OK first of all, that show in September was tons of fun, as always. It appears as though Quenchers has taken over as our home venue after the demise of Union Rock Yards, and why not? That place rules. Thanks to all that came out and had a good time, and to the dudes in Nonagon and Maple Stave for helping us supply the rock. Also each of those bands had a poster made for the show, and they're totally sweet ass.
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| Courtesy of Maple Stave |
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| Courtesy of Nonagon |
Then, we played the PRF Auktoberfest BBQ on Saturday at Klas in Cicero on October 16th. I could go on and on about the back story of this whole thing and why it's totally awesome, but it's just one of those things where if you don't know about it, you won't quite get it. It involves a message board for Steve Albini's studio, and a lot of like-minded people that know how to throw a party just for the sake of throwing a damn hell ass party. Not to mention, it's become your only chance to see the
best live band karaoke in the world. (Do yourself a favor and visit that link to see our friend Kevin, aka
the guy that made my prized possession, totally rock the shit out of "Under Pressure." Both the Bowie and Freddie Mercury parts!)
But specifically, the day that we played was at this amazing Bohemian restaurant in Cicero called
Klas. This place was a sight to behold--it looked like it was carved out of one giant piece of wood. There were rooms all over the place, and of course many were rumored to have been used by Al Capone for all sorts of illicit purposes. The room to be used for the band performances was full of plaster, chandeliers, and recording equipment, and there was a view behind the stage through large windows out into the beer garden area, where attendees were smoking a goat supplied by our friend John of the
Columbines. It was amazing how great this room sounded! Usually these sorts of places are a mess of echoes and walls shaking when you get loud bands playing in them. Perhaps it was because the windows behind the stage were angled out in Chicago Bay Window style, and because the walls had thick coats of plaster on them, or because Rich has become a damned magician with live sound, but it sounded nearly perfect.
The bands were all amazing, and many performed in costume.
The Infrasonics were all dressed as airline pilots, and were served shots by a very
Randy stewardess. We busted out the shirts that we purchased back in the All Limbs Intact days from Alcala Western Wear on Chicago Ave and added some sweet ass cowboy hats and fake mustaches (that lasted about a half a song for Rich and I, while Dan was able to keep it together for the whole set).
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| Cowboys For Life |
Not only were there performances from a few of our friends' bands, but we were treated to some reunions of note. First, a band I have recently become acquainted with,
Zoom--they played their first show in 16 years! Then, a little bit later on,
Five-Eight graced the stage. Closing the night out was the mighty
Big'n, who, besides playing
my friend Wayne's book release party in 2006, haven't been a band since somewhere around 1998. All bands were amazing. I'm pretty sure that both Zoom and Big'n are actually playing some more shows as a result of this thing.
As I mentioned, the room was full of recording equipment, both video and audio. Rich was toiling away all weekend doing live sound for every single band that participated--the man's a machine--but also, our friends Matt and Jim from the Infrasonics had set up cameras and microphones all over the place to document all performances. Many of them have started popping up on
Jim's youtube channel, and he's working away at getting everything online soon. Shout-out to our bestest buds
cmn ineed yr hlp for their
ass-kicking set on Friday, by the way. Ours should be online sooner than later. We're also getting the multitrack recording from Matt and we're going to mix it and do something or other with it. Stay tuned!
And as if all of that isn't enough, we already have another sort of last minute show this weekend, the
Columbines Halloween Gopher Rodeo, at Quenchers yet again. We'll be reliving the glory of the cowboy way with a short and blistering set of our original tunes (we didn't quite have enough time to put together a covers set, although I totally want to do the hell out of that some day) and some fresh fake mustaches. Friday 10/29/2010, 9pm. Be there!
Also we're working on setting up some other shows in the coming months (nothing confirmed but we'll post about them if/when they are), and have begun brainstorming about doing some damned serious recording already. For real, we are playing for keeps, we are recording this shit, and not taking no for an answer on that, so put it in your pipe and then smoke it.
Love and smoking goats,
Todd
