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STRUT REPORT |
| REPORTING: POLLY |
| Thursday, 12/15, NYC: Did you miss the annual Crimson Sweet Christmas party? If you're not in Crimson Sweet, you did! You can, however, recreate this exclusive event within the confines of your own home (providing you can't get to the Holiday Lounge on St. Marks Place). Here's what you'll need: A limited but decent selection of tunes, heavy on the Faces, light on anything Rooster Booster might wanna hear; a string of old fat Christmas lights; the heat turned up way too high: and someone to make your gin and tonic with hands that just wrung out the world's oldest mop. Congratulations, you are now living like your heroes, the tasterati, the mighty Crimson Sweet! Up next: You choose a song for us to cover. Joe Walsh's "Life of Illusion" and Hanoi Rocks' "Tragedy" are out: we already publicly eviscerated them. Send all suggestions, printable or otherwise, to crimsweet@hotmail.com. Haaaappy holidays! |
| Friday, 12/2, NYC: Wow, thanks to everybody who came out on a rainy Tuesday night to make the Cake Shop show a total spine-ripper! For those of you who missed it, this was CS's first full show as a 4-piece; for those who did, yeah, we know Wendy's hot, but musn't touch, boys and girls! She'll burn you! Battletorn blew up right before, too bad, but Modern Machines blistered, still riding the thrilling wave of their transmission splitting in two in western Pennsylvania, and when F-Units were done punk rocking the house, Scotty shot this video of "Hello, New York." Thanks, you fuking rock! Thanks also to Andy, Mr. Glasses, and D.W. "Here Come the Brides" Friend for blasting everything from Hanoi to Behemoth on the in betweens! Nothing like the memory of some smoking metal to keep you warm while you load out in a solid sheet of rain.... |
| Monday, 11/29, NYC: Okay, this is driving me fucking crazy: Robbie Kongress is addicted to Clamato juice. In case you have never seen a bottle of this up close, it is tomato juice + clam juice, which = Clamato juice. It's fucking disgusting! Liquid clams! The Kongressman claims there's no clams in it, but when the third -from-last ingredient is "dried clam broth," THAT'S CLAMS! YOU'RE SLURPING DOWN CLAM JUICE! YOU'RE SUCKING DOWN FUCKING CLAMS! Please don't clog our inbox in defense of either clams or Kongress: we need the space to book gigs so we can pay for all the clam juice. |
| Saturday, 11/26, NYC: Crimson Sweet is always doing a lot of workin' and practicin' (that's for all you Seeger fans who I know religiously read this) and this means that when we go to make flyers or a record cover or a press kit or whatever, we wind up down at the copy shop with no photos, no art, no money, no ideas and no more time cuz they're going to close in like 5 minutes and the show is tomorrow. So, in honor of the very fine poster that Scotty from F-Units made for Tuesday's show at the Cake Shop, here is the most budget lame-ass flyer we ever made: We Xeroxed a lighter we found in the trash and then wrote our name on it in the free white-out and ballpoint provided by the copy shop. The name of the venue and the other bands playing that night have been deleted to protect the innocent from defamation and the dead from infamy. Enjoy.
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| Tuesday, 11/1, NYC: More photos from tour. Shot A is from Detroit: Thank you to the two rappers who raged late-night, proclaimed us fierce (rowr!), and teamed up with us for a "Linkin Park/Jay-Z kinda thing": Now it's just a race to the top, dudes! For real! Shot B is of Marsh, from the very fucked-up, very awesome Overnight Lows, posing with his living room curtains. Note to the kids: This action is IN and humping yr amp is OUT!
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| Saturday, 10/21, NYC: Well, shit, I forgot about the 7-inches when I was doing the listening party winners yesterday. When I was going through the pile I was like, damn, I thought there was more good stuff than that—and there WAS! The hottest 7-inches we brought back by bands we met or got to play with are those by Catholic Boys (Eric, I'm sorry I called you a he-hooker), the Divebomb Honey, Atomic Brains, and Hugh Blanc's Joyless Ones. Thanks, guys! Extra special thanks to Tim Maker's dad in Spokane, WA, (what is yr NAME? we love you!) who sat with his lady in a noisy bar waiting to give us these pix of his total hot rod plastered with a Crimson Sweet sticker from the last time we were there. Next time, the keys....
