CHEERS:
i got some free fingerless gloves which were left in a paper bag with my name on them at Extreme Noise, probably by Antoine from WILD CHILD. make sure you check out their new record on DERANGED RECORDS.
i finally listened to the new MUCH WORSE LP on FORWARD RECORDSx and decided that i like it. i listened to the new NEGATIVE DEGREE on DERANGED RECORDS and decided that i like it. i listened to the new THE FUNERAL AND THE TWILIGHT and decided that ITS FUCKED. seriously, i don’t understand it. sounds like a mariachi band playing NAPALM DEATH songs in a castle. totally baffling, engrossing music. i think i like it.
do you like this CAPITALIZING BAND NAME bullshit? i learned it from writing for PIT MAGAZINE, which was purportedly run by methheads in Colorado. i quit writing for them after they asked me to give a good review to some horseshit goregrind band because they spent a bunch of money advertising for them. but i quit only after writing the review, like the internet punk poser that i am. to make matters worse, i think i interviewed fucking FEAR FACTORY for them once.
and some visionary artist created this
KATE MOSS AND SOME PIZZA SLICES
JEERS:
i chipped my already chipped tooth at a show. it wasn’t even some super punk shit, it was fucking Gun Outfit from Olympia who sound like Neil Young. but i walked in and went to put my beer in my mouth (to hold it with my teeth) – but instead i just smashed myself in the tooth with my beer. so now it’s fucked. you cant tell yet, but its gonna be lopsided in a few months. the tooth is fake too, from an accident i had while biking. when i was 8.
anyway, on to the bullshit. we’ve played chicago twice before. our first Chicago show (and first tour blog post), booked by Negative Kevin, was good – people were into it enough but not totally won over as we shared the bill with CULO, MUCH WORSE, SUBCLINIX, and MALE NURSES. our second show, which we played with CULO, SHIV, KONTAMINAT, and DIVINE RIGHT, was probably booked by Ryan Lowry to spite Negative Kevin. it was well attended but i think we sold one 7″ – it was in a tight space and i felt like we terrorized a lot of people which is always something to be proud of. most of those people are probably into industrial dance music now or some bullshit.
but this Chicago show was probably my favorite because everyone seemed to like us and we seemed to like everyone. on with it, then.
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i woke up in the van as even the floor of the almighty Aaron Skufca could not accommodate every last loser who partied until 5am. i searched for my phone but it must’ve fallen out of my pocket while i was asleep, so i was a bit concerned but mostly hungover. so i ventured out into the world that does not want me.
my feet were fucking freezing – so cold that i couldn’t walk right. frozen and dehydrated, i stumbled around trusted members of the community attending church for St. Patrick’s Day (the version of the Zombie Pub Crawl where people dress like assholes instead of morons) and went back to that co-op that served all the good vegan food. i bought a burrito and a blood orange which i would later leave in gratitude to Aaron for being the best dude.
in the co-op restaurant, i asked a dude to wait two minutes and then call my phone a dozen times. i left and moved my adequately warmed feet back towards the van and searched frantically, hearing the dutiful calls of the vegan college-bro. but i couldn’t find the fucking thing. eventually i flagged some woman down on the street to call it and i found it. she was happy to help.
then i went to church. meaning, i walked around in a church that had finished services and contemplated fucking with the holy water the way i did when i was 14, wearing an Entombed shirt at a church on a field trip. i got eyed suspiciously for a minute or two as i suspiciously eyed admirable stained glass art and statues of people whose importance was probably overestimated for a few thousand years. and then i found a picture of a dude named JOHN BENDER, which was fucking cool.
SMOKE UP, JOHNNY.
i went back to the house and back into the basement to charge my phone. Don Hertzfeldt was still playing on the TV, so we watched the DVD again. Brain Tumors and Total Trash left to go get food, i laid on the couch and slept. then we went to the van and took off to go to Chicago.
on the way, Joel lost a ten dollar bet to Perfect Patrick over the presence of a Panda Express at a highway oasis. as we arrived at the oasis, i opened the door for a clearly struggling overweight man with fucked up legs. i stood at the door and held it open for him while he grumbled at me, clearly pissed that he had fucked up legs. i shrugged and said something to the tune of, “life sucks enough, let me hold this door for you, okay?”
i took a piss in a bathroom stall. i dropped my notebook on the floor somehow and when bending down to get it, dipped the drawstrings to my hooded sweatshirt into the urine water. i washed it good, then remembered how often i stick those things in my mouth. so i cut them off and thought about Evil Dead 2. i also ate a black bean burrito with no cheese from Taco Bell and had to stand behind a woman in an M&M RACING HAT in order to get it.
