Ok, so Portland wasn't our town...
Son of a bang, it happened again. I'm not pointing blame at anyone, it's just that the music puppy (or as J Rhodes calls it, a "beat box") faltered again last night, in a similar fashion to my debacle at Cafe Bourbon Street last August, as a result of a PA misfire. Again I maintain, it's hard to blame anyone, shit happens. It's just that on December 20th, when I did my last show at Bernie's, everything was fine, and I don't know what was done different this time.

Bottom line being, I need better equipment for my stage show. It's unacceptable for me to go up there and not be able to perform to my full capacity. No one has ever said I've done a bad show, but when I can only get through 8 minutes of my set (according to a patron) before my shit starts fucking up, there's a big problem, if not for everyone else, for me. Twice is too many times, and I'm thinking that after February I'll take some time off from live performances to get my audio equipment upgraded. I love you all who said to me both times "It was fine," but it's embarrassing for me to go up there and barely be able to get through any of my set.

Hopefully in the coming months, my friend Jill will be doing guitar accompaniment to some of my live shows. We've also been discussing a side project. But before then, I'd like to get the equipment situation in order.

Thanks to Bernie's and the other bands for their loving me anyway. It sucks too, because I left early without a cut, and it would have been a nice one.

Happenings
Ok, I'm gonna be back at Bernie's Tuesday, January 18th, opening for Kill Crush Destroy from New Jersey. They have a CD on Amazon.com, that's all I know about them.

Saturday, January 22nd, I'm at Pat's in the Flats. This will probably be my last Cleveland show for a little while. It costs a lot to go up there, and nobody ever shows up anyway. Ideally this year, I'd like to play some different Ohio cities, that is if it's affordable.

I'm aiming for a new album around summertime. That's about all for now. We at least got the projector going again.

Meh
So, we never did get to that second-in-one-week Pat's gig, the snow was too much. We have safely emerged, and the snow has melted. Of course, after the Tsunami disaster, I realized how lucky I was to be safely under attack from the elements. Gee whiz, world. Incomprehensible.

I'm trying to get into a routine of writing once a week; that way, maybe people will read the Poop Log instead of justifiably ignoring it.

So, my site was down, I had to pay for a domain redirection. Bastards.

Class Five Kill Storm
We've been buried under snow here, for about six days. We're going out of our minds. We have $20, total, to our names. This area is really trying my fucking nerves.

Don't even know if we can get to my gig tomorrow.


Fuck.

I Suck Wee Wee at This
I totally suck at keeping an online journal.


I suck.

So what's goin' on? Playing shows, doin' the do baby. (Not Mountain Dew, Doin' the do). From the movie Ray.

Our laptop is broken, and I have been unable to create copies of CDs for some time now. I'm completely broke. I originally planned for my next album to see the light of day in March of this coming year, but there's no way. There's a lot more I want to do, and zero money to do it with. Hopefully by this summer.

I really, really want to do better with journal entries. Hopefully I'll have more pictures up soon.

Recycle That Rainbow
Ok, I'll make this quick, cuz I don't feel like writing, but I don't want to get too behind in the log. I don't think I enjoy doing this as much as I should...it takes a lot of energy, believe it or not.

So, Recycled Rainbow 9, hosted by everyman of the Colorforms, at his whimsical pad. Foxy Girl and I got there an hour before I was supposed to go on, but we got pushed back a bit, for some people had not shown up on time. Not a big deal, except that I had told some friends to not bother coming due to time constraints. Had I known, well, you know...

Anyhooooo, I set up in the basement, got a quality sound check from another member of Colorforms (whose name escapes me at the moment), and I was good to go.
The crowd in the basement was...enthusiastic. Full of beans, for lack of a better term. Some energy directed towards me, other energy directed all over the place. It was a bit noisy at times for my taste, but it was manageable. It was a wacky time.

Thus concludes a dull entry, sorry.

The Hair, The Debate, and The Teeth
Now Playing: Victorian's Show-October 8th
Without a doubt, one of the strangest nights of my life.

