Category: chicago

I promoted this Sunday show the night before on WNUR’s late night show, “Fast and Loud”. I got on the air and spit game for about 5 minutes interupted. We played with Fun People from Argentina, Fin Fang Foom from Chapel Hill, N.C., the Perps and the Fightbacks from Rockford. Talked to them and they said they played at “That One Place” 15 times. Played AFI style fast punk but more generic and less energetic. They knew James and everyone from Rockford. Fin Fang Foom was 3 piece and very cool. They played chaotic noisecore. Like Hash Brown but even crazier and more aggressive. I asked if they knew the Squirell Nut Zippers and they said no. The drummer told me he heard that they made $60,000 for one gig that they played for the govenor. We opened with a Perps song and they were all on stage singing along. Jamey rodied and sang along for “American Fun”. I was sore from Friday but still thrashed hard and it didn’t hurt at all on stage. Of course I had the fresh tattoo which I was trying to keep clean and the door- person chick was talking to me and Jamey and she flicked a cigerette and it stuck to my arm and burned me a bit like a 1/2″ from the tattoo. Stupid bitch. The Perps were true rock stars and I was on stage constantly singing along. They played “Plastered” as an encore and it was great. They all wore jail type suits for Halloween (I guess). Awesome show over all.

Alright well, I’m finally taking the time to write a review of one of our shows. I’m better to write this one since Rob and Eric left pretty muchly right after we played. So anyways, this show was really awesome. We played with some really awesome bands. The first band was called USV, the United States Villains. They were from somewhere in Wisconsin. They were a 4 piece with a frontman. They were very noisecore. I loved it. Lots of yelling and noisy changes. We traded with the singer of the band one of our CD’s for a 10″ of their band. Its pretty damn good. We played next. We opened with Horror Hotel by the Misfits. Eric wanted to play it cause every band had a Misfits sticker on something. Nyk came to see us and we made amends. See the hate letter page on our website to read his letter to Eric. We’re cool with him now though. We played Excessive for him. I ran around far from the stage with my bass on. My wireless system is awesome. Anyone who plays guitar should play wireless. It lets u move around freely and mine rarely fucks up. We got real wild and sweaty. We didn’t really bring anyone to see us but the audience was very amused and gave us mad props. It was a blast as usual. I personally think we played the best at this show but I know I’ll say that after the next one and the one after that…………………..blah blah blah………………… Next was FID. They are from Chicago. This was their 15th time playing the Fireside. They were alright. Typical Chicago style punk rock Fighters, Hitmen style. I traded CD’s with the bassist/singer. He was pretty cool. The CD is pretty good. They played every song but 1 and ended with a Fugazi cover of Merchandise. They fucked it up but said that they just learned it yesterday. Then the Vice Dolls played. I’ve heard of them before. I think they said they are from Indiana. They are a 4 piece with a girl lead singer. They rocked. Very fast, aggressive punk rock. I liked their energy. Every song is very fast. I talked with the girl singer. She was very tattooed and very cool. I traded CD’s with her as well. Next was the headlining band, Frontside. They are from somewhere in Illinois. They are a 5 piece with 2 frontmen who both get really crazy on stage and scream great. The bass player used to be in Suburban Refugee (RIP). My old band Socially Unacceptable played with them 4 times and knew them very well so he remembered me from that. Small world. They are extremely noisy and totally use noisy changes with lots of screaming over all the noise. Fuckin awesome. I totally dug them. Hopefully I can get the chance to play with them again. I had to buy a CD from them. The drummer said that they couldn’t give any away and that they had to make all the money for them. Oh well. Pretty damn cool that I went home with 3 new CD’s from some really cool bands. That was it. We got paid $10. I went home and puked from all the heat and loud noise. Then I smoked a nice bong and went to bed.

We had taken quite a while off before this show — about 2 months. We had very many new songs and after a bit of revising, we ended up deleting the only two old songs in the set. We opened with ‘Broken Ties’ and went into ‘Show Me Your Gun’ by Straight Faced. I had been lifting weights and skating every night for two weeks before this and it definitely paid off. I barely sweat and didn’t get totally exhausted. I was very nervous before hand and was standing on stage waiting to get the OK to start from the sound person. (Who by the way was a bitch. I tried to be as friendly as possible before the show and she was outright mean.) For some reason, she left my mic on. Bad move on her part. She probably should have cut me off at some point, but I started talking to the small crowd and the Hilger whispered for me to ‘start ranting’. So I started to dis Mc Donalds and the people that eat it. A bunch of the other bands were feeding their faced before the show. I always play shows after not eating anything the whole day, much less McDonalds 10 minutes before I play. I would probably shit in my pants. Everyone was kind of shocked as usual and just stayed quiet. The Dorks were set to play second. I saw them years ago open for 88 Finger Louie or the Bollwevils and they were a 3 piece with a singing drummer and they sucked. Now they had 2 guitars and I’ll bet they still sucked but I left anyways. I was told that Screeching Weasel was going to come out and use the headlining bands equipment (the Jackie Papers, on Panic Button Records, owned by Ben Weasel) and play 5 new songs. I hate sticking around after I play and even if the Beatles was coming on I would have left anyways. It might have been bullshit anyways. Guess I’ll never know now.

We played this show with Whippersnapper who is famous for their cover of the National Lampoon’s Vacation theme song, “Holiday Road” which appears on the Fearless Records compilation Punk Bites II. We were excited to be playing with a band of this caliber and we basically got the show considering that this was our 7th time and we must have impressed Brian (who books the shows). I cannot remember the name of the first band. The bass player and guitarist switched a few times and the whole band was awful. The singer had a broken arm and they played a mix of shitty pop punk, shitty ska and just shit in general. I started yelling shit and they just looked terrible. At one point I yelled in between songs during a silence, “Feeling a bit nervous?” That seemed to shake them up a bit. They played some songs with 3 horns and they played a ska song that was totally off tempo. After the song, the singer said, “Maybe we should have practiced that one a little more”. Me and a few others yelled all kinds of shit after that. We played right after them and I stole a box of picks that the bass player had left on stage.

Whippersnapper was very tight and awesome. Hilger and Rob both bought the CD and they could easily be a Lagwagon or Strung Out only cooler and without the lame following. They deserve to be rich and famous.

I taunted the crowd plenty and got real crazy. More than a few people asked why I was such a dick to the crowd and there is no answer. Because I can, I guess.

The Fireside must not have paid their heat bill because it was freezing outside and inside on this day. To top it off I was very sick and light headed. I laid down for a while and tried to rest but I felt like shit. As soon as a started playing, I felt great and forgot. I was still kind of drunk off this sickness and at one point I closed my eyes and I kind of blacked out or something. My throat was killing me and I fell right into the drums. Rob just grabbed me and pushed me off. It was fun but I sure was glad to get home and chill.