weber likes to walk into bars and size the place up. he does a quick inventory then asks for the manager. he convinces them that allowing punk rock bands to play there will bring in lots of people, which of course will drink a shitload of beer. then he asks all his friends (who are in bands, like me) if they want to play. thats how low profile got a gig at triple d’s.
weber never told me what time to be there. www.ratbaghero.com said ‘doors at 7, bands at 9’. so i figured i should get there before 7, i arrived around 6:30. i was the first one there. i walked up and looked thru the window — there was no one behind the bar and no patrons. i got scared it was closed and id have to wait for the owner to show up, or worse that the gig was canceled. my worrying was useless tho, as the door opened when i tugged on it.
i entered and was motioned to the other room by a worker. i unloaded my gear and got a glass of water. i thre on my ipod and commenced to block out the world. shortly thereafter, the gotards showed up. they were nice enough. i called hilger and rob and told them i was there and to hurry up and arrive so we could try to get an early slot on the bill. i tried calling weber as i had been for 2 days and again it went straight to voice mail. i called matt from shooting blanks and he said it was going to be at least an hour till he arrived. he told me he had just spoken with weber. so when i hung up i tried calling his house and he answered. i told him to hurry up and get down there because i had somehow become the unofficial represetative or promoter of the show and i was being peppered with questions from every angle by the club owner and everyone else.
hilger and rob soon arrived and we fed the jukebox which had a nice selection. for my first dollar i wanted to get a huge ‘bang’ for my buck. so i got about 13+ minutes of music for $1 by choosing 2 great (and epic) songs: ‘pictures of you’ by the cure and ‘beginnings’ by chicago. hilger fed it a few more times and we all chilled.
at some point our friends the cobs showed up. we had met them at a gig we got thrown together for at lyons den a while back. they were real agreeable guys and we got along great. i had been dying to play with them again and weber let me book a band so i invited them. luckily they agreed. they went on first and keith looked like he hadnt slept in sometime. he said he had basically been drinking all day before he got to the club and it showed. didnt come off in a bad way during the performance however and his strange off-kilter humor rocked the crowd. the cobs are some kind of performace art. they are beyond explanation. when we played with them the first time they had given me a cd. when i got home i found it was blank (turned out all the cds they had given out that night were blank, not a good thing). he gave me another one (i just burned the old one for hilger). anyways, since i had that blank copy for so long, i downloaded the 3 songs they have on their site. my favorite of the 3 is ‘save the booze’ hands down. i called it out many times while they played and near the end of their set keith asked for requests. i screamed the song title out again and he agreed to play it. without warning i shared the mic with keith for the choruses as i know it very well having listened to the song many times. i tried to explain to keith….this guy has such a great ear for writing melodies that he can sing any lyrics in the world and the melody will have you feeling a completely different way then the lyrics would have you feeling. in this song the chorus lyrics are a bit silly, basically about a spaceship taking you into space and make sure you take booze with you becasue there is no booze in space. but the melody makes me want to cry. i just love it. thats something i cannot, or am not interested in doing when i write: making a melody like that. im obsessed with math and song structute. but that is neither here nor there (i love that expression) because this is supposed to be about the cobs and the show. moving on….
