Waiting For The End Of The World - Elvis Costello And The Attractions

Never a dull moment, that's for sure.

Seems like every time The Civilians come back from Arizona, we get into some sort of a weather related calamity. Last time when we went to Cottonwood, we almost died in a white knuckler of a blinding snow storm coming back from there, and this past weekend, we got caught in a visually striking but time consuming desert rain storm, making the seemingly 7 hour drive home from Tuscon stretch out into more than it should of been. Ugh. But we passed the time singing Tom Jones songs and bad 80's Metal tunes, as well as quizzing each other with Top 5 Favorite lists and debating the merits of various musical classifications. The weekend itself was lots of fun. Lots of eating and lots of fun. We ate at this amazing place called the Iguana Cafe, which was full of Mexicans and Indians drinking beer out of cans, and us. Chicago Music Store, Hotel Congress, we hit all the touristy spots. I got to play The Simpsons Pinball Party pinball machine at some cool pinball place called D & D Pinball in Tucson, as well as the Captain Fantastic machine, aka the legendary 'Pinball Wizard' game featured in The Who's cinema classic Tommy. Made it to the Surly Wench Pub, which was right around the corner from the pinball place, and which is still just as awesome as it always has been. Love that bar. Never made it to Toxic Shock Records, or Toxic Ranch Records, as it's calling itself nowadays, but that's OK because I spend waaaaaayyyy too much money in that place every time I'm there. Never made it there because by the time we were done shooting pool and drinking at the Surly Wench Pub, it was time to head to the park for the gig. Phooey. The gigs themselves were just glorified drunken practices, with the gig @ Gary's Place on Fri going down at some industrial part of town, using stolen electricity from the storage rental place right next door. Punk Rock Old school thievery, I like it. The venue was like East Side Joe's, but actually dangerous. Sat's gig ran a bit late because the gazebo the bands were supposed to play under had a Quinceañera going on that was running a wee bit late, and we all know that it's bad luck to bum rush a quinceañera, so we wisely waited until everyone left before the festivities began. I had to play on a slanted piece of concrete, using a car trunk liner to keep my drums from slipping away from me while I played, which made things... interesting. We did an interesting thing too with the Civilians set list for the park gig; writing every song we know down on a piece of paper and letting people from the audience pick the songs out of a hat and then announce them on the mic before we played them. It kind of backfired on us though, as all the first songs that were pulled from the hat were all our fastest and hardest hitting songs. Kudos to FNG Matt for not wavering one bit when Dane Unstable Youth's daughter asked for a CD. Do you have $10? Matt said with no hesitation, and that's why he's the most excellent Merch guy... LOL Every band we played with was cool. Extra special Thanx! to our 'Brrrruuthherrrrsss' in Bricktop, who were an excellent band and even more courteous hosts. See ya next month with Agnostic Front! :-) As always, Thanx! to Dane and James and everyone in Unstable Youth for kicking ass and being so righteous to us. And Thanx! to Creepy Don from We Might Be Wasted and Tommie from The Dime Museum for making the trek out to hang out with us. They were staying in the same hotel that we were, which made our stay... interesting... heh. Oh, and Thanks to Downstroke for playing both gigs with us. They were a really good energetic young band with a kick ass drummer who played his kit low slung along the ground. Cool to watch. We never made it to the spot in downtown Tucson where Dave Mapes was hit by a train, but other than that, it's never a dull moment in Tucson. Had a blast. <3

I was too burned out to make it to the Timmy's Organism / Leather Lungs gig @ the Dive on Sun. Too much fun, lack of sleep, and hours spent on my ass in the van just had me all kinds of 'Meh' and feeling like staying home and relaxing. Sorry guys. I'll make the next gig - promise.

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