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| Thursday, 10/20, NYC: Guess what? Touring is A LOT MORE FUN than staying home. Yeah, newsflash, I know. Before I go back to my new hobby of attempting to tear my face off and feed it to crack-starved crows, let's talk about the results of the post-tour listening party! The winners are new records by The Feelers, Modern Machines, Kill the Hippies, Shark Pants, Roue and (it's hard for me to write this, but at least one member of CS thought it was great) Nob Dylan and the Nobsoletes, covering Dylan in punk style. So you gotta come see us play with Modern Machines on November 29 at the Cake Shop. You will cry and they will mop yr tears with their flannels. We're gonna have some hott new songs to rip out that night, so bring some goggles to catch yr eyeballs as they blow outta yr head. In other news, you can now get our songs on iTunes. We're FAMOUS! or at least we've been assimilated by the system. Buy now: each download comes with a band member's fingerprints and dossier on all perverted behavior engaged in during the past six months. And now, one of my fave band photos ever, the mighty KTH...
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| Tuesday, 9/13, NYC: Yah, we're home! Cheap-champagne-and-cigarette city! After sleeping until 8 pm everyone congreagated at the Cake Shop, which has an unusually good used record selection, lots of old '70s and '80s rock and newer hard rock. Wait, what does that mean? Anyway everybody who worked there was very cool and so was the sound, which is always thrilling. Thanks to the mighty John Woman (raise a glass....) and to everybody who came out on a Tuesday night, pals too numerous to name, and thanks to the Choke, who stepped in to fill the slot left by a literal last-minute flake-out by our flaky friends Live Fast Flake. In the next installment, we will discuss who lived and who died in the CS thanks-for-throwing -your-CD-in-the-van-window-and-nearly-beheading-the-driver post-tour listening party, and how the vow to "wait until gas prices go down before touring again" lasted less than 48 hours. |
| Monday, 9/12, Athens, OH, a lonely highway motel, noon: Robbie Kongress (staring in horror at a carpet strewn with shattered Saltines): What are all those crumbs on the floor? Electric Al Huckabee: That was your dinner last night. Robbie Kongress (looking with dawning recognition at peanut butter smeared on telephone): Oh. |
| Sunday, 9/11, Athens, OH: Got lost on dinky back roads and met a girl at a no-name gas station, the kind that sells dyed pistachios and air fresheners, who told us she was like 22 and had 3 kids and had never been out of the county. That's right, I said county, not country. This didn't mean she knew where the food was and we got lost again and got to eat shitty pizza in a fake-wood-paneled Rockford-Files-style shack specializing in White Lion and Alan Jackson on the jukebox, so obivously the best possible way to spend a Sunday. The show was definitely unpleasant for at least two out of three of the bands playing that night but we met a couple really cool people (thank you, Eric, for dishing out the postshow Maiden) and got to see our old pals the Lizard family (hi James, hi Keegan!). A big biker-type dude generously bought us lots of shots...some of us more than others as the Kongressman garbage-canned mine in addition to the 60 he drank. Result: the biker guy actually *yielded* before RK's stellar consumption. I guess it's not size that counts.... |
| REPORTING: ROBBIE |
| Saturday,
9/10, Cincinnati, OH: Home
of the Reds, race riots and our labe,l the mighty Shake It! Records. This
show at the Northside Tavern was a real, real cool time. The Virgins opened
and sounded even more low down rock and roll than last time. Check 'em
out. |
| Friday,
9/9, Columbus, OH: First
thing that needs commenting on at Café Bourbon is that it also houses
Taco Ninja. This may be the best name for a restaurant in the history of
the world. “We Assassinate your hunger!” Electric Al is from this region so we were knee deep in old pals. The show ended up being a two- band show, and the Patsys delivered some cool solid rock action, the kind that seems to come easily to bands from Columbus. The show was a sloppy but charged-up affair where the mood was let it rip. "CA Split" in particular seemed to roar and we got an encore and did the old chestnut "I Wanna Live." Good times, great oldies. |
