What Was and What We Wish Wasn't

Date: Saturday, November 8, 2008
Venue: Music Vault, Harker Heights, TX
Bill: Hexlust, Burying the Trend, An Hour to Kill

OOPS!
This show… didn’t happen! We got to the Music Vault, started setting up our gear, people started showing up… and we got called into the manager’s office. Turned out one band’s singer was sick and the other band hadn’t been in contact in recent days. One band with forty minutes of material equals not worth the time. Plus, each band sold tickets for this show. One band equals a third of potential money, which means not enough to pay security, lights, and sound people. Show cancelled.

I felt pretty bad for our friends who drove up from Belton, and I felt very bad for my friend who had already made it all the way from Lampasas. To those not in the know, Lampasas is about a forty-minute drive from Harker Heights, if traffic is ideal. Tickets were refunded or held until the date of the postponed show, which was set for November 21.

Date: Friday, November 21, 2008
Venue: Music Vault, Harker Heights, TX
Bill: Robots Are Evil, Hexlust, I Deal Suicide, Escape the Night

PRE-SHOW
We spent the next two weeks selling more tickets, getting other bands to play, and promising our friends that this time, an actual show would happen. And what a show it was going to be! We had our friends in Robots Are Evil opening the show, an awesome duo consisting of a bassist and drummer (good buddy Frank, who worked in the drum department at Guitar Center at the time.) We would go on after them, and then I Deal Suicide and Escape the Night would close out the night. Both of these bands were from the Burnet area and had a pretty well-established fanbase which they brought with them, so this would have been a great chance for us to grab the attention of their fans and vice-versa.

Notice I keep saying shit like “was going to be” and “would have.”

ROBOTS ARE EVIL
Robots Are Evil were on first as scheduled and they were awesome. This was my first exposure to them and I was hella impressed, especially when they opened with an instrumental version of Primus’ “Here Come the Bastards.” From then on it was an awesome batch of guitarless slap-pop groove with awesome beats and fills.

HEXLUST
We were on stage next and we were ready to impress. We had learned from our experience with Exmortus and were more than warmed up. We had rehearsed our set that day and had definitely practiced the shit out of our cover of Death’s “Open Casket,” which we were debuting this evening. It was gonna go Intro-Troops-Toxic-Hellhammer-Tombs-Open Casket-Sodomy and it was gonna be fuckin’ magical. There was even the pretty-woman factor! The object of Tony’s October-11^th game-spitting was there, as was my friend Sheila. And let’s face it: when a pretty female is in the audience, you strive to play better. Again: fuckin’ magical.

The intro was great. Troops of Doom was solid. Toxic High, still going strong. By Hellhammer, though, something was up, and that something was Tony. Something happened in front of all those unfamiliar faces and he lost all his pizzazz. Normally very good at crowd control, Tony started hiding behind his hair and looking straight down at his fret board when he was playing. Announcing Hellhammer though was the straw that broke the camel’s back, when only a handful of people cheered when he asked if anybody in the audience was a fan of Celtic Frost or Hellhammer. From then on, our mighty frontman was a stuttering mess.

Not that that would have affected us that greatly. He’s had a few bouts of confidence crisis before and we soldiered through. This was only our… fifteenth show, and there were still a few times when stage fright got the best of him. No problem. The problem started showing its face during Tombs. My bass drum started creeping away from me and almost slipped away entirely, taking my toms with it. I thought it was simply a matter of it not being anchored down enough, so when the song was over I dragged the thing over and drove the spikes on the pedal a little deeper into the carpet. Then came Open Casket and POW! It was all downhill from there.

Those who know the song knows it starts off with a horrendous amount of double-bassing. I flew into it right on time and was pounding my heart out when suddenly… nothing. My feets were moving pedals, but the pedals were hitting air. It took me a few horrible stage years (read: about two awkward seconds) to realize that the problem wasn’t the anchoring; it was the grip my pedal had on the drum itself! By not tightening the grip and making the pedal more stable, I kicked the drum right off the pedal! Oh it was embarrassing. I spent the rest of the song pulling the drum up in front of the pedals whenever we had a sustained note and even took a few extra seconds to try to put the drum back into the grip in time for the second round of double-bassing, but that eventually failed. The song was a disaster and I was panicking.

Funny thing about panic: if you don’t get it under control hella soon, you start lashing out at people, even when they’re just trying to help. When Open Casket was over, I went right to work pulling the bastard bass drum onto the stupid pedal and tightening the grip as hard as it would go. JT (poor JT) came over and generously asked if I was OK and would I need some time to fix my problem, and I responded with “SHUTUP!!!!!!!” Boy am I proud of myself. I found out later that Tony then told JT to leave me alone, and the thoroughly hurt and humiliated JT had considered quitting the band right then and there. So, to recap: You had a front man in a self-esteem crisis, a guitarist ready to throw his instrument down and run out the door, and a drummer ready to kick his kit over and just have himself a good hard cry. And we still had one song left!

I wish I could say there’s a huge void where Sodomy and Lust went but I remember it very well. My pedal continued slipping. It turned out there are two points on my pedal which control the grip on the bass drum, one on the side which you crank with your hand and another right on the gripper which you turn with a special L-key. I serviced the former, which at least kept the drum from slipping all the way off. Also, Keith may think he was immune to screwing up, but he spent the last half of the song one fret above where he should have been. Fucker.

EVERYTHING ELSE
I spent the rest of the show taking my kit apart, loading it into my car, and hanging out with my bandmates and friends outside talking about the show. I kept telling myself that in ten seconds I was gonna go inside and check out the other two bands but it never happened. Sheila gave me a hug and assured me that it was great and she had a good time; normally I would say bullshit but I’ve known her to be an honest straight-shooter type so I was willing to think she actually enjoyed it. Eric, also a non-bullshitter, gave us the WTF we so rightly deserved.

To be honest, we didn’t and still don’t know exactly what went wrong. Probably just one of them “bad shows” that come along for no reason, even when you’ve already had a performance which wasn’t so stellar. On my part, it was simply a matter of not familiarizing myself with new equipment, as my double pedal was still new at the time. I spent time after that examining every part of the thing and experimenting with the grips to get the best possible anchorage, but we played no shows for the rest of the year. Finals came, as did the Christmas holidays, and we hardly practiced at all. We had a show set up the second day of the new year, though, and were hoping it would go better.

Hint: it did

Tuttle's Sunday Trousers!

Date: Friday, October 17, 2008
Venue: The Warhol, San Antonio, TX
Bill: Criminals of Assault, Hexlust, Devoured Deception, Disfigured, Hod, Exmortus

PRE-SHOW
A nice sunny day in San Antonio. We get to Kristi’s place, unload crap, and decide that we should have munchies for before and after the show. So we headed to the local H-E-B and get drinks and a nearby Little Caesar’s for pizza. Get back to home base, settle in, and… warm up? No. Oh hell no. That would be doing something right, which was never Hexlust’s forte. What we did was scarf a bunch of pizza and watch Spongebob. Two hours before we’re supposed to head to the gig, and we’re sprawled on the couches and floor in Kristi’s (very nice) living room, feeling very fat and slowly slipping into food comas.

Now in our defense, this was our third straight week playing a show. I know that’s small potatoes in some bands’ eyes, but three out of four of us were in college at the time, and for most if not all college students, the beginning to middle of October is mid-terms time. We were not just hangin’ out, playin’ Nintendo in the five or six days between shows. We were pooped and were taking any opportunity given to chill out. This laziness, however, came back to haunt us with a screaming vengeance.

