I want to take this moment to talk about some motherfuckers that are homophobic. Because I have found myself over the years doing a lot of hugging at good shows. Last night I hugged:
Charles from Ratbag Hero (more than once)
Weber from Ratbag Hero
Deech from Shooting Blanks
John from Shooting Blanks
It was just that kind of show. This is an envionrment where you are giving your all and exposing yourself to everyone there. At least for me thats how it is, its fucking personal when I take the stage. Well anyways, here the story…
Matt from Shooting Blanks offered me the show months in advance. I later found out that Parr-5, Ratbag Hero and Shooting Blanks have had shows together at the Mutiny before, those 3 bands then they get a 4th ‘oddball’ band to laugh at and make fun of. No just kidding. But they do get different 4th bands and we were it. From previous experience of playing at the Mutiny, I left real fucking early to get a good parking spot (which I did, right in front). I sat down at the bar and slammed a Heiniken and talked with Ed, the owner, for a bit.
Hilger was the 2nd to arrive. We both loaded in all our shit and went on a hunt for something to eat. We found it directly across the street at a place called Sonny’s Pizza. It was kind of weird in there, like someones house in a way, ate some slices which were a little weird as well, but still good. I’ll eat any kind of pizza all fucking day long, I love it all.
We headed back to the club and 2 guys from Parr-5 showed up, they were supplying the PA and started to set that up. Me and Hilger started playing some pool and chillin’ back. More patrons and bands showed up.
The 1st band (Parr-5) was supposed to start at 10:00 pm and they didn’t go on until 10:40. This made me a little mad since we were playing last, tentatively at 1:00 am, and I didn’t want or need that already late hour to be pushed back anymore. Besides, I knew that the longer we waited, Ed would just have to close the bar and then I wouldn’t be able to have any drinks after our set (which is what happened to us last time). Well they finally started.
Andrew and Bill Knobs of the Powerknobs showed up which made me very happy. Bill was sporting the Low Pro708 shirt. Low Profile and the Powerknobs are extremely supportive of each others bands. We have played with the Knobs 4 times and I’ve seen them probably 6 times. Well I think I’ll take a moment here to go off on a tangent and try to list all the gig’s I’ve seen them at:
Rock House Cafe
Wise Fools Pub w/ the Phenoms
A loft/warehouse in Chicago, film benefit
The Lyons Den
Big Wig (got to play guitar on ‘Wild Colonial Boy’, what an honor!)
Prodigal Son (showed up late and missed there whole set, Hilger did the same thing)
Well, back to the show review.
So one of the cool things about the Mutiny is its jukebox which contains not one but 2 Motley Crue albums. Hilger is a deep Motley Crue fan, hes gotten me into them as well. Well at this show we learned of the origins of those CD’s getting into said jukebox. We had already fed the bitch and played a bunch of Crue. Suddenly, a wild looking cat came out of the backroom. He saw our appreciation for the Crue and fired in some more dollars to the box for even more Crue. He even asked Hilger and me what we wanted to hear. He identified himself as Kurt, a sometime bartender there and he said the Crue CD’s were from his personal collection, he had actually put them in the jukebox himself. We started talking about Crue and whatnot and I was like, “Hey dude, This guy[pointing to Hilger] plays the motherfuckin’ Nikki Sixx Blackbird”. His jaw dropped and he wanted to see and play the thing really fucking bad. Eventually Hilger busted it out for him and let him play plugged in later right before our set. He was in heaven. I can’t blame him, that bass really is fucking awesome.
The infamous tamale man showed up hawking his homemade tamales and either he had a partner or some competition cause there was another dude selling tamales also.
Well back to the show. So Parr-5 went on quite a bit later then they should have, they played and it wasn’t very memorable. One sentance is all they get in this review.
Ratbag Hero was next. I was very eager to see these guys after meeting Weber and Charles at Big Wig and e-mailing with Weber a few times also. These guys are madmen: they play all over constantly, and have their hands in everything. They recently started a label and are putting out comps now too. They complained to me that they weren’t happy with their set but it seemed OK.
Then Shooting Blanks. By now I had been at the club for almost 5 hours and was real sick of waiting. I went outside and changed and grabbed my towel. I threw in some ear plugs and chilled, waiting for Shooting Blanks to finish. These guys are rock stars. Matt seemed to be pretty tanked up on alcohol before the show but he played flawlessly anyways, his whole band was great and rocked the stage hard. They were even better then the 1st time I saw em. And what a great bunch of guys! All friendly and cool. They played their rendition of ‘Home Sweet Home’ for all the Crue fans around, which there seemed to be many. There was some other dude there playing pool who was singing Crue like mad when we first got there and he also admitted his love for the band.