| Thursday, 9/8, Detroit, MI: This is Kongress here taking the last couple entries in the Strut Report. Detroit is a town that we have played a few times, but never really had a show that has GONE OFF, as they say. Well the show itself went off: we were firing on all cylinders, rocking tight and loud. Unfortunately, the crowd also had gone off, to find other things to do in the Motor City. It has been said before but bears repeating: the three biggest lies are the check is in the mail; I won’t come in your mouth; and don’t worry, we have a short set, we think you should “headline”. Thanks to the local rappers who dug the show, Bunny, Andy, and Tim from Human Eye for hooking it up. |
| REPORTING: POLLY |
| Wednesday, 9/7, Cleveland, OH: Played the legendary Pat's in the Flats, which is a barrel-bottom club lit inside by fluorescent lights and outside by the blinking glow of a colossal radio tower and the headlights of oil tankers turning around in a neighboring driveway. I got burrs all over me trying to climb on a train that was parked nearby. Robbie and Electric Al got a lot of burrs inside them drinking low-grade tequila out of plastic cups. Thanks to Stephe of The Mystery of Two for setting up the show and thanks to Justin for extra rockage. |
| Tuesday, 9/6, Kent, OH: Street-veteraned ("street-veteraning" is Crimson Sweet French for "walking where everyone else is driving": like, say, the freeway or almost any suburb) it over the highway with our gear to the Goodyear, where we hung around counting dead dragonflies, reading elderly issues of Better Homes and Gardens, and waiting for our van to get a shitty new alternator and a lot of other stuff we couldn't afford. Screeched into Kent in time to play with Lester and CD Truth...and Jimi Imij: even though this guy isn't in a band right now, I don't think any band ever rocks as hard as this guy does in the front row. We stayed with Matt and Melissa from Kill the Hippies and were awed all over again by their unwavering commitment to the punk rock lifestyle, whether it's taking in touring bands or setting up metal shows in cornfields with a hay-bale stage and a generator. These guys make the rest of us look like the thumbsuckers we are. Yah! |
| Monday, 9/5, Bloomington, IN: Robbie Kongress and I discovered Ti-Vo and a lot of really old Sisters of Mercy videos. When I was little, I really wanted to look like the guy in that band! Everybody razzes me about this. Why? Needless to say, we got a superlate start and burned rubber to Bloomington, leaving a river of transmission fluid in our wake. The show was worth the spillage: the promoter, Josh, worked hard, booked solid, and got a ton of people out. There should be more like this guy! Thanks to Marty of Turn Pale who hooked us up with this show while we were on the road, and who let us crash at his house. |
| Sunday, 9/4, Milwaukee, WI: Todd and Shana took us to get breakfast. I owe Todd a box of Triscuits because I bet him that Sammy Hagar was born in Green Bay. I was wrong, and I'm really bummed about it because I've believed that for YEARS! Almost as many years as it's gonna take me to get Todd his crackers, ha ha! On the drive down to Milwaukee, I made the boys stop in Sheboygan so I could go swimming: as I approached the water in last-last-last-summer's denim bikini, I noticed that the natives were wearing wet suits. It was cold, sure, but my pride kept me warm. Not really. The show was a cool one, with Catholic Boys (their drummer, Eric, is amazing) and Plastic Letters, who I guess just lost their lead guitarist a couple days ago, but made a manful go of it anyway. We were sloppier than the previous night but I was happy anyway. Thanks to Cliff and Marie of Funhouse for feeding us, and thanks to Kate and Bill of Rush-Mor Records for putting up with our late, loaded arrival! |
