Masters of Disaster!

Date: Saturday, March 14, 2009
Venue: The Warhol
Playing with: War Criminals, Hod, Witchaven, Exmortus, Bonded by Blood

PRE-SHOW/WAR CRIMINALS?
Back in San Antonio! Hells yeah son! Not only were we playing with our “older brothers” in Hod, but Exmortus were coming back into town! We had sharpened our skills considerably in the time since October, having spent time working on stage presence, song precision, and especially pre-show rituals, to include warming up. Of course, there was a lingering thought in my head that Exmortus wouldn’t even remember who we were and that our efforts were purely for personal vanity. After all, they’ve been on full tours. They’ve played in a few weeks the number of shows we’ve done in two years. Why would they remember us?

So we were standing outside waiting for the Warhol to open its doors. A familiar van came coasting down the road, and Balmore poked his head out and screamed “HEXLUST!!!” All doubts were now erased, and we were fully confident that this would be an awesome show.

Also, apparently War Criminals actually played this evening. I don’t remember that, but my memory’s faulty, and I found a blog entry from Bonded By Blood’s MySpace that said this band did in fact play. Wacky. Sorry guys, if you’re reading this, I do not remember hearing you.

HEXLUST
After spending some time in polite chit-chat with friends, it was time for us to take the stage. I had a slightly stripped-down version of my kit, absent of rotary toms or the second floor tom. For the first time, we tried putting the bass amp behind me. Due to space reasons, we kept Tony and JT’s amps more off to the side. By the bye, Hexlust were playing this show with updated ampage! Tarzan got a second half-stack; JT had a B-52 head atop a B-52 cab; and Tony embiggened his sound with a Peavey 5150 head atop a powerful Behringer cabinet. Unfortunately, in the midst of all this newness, JT wasn’t able to play with his spiffy new red Jackson guitar. It needed repairs, so it was dropped off at Heart of Texas in Temple and JT’s black Jackson was used.

Speaking of which, photos of this performance show Hexlust decked out in black all the way across. In terms of guitars, JT had his “Blackson,” Tony had his own Jackson, and Tarzan used the same black bass as always. And with clothes, only Tony’s light blue jeans stopped the “front line” of Hexlust from being garbed entirely in ebony. I was wearing a white puppy shirt, but I was hidden behind my BLACK DRUMS. Thankfully we were contrasted against the Warhol’s red walls. Speaking of photos, if you go to Tony Rivera’s MySpace profile, you will see the funniest pictures ever taken of us. Somehow this guy clicked the shutter right when Tony, JT, or Tarzan was making the most ridiculous face imaginable.

The performance itself went off with minimal hitchery. We used our now-standard Intro/Troops/Toxic/Hellhammer/Imminent Retardation/Tombs/Open Casket/Sodomy set list. By this point in our San Antonio visits, we had a pretty good crowd going (especially in comparison to the one line of people back on July 10th) and at least one decent mosh pit. The best part of the whole set, though, happened after Tombs ended. Tony asked whomever it concerns how much time we had left. Two fingers were given, which Tony interpreted to mean “two more minutes.” Now, in retrospect, even if that were the correct signal, any other band would probably say “Two minutes? We’re pretty much done.”

Hexlust, however, said “Two minutes? Let’s squeeze a five-minute song into that timeframe.” Thus began THE FASTEST RENDITION OF “OPEN CASKET” IN HEXLUST’S HISTORY. I have never double-bassed that fast while being that much on time in my whole drumming career. Even after the double-bass ended, we were running on high, turning even slow-paced riffs into jogged or power-walked parts. When all was said and done, I was badly in need of something to drink and ready to quit. Unfortunately, it turned out that the two-finger signal meant “two more songs.” Oh hahahaha, all that full-speed-ahead was for nothing. So, since we still had time for one more, we did “Sodomy and Lust.” ANOTHER five-minute song. I did my best to pace us more evenly on this one, saving all my remaining speed for the last verse and keeping my fills to a bare minimum. I call this my “Ringo Starr of Thrash” playing. Final stinger, bring it to an end, hip-hoorah, everyone shaddap and get me some water.

HOD
Hod have got to stop playing right after us, haha. I’m always in the midst of breaking down my drum kit and packing it away while they’re playing. Granted I could still hear the music, and the music was nothing less than impressive as always. I later overheard members of Exmortus talking about how awesome Hod were, and Balmore later announced a song as a tribute to Hod and their astounding masterdom.

WITCHAVEN
Tony described Witchaven as “fun.” When I think of fun, I think of Devin Townsend-style wackaloonery, which this band was not, so I remain befuddled by that adjective. This band was awesome indeed, though, lots of Morbid Angel-style whammy tricks in the guitar solos and very energetic drumming. Couldn’t tell you a thing about the bass and vocals, both were drowned out from where I was standing.