At the Warhol (conveniently located right next door to the Rock Bottom place where we played last time) we waited around and eventually found out that the first band, Criminals of Assault, did not show up. Since we were to go on second, we got an instant bump-up and had to get right onstage. I was actually very grateful for this due to space. Rock Bottom had a stage area, a bar area, and several back rooms where people could chill and bands could set up their shit. The Warhol, by contrast, had the stage and bar area and that was it. Oh, and a bathroom. Roughly the size of a few mobile homes I’ve visited. This was one of the few times I was happy to build my drum kit onstage.

HEXLUST
I hope you’re not expecting me to say our performance was surprisingly good. Each of us (except maybe Keith, who’s usually immune to such things) was feeling fat and slow, and had absolutely no warm-up time between our Spongebob-a-thon and the immediate setup. My double-bassing was off and I flubbed almost all my fills; Tony started burping while singing and halfway through started feeling as if he would throw up any second (his guitar playing was likewise affected); JT befuddled the intro to Evil Dead, a song we hadn’t played in a while which we for some unchristly reason thought would be cool to bring up again. I think he started before I counted off and ended up off-key. This show was far from a feather in our cap, although I must say we did not get off-time very often. I’d like to think by now we were used to shit going wrong and had developed ways to competently play through it.

DEVOURED DECEPTION
Devoured Deception played next. The only thing I could really say about them at the time was that the drumming was pretty damn solid. Not cuz I’m biased and all, but because THE DRUMS OVERPOWERED EVERYTHING in terms of volume. These dudes had some pretty spiffy-looking guitars, and their amps looked expensive, but I couldn’t tell you a thing about their riffs or solos. I think I occasionally heard the singer. Nowadays though, I can tell you that there were some catchy riffs and neat solos, thanks to videos of that specific performance on YouTube on which the other instruments are more audible.

DISFIGURED
Disfigured were up next. They shared a couple members with that awesome band Ayasoltec from when we played at Rock Bottom, only this was a much more straight-ahead “brutal death metal” band. They were really tight, you could tell they had either been playing together for a long while or they were each just that awesome at musicianship. Keith wasn’t a fan of their bass tone, but that’s bassists for ya. I personally couldn’t hear cuz I was outside, chatting up Exmortus with Tony and JT.

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH EXMORTUS
If our performance could be considered an “injury,” then everything I’m about to write about this band could be considered the “insult” which gets added to it. Not that they were deliberately rubbing in our faces how much cooler and better and more experienced they were than we; they were all very pleasant dudes who were easy to talk to. Tony and JT talked to Balmore and Conan (guitarist/vocalist and guitarist, respectively) about Jackson guitars while they were WARMING UP; Daniel (bassist) popped in for some Simpsons quotes-trading with Tony; I talked to Mario (the drummer) about drum head preference as he was setting up his kit. Outside. Where there is NOTHING BUT ROOM FOR SETTING UP. I wish I could defend myself by saying that it was cold outside and I preferred to do all my kit construction in a warm building, but it was October in the middle of Texas, lukewarm at the chilliest.

HOD
Hod went on after Disfigured. The stage here was even smaller than Rock Bottom’s, so it was that much funnier seeing these big mountain men squeezing themselves and their big mountain gear into their playing space. Don’t believe me? There are videos of this performance on YouTube as well. In fact, everyone except us have videos of their performances from this evening posted there. (Not that we're complaining) I don’t remember much from this performance except being able to recognize the song “Victims,” even though it was only my second time seeing them. While chilling outside, where I could hear the band and not be pushed around by the crowd, I got into a conversation about metal and faith with some really cool Christian metal guy. I must say, it's not very often something like that happens.

EXMORTUS
Last were Exmortus. Now, even though these dudes were as nice as pie, part of me secretly hated them for their awesomeness and would not have been sad if they failed on stage. Alas, they were awesome! Solos all over the place! Awesome-tastic drumming, including blast-beating and stick-twirling! Just jaw-droppingly unbelievable! Just when I thought they couldn’t have the crowd eating out of their palms any more, they announced a Slayer cover: Hell Awaits. They went with that intro, and then switched it up by flying into Angel of Death. Crowd lost their shit. When all that was said and done, the audience demanded more. I was asking “What could possibly follow that? What could be more awesome than a Slayer medley?” The answer: ANOTHER SLAYER SONG! They busted out with Chemical Warfare and I was the one losing my shit. See, back in the day, Hexlust (being me, Tony, and James) were going to try doing that song, but James found himself befuddled by the tabs and I was secretly dreading how long it was. So we abandoned it. Because it was hard. And now THEY came along and made it effortlessly AWESOME!

If you look in the far right corner, you'll see our very own Tarzan and JT rocking out!

POST-SHOW
By the time the show was over, I was so awesomed out I wasn’t even bitter about my own performance anymore. We talked to Exmortus some more, got paid (fifty bucks! Yeah!) took an awesome pic with Exmortus and Devoured Deception, and were on our merry way. That next day, on our way back to Killeen, I was already pounding out triplets on a pillow in Keith’s Jeep, resolving to practice more and develop a serious warm-up regimen before every show. We all were.

Haaaaaaaands Down!

Date: Saturday, October 11, 2008
Venue: Music Vault, Harker Heights, TX
Bands: Hexlust, Hands Down, Anesthesia

PRE-SHOW
It’s a well-known principle that a band should sufficiently warm up before playing a show, to make sure that all the music muscles are fully stretched out and ready to go full speed when the song calls for it. If the warm-up ritual is not performed correctly, the gig suffers as a result. Well, sometimes, for whatever reason, a band does not sufficiently warm up. In an even rarer occasion, the performance goes swimmingly anyway. Instead of thanking their lucky starts and promising to do better next time, the band develop feelings of awesomeness, that this stroke of magic good luck is in fact a perfectly natural part of their capabilities. It’s usually the show right after where their new perception of their skills is not only shot down by a bad performance, but rubbed right into their faces by the superior performance of a better band. That tragedy would occur in the next show; for now, though, the unwitting victory.

We got to the Music Vault early, like eight o’clock, so of course it was empty. Which was fine by me, I like setting up my unnecessarily large kit well before showtime, and I hate jockeying for space with a bunch of other bands and all their shit. Twenty minutes later I get that done… and it’s still empty. No problem, it’s only like 8:30, so we wait around and warm up a little (emphasis on a little). Nine o'clock, the doors to the club open, and nothing.

We spent a good like forty minutes milling around, talking to whoever came in. It was excruciatingly boring, at least for me. JT’s then-girlfriend had been there the whole time so he had someone to talk to. Tony met some chick and was spitting mad game, as only Tony can. Finally, our friends in Hands Down showed up and I passed the time talking to Sheena and helping decide on a one-set songlist. For those who don’t know, Hands Down consist of Sheena, her dad Russ, her mom Darlene, and family friend Dan, who plays the only drum kit in Killeen I envy for being bigger than mine. They play some originals but mostly covers. They typically do two forty-minute-or-so sets but since they opened the show this evening they had to pare it down to one.

HANDS DOWN
So Hands Down go on first and do their thing. Tunes included “My Own Worst Enemy,” “Flagpole Sitta,” “Inside Out,” and “Cumbersome,” all of which were well-received by my dad. OH, and they played “Welcome to Paradise,” I remember that cuz Tony and I were singing along to it. The funniest part was when Sheena gave Tarzan her camera with which he could take pictures; he got bored and handed it to my dad, who thought it was our camera and instead started taking cute shots of him and my mom together! I wonder if Sheena still has those.

