i know this is probably poor form, seeing as how Sweden’s Terrible Feelings puts shit out on Deranged and we put shit on on Deranged, but I just want to say that their new shit is a bit of a disappointment. feels like the kind of bar-rock band i’d watch for ten minutes before leaving to go take a piss that i don’t really need to take.
Compare:
with:
Europeans are supposed to be pretty renowned for their annoying honesty regarding music so fuck it. feels like a number of Swedish bands eventually get to this point where they’re too polished and strip out all the character. at least it’s still listenable.
i woke up on Noah’s tent again and hacked up some shit outside while cradling my perpetually sore back. somehow everyone else woke up and Colin convinced us to go to the farmer’s market to get some breakfast sandwiches that his friend makes out of a food truck. evidently in Missoula, you can start a food truck and work for three months and spend the rest of your life living in exotic locations off the money you make in a short period of time.
there was also some sort of dog party where some woman was making people compete in a contest where their dogs licked peanut-butter or something. it generally creeped all of us out, although we didn’t care much because we had those fucking breakfast sandwiches.
we also went to this record swap/flea market thing so we could set up our Havoc Records distro for a bunch of people that have probably only heard the bands that Southern Lord ripped recently. we tried to ride the recent “hardcore” band signings by sending Greg Anderson of Southern Lord five bags of our hair (head and body), our LP (on the shitty Dead Beat Records), a gift certificate to an Ecuadorean restaurant in the zip code of his PO Box, and a copy of The Legendary Stardust Cowboy‘s “I Hate CDs” 7″.
his response was something to the tune of “write me when you put out a record that sounds like “Zen Arcade”. have fun with your horde of dudes in trucker hats and beards, Greg. write us when you’ve listened to “Land Speed Record”.
on the way to the record swap, i saw an auto mechanic driving our van through the neighborhood – meaning either they had not checked out the van yesterday as they said they would, or that they were almost done with the repairs.
the girl from the night before that Pat had been talking to also stopped by our booth. i saw pat shake his head in that way where people shake their head when they don’t remember meeting someone. she left looking slightly dejected. we also had a number of people look at the records and shake their heads, having never met any of the Finnish hardcore records we were carrying.
we sold a few things thing, requiring me to go grab change from the nearby gas station from some balding fucking asshole with the most feeble looking mohawk i had ever seen. he was endlessly pissed at me for asking for change and as he grunted and groaned, moving his stiff and chubby dinosaur arms two inches to count out twenty whole US Dollars, i tried apologizing.
“you know, you don’t have to give me change. i can go somewhere else. look, this is obviously a problem for you, so i’ll just take care of it. okay, you can punch me in the face if i come back in here. alright? okay? are you okay?”
i went back to the record swap and complained about the prick to Pat, who cussed me out for some reason. most likely related to the fact that he probably had to give change to bald dorks when he worked at a gas station for a number of years. so then i went and grabbed pizza to heal my wounded ego.
we left and i saw some puppies. it was also approaching 1pm, the deadline i had given the fuckheads at Midas to fix our van. the deadline they had agreed on to fix our van. i called at 1:15, still having heard nothing and Mr. Friendly Midas Guy threw out a
“oh, i’m working up the estimate right now. i’ll call you right back.”
meaning unless they did some seriously shady shit, they had not started on the repairs. i waited another 20 minutes and still, having gotten no return call, called him again.
“yeah, i’ve been calling around to see if we can get the part. your brake master cylinder has a leak and you need all new brake pads. we also need to re-do the back brakes. it’s going to cost probably around $900 and we can have it back to you Wednesday.”
i didn’t bother arguing with him on anything. we talked about it and decided to just get an oil change, making the decision we would rather risk flying off the side of a mountain on the way to Seattle before giving them any money and spending any extra time. besides, we needed the van for the show later.
so we went to the bbq of the evening. Ben from The Funeral and the Twilight, a devout Satanist, captured a baby.