For the GESO (Graduate Students Union) benefit, I was slated to play with Stars Like Snow, newcomers Villa Straylight, and The Teeth (from Michigan) at Victorian's Midnight Cafe in Columbus. The original intent was for some music to go on before the Presidential Debates, which were to be viewed on a large screen TV, followed by some music afterwords, lineup pending.

I knew something in the night was askew when upon mine and Foxy Girl's arrival we were informed by our friend Jill from Stars Like Snow that the band would not be going on, as a result of the rest of the band being stranded in Youngstown in a broken down van. (For those who don't know, Youngstown is not at all close to Columbus). This resulted in a lineup of Villa Straylight (pre-debate), followed by myself and The Teeth (post-debate). I felt for Jill, especially seeing as how she organized the damn thing.

Shift to slightly later in the evening...while outside sharing a cigarette with local friends, I remarked that I had heard it through the grapevine that The Teeth had thrown a slight fit about the idea of going on before the debate. My pal Josh, who was half of the debuting Villa Straylight, in true black-metal fan form, jokingly expressed disapproval for The Teeth and their perceived complaining, saying something along the lines of "No one knows who you are, who the fuck came to see you?" LO and BEHOLD, the lead singer of The Teeth was RIGHT THERE, taking a snooze at a nearby table. I only noticed him when he began to turn around, and I knew, I KNEW that he was in the band, I could just tell by the way he turned around. He wasn't too thrilled with what was being said, particularly with what Josh had said. He told Josh that he didn't think it was too cool of Josh to talk shit about people he didn't know, and he seemed confused as to why he had said anything like that in the first place. Now, this was what was going through my mind: For one, my heart dropped into my stomach at the unfortunate occurrence. Second, I felt bad for the guy from The Teeth, he seemed really hurt and bewildered. Third, I felt bad for Josh, seeing as how he was about to go on for the first time and he was already nervous, and then on top of it, he'd just stuck two feet in his mouth.

Now, for anyone who knows Josh, they know that he's extremely friendly, and ultimately a kidder. I was scrambling to think of way to communicate to the offended that Josh was just a lovable dipstick who was jokingly acting like a rock star. But, to someone who's a stranger, how do you explain such a thing? Josh was apologetic towards him, but mostly at a loss for words, possibly trying to think of a way to explain that he's not a bad guy, just kinda peculiar. Myself and my friend Jeff (also black-metal) tried to talk the guy from the Teeth down, worried about possible fisticuffs. He made it clear that he had no interest in fighting, just that he was perturbed at the comments made. Josh eventually went inside after deeming the situation as fixed as it could have been, while the singer from the Teeth remained outside, understandably pissed off.

Now I have to say, if it had happened to me, I'd have been pissed off too, no question. There's no way of explaining to a stranger the innocent quirks of one's (Josh's)personality, but I tried my best while sitting down next to the dude. After talking with him and another member (the drummer) of the band, I found them to be totally fucking cool guys, which made me temporarily feel worse about the whole incident. Turns out that the band and myself had a lot in common. They were into a lot of the same music that I was, and they said they injected humor into their music as well. I was blown away when the singer, Dave, told me that he was once in a band called Kimmy Gibler! We had quite a fun conversation about punk rock and TV sitcoms, and we were getting pumped about being on the same bill. All three of us outside were in better spirits after chatting, and I was excited to go on, and then get to see them play afterwords.

I ventured inside when Jill began to introduce the shattered-nerve acoustic duo of Villa Straylight. They played five songs, and with the exception of a hot mic which was beyond their control, it went very smoothly, and I was happy for them. Shortly afterwords, we all sat down inside for the debates. It was quite a bias room, with the crowd being vehemently anti-Bush sans one supporter at the bar who stood steadfast. (Foxy Girl maintains that she was a plant).