HEXLUST
Our set does not stick out much in my head, probably because not much happened in the way of badness. I remember we had a fantastic soundcheck with some new guy we’d never seen before who perfectly balanced the two guitarists, put just the right amount of Tony’s guitar in my monitor, and did it all in little to no time. Communication had been an issue during the Battle shows. Same setlist as before, Intro-Troops-Toxic-Hellhammer-Tombs-Sodomy. We had started working on covering Death’s “Open Casket” around this time but were still not ready to debut it live yet. As I said in the first paragraph, we squandered all our extra time by not warming up much, and still had a pretty successful set. This feeling of effortless victory would not last another show.

ANESTHESIA
Up next was Anesthesia, purely covers. Come to think of it, this show was a night for bands with big drum kits who played covers, cuz the drummer in this band had a sizeable double-kick kit! What made Anesthesia stick out was that they had no vocalist; one guitarist, one bassist, and a drummer. But damn did they play some memorable tunes! They opened with “Walk” (ugh) and played some Iron Maiden tune I can’t recall. They also did “Live Wire,” which made me shriek with joy since I’m such a big Crue fan, and “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” which I got a kick out of since Hexlust had been playing that song for, like, ever. I tracked Tony down and was all “Dude! Duuuude! Dude!” but he was still spitting his mad game so he wasn’t interested. Whatevs.

Not much else interesting happened this evening. Sheena talked to some of the members of Anesthesia about starting a possible metal project, something she's been trying to do for ages, but I don't think anything ever became of that. (EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: Nope.) All in all, a totally ho-hum show.

Note: The title of this post is a goofy in-joke among us, saying that band's name all drawn-out with a Southern drawl. With every successive time we say it, we stretch the "hands" part out longer and longer.

P.R.O.S.C. Part II: Ralph's Big Debut

Date: Saturday, October 4, 2008
Venue: Armstrong Center, Holland(ish?) TX
Bands: Shfux, Dirty Rat Bastards, Hexlust, Poop Squad, AIJ, Nuklear Dekay

PRE-SHOW
Once again, to the Armstrong Center! People wondering what the hell I’m talking about should read one of my earlier blogs about the Punk Rock Outdoor Summer Camp. This time was more of a Punk Rock Fall-Kickoff Barbecue. And by that I mean there was FOOD this time! It was so awesome. There were burgers and hot dogs and sausages and pastries and beans and other shit that was way hella good.

THE SHFUX/FIGHT
Playing music at punk shows is always fun. Everybody’s friends with each other and there isn’t drama very often. Well, there was today. During the Shfux’s set, some blonde woman came up and threw a bottle at the feet of Walter and Dylan. (guitarist/vocalist and bassist, respectively). This was befuddling but whatever. Woman storms off and I follow her to see if there are any other shenanigans in store. And boy howdy! This chick then takes another bottle and fires it right into the back of a truck parked along the side of the center, just around the corner from the “stage” area, shattering the back windshield! This truck later turned out to be Dylan’s, and the woman is later confirmed to me to be his ex.

Woman-scorned then storms around to the front of the center, where she is confronted by a little Hispanic spitfire, who I later found out was Dylan’s current squeeze. CAT FIGHT! Hair-pulling and clothes-ripping and face-punching and the screaming! The best part was that Tony was right there in the action, getting the footage on tape. The fight was broken up and the blond was sent packing, and lot of us later tracked Tony down and asked him to show the video to us.

POOP SQUAD + D.R.B
The fight threw a slight pall over the show, particularly for Dylan, but overall it was still fun. We saw the Poop Squad for the first time, who played a short set of short songs, one of which involved making poop, not war. Also, no drummer, which made things interesting, except when one of the members kept senselessly trying to incite people to mosh. Dude, FAST MUSIC – DRUMMING = NO MOSH. Without the percussive pulse, you’re lucky if you get headbanging. Dirty Rat Bastards played a VERY short set, having not been rehearsing much lately or whatever, so we ended up on stage much sooner than I had planned.

HEXLUST
The frustrating thing (for us) about this show was that there was no sort of stage set up. Last time, there were two wooden stages for bands to alternate between, but this time there was just the back porch, which was about as big as the area rug in my living room, so it was confined-quarters playing this evening. This resulted in me scaling my kit down a bit, but basically it was just taking out one floor tom and my rotary toms. Pictures show me using my 8", 10", 12", and 14" toms, and all my cymbals, including my side-hats mounted on my second crash cymbal. By the bye, I also got to debut my new 18” Zildjian Z Custom Medium Crash cymbal and Gibraltar double pedals! Hells yeah.

Just so I don't seem totally selfish, pictures also show Tony using his ESP guitar that evening (it's rare he performs with that thing so it was an event indeed!) and his Fender amp, which has long since been replaced by a huge half stack. JT, I'm not sure if he was still using his Marshall amp or if he had his B52 by then, it's off to the side and out of all shots. He was, however, switching between his black Jackson and Eric's guitar, also a Jackson. Keith was using the bass he always uses (It says "SDGR" on the headstock) and the Hartke speaker.

The patio positioning also put the audience LITERALLY right in front of us. For the most part we were fine with this, except it resulted in more dirt getting kicked into the amps than last time, and gave some obnoxious drunk kid access to Tony’s mic. We’re all for fans jumping on the mic with us, but damn, it just proved to be a distraction. I think this guy later got his ass kicked, or at least got told to shut the fuck up.

AIJ + NUKLEAR DEKAY
AIJ were a blast as always. Today there was added fun for me since they had recently included my high school chums Ducky and Doo Jin in their ranks as bassist and drummer, respectively. The set seemed to drag on for a bit, apparently after a certain point they just started pulling songs out of their ass that were half-rehearsed, but I still enjoyed it.

The sad part of the day, though, besides Dylan lamenting his back windshield, was Nuklear Dekay’s set. This show was set to be their farewell show, and two or three of their members didn’t even show up. From what I heard, one guy just wasn’t coming, and the other guy said he wasn’t gonna come if the first dude wasn’t gonna come, and I think that resulted in the third dude’s absence.

Luckily, though, a drummer was available on short notice; a capable young man with a fond appreciation for punk music and the chops necessary to get the job done. Yes, I’m talking about RALPH HARRIS, who just came along to see us play and ended up playing his first show in his drumming career. So, for Nuklear Dekay’s last show, we had Yames doing his vocalizing, Bob on guitar, and Ralph making shit up as he went along, just feeling the music and knowing the changes when he heard ‘em coming. It was actually a really good set, and an optimistic closer to a kinda up-and-down barbecue show.

Battle for the Vault, Pts. I and II

PART I
Date: Saturday, August 16, 2008
Venue: The Music Vault, Harker Heights, TX
Bands I remember: United, Hexlust, Kill the Queen

Our first ever battle of the bands-type show, our first performance at the then-recently-opened Music Vault, and our first show for which we’ve ever had to sell tickets. The number of tickets sold determined the playing order of the evening (bands which sold the least tickets played first, those which sold the most played last). I think the bands competing this evening were United, us, and Kill the Queen, although I know there was a fourth in there somewhere.

United was a standard rock band that only stuck out in my mind because 1) Channing Heath played bass, the dude who used to gum up the comments section of our MySpace with invitations to his “open mike jam nights,” and 2) there was not only a drum solo but a guitar solo as well. The drummer was much better than I was, which was awesome to listen to, and the guitarist was also talented, though it was obvious this dude LOVED Kirk Hammett. Well, Kirk or some other guitarist who said “You know what this guitar solo needs? WAH PEDAL!”

