Written by GE 138. This day was a long time coming. It was heavily promoted, but I was still worried about the turnout for a benefit concert on a Sunday at the Hard Rock Cafe. I mean, I had nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon, but that doesn't mean others did not. Some people still care about football season, ya know. ;-) So Anne, Bob, and I headed to the Strip, paid our $3 to park, and worked our way through the myriad of mazes made up of backstage walkways and grimy service elevators, and we eventually found our way to the green room, which had all sorts of cool Rock 'N' Roll memorabilia adorning it's walls, of course. Ringo Starr's old suit hung alongside Ray Davie's bloodied guitar, and there was a food layout in the corner, with chicken fingers and some bomb ass veggie taquitos. Nice. After we ate we wandered around like Tourists taking pictures and taking everything in, including this pink ass suit that was supposedly worn by Sid Vicious. Funny, I don't remember Sid Vicious ever being in a pink suit, but whatever. So the whole reason why we were here was for this Love Has No Bounds concert, which was a charity event put together by Danielle and Ryan from Nevermore Productions, and it was to raise money for this thing called Operation Homefront, which provides financial help and assistance to the families of people in the service and to wounded warriors. They were holding raffles with all sorts of glorious swag as the prize incentives, there was a photo booth set up by NSM Photography, these crazy girls from Pinups For Patriots were roaming around distracting every guy in the place, and there was some eye catching Art stuff set up in a corner of the venue, with a cool gathering of Artists just hanging out and talking shop, with various pieces of their work on display, neatly arranged on top of fold up tables or hanging from wire mesh. Of course, I'm always partial to Dan 45 and his colorful take on things, and it's his artwork featured in the picture right there. I like it. There was a cool vibe in the room, and everyone seemed to know everyone, and we all just kind of hung around and waited for the bands to start playing while the room filled in with the punters. They told us load in was at 2. The gig didn't start until 6. We definitely had some time to kill. To help the time go by, I headed down to the Strip to watch Jeremy and Ryan promote the gig to people strolling by, which was fun, because Ryan was being obnoxious to some people, and Security wanted to kick us out of there, but since they saw we were promoting the gig upstairs, they kind of just let us do our thing. The Pinups For Patriots girls were downstairs as well promoting, and Jeremy arranged for the photo you see here. It was almost time for the gig to begin so we all headed back upstairs. I almost wished I had stayed downstairs... LOL The bands that played were... uhhhmmm... interesting? Opening act The Sound Collage were utter shite - as expected. Pretty vacant people led by some dooshbag in a faux hawk singing to prerecorded tracks was an odd way to begin the gig. The next band Meade Ave. were OK. Little too 'dreamy' for me though. The singer/guitarist had a crazy ass hand carved flying V guitar in his hand that just screamed out METAL, but he was playing this jangly, limp wristed Indie music with it. Meh. Sweetest Morphine had their heads so far up Interpol's ass that it was disgusting. They literally sucked the life out of the room, and with the lame Macbook video thing they had going on while they played, well, the pretentiousness coming off the stage was enough to send everyone in the joint elsewhere. Phooey. The Whiskey Southern Band picked up the slack and got things going again, bringing the RAWK back into the room, and getting people back to the stage area. Cool guys too. Their drummer let me use his kick drum pedals, because apparently, I was supposed to bring my own pedals to the thing, even though the Promoter nor my band mates told me to bring my pedals. well, Jeremy did, but I chose not to listen to him because, well, I'm a dick. And then the fun began. The Civilians played next and I think we were cut off after 4 or 5 songs? Why? Well because all the shitty bands that played before us played too long, and because there was no stage manager working and thus, nobody was there to tell bands when to get on and off the fucking stage. Well, except when we were playing, apparently. Somebody told