Morgan's Point Hexcellente

Date: Saturday, April 25 2015
Venue: Morgan's Point Sports Club, Belton TX
Bands: Plebians, Marla Strange, Shfux, Hexlust

It's finally here, folks.

After what felt like a lifetime of obstacles, restarts, nervous breakdowns, and that kooky little thing called "responsible adulthood," our debut album Manifesto Hexcellente has been brought kicking and thrashing into the metal world. 

If you haven't checked it out yet, the tunes are streaming (and totally for sale) at our brand spankin' new BandCamp page. 

Of course, who better to throw us a CD release party than the man who engineered, mixed, and mastered the thing while also putting up with our naivete and panicky last minute changeups? Walter put together a sweet local show for us, with Plebians, Marla Strange, and his own band Shfux on the bill, and the festivities taking place at a place in Belton called Morgan's Point Sports Club.

Once known as Rockin' Rick's Guitar Bar, the place was, from what I hear, quite the hot spot for Bell County rock fans looking to have a few drinks while enjoying the soaring stylings of Mr Rockin' Rick Bell. The venue closed sometime last year, I believe, and while Rockin' Rick himself now hires himself out as a guitar karaoke artist, the place itself now stands as a sort of rentable event center. 

It's whatever you want it to be for the evening, a club template with no decoration or equipment to ground itsef into a permanent identity. Blank walls, empty tabletops, a bar with nothing on its shelves, a stage with no lights or sound system. There were tables and chairs, though, and power outlets that worked, and even a couple clean and serviceable bathrooms, so it was everything we needed. 

This being a BYOB sort of DIY show, the bar remained unstocked and unstaffed and was set up as a merchandise area, displaying not only wares from the other bands but from us as well! Sure we've had merch before, our one-sided logo shirts that we just kept in the box onstage with us and sold when not performing because fuck having to guard a table, but now we had CDs! And two-sided shirts with the album artwork on it! We made a pretty decent killing, too, so an early thank you to everyone who bought a CD and/or shirt from us this evening!

Speaking of (or, rather, getting back to) the CD, one note of puzzlement I've heard from folks who've received their copy is the sudden presence of psuedonyms in the lineup. Whereas before we had simply gone by our names, Tony, JT, and I have recently tacked on "stage" last names of Morgor, Avakuma, and Nervewrecker, respectively. Tarzan remains Tarzan, the lucky fucker coming with his own ready-made psuedonym from his high school nickname. 

The inspiration behind each man's name is his own, but the purpose is the same: to provide the immersion necessary for us to keep our "stage" selves separated from our "day" selves, to keep ourselves focused on putting on a great show for our paying audience, particularly when things start going weird during a performance.

As they did tonight.

HEXLUST
Tony's amp was to my immediate left, not blocked by any drums or stands, allowing me to hear him loud and clear, so I'm gonna pick on him a bunch. He was having a tough time. His effects channel had chosen this evening to crap out, resultng in dodgy sound whenever he went into his leads. This distracted him and he was getting lost very easily, skipping ahead to the next riff in a song way too early, then catching himself and trying to slide back to the previous one, all while singing.

It wasn't as apparent to me, but from what I hear, JT was having some issues of his own. I do recall holding off a song so he could fix something on his amp, but I'm told he was doing a lot of fiddling during breaks in the songs as well.

Then, just add on to all of that, we had the unbearable, ungodly heat. No wonder the Shfux played what felt like a truncated set, it was broiling up there! I believe that day was our first 90 degree scorcher of the season, and we were woefully unprepared. Any water we sucked down between songs was quickly sweated right out of our bodies, leaving us nauseated and shaky, and causing Tony and Tarzan's dusty throats to crack in their "everyday" voices.

Kinda funny, in retrospect.

If all this had happened even just a year ago, Tony would have shut down. He would have still been playing, sure, but the fire would have been snuffed out. He would have closed his eyes and hid behind his hair, maybe angled his body to where he was facing a corner, and his stage banter would have reduced to a mumbled "This next song we wrote is a song that we wrote and we hope you like it it's called Toxic High." 