I wish I could tell you more about our set, other than we played well and we had the same set list we’d been doing for a while, but my memory is fuzzy and video footage is nonexistant. Kill The Queen, having sold all their tickets, went on last. They played a cover of Limp Bizkit’s cover of George Michael’s “Faith,” and had some other song where the singer slipped on a mask (“I’M TRANSFORMING!!!”) at the beginning. I think the song was called “Cereal Killer” or something. I dunno.

Anyway, of all the bands that played this evening, we and United were chosen to move on to the final round in two weeks. Which meant more tickets to sell.

PART II
Date: August 30, 2008
Venue: The Music Vault, Harker Heights, TX
Bands: Grymfutures, Hexlust, Shfux, United, Remo Gotzi, Kill the Queen

So it came down to the final round. Four bands (two from each preliminary round) and a wild card from each prelim equaled six bands total. Grymfutures, the wild-card from the first prelim show, went first, a rap-metal project featuring no instrumentation (music was played over the club PA from a recording) and two vocalists, a light-skinned screamer and a black rapper. We all think the rapper was lip-synching. Kill the Queen, formerly Black Hymns, went on next, though I don’t remember their set. Like, at all. United played… the same set as last time, including the drum solo and the guitar solo.

I think Hexlust were on next, and our set was kickin. Tony had excellent crowd control this evening, and not only did we have basically the same audience as last time, but we had the added attendance of the punk kids, here to see the Shfux and appreciating us! Lord, it was fine. Again, typical Intro-Troops-Toxic-Hellhammer-Tombs-Sodomy setlist, but we made those tired old songs really sing this evening. I’m never one for self horn-tooting, but this was one of the best sets we’d played in a good while. The only awkward part of the whole evening needs a whole paragraph of explanation.

See, Remo Gotzi were playing this evening, and they were in tight with a local biker club called the Boozefighters. So in addition to band-supporters and punk kids, there were tough-lookin dudes with leather vests in the building. My mom thought it would be a great idea for Tony to give them a shout-out during our set, which made me uncomfortable. Not that I have any problem with bikers or anything, but they’re not our friends and I didn’t wanna look like a tool. For some reason I’m itchy about crap like that. So Tony took my mom’s offer and gave them a shout-out, which got a couple claps and a nod from a few Boozefighters. The shout-out fell dead and I felt like a fool by association. As I said though, that was the only awkward part of an otherwise amazing set.

Shfux went on after us. I don’t remember their set, not because of fading memory but because I was in the back, breaking down my kit and talking to friends. I do remember that this is the gig where the power inexplicably went out during their set, leading to a five-minute (decades in stage time) delay while they figured the problem out. Other than that I heard they played a great set and had mucho crowd appreciation, not just because of the contest setting but just because they are the top local punk band.

Interesting story, I was hanging out in the back room after my kit was all taken apart when the drummer from Remo approached me, saying he was in need of a crash cymbal for the evening’s performance. At the time, I used two crashes, both big, loud cymbals, which is great for Hexlust but I was nervous about how it would sound in the Remo context. (Note to self, band name: The Remo Context!) I gives him the 18” crash anyway, and not only did it sound fine in their performance but suddenly I had Boozefighters talking to me, saying that the favor I did for Remo was a favor I did for them. I felt this redeemed us pretty well for the shout-out fiasco from earlier.

So Remo Gotzi go on last, they’ve sold the most tickets so they have the most audience (not just Boozefighters) They finished their set with BALLOONS (genius!) and inviting audience members onstage for their final song, some wackaloon tune that bounced back and forth between polka honky-tonkery and distorted metal-ish shrieking. Not that I hated it, it was actually quite entertaining, but still, wacky. All of this added up to them winning the battle, prizes including studio time, coverage in some local musician magazine, and free tattoos from a local artist. Remo Gotzi put these prizes to excellent use by… breaking up months later.

So there was our first, and so far only, battle-of-the-bands type show experience. Overall I was satisfied, there were cries of us being “swindled” but I knew in my heart of hearts that we wouldn’t win. Remo had the audience, the accessible tunes, and best of all, the BALLOONS!

Duck Hunt? Duh, Cunt!

Date: Thursday, July 10, 2008
Venue: Rock Bottom Tattoo Bar, San Antonio, TX
Bands: Abbatoir, Hexlust, Ayasoltec, Plague, Hod, Deceased

PRE-SHOW
Our first San Antonio show! I remember this day quite vividly. I was at JT’s house at like 9:30, we loaded into Tony’s family van, which we had dubbed the HexBus, and we were on the road by about 11. Phil was with us that day, taking pictures (which I have yet to see by the way) and was crammed into the back-most seat with some of the amps. Keith and I were in the middle seats playing Donkey Kong (the HexBus had a SuperNES hookup!) and JT and Tony up front. JT’s mom followed in his car, carrying some of our other amps and guitars. Also headed to our destination, though not traveling with us, were my dad and brother.

First thing we did was find JT’s sister’s apartment and unload our shit there. Then we piled into his car (Tony driving) and set out to find the club at which we were playing. This was before Tony got his Garmin, so we were going by directions printed off the Internet. Confused fun ensued. See, those directions were screwed up in some way, I think they were backwards; we would read “get on highway at this intersection” and not be able to find it. Tensions rose and tempers flared, but finally we found the place and everything was hunky-dory again. We headed back to the apartment to unwind before the show. (Note: this is when Keith, having acquired a pack of donuts from a gas station, uttered his immortal line “I got donuts, donuts I got!”)

First impressions of the Rock Bottom Tattoo Bar were reflected in its surroundings. Located in a part of San Antonio literally right by the Riverwalk, it was located across the street from some buildings which were either falling apart or abandoned in the middle of construction. Either way they were empty, windows were broken, and there was graffiti on the walls. This was starting to feel like when we played at Headhunters less than a month before, when we were on the lookout for crazy people to come and rob us.

ABBATOIR
The show itself was ok. Abbatoir played first, and were different considering they didn’t have a bass player. Not by principle, theirs was somehow elsewhere at the time of the event. Some cool leads, rather technical. The best part about the band honestly was the drummer, a big dude who had some serious skills on the kit (I heard him warming up to the last part of Opeth’s “Deliverance” before the show) along with some rotary toms.

HEXLUST
We played second this evening. My dad took footage of this momentous occasion, our first San Antonio show, and it shows us being very nervous. Not a whole lotta stage presence at all. We were just standing there, good lord. This was not helped by the fact that I looked like a total dork with my glasses, thanks to an eye infection I’d been battling which made contacts a no-no. The set list this evening was our classic Intro-Troops-Toxic-Hellhammer-Tombs-Sodomy lineup.

We came off the stage relieved just to have made it through ok. We were in a club with no actual friends and were very grateful by the one line of, like, seven people (including my dad and brother) who watched us, and were very intimidated by this group of black-clad mountain men who were there to play the show. These men turned out to be the band Hod, and showered us with compliments. We felt very cool thanks to that and Deceased, according to Tony, commenting that we were “very fast."

PLAGUE
I had never heard of Plague before this, have not heard of them afterword, and they weren’t particularly awesome, very Hatebreed/Lamb-of-God-ish. The lead singer, another LMS-afflicted “well-read” metalcore frontman, tried multiple times to incite the crowd into cheers with bullshit like “How ya fuckin' doin' San Antonio? I can’t fuckin' hear ya!” and really dumb pothead jokes.

