We are the sons of no one, bastards of young

So, we decided to start driving around and playing shows back to back. Packed into one of these, headed to Greensboro. After having a delicious Thai dinner (that came with lettuce covered with a glob of peanut butter, not a peanut sauce, just peanut butter), went over to 551 Mendenhall to meet Mortar & Pestle. Found out that the owner of the house didn't actually know that there was going to be a show until people started showing up, that, and we had to be done by 11 pm so they wouldn't get a fine. Somewhat shitty part: took no donations, ie-no gas/food money. Good things: was a cool little place to play, I remember when it used to be Parts Unknown, my favorite comic store in Greensboro. Also, Mortar & Pestle were great, reminded me a lot of Joan of Arc/Cap'n Jazz type stuff, very cool, indeed. Left 551, had a beer. Went to my parents' house, had another, E knocked a beer over and caught it upside down, spilling it all over his lap. Went to bed.

The ones who love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest,
and visit their graves on holidays at best

Thai food gave me pains, all through the 551 show, and on through the next day. Gas, too. Bad times. Had a lazy day, drank coffee, watched television, watched my parents' dog vomit from eating too much grass, wondered what the deal was with Vincent's. Got in the car, still curious about whether or not we were playing with anyone else. Called and found that we were supposed to play with a band called Doom Ribbons, a solo act, so we felt better. Got into town and found Stephanie's apartment (E knows her from school and she was kind enough to let us stay at her place while she is out of town) after deciphering the instructions that ran off the page. Sat around, read up on the bands we were to play with in Boone. Headed over to Vincent's, they were nice enough to feed us and give us free beer, which felt kind of like someone pitching gold bars at my feet at that point. Doom Ribbons is a guy that plays a drum kit with triggers that run through two delay pedals and a, I believe, filter pedal. Essentially he creates a backing track and plays with it, but it's actually a lot cooler than that. You really have to see it to understand. Possible shitty-ness: not many people. Good things to negate the former: got to see John Starling, who recorded part of Agent Ink's first album, and his wife, also got to see Sean and Matt Robbins from Nevada, got to play with Doom Ribbons, got free sustenance. And we like Vincent's, so we want to go back.

The ones who love us least are the ones we'll die to please,
if it's any consolation, I don't begin to understand them

We weren't really looking forward to the Boone show. The show, at some point, got double-booked leading to us having to play with two metal bands who I refuse to namecheck so we won't come up on a search for them. Here and here. That's the order they played. Read the second one's bio, yeah. So, drove up from Asheville after doing some antiquing. Went over to Black Cat, learned that there is a pesky neighbor that likes to call the cops and get them fined for noise(which we later found might be taken out of our door), got the rundown of how things were to work. Things started looking better. Went to E's parent's house, Andy ran by his future in-laws', took it easy for a while, re-convened at Black Cat around 8, got some free burritos, got some free beer. Other bands showed up, we talked, things looked good. Decided the order, things looked great. Black Cat now has this, and despite all their tries, E and Andy couldn't touch my 2nd and 3rd place scores; we were getting hyped. Rachel Nevadas loaded in, set up, started playing and were great, sounded really good in Black Cat, which seems tough to do, something is usually too loud. We set up, three songs in had to turn down because of the cops, played slow and quiet for two songs, played our second to last song, currently titled, "Damon Che's Hands," and at the end, just as I had tuned for our last song, learned that "we" didn't have time for one more song, despite it being a faster song, despite it rocking harder than the sludge-core, bastard child of Korn bullshit that was about to come, despite the fact that people seemed to like us, despite the fact that we were ready to kick it out. He repeated, "we don't have time, we have two more bands and an hour to play," which was a lie. Two bands, two hours, the one following us had been given the option to load stuff in while we set up, but they turned it down, and we got the shaft because of their shitty logic. Said bye, packed up, loaded our stuff into the car, finished the beers we had to pay for (because there weren't enough people to warrant giving us any more free beer), walked down to Matt Banks' place to find a place for the Rachel Nevadas to stay (and to drink some margaritas). Went back around 1:40, waited for the band to quit playing, talked to Blindman for a little while about the state of music, picked up our beer-soaked mailing list, got our money, asked where the Rachel Nevadas had gone (no one knew), headed to our respective sleeping areas. And we adjusted clocks, which was annoying. Shittyness: the double-booking, not getting to play our last song, having to pay for beer, the cops, etc. Good things: getting to see a bunch of people we haven't seen in a while, the margaritas.
All in all, had a good time, played really well, the drive wasn't terrible, I read an entire book, Matt Boles and Margaret Gabriel were kind enough to follow us the entire way, which was very kind of them, we really appreciate it more than we can express. Thank you.
So, that's all for now, back to what we usually do, more shows this week and next.
Thanks go to everyone that came out, and to everyone we played with, except two of them.
posted by beta at 4/05/2004 12:46:00 PM