Category: wicker park

DAN THE DICKHEAD DRUMMERS FINAL SHOW

this was our first show in 8 month, one of the longest breaks weve ever taken in 7 years. a few months ago we started rehersing regularly again and we were definately prepared to rock out again. i got a lift to the gig from my dad (how punk rock is that?) becuase wicker park sucks dick for parking and i didnt want to have to deal with it. i was able to borrow an amp from cory of after the fight so all i had were my 2 guitars and all my other junk was stuffed inside those cases. i didnt realize it at the time but it was like 1 1/2 years since we played at teh big horse, tho i was sure it was much sooner. i came in and sat down with will and arun from rocky denis at the bar. i pounded a water and didnt feel like drinking right away. i found out rocky denis was playign 1st and us 2nd which sounded good to me. we chilled around a while and i sat at the bar sipping some water and a screwdriver. professor deech began to hold court even after only a couple beers. Not only does brey get drunk at every show he plays, he often/usually SHOWS up already half in teh bag. and ill say it for ya–‘nice face asshole'(refering to me, satan165, not brey)

rocky denis went on first, they were awesome as ever. they are slowly starting to sell me on that whole style of music, im tempted to expand my horizons and check out some similar bands. they are so tight and really heavy and im starting to become pretty familliar with their songs, when i got home i actually checked thru my mp3s and cds to get all their shit on mp3 so i can put it in my ipod. they put on a really good set, their songs are varied enough and they wasted no time between songs and it seemed to be over in a flash. really good stuff.

so cory set me up with a rig. he has a fender deville which is a combo tube amp, and a nice (And expensive — and loud as fuck!!) amp, as well as a kick ass ibanez pedal that is just out of control…it was hardly turned up and the shit was loud and distorted as fuck. after teh show we decided as a band to seriosuly consider retiring ‘arnold palmer’ for live sets forever more. we wrote this song like 3 years ago and id say we have played it correctly at shows 25% of the time. it has like a 1:30 instrumental break that i wrote based on some mathematical jazz shit. you really have to count and shit when you play it, we always play it properly at rehersal of course but you can get a lil unhinged when youre on that stage (even when said stage is only like 2″ off the ground.) i think the part is confusing enough to the audience and all they heard was hilgers bass drop out for like 5 seconds at most when we were all totally confused and he got his bearings, then we played the outro no problem. its ridicolous that we still do this but all i can say to the audience is that us fucking that up had nothing to do with our hiatus before the gig, we have fucked it up long before that as well.

let me break it down for ya and you tell me what you think.

its based on 2 figures which we will call A and B. then each figure has a corresponding ‘ending riff’.

so heres the section
—————————————-
3 figure A — 4 ending riff A
3 figure B — 4 ending riff B

2 figure A
1 figure B
1 figure A
2 figure B

2 figure A
1 figure B
1 figure A — 4 ending riff A
2 figure B — 2 ending riff B

4 ending riff A
4 ending riff B
—————————————
so there ya go. make of it what you will. actually i think there might have been another show where this happend and in the review i break it down then as well. pathetic i know, believe me it wont happen again. this song has been a buzzkiller for a while.

besides that, the set went well. everyone seems to like ‘hotboxed’, i know we do. also ‘milwaukee’ which we all agreed is boring and seems played out, the crowd seems to like that as well, just a straight forward punk rock song. i didnt get too exhausted but i did feel a lil tightly strung and not totally relaxed which i attribute to not having played for song long before hand. it was alot of fun up there, glad to get that out of my system. thanx to deech for taking pics for us.

next up was after the fight. we played with them over a year ago and i really forgot what they are like live, or sounded like at all. scott from ratbag hero (and now shooting blanks) has taken over for them on the drums for the next 6 months or so, and it was awesome to watch him up there, it bugged me out. he did a great job tho he claimed he was still a little unfamilliar with their songs, i couldnt tell at all.

shooting blanks was last. first they played an awesome rendition of ‘war pigs’ by black sabbath with just matt and dan from shooting blanks and steve from ATF on bass and singing. (pic 1 , pic 2) at first i thuoght maybe they were just going to fuck around with the intro but they played teh whole song and it was pretty fucking awesome. at that point i was starting to really put the heinikens away and i was having a great time. matt finally got a new guitar, and oh did he ever. he got a ridicolous huge BC rich with glow in the dark outlines around it, this thing is fucking awesome. at one point in their set i had to jump on stage and yell that into the mic, that it is the awesomest guitar ive ever seen, and thats no lie. it was absolutely perfect for matt too, he can really get away with that to say the least.