| Saturday, 9/3, Green Bay, WI: A bleary Electric Al, stumbling to the garage at 11 a.m. to get the van out of hock, ran into Birthday Suits' Matthew, pedaling home from his drum lesson, and felt his knuckles dragging on the ground. After a cheese-curd-fueled drive across Wisconsin, we got lost in Green Bay, where it's hard to find landmarks because every billboard, store, house and child is plastered with Packers gear. We finally found the Main Stage, a wood-paneled dive with a lot of AC/DC on the jukebox. It's a good thing my dad doesn't know where this is, because he would probably live there. We got to play with the mighty (and Hüsker-y) Modern Machines, and when we were finished, a really huge guy told me we sounded like early Rush. Thanks to Todd Trickknee, Shana, and Mark for a great evening of vinyl-spinning fun! |
| Friday, 9/2, Minneapolis, MN: Breakfast of guar gum and Cardboard-O's at Aldi. Aldi is a supercheap, deep discount, yes-we-accept-foodstamps-do-you-accept-that-you-will-die-of-cancer-or-heart-disease-by-age-38 grocery store found mainly in the Midwest. Robbie Kongress said he saw produce, but I was unable to find it amid the racks of toddler-sized polyester cheerleader outfits and shelves of potted meat products. Most depressing aspect: for 99 cents, you can buy an Aldi "cold bag, guaranteed to keep cold foods cold for up to 3 hours"—basically,as Electric Al pointed out, for the long walk home. Bummer. And now I'd like to thank God for creating Minneapolis: tonight's show, with the Birthday Suits and the Divebomb Honey, was phenomenal, and the staff of the Triple Rock almost shockingly cool. Equally as shocking, though maybe not as cool, was the hotel room party Robbie and Electric Al attended afterward, featuring drunken Wisconsin sorority girls, the West African guys who followed them to the hotel, and a lot of Bacardi. Thanks to Hideo, Matthew, Alice and Andre for one of the best nights of the tour! |
| Thursday, 9/1, Chicago, IL: Horrifically long drive, which was worth it, as we got to play the first of two shows with the Birthday Suits, who, aside from being the nicest guys loose on the planet, are incredible. Do not miss a chance to see this band. Openers were the very fast, very cool and original Sharkpants from Tucson, AZ. We stupidly spent everything we just made eating across the street, where we were introduced to a new Chicago phenomenon: gay gangs. Then I got lost and drove across a median on the way to our outskirts hotel, where we snuck in five people for the price of one. This time, we were unable to break into the pool. |
| Wednesday, 8/31, Lawrence, KS: Grafton had no show tonight, so they hopped what some might call our train and others might call our short bus to play in front of an, um, exclusive crowd in Lawrence—not entirely unexpected, since we picked up the show about a week ago (thank you, Jeremy!). A girl named Megan kindly let us stay at her house, where I saw a spider the size of my face right next to my face before I went to sleep: it crawled into an abandoned pile of rotting furs next to my head and I lay awake all night waiting to accidentally chew its legs off. |
| Tuesday, 8/30, Denver, CO: Man who cares about anything, New Orleans is a sodden wasteland and all the cool people we know down there and the whole cool town are totally fucked. Here is the Red Cross link, where you should give some money. We did. I sure wish I knew what else to do. In other news, we played Denver to an estimated crowd of ten, crossing paths with Columbus's hard-touring Grafton, who suffered the same fate, as did every band on the bill. Low point of the evening: A bum outside asked me for money. I told him I hadn't gotten paid yet, and he said, "Oh, you're in one of the bands here? I'm sorry about asking you for money: I don't think any of you is getting paid tonight." After we got royally paid, I gave him his fifty cents with a vengeance. |
| Monday, 8/29: Goldfoot (v.): to drive at ninety miles an hour so that your vehicle consumes eighty dollars worth of gas in 200 miles. Example: "Boy, Robbie really goldfooted it through Montana today." Upon arriving in Casper, Wyoming, we crammed ourselves with low-quality tuna melts and then fulfilled one of this tour's missions, which was to see "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." Following this highbrow adventure, and anxious to get every penny's worth of what turned out to be this tour's most expensive pricelined hotel, we broke into the pool with a bottle of "blowout sale" wine and gave speeches in the ballroom in our underwear. Up next: a trip to the brake shop. |
