Gigs, Gigs, and more Gigs
--Thursday, Feb. 5th, 2004: House party; Houghton, MI
The boys in the White House hooked TSB up with their first gig ever. The newly founded Mark, Alan, and Jon lineup learned and rehearsed 27 songs in under two weeks for this 7-keg Winter Carnival party. Sadly, chaos reigned. Mark lost his voice halfway through the first set, a drunk chick spilled a pitcher of beer on the rented p.a. system, and Alan almost lost a shoe. All said TSB made $2.50 on the deal.
--Friday, Mar. 12th, 2004: Opening band at CD release party for the Pisst Off Androids, along with Keep Right, and the Hypocrites; Houghton
TSB's first decent concert. Tony of POA afterwards remarked, "they sucked less than I thought they would."
--Friday, Mar. 19th, 2004: Rock n roll show; Ontanagon, MI
The infamous theatre show. Techmo Super Bowl was an instant hit with the crowd of under-age females. Mark was in paradise. We lost track of how many pairs of jeans we had to sign and hugs we had to give (actually we only had to sign one pair of pants, but a whole crapload of napkins, and one tummy). Ontanoganers apparently don't have much of a life. On a side note, a dude came up to Mark after the show and said that the song "I Wish I was a Hermaphrodite" 'touched' him. Use your imagination to interpret that. We didn't.
--Friday, Apr. 23, 2004: Michigan Tech's Spring Fling; Houghton, MI
A questionable performance at best. The balance was pitiful but the vocals could be heard as far away as Douglass Heights... sweet. ;)They daringly opened up with a song they had only played once before - Welcome to Paradise.
Note: During the Pisst Off Androids farewell performance in Wadsworth Hall (in 2004), Techmo Super Bowl made a cameo appearance and played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The Bear Song
--Saturday, Oct. 23, 2004: Opened up for Algoma, and the Gunshy at the Motherlode; Houghton, MI
Opened for a drunken pirate with an out of tune guitar. Techmo Super Bowl proved once and for all that they are way too hardcore for a coffee shop. Got pictured in the MTU Lode for it too.
--Sunday, Nov. 7, 2004: South Range Community Center (MI)
Closing band for a benefit concert, geared towards raising money for chemotherapy patients. The most notable portion of the event was the "beige belt with a crack in it." Enough said.
--Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004: EERC elevator, EERC building, MTU campus
Just a band busting out at the seams or a cleverly crafted ingenius marketing ploy? ... we could tell you but then we'd have to make out with you. Anyway, this put TSB on the front page of the paper.
--Saturday, Dec. 4, 2004: Played at the Back Room bookstore with Anarkinda.
The most noted aspect of the show was how much Anarkinda rocked for their first time out.
--Friday, Jan. 21, 2005: Played at the Back Room with Anarkinda and Militionary
Again, Anarkinda got all the hype. An MTU Lode article highlighted the energizing ska band's sound but neglected to even print the names of Militionary or Techmo Super Bowl. This is the point where Mark began plotting the deaths of the members of Anarkinda. One of the members of Militionary said later "we should stop doing shows with Anarkinda. They're stealing all our headlines." Then he spit blood all over the place, and smiled for a week.
--Saturday, Jan. 22, 2005: Played a birthday party at Alan's place for Stefan from Denmark
What Mark felt was his best performance ever.. almost as though the rock demon inside him was beginning to finally bloom. Two sets were played, and a third was foregone only to allow a drunk asian guy to sing karaoke. TSB played two song requests they'd never even played before and wrote the TSB birthday song an hour before showtime. Afterwards Mark got shot down by a coupla really hot Finnish chicks.
-- this just in! Urgent News Bulletin. One of the chicks in the crowd thought Jon was hot (crazy what some booze can induce, huh) -- Jon we're gonna get you hooked up yet buddy!
--Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005: Wads Cafeteria
TSB played their asses off for an incredibly "captive" and apathetic audience. Exposure, baby...and free root beer floats. Dormiteria was finally performed in its homeland.
--Sunday, Jan. 30, 2005: Motherlode with Anarkinda, Hypocrites, and Militionary
Another band called Draven, featuring a coupla hot chicks and members from the Hypocrites and Militionary, made their first live performance. TSB got pictured twice in the Lode for this show. Ha! Take that Anarkinda!
