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.