Tonight, though, armed with his stage name and his pre-selected "stage clothes," Tony Morgor was on fire the whole set! Through the technical difficulties and sweaty hands he continued playing with full confidence and kept his stage banter energetic and engaging, while we threw out every song from the album plus two covers. Ten songs, most of them very fast, all on one very hot, very cramped stage.

A few things stick out to me: Poor JT having to maneuver his way to Tony's side of the stage to sing his parts for Fucked By Fire; me flubbing the big fill in They Conjure a bit; asking Jake which songs were next, since he pretty much has the whole album memorized by this point, then having him come up with us to do our now-usual rendition of Troops of Doom; and closing the set out with Sodomy & Lust, which I honestly did not think we would be able to pull off but somehow it happened, with our usual ramp-up to "fuck-you fast" after the middle breakdown. 

After that, we were done for. Maybe, MAYBE we could have squeezed in "Evil Dead" if folks were demanding just one more tune, but "Agent Orange" and "Open Casket" were definite no-gos. Of course, it would be really nice to be able to pull out some new material, and trust me, we are working diligently on that. Not rushing it, but still keeping the pressure on, focusing on our goal to have three new songs completed by the end of the year. 

This year's already almost halfway over. Shit.

SHOUTOUTS
For this, Hexlust's album release show, we want to thank Walter first and foremost, for all that stuff I mentioned earlier. Couldn't have done it without you, man. HEY LOCAL BANDS, if you want something recorded, hit up Walter Martin on Facebook. He knows what he's doing and his rates ain't bad.

Also, a personal thanks for his dedication of "Doomsday" to me during the Shfux's set. That eight-minute punk epic is the highlight of every performance for me nowadays. 

Thanks to Marla Strange, for being the best band tonight! No disrespect to Shfux, who ruled as always, or Plebians, who I didn't see, but these dudes shined above all with their energy and surprising catchiness among the odd guitar chords and slamming drums. Speaking of which, Jason is still an absolute monster on the kit, always making it seem like his poor little set is going to get smashed to pieces under his assault. Buy their album, go see them play!

Thanks to my parents, to Gary & Chris; to JT's parents (long time no see!); Joe Rose; Ralph; that guy JT and Tarzan went to high school with whose name I didn't catch; to Rick and John (Desmortes dudes, haven't seen them in forever!); and everyone else who paid their five bucks to watch our Hexshenanigans!

Extra big thanks to Jake, who once again went out of his way to come see us play, help us with our gear, and sing Troops with us! This evening he had on hand copies of his stellar Under The Sign of the Lone Star zine, quality writing with zero ads or scene politics.

(It also include a nifty review of our album!)

And of course a huge thank you to everyone who has bought a copy of Manifesto Hexcellente, and/or one of our album shirts, both online and at our shows!

Pain-Pill Soilent

Date: August 28, 2010
Venue: The Lone Star, Temple TX
Bands: Hexlust, In the Beginning, Seed, PainFilled Silent

PRE-SHOW
I don't know of any band that actually likes being an opening act; low attendance, low energy from those who do happen to be there, playing a truncated set list, and then having to wait around for five hours and "support" the other bands so you can get your share of the pay at the end of the night. We in Hexlust don't really mind that dreaded timeslot, though, in that we're high-energy enough to rarely get "coffeehouse applause," and in that we rarely get paying gigs opening up for an entire lineup of shitty/boring bands.

In addition to things we don't mind, one of the things I actually prefer about playing first is getting to load our gear right onto the stage. I like to assemble my drum kit before taking it onstage to save time, and finding space for buildup and storage at a venue can be a pain in the ass, even at bigger places since we're sharing storage space with other bands' equipment. Even if I get to put the kit together before we go on, however, no drum kit ever feels as comfortable at a gig as it does in the practice space. There's just no time to make all the subtle adjustments, so there will always be a crash cymbal that's too close to my head, or the toms end up too far away, or a million other things.

