8/16/12, 8/17/12, 8/18/12 – (Part 2) TOTAL FEST, Missoula, MT – Lecherous Gaze, Tenement, Iron Lung, Big Eyes, White Wards, The Funeral and the Twilight, White Walls, and some other shit (like Dreamdecay)

first, i will start out by promoting a St. Louis/Minneapolis hybrid band with some members of Doom Town and uh…i dunno, maybe some other Minneapolis dude. But Colin from a bunch of great bands like Formaldehyde Junkies, Safewords, and The Sinks is also a part of this Voight-Kampff shit.

http://soundcloud.com/voight-kampff-band

click it if you like The Wipers or The Observers or if you don’t know who either bands are.

so anyway, last i left off with simultaneous shit-talking and much-respect-chest-pounding for Dan Deacon for playing a boring show for 200 people and an amazing show for a coffee shop of 15, his main audience member: a human baby.

the plan for our day off in Missoula consisted of trying to get our 30 year old van fixed so the brakes don’t go out in the mountains. Dan and I walked around Missoula doing who the fuck knows what before stopping at this Kettlehouse Brewery next door to a Toyota auto repair shop. they were sponsoring Total Fest so we figured they were obligated to help us in some way or another. also, most of Missoula drives shitty 30 year old vans anyway, it seemed. we were referred by one of the brewery guys to some motherfucker with a tiny shop next door to a gravemaker.

the dude was just as gruff on the phone as he was in person, however, he was doing us a huge favor by checking the van out and we were late from driving 20 minutes in the wrong direction. but he hoisted up the van and told us our brake lines needed to be bled and that we had warped rotors. he didn’t have time and called around trying to find someone to refer us to, but being as how it was a Friday afternoon, most places were booked or already closed for the weekend.

so we took it to Midas, a block away from where we were staying. not expecting much, i was pleasantly shocked by how friendly the dude on the phone was. add to that, he said it would run about $300 and said he’d take a look at it in the evening and wold be able to get it done by our deadline the next day, 1pm. i told him we were in a band and we had a lot of gear in the van and he offered to help us out by storing it in the garage overnight, even. solid guy, right?

no. dude was a fuckhead. i will explain later.

we grabbed a few beers with Colin at that same brewery and walked around a bit, eventually heading to the grocery store and back to the house so Colin could make some shrimp shit. Or something. I can’t remember. something with shrimp. ceviche? yeah who cares. it wasn’t grilled cheese sandwiches.

then we headed over to the daily BBQ in someone’s backyard. some of us were already drunk by then, somewhat. on the way to the BBQ, some woman yelled “have fun at your party,” at us from her car in a completely non-sarcastic way. this is as everyone stopped for us as we walked across a highway. that’s another redeeming quality about people in Missoula – they always stop for pedestrians and they even seem happy to do it.

we got to the party and ate and drank. pat laid on a trampoline and i argued with him about something. at some point he decided to go walking by himself but luckily someone ended up going with him. usually with Pat, at some point he will decide he is going to walk somewhere for whatever reason. then he disappears for a bit. i have heard the same story about Vinnie Stigma of Agnostic Front.

two fun facts about Agnostic Front:

– i did a tour with Hatebreed and Agnostic Front once, working merch for my friends’ electro…metal…something band, At All Cost. no one liked them. Necro was also on the tour and his merch guy was named Sarge. Sarge was a goddamn dolt and he stole my tip jar (no tips were in it). Necro got kicked off the tour for punching some kid in the crowd in the face.

– Agnostic Front is the only band that has attacked and also saved members of Dillinger Four. Paddy once told me about a time that some dudes tried to mug him behind First Avenue and Vinnie Stigma ran up and saved the day and beat everyone up. And on the other end, as most people in Minneapolis know, Roger Miret tried to fight (pick a fight?) with Billy from D4 at the Triple Rock, supposedly because he was pissed that Agnostic Front wasn’t in the jukebox. i am pretty sure they are still not in the jukebox.

also at the BBQ we met White Walls from Cincinnati who had driven from like, fucking Cincinati or Fargo or somewhere exceptionally far away. they all stared vacantly when they were talked, like they were hopped up on depakote or something. or like they had just driven 20 hours. i couldnt tell.

