So, I am totally broke, jobless, and generally out of sorts, mentally. I have just moved into my parents house at the age of 25, not exactly "back" in with them, as they moved to this town a week before I first moved to Minneapolis. However, I had already commited myself to renting a car, and going on a tour with some guys from Madison, who are in a noise group called Right Arm Severed. I had seen them play w/ Emil Hagstrom on New Years and enjoyed their crazy yowl, I even got a big bump on my head due to my audience participation. So what the hell, I borrowed some money from my little brother, and went ahead with the plan. The plan to regain my love of life. The plan to reach into parts of my brain that had lain dormant for too long. As I lie awake the night before the trip, insomnia gripping me like a chimp, this ride man. It’s going to get real chimpy. And there were lots of changes in tense for no reason at all.

Day 1, Chicago
So I hired a Chevy Impala, late model (still not sure what year it was, I'm no gearhead) from Budget Rent-A-Car, which is a totally great, cheap, and gypsy operation. The place was hard to find, as the sign saying Budget was quite small, on the entry door, and was dwarfed by a sign for the car-wash which shared the space, and actually seemed to be the primary business. The office was bare concrete walls, a computer, and one employee, a youngish white trashish babe wearing facial glitter. Renting was a snap, it took maybe 5 minutes for everything, $440 for two weeks in a full size car. Unlimited mileage. Quite the tidy bargain. And it's off to Madison to pick up the boys!
       I met up with the Right Arm Severed crew at 23 Productions, a combination recording studio, art studio, and kitty hang out. RJ, Mansfield, and Steven, and also, RJ's 18 year old brother Simon would be coming, a quiet, intense guy who's an inch taller than me, at 6'5". They offer me plants, rubber bouncing balls, and some sort of chalky energy shake. And it's off to Chicago! On the ride there I found out that the boys had been to several shows I'd been to, including this one show where I ended up in a bit of a tussle with Prurient. I was real drunk, was feeling the jams, and gave Dom a good natured shove, unaware of the emotions he brings up for his performances. Next thing I know I am on the ground, and he's run out of the venue. Afterwards we talked, no hard feelings, and are friends. But Mansfield told me he was concerned when he heard I'd be coming, was I going to be a crazy, out of control drunk, Nebraska style? Nope. Oh yeah, it is also decided that the leader of the band is a picture of a kitty wearing a frog hat thing. His name is Frogcat.
        We arrived in Chicago, at the venue which was a sort of studio space in a church community center. It was a super nice place, like the Church in Minneapolis, only less burly. So we load our stuff in, and I am very excited, skipping down the steps, WHOOP, WHITE PAIN FUCK! We have been at the place 10 minutes, I have had one beer, and I have sprained my ankle, I knew immediately, having done it a couple times before (which makes it more vulnerable now). I get some ice on it, tape it up w/ some gaffer's tape, and try and keep it elevated. A very nice gent offers me an Oxycontin, "Naw, it feels ok for now, thanks though!" I say, still feeling the endorphins. 20 minutes later they wear off, BLINDING PAIN, hmm, maybe I'll take that painkiller after all! So I do, and end up as high as Rush Limbaugh. Actually, probably higher, since he built up a tolerance for this stuff. Panicsville plays first, and is super good, this set reminds me of Mammal, as I remember (which isn’t that well). Bloodyminded play, and they are INCREDIBLE. My friend Nicole described them as "the Ramones of power electronics", and they pretty much are, they all kind of share a fashion aesthetic (lots of leather), and play what is basically cliched power electronics stuff (songs about murder, anorexia), but they do it PERFECT. Actually, I had heard people say they were awesome, but Matt St Germaine said they were stupid, and when I told Larry Doleman this he replied "they are both 100% right!". They had lots of short songs, hardcore style, which was great too, a lot of the time p.e. songs tend to go on for far too long, I think. Next was...can't really remember the lineup, I think it was Right Arm Severed. I played with them, starting off with a hot mic, doing some sort of monologue about how the Doors are underrated (which I wasn't being ironic about) and I think I may have done some sort of version of my poem "Ghost: A Poem for Stevie Nicks to Sing". It was basically a tribute to Richard Meltzer, and narcotic painkillers. Then the rest of the band comes out, in gorilla (or grolla as it says indelibly on the box) costume, and various outfits. I then took over the mixer, mixing up a noise tape with a tape of some vocalizations I made. I have no idea if what I was doing was any good.
        After the set, I guess Mansfield was packing up stuff, and Mike Connelly from Hair Police was like "hey man, can you hurry up, we want to set up". Mansfield took offense to this, and I guess they almost came to blows. I was confused by this, as I was friends w/ both sides, and it seemed like Mike and Mansfield would be good buddies. I guess Mansfield ended up having some mixed drinks that night, which he normally doesn't do, and ended up an incoherent, insane mess. And I, despite being totally loaded, was apparently still fairly coherent (not like I'm saying I'm a superhuman partier or anything, I have been totally messed up many times in the past). Anyways, Dead Machines played, and were great, with lots of nice sax playing by John, Hair Police were great, with some more sax playing by John, and then Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice was really great, as always. It's one a.m., and I am wiped out, we end up going to stay at Valerie and Ren's place, which ends up being super small, but I don't care, I lay out my sleeping bag in the kitchen, which I can't even lie straight in. A certain member of our party regales V. n’ R. w/ such witty bon mots as “jews and amish people don’t drink Dr. Pepper”. Whuh? At some point it is decided that we will stay at a different, larger place, just about the time I am starting to fall asleep. So we head over there, me limping VERY slowly w/ a sleeping bag wrapped around me. I must’ve looked like some sort of green beast. Anyways, we finally get to the warehouse place, and I finally get to sleep, with a big fluffy cat on me.