shooting blanks was awesome. all their songs were coming back to me and the lyrics were flooding into my head. this of course was dan (their drummers) last show. dan is a really cool guy and i alwyas look forward to seeing him at shows, we just get along really good. for that matter i guess most everyone does, one of the nicest people i know. whenever we see each other hell be all smiles and i always enjoy his company. no doubt this all sounds very gay, which combined with already rumours of dan’s gayness might have you wonder about satan165. no i am not gay for dan (or any one) but im secure enough in my sexuallity to hug dan and all that. no i do not kiss him however, im not into that plus he has a woman and she might get pissed at me. anyways it was his last show, he is leaving the band and scott from ratbag and after the fight is taking over permemnantly which i think is awesome. i had the great pleasure of playing the bass for shooting blanks for 3 shows a year and change ago and it was a total fucking blast to hang out with those guys and share the stage with them. it seems like a dream now, its so long ago. but i am positive scott is in for a great fucking time and hes a great drummer as well, he knows the songs perfectly from seeing them and playing shows with them so many fucking times with his other bands.

this was our 7th time playing with shooting blanks and they played all their best songs and a couple new ones as well. then they had this guy from the gotards (RIP) come up and play keyboards on a song theyve covered live before, ‘wish’ by nine inch nails. it was fucking awesome, i was blown away. the crowd loved it, so did i and the band seemed to as well.

and oh yeah, at some point brey showed his ass on stage. it doesnt even offend me at all anymore. so here is his ass. what a great guy that brey is, hes truly a delight.

the lovely betty burbank voulenteered to let me take a ‘promotional’ shot of her with our dvds, as this show was a ‘dvd release party’ of sorts for us. this pic came out so good and im so certain that the beautiful betty will be able to get low profile some props (as our music has been unsuccessful in prop-getting for many years now) that i had to plaster her on the front page of www.lowpro708.com (as well as our merch page). thank you betty. hilger busted out a stash of t-shirts i didnt know he had anymore, including the popular ‘girlshirts’, which this lovely lady put on immediately.

Weber was drunk in full force, we watched him hitting on random hoes in a stumbling haze, and me arun and will from rocky denis were convinced he hit on someones mom. i made the comment to them that if weber hit on my mom, i wouldnt kill him — i would kill myself.

after we played i raced down multiple heinikens and achieved a strong buzz quickly. i rode home in the ‘dungeon’, the back of hilgers work van where i am locked in a cage (as i should be). all in all it was a good show and a nice way for us to play our first gig in a long time, with a bunch of bands we like and know and good friends. major props to cory for letting me use his shit which saved space. it was so loud it blew my fucking eardrums and i could hear basically nothing else but my blaring guitar the whole show. good times

–satan165

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Low Profile live at Big Horse Lounge in Chicago
Saturday April 23rd
with Shooting Blanks, Rocky Denis and After the Fight

this was our first show back since July of 04. we played that show at Buddy’s with Rocky Denis and it was cool to play with them for this show.

i took my work van and drove with Rob to the show. Satan got a ride. me and Rob pulled up in the back, unloaded and then i got some decent parking about a block away.

we all sat around waiting for the show to get started and they were playing some latin music in there. at first it was really annoying but after 15 minutes or so, i was getting into it a lil. and if the girls r dancing to it, then i really don’t mind it. hahahaha.
‘Puerto Rico!!!’

so Rocky Denis played first. it seemed they played a pretty short set but now that i think about it, i guess it was normal for them. thats good tho cuz they left everyone wanting more. they rocked hard and sounded real good and tight.

we played second. i used Deech’s bass rig for the show. it was so damn loud i couldn’t hear the guitar too well. i lost my timing a few times cuz it was blaring right behind me. but that thing is pretty awesome.
so our set was something like:

Radical New Idea
Arnold Palmer and Katie Holmes
Solitaire
Zamboni
Hotboxed
King of the Hill theme
Figure It Out
Studio Nightmare/Boat Dream From the Hill (originally by Jawbreaker)
The Will to Kill
Milwaukee

during Arnold Palmer, the house music turned on for some reason. it totally threw all 3 of us off. we were all looking at each other confused trying to figure out what wasn’t right about the song. i think that may be the last time we play that song. we can rip thru it at practice, but whenever we play it live, it gets fucked up along the way.

the set was good tho. Radical was awesome to open with. Hotboxed seemed to be the best song in the set. everyone started cheering real loud when Satan was ripping his solo.
i broke a string during Hoffman’s favorite song Figure It Out. so Deech ran over and grabbed my backup bass and i used that for the last few songs in the set.
it felt good to play out again. i kept saying that it was like riding a bike. people kept asking me if we were rusty or nervous and for me, it just seemed like we played a week ago. definately no big deal. but like i said, it felt good to play a show again. i missed it. plus we’ve been playing all the songs in the set for a few practices.
we gave out a bunch of CD’s, DVD’s and stickers. i only gave out 1 shirt. a girly one at that. and i made the chick i gave it to put it on and pose with me. she was pretty fun.