--Friday, February 4, 2005: Party at a friend's place. TSB was served some gourmet food prior to performance. Oh, and I guess some people dug their music. A couple of chicks got their freaking groove on during "Long Way Through." It was pretty sweet but we're sure it'll never happen again...with that song.
--Wednesday, February 9, 2005: Big Band Bash. The show had a rocky start when Mark shattered both E strings in the first 2 songs. Apparently Eleazar won (a band who had never gigged before), with the Hypocrites being runner up, and Anarkinda claiming third. TSB may not have had the biggest vote turnout, but we had, hands down, the best covers of all the bands: TMNT, Material Girl, Discovery Channel, and the Lumberjack Song. We did manage to bleed our sound onto lots of people audio receptors, and sold several CDs, so it was all good.
--Friday, February 11, 2005: Gig at the Back Room with Militionary, Hypocrites, and Anarkinda. Mark's family got to see us play the Hermaphrodite Song...talk about awkward. By request Jon sang on three songs which helped 'cuz Mark had to play somewhere else immediately after the band's performance. The coolest part of this show was when Scookers (Militionary) got on stage and sang the Hypocrites theme song. Oh and Militionary freaking rocked out when they were on stage.
--Monday, February 21, 2005: Storm the MUB gig. Played in front of a bunch of greek people in the MUB, and hardly any seemed to notice we were there. It wasn't the greatest of starts as Mark once again busted a string in the first song, as well as losing his pick then and there, too. We didn't actually play all that bad, but it was definitely not one of our better gigs.
--Friday, April 8, 2005: Mark's senior barrel. It was held at the pad of the amazing Shane "osh-kosh" Begoske. TSB played maybe half a dozen songs (including the Saggy Balls song), then Anarkinda played a full set's worth of stuff, and finally TSB returned to the foreground and rocked out more. The first set began with TMNT, and the second set finished with TMNT. Only the second time, Mark threw his guitar on the floor. Also, the mic kept fleeing Mark. In fact, during one of the last songs Mark followed the microphone in a full circle. Mark did a keg stand in the middle of the second set, but his guitar wasn't badly out of tune after each song, like it was in the first. It does seem like the whole night revolved around Mark, but it was his senior barrel. He disappeared later that night.
TSB SUMMER TOUR
--Thursday, May 5, 2005: The Radio Tavern in Grand Rapids, MI was where the tour kicked off. Mark and Jon made the trek from Ho-town to G-raps, and operated on merely a few hours of sleep, while Alan probably could've fallen asleep on his trip to GR featuring a 45-minute span that allowed him to travel 5 miles. Early in the evening, all three of them looked like they would pass out from fatigue. Despite the circumstances, they actually put on a pretty decent performance. One of the circumstances was a shattered D-string on the gee-tar. Jon put on what he felt was one of his best performances ever.
--Friday, May6, 2005: Wired Frog. In Roseville, MI (outside of Detroit) lies the Wired Frog: the next stop on the tour. This venue was awesome. Good stage, good sound setup, and we're told normally has 50 or so people a night. Unfortunately it was not the place's best night of things. There were to be 4 bands. The middle two bands cancelled, and the best one (TSB obviously) was a bit late, so ended up playing a short set. Afterwards, TSB partied like rock stars. They drove about an hour away, traveled on some dirt roads, then played one killer game of Risk. Oh yeah, that's what we call livin' it up.
END OF TOUR
--Saturday, April 1, 2006: The Shaft in Houhgton, MI. The reunion of Techmo Super Bowl pitted them at the coveted middle slot, being preceded by In Dispute, and followed by Sheisskrieg. It was the first time they'd played together at all in nearly 11 months (aside from a practice the night before). Their edge was far from lost. They totally rocked out. While it wasn't their best performance, they still kicked ass. They began with a 1-2-3 punch of The Bear Song, Mechanism and Get a Way. For all we know, this could be the first of several reunion gigs that'll happen. Alan suspects that they'll get progressively worse over time, Mark thinks they'll get progressively better over time. Apparently it's a union of band members, and not so much a union of expectations.
Main Page
Techmo Super Bowl's first studio album
Get some dirt on the band members
Investigate what these dudes really sound like
Make your very own TSB setlist
Find out what these bad asses are singing about
See what TSB looks like in action