next up was us. i brought the wireless and it was in full effect. it actually seemed to cut out for a second when i was far from my amp but im unsure if it was a shoddy connection on my guitars output jack or the signal problem. it was tiny. first of all, i forgot my lucky towel. the towel not only brings my good luck and forunte, but wipes the sweat from my face and eyes between songs. i havent forgotten it in many shows and this one was actually hot so it really sucked. we opened with ‘arnold palmer and katie holmes’…..and i broke a string literally within 7-10 seconds of the song starting. in a way it was no big deal because it was so quick, i think some people thought it was a sound check or something. well we jumped back in after i switched guitars and everything was going as planned. we planned to use the same set list from our previous show at the mutiny but we did throw a bunch of others in and change it up a lil this time around. later we were playing ‘folsom prison blues’ and hilger broke a string on his bass. 2 broken strings in 1 set! this never ever happens. its rare that either of us breaks a string. i didnt really hear his string break but rob did and as i had my mouth open about to sing the 4th verse rob hit some inadvertant drum as a result of being thrown off by hilger. me trying to sing at that point was like when you have a sneeze that almost comes out but doesnt. my whole brain froze and im suprised i could still play guitar. for the life of me i could not think of the 4th verse lyrics then so we played it insturmantal. fucking broken strings!!! the rest of the set went well. we threw in ‘use your mind’ by guttermouth as our last song. we havent played that or rehersed it in a long time but it was on. next on the guttermouth cd is a song called “7T’s”. Hilger just busted into it and caught me off guard. i make it a habit to throw down my pick after our last song (which i had already done). so i started playing with my hand and luckily brey from shooting blanks saw me walk towards my pic and he handed it to me. we rocked out the break and i tried to get the lame crowd to sing along for ‘stupid, lazy, cant hold a job’ but they refused, or so it would seem. before our set brey told me to make sure we turn up the vocals before we played because they were quiet for the cobs. i told him i would if necessary but bet him that when i took the mic i would be so loud there would be no need. indeed there was not as i could hear myself blazing in my ears with no monitors and the PA wasnt really even near me. the set was a success.
next up were the gotards. their lead guitarist played keyboards a lil or something. he also held his guitar weird. their singer refused to face the audience much, check the pics of em, youll see. i took others too, he was always turned away. i think all singers should take a cue from john from the phenoms. he gets down on one knee and will sing like that. im sure he got that from someone else buts its a great trait to have.
last up were shooting blanks. they threw in some new material and deech brought in one of those things from stores where text scrolls across the screen, it showed their logo (the sperm) swimming around and other funny shit. its great to look around at the guys from ratbag or hilger or other people and everyone knows the words. everyone loves shooting blanks, i know i do. this was our 6th time playing with them which is just crazy. after their gig brey was stressing to me that we need to play even MORE shows together! hey, not that im going to complain! bring em on! its so comforting to have them around at a gig, it feels like home as cheesy as that sounds. great cap to the night. im not just saying this because i didnt want to play last (tho i didnt), but i honestly thought shooting blanks should be playing first as soon as we discussed the lineup. they are a headlining band. maybe i think that because they have headlined alot of gigs, they are a band that can pull it off and they accept their responsibility to do it because they know its just props to them, which i think they deserve.
i hung out for a while after the gig, my legs were super fucking tired i just had to sit on the ground. people started crowding around me and sitting on the ground then which is funny. like scott from ratbag hero, hes a follower you know, so he did it first. then even betty came and sat with us. and if i do say so myself, i think she was a little drunk! i only point it out because shes always very composed and doesnt drink alot/really fast. which is good of course, getting sloppy drunk is pretty classless. take weber for example. he was shitfaced beyond repair mumbling something to me, trying to explain about the money from the door and the bands getting paid, etc… they were supposed to have a PBR special for $2 but they had no PBR so they sold old style genuine draft for $2. ill be damned if i drink that garbage but people were definately swillin em.
solid night, great show. I hope triple d’s can have some more shows as the club is certainly suited for it and the 1st was a success i thought. lots of fun all around with people i like to hang with. good times.
–satan165
Low Profile live at Triple D’s in Chicago
Saturday April 17th
with Shooting Blanks, the Cobs and the Gotards
Well, it’s Sunday afternoon. I just got off the phone with Satan and told him I’d write the show review before I left to pick him up. We’re hooking up with Hoser from Squared Off tonight to record our song for this Chicago comp. So since I broke a string at the show last night and have to record, I want to use my Ernie Ball bass so I went to Guitar Center and bought these Dean Markley ‘Jerry Only’ bass strings. I can’t wait to check em out and see how they sound.