After the Fight played 3rd. a good, tight set on their part. Scotty took Blake’s position on drums and was great to see jamming with these guys. and now he’ll be taking over drumming duties for Dan in Shooting Blanks.

and speaking of Shooting Blanks, they played last. they rocked the house as usual. this was Dan’s last show. i’m glad we got to play it with them. i would have come out to the show whether we played or not but it was way cooler playing it. the majority of their set was older stuff. i think they only played 2 songs off their new disc which Matt hooked us up with. and Matt has this new BC Rich guitar that is the shit. check the pics. looks like u can stab someone with that thing. Deech and Brey be careful on stage next to him!!! hahahaha

it was a real fun night.

since Rob doesn’t write show reviews, something happened to him that night that i want to share with u all. him and Satan were out back of Big Horse, ummmm, just standing around…..and something fell and hit Rob in the leg. now if u have been in back of Big Horse, you’d know that it is a very dark and dirty alleyway. the L train viadock is above it and it’s pretty creepy looking back there. so the something that fell and hit his leg was a rat!!! he said it dropped down, hit his leg and scurried away. thats pretty fucking sick. i would have screamed like a lil bitch. hahahaha!!! i just thought u people would like to hear that one.

all 3 of us drove home in the van but we made Satan ride in the back caged in section of the van. i’ll have to take a picture of him back there while we drive to the next show. it was pretty funny. i should just buy a bean bag chair for him to chill on back there.

so thats it. thanks to Matt for booking us. Deech for letting me use his amp. and a big thanks to everyone there. it was a blast.

-ERIK

Low Profile live at Big Horse Lounge
Friday November 14th
with Burnside Bridge and the Burbanks

What a fucking show!!!!!

I had a pretty shitty week so was really looking forward to playing a show, releasing some energy and drinking and having fun.
I got to Big Horse a lil before 9 with Lisa.
Josh and Cory were setting up the stage and getting the PA working.
I went and said hi to Jon and Marky. Then I went to go move my car.
Rob and Jamey showed up soon after that. I then moved my car and parked in back of the place behind Rob’s car.
Cactus Matt was there pretty early and we started drinking and bullshitting about a bunch of stuff.
A bunch of other people started arriving. Robin and Shaun, Hoffman Deech and Brey, Weber and Scott, Jessica (here with Weber and Matt), etc. Williams wasn’t there cuz he had to work that night and didn’t show up till around 11 while the Burbanks were playing. Lisa and I were saying that it felt like Low Profile wasn’t even playing cuz he wasn’t there. I felt like I was just there to see the Burbanks and Burnside which was fine but it was hard to be excited with him missing in action. Kinda strange.

Burnside Bridge played first. They rocked the house. Robin fucking rules!!! She rips crazy bass lines and plays so crazy with her hand. They all sing which is awesome and keeps things new and exciting. I’ll hear back up vocals but not see anyone in the front lines singing and then I’ll see Shaun behind the drums singing them. Pretty awesome. I didn’t take a free CD cuz I’m gonna wait till our show with them Dec 12th cuz it’s their CD release. Awesome set all around guys!!!!

The Burbanks played next. They rocked as usual!!!!
They were having a good ole time. I requested Henry the VIIIth which I don’t think was actually in their set list. Hang on, I have their set list in my crate. I’m gonna add it to my collection.
Nope. No Henry. So that was cool. I dig that cover. Thanks for playing it. And I gotta say that the ‘Low Profile’ lil song u did was fucking great. It truly touched my heart. I luv u guys. Really I do.
And I have to say that u guys really have nice trousers, nice slacks and a very fine skirt and knee highs. And nice sneakers!!!!

During their set, I snuck to the bathroom to smoke a hitter of some good green. Its pretty cool smoking up in weird places. I packed it up again for someone else but it was clogged and therefore useless. That sucked. I was plannin on hooking some peeps up. But oh well.

So Williams and I just used Jonny and Marky’s amps. Thanks a ton. I’m glad we didn’t have to bring our shit. We both got to walk in with 2 guitars and a crate each. Pretty awesome. I didn’t really care whose amp I used I just didn’t want to bring mine. Although I consider Robins amp a ‘bass rig’ and thats what I refer to it as. It’s massive.

So earlier in the night, Hoffman asked if we were gonna play any Misfits songs. I said ‘probably but we don’t have any in our set list.’ Then he asked if we’d play Halloween and I was like hells yeah but we’d have to ask Williams.