we also took a nap and watched “Total Recall” before going to the Total Fest events at the Badlander and at the VFW. i developed a stomach ache, likely because of how much i was worrying about the van but partially because we were playing a show at a “fest” – regardless that we were playing at a small VFW, a preferred choice given the venue options. being as how it was the “punk” show, we had purchased about 50 temporary tattoos which all ended up going on me.
our set went fine minus the fact that it was only before we unloaded that we realized we left all of our cables in Bozeman. we borrowed a lot of shit from White Wards/Iron Lung people.
we started making noise to signal to people that an electric guitar rock and roll band was about to play. people piled in and we had maybe 50 people pushed into the small room, which is a crowd we can always do well for. we played on the floor as we feel dumb playing on a stage, because that’s how low our collective self-esteem is.
we opened with the song we were opening all the shows with on this tour, “Old Habits”. i flung myself into the crowd into a few people very early on. a lot of times when we play, i shut my eyes because it makes it easier and less painful to not know what is about to happen to me. it is similar to when a drunk falls asleep at the wheel and gets into an auto accident. they do not tense up and brace for impact, so they end up okay. also, to further aggravate people, i fall into and then try to push push large crowds of people, which i attempted.
what i did not realize is that within a minute into our set, about half the crowd was trying to get out of the room and the other half was clinging to the corners and sides of the room. there was an empty void from me to the opening of the room. and with faith i fell into this chasm, expecting to land on one of the 50 people, and instead landed directly on my elbow.
about 20 people stuck around and looked legitimately satisfied that they had stayed, which goes back to that thing that shitty bands say all the time about how they’d rather play for (small number of people) who are into it than (large number of people) who don’t actually care.
anyway, i fucked up my elbow pretty bad and it’s still in some pain, two months later. i think i messed up this layer of fat on my elbow and whenever i put ANY pressure on it, it sends a shooting pain through my entire arm. it’s getting better. someone recently said it was maybe fractured.
White Wards and Tenement played. i enjoyed both of them, although i do not believe members of White Wards enjoyed us. which actually makes me enjoy them even more. some other bands played. Dreamdecay played at the VFW and they were fun but i didn’t take pictures of them.
i guess the rest of the time at the Badlander was listening to Joel and TFATT Brandon talk about getting married for insurance benefits, talking to some people from Pittsburgh, getting mad that I didn’t get my drink tickets at the VFW, punching joel for “head-biting”, and talking to nick ryan.
i’m going to have to wing this next part a bit because i don’t remember much. but somehow we ended up at this place which was described to me as “the punkest of punk houses” to play an after-show with who gives a fuck, who gives a fuck, Tenement, and The Funeral and the Twilight. to be honest, i scoffed at the description of the house because we’ve played a lot of dumps and that’s just what punk does. so there is not much that phases us in terms of grime.
well, the place was about as shitty as i could imagine. tons of people. bonfires, beer cans. in my intoxicated haze, the place looked like the Swiss Family Robinson tree-fort if it were built by the fucking Garbage Pail Kids. the best part about the place was the amount of Total Fest volunteers (relatively normal and functional human beings) mixed with burnouts with tattered and stained clothing and lives.
there was a place inside for bands to play in the living room, adjacent to a porch full of little artsy jerkoff kids. there was also a basement spot where Tenement and some band that seemed like what i’d imagine “2012 Beach Rock” played.
the place was very DIY except no one was doing anything. a girl who was trying to flirt with me punched me in the stomach. i yelled at her although she seemed to run Barter Town.
The Funeral and the Twilight played in near total darkness. Tenement played in the basement – a more fitting environment than a four foot high stage. We played all wearing Best Buy uniforms. I stepped on Brandon from The Funeral and the Twilight’s toe and broke it during our set. Dan also tried drinking a month old can of PBR filled with cigarette butts, as he stupidly put his beer down on the ground and lost track of it. we also talked to some dumb kid outside.
someone came up with the phrase, “smokin’ cigs and killin’ kids” and a dude in an Aus Rotten shirt said we were the best band he has seen in six years.
if im not mistaken, you can see the manager of the VFW we played at on the couch to the left, crying. she was a nice lady.