BLOODYMINDED: Ruling in a church.

Day 2, Newport
Wake up in the warehouse, which is super cold. I am very hung over, I probably had like 12 beers on top of the Oxycontin. Gack up a little bile, then feel better. We stop for some hamburgers, I can’t eat mine yet, but I get some French fries in me, and I am ready to drive, w/ the help of Royal Trux on the stereo. Baghdad Buzz is probably a very ultimate hangover road trip jam, indeed. Anyways, we head to Newport, KY, going through a part of Gary, IN which isn’t totally shitty (I’d only seen the part off the interstate that looks like Beirut). I did see one of those black lawn jockey things, which was pretty weird. They still make those? Indiana is totally the most boring state to drive through ever, and I’ve been through North Dakota! We get to the Southgate House in KY, which is a pretty cool place, way bigger than I expected. There are a number of stages of different sizes, we play in this smaller room upstairs. We play with this power electronics band Realicide, who I thought were just sort of pretty ok, they have a cd that is real good though. Some guy called Sweatersplash does some noise w/ death metal drumming, super short. Lucas Abela was there, our first show with him, doing his blowing on glass and bleeding thing, which was totally great. Afterwards the bartender got upset when he tried to go in a back room to get his first aid kit. “I can’t have you bleeding all over back here!” he says. Right Arm Severed plays, I wear a mask, and jump around like a donkey kong. We forget to bring in Frog-Cat, but a picture of a fat man w/ a pipe and flagon leads the band instead. Some band whose name I can’t remember plays, and they are one of those small town bands trying to sound like mid period Wolf Eyes (get ready, I have a feeling these bands are going to pop up EVERYWHERE!), I liked them though. After the show we go to White Castle, where Lucas finally gets to experience the magic. He found out about this fine institution from that Harold and Kumar movie, and he becomes enamored, even though he didn’t even like the movie! No one has a place where we can stay, so the guy from Realicide (can’t remember his name right now) gives us some money for a hotel! What a nice guy!

"Lucas Abela was there, our first show with him, doing his blowing on glass and bleeding thing, which was totally great."