We had planned on playing 1 Pie in the Sky song and a Face to Face cover with Jamey Johnson (here, 2 drummers!) on drums and Rob on vocals but we ended up using and abusing Jamey more than that and ended up playing 5 PITS songs and I’m Trying with him on drums. It was great. It was good to throw those songs into our set. And I must say that we have not even played Green or Serial Killer in many, many months and they both seemed flawless. So our set was something like this:

Walk Don’t Run (originally by the Ventures)
Where Did U Go? (originally by the Burbanks)
Figure It Out
Hot Mom
Halloween (originally by the Misfits) for Hoffman
What I Failed To Mention
All the Wrong Reasons
King of the Hill theme
JPF (new song)
Folsom Prison Blues (originally by Johnny Cash)
Lachrymose
Milwaukee (originally by Mongoloids in Crayon Suits)
48 (requested by Jessica and Lisa)

Jamey on drums, Rob on vocals:
30 Years (originally by PITS)
I’m Trying (originally by Face to Face, RIP) for Josh

Rob back on drums:
Skulls (originally by the Misfits)
Green Corn (originally by NOFX)
1000x (originally by Face to Face, RIP) for Scott
Grudge
Mr. Pig (for Jessica, here on stage)
Sheila (originally by Shooting Blanks) Hoffslut on vocals
A Date With Destiny (originally by Guttermouth)

Jamey back on drums, Rob on vocals: (all 4 PITS songs)
Green
Coming Down
Serial Killer
Spreading Yourself Thin

I think I got everything. We only had like 10 songs on our set list, I swear. People would yell something out and we’d just play it. We added so many songs. Jonny said that we ended up playing like an hour and fifteen minutes. Thats fucking insane!!!!

I asked him how many songs we played and he said ‘Like 25’.
It ended up being 26. So you’re fucking close dude. What a call!
Jonny made us play till exactly midnight.

Matt, Brey and Deech (here, with Betty Burbank) brought us shots during our set. Everyone was going nuts. People were requesting songs left and right. It was a very fun and crazy set for sure. I was soaked in sweat and exhausted afterwards.
Rhyno arrived at some point while we were playing. I told him not to kidnap Rub a Dub Doggie. I had to check to see if he was ever missing but he was all good chillin on Jonny’s amp.

The Burbanks were surprised we covered their song. (I think this is actually some reactions to the song here!). It was a great reaction for sure. We picked a good song to do.
Throwing in the Shooting Blanks cover was a good add in to the set too. It was very fun. Hoffman joined us on stage and got rowdy with us. Truly great!

Lisa and Jessica were snapping pics. I can’t wait to see em.
Brey snapped a close up pic of each of us while we were playing and I swear it blinded me for a second. It was pretty funny.

What a fucking show!!! It was great and I had a blast. Thanks to everyone there. Thanks Jamey for hopping behind the skins for a few songs. Much luv to the Burbanks and Burnside Bridge.
Hope everyone had fun. U know I did!!!!
Cya round.

-ERIK

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This show was unique. Johnny from the Burbanks offered it to me and said Burnside Bridge was playing. We were talking one late nite on IM and I quickly consulted a calendar and saw that I had the day off, so I tentatively accepted it. The next day I asked Rob and Hilger and they jumped at it. I told Johnny and all was well.

Until a few days later when I realized that I did NOT have the day off! This was not good because I work 4-midnight. I thought about canceling us off the show then decided that if we played last I could get out a little early and make it over there. I told Johnny about it and all seemed well.

So the day of the show I just brought my guitars to work with me. Everyday when I go to work I pick up a company car near my house in Schiller Park and drive wherever I have to go that day (all over the city), then I return it at the end of the night and jump back in my own car and go home. Well this day I didn’t do that because I knew I would go straight from work to the show. I had to cover 2 locations at work that day: 1 was at Irving Park and Laramie and the other was around Devon and Harlem. So I drove with my 2 guitars straight to Irving Park and Laramie and sat there. If I had to go to the other location I could just use a car from that location so all was well. I was planning to drive in my own car at 11 to another location at ARmitage and California and take a cab to the show (that was the closest SBC location to Wicker Park, I knew I didn’t want to deal with parking plus I would be pressed for time). Of course if something big came up at one of my 2 locations for the day at 1045 I would be fucked and have to scam my way out of it or do it quick or not do it at all, none of which should I be doing or did I want to do. I did tell my boss in advance of my dilemma and he acknowledged without saying that it would be ok for me to leave a little early (since it was unsaid, who knows what he considered ‘early’, probably later then what I considered it to be).

The day was super slow which made me even more anxious. Since I had my guitars with me I brought one inside and jammed a little bit, went thru 1000X by face to face which we planned to cover that night impromptu style (I had just reminded the band about it the day before; we hadn’t played it in months). Around 1045 I could take it no more and had nothing to do so I went to a different location at Irving Park and Kedzie and decided I would take a cab from there (didn’t feel like waiting for a cab on Saturday night in a bad neightboorhood (Humboldt Park) holding 2 guitars). I walked east and saw a cab right away and jumped in. I was about to start whipping the driver like a race horse to go faster I was getting so anxious. We came south on Damen and I just told him to stop at North and walked the rest of the way (got there for under $10 which was nice). I busted in and doubleJ (our second drummer) was manging on a taco. Burnside Bridge had already played which sucked,I missed their whole fucking set but kind of knew that I would have to. The Burbanks had been playing for maybe 10 minutes. I said hello to some peeps and chilled back in the cut with Rob. The Burbanks rocked as usual and even whipped out a crazy ‘Low Profile Theme Song’ which consisted of a nice riff in the key of E and a shouted ‘Low Profile!’ part. Thanx for the props guys. I started to get anxious again and wanted to play pretty fucking bad. Eventually, we went on.

