directly on the band from the people in front against the barriers, to people just spitting mouthfuls of snot on them from every direction imaginable, and there were people throwing handfuls of change at the stage just hoping to hit something or someone, anyone, and, of course, full glass beer bottles being thrown with sniper like accuracy. Same with tall boy PBR's and plastic water bottles. There were more than a few Justin Bieber moments during the set! hahaha Gawd damn if I tell you I haven't seen anything like that since the good ol' days of Punk Rock back in the 80's. It very well could of been the Germs up on the LVCS stage, that's how Epic this gig was, and the fact that some people stayed away and didn't attend due to, ahem, various bullshit reasons, well, that just makes me laugh. You missed out on a good one. Oh man did you ever. This video footage, taken by a man who is just as Smart as he is Handsome, Joe 1/2 Ast, gives you an idea of just how majestic this gig was. It was like being @ the Wet Stop again! hahahahaha
Yeah, it was that kind of night. The Zeros did an AMAZING job of following up on the mayhem and Chaos that the Rip Offs had created by counteracting it all with some fucking Glorious pop songs that put a lot of the stuff that the Ramones did to shame. Musical Bliss and Heaven, it was. I bought a record and lost it somewhere. You're welcome to whoever found it, ya bastards!
Saturday found me waking up, baking up, showering up, grubbing up and drinking up @ the Beauty Bar for Round 2 of the Shake Down. Friday night it was all about Guinness and Patron, Saturday night it was about Jameson's and pharmaceuticals by the handful. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and in the end I'm glad I did because although the Dragons were Godhead, the Humpers were Godslayers, and my body bore much of the brunt of the battle, as I was front and center on the front line of the War between Band and Audience. "Gilbert, it is time to destroy the Beauty Bar", Jesse Jerk told me, and I could think of no better band to destroy this place to than the Humpers. The Perfect Soundtrack For Chaos and Destruction. They fucking KILLED IT! They laid waste to the place, and strutted among the ruins afterwords, pitying the survivors, and Proud of their accomplishments, like the drunken Hooligans that they are. The Humpers played one of the best sets I've ever seen any band play in my whole miserable existence on this Earth. Ever. Wow. Just fucking Wow! I couldn't even watch the Mau Maus afterwords because I felt ashamed to be alive after what I had just witnessed. I believe it's called Survivor's Guilt. I had it bad, so I situated myself on the corner of the bar where Deana took care of me with King Kong sized cups of Jameson's on the rocks until I was shit faced enough to drive home. Lucky. All weekend long. I couldn't make it to Sunday nights events, on account of my legs not working, my back not moving, and my bruises very much hurting. I wouldn't of gone anywhere near the Beauty Bar, where some bands I wanted nothing to do with were playing, but I think I missed out on some Cake and Whiskey @ the LVCS for Kate's Birthday party happening there. Oh well. I came home Broke, Beaten and Hungover. I think that means I had fun! LOL It was worth everything I put into it. The Shake Down was a fantastic fun time. If you missed it kill yourself now. Show Reviews forthcoming.
A band called Forth Yeer are playing @ Yayo Taco tonight, and if you are encouraged to attend. Xtal says they're pretty good, and she's got great musical taste, although I am worried about her new band. ;-) There's a gig happening tomorrow with Life's Torment and Short Attention Span @ the Redstone House, and on the same day @ Stonewalls you got Caravels and Rooftops. I won't be at any of those gigs, but there's no reason why you shouldn't be. I don't think I'll be going to any gigs for awhile. I just saw the Humpers. Who else is even gonna move me enough to make the effort to see them play? What band is even gonna come close to doing what the Humpers did @ the Beauty Bar on Saturday night? Like I said, the Dragons were good, but the Humpers were better. Much better.
The Pictures of the Rip Offs are up. I put the rush on them, since it's so easy now to put photos up on the website, figuring that more than a few people would be interested. Click here to see them. I like my Pictures. They're funky and soulful. Sometimes it's not about the clarity of the picture, but more like what the picture conveys about an event or time or feeling. Sometimes. Anyways, I gotta get some sleep. I think I'm going to a BBQ party with the Lower Class Brats later on today, but I'm not sure. I just hope they don't ask me what I think of their band... hee hee hee
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