Day 3, Columbus
We go to Columbus Ohio, for our shittiest show of the tour. Mansfield is getting bad vibes because of his run-in from Connelly, and my ankle is acting up, and I am super tired. The club kind of sucks too, the stage is super high off the ground, and all we get for drinks are like $1 of Killians or something. I play with the guys, even though I don’t feel like it, and all I do is sit on stage w/ a mask on and play around with some rope. I was told I looked “relaxed” but actually I was exhausted, and in pain. WWVV and Justice Yeldham play and rule. Afterwards I borrow some duct tape from the Hair Police, and go out to the car to change the tape on my wound. In a daze, I end up locking the car keys in the trunk. SHIIIIT! After checking my pockets a million times, I end up calling Matthew St Germaine and get some help from him in contacting an auto club, who are very helpful, and charge $30. I guess a normal locksmith would charge like $100 at a minimum. Waiting for the truck, I miss Hair Police, and Dead Machines who do a set w/ Tovah on guitar and John on drums. They sounded good from outside, I wish I could’ve seen it. Afterwards, we end up staying at this guy Miles' house. Miles has a very funny, infectious laugh, and we end up talking to him and another guy named Daryl(?) for a while about comics and stuff. Everyone goes to sleep, except Frog Cat, who goes out wandering, crashes a party and does a keg stand, then accidently buys crack from a teen prostitute, and smokes it. That crazy Frog-Cat!

Day 4, Nashville
On day 4 we went to Nashville. If you know anything about geography, you are probably thinking I am getting some days mixed up, but I am not, we totally end up driving a bit southwest to Nashville. I don’t mind at all, because Angela from Taiwan Deth lives there, and I had given her this air cast that I had when she had a sprained ankle, coming through Minneapolis. So I get it back from her, and it totally rules. The air cast makes walking actually GOOD for the ankle, as it massages it. The venue is this place called Angle Of View which is also a recording studio. The guy who owns it is named Jesse Jamez, and he is a top notch fellow. He’s a hip hop mogul who hasn’t made it big yet, but I am pretty sure he will. Friends w/ Young Buck and Lloyd Banks, and has some totally great gold glasses. The sound is amazing, and there is a super nice chill out room. We end up playing with some solo folk guys whose names I forgot, but who are really good. Taiwan Deth does a killer set. We do one of my favorite sets, I wear a mask and attempt to dance around like a SE Asian pop star. Simon says afterwards “I took the gayest picture of you ever!” Huey Lewis ends up being sampled. The last band is this band called Paik, who are one of those modern rock’n’ psych bands who play really repetitive songs, sort of like Mogwai. I end up liking them better than I like Mogwai, and I feel bad that everyone ends up leaving for their set (it’s a Tuesday night, and people gotta work). They have a fog machine, lights, and a huge drum set, including a timpani drum. Oh well. Afterwards, instead of staying there we decide to drive straight through the night to Baltimore, a 12 hour drive. If it was any other town, I’d probably dread this, but I can’t wait to see Twig and Carly, so I drive until dawn, switch with Mansfield, sleep for 4 hours or so, then take over again.

PAIK: It is true, every band looks better with a smoke machine!