we walked to the Badlander to see The Funeral and the Twilight. they killed and drew more and more people in, none of which who left. everyone loved them because they are a great band.
White Walls also played. they played a cover of Pixies’ “Bone Machine”, a song that Pat has screamed out of my car window at a bunch of yuppies before. Let me tell you though, White Walls are a bunch of fucking weird guys. in a pure, honest, good kind of way. i liked them a lot and luckily, we were slated to play with them in Olympia later. talking to them a bit more, i realize they were just roasted from the long drive.

this band Swampwolf, from Arizona also played as a last minute addition. i don’t know who they replaced.  listening to their bandcamp page they don’t seem that bad, but as a quick glance it seemed like a bunch of dorks playing shitty metal. the singer played on the floor and someone remarked on how “badass” it was. but me and Joel were pissed about it for some reason. actually this “Some People’s Children” song i’m listening to right now is great.
i think this is a picture of Swampwolf. i dont know though.

by this time, Pat was hammered and talking to some girl that he had waved down as she walked by and made her sit by him.
i don’t know what he was saying but i’m sure it was interesting. alright, as i keep listening to this Swampwolf shit it keeps bouncing back and forth from “cool” to “goddamn awful”. who cares. who fucking cares. Criminal Code played. i like them a lot but i think they were having gear problems. something about something breaking down, borrowing something – i felt bad judging them like they were a bunch of amateurs when they were probably uncomfortable driving a fair distance to play on other people’s gear. just a disorganized and messy set, which they still pulled off.
iron lung played too.
and it was crazy and shit. but i’ve never cared too much for Iron Lung and the only time i ever listened to them in the last five years was when someone compared my stage banter to theirs. but other people liked them and Max found $200 in the Iron Lung mosh pit, which was his entire payment for driving Brain Tumors across the US.

outside, Joel overheard a girl talking to someone about being from Raleigh, NC – his hometown. he asked her where she went to high school and how old she was. then he announced, “I AM JOEL FROM RALEIGH, DO YOU KNOW ME?”

“no i dont think so”
“THEN FUCK YOU”

im fairly certain he did all this while gesturing wildly with a fully loaded hotdog in his hand. Pat had also disappeared, leaving me to assume he was at this weird girl’s house and that i would have to extract him early in the morning tomorrow. so i was pissed.

Lecherous Gaze played, reminding me that i never liked Annihilation Time. always sounded like fucking B’LAST or Clutch mixed with Black Flag. gross. also at some point i sat in the corner and listened to Broken Water from Olympia, WA, who sounded to my drunken ears like a more calm version of Sebadoh.

me and joel walked home while i muttered about Pat being a prick and always disappearing. joel mostly told me i was overreacting and that Pat ends up okay everytime, but i was still pissed. i got back to Colin’s and Pat was there, drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. by then Rory, our pal and Colin’s brother, and Hillary had gotten there. we ate pizza and i fell asleep with my old friends guilt and heartburn.

im tired of writing and i have to do laundry. here’s a video of Needles i took. and some videos that i just found 10 minutes ago that you should probably watch to help you understand the world a little better

i clicked this video because there was a girl in the picture and it looked like a band playing in a basement. i guess thats true, sort of. the band is called The Nearly Deads and it sucks. and they have zombies in the video – what a bunch of assholes. i hate the fucking internet.

and then i saw more videos on the side and thought, “holy shit, are there like, a bunch of these bands with girls singing that no one has ever heard of but have like, 1 million views?”

hahahahah in this video by this band, Blacklisted Me, the girl looks like the singer of CRADLE OF FILTH. oh man! and there’s a dude who looks like him too!

this one from Call Atlantis is choice, too, mainly because the drummer sucks in the way that some weird, old, scandinavian punk sucks. only it doesnt work. oh, looks like the caption urges people to check them out with their new drummer.

ok here’s the last one. fuck avril lavigne and stuff. Courage My Love

my girlfriend says i am too judgmental but in a world filled with such horrible shit, i think it is fine to throw a few stones.