To sum it all up, when I get to load directly onto the stage, take a million years to make all the little tweaks and adjustments needed to ensure maximum playing comfort, get a soundcheck out of the way, and still have time to talk to friends and get some practice-pad work done before we actually start playing, I am one happy camper. Four stressful aspects of live playing are eliminated from my brain and I just have to deal with that pesky stage fright I still get three years into our gigging experience. Our sound check was a little shaky, but we had a supportive audience consisting of family and good friends to help wear away the jitters and keep us smiling before we actually took to the stage.

HEXLUST
Objectively speaking, our performance was almost flawless. Our musicianship was so tight by now that, even when playing a thousand miles an hour, we all started and ended on the same notes. Our set list (Intro / Toxic / Hellhammer / Baphomet / AgentOrange / Tombs) was chock full of sure-fire winners Stage presence was unbeatable, with all three of the "front guys" in a near-constant state of headbanging. We were hydrated, warmed up, and comfortable, truly a show for the ages. So why weren't we having a good time?

Who's a happy boy?!

Well, for one thing, while we had a nice group of about 20 enthusiasts up front, the audience at large just didn't seem to be buying it. We've encountered this before, can't win em all over, right? Some people just stand there, others just go outside. What was new to us with this show, though, was the presence of tables; tables which had people sitting at them, just sitting there and not doing much. Not even looking at us half the time. This is not necessarily a good thing, but by now we had become used to a certain formula: we play fast and headbang a lot, and people respond. Being flat-out ignored hadn't happened in a good while, and it took a particular toll on Tony. He had been expecting us to come back and make a huge bang in his home town, and when it became clear that his Hexcellent antics just weren't making an impact, it started to mess with his self esteem. This directly affected his stage presence, which brought between-song banter down to just "Okay, here's this next song, it's called '[Song],' here we go!" Time-efficient? Undoubtedly. Hexcellent? Nah.

Also, about halfway through "Baphomet Dawn," I started experiencing a sharp, shooting pain in my left wrist, which intensified as the set wore on. By the time we rolled into "Tombs," I was gripping the stick with my whole hand, backing off the snare a little and minimizing fills to avoid dropping the stick entirely. Panic set in; I frequently read articles on drummers overworking their limbs and the crippling results that follow, like the guy from Seether who spent a whole tour with a stick taped to his hand, getting addicted to painkillers and eventually requiring surgery. I am usually very careful about such things.

Earlier that evening, however, having been reunited with JT for the first time since he officially moved to San Antonio at the beginning of the month, we ran through the whole set list at our practice space. Normally I take pre-show run-throughs smoothly and at a more relaxed pace, but this day I was a rim-cracking, headbanging fool. That, combined with all the warming up I did before our set and the high energy of the set itself, probably pushed my poor wrist more into the red zone than it could go. The fact that Tony was by then on a streak of "Okay, here's the next song" left me very little time between tunes to try to stretch my arm or even just rub it a little, and by the time we were finished I was hurting and pissed.

SEED / IN THE BEGINNING
The next two bands were a blur. I paid very little attention, spending time after our set packing my shit away, discussing the set with the bandmates, saying goodbye to JT, Tony, and my parents, and nursing my wrist. I also spent a good deal of time chatting with Tarzan and my good friend Serena, Tony's high school buddy and wife of PainFilled Silent's guitarist, Jason. The only thing that sticks out in my mind about the next two acts is one of them attempting to cover a Slipknot tune and then just stopping halfway through due to a confusing lack of cohesion.

PAINFILLED SILENT
A month ago, PainFilled Silent were the headlining act at the Music Vault show we played, where their 1 a.m. performance following Heavens Declare Wars' aggressive stage lighting left them with a cranky, apathetic audience. Tonight, however, they went on at like 11:45, and had a decidedly bigger, more enthusiastic group of supporters to cheer them on. In this environment, their constantly-shifting, chorus-less songs were easier to digest, with the catchy parts standing out more, and the individual musicianship more apparent to hungry eyes and ears.