Day 5, Baltimore
We try and find Twig and Carly’s house, but end up on the opposite side of town instead. The Anti-Tarantua Hill ends up being a townhouse, which RJ wanders into, frightening a grade school teacher lookin’ woman. Then things are sorted thanks to the magic of mobile phones, and we make it to the Real Tarantula Hill. RJ is worried that they’ll have tarantulas there, he’s got a phobia, but they don’t, just kittys! I am worried that Nate Young will be there, because I have a phobia of getting totally wasted with him, but I end up getting over that fear quite easily. Me and Nate go to the liquor store and purchase some of this beer which costs 3.25 a six pack, called National Bohemian, or Natty Bo, as he shortens it to. We are busy people, and can’t be expected to pronounce the entire names of beers! I end up pretty drunk already at 5 o’clock. I misuse a toaster oven and carbonize a bagel, though I think that might have been before I started drinking. Twig tells me “hey, you should do a Sweepers set!” so I say “Ok”. Later on, the shows starts, I don’t play with Right Arm Severed, as I gotta save my energy. Lucas plays with a “digeredoo” as Twig couldn’t find a plate of glass, it’s a fluorescent light bulb. I do my Sweepers set, even though I feel kind of like I shouldn’t. I do it in slow motion, and is that some evil spirits I feel entering my body? Naw, I’m probably just being paranoid. Dave Phillips plays, along with this video of lots of animal abuse, though the point of the piece seems to be more about humans, sort of a “wake up and think for yourselves!” thing. It’s really good, still it’s intense and sad to see a monkey with “CRAP” tattooed on his forehead, and kittens hanging from ceilings. Twig lightens the mood with his DJing abilities, by following the piece with a parody of “Everybody Dance Now” entitled “Everybody Fuck Now”, at 16 rpms, it sounds great. Quad Muth plays and are great, Happy Mother’s Day I Can’t Read w/ Matt Wacker, and Leslie Keffer play, and are also great, though my memory is starting to get a bit blurry at this point. After drinking loads of water, I go to sleep. On waking up the next morning Markus says to me “do you remember walking around last night?” Apparently he woke up at one point, and I was missing, and wasn’t in the bathroom, then he saw me coming up the stairs and my pants were undone and I was speaking gibberish! Later, James from Quad Muth tells me that I had walked into a room, opened the grolla suit box, and peed in it! I am quite bewildered, and don’t believe it at first, as I remembered waking up twice to urinate, and I did so quite a bit. Turns out it was true though, but my shameover is quickly healed by Twig and Carly. Carly tells me “I guess Mick from Rubber O has done that pretty often!” which makes me feel less like a horrible person, and Twig makes my tummy feel better with porridge and pancakes, yelling “I want to make you fat!” Twig and Carly really are some the best people of all time! Still I wonder, did my Sweepers set actually involve my possession by bad spirits? Or were the ‘spirits’ nothing more than the ethyl alcohol? Or did the alcohol make me more vulnerable, leaving me open to some cruel rule of the bureaucracy of the Other Side? I will go with the latter, even if it’s not true in the “consensus reality” sense, it makes the most sense to me, and works as a good metaphor to boot, to be careful when drinking. Feeling much better, past the teeth, round the gums, look out Philly, here we come!

LUCAS ABELA: "Twig couldn’t find a plate of glass, it’s a fluorescent light bulb."

Twig Harper = DJ Very Good At Picking Out Records to Play!

The mighty National Bohemian Beer Castle!

Day St Paddys Day, Philadelphia
ILLADELPHIA, BITCH! It’s a pretty good town, nice and dirty, though not quite as dirty as Baltimore. We arrived at the Warehouse space, which I think was nicknamed the Athaneum. Deciding on some of these cheese steaks you are always hearing about, we embark. To find them. An Asian man makes them for us, while we are waiting, Grandpappy comes in, mumbling things. “CHOP CHOP CHOP!” he yells at the man behind the counter. “CHOP CHOP CHOP!” He wanders around a bit, then a woman finally asks him what he wants. He can’t get what he wants, so he starts yelling about ‘goddamn gooks’, and says “I should’ve stayed in the army, and just ate what they gave me!” He seemed a bit old for the army, but I’ll bet prisons would accept him! The cheese steaks ending up being excellent.
       The show that night is well attended, Quad Muth wasn’t on the bill originally, but we tell them to just show up, these Philly Hayseeds’d be fools to turn down a performance by Minneapolis’s Top Youth Band. Everyone plays real good, especially James from Quad Muth who had a fire in his belly or heart or brain, prolly all three, and drummed like a champeen! It ended up being my favorite Quad Muth set ever, and I’ve seen them play like a million times. That evening I met a 16 year old girl, who as it turned out had started doing cocaine ar the age of 12, and had developed thyroid problems because of it. Keep this in mind 12 year olds, you are two young for the nose candy! The drinks this night were Shaefer’s tall boys, which I had never had before, but I thought I remembered Richard Meltzer writing about, and if it’s good enough for him… It is a fine beer, and the RAS boys liked it, even though they hadn’t heard of it before. They’d never heard of the Natty Bo either, even though both are brewed in Milwaukee. All bands were good, everyone got drunk and rowdy, but not overly so, and we went to sleep.

PHILLY FIGHTS, Pts. 1-3:

James and Lucas settle their difference like men!

