You Should Never Have Opened That Door - Ramones

Photo by John S.F.T.

Reno was awesome. So was Lake Tahoe. Why do I live in Vegas??

It felt great to get away from the city for a bit and head up North where they have these awesome colors called 'nature' and 'seasons' that are just glorious to see in their natural pristine state. Hippy shit I know, but after riding in a van all day with some funny motherfuckers, I was just feeling the love everywhere I went.

We played a gig on Fri. at a place called Shea's Tavern, or as I call it, Meth's Tavern. I, of course, stopped partaking in drugs years ago, but to see it openly sold, snorted, shared at this place, was a bit too much for me. Skinheads on meth are never a good thing. Never. Other than that though, it was a cool place! LOL The Damnit Jims were good, but some meth'd out jabroni who claimed he was friends with Bill Stevenson kept bumping into me while I was standing there taking pictures, so I left. Vegas Threat were interesting, and Tyson nearly threw his back out jumping off the 4 foot high stage mid-set, but as I stood there taking pictures of them playing, I suddenly thought to myself Why am I taking pictures of a cover band? and quickly stopped. I sat at the merch table and laughed as people called out for them to play various Fugazi songs. Vegascendents were good despite the fact that Paolo was hammered and out of phase with his bass cabinet or some lame ass shit like that. It felt good to be playing with these guys again. That feeling went away about 8 minutes later... hahahaha Reno, We Have A Problem were brilliant in the fact that they had a public meltdown / fight on stage and broke up immediately after their set. Sometimes you gotta know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run.

High point of the day was waiting 2 hours for hamburgers and fries at a place called Ryan's Saloon & Broiler, and then watching as the kitchen caught fire while Johnny Cash' Ring Of Fire played eerily in the background. We never got our food, BTW. The low point of the day was eating cashews and drinking warm red punch for dinner after the gig while my band mates feasted on Denny's, which I had been trying to get them to go eat at for hours. Selfish shits.

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Flyer from Facebook.

Saturday it was all about the El Bowlritto Tres skate event that went down in Lake Tahoe at Skatehouse Skate Park. There was a steady drizzle all during the event, and water had to be poked out of the tops of every canopy cover in the place every half hour or so to prevent liquid build up. There were tacos for sale, loads and loads of booze everywhere, and everyone was smoking weed. Everyone. Besides the Skate Pistols, a group of rubbery small children who were skating the shit out of anything and everything that wasn't moving, and talking all day to random people about the upcoming Sharks game (we were in Sharks territory. Everyone was a fan), the high point of the day was watching M Section, an amazingly tight, energetic and entertaining band of Punk Rock musician types just fuck shit up and play an impressive set of music that had me buying everything they were selling immediately after their set was done. Check that band out the second you can by clicking here and see what you think. I told everybody they were the Nor-Cal version of The Quitters. Lots of them agreed with me. :-) Vegas Threat had the unfortunate distinction of opening up the event at 11 in the morning, and let's just say it wasn't one of their better shiny moments. Vegascendents played better than they did the night before, but the bone chilling cold weather made it hard to play the drums. The rolls like on songs like Coolidge and Suburban Home were just falling flat, and thankfully we cut our set short. The Damnit Jims played immediately after us and played almost the exact same set they did the night before, even with the 'How do you get a dog to stop licking your face?" joke, with the answer being "you suck his dick". ;-)

After the gig was over we went to grub some amazing BBQ food at a place called Sonney's BBQ Shack and laugh about all the craziness that had gone on in the past 24 hours. We stuffed our faces full of charred flesh covered in sticky sweet sauce until we could barely stand up, and while everyone else crashed out while the sun was still out, I stayed up and watched the Sharks whup some Predators ass and then took a beautiful leisurely stroll in the chilly night air of Lake Tahoe, where I found an authentic looking taqueria in the middle of nowhere. I walked in and had the nicest elderly lady tell me the place was closed. When I begged her for a burrito full of anything she had left over she explained the grill was off and cleaned and everything was put away. I didn't even care really. I thanked her and went back to the hotel room and crashed out, which was a good thing, because everyone was well rested and ready to head back to Vegas real bright and early in the morning. Bastards.

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