Being the big guy he is, Vinnie is almost a comical sight sitting at his small kit with the tiny toms, but the man is all business with the way he uses every drum and piece of metal to lay out the songs' complex rhythms. His brother Phil is a monster on bass, bringing to mind Ryan from Mudvayne with the way he slaps, pops, and just produces fucking weird noises with his strings, I love it. Chris' vocal range is very admirable, going from clean singing to screaming in the same song and even humorously throwing in some pig squeals in one tune. With his blinding picking speed and crunchy, Amon-era-Deicide tone, Jason almost seems like a guitarist more fit for traditional death metal, but his personality and penchant for crazy-time-signature riffing shows that he truly belongs in this very irreverent band. The man is very much a thrash fan though, being one of the most vocal audience members during Hexlust's set. I was very happy to reciprocate the love.

POST-SHOW / CLOSING THOUGHTS
Very special thanks to all the friends and family members who showed up and helped us feel loved while we were being all emo, including (but not limited to, I just forget people a lot) my and JT's ever-supportive parents; high school buddies Branden and Becky; long-time friend, electronics consultant, and engineer of that four-song demo you all love so much, Mr Michael Barton; and those two guys who sang along loudest to "Agent Orange," one of them wore a Deicide shirt, I forget their names and feel like total dick for it.

Thanks also to the Lone Star Bar and Grill for booking us. We had been trying to get booked there for a very long time, but for some reason could never ask in time to get attached to a good bill. We were excited by the very spacious venue, the large stage (with a pie-shaped drum stand in the corner, no rotaries for Dart tonight), the decent crowds we saw whenever we attended a gig, and by the sound woman, used to run sound at Hero's back in the day and always managed to get an awesome sound out of any band that played.

[EDIT FROM THE FUTURE:] As for my bitchy wrist, every practice after that was plagued with problems, as the wrist would flare up if I started to play too hard or even too long. The funny part was it only hurt when I played drums; I could still lift the forty-pound bags of dog food at work, no problemo. The pain was specifically related to the whipping motion my wrist makes when I crack that snare. Thankfully we didn't have another show booked until mid-November, but thems were three dread-filled months spent wearing a wrist brace to practice, trying out new stretching regimens, and ultimately stumbling on a solution at the end of October when I simply lowered my snare drum. Prior to this show, I had started raising the snare based on an article that suggested having it at belly-button level to lessen back pain, another problem I have as a "drummer of height." Now I get to figure out just the right height at which to position the thing so's my back and wrist are happy. Fun on a bun.

MORE PHOTOS

Easy Money, Wild Times, and Hot Women! (Or Lack Thereof)

Date: Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Venue: Denim and Diamonds, shithole cowpoke bar to which we swore never to come back after playing our first show there, Temple TX
Bands: PainFilledSilent, Hexlust, Zero and Falling.

Yes it's a bit late (a week actually). Here is the long-awaited blog detailing Hexlust's second show! I've been busy in the past week; instead of being able to knock this out in one sitting, I've been having to make a daily visit to a saved Microsoft Word file in the small window of time I have between school, work, band practice, social life, and this fucking site.

Anywho! Second show. Two months in the making. In that amount of time we've managed to get one original song show-ready (the just-when-you-thought-this-damn-song-was-over-we're-doing-sixteen-measures-of-solo opus "Tombs of the Blind Dead") with a couple more on the burner. In this time we've also been fine-tuning our covers, watching footage from the first show and laughing amidst good company and great pizza, and getting ready for two prospective Halloween shows that never happened. Yay.

So here's how it all went down!

PRE-SHOW
I know in the last blog I had a preparation section, but this time it wasn't as interesting. I'll sum it all up: I warmed up all day and broke my shit down. JT and James showed up around 6-ish, we left at 7:30. There ya go.

So we get to Denim and Diamonds around 8 and meet up with the very cool Branden of Zero & Falling. Head inside the place to find it empty and... P.A.-less. It seems the place is under new management, and the new guy was not aware of the old manager's tradition of renting out a P.A. for the bands playing. So there's a lot of scrambled phone calls and finally a nearby band whose name escapes me is tapped for use of their stuff.

Tony arrives around 8:30 and the situation is explained to him. He is, like the rest of us, a little weirded out by the setback but still nervous and excited about the evening's events. So we wait...

...and wait...

...and wait, while playing pool with (and by "playing with" I mean getting our asses whipped by) JT's mom...