us we were done and that was pretty much it. Our set was over. We stood around for a bit waiting for someone to introduce us or to tell us our set time was beginning, but nobody ever did, so we just started our set off, with Ryan standing tall and proud center stage playing this Armed Services melody on his pipes, while everyone in the place clapped their hands along to the melody. After he was done we crashed into our intro, and then it was right Doin' Time, and we were off and running. People seemed to be digging us. We played a few more songs and that was it. They cut off the amps and played the house music over the PA to let us know we were finished. Fucking bullshit, but whatever. We were pretty good for the whole 15 minutes we were on stage. Load in at 2 pm, sit around for 6 hours, get on stage to play for 10 minutes. This is why I love playing in a band... hahaha Just because I'm a dick, I set my timer on my iPhone to check the next bands - Love Vendetta - set length. Came out to almost 27 minutes. Go figure, right? It was horrible and they sucked, but they were well dressed, nice music playing automatons so whatever.No wonder they were allowed to play a complete set. I wasn't really paying attention to them though, because we were all goofing around taking silly pictures with the Pinups For Patriots girls for some reason... lol Then The People's Whiskey came up to the stage, I hit the Record button on my trusty TASCAM, and then they started to play, opening up with Tall Can, and they sounded glorious! Sooooooooo fucking good on a proper stage. Steve's guitar sounded amazing, and Cody was all over the place, sporting a brand new onethirtyeight.org shirt I had given him earlier to cover up the embarrassingly bad looking Sounds Of Shit shirt he was wearing. The band was ragin', just fucking murdering it, going right from Pills into Alley into Fist Fights & Miller Lites into Bar Esteem, one song right into another, because I'm sure they had a feeling that time was running out. They even played some new song that sounded creepy and great, and then right after they were done playing this one song I haven't heard them play in forever, an unreleased little Ska infused ditty, power to the stage was cut, the stage lights went dark, the house music started playing over the PA, and unceremoniously, the set from The People's Whiskey was over. Gawd, who the fuck was running this shit?? I checked the timer on my recorder - 19 minutes. Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Such a bullshit ending to a great set by The People's Whiskey. Gawd damn do I LOVE that band. <3 It was the usual Love fest in the green room after the gig - Promoters congratulating the Bands, Bands complimenting each other on the sets they played, and Roadies humping the gear out to the rides. It was a cool thing to hang out and take everything in, not so much a good day to play some Punk Rock music, but oh well. Live and Learn, right? Right! We said our goodbye's and so long's to everyone before getting in the car and heading to Felipito's for some grub, which is always a great way to end a day. :-) For more Pictures of The Civilians, please click here. For more Pictures of The People's Whiskey, please click here. For more Pictures of the Hard Rock Cafe and all the days events, please click here. Thank you come again. :-)
42 Comments
Jason
2/7/2014 10:40:47 am
So, you just reviewed a show your band played in and bashed the other bands playing for charity? That lack of class is rare in the local music scene. Well done.
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BASS MASTER GENERAL
2/7/2014 11:15:07 am
Welcome to Onethirtyeight.org! Sadly, I regret to inform you that there is a lot of truth in the undertone of what's posted here. This is not third grade and there are no participation awards. There is no need to mislead people and tell them they are good musicians if they truly aren't. Sometimes it takes a bad review to motivate people to get better. Who would you rather have as a friend? People who lie to you and tell you you're good? Or people who tell you the truth and fuel motivation for you to get better. Try harder, maybe the next review won't sting so bad.
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Jackie
2/7/2014 12:27:56 pm
Honest review? There was nothing remotely interesting about your band except for the bag pipes, it would have sounded better if you had just let him play the entire set.