An hour and a half later, it came time for me to setup. There had amassed quite a few bodies on the stage who had stationed themselves to watch the debate. It was a total bitch to clear them off, and then subsequently set up my equipment while asking people politely to get the bloody hell out of my way. Now, I had talked to the "Sound Engineer," who was also the bartender, about what I needed from him. He was blitzed out of his mind, and he seemed confused as to what I was asking of him. Long story short (too late), we got everything finally set up after what seemed like an eternity, the mic was already plugged in, but I couldn't get my music box to work over the PA. I had to first yell over the mic, and then send a messenger to communicate to this guy that I wasn't getting anything from my box. After many attempts to turn the volume up and down, it was finally ready to go, and it actually sounded really good.

I started out by lecturing the crowd about being "bias" during the debate...no one laughed. I then sternly told this drunk girl to quite punching Flippy, our dolphin balloon. I was doin' my tunes, having a great time, partying down with those in attendance, when suddenly during the third song, I look down to see Foxy Girl wrestling over Flippy with the same drunk girl. I interrupted the song to yell at the girl, but it was too late. She had punctured a whole at the bottom of our dolphin with her razor sharp fingernails. (Never fear! Flippy is/was fixable). I yelled and cursed her even more after the song...I gave her the "reap what you sew" line. Works every time...she got the sour look on her face, and eventually walked outside. I heard later she cried and pissed herself.

I was cruising along fine, when after my (11th? 12th?) song, I noticed my mic was turned off. Jill jumped up on stage and told me that the upstairs neighbors had been complaining about the loud ruckus...folks, my set is not that loud to warrant complaints. The drunk owner approached the stage and told me we had to move it along, because it was getting late. Fine...I was bummed, but it took a while to set up, and the Teeth still had to go on, so, ya know. So, the owner enabled me to do one more, then I was off...at this point, I'm still thinking it's more of a time crunch than anything else.

So, at this point, I'm shutting down, and my buddies the Teeth are setting up. Out of nowhere, the owner begins lecturing all 5 of us, saying "This is a coffee shop--If you want to rock out, go to Bernie's," among other things. Keep in mind, the Teeth had note played a single note, but they're a loud punk band, so you can read the writing on the wall. One thing leads to another, and the Teeth and the owner get into a verbal confrontation about playing. The owner told them, in summary, "If you're loud, you're not going on." The Teeth took exception to this, as they had driven 3 1/2 hours from Michigan to play this shithead's club. The yelling escalated--the owner and the band tossing verbal venom back and forth. It started getting weird, when the Teeth were reiterating that they had come from Michigan to play, and the owner starting saying "I like Michigan," among other drunk ramblings such as "I'm not a musician, I can't sing, can't dance," etc. He wasn't at all cooperating in coherency, and this led to further heated tension from both sides. On top of it, both mine and their equipment was on the stage, and I was worried about the shit going down, both for people's safety and the integrity of the equipment, cuz it was about to be a riot in that motherfuck. Neh, maybe not, but there was a lot of screaming and anguish back and forth, and I did think for a minute it may go down...props to the Teeth for standing up to that bastard, and trying to get the crowd to coerce him into letting them play. The owner was calling them "fuckers," and all this fucked up shit...ugly situation. Needless to say, they didn't go on, and I was bummed, cuz I really wanted to see them.

There was a temporary idea a for a solution, as Pete the guitarist asked the crowd if anyone had a basement they could play in. Wrong town, really...basements to play in are few and far between in Columbus. There was also a last ditch attempt to call another club, but it was no use. The problem was that both the Teeth and I were booked by someone else, and the genre-specific protocol for the club was fuzzy at best. I felt really bad for the Teeth, cuz at least I got to play, and hell, I didn't drive from Michigan. "Play at Bernie's" he says...If we had our druthers, of course we would have played a place like Bernie's instead of that shithole. For one, that's where the show was booked, it was out of our hands; and second, contrary to popular belief, Bernie's is kind of hard to get into. This was a benefit, for Christ's sake. What a fuckin' moron. (NO, GESO didn't get money, but we gave 'em something to do dammit!)

Well, that's about it. We all said our goodbyes and parted ways; perhaps on a better day at a better venue, with at least a less fucked-up owner, the Teeth and I can play a real show. They sound like the Minutemen, check it out: www.theteethband.com.

Weird evening.

