Archive for February, 2012

Winter ’12 Slug

Friday, February 10th, 2012

recently the distort ny 7″ came out and we played a record release show at stolen sleeves to celebrate it. crazy spirit, goosebumps and creem played too. unfortunately the night was so wild i didn’t pull out my camera once because i couldn’t even find it. the following week we went out on the first leg of tour for the band up and down the north east.

the day we had to grab the van a whole mess of shit went down. first, the hertz that crozier was supposed to pick up our rental van at closed at noon and didn’t stay a minute later cause it was snowing. bullshit. so he and i went out to the one near la guardia. then after that crozier had to remove a charge from his card so we had to switch cards and switch this and switch that. it was all very annoying. anyway after all that he had to drive home, i then drove to brooklyn to pick him up and then we had to drive to valley stream to get andre and drew.

once we were all in together and packed the van the hell out we made our way upstate to snug’s. once we got there we hung out for a minute before kevin (of sick of talk fame) showed up with his crew in “it’s not night: it’s space.” on top of that, the man – tim faulkner popped up. being that the show fell on a week night he couldn’t stick around to hang out but he took us over to a local record store and then to a greek restaurant. i got a used copy of the devoid of faith / seized split at the record shop and a kotopoulo stithos sandwich at the eatery. nice.

back at snug’s and had time to kill. drew looked for a place in town to practice yoga. no good was the local spot, they were closed so what did he do? chill out in the back on the bar on his mat and do some stretchy positions. crozier said somethin like “it would be sick if we got a reputation for having a frontman that does yoga in the corner of venues all by his lonesome” – i agree. good shit.

the first band that played was really awful. i forget their name but they had no direction. keep in mind we were in new paltz on a weird night so i wasn’t really expecting much, but this band was bad. the next act was nailed shut, they weren’t terribrill but they did have some on stage issues between each other. kinda awkward. after that we played and it was alright. some folks got rowdy but the bar owners might’ve made them stop. no idea, i wasn’t really focused on it. after us was it’s not night… they were fucking awesome. space rock sabbath style. their demo doesn’t represent them well because they are way heavier live. that’s them above.

kev from gaza was in town and hanging out at the show. love that dude, here he is about to put a penny into andre’s ear.

these guys put me into a sleepy trance with their pedals and feedback. it was sick. drew just straight up fell asleep. it was like 1 am when they went on so you can’t fault him. it was hilarious though, i felt like a dad waking him up later.

we crashed with kevin of talk that night which was cool. he had this spot which he called “the window” because it over looks this big valley (you can’t even make it out because of the weather) but his band and i discussed extra terrestrials the night before and how they had two weird sightings in that window to the world.

kevin took us to a dope spot for that is owned by a former murphy’s law guitar player the next morning. i got some dope french toast and turkey sausage for cheap. good deal and good food.

we got ready to part ways with the new paltz crowd, thanked them for their hospitality and got ready to head towards new brunswick.

crozier helmed the wheel to the new brunswick spot. unfortunately for him it was raining and foggy. this was one of the shows i couldn’t find my camera in the van so i only took about two shots the night of the gig. here is one before shot.

this is the spot we played at… the alamo… in the BASEMENT! it was a really cool show. every band was great. and the best part is ugly parts did a negative approach cover and i guess altered boys was planning on doing it too, so they did. then they did agnostic front… which we were planning on doing, so we did! it was pretty fucking wild. i mean the songs we all did are classics and all but it was sort of coincidental. before the show we went to a public library to chill. the building was quite antique and really beautiful. i got some lentil soup at a co-op across the street to warm my soul.

we got some of these grease truck sandwiches when the show ended – decent but over priced. after the show we stayed with shawn (or sean or maybe a different name altogether, so bad with names) who did the gig for us. this is the view from his front porch. we were up all night hearing some of the funniest fucking stories ever. the entire rest of the trip we laughed recounting certain aspects. i forget names now but there were a few roommates, one of them being from seasick i recognized, that all jumped in and kept us in stitches.

the next morning we compared sleep and drank tea and shit.

we talked about what our plans should be for the next night and whether or not we had a place to crash in philly. i got to shower for a minute but there was no hot water so it was like a literal minute.

drew was hanging out.

andres checked out some of the reading material that shawn had amassed on his coffee table. shawn had to leave for work at the hot dog stand and we had to leave for bagels. we got back on the road and made our way to philly. once we arrived in philly we headed to repo to scout some records. not much in the way of good shit for me there, but i did find a copy of silkworm’s first album pretty cheap at the philadelphia record exchange around the corner. i passed that off to matt and he was a happy man. philly was another place i didn’t have the camera out much. i sucked at documenting this whole trip actually. anyway, we went over towards west philly to meet up with crozier’s boy john. he was awesome and so were his roommates. he lived like five blocks from charlotte’s old places so i felt sort of nostalgic for west philly. i miss going to that place often. john then took us to get some vietnamese sandwiches that were vegan and cheap and hell. maybe like 3 bucks? i dunno, it was awesome. we then headed to the venue where we had to load in.

i had literally no idea what to expect of this show being that the silk city i knew years ago was a spot for chicken cheesesteaks and cigarette smoke. i forgot they had a club to the left that did dance parties or something but apparently now they are doing shows again. this was the first one in about fifteen years. no photos of the gig, but i can report that it was a dope time. all the other bands that played were dope. appropriate measures were sick, felt like doom metal and madball combined. this is jazz was like a philly band i’m used to, very talented at their instruments and all over the place. and window liquor was like all the 90s shit i love about the 90s.  we went on last and i was getting a little nervous because some of the people that liked us had to leave. we set up quick and played straight away and boom – people were flipping out. what a good time that was.

afterward we loaded some gear out and chatted with some of the good people of philadelphia. all was good in the hood until one tab skipping gal got caught with a faulty credit card or something. i don’t know the specifics but i know she had a tab she was trying to walk away from. the police were called as things escalated. we were about to head off then we say what could’ve been a sticky situation. the guys who worked at silk city were getting a little angry with the girl trying to leave before the cops came. we decided to step out of the van to double check she was safe. then shortly after some other fuck heads started messing with the good men of phonographic arts. we once more exited the van to ensure the situation didn’t escalate in a negative way. eventually two girls made their way around the corner and found themselves in handcuffs, drunkenly cursing the police of philadelphia.

we headed to the center city soft pretzel factory to find they were SOLD OUT. i was so extremely pissed off about that. what  a fucking drag. after some cursing we headed back to john’s and circle the block about 8 million times looking for parking. i then remembered the one down side of west philly. when we got back inside john’s place people were still up and still getting drunk.

which turned into digging through a box of costumes and gearing up in some wacky shit.

jesse tried to convince someone to squeeze into the short shorts, but no one bit.

after a couple hours of listening to minor threat, watching roseann and chatting we all hit the hay. dre and drew got couches that night, probably the first night dre slept well.

this little guy was awesome, but refused me the luxury of being a foot warmer while i slept. oh well. the next morning we spent some time in west philly. coming up next