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!