Another fight! It was St Paddy's day, that's why everyone is so rowdy!

Another fight!

QUAD MUTH this night was the beast I have ever seen them!

LUCAS ABELA: 100% Hot Australian Man Meat!

Day 1 of No Fun Fest!
Yahoo! FINALLY! Well, not exactly finally, it was a fairly short drive up to NYC, then a bit of driving in the wrong direction into Manhattan a bit, dealing with crazy traffic in Chinatown, then over to our gracious hosts place in Brooklyn. On the way, we listened to what has to be the best Morning Wacky Zoo Krew show ever, they were talking about rumors of a movie of Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash from the Evil Dead movies. What? When would that EVER happen? Then some girl called up and said she worked at a comic book company which was releasing Ash from the Evil Dead Movies vs. Universal Monsters, and the zoo crew asked her if she was ugly. It was a laugh riot! Later on in the show they looked at a picture of a naked adult film star and said ‘oooh she is hot!” It was a fine moment in radio, indeed.
        The show was at The Hook, which is in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. It was a bit out of the way, you had to do a bit of walking from the subway. First was Prurient, who as always was BRUTALLY LOUD. I ended up only upstairs for a bit of his set, partly because I wanted to chat with buddies who I hadn’t seen in forever, but mostly because it was TOO LOUD! Prurient totally gets rid of the pussies in the crowd, and I was one of them this time around! I was exhausted, my ankle was still hurting, and I was spaced out from the drive, but those are all excuses a total wimp makes. Anyways, downstairs was the Chondritic (or chrondritic as I usually end up pronouncing it) curated night. Charlie Draheim was first, but was a little quiet, and there were a bunch of people in front of him, so I missed it. Actually I didn’t really stick around for any of the downstairs sets, because I’d have to sqirm my way to the front to see/hear anything, and my ankle was in horrible pain. I sat down and listened to all of Bloodyminded’s set though, and Lucas Abela’s at the end. Upstairs I listened to Mouthus, the Yeh/Corsano/Shiflet/Kolovos “Trio”, Dead Machines, and Hair Police, and they all sounded really good, but I didn’t really pay attention to what they were doing onstage because I was sitting down in the back and couldn’t see. Hair Police seemed to have a HUGE pit this night though. Ruzelstirn and Gurglestock’s performance ended up being a video, a totally groady video. It was a performance of these three asian women drinking glasses of fluid and then sticking their fingers down their throats and puking. One of them could stick her whole hand in her throat, which was pretty impressive I thought. I wasn’t THAT grossed out by it, as I’ve had to do what they were doing a few times, after getting too drunk and spinny. Then the headliner for the night was a guy called Hecker, who was playing a laptop, and who everyone thought was totally boring. Someone told me that he wasn’t even making the music up on the spot, it was just a playlist! He was no Robert Hecker, I can tell you that! I still stuck around a bit though, talking to the holmeys. My crew ended up leaving earlier in the evening, but I was able to get a stay with Mr. CM Sienko, a colleague of mine, and Charlie Draheim, at a nearby motor lodge. We had a bit of fine scotch, and went to sleep, me with my leg elevated on the air conditioner.

