This is our 11th time playing here, but first in 2 years. i found myself telling alot of people that statistic because i myself am amazed by it. this is my personally 13th time there, i played there twice with C.F.D., my first band.
so we got there and found out we were playing 2nd of 4 bands. i think a lot of people (hilger said it and i agreed) that reality was a little off kilter that day, either from partying over the weekend and/or the daylight savings bullshit that ‘the man’ uses to steal an hour from us. how dare he!
so bill knobs of The Powerknobs showed up and we had a drink while the 1st band played. smear campaign was the headliner but they were soundchecking early before any of the bands. i see 1st thing that the singer is wearing like a softball jersey that says ‘south cicero’. now as if it wasnt crazy enough to be representin cicero, hes representina small part of it. that is definately down. they came off stage after their soundcheck and we start talking to them all (actually, i never did speak even once, nor did any of us, to the guitarist. he was definately awesome but just did his own thing i guess. so i go right up to the bassist, hes wearning a flannel shirt, and some bgi ass fuckin boots, like construction boots. so i just asked him, ‘hey dude, are you a fucking construction worker or what?’. he said that no, with a laugh, that he was a mechanic. i asked him for a smoke and he pulled out a very rare cigerette. he had pall mall menthol. i related a story to everyone about my dead grandfather. he smoked cigars but sometimes he would buy cigerettes — pall malls. but he didnt smoke them, he would lite them and just drive around with the thing burning in his mouth. they were definately unfiltered, but they arent shorties like lucky strikes. so anyways, the members of smear campaign are very cool, very friendly, were all laughing together.
bill knobs and i go have a beer, didnt even step out to the see the 1st band. they are called scissors. pop punk from elmhurst, or so i was told (what i was told as far as their home, im quite sure it was pop punk. i could hear it in the bar). and we were next. the set felt really good, wasnt very tired. it was real cold in the place, hilger and i were the only 2 with shorts on. i think it kept me awake. i kept wiping my head with a towel but wasnt that sweaty. the set was done quick and we gave out 10 cds to people we didnt know in about 20 seconds. they we hit the bar. the bartender thought our last song (‘summertime’ by crimpshrine) was fifteen (same singer, jeff ott) so i gave him props for being so close.
moto played, they had some wicked guitars. their singer/guitarist had an ampeg guitar which are rare. the one he had was old but looked pretty awesome. smear campaign played and matt was pretty drunk. he took his shirt off first. i can understand that, youre hot up there and sweating. then he took off his pants. well i was only out there to take some pics and then i went back to the bar. but i guess that he took a shit in his drawers on stage. thats pretty sick. i dont even know what to say about that.
matt from smear campaign was in there getting tanked in the bar afterwards. he buddy who he called momo was there, we were talking about the dirtiest suburbs. i said riverside, i made momo guess and he named dixon, i brought up robbins, but the worst is ford heights (ford city?) fuck if i know what its called. i aint going there. momo said how he used to sell those steaks door to door, and he said the trick is, ‘youre not selling the meal, youre selling the deal’. sound advice. then a guy named jon from windy city punk, i guess they are a label. he said that moto was signed with them and he saw me take pics. he wanted to get a copy of the pics and of course i obliged him. i emailed the 4 i took for the site (see them here). there was this one other dude, i had seen him talking to bill eariler. i figured he was his friend. he looked kind of weird, had dark skin…i dont know. so me and bill are sitting at a table and this guy starts asking me what kind of guitars i play and shit. he said that he missed our set, he got there late. and hes grilling me about guitars, amps, effects…i could keep up with his ass though. we started even spitting some shit about ohm’s law and other electrical theories. he told me he was a veteran, and that he could get military surplus tubes, which they used in old radios but work fine in an amp. thats insane. eventually he left and i asked bill who he was. he said he had no fucking clue, that the guy had come up to him to and grilled him about guitars too. i saw a mohican punk kid talking to some other dudes and i heard him ask them ‘have you ever heard of skokie’? refering to the band. i heard it an the dude said no. i said that i had. so we talked for a while about skokie, i said that they had a big ass black dude singing which of course is very fucking odd. i saw skokie play with strung out and straight faced several years ago also at the fireside. i told him about the show and he had one of ours cds, which he got from hilger after the show. he talked about a couple of bands he was in, we started talking about oi! music. i had to bring up skrewdriver becasue they are pretty cool although they are fucking nazis, its hardcore, crazy shit which hobo platis had gotten me into. ive downloaded a couple of songs and read about the singer and the band, theyre nuts. anyways, i said that i wasnt into the nazi shit. so i asked him ‘are you a nazi?’ and he said no, in fact he said he was jewish! hes from skokie of course. so we all had a good laugh at that. and right now i am listening to ‘nigger ( i hate your face)’ on repeat because of this dude. he was fucking cool. if youre reading this, holler at me!
The sound man, stan, was a class act. the fireside sound must have improved because it sounded great in there, better than our last few gigs. i was really surprised. and when i was going to leave i had to holler at stan who was at the bar also now. i also saw sitting next to him jon from windy city punk and another guy who i assume to be another windy city punk guy, he had a british accent. he broke the news to me, he said “hey man, did you see that guy up there? he shit himself” but in a british accent. i was shocked. thats insane.
i eventually went home, ate, passed out till like 2 am, woke up cleaned my house, walked to the gas station to get a soda in a fucking sleet storm and now its 5 am. so im posting this and going to bed. hey hilger, make sure you cover anything i forgot. it was another awesome show.
