God Lives in NYC

Tom and Kevin played a "reunion" set this past weekend at the Knitting Factory. They played all of Crime plus a bunch of other amazing songs. You've got to be fucking kidding me.

Set:
(Just Tom)
"I Dreamed Bob Dylan Was a Friend of Mine"
"Random Hearts"
"Amputations"
"Joy"
"Harsh Realms"
"Anna is a Stool Pigeon"
"Wagon Wheel"
"Jordan's First Choice"
"Tonight We're Gonna Give It 35%"
(Tom and Kevin)
"Walking is Still Honest"
"What We Worked For"
"Those Anarcho Punks Are Mysterious..."
"I Still Love You Julie"
"Shit Stroll"
"Impact"
"Ya'll Don't Wanna Step To Dis"
"Burn"
"We Did It All for Don"
"8 Full Hours of Sleep"
"Sink, Florida, Sink"

Douchefest 08!

Ok the title is a bit of an exaggeration, but its still a fairly accurate description of the crowd at Rise Against last night. I went primarily to see Gaslight Anthem and Alkaline Trio, and both delivered.

I was bouncing with excitement for the 30min wait between my arrival at the Fillmore and when Gaslight took the stage. I told everyone around me who cared to listen about how the opening band was going to to trump every other band they would see tonight From the second they busted into "Great Expectations," I could tell that I was one of a handful of Gaslight fans in the audience. From what I could see, there was only one other dude in the audience singing along (I happened to run into him again while boarding the bus back to Boulder, funnily enough) but I didn't fucking care. I sang as loud as I could, and I'm sure everyone around me was getting annoyed. The set was '59 Sound heavy, as expected, but I went to the show so I could hear just that. Still wish they would have played "Drive" though. It was weird hearing them over such a loud system, as opposed to say, Asbury Lanes' or the Marquis Theater's. It seemed they won a good portion of the crowd over, and hopefully they hooked the Rise crowd enough for them to buy merch. I wasn't expecting to buy anything, but I couldn't pass up on the shirt that was a mockup of the Asbury Lanes' sign.

Great Expectations
The Patient Ferris Wheel
The '59 Sound
We Came to Dance
Old White Lincoln
Wherefore Art Thou, Elvis
Angry Johnny and the Radio
The Backseat
(this may be out of order in a couple places)

I used to really like Thrice back in the day, but I stopped listening to them after The Artist in the Ambulance. The opened their set with two songs from that album ("Hoods on Peregrine" and "Melting Point of Wax") and then proceeded to bore the shit out of me for the rest of their set. Although the cover of Helter Skelter was pretty cool...

Alkaline Trio played a phenomenal set filled primarily with oldies, but I wish they could have played longer. Matt Skiba's new look is a bit weird, but whatever, they fucking played "Cringe!" The pinnacle of the night was when they brought out Brian from Gaslight, and played a fantastic cover of "Astro Zombies" Goddamn that was amazing. Not too many Misfits fans in the house though...

Private Eye
Calling All Skeletons
I Lied My Face Off
I Found Away
In Vein
Emma
Cringe
Sadie
Goodbye Forever
Astro Zombies

I'll give it Rise Against, their recent material may kinda suck, but they still know how to put on a good fucking show. The amount of lighting they have seems to grow exponentially every show, and it adds a lot, to say the least. I stayed towards the middle of the crowd, near the pit, because I didn't feel like getting crushed while listening to mediocre new material. I had to leave early to go write a paper on Gandhi, but the set was surprisingly good despite a couple songs. As I made my way to the door, Tim started talking about the crowd not knowing their first album, and as their guitarist nonchalantly played a chord in the backround, I said audibly "no fucking way." My suspicions were correct, and they went into "Everchanging." I was on a tight schedule to catch the bus, but I couldn't miss this song. Thankfully I made the bus (with only seconds to spare) and got back to Boulder, rubbed the Misfits cover in my roommate's face, and finished my crappy essay about non-violence.

