The Ballroom on February 1st, 1998:
We had some many reasons to be excited for this show. Firstly, the Secondary Press put on this show, and in my opinion is probably the only fair battle that happens every year. Also, we felt that we had tamed the little punk-asses inside ourselves a little and hoped to impress the judges with our slowed down sound, (some how that transition did not make it onto the stage). We were also constantly reminded by Dan about our weak stage presence, we decided that using a dress code was the way to solve that problem. We all made our own Spice Girl personalities and planned to unleash them at this show. I was Commie Spice, Mat was Satan Spice, Mike was Psycho Spice, and Nate was Charlie Brown Spice. We created or own T-shirts and everything. I went through the trouble of looking up “More power mother Russia!” in my Russian to English translation book and put it on the back of my shirt. When we arrived, we noticed the really soft couches and extremely bizarre paintings hung on the wall. Some were rather disturbing. Well, we sat ourselves down, kicked off the shows and just waited. We only sold about 10 tickets for this show, but ending up getting the timeslot we wanted somehow. Another key detail was the temperature, which was freezing to say the least. Actually, it was so cold that Mat refused to take off his flannel, ergo the judges did not see his shirt (which is in my opinion the real reason we didn’t win). Most of the night was spent running around the place acting like retards. When it came time to play, we for some reason or another decided to drop almost anything that wasn’t Loser Vision speed out of the show. It cost us because the one comment that kept coming up was “mix it up a little (tempo wise).” Reflecting upon our score sheets, we noticed that while some judges gave Mat a 1 and 2 (out of 5) on vocals, the other three gave him two 4’s and a 5. That was a little odd, we were consistent in our marks for stage presence (2-3) and togetherness (4-5). Overall, we finished with a 59, which was much better than the year before considering we finished 2nd last in ’97. The judging was also much tougher this year, the top band scored an 81 while the former year’s top honours went to Marvin K. Mooney, who scored at 94. Though all of this has some slight importance, the most important part of all is that this is the last night we played under the Iron Fist of Dan Boyko.
Joe Butt’s during early spring of 1998:
Well, we hadn’t spoken with Dan in months and we were on our own again, sort of. We had the assistance of Chad Labelle, who decided that he would help us out by calling a couple of places. We were headlining this show and the other bands slated to play were Fink and Vyle. Now, we had always had a fairly decent relationship with Fink (probably to due with my serious crush on a certain lead guitar player who sang for a while), but this relationship with Vyle was more like close friends. We had known must of the members from basically hanging out with them at Horton’s. I think this was their first show, but I can’t be positive. They went on first and played decently. The one memory that I have is that of Marc Brown doing a weird kind of hip thrust to the air, which was one of the strangest and yet most original and humourous things I have ever witnessed. Anyway, Fink played good and we premiered the Cowboy Way, which was received very well. Not too much to really talk about, the place was full. Actually, one important thing about this show was that we got screwed again. It seems that we seem to attract people that really mess up stuff. Anyway, a girl named Mel was dealing with the money and I think we only got half of what we were supposed to get. We ended up with about $55 or something like that, but still it wasn’t cool.
Joe Butt’s May 1st, 1998:
Since our previous operations at Joe Butt’s had been so successful, we decided to return to our home away from home. This time we recruited (notice the military theme and have a nice laugh) Vyle, Free King Otis and Marlie On Ice. The campaign opened with Vyle, who fired off such favourites as “Waste Of Time” and the Big Show Mike Malysewich’s favourite song “Winds of the Desert”. Next came the elite force of sound makers, Marlie On Ice. Interestingly enough, Mike hopped up on stage and joined them with a little bass on the side (who would’ve thought that he’d be doing it every week in the summer?). After they finished, we took the stage and released a relentless attack of sonic barrage filled (distortion) songs. The set remains almost a complete blur to me, I have no clue what went on. Next, Free King Otis ascended into no man’s land and actually did release an attack on the stage. This was the first time we ever saw Kyle break a guitar, and it was violent. He actually put a hole in the stage. I think the hole is the reason that they stopped doing all ages shows, but it could have just been our curse.