on the way to Chicago, Joel told us a funny anecdote about a girl hitting on him at Quarters, so his way of getting her to go away was to talk about mathematics. she briskly walked away.
we got into Chicago where the first words i heard after getting out of the van was a couple remarking on a dogwalker,
“that jogger is strangling the shit out of that fucking dog!”
ah, chicago. then i violated my half-assed dedicated vegan edge at a Korean/Mexican fusion place called Del Seoul. it would be the first of many violations because i don’t particularly enjoy eating vegan, usually. the place was delicious and the owner was nice, giving us free appetizers because we had to wait for rice and talking to us about Coldplay or Aerosmith or one of the many infuriating “rock” groups that well-intentioned people mention when they find out you’re in a band. we also watched a dude in a Green Bay Packers shirt steal the key to the bathroom.
we got to Albion House which we found by a giant pantera mural in the living room that we could see through the living room. then we loaded through the basement where i lost a bet with reality on whether or not we had played there a few years back (we hadn’t). feeling dead, me and joel sorted and marked the HAVOC DISTRO upstairs while hanging out with Max, a great dude who was at our last two shows.
we also saw Scott, who is another swell guy who was at our last two shows. he is also famous as being one of the people whose names i forget the most. at our last show, Scott gave us a ton of loaves of bread which were later hijacked from us when we intended to attack the crowd with them at a show at the bowling alley in Minneapolis.
the lovable Liz from LIBYANS/BROKEN PRAYER/probably more bands helped set the show up with Alec from BEDSORES (who i have also seen referred to as Alec from The Internet). so we saw her and met him. it was cool because i had set up a show for LIBYANS on St. Patrick’s Day exactly a year earlier. i also met KALE MOUSER, who has an unforgettable name and used to play in GRASSEATERS, if i’m not mistaken.
LAUGHBOY dropped off the show because i think maybe someone died or some real bad shit happened. too bad because they sound interesting as hell. so BEDSORES played first and it was their first show. and it was a damn good first show. probably one of the best “first shows” that i’ve ever seen. Alec is fun to watch because there is something wrong with him, similar to Dustin from TOTAL TRASH, where he squirms around and acts like a freak when he is playing guitar.
KONTAMINAT played next and blew everyone in Brain Tumors away again. tightest band with the fastest, hardest hitting drummer ever.
we played a reasonable set. i think i remember saying some funny shit and then knocking over a giant speaker with a PA mounted on it. i remember looking at Max during our set, apologetically, while he had one of those, “fuck, all my shit just fell over” looks. but then after we played, the weirdest thing happened that has never happened in Chicago.
PEOPLE BOUGHT A BUNCH OF OUR SHIT
it was confusing, but i went with it. i sold our records and ugly shirts to attractive men and women. Liz made some comment about how she wished the show had been bigger but hopefully our reassurances that we were happy with how shit turned out were adequately communicated.
Negative Kevin also showed up, missing our set but giving us more records and i hope i told Kevin that i love him. but there is the chance that i just called him a piece of shit and tried to give him a noogie or something. ah well.
we rounded up rory (who was sitting on a couch listening to Robert Fripp) and then we all went walking to go get Indian food. Rory walked with some girl on the way there and someone found a bowling ball in the grass and started tossing it down the sidewalk. i had accidentally ditched joel, pat, and dan over a miscommunication but they met us up at the indian place which was insanely cheap and decent. like fucking, four dollar kinda cheap indian food. we tried to thank the dude at the counter because of how pleased we were but he did not give a fuck.
we went back to Albion. later, i found out Rory was hitting on/being hit on by one of those girls and he got angry and weird and quoted Kafka to a bunch of them. i dont remember which one, but here are a bunch and you can read how fucked up and depressing they are. so take that shit out of your toolbelt of seduction unless you’re one of those people that gets sex through being an emotionally uneven prick. which totally works, by the way.
my notes from the next morning are:
“Max rules”
“Albion is surprisingly clean for how punk it is”
“Max’s roommate makes incredible art”
“Joel to Pat: “You definitely farted into my butt.” ”
i woke up the next day and took a shitload of pictures of Max’s roommates art. i didnt catch her name even though i met her. what else is new
oh, and max gave joel some fucking comic book cards. i have probably thousands of these goddamn things at home, but not in unopened packs.