Well We finally got on stage at 1 something. We opened with ‘HAte’ for shock value but Shooting Blanks huge crowd and tons of hot bitches that came to see them were fucking gone, despite Matt’s many, many requests during his set to ‘stick around for Low Profile, coming up next!’. Just like Hilger had at US Beer Company, I broke a fucking string within 10 seconds of our first song. I busted into my backup and was worried that it would fail me as well, but it actually did great. It seemed to get fucking hot in there, I was chugging water. Dont’ remember much about the set as usual but it seemed to go well. I threw in ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ after playing 1 too many hardcore songs which seemed to have our small crown very confused and disinterested. As it always does, everyone loved that song.
So we actually got done early enough to slam 2 redbull-vodkas and chill a little while. My girlfriend Jessica showed up even though I originally thought she wasn’t going to. She took some great pics of us playing.
Now I have to get into the bassist for Ratbag Hero. For any members of that band, I hope you realize my love and respect for you all. But I have to get into this bullshit right about now. I had my 2 guitars and amp chillin and I was sipping my drink and trying to relax after the show. The bassist from RAtbag Hero comes up and starts poking around at my guitars, like hes about to carry one away. I just watched him for a minute, then I was like ‘Whats up dude? where you going with that?’. I tried to say it in an almost joking way. He gave me a real hard look then and mumbled something and walked away. I’m thinking, what the fuck is this about? So I walked up to him and asked ‘are you looking for a guitar?’ and he admitted he was. I started to help him look but just then Charles walked up and said that he had already loaded his bass, so all was well.
So this bassist has been unfriendly and even a bit rude at this point. Unlike Weber and Charles who are extremely nice and everything. Then he really gets hardcore. I’m standing there with Hilger, Jessica and some others. So Ratbag Hero is leaving, their driver Charles told me he had to work an 18 hour shift on Sunday (ouch!) so he was eager to leave, it was like 215 am anyways. So this bassist then goes and starts motioning like he wants a hug from my girlfriend.
Time for another tangent: Some guys would step in right now and get all jealous or whatever. First of all, I trust my girlfriend and I’m standing right there anyways. But I’m more curious at that point, like what the fuck is this all about? Did they become quick friends at some point during the night? What’s the deal? I’m eager to know. So I lounged back in my chair and played it cool and sipped my drink. I could tell that even Jessica was a bit confused by this fellows advances but eventually gave him a half hearted hug. Within the next 5 minutes I watched him massaging some chicks neck. I didn’t know her so I thought nothing of it. But the very drunk Weber was like, “Hey man, what the fuck is that all about?” I watched and listened on, I guess that Weber knew that chick and knew she was unavailable or something, to the effect that it was a waste of time to be massaging on this chick. In another minute, I watched this dude actaully accost one of the bartenders (the nastier of the 2, the other was the very fine Rhonda(here with Hilger)), but like grabbing her in some kind of bear hug. Weber laughed at this also and Charles said that This guy has a problem with this shit, that hes always hitting on odd chicks all crazy like that, that a couple times hes had to stop him cause he would be hitting on friends girlfriends and shit like that.
All I can say is that if you’re going to pull manuvers and shit like that, get some game. And I wasn’t trying to be a dick dude, when I asked about the missing guitar. I tried a couple times to crack stupid jokes with this guy to lighten the mood and he looked at me like I was speaking LAtin. I have no idea what his problem is, but he may want to consider being nicer to people like me, who are just looking for a little bit of band camaraderie. On the other hand, you’ve got Charles, who me and him are fucking embracing and shit, and giving each other props and showing some real band love. When this bassist first got to the club I pointed to my Sox hat when I saw he had a Sox jacket on. I wore that Sox hat on purpose cause Ratbag Hero is from the southside. I don’t know shit about baseball, I just wanted to represent and show that I am down with them. Again, he just mumbled something and walked away. I don’t know what the deal is with this fellow, but its his loss, not to just have a good time and chill, rather then being a jerk and hitting on all the chicks in the place with no regard for who they are with or anything.
Enough about that. This show was a fucknig success. Shooting Blanks I am in awe of. MAtt Blanks is the fucking man. Im am much obliged to these bands for having Low Profile out. We have alot of love for all these bands and mad respect. Thank you for having us, hope I can return the favor one day.
Low Profile live at the Mutiny
Saturday May 31st, 2003
with Shooting Blanks, Ratbag Hero and Parr-5
So we practiced like normal on this day at noon. Then I went and chowed a late breakfast after practice and went home and chilled. Watched Chinese Connection. I left for the Mutiny around 7:20. I got prime parking right in front of the place. Perfect.
So I go in and the Bossman is sittin at the bar. I load in and then help him load in. He says he’s hungry so we go out to walk around and find something to eat. He says that he wants a piece pizza and I look across the street and there is a place with a sign in the window ‘Slices’. So we go chow at that place. Good pizza. Kinda different. Very crunchy. And we got to watch the Spanish channel.