New Song (I think its the first track off the new album)
Give It All
State of the Union
New Song
Ready to Fall
Re-Education (Through Labor)
Chamber the Cartridge
Everchanging

I wish I knew what else they played...


and to top it off, I found the greatest news ever

http://brooklyndiy.blogspot.com/2008/11/jerk-house-110808.html

Blake Schwarzenbach is back and ready to unleash his musical fury on the world once again. (and with Aaron Cometbus none the less!)

I Remember Halloween...

...or most of it.

This past weekend was awesomely fun, minus the loss of the Descendents' Frank Navetta (RIP my friend). The Masters of Suspicion and I teamed forces (and its looking to be a permanent team) to play Misfits covers all night at two locations

First show was the Bulldog Bar on E. Colfax in Denver. We went there not knowing what to expect, but knew not to expect much. We were right. The staff were incredibly nice and accommodating, despite their bar not being much of a music venue. For starters, the stage was about 3 feet deep and 15 wide. You try fitting 4 band members and gear, and still have room to breath in that cramped space. We also had trouble setting up their PA system (shouldn't they have set that up before any of the bands arrived?), and then found that the bar's only mic didn't work. Thankfully we brought one of ours as a back up. With the regulars looking awkwardly at us, and our 10 or so fans (my roommate, drummer's girlfriend, my parents and 4-5 of their friends, and one Misfits fanguy who was actually pretty cool) cheering on, we busted into our set with Halloween. We made best with what we had, I had a hard time singing with the loose mic rotating away from my mouth, and trying to backup vocals was near impossible. We had a ton of fun, and even our screwups weren't so bad. We finished in about 30-40 minutes, packed up as the next band was arriving, and drove back to Boulder

Our good electronica friends/neighbors RNGDS had just finished setting up when we arrived. Much to the enjoyment of all, they had built floor lighting boxes complete with flashing colors, strobe lights, and a smoke machine. Awesome. They were substantially less drunk than last time, and had brought us all a much better PA, and played well, even being dressed like Sunny and Cher. Dance parties are always fun at the Soulquarium.

After a long breakdown, we got our gear in the basement as quickly as possible, soundchecked and were ready to go. It was incredible. The whole basement was alive and energized, and everyone nearly died of heat exhaustion. I don't even think we screwed up more than twice, and it wasn't even noticeable. We were all much more comfortable in a basement surrounded by friends and people who enjoy the music, and also having, you know, room, and uhh, three microphones. I was jumping all over the place, and I'm surprised I didn't give my self a concussion from the ceiling. Especially considering how much mead I drank. Singalongs and dancing were abound, and I nearly got knocked over by my friend dressed as a giant vagina (filled with teeth none the less)!

Here was our set:

Halloween
Where Eagles Dare
We Are 138
Skulls
Night of the Living Dead
Hybrid Moments
Astro Zombies
London Dungeon
Teenagers From Mars
Some Kinda Hate
She
I Turned Into A Martian
Horror Business
Violent World
Bullet
Braineaters
Last Caress
Braineaters + Astro Zombies (Reprise, haha)

After we finished, a DJ friend of RNGDS "spinned" some tunes the rest of the night in the basement. One of my friends asked if I was going to play some Jack's Smirking Revenge, and I agreed after some more mead and a smoke. With what voice I had left, I went through a few new songs for a few friends and my bandmates outside. That was pretty fun as well. I guess I passed out at some point, and woke up confused in my clothes, and my Flava Flav clock annoying the shit out of me.

The next day I had work, which was relatively exhausting, followed by painting signs for my Amnesty Int'l group, and then another party, after which I walked home at 3am. Alright time for some pics! I'm sure more will surface, and I'll post those at some point too if I find them worthy. More will probably be on the Masters of Suspicion myspace eventually.

It looks like half of the images are getting cut off, so you'll have to click on them to see the full
















OH! one more thing. I acquired a copy of the entire Denver Revival Tour audio, and I uploaded it on Mininova. So go forth and download!