AYASOLTEC, HOD, AND DECEASED
I thought Ayasoltec were particularly awesome, short on the vocals and long on the guitar solos. Too bad I haven’t seen this band since. Hod then took the stage and were AWESOME, they had SWEET equipment and STAGE PRESENCE and a CROWD, everything we wanted that evening. We had already taken a liking to these dudes thanks to their friendliness, now we found ourselves looking at our musical big brothers. By the time Deceased took the stage, Tony and I had tired of the club and the music and took a walk around the neighborhood, the gear safely stowed in the Hexbus. We found that, though the club itself was surrounded by dilapidation and decay, just a block away was a happenin’ VFW center. Which was, of course, on the Riverwalk.

We came back into the club just in time to catch Deceased going into a happenin’ version of Venom’s “Black Metal.” At this point in time, I hadn’t listened to Venom in like a year, but when I heard those lyrics and recognized that riff, I ran right into the crowd and started singing along like I had just heard the song yesterday. A very excellent way to close out a fantastic first show in San Antonio.

Presidential Flash Cards?

Date: Thursday, July 3, 2008

Venue: The Parlor, Austin TX

Bands: Girlfrend, Fake Blood, Hexlust, Boogdish

Setlist:

-Intro

-Troops of Doom

-Toxic High

-Hellhammer

-Tombs of the Blind Dead

-Sodomy and Lust

PRE-SHOW

I think Hexlust may one day endorse CEFCO stations. They have the cheapest gas with the most pumps, the only store around here that carries the big cans of Monster, cheap water, good taquitos, and best of all the one here in Killeen has a Quizno's next to it! It only made sense that we stopped there to fuel up and grab some munchies before we took off for Austin. I was riding with Keith, with the amps and guitars stuffed into his Jeep, following JT's Expedition, containing Tony and my drums… and James! Holy crap, this was starting to feel like a case of déjà vu!

Preparing for and getting to this show went pretty much the same way as the one four days prior, only this time James was riding with Tony and JT and we weren't headed to Headhunters, a rock/metal club. We were off to The Parlor, a pizza place! The "That Thing You Do!" similarities continue.

After getting lost, getting back on track, and getting lost again, we reached our destination and saw that it was really fucking small. Tony was the only one not surprised, as he had been here before; however, none of his prior warnings prepared me for just how "cozy" this place was. I think the pet store at which Keith and I work is about the same size, if not a bit bigger. It's definitely cooler; I had no idea how sweat-inducing being in a confined space with blasting pizza ovens could be. It was like Club Spontaneous, only better-smelling.

We met up with my parents and Mr. Jeff Lewis, a family friend from before I was born, and I was asked if I was planning on using the whole drum kit I brought. See, the "stage" was a table-less area near the front door with plenty of elbow-room. If you're playing in the White Stripes. For Hexlust, a band formed on the philosophy of "'Bigger' isn't big enough!" this was looking to be one cramped performance. Thankfully, as stated earlier, we just played at Headhunters four days earlier. I managed to fit my considerable kit plus my bandmates and their amps onto that rinky-dink stage with no problem, so I was not sweating this at all.

One more thing to note before we get into the first band is that this was definitely not our normal audience. Not that we have any sort of following per se, but at all of our previous shows we were guaranteed to see at least one of two sets of characteristics: buzz cut, tribal tattoos, and Pantera shirt; or colored mohawk, checkered pants, and obscure crust patches. At least one Misfits shirt is found in either set. Not here, though. None of that. I don't even know what to call it, or even pick out some stereotypical standardized dress code, although there were quite a few chicks with short hair and thick-framed glasses. These seemed to be the kids who were too soft for Summer Slaughter but too cool for Warped Tour. And boy howdy was I sure they were going to hate us.

GIRLFREND

The drum kit consisted of a snare, a floor tom about as big in diameter as the snare, hi-hats, and a crash/ride cymbal. The only other instrument was a bass guitar. There was still one more position to be filled, that of lead singer. Three girls, with enough gear to tour using my car, playing God-knows-what. I'm not talking smack about them, I just didn't get it. I had no idea what they were singing about, and individual songs sure as shit don't stick out in my head six days later. Oh well, they were all cute (in an "Aw, you're so kyoot!" way, not a "Dude, she's cute!" way) and were entertaining to watch, so I definitely wasn't bored.

For the last song of the set, the bass player and drummer traded positions, although it didn't make a bit of difference in terms of playing quality on either instrument. I guess it's like Scott Ian and Charlie Benante trading places when S.O.D. perform "United Forces" live; it's not necessarily for the sake of musicality as it is for the sake of those particular performers just wanting to play those particular parts in that particular song.

FAKE BLOOD

Ya know, I actually thought it couldn't possibly get more minimalist than Girlfrend. Not only did this band have fewer members (two, one of whom was a guy), and a smaller not-drums instrument (keyboard) but they took that same drum kit and reduced it further by eighty-sixing the hi-hats. They did have an additional piece of equipment, though; a tape machine playing background noise consisting of birds, waterfalls, and other such nature-nut shit. It was on the whole time, providing soft background noise between songs. My mom thought this was a great idea, as it kept the audiences' attention between songs, instead of allowing them to drift off and be surprised by the onset of another song.

Besides a particularly entertaining little number that eschewed the evils of upper-middle-class suburban living, there aren't a lot of songs that stick out in my head. Again, there was a lineup switch for the last song, the drummer/singer and keyboardist trading places for an instrumental cover of some song I don't know (they mentioned neither the title nor the name of the band during their introduction). It was hella fun to watch though, especially during the middle of the song when the dude playing the keyboard just went on this wild tangent, randomly palming keys and creating total confusion while the drummer kept a chaotic but steady beat.

Loading our stuff in after Fake Blood's set, I felt like a member of Kiss, if ever Kiss went on tour with Marcy Playground and the Violent Femmes. The few amps and barebones drum kit were replaced by JT's Marshall cab with the ridiculously sized head, Tony's big Fender elevated by a stand, Keith's bass rig, and my seven-piece space-consumer. It actually didn't take us that long to set up, and all we needed to sound check were the vocal mics. Tony looked back at me and said "Well, take us there Sketch." It's actually "Skitch," but whatevs. I resisted the temptation to start off with the lead-in to "That Thing You Do" and counted off our intro.

HEXLUST

Well, once again, Dart can't get through the intro without dropping one of his sticks. I've come up with a few excuses for this. For one thing, it's the first song of the set, and even if I've warmed up my muscles before the show, I'm still not used to playing yet. Additionally, for being the first song in the set, it's awful strenuous on my right arm; it's not as fast as our other songs, but there are an awful lot of continuous accent-heavy whatever-notes on the ride and hi-hat cymbals. And finally, as it always is for me and pretty much any drummer, I am never able to fully recreate the comfortable practice-room positioning of my kit for the stage. My ride cymbal, I realized far too late, was positioned right beside me instead of diagonally. Very uncomfortable.

I fixed the ride position in the very short break between the intro and "Troops." The song itself went off alright, my blast beats still felt a little awkward and Tony came into his solo kinda late, but overall off to a good start. Tony and JT were out of sync for the beginning of "Toxic," a problem I contribute to my awkward count-off. There was a also a slight hitch during Tony's solo; the solo itself wasn't going according to how I was used to hearing it going, which is fine, that happens. Then suddenly Tony starts doing it how it normally goes, only a time thingy (Bar? Measure? Ted Danson?) or so too late, and now there's a slight dilemma for me: either I keep the timing and repetitions rigid and cut his ass off before his solo was done, or roll with the punches and let the part drag out for an extra amount of time. I chose the latter, of course, and it was sweet.