DAY 2 of NO FUN
We awoke, and went out to get some food, then came back to the lodge, where we sat around listening to music pretty much all day. It was great, I kept my leg elevated even more and felt much better. And Minnesota was on NYC television news, because of all the snow they were getting. So I get to the club, but ended up missing Panicsville’s set, which I hear was great, and included vomiting, due to smoking dirt outside with Glamorous Pat. So the first set of the night I saw was Rat Bastard vs. Newton (or someone said the whole thing was ACTUALLY under the name R.L. Stein, but naming bands after authors is dumb, even if it’s a cool band/author, like Oakley Hall). And boy, whatta set! For about 10 minutes beforehand this guy who I think is named Shawn, who has a huge beard was running around grunting like a caveman. When the set actually started, he was hanging upside down from these pipes on the ceiling, which is very dangerous as they were filled with hot steam and could’ve killed everyone in the crowd. The whole set was chaos, with lots of people jumping around, while Rat stood as a pillar of rock, playing insane guitar licks, while making appropriate wank faces. At one point Mat Rademan broke a tooth (even he’s not sure exactly how), and when he felt it in his mouth, spit it at Rat, and kept on rocking! After they finished, Rat continued jamming on the guitar a while, then Dirty Tony took over for a bit, and was just as good. Guitars are pretty easy to play, if you know how.
        Next up was Kites, who is always good to see, and he’s a handsome feller too! He rocked his doodlebox, and it sounded real good. Then was Dave Phillips, whose set I watched all the way through again. This time, with the big screen I noticed his last quote was by Thomas Pynchon, it’s from V., and it’s something about on lonesome nights thinking about how the ways of men are actually more like apes doing a cruel parody of men. I can’t find the actual quote right now, it’s a pretty big dense book. Looking at the schedule now I realize I ended up missing EVERY other band downstairs this night, but I hear 16 Bitch Pileup/Polly Shang Kuan Band were AMAZING, and Glamorous Pat vs Mokinox got naked. But anyways, Heathen Shame was killer, and Wayne Rogers still resembles James Taylor to a terrifying degree.
        Next set I saw was Metalux, who were great! Jenny Graf was dressed in John Olson drag, which is a new fetish I didn’t even know existed, much less that I have it! I was sitting on a bass guy (woofer?) (oh yeah, and it wasn’t a MAN I was sitting on, it was a box, guy is slang for “thingy”, I picked it up from soccer moms), and man, the set was like everything I like about psychedelic music rolled into one. Totally killer stoned vibes, and I don’t even think I was actually stoned! Oh wait, yeah I was. Anyways, they were a real highlight. I don’t seem to remember the next few bands on the schedule, so I think I was doing more sitting. But I got up for Macronympha! I also got to talk to Joseph Roehmer a bit earlier, and he’s a really cool guy, as you could probably tell if you read the Bananafish interview with that band. It’s the best interview ever! But yeah, the whole set was just WRONG. The band was Joseph, Dom Prurient, and some dominatrix type woman. They were playing sick harsh noise, and Joseph was running what I think was a metal detector over the woman’s body, and kinda humping her from behind and making totally dumb faces. It was basically everything dumb and wrong about harsh noise, but done totally cool, sorta like Bloodyminded with power electronics.
        After that apparently Alan Licht did a DJ set, which I missed (or did I? I remember manhandling dear friends and trying to start up a singalong with Flipper’s “If I Can’t Be Drunk I Don’t Wanna Be Alive” at some point, but I think that was earlier). Anways, I was real tired, and we only stayed for like 10 minutes of Borbetomagus, which is a real shame because they are always good. But instead I went back with the Madison boys to sleep and shower, which I hadn’t done in a few days.

