post-mortem on the show last night

well we played the lipo lounge last night. it was pretty lame overall, but whatever. i had been sick with the flu for a week, so we only had one real rehearsal beforehand. but i thought we played pretty good. it's a cool space, but it's pretty lame that it cost $80 to rent out the spot and we weren't like comped any drinks or anything. it's not like we had much of a turnout anyway. somehow we made money though, like $60 profit, so neat. anyways, best of the best part 3 played first, they had actual songs this time, sounded like mogwai with emo-ish vocal, but in a butch kind of way. i thought they were good, too loud, but i liked what they were playing. but they were all bummed out and shit cuz one of the guy's girlfriends was underage and couldn't get it. that sucked. playing these 21+ shows are kind of a drag. did i mention that only 4 people came specifically for us? totally weak. we're probably not gonna play another show for awhile, at least until i figure out how to get people to actually come or whatever. light and shit. naked dancers. go totally ming and ping and shit maybe. anyways, paleo was second. devendra banhart eat yr heart out i scoffed. nice guy. writing a song a day or some shit. been on the road for 10 months all over the states. me and tommi figured he either had a good IT job that he quit or some kind of trust fund. anyways, didn't seem like anyone was really into his tunes, they all were kind of innoculous tuneless freak folk. i was taking money at the door, so i guess i wasn't really paying any attention at that point. anyways, we decided to go third, cuz no one was there for us. we played: get bored, fem politique, i hate music, why r u so sad?, my resignation, charisma, mediocrity, the source of my unhappiness, no emotion, bitterlust. bitterlust got kinda fucked up, and was not a good one to end on, but we had some good momentum for the first 2/3rds of the set it seemed, then people seemed to get tired of us, i think. the laser cats went last, they were really noisy, and their friends just didn't seem willing to put up with them. it was too bad, but that keytar thing that dylan plays, well it's loud and noisy, and their is just only so much that can be done with it and only so far you can go with that kind of concept of keytar and screaming and such. the drummer and bass player are really solid, they need something more to do than just support song after song of noisy keytar and screaming, mix it up a little. anyway, a weird night. kinda lame. wish more of our friends had come out. oh well.

rain sux. so does being sick.

we recorded drums yesterday. we did fem politique in like two takes, and then why r u so sad? pretty quickly also. then we attempted to record charisma live. that was tricky, i kept flubbing lines. i think we finally got a good take, but it still has one fucked up line, so i'm gonna see if i can't just pull some voodoo and copy and paste it from another take without it being noticeable. otherwise, i think the song is gonna sound way better than the click track version we did a while back. that one just totally lack energy, and is also a bit of a cut and paste job.

so we're trying to find people to play with again. we put up an add for a bass player about a week ago, didn't get a whole lot of response, but we did try out one guy who would probably work out as a superb keyboardist. we'll see...

photos from feb 2nd

all fotos by tony.

report on the show last night!

we played pretty good, i'd rate it about a 7 out of 10. only a couple mistakes here and there, forgotten words, missed cues, fucked up guitar solo, missed snare hits, lots of dropped sticks haha, shit like that. we played: cognitive dissonance, fem politique, charisma, get bored, why r u so sad?, my regisnation, the source of my unhappiness, mediocrity, bitterlust. we went third. first was best of the best part 3 (enough is enough - no turning back), featuring members of the pandaboys, and they are also gonna be playing with us on feb 23 @ the lipo lounge. they were pretty damn massive sounding, loud thick distorted bass and guitar and beats with wailed vocals, noisy and thunderous. they were really cool guys and really encouraging during our set. trevor said he liked us cuz we were very esoteric. so that's our new word of the day. esoteric. 2nd was the cupids, and they were three dudes, a bit more accessable, kinda like the cocteau twins sorta in sound, but darker and heavier, guitar, bass, and a third guy on synth and drum machine. they were really cool too. at that point i was starting to worry about following two really awesome noisy bands, especially since our stuff is more formalist in composition, cuz we're really just a lame pop band. anyways, we played, and went for about 40 minutes or so, i almost fainted during the first song cuz i wasn't breathing enough and over projecting my voice, but i managed to not fall over, somehow. tommi was the real star of the show, the meager audience seemed to dig the drums a lot, and tommi's feature on the synth during my resignation was quite popular. and we managed to not scare off the locals! i think they actually liked us more, cuz we weren't so noisy, haha. i recall seeing some old ass drunk smilin' at us at one point during the show. plus people finally got up to dance during the last tune, bitterlust, which was pretty shocking, though it does start off pretty dancy. anyways, after us was raencloud, now known as the laser cats. they have improved so much in the 3 weeks since we last played with them, i was really really impressed! the drummer chris is really phenomenal, and the bass player sean is a real sweetheart. they were all totally tight, and hopefully dylan didn't kill my mic with all his thrashing about and falling over as he was playing. oh yeah, and there were lights and a smoke machine going on for them and best of the best. they had this whole separate dude come in with his own truck full of gear, and he was really cute too! but i didn't talk to him, cuz i'm like shy, haha. anyways, we didn't really do no lights during our set, cuz, like there was one shining right on me, and i couldn't see my strings, so i kept moving it out of the way while setting up. anyway, it was a fun night! and load in and out was really a lot easier, cuz i bought a case for all of our cymbal stands earlier in the day over at evil guitar center (where i happened to witness a street tranny lady wandering about playing a violin). while it's a bit too big to fit comfortably in my shitty corolla, it proved to be a worthy investment, and all in all, at the end of the night, we were able to load back into our studio space in less than 10 minutes! leaving us plenty of time to hop on over the stud for shadowplay and dance for a bit and say hi to tim and dan. so it was a good night, yay.