Making Plans For Nigel - XTC

Ugh. What a rough, sloppy, drunken loud talking past few days these have been, right? LOL I'm not sure what was in the air this weekend, but there was definitely something... something magical... something mischievous and chaotic... something both odd and correct...

So yeah. Jesse & Roxie's big 4th of July shindig was major fun. The food was great and plentiful, because everybody brought a little something something, and the table wasn't big enough to hold it all. I did my part by eating as much of the food as humanly possible, but I'm only one man. ;-) I didn't see much of the fireworks, because I was gabbing like an old woman with all sorts of good Friends who showed up, and someone rubbed pink frosting all over my camera lens, so my photos of all the firework explosions and whatnot came out like crap, but the rest of the pictures that I took before that happened came out great. I rushed editing them and posted them up on Facebook, and people seemed to like them, so that's cool. If you haven't seen them yet, it's because you're not my Friend on there, and you suck. When I get them all finished I'll put 'em up on the website for everyone to see. I took 366 photos, and I got through the first 200. There were too many cool things, shared experiences, and great conversations going on all evening, and to try to tell you about them all would be an exercise in futility. If you were there, you know what I'm talking about, right? Great time. Ending the night listening to the Pro and Con debate on the military actions of the past 25 years by Jesse and Dean was the perfect end to such a patriotic day. :-)

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Fri. night's gig @ the Dive was like a continuation of the 4th of July party the day before! Soooooo many cool people and Friends came to hang out and hear some good tunes. I was loving it. Every band did good, but I gotta tell ya, The People's Whiskey kicked ass all over the place. Major. Fucking. Ass. Like, Godzilla vs. Gary Coleman type of kicking ass. It was truly a joy to behold, and kept me from taking Pictures because I was so enthralled by what they were throwing out to us Friends and Fans in the audience. Holy Jesus do I love those guys. The first, like, 5 or 6 songs they played were absolutely perfect, and each one was literally, a song that I wanted to hear. I was in pig shit Heaven! But then they fucked it up and played a Green Day cover, and I zoned out and headed outside... LOL The bands from AZ. were good too. That band Common Tongue, with their dual vocalists that reminded me of the Warlock Pinchers, won me over with their catchy as fuck Punk rock tuneage and all their jumping around and yelling their heads off, singing songs about diseases and candy and streets and stuff, and a guitarist that was dressed up as Darth Vader while he played. You gotta love any band that does that, right? I ran right up to them afterwords and begged them for a demo. You should too. The other AZ. band Skull Drug were cool in a NOFX - S & M Airlines era kind of way. Might of been because the Singer looked a lot like Fat Mike and the Guitarist looked like Steve, who played on S & M Airlines and Ribbed though... heh They had the Punk rock thing down pretty good too. Cool stuff.  S.F.T. had Billy from Guilty By Association helping out on drums, and he did a great job doing it, and I'm a harsh critic too, as I used to play in that band, but then they kicked me out, and that was the end of that! I was too Punk Rock for them! LOL Carlos had his sharp and natty, well dressed man, 'Miguel Ness' look going on, and Tom Jones is truly the King of Vegas Punk Rock. :-) They sounded good, and they played some new songs too, which was cool. And I was told we, Aluminum Falcon, did a good job during our performance. Lots of people were paying us some lofty compliments afterwords, that's for sure. I was also told that there were crutches flying around in the pit while we played. Whatever. I miss everything that goes on while we play, dammit. Where's a good Photographer when you need one? If we grew beards then would people wanna take our picture? LOL And the 2 Loud Guys in my band decided to have mercy on The Dive bar this time around, going only with half stacks instead of their usual full stack, aural assault... ;-)

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Hung over as fuck? Only 2 hours of sleep? Go to Lake Havasu, where it's even hotter than Las Vegas, to play a gig? Sure!  The place we played at, the P.L.U.R. Lounge, was a cool little 18 and over place that was part hookah lounge, part venue, and it had a beer-only bar with an excellent assortment of brews and ciders, so that was fine by me. We got there late, but that was OK, because April, the Promoter, wasn't even there yet, so we killed time by hanging out at a Schlotzsky's Deli that had a Cinnabon's inside of it, and, yes, you guessed it, a fully stocked bar that offered alcohol infused ice cream. I was in Heaven and needless to say, we lost track of time in there and ended up getting back late to the venue, so I missed most of the opening band Reject Riot's set, but what I heard of the 2 man noise assault sounded pretty crappy from outside, but that was only because the P.A. in the place was shit. I mean, like, pure shit. Absolute shit, as in, there might as well not even have been a P.A. I've played some pretty craptacular places before, with some absolutely janky ass P.A. systems jury rigged up, and this P.A. the bands were playing through was easily in the Top 5 of the Worst P.A.'s Ever Played Through. Sound man was no help either, because his ass was drunk at the bar. Phooey. Because of the shitty P.A., the sets from Skull Drug and Common Tongue suffered a bit, but it was still cool to watch both bands kill the room. They had the people in there jumping around with them and slamming around with them when called to, and the place was deep fried balls hot, like Africa hot, like, 400 degrees in the shade hot.. Fuck. The bands were drenched in sweat 3 songs into their sets, and still gave it their all. That, my friends, is very commendable. By the time we played, everyone in the place was a sweaty, drunken mess, and we gave them exactly what they wanted to hear - some kick ass Descendents songs played by 4 fat ugly guys with boobs. LOL Covers. You know I love 'em! ;-) And things got even crazier when the friends of the band on the Lake Havasu City police dept. stopped by during the Vegascendents set and scared the crap out of everyone in the place... hahahaha Lake Havasu was soooooooooooo much fun. I can't wait to go back and do it all over again. Thanx to April for the gig and to all the people and Friends we made along the way that night.  "Operation Hyena unsuccessful, I repeat unsuccessful. Midget company out." :-)

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I gotta give a plug to Common Tongue, who's Facebook page can be found by clicking here, and Skull Drug, who's Facebook page can be found by clicking here. Those kids are cool as fuck and it was a pleasure hanging out and playing gigs and partying with them on their Raping Liberty mini-Tour 2013. Cheers guys! Looking forward to hanging out and playing gigs with you guys again real soon. Everything is updated. I forget what it's updated with, but it's updated, dammit! LOL I don't know what's going on this week and I really don't care. It's Monday. I'm up. Who wants to do something fun with me, like edit photos for the website? Somebody? Anybody? :-)