Date: Friday, January 2, 2009
Venue: Rock Bottom
Playing With: Hod, Militia, Sad Wings
LONGEST PRE-SHOW EVER
So I’m gonna take a moment to talk about me. I’m the author, I feel thus entitled. On New Year’s Eve I went to Starlite (local dance club) with a couple friends, didn’t get home til about 4:30. I was at work four hours later and worked until 6:30 p.m. I then went home and had band practice, after which we drove to the airport and picked our friend Eric up, then to What-a-Burger for munchies. I was so pooped I wound up laughing til I was red in the face over something stupid. That night I got a good round of sleep, but by January 2nd I was still feeling it. Bear in mind I don’t drink on New Year’s Eve, it was just pure exhaustion working at me. In spite of all this, I was greatly looking forward to this trip, our third show in San Antonio. We had a guest along this time: Tony’s good buddy Glen.
After dropping stuff off at the JT’s sister’s apartment, we decided to pile into JT’s car and find Hogwild Records. Why a music shop? Because one, we’re all really into music and music shops be where we like to be. Two, both of the previous times we had been to San Antonio we would hear people saying “Dude, you gotta go to Hogwild, so much metal. Like, you like Encore over in Austin? This place is better, dude. Dude.” Three, Beer (Hod vocalist) works there.
So we spend like forty minutes in Hogwild. I didn’t find anything I wanted but JT bought a remastered copy of Death’s “Spiritual Healing.” He felt really good about that purchase. He was the only one. Also, there were flyers of the show we were playing this evening, complete with band names, venue name, and lack of a date and/or time. I forget which but one of those tidbits was gone. In total Hogwild had a really great punk selection and a used vinyl section that was hard to beat, but in terms of metal I was more awestruck by Encore’s selection of CD’s. Hogwild does, however, have awesome metal hanging posters.
Where to next? Munchies! Which is always a chore to figure out. JT hates Chinese food and Fuddrucker’s. Keith doesn’t wanna eat here or there because he doesn’t feel like it and is probably fucking with us. Tony just had pizza last week. If I have Mexican I’ll shit myself later. Also Tony hates Mexican food. We eventually settled on the Hard Rock Café by the Riverwalk and had a delicious (-ly expensive) meal coupled with awesome music videos and music trivia discussions.
Also on this trip was BICKERING! In a nutshell: JT was driving, Tony navigating with his Garmin. Tony used ambiguous phrase “Keep right,” which JT (and everybody else in the world) interpreted to mean get in the most far-right lane as possible. JT did so and Tony pitched a fit. Apparently, in his eyes, “keep right” means keep going straight. (Note: I have since acquired my own Garmin. “Keep right” means get as far right as possible.) Keith sensed the tension and, being the bitch he is, decided to verbally poke at Tony. Tony retaliated in a manner which I found a little excessive, so I confronted him about it. He laughed at me and the only thing stopping me from knuckle-punching him in the ear was the fact that I would have had to do so left-handed. Also, Glen hates Keith. So we had a moment of quiet simmering hatred and JT says something along the lines of “Whoa guys, kinda tense in here, haha,” and then all my hatred was focused on him. I personally don’t mind tension but I can’t stand it when some doofus elects him or herself Goodwill Ambassador To The World and tries to “lighten the mood.”
Thankfully, by the time we got to Rock Bottom, all was right with the world. We had (somehow) made up and were laughing and joking again. While waiting for the club to open, we talked to our usual fans and friends in bands, and made acquaintance with the singer of Sad Wings, (Judas Priest cover band headlining this evening) who entertained us with stories of playing shows with Sepultura. Also, I tried to balance myself on a chunk of concrete.
HEXLUST
I think this was another one of them shows where there was supposed to be a band on before us and they just never showed up. I can’t find a flyer from that show anywhere so I can’t say for sure, but either way we ended up loading straight onto the stage to play first. While doing this, I found, in the back room where we normally load in, a boom stand with a crash cymbal on it. I was puzzled; it was a pretty shitty stand but a decent cymbal, a 16” A Custom Projection Crash (not cheap), and I could not understand why someone would just leave it there. I decided to wait til after we were done playing; if nobody had claimed it by then, it was mine.