We were laughing at some crazy shit they were doin.
So all the bands arrive and load in. We chill and talk to the guys from Shooting Blanks and Ratbag. We didn’t know Parr-5 at all but they were all very cool guys. Andrew and Bill from the Powerknobs showed up. Much love guys. Glad u came and got drunk with us. Jessica showed up too. Supportin the RG, the 708!
Bossman and I played some pool and bullied the jukebox for a while. I was playing some Maiden, Fleetwood Mac, Scorpions, Motley Crue, Halen, and Alice Cooper. Then we met this dude who worked there who had jet black ratted out hair and looked like Nikki Sixx. He was awesome. He busted out his bass which he had in the back room. It was pretty awesome. Then I had to bust out my Nikki Blackbird bass and let him jam on it. It made his day. He was so thrilled I let him play it. Then while we were setting up, we were standing around and I let him play it outta the big ass amp. He jammed the bass to Too Fast For Love by the Crue. What a guy. He ended up playing the whole Shout at the Devil album and a bunch of songs off of the Too Fast For Love album on the jukebox. Awesome guy. I was calling him Nikki all night. He told me his name but I quickly forgot.
Rhonda the hot bartender with the huge tits was great too. Lookin so fine in the tight pants and hot pink furry top. I was luvin it. It was such a friendly atmosphere. Ed, the owner is great. Lets u do your thing and just wants everyone to have fun.
So Parr-5 take a while setting up and doing soundcheck. Bossman is real anxious to get the show started so we don’t end up goin on at 2am or later and get cut off cuz of close. It was hard to be patient. It sucks waiting thru bands but these bands were good so that made it a lil better.
They play their set. Very good pop punk. Very melodic vocals. Lots of backups. They were tight fo sho.
Ratbag Hero r up next. They rocked a lil harder. Also very tight. A great bunch of guys. Charles does sound and runs the punk rock night Sundays at Bigwig and had to work the next day so he was having trouble getting the boys out of the club at around close cuz he had to be up early for work. Hope he made it okay.
Shooting Blanks played next. They rocked the house. Matt was throwing shapes and getting crazy ripping on his axe. Dan is the shit. John tears it up and falls all over the place. And fuckin Deech man, u rock dude. These guys r great. They played a shorter set to please us. It was alright by that time. We were real anxious to play and didn’t really wanna play last but it all worked out fine. They played Silly Goose when someone called it out. They played She Luvs Me Cuz I Rock, Sheila and Ignore Me. I recognized all those. They ended with Home Sweet Home and me and Nikki ran up to sing back ups. Well, I sang back ups and Nikki took over and pretty much sang the whole song. It was awesome.
So we played last. It was past 1 at this point I’m sure. Or actually, I’m not sure what fuckin time it was. We were all a bit out of it. Such a long fuckin day. So crazy to be playin a hardcore set at 1 in the morning. I used the bassists amp from Ratbag Hero. Thanks dude, sounded great. That thing was huge. Bossman used his own amp. So our set was something like this:
Hate
Figure It Out
Grudge
En Guarde
The Limitation
Walter Mander
Folsom Prison Blues (originally by Johnny Cash)
Coming Down
Breakin The Law (originally by Judas Priest)
Carl Panzram
Mr Pig (for Jessica)
Spinal Remains (originally by the Misfits)
King of the Hill
Wild Colonial Boy (originally by the Powerknobs) for Andrew and Bill
So the Bossman breaks a string within 30 seconds of the first song. The same thing that happened to me at US Beer Co. So he busts out the Kramer and uses that for the rest of the show but we were a lil worried cuz that guitar is known to break strings very easily and isn’t too great of a backup but it had no issues. And I wore pants to this show which was a mistake. All day was windy and shitty out. I should have brought shorts and changed into them. The weird thing is, I wore pants the first time we played here too. I don’t do that too often.
We added all the covers into the set. Had to play Wild Colonial Boy for the Powerknobs. We heard Andrew call it out so we played that shit for them. And since Jessica called out Mr. Pig, we played it. We were throwing shapes and getting rowdy. A few people sang along to Breakin the Law. It was a fun and tiring set. We were all soaked in sweat and totally beat. Bossman collapsed on the floor afterwards. We hung out for a while afterwards. Just sat and chilled. Tried to calm down. Took our time loading out. Ed was in no rush to kick us out.
So we said our goodbyes and headed on our way. Our set was tight as fuck. We had a lot of fun. Everyone got a long and it was a nice, friendly atmosphere. Gotta luv that. And such a great jukebox. So thanks to Shooting Blanks for offering us the show. We’ll do it again anytime.
-ERIK