| Sunday, 8/28, Missoula, MT: OK, here are all the people Robbie Kongress has been told he looks like: David Johanssen, Mick Jagger, Nick Cave, John Fogarty and Neil Young. Electric Al has been told he looks like Adam Ant, Elvis, Mike Ness, Paul Young and Jeff Goldblum. What do you think? Got a new one? Write us! If enough people write in, we may consider changing the band name to reflect your answers. Fogarty and Goldblum is one possibility: Ant Johanssen's Cave is another. And now the report on Sunday's Hell Gate Eagle Lodge show in Missoula: sparse. What might 200 years ago in the same town have been termed a massacre. No matter: those who were there rocked hard (special shout-out to Jesse and Dean) and we love you for it. |
| Saturday, 8/27, Spokane, WA: We've reached the point in the tour where, to save the pipes, instead of hanging out before the show, I hide in the van reading old issues of Short, Fast and Loud by flashlight and drinking gallons of whatever last night's tapwater was. This is how I saw the guy next to me get busted—he actually received a ticket—for sitting in his car with the window open listening to hip-hop at a relativlely low volume...while across the street music was pouring out of the bar at a volume that could sterilize a frog at 200 yards. Tonight's show was back-to-the-wall, monitorless, and on the floor, and it was pretty great. Thanks Pat Smick, and thank you Tim Maker's dad for the awesome photos of the Sweet Mobile! You rule! |
| Friday, 8/26, Seattle, WA: Justin and Rob took us around to a bunch of record stores so we could sell stuff, which was great. Justin, you left your records in the van, dude! We'll send them to you from Wyoming or something, don't mind all the pawprints on the Kajun SS. We also said goodbye to Will and leadfooted it to Seattle, where we finally began eating, making the colossal mistake of spending about a million bucks to eat dinner at a place that could best be described as the Deep-Fried Thai Dump, Main Ingredient: Azucar. We had already found out the Flip Tops had to cancel (Rob's explanation: "The drummer is 28") and so the Earaches stepped in to take on the crowd. The only other time we were in Seattle, the show was such a blazing rain of broken glass and shattered sound, I knew as soon as I saw the reflection of the Space Needle in the club window lightning wasn't gonna strike twice. I was right, but it was still a very cool show. Thanks to Adrienne and Pete (Peeeete!), and thanks to Brian Foss for being about the coolest club owner ever...and about to be a married man to boot, yeah! |
| Thursday, 8/25, Portland, OR: Here are the perils of having a bag of snacks in the car: you get really cheap, and you never eat anything but peanuts and dry cereal, and then one night you're onstage with your head between your knees, about to throw it back in a big bang, when you realize, "Hey, I might black out. Well I hope it looks cool." Anyway nobody blacked out but we better start eating. This is the second time we've played Portland, and the show was at Slabtown, where I can't possibly say enough about how cool and helpful the staff were, especially Malati, who was a more than gracious hostess. I mean damn. We had a lot of friends out (special thanks to G.O.D. and the Goose!) and met tons of cool people so it was a great night. Justin Clorox and Rob Flip Top let us crash at their place, where we watched cool videos by the Clorox Girls and the Minds. Robbie and Justin watched "Another State of Mind." Plenty of fucking drama for just a weeklong tour. I'm starting to feel like I should throw more fits. I mean, WWMND? What would Mike Ness do? |
| Wednesday, 8/24, Arcata, CA: Burned up the brakes on the 20 mph mountain curves from Reno to Arcata. Spent some quality time sitting in a ditch and watching them smoke before a mountain troll in a shattered pickup peeled in, yelled, "Lower gears!" and tore out. Jake braked at about 35 mph the rest of the way and were totally overwhelmed by the number of hippies wandering about in Arcata. Fortunately, one of those hippies was Al's old pal the Birdman, who is living off the grid God knows where, armed only with solar-powered batteries and a Prop 215 license. The Birdman is a generous guy. THANK YOU! Also, we met up with our pal Will, who drove up from San Francisco and skated till we got there. Rah! The show itself was great, a real burner, thanks to Ian for having us. Then we snuck into a Motel 6 where we had to hide two people and beg them to rent us their only remaining room, in which the water went straight through the sink drain to the floor—unfortunately, more of an inconvenience for the maid than for us. |