Interesting note about this performance was that there was a gong behind me! It belonged to Sad Wings, who gave us full permission to use as we pleased. I put it in my head to do so and forgot. I consider that an opportunity poorly wasted.
Another (probably the most) interesting note about this performance is the mildly infamous video taken of us playing the instrumental song “Imminent Retardation.” The song itself wasn’t what was so interesting (though if memory serves me this was our first time playing it in public) as what came before it: Tony inciting the audience to yell “Fuck Austin!” When at first we found out this video was on YouTube, there was more than a little worry that this would somehow cause major backlash and keep us from peacefully playing in Austin again. Thankfully, response has been pretty positive. Even people actually from Austin seem to understand that we have nothing against the city itself, just its lacking metal scene, shitty parking, and we-are-the-new-Renaissance attitude of some of the snobs who strut its streets.
Other than that, a decent performance. Not our best, but a major ego boost compared to our last ’08 performance and a great way to kick off ’09. Also: Nobody ever claimed that crash cymbal, so I took it. When trying to decide how to implement it, I came up with the idea of getting together all the spare 16” crashes I have an using them as hi-hats. The Zildjian cymbal from this show is now my top main hi-hat.
HOD
Slamming as always! Not that we were actually there, we were still outside getting our shit loaded in and talking to people about the performance while they were onstage, but I could hear their awesomeness! Dennis’ seemingly effortless drum wizardry never fails to astound me, the guitars are SO HUGE and SO POWERFUL, and Beer never ceases to both intimidate and amuse. As long as we’re on the subject of Hod, it was either at this show or sometime soon after that JT entered into negotiations with guitarist Bjorn about buying his awesome red Jackson guitar from him. It’s now very weird to look at videos of Hod from before this time and see JT’s guitar being used by another band.
Before I go on to Militia, I would just like to put out a personal plea to all guys based on a phone call I received while I was outside at this time. If you happen to be in a fuck-buddy relationship with a crazy inebriated whore, DO NOT let her answer YOUR phone when a close female friend calls. Drama will ensue. If for some reason that does happen, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Reprimand your whore and tell her to stay out of your business. And finally, if for some reason you let it happen and do nothing, DO NOT try to justify yourself with suckass excuses like “Oh, she took my phone away when I wasn’t looking,” or “There was nothing I could do.” You will be proving what a spineless shitcock you are.
MILITIA
Texas thrash metal legends! Of whom I had never heard before tonight. As such, there was only so much enjoyment I could get out of their set since I didn’t know any of their songs, but it was pretty kickass. Especially the guitar solos; nothing brings me greater joy than Floyd Rose-using guitarists who actually USE their whammy bar. Especially during the individual guitar solo(s?). I had found my way outside again at the time but heard so much whammy-wankery I almost died of dork-happiness! I bought their CD “Release” and a T-shirt. I recently went to Hooters wearing that shirt, and was approached by one of the guys who worked there, asking me where I got the shirt and when. Turns out this dude was a thrasher back in the day and was way into Militia! I got big compliments for the shirt and felt very cool.
Also during this set, I had a chat with Glen. A nice, serious talk about girls, Godzilla, parents, and life in general. Before this time I had never really had anything resembling a conversation with him, only howdy-do’s and y’all-take-care’s whenever our paths crossed at Tony’s house. It was a nice, relaxed way to bring to a close this odd, chaotic evening.
SAD WINGS and POST-SHOW
We left. Nothing against the band, but it was one in the morning, we were pooped, they were gonna be on for like an hour, and neither of us were THAT much into Priest that we would stick around for that long when we could be getting some rest. Back to JT’s sis’ apartment, where, as usual, things more closely resembled by childhood sleepovers than anything else. Junk food, fart jokes, Keith’s awesome boarding shorts, JT promising that one of us will wake up with his balls on our face, and Tony getting no actual rest. See, when all the rest of us were asleep, one of the apartment’s roommates came home. He was not happy about his night and commenced to make all sorts of ruckus in making himself some pre-sleep munchies. Tony, being a light sleeper, was the only one awakened and affected by this; he had a very hard time getting back to sleep and was pretty groggy on the drive home the next day. I, however, slept GREAT and was finally fully caught up with the rest I missed out on the past few nights. What a great day to be alive!