The P.A. arrives with the hour of ten. By now we in Hexlust are mildly annoyed by the holdup, but eager to play anyway. We're the second band to play tonight, and technically should have been soundchecking by this point, so hopefully setup doesn't take too long. PainFilledSilent can do their thing, we can do ours, and be home by midnight. So we wait...

...and wait...

By 10:45, JT's mom is falling asleep in the corner and we're getting pissed. Half of whatever audience bothered showing up in the first place has left, thank the fuck Christ this was a free show. If this were a Friday/Saturday night, it wouldn't be so bad. But they weren't even done setting up the equipment yet, so at this point we're long away from playing, JT and I have school the next morning, James has work, and we're all tired and grumpy from our respective days. We're not even nervous anymore, we just want to play and go home. But we wait...

PAINFILLEDSILENT
...for twenty more minutes, in which time PainFilledSilent soundcheck and fly into action. Their set is short and someone hurried, and as a result I don't remember much about it at all, but they pull it off with pinache. I'm very impressed by their drummer, who held it all together very well while pulling off some impressive weird-time-signaturey stuff (can you tell I'm a well-trained musican? Lol).
Somebody shake JT's mom awake, it's 11:40 and time for us to go on! We all shake the frowns off our faces and the bags out from under our eyes to snatch up that last bit of energy and enthusiasm to pull this show off. Setup and soundcheck takes about twenty-ish minutes and then we're off!

HEXLUST
...into one sad spectacle. "Wasting Away" comes off well enough, although I showcase my brilliant ineptitude by dropping my stick not even halfway through the first verse. I think here's about where James' amp started fuzzing out, but more on that later. We finish with that song and the "crowd" is mildly enthused. So far, not so bad. And then it happens.

James starts off "Chainsaw Gutsfuck" and isn't two notes into the beginning distortion riff when his amp cuts off. What the hell? Try again. First two notes, and then once again sudden silence, like we're playing fucking Musical Chairs and it's time to take a seat. One more try with the same result; the distortion's thrown out and we continue anyway.

I forget if it was during that song or the proceeding "Evil Dead", but somewhere during the rest of our D set JT's amp started cutting out as well. And James' amp wasn't being any more committed. The only members with consistent sound were me and Tony, and my bass drum was gradually slipping away from me so I wasn't sure how long that would last.

So we change tunings up to standard E and begin our second set. JT will have to remind me exactly when it happened, but somewhere either before "Troops of Doom" or "Sodomy & Lust" his amp head decided to cut the foreplay and just died. Kaput. Sputter, gasp, and croak. In a way I saw it coming, since he always had to use something with considerable weight just to hold his cord in the input jack, but it was the timing of his head's demise that made me realize that God is real and She has a sense of humor that's not for all tastes. Branden, being the cool guy he is, was generous enough to lend JT his head, and we continued.

Back to the songs, "Troops of Doom" was probably our best song of the evening, with the fewest mistakes or technical difficulties. When it came time for "Sodomy & Lust", however, it was business as usual, with JT having low volume (even with his spiffy new head) and James' amp picking just the right spots to die out and then come back to life.

Looking back, I wish we had discussed our set list before the show; maybe I would have had the foresight to express the wish for "Sodomy & Lust" to go at the end of the set. Not only is it my favorite song to play, with me holding a steady-but-gradually-increasing tempo from the beginning and then really unleashing the speed as we come back in from the solos, but it has a hella great stinger at the end. Since this song was, in fact, merely second to last, the stinger was cut off, which was kind of a letdown at least for me.

To conclude the set we threw out "Tombs of the Blind Dead". Our chubby-faced first-born had a screaming birth amidst a politely lukewarm crowd and continued technical difficulty, but ended with a whimper, for which I take the blame. The song goes into its final seconds with just me playing, and I could have easily set up a stinger; instead, tired and disillusioned, I just hit two of my toms simultaneously, abruptly ending the number. The audience were quiet for a sec (once again, my fault; a stinger is usually the indicator of end-of-set applause) and then politely applauded us offstage.