"Hellhammer" went off without a hitch for the most part, although I had a weird moment towards the end of JT's solo; I actually felt his solo ending at a point that coincided with the end of a certain string of time thingies (curse my lacking musical vocabulary). At the last minute my drummer mind said "Hey if we end this right here it would actually sound right!" and as a result I rushed the lead-in into the "climax" riff. Luckily the rest of the band followed me and the error wasn't that noticeable.

Nothing interesting happened during "Tombs," so I'm gonna take this moment to comment on the audience. Whereas before I was sure they would hate us or at least stare at us like we're weirdoes, they turned out to be very appreciative. The applause between songs was more than just polite "ho-hum, get off the stage" clapping, and whenever I looked up while playing I would see some of them (especially the drummer/singer from Fake Blood, who was practically shaking) getting into it, bobbing their heads with the music and such. Of course we had James and Michael, actually headbanging and singing along, supporting us as always.

Anywho, "Sodomy" was the crowd-pleasing band-exhausting show-stopper it always is. I tell you, there is no fun in this world like listening to a very tired Tony trying to keep up with my mile-a-minute drumming while belting out that last tongue-twisting verse and playing the guitar riff at the same time. And no, I'm not being cruel, he thinks it's fun too, hehe. Watching the video footage, a really funny moment occurs when we come out of the mid-tempo breakdown: James is not only headbanging but also punching the air! Gotta love that dude.

Remember how I was saying earlier how hot it was in that place? We were really feeling it then. Tony and JT immediately headed off in search of water, and I was covered in sweat. No water break for me, though. If we were the last band and I had oodles of time to break my kit down, it would have been a different story. Boogdish still had to use the stage, however, and before I could rest my laurels I had to make sure all seven drums, all six stands, my packed cymbal bag, my stick bag, my throne, and my pedals were all securely tucked away. An interesting thing happened during the gear load-in: James' first beer! He hated it. I'm so proud!

BOOGDISH

While most of Hexlust were snacking on the free large pizza that is given to performing bands, Boogdish set up and took off. Unlike the last time I saw this band live, the line-up was a three-piece: Michael on guitar and vocals, Kelsi on bass, and her bro Kyle on drums. What makes things even more interesting is the fact that he was using my drums. We didn't share a kit; about a month and a half ago I lent him some parts from my Pulse kit to take on tour, and man did he make those drums sound GOOD. In fact the whole band was awesome, and having a full band playing the music instead of just himself and a drum machine really lent a louder, fuller feeling to the music.

Of course, whether it's just Michael by himself or a three-piece chaos orchestra, one word always springs to mind when seeing Boogdish live: fun. I was having such a great time I forgot about the fact that I was tired, stood up, and had a smile frozen on my face the entire time. Even my dad was getting into it, standing right by where Michael was, singing along, head-nodding, and giving major applause between songs. The songs themselves weren't the waffle-bashing ditties from the Armstrong show, nosireebob. These were a whole new crop of golden good-time nuggets, among which were a warning against relationship-driven eating habits, an advocacy for pissing in public waters, and a rallying theme song celebrating the silent awesomeness that are straight-edge mime crews. Of course, half the fun comes from Michael introducing each song.

POST-SHOW

After hanging around for a little bit and chit-chatting with musicians and audience members, it was time for us to take off. Partly because it was almost time for the Parlor to close, but mostly because we still had an hour-long drive home to endure and we were all pooped. Compared to the last time we drove home from Austin, a hair-raising adventure involving heavy rain, disregarded red lights, and being behind one slow-ass mofo in Florence, this time the journey back was a serene, peaceful trip shattered only by my mother's texted request to pick her up a six-pack on the way home. The funny part is that not only could I not buy the beer (it was past midnight on a Thursday), but when I got home my mom didn't even say anything about it. Yep, really funny.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

A major thanks is owed to the audience in attendance at the Parlor. Not only did they not ignore us, were in fact very supportive, but they were generous enough to donate $30 in gas money to us! I guess we had good karma from letting Beyond Gods and Empires get all the moneys at the last Area 51 show. Thanks also to the good people working at the Parlor, for letting us play and giving us free pizza.

Thank yous to Michael and Boogdish, for setting this show up and inviting us to play; to Girlfrend and Fake Blood for making us feel awkward about our instrumental overindulgence for the first time in our career; to my parents, for showing up, showing support, and taping the whole fiasco; to Jeff Lew, for his glowing opinion (he's hard to impress when it comes to metal) and his advice; to James, tagging along, helping out, and headbanging as usual; and finally, to Tom Hanks, for writing, directing, and starring in That Thing You Do, one of the coolest "band" movies of all time and a longtime source of inspiration for Hexlust.

In closing, simply because I forgot to commandeer a mic and spit this out during the actual show: TABLE NINETEEN, YOUR PIZZA'S READY!

Sergeant D and the Hexcellent Three! (Plus JT!)

Date: Sunday, June 29, 2008

Venue: Headhunters, Austin, TX

Bands: In Asunder, Hexlust, Grace of Terror, Hybrid, Manifestation, a couple others

Setlist:

-Intro

-Troops

-Toxic
-HH

-Tombs

-Sodomy

PRE-SHOW

I think Hexlust may one day endorse CEFCO stations. They have the cheapest gas with the most pumps, the only store around here that carries the big cans of Monster, cheap water, good taquitos, and best of all the one here in Killeen has a Quizno's next to it! It only made sense that we stopped there to fuel up and grab some munchies before we took off for Austin. I was riding with Keith, with the amps and guitars stuffed into his Jeep, following JT's Expedition, containing Tony and my drums.

An hour or so later, we arrived and wound our way comically through the streets (even during the day the lane-separating lines are hard to see) until we came to Red River St. We parked, Tony and Keith went to check out the club, JT went walking off somewhere, and I stayed behind to watch the vehicles and make sure no one tried to piss on JT's tires. Some black guy came by and asked me if I had a pussy; when his girlfriend accosted him for it, he said he knew them gays when he saw them. Wow, I'm really thin and have long hair, I'm totally gay. I must be in middle school again. What's fascinating is that being that he's black AND fat, one would figure that he would be more sympathetic towards stupid stereotypes.

Just goes to show that he really is a douche.

Well, Tony came back and reported that we're the first band there, and, best of all, it's managed by the one and only Billy Milano! For those of you who don't know who that is, listen to S.O.D.'s "Speak English or Die" album. Already I had a good feeling about this show. We found some free parking across the street from the club and met the guys form In Asunder. After that bit of social niceties, we got to work on a system of two dudes carrying stuff in while two more stay with the vehicles.

Coming into the club and preparing to show my ID, I realized that this club is small. Smaller than Area 51, a feat I didn't know was possible, but at least the ceiling was higher. The stage itself was smaller than the Denim and Diamonds one, once again something I had before considered physically impossible. I planned out how I'd have my drums on stage while watching In Asunder prepare to perform.

IN ASUNDER

Take the fact that these guys sounded like I Misery, and if I wanted to see I Misery I'd stick around Killeen and go see I Misery, combine that with the fact that I'm just not that much into the "brutal" style of death metal, and you have Dart not particularly moved. Nice guys, and certainly good musicians, but their flavor is not my cup of tea. The others were impressed, hell they stood up and watched them the whole time, but I watched them from my seat and warmed up.

A horrible realization: watching the drummer from In Asunder brought me to the conclusion that maybe I wouldn't have room on stage for my rotary toms. A pained expression on my face, I told Keith that I wanted to put the best part of my kit back in his Jeep. Sad panda.

So In Asunder got off and we threw my crap onstage, which took no time at all thanks to it being a reduced kit and having been set up offstage ahead of time. My kit for this show was, for the first time since… the first Area 51 show, my Ludwig kit, now with my new 14" tom.

