Watch Your Back - Cock Sparrer

Redemption. LOVE that word. :-)

Yeah, my band mates in The Civilians totally redeemed themselves last night @ The Dive, putting on one Hell of a display of musical merriment that was apparently loved and enjoyed by all. Pretty effin' sweet!!! In fact, it was sooooo good that even the Nazis in the place loved it! One of them was seig heiling during our song Boots 'N' Braces, a song about being a Skinhead - go figure, right? ;-) Skinheads? Nazi's? Sham 69? What year is this, anyways? LOL Yeah, I didn't see it, because I'm the Drummer and I don't ever see anything that goes on while I'm playing, and neither did any of my band mates, because of those damn nuclear bright lights that point directly into your eyes when you're up on the stage. Is it me or did that Dive stage get a little bigger? What happened to the pool table? Anyways, once we found out about the Nazi's being there and what they were doing, Trueland led the charge to get the assholes thrown out, which brings me to point of contention #1: during the Total Gayass set, who played right after us, Rob Chaos was speaking to the guys in German, and I don't know what he was saying, exactly, because ich spreche kein Deutsch, but it didn't seem to be anything negative or derogatory to the racists in the room. The Nazi's were seig heiling, yelling out "88", and just generally going out of their way to make their presence known, and maybe Rob didn't see them, because of the bright stage lights, but I know he definitely heard them, obviously, and that makes what he did a major No-No, but I'd expect nothing less from a donkeys apple sack tool bag like him. Easy on the foundation there Brah. Your starting to look a bit like Rip Taylor up on stage... lol And why was it being tolerated anyways? The racists were clearly outnumbered, and people were visibly upset about what was going on, but no one thought to get together and run the Nazi's out, choosing just to sit idly by and pretend they didn't see it, including some people who were all about being anti-racist rabble rousers back in the day. Whatever.

Point of contention #2. So a group of motivated fellows, a lynch mob basically, were assembled outside the venue during the Total Gayass set, plotting the best way to deal with the Nazi's inside the bar. Cooler heads prevailed, and it was decided that the people at the Dive should be told that there were racist skinheads in the building, and let them deal with it in a peaceable, professional manner. When told there were Nazi's inside, the people at the Dive were like 'So what? What do you want us to do?' which was majorly unsettling, to say the least, and it seemed like they were content with just letting the Nazi's stay inside the place running amok, and it wasn't until the lynch mob outside told the guys in Sham 69 what was going on that any positive action was taken. Sham 69 said there was no way in Hell they were playing while any Nazi's are in the room, and they demanded that they be thrown out. The Dive did the right thing and the white power fucks were told to leave. :-) The Nazi's were escorted from the building, some more quietly than others, and most of them left without saying a word. A few plead their cases outside to be allowed to stay ("I'm a Nazi - so what? I'll just stay in the back and not sieg heil or anything! I just wanna see Sham 69!") and some crazy Nazi bitch attacked the doorman for some strange reason, but when all was said and done, they just... left, and everybody went back inside to watch Sham 69. Drama over. Yaaay!

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That major piece of Drama aside, the night was pretty good, especially musically. Sham 69 were OK, but the drummer didn't play one song correctly. Seriously. Not one. They played every song I expected them to do, and some that I forgot they do. Meh. Total Gayass were background music to all the Drama going on outside, but I let them use my drum set because I'm a nice guy and I've known Miguel forever. He knows I think his band sucks, he thinks it's funny. Whatever. Plus he knows MY drum set RULES!! hahaha The surprise of the night for me was The Psyatics. Where the fuck did these guys come from? They had a sound similar to bands like the Devil Dogs, or the New Bomb Turks, and I was digging it! They opened up with an amazing song that brought everybody that was outside smoking to the inside of the bar to check them out, and I later found out the opening song was a Sam & Dave cover. Brilliant!! I was majorly impressed and look forward to seeing and hearing more from them. Thanx for the CD Rob! :-) And I don't know why nobody liked Water Landing. I thought they were OK, and any band that does a Violent Femmes cover is A-OK in my book! LOL They had a girl up on stage folding laundry for some reason, which made the band a bit easier to watch. People were grumbling about them being on the bill, but whatever. Everybody's gotta have SOMETHING to bitch and complain about, right Angie? ;-)

Such a fun night. Thanx to everyone who rolled out and was there and who made the night FUN, peeps like Joe Stone, who I haven't seen in years, Angie Divebar, Pulsar, Mike, Carlos from S.F.T. and his lovely wife Cristi, Scrat Pat (WOW!), Zack Attack, the Legendary Karl Bakla (all 3 onethirtyeight.org people in one place at one time - good thing our enemies didn't know! LOL), and, of course, again, my band mates Trueland, Jeremy, and Jeff, for reminding me why I put up with their shit and why they put up with mine - it's for magical moments on stage like we shared last night. <3

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Everything's updated. Pictures of Slaughter And The Dogs playing at the LVCS were just posted, and you can click here to check those out. From the same night I posted the pix I took of S.F.T. and their new drummer running through things, and you can click here to check those out. I also added a bunch of the old pictures that used to be on the website back up there, more to fill in the holes than anything, but they're up there if you wanna check them out. Probably only interesting if you were actually at the gig. :-)

Pictures of Give 'Em Hell @ University Theater.
Pictures of Six Shooters To The Sky @ University Theater.
Pictures of Suite 666 @ the Double Clown.
Pictures of Braineaters @ the Emergency Room.
Pictures of Imperial Leather @ Rock N' Java.
Pictures of The Lab Ratz @ the G & L Center.
Pictures of 1/2 Ast @ Casa De Spooky.
Pictures of The Loud Pipes @ Casa De Spooky.
Pictures of The Vermin @ The Cooler Lounge.