Well we never played ‘Walk Dont Run’ until 2 weeks prior on Halloween. At that time, I wanted to bust something out that people could dig rather then me screaming about weird shit. Like many songs we know, we can not play it for 6 months then play it perfect. When you play as many shows and practices as we have, its just like riding a bike. I can bust out a song we havent played in forever, and its like my hand remembers the songs 1/2 seconds before I have to play the part and I just watch my hands moving around. Well ‘Walk Dont Run’ isnt quite that forgotten, but I came up with the idea to open with it and I dont know why at this show. I designed the whole set list (except for the 100 songs we added at the end, I’ll get to that in a second). We had learned the Burbanks song ‘Where Did you Go?’ in advance. Its become a thing we do to cover a song of a band once we play with them a bunch of times. And they all always say the same thing — ‘you played it even better then we do’ which is bullshit of course, but they’re just being nice. Well I figured it would be dramatic to open with a famous insturmental and then go right into the Burbanks song which would catch them off guard. I think it worked pretty well. I was carrying around the lyrics at work that day to memorize them as good as possible and I remembered at the last second as we were hanging the last C major of ‘Walk Dont Run’ so i unfolded the paper from my pocket with one hand and looked at them one last time. We started the song and jammd it out without fucking up, which I am always afraid we will do when covering a bands song in front of them (luckily we never really have). We threw in ‘Halloween’ for MAtt from Shooting Blanks who was nice enough to come out and see us play with Brey and even Deech who had been hiding away healing his busted bones for weeks before hand. It was a little intimidating to see him for the first time since I had played 2 shows filling in for him, I got nervous like a groupie. He thanked me for playing as if it was somekind of chore or something when in fact the 2 shows I played with Shooting Blanks were such a fucking blast, every day I am greatful that I got the opportunity to jam with them, it makes me a lil sad to think about the memories. Ok thats enough cheesyness for now, back to the set.

We played the crowd favorite ‘King of the Hill Theme’ right into a new song called ‘JPF’ about John Paul Franklin, the sick racist bastard who shot Larry Flynt ‘for printing interracial porn’ as the lyrics say. The 2 songs are both some kind of country western influcened stuff so they go together well. Just then Matt came up to me and said ‘play Folsom PRison Blues’. He said it kind of weird too, like he knew something that I didn’t; like he knew that we didn’t have it on the set list but knew that everyone would love it (they always do, it seems). AGain, its no chore for me to play Johnny Cash or Misfits songs all day and fucking night. Those 2 artists are huge influences even though you probably wont hear it in the songs we/I write. Well we jammed thru that and it was awesome. We went into another new song called ‘Milwaukee’ which we have only played live 2 or 3 times. Its actually a song by a band called Mongoloids in Crayon Suits. They are a band which was never signed or played any gigs, just weird freaks who got drunk and recorded fucked up songs on a 4-track. I got so involved in this band that I ended up corresponding with the main freak, polycarp kusch, who is from Arizona but lives in Budapest, Hungary now. He runs a couple sites: The New Absurdist and Bizarre eBooks — both sites I have work featured on, check them out. The original song is just voice and acoustic guitar. He approached me about an MCS tribute compilation and asked what song we would want to cover. I picked’Milwaukee’ right away cause its an awesome song, its about how the city of Milwaukee is sad that Jeffery Dahmer is dead. I wrote a totally new arrangement for the song, and kept the lyrics and keys and key changes intact but otherwise its our song. The compilation may never happen but this will be on our next album. I love the song and people always ask me about it and seem to like it which is good.

Well at some point we got to our planned grand finale. Josh from Burnside Bridge has made a note on their site about how he was sad that face to face broke up. We are all pretty crazy fans and have covered I’m Trying and 1000X many times at rehersal. We called up our old friend doubleJ to reherse with us a lil bit and come out to this show. He has previously played live with us for a song here and there at at least 2 shows, one was at BigWig this year; the other was at Afternight Studios and got onto a live album! He was in a band called Pie in the Sky that we used to play with and who broke up some time ago. AT certain times we were good friends with them and at others enemies. ME and doubleJ have known each other before either of us played any insturments at all, and we played in my first band together CFD. We love to jam out some Pie in the Sky songs with him and we’ve played I’m Trying also with him so it was a perfect fit for the show. Well we first went into ’30 Years’, which I swear is one of the best songs EVER, and originally by Pie in the Sky. Rob was singing as our frontperson. We went right into ‘I’m Trying’ and dedicated it to our good friends Burnside Bridge.