DAY 3 of No Fun Fest
More of pretty much rest and rehabilitation all day, until I decide to try and get to the club early. However, I don’t know that the subways aren’t running in this area on Sundays, and I have to take a bus, and I’m not sure where to get on, then I take the subway the wrong direction for a few stops, and then I ended up running into the Right Arm Severed guys when they get onto the same car I am on! I should’ve just left with them! Oh well, we end up missing Damian Romero, and Pengo, both of who I guess were killer. Hmm, this seems to be the night that I got REAL drunk, because I hardly remember any of the bands. Magik Markers were really good as always. I ended up talking to Elisa for a while afterwards, as she was trying to get me to buy merch, or at least a copy of 200 LB Underground, which cost 50 cents, but which I was refusing to buy right then (and never did). What the fuck? I was like “I need to conserve my money!” Maybe a cute girl trying to sell me something set off too many alarms in my head, and I just shut down or something. 50 cents though, jeez, and now I’ll have to mail order one, which is a real hassle for me! Thanks a lot for those shots you gave me, Leslie Keffer and Nate Young, and Andrew W.K., and I think some other people! Anyways, Decaer Pinga vs. Smack Music 7 was really good next, even though I can’t really remember it now. Wait, I don’t think I actually WAS that drunk at this point, because this would be around the time that HZMT and Large Parts played, and I remember all of that. Whoo boy!
       So HZMT is Anthony Miller aka Dirty Tony aka Max Cloud aka Anthony Connelly, and Large Parts was a friend of his named Justin, who looks a lot like a bouncer. And he is one too! Their set started with Tony making some noise, then giving a monologue about a man who drove a Christian school bus, and killed a bunch of kids, and got like 20 years in jail. “Which is wrong!” said Tony, “He should’ve got probation!” Then he talked about how a 33 degree Mason tried to get him to join the Masons one time or something. Then they made some more noise, then they brought out a weed whacker, which I don’t think they ever got working, and a chainsaw, which they DID! They cut up a bunch of things, including the amp, and I was pretty worried for their safety. They looked like they KINDA knew what they were doing, but they were chugging brews and whatnot, and every now and then I’d be like “Holy shit, someone’s going to die tonight.” I was standing next to Carly Ptak though, and she didn’t look to worried, so I wasn’t. Talking to her later, she said she had talked to Justin and he knew a lot about cars, so she assumed he knew about chainsaws too, but it turns out he DOESN’T! It was quite a web of people assuming that it would all turn out alright, but in the end it did, it was an amazing set, and no one got hurt.
       Let’s see, the rest of the bands this night I didn’t watch too closely, until the end, when Fe-Mail played. I was going to check out like 10 minutes and take off, cause I was tired, but holy shit, they were amazing! Lots of other people I talked to thought the same thing, except Rat Bastard who said “Next year at the International Noise Conference, it’s no laptops AND NO MIXERS!” Whatever, Fe-Mail were awesome, they had a bunch of knobs and doodledads and a laptop I think, but they also used vocals and a French Horn. They are also really nice people. But get this, even though they are hot girls, they chew tobacco! How cool is that? After their set, it was the end of the night, and I kept thinking I’d leave, then I talk to more buddies! Oh yeah, and there were free donuts too, it was the perfect ending. Except it wasn’t the end, I had two more nights of shows!

HZMT: Anthony Miller demands "More Xtian Killers!"

Day whatever, Providence
Ugh, I am getting really tired of writing this thing. And every band that played this night, I’ve already written about! Anyways, Providence was cool, Right Arm Severed played what was probably my favorite set of their all tour, Quad Muth was great, Dave Phillips’ piece was great, Lucas Abela’s set was great, and he used mustard as lube, which stunk. Oh yeah, Kites played too, and he was good. My brother came down from Boston, and it was good to talk to him, he told me about interesting economics books he’s been reading. We stayed in a room upstairs from the club, and got to draw on the wall. That’s about it, I am starting to feel the exhaustion again just WRITING about this!

RIGHT ARM SEVERED live in America

Day about a million years after losing my mind, Rochester
Rochester, whatta town. Apparently the murder rate per capita there is even higher than NYC! Anways, the show was at a small art gallery, and it was top notch. Right Arm Severed was good, Dead Machines played a really reed intensive set, which I loved. The Haunting played a rare set. That is Mike Connelly and his wife Tara’s (I might be spelling her name wrong) band, they played with the lights out, and Tara had a shawl over her head. It was a total horror movie soundtrack, I loved it. Oh yeah, then Mike and Mansfield got talking, and ended up totally liking each other, like I knew they would all along! Then the mighty Pengo, which ended up being a supergroup, with John Olson on drums, and Mike Connelly did some vocals. It was a super heavy jam though, I was glad we had this extra night, since I missed them at No Fun. Anyways, after that, we decided to drive straight back home, which we did, it took about 11 hours.

PENGO! featuring the Psychedelic Warlord on drums!

And that was my trip! It was loads if fun, but a bit exhausting, but still, I’d love to go on tour again! So if you are in a band, and want a fun, laid back merch guy, or want a non musician with NO electronics skills in your band, contact me at robotica(a)rocketmail, with a @ symbol instead of the (a), and a dot com at the end. I promise not to sprain my ankle this time! Well, I must be leaving you know, I have to review all the AWESOME FREE CRAP I GOT (for free!). Man, writing for Blastitude RULES!