How ya doin? I'm the President!
I hope everyone got to see the exciting debates last night in the ravaged state of Florida; poor bastards. Foxy Girl and I BOTH have relatives down there, they're doin' just fine as of now.

I was hoping that GW would be lost without his prompter, and man was he ever. I thought Kerry was a total badass, and pummled him into the ground; a positive first debate.

I will now take this time to offer up another another punk rock disclaimer: The idea of voting within the two party system doesn't thrill me. On paper, it's bothersome, but in practice, I still feel it's necessary, especially in order to preserve civil rights in this country.

I saw Ralph Nader speak to CNN minutes before the debates. Nader (who I caste my vote for in 2000), was adamant in further proclaiming the unfairness of the whole process, i.e. he is not able to debate. Again, on paper, the man makes all the sense in the world. But we're a country of mush-heads, and the Independent party candidate's leftist platform will never fly in the land of the free and the home of the brave. It's just common sense at this point that a vote for Nader helps Bush. Just like Henry Rollins, I would love to have someone like Chuck D as a president...it ain't happening. Just like I wanted to tell the Hawaiian Communist Party, it ain't happening, especially the bloody violent overthrow.

I'm a proud leftist; however, I think a Kerry White House IS better than a Bush White House, despite the horrors of a two party system. At this point, we only have two options, to take Bush or leave Bush, and unfortunately that's the way it goes. Maybe in the future things will be different with some effort, but we gotta use what we have right now.

Supraphonic Studios-July 23rd
Now Playing: Going backwards in our posts, aren't we?
So my friend Colin (Debaser, employee of Supraphonic Studios) invited me to play a show at the studio where I got my last CD produced. On the card, along with Debaser and I, was Chris McCoy & the Gospel.

I went on first, and I had a blast. I was dying of heat stroke, but otherwise things were great. The bubble machine amassed a huge pile of bubbliciousness, and the screen the studio had kicked major ass. In a collective group act of stupidity, my brand new "PARTY" sign got broken before I went on, but we replaced it recently. It marked the last time I will ever do Dance Party; it just doesn't work live. I was in such good mood, I even caved into crowd peer pressure by doing an improv song about the Olsen twins...stupid.

After my set, this dude, totally shitfaced, asked me if I was saying "Fuck (my grandpa)," or "Fuck (their grandpa)" in Uncle Jesse Married Becky (Fuck Populi). I told him I said fuck their (fictional) grandpa, and that I would never say such things about my (late) grandfathers. He said, "Oh, ok, cool, cuz I was gonna get mad at you." Fuckin' idiot.

Debaser played some mellow indie rock, and Chris McCoy played some cool accordion/acoustic guitar stuff. Foxy Girl wasn't feeling too well, and I was pretty spent from the heat, so I apologized to Chris McCoy in advance for inevitably stepping out early. I think he thought I was drunk when I said it, but he was cool about it anyway. I never know how people are going to react to that sort of thing, and I always feel bad when I have to leave on somebody. It was a good night in Columbus.

Oh yeah, and I put a gash in my arm from walking into a loose nail in the wall. I'm suing.

Rockwood-August 7th
The next night, however, was just fine. It was my first time at the Rockwood, and amidst all the horror stories I'd heard about playing there, I was itching to get back up there after the previous night's debacle.

I met Steve Barrett, who's a really cool guy. I showed up to the place way too early, as usual. The band that was supposed to go on first never showed, so I went on instead. I had contact with my friend Matt (Infinite Number of Sounds) who said he would show up after dinner with his folks, but when I went on at about 9PM, I was playing for Steve, Steve's parents, the bartender, and Foxy Girl. I didn't really care that much, I just wanted to perform and forget about the disaster from the night before. The sound was pretty good, definitely good enough. I did fine, and Matt showed up with about three songs left in my set. Hey, it didn't matter to me, I was just thrilled to see him. I felt bad that he paid a six buck cover for virtually nothing. Oh yeah, that other band finally showed up, and they seemed to dig what I was doing, especially when I yelled "FUCK" a bunch of times during one of the last songs. We stayed for a little bit of their set, and then Matt took me and Foxy Girl to Recycled Rainbow 8.5; RR is a art & music party that a dude/local musician named everyman puts on periodically at his place. Turns out, I'm playing RR 9 in October...thanks everyman, thanks Matt, and thank you, the viewer.