DoubleJ then left the stage and Rob got back behind the skins. We went right into 1000X which we have not rehersed in months. Of course: no problems to speak of. Well there were only 3 bands and there were supposed to be 4, it wasnt too late, plus we were last so I fully intended to take advantage. It scary but after our ‘encore’, we played 12 more songs.

We started busting out songs left and right, including ‘Skulls’ which Cactus Matt grabbed the mic and 10 dudes were yelling the chorus, I just kicked back and jammed out. Another song I’ll play anywhere, anytime. At some point I figured we should play ‘Shelia’ by Shooting Blanks since 3/4 of the band was there (fuck you Dan!!!). We had only played it live once before, and hadnt played it since. I looked at Rob and said ‘can you handle it?’. He hesitated for a second and said ‘yeah’. We jammed it out perfectly and Matt ran on stage and sang the parts I didn’t know. We had some nice double vocal action in the break. Matt was dressed to the nines, he must have thought the Big Horse was formal dress only.

Someone called out ‘play some Guttermouth!’, probably cause Hilger was wearing the shirt. This song we played — ‘A Date with Destiny’ — may not have been the best choice and the crowd seemed a lil silent afterwards. Oh well. Better we play that, a technical Guttermouth song then somthing boring like ‘Just a Fuck’. At that point Rob was getting furious with me cause I kept saying ‘Ok, this is our last song….’, plus we were running out of ideas of what to play. Then someone came up with a bright idea — play more Pie in the Sky! doubleJ came right back up and we jammed thru 4 more songs, 3 of which we have not played in a very long time. After our 26th song of the night it was safe to stop.

The Big Horse closes early which sucks. I only had 1 Heiniken and they closed the bar. So I went up front to eat some Mexican cuisine and Rhyno started to criticize me because he said my ass crack showed during the set. That is the price you pay for me wearing those pants and jumping around a lil bit. He wouldn’t let up on me and all I can say is this: if you keep mouthing off Rhyno, I’ll bust your other arm you musclehead.

This was a very successful gig. We played a long set and the only flaw was me missing Burnside Bridge which I must apologize again for. I feel bad and wish there was another way. Were playing with them for their record release party soon and also with Shooting Blanks. IT will be at Lyons den which we have been trying to get into and Ive been wanting to play so this is going to be a very big fucking show and I cant wait. See ya then!!!

–satan165

It is always a pleasure to work with people that you like, and who are professional. The venue known as Bigwig could have just as easily have fallen into the wrong hands — some stupid fucks who would have shows that didn’t come off properly and been littered with other problems. Luckily for us, and every other band with an opportunity to play there, this is not the case.

I would gladly do whatever Charles and/or Weber from Ratbag Hero tell me to do. They call the shots around this place and I couldn’t think of any better people to deal with. True class acts. I could praise them all day but allow me to talk about the actual events of the night. I’m sure that in doing so I will end of praising them more so its all good.

Weber offered me this show a few months ago and we snatched it up immediately. This is my favorite place to play in the entire world. Some aspire to some fucking arena or other garbage — I don’t need anything more then that which is laid out for me at the fabolous Bigwig. I got a ride from my dad to the club to prevent a DUI related crash later in the night. Got there way too early and chilled outside with my gear. I was the 2nd person there — the bartender was the 1st (I am a fucking asshole for not knowing his name, I admit it). He was working with 3 tall boys of ARizona green tea. I find that stuff repulsive (I’m a black tea man myself) but I respect his decision in beverages for the night because I myself consume many gallons of tea, soda and juice everyday. He asked me to watch over his cans of tea which he hit up the adjacent Pizza Hut to score a pazone. In the meantime, Hilger and Lisa showed up. Charles was the man with the keys so we were all way too early and waiting on him. The bartender came back with his food and just then Charles and Weber showed up. We loaded in a chilled the fuck out. I got my 3 complimentary drink tickets and saved them for later in the night. That is until the bartender comped me a Pabst for no apparent reason. But who am I to argue with a free drink. I swilled it down and then he came back with a Miller Lite bottle and a Long Island Iced Tea that someone had ordered and then not wanted or something. Me, Weber and the bassist from Break of day were all sitting together drinking and we all had a bit of an aversion to the Long Island Iced TEa. I started to pound my now 2nd Pabst as fast as possible in hopes of scoring the Miller Lite. Then Weber, man of extreme passion that he is, made the recommendation that the 3 of us share the Long Island Iced Tea 1950’s soda shop style with 3 straws. We all jumped in and gave it a go and I thought I was drinking straight Tequila at one point. I pulled away gagging and saw that the drink was barely dented. Then we got Mike from Break of Day to snap a pic of us fagging it up with this drink. We sucked it down and I had to drool a bit into a nearby garbage can, as my taste buds don’t agree much with the foul liquors in a Long Island Iced Tea. The 2 beers and that which was consumed in about 15 minutes provided a nice buzz and I felt quite relaxed.

