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showing up at 3o'clock, friends and i weren't terribly suprised to find absolutely NO one at the location of the show, thee attic of a barn/garage in residential, outer portland, besides rye, who's mother owns the property. rye was jammin out on a drumset, visible through thee front attic hatch/window as we wandered up towards the building, through the cursed rain. was this it? no bands? no kids? no vegan bbq all fired up and set for soy? it wouldn't have been the first time*.
after an hour or so of listening to scratchy boombox output, -a live amebix cassette, a ninja showed up to redirect traffic and our crew relocated ourselves back into van with hopes of tracking down somethings to fit comfortably in our mouths and more bodies to drag back to the empty barn. we had scrambled to arrive on time and were now suffering through the continued annoyance of nonfunctioning turnsignals. how could the day feel so crummy when i'd woken up to such beautiful, blue skies?
wet and irratiable, we shuffled into the local healthfood store. releived by vegan cookies, pasta salad, and nibblings from the hot deli area, i stepped outside and right past long lost punk pal, westie! he and friends were setting sails for north carolina to catch tribunal fest or some shite, not the punk show it the attic barn that they shockingly showed no knowledge of, upon mention. what i mean is this: there isn't a whole hell of alot going on in maine (in contrast to some other places) and what little that is going on, as far as hardcore or punk or whatever is concerned, i guess i'm just suprised to see that some folks that i've known to be really on the up&up with it all and would see at just about every show, signing and dancing and playing and socializing, just aren't tuned into it like they used to be. well, at least not in the same ways, i suppose. that's alright, i think. just perplexing at times.
anyhow, it was great to see mr westie, the wizard. i hope he stays in touch, cause i miss seeing him around.
back at the show, things were hopping alittle bit more than when we left. i think it was still drizzling, but there was a food/literature table to our left as we walked into the garage and the upstairs had managed to pack itself rather full of a hearty mix of familiar faces and some not so familiar. former DHYS-supergoons, jeremy and caleb had been spilling out old-style hardcorepunk clitter clatter for a few months now in their new band DOWN TO KILL, but this was the first chance i'd had to catch em in thee act. tiffany and i set ourselves upon a makeshift balcony, overlooking a pleasantly talkative crowd. i'd been rushing around abit more than i'd cared to and prefered to lay low for a short while, maybe to fully enjoy thee experience at hand.
shortly thereafter, DTK finished setting up and i was absorbed by the thought of neighbors backing down on their approval of tonight's noisy shenanigans. it got rockingly loud, of course. we all expected that, -but would they?
prior to my return to vacationland, perhaps on a parking garage rooftop many many miles, many states away, jeremy had desribed his new band's sound to me as something like "early black flag and black sabbath, and then born against, too," somewhere inbetween us relaying our travel stories to each other and plotting the further dismantling and resurgence of this north american punk rock hoopla through our plans to learn classic videogame programming techniques and all this crash!bang!boom!ing i was now watching him partake in. it's so enjoyable to me to finally be able to witness friends' creative efforts again... DTK sounds very unlike DON'T HIT YOUR SISTER, but very very good, at that! they did, however, suffer another sad case of nodanceium 2 firstbandius.
between bands, i grabbed some pita bread with some salad and a veggie weiner to toss down my throat... the grill was in effect and PINKO was next to play! most of their set consisted of newer material which may be released with fragmented vocal tracks, 10-20 years from now by some obscure music bootlegger in japan, as the "call for action demo '02."
significantly thrashier and faster than what i'd left maine knowing thee ACTION BOYS as, now the crowd began to show that we were cookin in more ways than one! the wooden planked floor trembled and PINKO essentially requested a thorough polishing of it via spiraling footprints. birthday dedication of several of their songs to some wierdo named matt, made it final... the support beams were slipping!
FORGIVE OUR SINS, despite the apparantly alinged title, it not a christian metal hardcore band, from what i understand. good. they are a metal hardcore band, though. good. while they finished up the show with a enjoyable display of skill and melody, i stood fondly admiring how well everything had fallen into place for the event. it's kinda funny too, because we all set-up this show because a touring indie rock band, the VERMICIOUS KNID, wanted to play and they didn't even show up. that's okay. most everybody had a really good time and hearing the KNID's cd kinda reinforces my feeling that one more band, especially one with as boring a sound as their's, would have been too much that night. we actually haven't heard anything from them since receiving their promo package (forwarded from an old address), several days after the show.
so, -after all that and the indie rock band conveniently not showing up (another plus being that no one had to pay/donate any money for anyone's gas or ego** or anything like that), the ACTION BOYS stuck around to enlighten me with rom hacking tips and the like. also excitedly conspired with pat about collaberating on the direct undermining of a certain maine music scene. oh, -and it stopped raining.

*besides the bbq part.
**would not nessacarily have been the case, of course.

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