| Tuesday, 8/23, Reno, NV: Thought a lot about people eating each other as we went over the Donner Pass, then was overcome with revulsion for the human race upon entering Reno and seeing paople slumped gray and sloppy over Steve McQueen video poker in the fucking GROCERY STORE. Faith restored after reaching the Hideout, where a guy named Mike was spinning incredible records to a discerning crowd. This is rock'n'roll! Played with the Sharpies from Truckee, who have got their own thing goinv on in spades, very cool. Saw a bunch of guys drinking in the barbershop next door and was totally blown away by Nevada liquor laws and the ingenuity of the five guys who somehow got in there, until I learned one of them owned the shop. I was more jealous before. Thanks Mike for the new Turbonegro: Early Man demo coming your way! |
Monday, 8/22, San Francisco, CA: Got to play with S.L.A. again and also Faux Fox, new wavers from Texas who were not afraid to break glass. This shoulda been a rough one since a) it was Monday night and b) the club advertised the show as happening on Tuesday night, but it was a total party. Best accidental exchange of the night: FAUX FOX SINGER (from the stage): "The bathroom is filled with cotton candy right now." S.L.A.'s RUDGE (stumbling drunkenly out of the men's room toward the stage, still tucking in his leopard-print shirt): "I ate all the cotton candy! It tasted funny!" Thanks to short and scrappy Eddie for being our Bay Area fantasy host, thanks to Brian for getting Kongressional, and thanks to Larry (future star of our next 7" cover) and Ann for wild good times in Sacramento. |
| Saturday, 8/20, Oakland, CA: Finally, we got to hook up with our pals in S.L.A., an incredible band from Sacramento. These guys are truly living in strut. We set the landspeed record for our set (you can shave off minutes if you dispense with things like speaking, tuning, or opening your eyes), and then they blew the cowboy boots right off the stork that is the mascot of the Stork Club. Best physical feat of the night: John Rippey, roadie for S.L.A., coming back from a midshow blackout drunk behind an amp to wake up just long enough to fix it when it stopped working. Git 'er done! |
| Friday, 8/19, Los Angeles, CA: Weird show in Glendale that turned out to be great, a sea of screamers. Bonus out-of-age-range play points for me for scoring the romantic attentions of several attendees of a bar mitzvah happening next door. This still doesn't put me anywhere near Rob and Al for mother/daughter crackhead play in Indiana. Also we got to stay in Hermosa Beach, and I, for one, was goofily psyched to see Greg Ginn's house.Thanks to Rachel and Ian for hollywood-style hospitality! |
| Tuesday, 8/16, Phoenix, AZ: Right down the strip mall from Affordable Floors and Nappy by Nature Hair Designs is a building made out of fake stones and covered with spray-painted stars. This is Hollywood Alley, and we got to play it with the legendary Jeff Dahl, of Angry Samoans, Powertrip, Vox Pop and, well, Jeff Dahl fame—and on a Tuesday night. Thanks, Jeff! Biggest surprise of the night: John, who we first met in Chicago and who already shocked us by showing up in Berlin earlier this year. See you in L.A., rocker! |
| Monday, 8/15, Albuquerque, NM: Played an awesome show with very Stonesy locals the Dirty Novels. Power provided by local sticky fave, the Frontier roll. Top news story post-show crapout: skyrocketing gas prices. Estimated mpg of Crimson Sweet spacecraft, created 1979: nine. |
| Sunday, 8/14: Eight-hundred-mile drive across Texas. Topics of conversation: A) are there calories in phlegm and B) if it were possible for a creature to lay and then eat its own eggs, would that be good engineering or a bad idea? |