Joe and Rhyno from Squared Off showed up. (Heres a nice pic of Rhyno, Lisa, Hilger and Rob completely relaxing in the confortable couches.) Frank and Will from Rocky Denis showed up to see Replacing Sydney. Things were looking very very good to me at this point. Charles threw a little ‘Return of the Dragon’ on the projector and I thought maybe I had died and gone to heaven. Replacing Sydney took the stage and I was unsure of what to expect. They all certainly had top-notch equipment. Hoping not to sound like a sexist asshole, I must admit that the 2 female members of the group were very cute as I had been told far in advance by friends who had seen the band before. I was very surprised by their sound — they had only female vocals which creates an interesting texture over distorted gutiars. Both guitarists worked the hell out of their footpedals as well, clicking from clean to distorted very often. Very interesting to me was the keyboards — the keyboardist used the same tone the entire set, kind of like an electric piano sound. I expected just from other bands I’ve seen who had keyboards to hear organ type tones and whatnot, but this was a very mellow tone that melded well with the other insturmentation and certainly the angelic female vocals.

Next up was Break of Day. I had worn my brand new Last Man Out shirt which I had just scored from the band a few weeks earlier. The drummer of the band had told me that he used to drum for that band! Small fucking world. Mike, the 2nd guitarist, recognized me from Columbia College, where we had attended together years before. I didn’t remember him but he said I was trying to sell him on Pie in the Sky at the time, my my, that MUST have been a long time ago! They took the stage as a 5-piece band with a frontman (who even provided his own cordless mic, nice!). Their sound was decidedly not emo or sensitive. Although melodic, they played plenty fast and made good use of the 2 guitars. Unfortunately, their set was scattered with technical difficulties. This worried me that it was a jinx and we would have probelms too when we played — I had just gotten my cordless system the week previous and tested it at rehersal just before the show. I crossed my fingers.

By this time there was defiantely a good amount of people there and many were plenty drunk. I was very anxious as always to get the show on the road. Hilger and I duct taped our cordless packs to our straps for each other (only 1 of many ‘things’ we do for eachother…). Of course, after that it becomes a blur. Not a drunken blur, for I had had only 3 of 4 drinks over 2 or more hours at that point, but an adrenaline type of blur, as it is at any show we ever fucking play, anywhere.. As I type this the next day my neck is pretty stiff and only after a huge shit and shower do I feel less drunk and ‘with it’. Some highlights included (those I can remember): Me and Hilger ran out of the room into the bar where I started up the ‘King of the Hill’ theme — Hilger was standing on a barstool (and nearly falling) and I was back by some tables scaring people. We had rewritten a new set just before we played, and after we went through all those songs, we just kept playing and playing…after numerous requests from Rhyno we jumped into ‘Attitude’ by the Misfits. I just stepped away from the mic at that point as Joe and Rhyno from Squared off were screaming the lyrics into one mic and Will from Rocky Denis even got inspired to grab Hilger’s mic and sing as well. (He even had the balls to apologize for doing that. Please dude! Sing away! By all means! How dare you even ask!). (Here’s me and Rhyno singing the ending to the song.) We jumped into ‘Green Corn’ by NOFX and the guitarist from Break of Day watched me intently. (it was Joe’s request, so of course he sang it) So of course I had to blaze the fuck out of that solo. He even had the respect to bow down as I ripped it. I repaid him later with a nice Peach Stoli/Redbull.

Right after the show I ran down the block and ordered up 2 delicious steak tacos with everything. Total=$4.25. Total time to wait for order=approx. 35 seconds. I brought ’em back to Bigwig and chowed em down, fucking fabolous. Then I commenced to drink about 6 Peach SToil/Redbulls. I highly recommend that everyone go on a Redbull mixed drink bender at some point, the effects are very odd. I was swillin’ em down and buying em for everyone in the house in my drunkeness. I sat with Weber and he told me tales of working his Kung Fu stylings on gangstas on Morgan street in his south side hood. ‘Return of the Dragon’ ended and Charles threw in ‘Enter the Dragon’ — fucking awesome. Of course, by this point I was deeply inebriated and felt my body sinking into the confortable Bigwig seating. Charles reacted quite violently to someones claim that ‘the Bigwig was dirty’ — he threw a caddy of straws and napkins on the floor in a true mess. That’ll show em! Weber was on his upteenth PBR and we had a conversation something like this:

Weber: “Yeah, I’m going to call into work tomorrow”
(he has many times told me of coming into work after a Distortion Sunday at Bigwig half drunk on 1 hour sleep, or just calling in altogether.)
Me: “Good deal dude. Fuck it, you deserve a day off”
Weber: (without skipping a beat) “Yeah, I’m going to go into work tomorrow”.