So anyways,
The show was great. I had a lot of fun. Weber set this show up so a big thank you to him right off the bat.
I got to Triple D’s at about 8:30. Satan, the Cobs and the Gotards were all there. So we loaded in, had a quick session in my car and then went back in and chilled. Started drinking right about then and playing songs on the jukebox. This place is real nice. The room we played in seemed to be like a big dance floor area. There was a DJ booth and above the floor there were tons of lights and a disco ball and a smoke machine, etc. So the singer from the Gotards had all that shit fired up and the black lights were glowing. It looked pretty cool. A nice relaxed atmosphere. Drinks seemed a lil expensive but oh well.
The Cobs were set up to play first and started a lil around 10 I think. They were great as usual. I was sittin with Dan and Deech and all the jokes Keith was tellin and the shit he was sayin had us all cracking up for most of the show. These guys r real fun. We’ll have to play more shows with them for sure!!!!
We set up next. We go to start into Arnold Palmer and Katie Holmes and Satan breaks a string right in the first 10 seconds of the song. Pretty crazy.
We played a pretty loose set. We had the set list from our last show so we played most of the songs off of it but in a mixed order.
Arnold Palmer and Katie Holmes
Milwaukee
Zamboni
Spreading Yourself Thin (PITS)
Walter Mander
The Limitation
American Nightmare (originally by the Misfits)
King of the Hill theme
Folsom Prison Blues (originally by Johnny Cash)
Execution Style
Use Your Mind
7 T’s (^both by Guttermouth)
It was a good, fun set. Satan and I both played cordless. Everything was all good and then I broke a string during Folsom and had to run over and switch to my Ibanez bass. I broke my A string and the only thing I play on that string is a B for that song and I can play that on my top string so I finished the song off and then did the switch.
The Gotards were up next. I only got to see the last song they played. After we finished up our set and got our stuff pushed out of the way, I went outside to cool off. It was a beautiful night. So someone mentioned to me that we should try to play at the bowling alley across the street. So I mentioned it to Weber and he asked if I wanted to go there now so I said sure. We went over and had a few beers and talked to the dude behind the counter and asked about having bands play there. It seems like a possibility. We saw 4 pretty hot chicks bowling and we couldn’t tell if they were with these dudes or not. We were tempted to go over but decided against it cuz we probably would haved ended up in a fight or something.
So we went down the street to another bar and drank a few more beers and then went back on over to Triple D’s and thats about when the Gotards were finishing up. Sorry I missed ya.
Shooting Blanks played last. They rocked the house for sure and played a real good, fun set. Brey teased us with Mindfuck but they wouldn’t play it for Josh. U bastards!!!!
They played a few new songs and a few covers and everyone was havin a blast.
We hung out a lil while afterwards and just chilled. I gave out 3 Cds and a bunch of stickers. Some dude named Paul came up and was tellin me and Satan about his band he’s startin up. Contact us when your all good and ready to play shows dude. He was awesome amd very entertaining.
The turnout seemed pretty good to me. We got paid $20. Gotta luv that. I thought the sound was good in the place and would definately play there again. So hook it up Weber.
Thanks to Weber, Koz and Scott. and Dick too!!! Thanks to the singer from the Gotards for running the PA for us. Thanks to the Cobs and Shooting Blanks for being awesome and fun bands to play out with. Luv u guys. Thanks to Betty Burbank. Thanks to Jessica and Crystal. Thanks to Angel. Thanks to the cool patrons at the bar across the street. Thanks to Josh, Shaun and Robin for coming out. Good seeing u guys.
And thanks to
everyone else who was there to support the bands and had fun.
I got home around 3am. Took a quick shower, made a drink and had another quick session and then passed out till 11am Sunday morning and woke my ass up to watch some Pokemon.
I’ll be leaving to pick up Satan for our recording session in about half an hour. Thanks for reading………
-ERIK