I bought one of their CD’s, which was actually a compilation of demos. Cool stuff, although it drives me bonkers since the production values shift every few songs. I’ll be jamming in my head with an awesome guitar tone and a nice powerful snare, next song is sub-tar guitar and terrible TONK-y snare. Overall, though, not a waste of money, and not a waste of time.

EXMORTUS
What is there to say, really? They were amazing yet again! Thankfully, this time it wasn’t an insult-to-injury thing; we had held up just fine with our own set and were watching these guys “tear it up” with our heads held high. As an added bonus, I actually knew some of the songs, thanks to having listened to a borrowed copy of their CD. “In Hatred’s Flame,” “Triumph By Fire,” and the instrumental shred-fest “Axes of War” sounded just like the recordings! No covers this time though, as they were not the headliners and had a bit of a time restriction.

Was it me, or did Balmore play less solos this time? He seemed to have assumed more of a strictly rhythm guitar status with occasional double-tapping fills. Not that there’s a damn thing wrong with that, but still, last time it seemed like the lead work was more shared. I forgot to bring this up to them. Also, with this show I saw something else Mario could do that I envied. Not enough that he can blast beat and double-bass hella fast, but he can also twirl sticks while playing! I should work on this.

BONDED BY BLOOD
Holy hell, lookit that spiffy equipment! The amps looked the control deck of a spaceship, so many lights and dials! The guitars had hella cool designs, and the drum kit was nothing to spit at. Unfortunately, by this point, I was quite pooped and had a slight headache, so I made my way outside to get away from the volume and chat it up with my bandmates and members of Exmortus. Now, I could still hear what was going on inside, and apparently these dudes were having a mad good time. Their brand of Exodus-y thrash doesn’t hold my interest very long, but the audience they had ate it all up, encouraging the band into three (yes, three) encores!

POST-SHOW
By the time the sticks were put down and the amps shut off, it was exactly if not a little after two o’clock and we were ready to crash. We collected our pay, said goodbye to friends old and new, and headed back to JT’s sis’s apartment for food, showers, and rest. Little did we know that we would be headed back here for the last time. Sometime in April or so, Kristi found new living arrangements in the form of a smaller apartment in a reportedly not-gated community, and since this show we have driven back the night of a San Antonio show. This not only meant games of slap-the-driver-awake, but it also means leaving earlier. As a result, shorter San Antonio blogs until we find a place to crash of which we all approve.

Hexlust shall take this moment to say a fond goodbye to that apartment. It was clean, surprisingly spacious, and air conditioned, with a toilet and shower at our willing disposal, a refrigerator at the ready, and even a small garage if we felt like unloading some gear. Also, Kristi was always sweet to us and never anything less than a gracious hostess. Even better, the apartment was located only ten minutes away from the Rock Bottom/Warhol, and was literally right up the street from the highway.

There were many good times had before and especially after performances: making fun of Tony for bringing an air mattress when there were plenty of couches and square feet of floorspace available; beholding Tarzan in his awesome/ridiculous boarding shorts he wore to sleep; lying on the floor next to JT not knowing if I would wake up with his balls on my face or not, which thankfully never happened; and finally, bullshitting til slumber (song/album title!) like we were eight-year-olds at a sleepover. Apartment: It was hexcellent.

Shfuxlust Part 3: Everything Goes to Hell

Date: Saturday, February 21, 2009
Venue: Armstrong Center
Playing With: BC Brewhounds, Dirty Rat Bastards, Combat Shock, Shfux

PRE-SHOW
"FUCK IT’S COLD!" was the mantra of the day. The Saturday before this one, it was warm. The Saturday after this one, it was warm. Friday, the day before, warm. Sunday, the day after, warm. But this day? Cold.. And not just “low temperature” cold, no, there was wind, too, friend. So WHY, on this cold and blustery evening, are we playing OUTSIDE?!? I’m still in a tizzy over that. Especially since we were playing outside of a building which was big enough for us to play in. I just didn’t think of saying anything to anyone about it cuz I didn’t wanna seem like a bitch.

What made this outing to the Armstrong Center different from the previous one (besides the weather) was that 1) we had a semblance of an actual stage, in the form of a huge wooden trailer, instead of just playing on the back porch. 2) This was brought together for the purpose of being a “covers” show, where the bands could play their favorite songs from other groups and not feel guilty for including too many of them. Most of the other bands only included one or two covers, but we in Hexlust designed a whole set list chock full of ‘em, going way back to songs we played when first jamming together.