ZERO AND FALLING
We packed our shit and went home. As grateful as I was to this band for giving us an opportunity to play, it was 1 a.m. and I was dealing with a combination of exhaustion and embarrassment. I wanted to get home and into my bed with a fiery quickness. I didn't even stop to thank those of my firends who bothered showing up, so for those of you whom I left in the dust, stick around for my thanks at the end of this blog.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
So what the hell went wrong? Well, we're not sure what exactly happened to JT's head, but Tony wants to take a look at it and see if something can be fixed before it gets thrown out. James, upon closer inspection of his stuff, surmised that an aging cord was the possible perpetrator of his yo-yoing sound. I would have benefited from making sure my bass drum was more anchored onto the carpet, although thankfully this time my toms stayed right in place.

Well, for everything that could have gone wrong, we had a great first show, so it should have come at no surprise that our second amateurish step into the world of live playing would kick back and hit us right where it hurts. In a way I'm glad it happened; it definitely kept our egos in check, lol. We're going to be more careful from now on, and if anything this disaster only served to make us more prideful of our work and more willing to step up to the plate and deliver a blistering third show. I know it did for me!

Thanks goes out to those who showed up: Rendell and his wacky group of friendly curmudgeons; Warren and Kelly for showing up towards the end of the set and sticking around anyway; Jade, Cody, Tom, and the other punkers who definitely stuck out amongst the jeans-and-t-shirts audience; JT's mom; Juan a.k.a. Devilboy from Mekanizm Loco; and of course PainFilledSilent, Zero & Falling, and the band who lent us their P.A., your name escapes me but your generosity never will!

NautiLust Slave!

Date: Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Venue: Denim and Diamonds, cowpoke bar, Temple TX
Bands: Nautilus, Hexlust, Soul Slave

Well loyal readers, there comes a time in most performers' lives where they get the chance to strut their stuff in front of an audience of preferably more than one member in a venue other than their rehearsal place. Such was the case for me two nights ago on Wednesday, August 29. At least in terms of music; anyone who's listened to me babble longer than 10 seconds knows that I dabbled in theater in high school. So I'm no stranger to performing in public, I'm just not used to the lights being on.

But yeah, Wednesday August 29th, Hexlust's first show EVAR. An event almost two years in the making. Yes indeed people, two years. Pick a random band's MySpace and they'll probably say that they were together four months before they had original tunes ready and a string o' shows lined up. Not us. One year and nine months of lineup changes (both in terms of members leaving and us being unable to decide who the lead vocalist is), impeding school and work schedules, song and style changes, overall laziness, and IHOP putting fucking butter on Tony's chocolate chip pancakes passed before we finally took the stage at Denim and Diamonds and rocked the house. Here's how it all went down:

PREPARATION
James, J.T., and his friends Jen and... somebody else all showed up around the same time of about 6:20. After helping me load my Ludwig drum kit into my car, we took off for Tony's house, J.T. following James following me. Upon arrival we greeted Tony and Glen and got a nice little tour of Tony's hella sweet abode (a tour I took myself a little over a year ago and never get tired of taking again).

Then we're off!

Wait, no, sorry, Tony forgot his effects pedals. Halfway out of his neighborhood we turn around, park in his horseshoe driveway again, and wait. Tony comes back...
Then we're off!

We arrive at Denim and Diamonds around seven and immediately get to work unloading stuff. Back and forth, from the club to the cars and back to the club. Somewhere in all this my mom showed up. We set our stuff up offstage and started... waiting. During this time, I paced, greeted Dantrael, Stephanie, Kelly, and Warren, talked to my mom, and paced some more.

The sound guys didn't show up until close to nine (which was when Nautilus were supposed to go on, a harbinger of the hijinks we were to encounter with the Laurel-and-Hardy sound team with whom we were stuck). We launched into setting crap up onstage and getting everything mic'd, and finally, sometime after 9:30, Nautilus took the stage.

NAUTILUS
Problems from the get-go. They kicked things off with a cover of Napalm Death's "Scum", which started off awesome, but somewhere along the line started falling apart. Confuzzled, I went off to greet Remo and Sue and came back a couple songs later to find things consistently unravelling. John couldn't hear shit out of his monitors, Zach I guess was jumping ahead riffs or something, and everyone was overall confused. They took a break to figure things out with the sound and that just ended up being the end of their set. Befuddled, we in Hexlust started preparing to perform.