We soundchecked, and I could not have been happier. Know why? My drums were actually miked! There was one in my kick drum and this little one perched right above my kit. No timing issues this evening! And Billy said that Tony's falsetto screams were "fuckin' metal." Feeling good again! It wasn't even directed at me, but just to be associated with that compliment felt great.

HEXLUST

Man, you know what I love? Dropping my sticks before we're even through with the intro song. If I may have more time to just talk about me, I have this weird thing where my arms start cramping up whenever we play live. Doesn't matter how much or how little I warm up. Whenever we practice, I'm fine, whether I've warmed up or not. When we're in a situation where peoples' attention spans are at stake, BAM! Cramp. I think it's the fact that I'm watching Dr. Katz while I've been writing this that's caused me to go off on these self-absorbed tangents. Or maybe I've always been doing that and it's watching Dr. Katz that made me realize that I'm doing it!

What the hell am I talking about?

The show! Yes, dropping sticks, four total, all before "Troops" was over! I could feel my bandmates looking back at me and thinking "Oh, that's our Dart!" That's ok though. JT broke a string just in time to not do his solo for "Toxic." He grabbed Tony's Peavey and I thought about how funny it would be if he broke the strings on that one, too.

For the first time in our history of performing the song "Hellhammer," hardly anybody in the audience said anything when Tony asked if anybody liked Celtic Frost. Even fewer answered back when he asked if anyone liked Hellhammer. Oh well, they seemed to like the song itself. "Tombs" was a great time, and with this show we continued the concept of doing a stinger at the end instead of the fade-out deal we'd been doing before. We first debuted the stinger at the Armstrong show, just cause "Tombs" was the last song of the evening. God, I'm really rambling with this blog. Anywho, the song ends and, lo and behold, JT broke the string on the Peavey!

Oh, that's our JT!

So for "Sodomy," Hexlust were a three-piece with JT doing backing vocals (In case you were wondering just what the fuck the second part of the title meant, there it is.) Worked well enough, and we finally got some moshing in the audience (from all two of the people standing up), not to mention some singing along with the choruses! Big long stinger finish, and that's a wrap!

POST-SHOW

Billy Milano said we were the most metal band he'd heard that night! At least that's what I think he said, I couldn't hear him so I'm getting this paraphrasing secondhand from Tony. Either way, we got complimented by him! I'm still dorkin' out about it. It took about another twenty minutes or so to get everything packed up and stored away, and we got another opportunity to talk to Mr. Milano in the form of how to get to Encore Records from there. Not like it mattered, we eventually decided to not go to Encore anyway, but it gave me a chance to shake the dude's hand.

After a couple harrowing near-death experiences involving dark, rainy streets and the increased inability to see the lane-separating lines, not to mention going all the way through Florence behind somebody who was probably going slower than the posted speed limit, we made it back to my place in one piece. The guys left around one, and I went to bed, realizing one wacky fact: I didn't smell like smoke! We weren't in the club that long, there weren't that many people, and those who were there weren't smoking. This was the first time I've ever come back from a show reeking only of sweat!

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I wanna thank all twelve of the people who saw us play for showing up and for not making my clothes, hair, and equipment smell like an ashtray. In Asunder were cool dudes with whom we'll hopefully be playing future shows. Billy Milano for being awesome and the Headhunters club in general; it was compact but comfortable, the bathroom was clean, and, personally, this was my first "miked" show in about eight months. It felt good to be heard again! Last but not least, I wanna thank Possessed, who were playing right next door that night and were probably one of the causes of our limited audience, alongside our considerable obscurity.

P.R.O.S.C.: In which our heroes play their first outdoor show and Dart steps in cowshit

We've all seen the DVD's or been to a few ourselves: outdoor shows. Makeshift stages, shitty sound, no place to sit, limited toilets, bugs, sunburns… yeah, for the most part they suck. This, however, was a very special outdoor show, at least for us. One, it was our first, and two, it was pretty much a gathering of almost every band we've ever played with, except Nautilus, SoulSlave, Kill the Queen, and Beyond Gods and Empires.

Date: Friday, May 23, 2008

Venue: Armstrong Events Center, Bumfuck, TX

Bands: The Shfux, Dilapidated Empyrean, Combat Shock, Dirty Rat Bastards, A.I.J., Hexlust, Boogdish, Zero and Falling, Nuklear Dekay, Sober Daze, Painfilled Silent

Setlist:

-Intro

-Troops

-Toxic
-Hellhammer

-Tombs

PRE-SHOW

I am so glad, oh so fucking glad that Tony and I went on an expedition to find this place a day beforehand. Nobody but those "in the know" had any clue where the "Armstrong Event Center" was; the fact that this wasn't just another city club but some community get-together out in the middle of Free-Bird-ville made its location even more mysterious. It was said to be out near Belton but even those who were life-long Belton-ites (Beltonians?) had never heard of it. Could it be that we were having the piss taken out of us? Was our chain being pulled? Were we being… jived?

Nope. It was actually pretty easy to find once you knew what road to look for, and after you've been there the first time you can easily find your way back again. The directions are virtually idiot-proof. I got lost. It wouldn't have been so humiliating if Keith hadn't been following me with Lacey, Evan and Phil. So now I had James in my car and Tarzan the Windex-Wielding Parakeet Crippler behind me making fun of my navigational incompetence.

After arriving at the Armstrong Center and taking in my surroundings, I began to get a kind of weird feeling. Let's see, old two-story brick building, unkempt grass, two makeshift wooden stages, lots of teens and young adults running around in mohawks and patchwork clothing, sunshine, mosquitoes, pizza, people from different bands and fan clubs coming together to share in the D.I.Y. spirit, no major authority figures... this was like some kind of Punk Rock Outdoor Summer Camp! Indeed.

Over the next hour or so the day's activities were planned in the form of what bands went on which stages at what time, and gear was unloaded and set up in our respective "rooms." Lots of meet-and-greet and heyhowyadoin's going on. I was actually surprised, more people started showing up than I thought would even know about this place. Parents, girlfriends, kids, people from other bands who weren't even playing, setting up lawn chairs and applying repellent as the sun began touching the horizon and the first band took to the stage.

THE SHFUX

These guys weren't even halfway through their first song when a decently-sized pit started. And it just got bigger. I thought I saw some bigg'ns at the Spontaneous show, or even at Kritickill shows past. This one at times numbered around thirty people or more and threatened to overtake those of us standing on the sidelines. Business as usual from the band itself, solid punk with a lot of attitude and some healthy doses of humor, never disappointing. My only bitch was that they didn't play my favorite song of theirs, that black-metal-inspired song of which I don't remember the title.

DILAPIDATED EMPYREAN

I actually wasn't there for the first half of these guys' set. After the Shfux shut off their amps, I went off in search of Tony and JT. Somewhere between point A and point B I stepped in cowshit. Lovely. Off to my car I went, changed into my drumming shoes, and took my boots over to the bathroom where I washed them off in the sink.

Getting back to my place in the audience, I was just in time to catch the last two songs of Dilapidated Empyrean's set. One thing I can say for sure is that these guys must listen to a lot of blues and/or Southern rock. Very groovy, not too fast and not too slow. Their last song sounded a lot like Tool but definitely wasn't a cover, causing grumbles of "rip-off" among some of the audience members. Personally, I didn't care. It was a nice change of pace and not that hard on the ears, either.