B.C. BREWHOUNDS
This was the debut performance of the B.C. Brewhounds, featuring Kodee’s who used to be a guitar player for Hexlust (those of you who know your Hex-history). Also in this band was Tom, bass player for Boogdish back when Tony played for them. I didn’t get to see them, I was inside setting up my drum kit and not being cold, but I heard well enough. Angry triple-guitar punkery! No covers though, which is understandable since it was their first show.

DIRTY RAT BASTARDS and COMBAT SHOCK
Oh for the life of me I remember almost nothing about these two performances. I was either walking around talking to friends and trying to stay warm, or sitting by my drum kit limbering up on practice pads. I remember only one or two covers being played, which was starting to make us wonder if we were the only ones sticking to the theme of the evening.

HEXLUST
Fuck it’s cold! Luckily I was in motion a lot, moving my “retardedly huge” (quote from Walter) drum kit onto the trailer and setting it up for playing. I brought the whole shebang this time too; rotary toms, extra floor toms, and all. Also, remember that crash cymbal I found at Rock Bottom that nobody claimed? While searching for a way to integrate it into my kit, I came to the conclusion of combining it with a few of my other 16” crash cymbals to make them my hi-hat cymbals. Why? Why not? Bigger ain’t big enough, after all. Plus, I liked the sound I got, very thick and explosive as opposed to the thin and glassy sound of 14” hats.

The spurs on my bass drum were failing this evening, so I just put the drum right up against the side of the trailer to make sure it didn’t go anywhere. The guys set their amps up beside my kit, although if we had really remembered our lessons from before we would have had them behind me to increase my listening and following-along ability. The dudes themselves were on the ground, guaranteeing Tony a throat lined with dust by the middle of the set.

Speaking of the set! All covers, with the exception of “Hellhammer,” which is a tribute song so it kinda counts. I forget if we did the intro song, but just like back in the day we started things off with “Wasting Away” as the first full song. I almost forgot how fast we could play that song! We also brought back “Chainsaw Gutsfuck,” and “Evil Dead,” kept our regulars “Sodomy and Lust,” “Troops of Doom,” and “Open Casket,” and for the first (and only) time ever, we played “Chromatic Death.” (SOD version, not the Anthrax version)

Our performance was good, marred only by my to-and-fro drums and my limited ability to hear the guitars. A nearby barrel fire was started a couple songs in, which came as a mixed blessing: on one hand, we had warmth by proximity; on the other hand, fires cause smoke, smoke travels with the wind, and the wind just blew that shit right into our faces. My contacts got irritated and my eyes started tearing up, but thankfully I could still see the drums in front of me. Overall, it was great fun playing all those covers, especially the “classic” ones, and it was gratifying seeing that people were enjoying our good time.

SHFUX (SCREECHING WEASEL?)
We were the first band this evening to have a set list consisting mostly of covers. The Shfux were the first and only band this evening to have a set list consisting entirely of covers from one specific band, that band being legendary American hardcore (later pop punk) band Screeching Weasel. As a matter of fact, not only did they cover a bunch of songs, but they added another guitarist to the lineup, some dude I didn’t meet.

The set was alright, as usual it had all that great Shfux obnoxiousness and energy, but I had never heard of Screeching Weasel before this evening and my interest wasn’t held very long. I wandered around to the front of the building, where the incident soon occurred.

THE INCIDENT / POST-SHOW
I’m not going to go much into detail on what happened next. I will say that some people become total idiots when they hit the sauce, and decide to say derogatory comments about others. If one of these others happens to be very prideful and willing to fight for his good name, conflict occurs and people get hurt. Well, someone got very hurt, to the tune of falling off a truck as it was rounding a corner (centrifugal force, you cruel bitch) and being knocked unconscious. Soon, the police were called and the Shfux’s set was cut short.

The whole thing soon became very surreal, with ten or so cop cars showing up along with an ambulance. Not long after, a helicopter hovered overhead, but never landed since the ambulance was apparently adequate. Some folks were crying. Others were shouting angrily into cell phones. Still others were scrambling to put out the barrel fire and hide evidence of underage drinking.

After a very long, very tense while, most of the cops left and so did most of the attendees. Two of my bandmates, one of whom I was taking great care not to talk to due to his willing encouragement (however small) in what happened, stayed behind to give statements to the remaining officer. Now, the whole “giving a statement thing” is helpful and all, but I avoided that volunteer session for three reasons. One, I had the feeling that it really wouldn’t do much good. This feeling was later proven valid, as I was reminded that Kodee has been in many a skirmish and is very unlikely to press charges. Two, I was feeling very disconnected from this incident on account of how stupid it really was. Finally: it was still very cold. I left soon thereafter.

We have not been back to the Armstrong Center since.

Final note: as we were cleaning up the inside of the center, Walter took a look around and said “Hey, you know what, we could have played inside!”

The New Year Hits Rock Bottom

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 2^nd 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!

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.