HEXLUST
After a quick sound check (we shared equipment with Nautilus) and a warm-up using the theme from a MegaMan game, I got some advice from Dantrael about what to ask for in my monitor, took a deep, nervous breath and went into it. "Wasting Away", "Chainsaw Gutsfuck", and "Evil Dead" went swimmingly, with pauses between songs to re-tune and allow Tony to check how we were doing as far as time (which started to get on my nerves but we've discussed this already). At some point inbetween songs, we relented to an audience request for "Raining Blood" and played the first thirty seconds of that oh-so-recognizable song. Hey, cheers are cheers, lol.

After a minute taken to unleash hair and change guitars, we kicked off our E-tuned songs with Possessed's "The Exorcist", which we somehow made it through but not without some confusion (that song's hard to play, lol). "Troops of Doom" merited us the first moshpit of the night, which I couldn't fucking see due to the fact that I'm hidden behind drums and cymbals. Another significance of this song is the fact that I dropped a stick twice and grabbed another without losing rhythm. Woot!

Our final song of the evening was "Sodomy and Lust", which was undoubtedly our finest performance of the whole set. Irony? It is not recorded. The battery on Tony's camcorder ran out, and my mom ran out of space on the disc in her camcorder. But yeah, speed, speed, speed, nice breakdown, flawless solos, fiery last chorus, and huge stinger. Then Dart falls over dead, lol.

Like I had fucking time. Immediately started breaking stuff down to make way for Soul Slave's stuff while talking to Sue. I even recruited her to help us lug my shit out to my car, about which she (jokingly) griped the entire way. Chicks.

WHAT-A-BURGER
As a way of showing respect to the band who gave us a chance, Tony stuck around to watch Soul Slave's set. I couldn't be fucking bothered; besides, I had no idea how to get home from the bar, but Stephanie did, so James, Remo, and I followed her (riding with Kelly and Warren) back to Killeen. We first were going to eat at McDonald's on 440, but their dining room was closed. So we went next door to What-a-Burger; they were closed for painting. Finally we made our way to the What-a-Burger by H-E-B, which was able to accomodate us. There we scarfed some food bought by the ever-generous Remo and talked about the show, among other things.

The night concluded at close to one. I went home, unpacked most of my drum kit, chatted with Tony, and passed out after a quick texting relay with Sue.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
I'm very proud of us; after almost two years spent slaving away in my garage (and Tony's music room, and J.T.'s garage/barn thingy) full of false starts, unmet deadlines, basically us going "Ok, by this July we are gonna be ready!" and we're not, all culminating in one almost-totally awesome night.
Except. EXCEPT. Those fucking sound guys. Not only did they screw Nautilus over, but they fucked with us too by turning J.T.'s amp down (apparantly due to excessive feedback, a problem which I'm sure could have been fixed but no, they elected not to).

I'm no sound guy, and this is my first show, but I've been to shows before and I've observed sound checks. Sound people are supposed to ask the band members what they want in their respective monitors so everything can run smoothly; I had to ask Tony to ask them to turn down his vocals in mine. Hoargh. Thankfully this didn't turn out to be too big of a problem (although in the footage of the show, you can't hear J.T. solo) and hopefully in the future we have the good fortune of playing with competent sound people at the helm. Overall, though, I'm very happy with how the night went off. Hopefully our next one's even better!

I wanna thank all the people I don't know who came out, Soul Slave for giving us a chance to play at this show, Nautilus for being our friends and being kind enough to share a rehearsal space, and all the people I know who came out: my lovely mom, Dantrael (who was playing at the first non-Kritickill local show I ever saw), Stephanie, Kelly, Remo, Warren, and Sue.

I'd like to thank Tony and James for being the best friends and bandmates a guy could ask for, and I'd especially like to thank J.T., who has been officially with the band a scant three months, but not only picked up on the songs with a blinding quickness, but also fit in with us as our friend better than anyone else we played with. Here's to this show and the many more we shall hopefully play!