| Saturday, 8/13, New Orleans, LA: Full-on apeshit great night heralded by the sight of a fifty-something man driving a low vehicle made entirely out of belt buckles at top speed past the club during load-in. We had the pleasure of meeting local legend and gong-basher Jay, who was celebrating his 40th birthday. Jay gained familiarity with the band by reading the same Roctober interview five hundred times over the two years the magazine has lived in his bathroom. Imagine the Band, a guy clad only in a wetsuit and headphones and backed by....an imaginary band was the opener, and believe me when I tell you this guy will not be local much longer. The Overnight Lows came all the way from Jackson to tear it up, which they did, amidst an almost unrelenting shower of beer. Thanks to Lefty for having us and to Ginny for putting us up! |
| Friday, 8/12, Jackson, MS: It's kind of not possible to describe WC Don's: it is a total maze, often lit only with rope Christmas lights, featuring alternately stucco ceilings so low you have to crouch (we played in one of these rooms last time we were here; Robbie Kongress, who is 6'6, left a few brain cells lighter), abandoned partially built bar counters, half-built rooms with only studs for walls, and a phenomenal ladies' room featuring two stalls but six doors. We got to meet the Eames Era, who are friends of our lawman, Paul Sommerstein. They were very nice and handled the stage sound, which is about as crazy as the layout, masterfully. Post-show party at Daphne and Marsh's house was much appreciated, as was the opportunity to pet their new smooth mutt dog totally bald. |
| Thursday, 8/11, Atlanta, GA: Lenny's is a bar where you will be hit on by extremely friendly drunk people at the beginning of the night. By the end of the night these same people will have grown foot-long fangs from which drool will fly in thick ropes as they curse you and whatever heritage/job/town/income/gender they decide to assign you. This show originally had "death" written all over it but turned out to be pretty cool. We were thrilled to receive a suprise visit from our pal Dan, of Louisville's Red Nails, and we went on after a skronking art band dressed in homemade construction paper masks meant to represent an elderly man, Boba Fett, and some kind of fucked-up alien Miss Piggy. These people are the bacteria that will one day bring down the Clear Channel tripods, as predicted by H.G. Wells. |
| Wednesday, 8/10, Chapel Hill, NC: In which we played loud, late and low to the ground after not having played out for four months. Thanks to Leslie, who drove all the way from South Carolina to witness the carnage, and to Patty Hurst Shifter, who popped their gears in the early hours. The Cave is a pretty cool place to play if you can resist the temptation to hammer out the Manilow on the upright piano placed conveniently stage, I mean floor, right. |
| Sunday 8/7: Last night all of Crimson Sweet went to see the greatest band ever, the Live Ones, with the Ghetto Ways, who are also incredible. The show was at the Orphanage, where the GWs practice, and it was crammed with screamers! Shane (who plays bass in both bands) wore some rad-looking metal teeth, Jon from the Live Ones wore long fucking underwear to play the 90-degree-plus room (dressing out of sync w/the temperature: early sign of insanity, friend) and Al pointed out to me the family jewels of some guy who was peeing at a pay phone. Thanks, Al. Anyway, the Ghetto Ways are touring Europe later this month but if you wanna see the Live Ones yr gonna have to move here...for now. |
| Saturday, 8/6: Ok, since we're not actually on tour yet, it's kind of hard to come up with an explosive opener, so instead I'm gonna resort to that gossip-column standby, the blind item. Someone forgot to eat yesterday because it was so hot and consequently blacked out in practice, leaving the rest of the band to spend the next two hours smoking Mores and eating stale cashews instead of a) going to any of the cool shows that were in town last night (Patsys, Thor) or b) oh, I don't know...practicing? God, the shows are gonna be GREAT! To make myself feel better about this I am putting up a pic taken at the Pufferbar in Ulm last spring, courtesy of the beautiful Charlotte von Liprun. Any blacking out here would have been due to low ceiling height rather than low blood sugar. |
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