Then he described how he woudl just go into the bathroom and ‘chill out’, or maybe even take a nap. Hope your monday wasn’t too harsh, bro.

I wished the night would never end. I drove home and scored some White Castles and then slept for about 11 hours. I know I’m missing something in here but hopefully Hilger will remember.

–satan165

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Low Profile live at Bigwig
Sunday July 6th
with Replacing Sydney and Break of Day

First off, I had a great weekend. But when Sunday came around, I was dragging my ass, not very excited about the show or even leaving my apartment. It would have been a great day to just stay inside. But of course my mood totally changed once I got to the club.

I showed up with Lisa at about ten to 7. Williams and the bartender were chilling outside and the doors were locked. So we waited and then Weber and Charles showed up. I wore my Bigwig (the band) shirt in tribute to the place we were playing. I got many compliments on it. =)

Right away we had Charles throw on some old AFI. The same album that was playing the first time I walked in this place. Then they later thru on some Bruce Lee flicks for us.

All the bands showed up. Rhyno and Joe from Squared Off showed up. Jessica showed up and took pics of us. Props all around. It was much fun just chillin and hangin out. Bigwig is such a laid back atmosphere and then after Replacing Sydney start up, Williams gets the urge to go and completely drop the set list and wants to bust out some more of the hardcore shit we play. So we sat at the bar and wrote a sloppy ass set list on some paper. It looked good though. We ended up adding a bunch more songs off the list of course. But now I wanna talk about the other bands.

Replacing Sydney were fucking awesome. Very rocking. Melodic and noisy. Great female vocals. And very cute chicks at that. The bass player chick was definately awesome. Didn’t use a pick. Reminded me of Kira from Black Flag a lil. U go girl. They had 2 guitarists. They both rocked and played a lot of lil lead parts. The other girl played keyboards and sang some songs by herself and did a lot of backup parts with the beautiful melodic chick voices. I luved it. I dug this band a lot all around and had a lot of fun watching their set and heckling back and forth with them a bit. I put your sticker on my bass case already. I’m a fan fo sho!
You’ll be hearing from this band sometime in the future. They could definately go big and get on a label. So do it! Put that cute bass player chick in a video on tv and you’re goin somewhere.

Then Break of Day set up. These guys were cool all around but their set was sloppy as fuck. They stand around for like 10 mins and then the guitarist is like, whoa, I gotta tune up. Give me an A. Everyone was ready for them to start and get the show going and it was just sloppy. Be fuckin prepared to rock guys. I was pumped to see u guys and then was blown away by the unprofessional shit and mishaps and had to go outside. Actually, I can’t even say that much cuz I watched the first 2 songs, or lack thereof and went outside for a session of some supers. So I can’t say much more cuz I didn’t give u guys a fair listen. And why r u against bands having CDs and websites and tshirts and stickers and shit? I didn’t get that comment at all. It had me totally stumped. Thats part of being in a band. Thats all good though cuz we give that shit away for free. Ya heard me???

We were up last. Both Williams and I rocked the wireless systems with no problems at all. We both duct taped em to each others straps which is going to become a new custom right before each show. Fuck playing with a cord.

So like I mentioned before, we totally scrapped the set list we originally had and didn’t play one song off of it. To the best of my memory which is pretty cloudy from a long weekend of partying, our set was sumthin like this:

Zamboni
The Limitation
Walter Mander
Figure It Out
Grudge
En Guarde
Attitude (originally by the Misfits)
Green Corn (originally by NOFX)
A Date with Destiny (originally by Guttermouth)
King of the Hill Theme Song
Breakin the Law (originally by Judas Priest)
Folsom Prison Blues (originally by Johnny Cash)
Spreading Yourself Thin (originally by Pie in the Sky)
Hot Mom

I think that was everything. Rhyno ran up and sang Attitude. Will also ran up and grabbed my mic. It was great. Good crowd participation. Then we had Joe come up and sing Green Corn. Many people sang along to Folsom and Breakin the Law. Those both went across real well. I think, the more u drink, the better we sound. Hahahaha. So I’m glad we played last.

We gave out a bunch of CDs, stickers and tshirts. We played a great set. Both Williams and I ran thru the audience a bunch of times. I was jumping up on the booths and barstools jamming. It was awesome.

I chilled for a lil while after our set and pounded down one more redbull/vodka and then loaded out. Stood outside Bigwig for like 20 mins and then drove Lisa home who lives kinda far.

What a night. I had a ton of fun. Thanks to Charles and Weber and the bartender. Thanks to Joe and Rhyno, Lisa and Jessica, Will and Frank, Replacing Sydney, and everyone who watched and sang along.

I think thats it. Much of the night is kinda blurry. Crazy long weekend. I luved it. My crazy life…………

-ERIK