August 6th
Ok, here is my story of the events of August 6th at Cafe Bourbon Street, and I'll try not to make it too long. Everything was going great; my friends from Debaser and Stars Like Snow were swell, and Stars Like Snow brought in a lot of people. Now this was my show that I booked, and for many, this was the first time they were ever going to see me. Now, I've had a while now to get over it, but I will say this...when a venue promises that a sound person will be there that night, I expect them to be there. I shouldn't have not gotten my hopes up, considering the extent of THAT correspondence was via email. Whatever. So, my friend Colin from Debaser did his best to "sound me up." Now, for those who have seen me, you know that ALL my sound derives from a single source...whereas, if THAT fucks up, EVERYTHING IS FUCKED. We rushed a "sound check," and it sounded like shit. I forged on anyway. It wasn't so bad, until my sound source started skipping, most likely as a result of the bass being turned up too high on the PA. At this point, I decided to pull an Axl Rose and basically throw a tantrum onstage. Like I said to Foxy Girl in the middle of the set, I can't fake having a good time. Bottom line, it was horrible, and I rushed through it without saying much of anything, with the exception of a few self-depricating statements. I might have been wrong to throw a fit up there, but I feel that if I can't put on what I deem to be at least a semi-quality performance, then there's hardly a reason to continue.

However, in the future if that kind of night ever occured again, I will TRY to stomach my way through it. I already have precautionary plans in the works; for instance, the simple act of bringing my own small amp as a substitute for plugging into the PA may work, depending on the venue. Meh, it'll be ok.

Sorry
Hi everyone, whoever's reading. Sorry about my website suckiness lately, including my Poop Log. Been real busy with school and what not. Talk to everyone soon.

DISASTER AVERTED
Now Playing: The Queers
One of my absolute favorite bands, The Queers, is coming to Bernie's Distillery in Columbus on Tueday August 10th. I will be there, FRONT and CENTER, but I came dangerously close to this show passing me by in the same fashion that two previous ones had. I've been waiting a year and a half from their last show, when I totally missed any kind of advertisement.

Recently, I condensed my "Places Elsewhere" links down to The Clash, The Ramones, Daniel Johnston, and a variety of local friends/interesting sites, just so I wouldn't overload my links section. I kept Daniel Johnston because of his impact of musical on my life; I kept The Clash and The Ramones because they are my top two favorite bands. Other than that, seeing as how this site is a public service from ME to YOU (in a way), I decided to get rid of most all the links for my favorite bands, basically cuz I figured no one would ever browse them; that, and where would the links end? I couldn't decide where to draw the line.

Either way, it was kind of convienent for me just to go to my page and use those links to get to the band pages, but what the hell, I wanted to maintain a little organization.

Suffice it to say, The Queers fall into my Top 10, so they had been there. No later than a WEEK after I deleted those links, The Queers announced their U.S. tour dates for this year. Unbelievable. I had checked TIME and TIME AGAIN for tour dates in the past year and a half, and NOTHING.

How did I find out, you ask? By SHEER coincidene, I was the Grog Shop website, and I saw an August 8th date for The Queers. I panicked, as I have a show in Cleveland on the 7th, and I knew my pard-ner would have to get back to Columbus and couldn't stay another day. Lo and behold, they have a Columbus date two days later. Disaster averted, as I would have gone on some sort of rampage, though I don't know what kind.

The lesson here being, the world may seem like it's playing this grandiose joke on you and your emotions, but sometimes, you get lucky and go to the Grog Shop homepage.

Yay!
Holy crap, it worked! At least for now. Sorry I'm breaking my promise to always write something interesting, but this was an emergency.

It's Screwing Up
So this "blog" is screwing up, I don't why it's not coming up right. Maybe this new entry about nothing will give it a jolt.