I was sitting near the back wall, couple of seats down from the birthday girl Angie and her furry husband Nate, chatting to a whole circle of close friends and casual acquaintances, while the band Nebula X was raging away on stage. Pure Metal with what I believe were lyrics sung in Spanish. It was either that or I was really, really high. They were an odd choice to open things up but somehow it seemed to work. Pretty cool.

Yeah, Angie's birthday party this past Sat. @The Dive was a bit of a surreal night. Place was packed with cool people, great vibes all around, lots and lots of cake and cupcakes, and it figures that it would be the only night I forget to bring my camera is the night that Angie gets naked on stage and sings GG Allin songs with The Mapes... my life is now complete! LOL The Mapes were fantastic, sounding pretty good doing Don't Talk To Me. I saw them play a Mummies cover once. They're pretty good playing covers. Maybe they should do it more often, since writing new songs seems to be out of the question... heh. The band High Anxiety were the surprise of the night, playing some Beardcore music that was an interesting mix of the Violent Femmes and the Dead Milkmen. Plus, they did a cover from the movie The Three Amigos (Blue Shadows On The Trails) which made both Matt and I instant fans of the band. High Anxiety from straight outta Oakland. Check them out. You might dig 'em.

I think it was the bass player from High Anxiety who started lobbing fully ignited rolls of toilet paper towards The Mapes while they were playing. Clay was piling toilet paper on top of his ride cymbal and lighting it on fire and sending it flying everywhere while playing the songs. Toilet paper streams flew left right and every other direction and were just as quickly scooped up into a pile in the middle of the room and kept ablaze like some drunken boy scout overnight camp out campfire. The smoke inside was so thick and dense I heard people cracking Great White jokes. They opened both doors in a vain attempt to air the place out, which helped a little, but not really. The true hardcore stuck it out inside, keeping the fires burning while the Mapes wailed away, playing every song that they could remember how to play before calling it a night. Happy times. Seeing Angie topless on stage with them singing that GG Allin song was definitely a highlight of my life. After that, I think everybody in the place went home and fucked their significant others just a little bit harder than they usually do. Thanks for that Angie! LOL

I stuck it out as long as I could. I really did, but the Weirdos were just slow and old, sounding like shit, and when they messed up one of my favorite songs, Message From The Underworld, I wanted to violently throw things at the drummers head. I also wanted to punch Bob in the nuts, because he said the last time the Weirdos played @The Dive, he said they were pretty good. I really fail to see how that was possible. They were just... shitty. There wasn't a lot of people there though, so I guess that's good? An all ages house party on the East side of town, complete with 8 shitty Local bands playing, pretty much made sure that no one under 30 was going to be there, but, I remained forever optimistic.The Scoundrels were pretty good, closing out their set with a Black Sabbath cover, which was, odd. F.S.P. killed it, as usual. They're some of the nicest guys playing some of the angriest music you'll ever hear. Good stuff.

But this gig, tonight @The Dive, well this one, this one is going to be one for the record book. It's Angie's birthday bash, and she told me how old she's going to be but I don't believe her, and with The Mapes headlining this shindig, I can only imagine what sort of shenanigans they have up their collective sleeves to unleash upon us all. Flour? Ding-Dongs? Hot dogs? More giant bags of confetti? Who knows? All I know is that there is no other place I'd rather be at tonight than at the Dive. I don't know a thing about the other bands, but it doesn't even matter. Get their early to hang out with all the righteous people who are going to be there helping Angie celebrate her b-day. If Angie picked the bands playing, they should be pretty good. If they're not, well, I guess you could play the Ms. Pac-Man game to combat your boredom.

I hope somebody brings cake. <3

Last night @ the Double Clown was pretty fun. That free popcorn needed some salt though... ha ha ha

Lots of heads in attendance, which was, cool? Seeing Ben from Battle Born is always a treat. Vegascendents played pretty good. I can only gauge that by how many times Paolo jumps in the air and comes down perfectly in time with the song. I think he did it like 4 times last night, which is pretty good for an old drunk like him... ha ha ha. Erika won a scarf in the Descendents trivia quiz that Hanson did before the band played, and Tyson cleaned up on some old classic flyer reproductions that he kept winning for knowing the answers to the questions, which is kind of cheating when you get right down to it. If you're in a Descendents band and you don't know pretty much everything about them, well, that would make you a pretty sour kind of fellow, now wouldn't it? ha ha ha It was a good time. People seemed to dig us, and watching people buy Vegascendents tee shirts after we played was a bit surreal, to say the least. Thanks to Fish and Rex Dart and Hanson and everybody else involved with the TV Party Tonight shindig that goes down at the Double Clown every month. It was a good time. I had fun.

Tonight's gig @ The Dive bar is guaranteed to be a nice bit of fun as well. The Weirdos, The Scoundrels, The Civilians, and Fuck Shit Piss, bringing the noise and causing enough of a ruckus to wake the dead. I have no idea what time the gig starts, because since the Dive bar is a Raiders bar now, they're showing the games there now, and I don't know if they're gonna end the game early for the gig, or if the gig starts right after the game is over. Your best bet is to get there early and hang out. Who knows? You might run into someone you know, or you might even make a new friend. What a thought, right?

I thought it was funny that I don't update this thing for like a month, and the first thing I feel compelled to write about is that little shit stain's wedding... LOL Nothing musical, just... idle gossip.

Anywho's, one of the many bands I drum for, the Vegascendents, is playing the TV Party Tonight! thing going down at the Double Clown. This months movie is Filmage, a documentary about the Descendents / ALL, and it would be cool to see some happy, familiar faces in the place tonight. Hanson and Fish asked us months ago to play it, seemed like a perfect match, so I reluctantly agreed. It's good to be jamming with my friends again, but I can see that it's going to get old real soon. I think that the guys in the band think that I'm back in the band, because they added my picture back to the Facebook band page, but we're still playing the same songs in the same order, nothing new, and not even an effort to incorporate new (old) songs, and I know it's going to get real, real boring (again) real, real soon, but for now, I love playing the songs, so I'll put up with the monotony for awhile. They might be the same songs over and over, but we play them really good. For me it's mega fun. Seems to be that way for others too, as there's always singing along and dancing when we play. Weird.

So yeah, I'm kind of looking forward to playing this gig tonight, even if it's only to steal one of these cool looking flyers from off the Double Clown's walls, and, of course, for the free popcorn that's going to be there. I'm a sucker for a bag full of hot oil and salt. Hey now!