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And there ya go! Democracy in action! See, I took no offense to your opinion of my band. That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. Doesn't bother me in the least, tiniest bit. :-)
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Anthony
2/7/2014 12:51:23 pm
I agree fully with Jason....Mike, your comments and actions have been passed on to the booking agents, promoters and other artists that helped support your band leading up to this event. I'm sure even the acts that you praised wouldn't support the way that you have conducted yourself. This has nothing to do with not being able to handle the truth, because in no way was your review approached from an angle with the sort of clout that shows that you have any clue as a person that would appreciate (or critique) music from a well thought standpoint. Understand this is in no way a defense or counterargument to your actual feelings towards any of the other bands (we can take it as professionals), but the way in which you chose to voice your opinion - and then personally share it with each band on Facebook like some sort of personal statement. We just wouldn't expect the type of childish, schoolgirl whining (very un-punk, by the way) that you chose to conduct yourself. If this were a third-party review or recap conducted by an unbiased individual or even a fully biased review from anyone affiliated with the acts that was formatted as such, we would have no quarrels. You chose to sloppily write an unfounded, piece of trash that basically touts how anything other than hard rock and punk is "shite" in your opinion - but mostly how you believe that your band is awesome and got shafted. Comparing the sound of Sweetest Morphine, for example, to Interpol just goes to show how uneducated musically you are (probably why your band rehashes bland punk and labels it as fresh because of peppering in the actually overused mix of bagpipes rather than create your own sound. Fugazi was revolutionary. The Civilians aren't even Sum 41). Moving forward, realize that we (the caring, respectful musicians in the Las Vegas community) are the majority. And understand the doors that you have just closed for yourself and the other members of your band - hopefully you had their prior approval before writing and sharing this, or you might be searching for a new band when they find out how much you've just set them back.
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hahahahahahaha You really don't know me too well, do you??
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Baffled
2/7/2014 06:11:55 pm
Does the fact that you mistook the incredible live layering and looping Sound Collage does for tracks mean that you actually think they are badass and just don't realize that you think so? They're so good live that they sound to you like they were recorded in a studio...?
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hahahaha Maybe?? Or it could mean that they possess such mediocre musical ability that I assumed they were singing along to a track? In any case, I wasn't swayed by their outward appearances and was checking them out with my ears and not my eyes.
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Hey Everyone,
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Whoever this is, please stop it. All you're doing is stirring the pot by pretending to be me. I don't want any more trouble. I just want to enjoy being in a Dropkick Murphys tribute band and write for good ole onethityeight.org. What you are doing isn't funny anymore...
Hahahahahaha!!! You dipshit, my "musical career" doesn't need salvaged....especially not from Sweetest Morphine.
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Whoa...WHOA!!! "Quit it" hahahahahahaha Is that really how you perceive me? "quit it" You obviously still don't know shit about me LOL!
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EL GWAPPO
2/8/2014 11:47:02 am
I am at the REAL GE138 house right now and says thanks for the support and your ALL GE138
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GE 138
2/8/2014 02:16:25 pm
You tell em Gwapps! I'd tell you to post a picture of the two of us at my place for proof, but these nobodies would just be jealous to see how a real rawker lives hahahahaha
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hahahahahaha do you seriously think that I give a fuck about the vitality of my bands? Same as I didn't need their approval, I don't need your lame duck imitation of me.
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GE 138
2/8/2014 12:58:41 pm
We are GE 138. We are legion. We don't forgive. We don't forget. Expect us.
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Shut the fuck up. I would never say some dumb shit like that.
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Mike
2/8/2014 02:37:12 pm
This is why I stopped listening to "punk rawk" at 13. It's like fckn high school.
Mike
2/8/2014 02:45:16 pm
This nickelodeon punk rock is for teeners goin thru puberty who still think drinking too much and fart jokes are dangerous and scrary. Totally anti-culture. How the do YOU know who Fugazi is???
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Sgt. Sabot
2/8/2014 02:52:45 pm
This.
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Lemmy K
2/8/2014 05:15:19 pm
Yo GE, you seem like a smart dude so lemmy (pun intended) ask you a question, "Who'd win in a fight, me or God?"
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Lemmy K
2/8/2014 05:17:12 pm
Fuck off you wanker!
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Mike
2/8/2014 05:29:17 pm
How do the YOU know who the mike really is ?
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2/9/2014 01:42:33 am
I am the REAL Evander...wait, wrong site. Nevermind.......
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Nevada Homes dot com
2/9/2014 01:46:08 am
Have you ever considered investing in REAL estate? I can show you how!
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Hugh Jackman? More like Huge Jackass! hahahahahaha
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Jason
2/10/2014 10:58:18 pm
This is worse than the time Ben Weasel punched a girl.
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