COMBAT SHOCK

Whereas DE inspired no pits (it would have been unfortunate anyway considering there was no room on the tiny stage for the guitarist/singer and bassist) Combat Shock brought the moshing back and screaming. I thought the pits were big in the Shfux's set, and I may be exaggerating out of sheer ignorance, but I swear these pits got huge. Of course my sissy ass wasn't participating, but I know Keith and JT were getting into the spirit. The music itself was alright, but actually started to feel like it was running a bit long. Hard to say, but they were certainly enjoyable to watch, mostly cuz the guitarist had cool hair.

DIRTY RAT BASTARDS

By this time I had taken to preparing my drums to be taken up on stage, the stage on which the Dirty Rat Bastards were now performing. As a result, I didn't catch a whole lot of their set, but arrived just in time to witness something that would significantly affect our own playtime.

One thing I forgot to mention was that earlier in the day some of us were jokingly taking bets on who would be the first to break through one of the ramshackle stages. Considering JT and Keith are big fans of their "caveman stomping," we figured it would be us. Oddly enough, it was the band that built the stages in the first place. At some point through the Dirty Rat Bastards' set, something snapped. Sensing it, the singer started stomping, a lot. Lo and behold, the front of the stage caved in. It would have been really funny had we not been next in line to use that particular stage.

After closer examination, it was ascertained that the stage floor itself had not broken, just one of the support beams. Since the floor was made up of multiple pieces of flat wood, it was just one of the pieces taking on a suddenly sharp angle that caused the "cave-in". What ended up happening was the stage floor was lifted, the support network taken out from underneath, and the floor set on the ground.

A.I.J.

Once again, being that this band went on before us, I missed the majority of their set (such was the case at the Spontaneous show a month prior.) It kinda sucks that in the three times I've seen them I've only been able to enjoy them once.

My attention was taken up trying to get my drum kit set up on stage without the whole contraption falling over. The lack of support beams under the floor left the floor pieces very wobbly, which caused me to reduce my kit even further. I took with me only a bass drum, my three toms, one floor tom, hi-hat, two crashes, and a ride. Warming up, I figured out that there would have to be minimal movement on stage and not too much hard-hitting from me.

I swear, sometimes writing these blogs I feel so self-centered, but hey, I writes what I sees.

HEXLUST

We played a very short set, but there was a lot going on, at least for me. Working my kit was like playing Whack-a-Mole while trying to keep the moles themselves from each taking off in a different direction at any given time. The wood panels weren't that big, so different parts of my kit would be on different pieces. These pieces were affected by the movement of my bandmates, which in the end resulted in the occasional cymbal or tom stand falling over and my bass drum trying to slide away from me. Not even halfway through "Troops" I had to kick JT off stage to minimize movement.

Somewhere in the middle of the set, I got another weird feeling, one that transcended the whole summer-camp vibe I felt upon arrival. Here we were, pretty much on the ground, playing our music. The only lighting provided was the stage lights and the lights in the house behind us; the rest was all darkness. And there were the people moshing in front of the stage, figures, mostly silhouetted except for the rare instance when one of them came closer to the stage lights, moving and jerking and thrashing to our beats.

Maybe my quarter-Indian blood was acting up, or maybe I've seen Thunderheart too many times, but right then the whole affair took on a wacky tribal feel. We were making these crazy rhythms and beats in front of the campfire, and inspiring our tribesmen to dance in simultaneous expression. When we went fast, they went fast. When we went slow, they headbanged in time with the rhythm. Then we'd go fast again and of course they would go fast which would inspire me to push the tempo even faster… it was this great primal back-and-forth between ourselves and the audience. That was pretty much it, I didn't see any spirits of my ancestors (I would have run screaming into the streets) or have any life-changing epiphanies ("Get a REAL job!") but it was still a really awesome feeling… and then my hi-hat started falling over and I was jerked back to reality. I don't know if anyone else felt it, I honestly haven't talked to the others about it, but it was cool while it lasted.

Overall it was actually a very successful set. I could hear every guitar and, for the first time ever, Tony's vocals, and I'm pretty sure they could all actually hear my unmiked drums. "Hellhammer" went off without us screwing up after JT's solo, although there was a slight problem with Keith's chord dying and his sound vanishing. He had a fresh one in time for "Tombs", and we finished the set off with a bang.

BOOGDISH

Besides Tony's recorded footage of past shows he's played with them, I had never actually seen Boogdish live and was ready for the opportunity. James and I hustled my drums back into the room and were back out by about the second song. This performance was interesting in that it was the only one-man band the whole evening. The whole stage consisted of Michael, bass in hand and mic in front of face, with his drum machine, keyboard, and maybe one or two other contraptions I lost track of. Michael had the full attention of those who watched, amusing us with his ditties about waffles and 24-hour pet shops and amazing us with just how long this guy seemed to go without taking a breath. My first time seeing Boogdish live was definitely one for the books.

ZERO AND FALLING

After Michael was finished, James and I went to work getting my drums loaded back into my car. After the first trip, James volunteered to bring the stuff to me while I waited by my car so I wouldn't have to keep unlocking the doors. During one of those intervals I noticed something weird had happened; the music had stopped. Zero and Falling had until then been the soundtrack to our packing, and suddenly they were no more. I figured it was some weird technical PA problem and thought nothing of it. James came back and told me that the police had shown up and shut down the show. Looking around I finally saw the police cruiser and quite a few grumbling people heading for their cars.

So basically the show was over. We in Hexlust stuck around for a while to say goodbye, collect our money from the Spontaneous show, and decide on our next plan of action. What it came down to was Tony going home and the rest of us going to What-a-Burger in Killeen.

POST-SHOW

Well, What-a-Burger is where we ended up. About another hour was spent there, discussing the show and poop, being loud and rambunctious, to the point where they sent an employee after us to make sure we were gone. Prick. Nothin much after that, just gettin' home and gettin' to bed, another Hexcellent feather in our cap.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I had a helluva time at this show, with the whole friendly summer-camp vibe and seeing all these great bands, some we've played with before, some we'd never even heard of before. I wish my parents could have come to tape the show, or somebody had handed Phil a video camera, so that Hexlust's first outdoor show could be preserved in history, but my parents had to get up early the next morning, and Phil, well, I dunno. Dammit Phil!

Anywho, I felt bad for Zero and Falling getting interrupted, plus Sober Daze, Painfilled Silent, and Nuklear Dekay for not even getting an opportunity to play. I wasn't mad at the cops, however, who according to Tony were very calm and just doing their job. Blame goes to whatever hick it was that called them in the first place. Of course, when you think about it, what more fitting end is there to a Punk Rock Outdoor Summer Camp than to have the cops come in and shut it down before it's even completed?

For this, Hexlust's sixth round of public buffoonery, and our first-ever outdoor show, thanks goes to the Dirty Rat Bastards, whose idea this whole shenanigan was. Thanks also to Walter, for as usual helping hold everything together and coming through with our moneys (Yes we're money-hungry; very un-cool but hey, gas is on the rise and with it is the price of porn). To James as well, for not only coming (of his own volition) to our show but also helping me lug my shit, all this after a long day of sweating his tits off in some warehouse on post. Thanks to Phil, Lacey, and Evan for tagging along and putting up with hearing the same tunes over and over again. Thanks to Tony's co-workers, whom I saw once and then never again. Muchos gracias to Cole's girlfriend, for snapping the awesome photos in which everyone else looks jubilant but I look like I'm attending my father's funeral. Finally, to all the many people who came out and witnessed this roster of performances, and to all the many performers themselves. This was an awesome experience and I hope we get to do it again.

Tony got dirt in his amp.