Outside Laser Vortec on June ??, 1998:
This show was a prelude to the big show happening the next day. We played our first charity gig for the SIDS foundation (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). The only word to describe our set was kooky. Somewhere in the middle we gave up and just pulled a Sloan and everybody switched instruments. I played bass and I think Mat played drums, but it might have been Nate. We had no clue what we were doing, but it went over fine. Another thing to note, this was our first show outside. It was really bizarre, playing to no audience, just to people passing by. Anyway, next was Vyle, who got shut down because they were actually driving people away. Needless to say, this show will not go down as an important moment in the history of Empathize.
Laser Vortec on June ??, 1998:
This show is very important so make sure to read this. This is probably the best show the band has ever played. First the details, we played inside with Vyle and Millhouse. This was Millhouse’s first show. Well, they went on first and played one of the best debut shows I’ve ever seen. The crowd was pretty good (about 150 people). Next was Vyle, who were all ever drunk, stoned, or suffering a nervous breakdown. I think this is the show that broke up the band, they managed to clear out the place. Luckily for us, everyone (and then some) came back in when we hit the stage. I remember freaking out cause our main man Mat was missing. Well our fabulous frontman found his way to the show just minutes before we got on. This set kicked ass. Highlights included break dancing during El Nino, an encore of Missing Out (Bob Dole remix), and the return of the Domtor Express! You read that correctly, break dancing! It was so fun, the place was packed, the sound was great and we made $100! We ended the school year off with a perfect show.
Majestics on July ??, 1998:
We were invited to play this show by our friends in Free Kind Otis. Majestics is a strange hybrid between a country bar and family restaurant. We were informed of this show just days before and really didn’t have any way to get people out to it. It also turns out that the Killjoys were playing the same night as Gage Park. We decided that we’d make this show a little crazy and at first planned on doing it as a Nirvana cover band. We were gonna play a whole bunch of songs, but ended up doing only Verse Chorus Verse, Pennyroyal Tea, and About A Girl. We ended up doing our own stuff anyway. Lots of entertaining stuff happened at this show. For instance, there were these kids outside who must have been twelve or thirteen and one of them had a Nirvana hat on. He recognized Verse Chorus verse, which made him appear at least mildly cool in our books. He told us that he had the Outcesticides, which Mat did not believe until he got one himself. Other stuff happened too, like some guy kept repeating the exact same Eric Clapton song over and over, and it wasn’t even a good one like the cover of “I Shot The Sheriff”. The best part of the whole night is when FKO went on. They basically made every person in the bar cover their ears in disgust as Kyle poured his heart out into the audience. I think that that was rather insensitive of the people there, you know, Kyle’s singing to them, opening up to them, and they just respond with anger. That is just proof of what an awful type of society we have. Anyway, Kyle’s Uncle John, the sound guy, was getting sick of the people hassling him to turn them down, so he flipped out. It was really cool, then some other guy flipped out on him and then Clayton Labelle was gonna jump in and kick some ass. Somehow, everything got cooled down and the band finished the set no problem. To my knowledge, this is the last time a band ever played in Majestics, which adds again to my theory that we are cursed.
The Corktown on August ??, 1998:
Well, every Tuesday at Corktown is all ages night. And every Tuesday during the summer, Mike from Evil Engine put on a show, with the exception of this one. I went there the week before, playing with Marlie On Ice and booked the show. Nate finds it particularly amusing that I was dressed in a ragged T-shirt and old shorts when I booked the show. Anyway, this was definitely one of our better shows. This was the first show that I personally put together, so I was nervous like crazy. We had Marlie On Ice, Fink, Hereafter, Millhouse, Armageddon and The Fuzz play along with us. I think this was the only Tuesday all summer that the word “poo” was not mentioned onstage. Well, we played a really decent 45 min set, that included our first performance of Avarice. The best part about the whole show was that we packed the place. In fact, the owner told me that we had the largest crowd for the entire summer, which was obviously a huge confidence boost to me as a promoter. Well, the show will go down as our most profitable night ever, the show grossed over $800, which translates into about 200 people. We really should have done another show that summer, but it was late August already and did have the time.
Laser Vortec on September 26th, 1998:
Finally, we returned to our home away from home. We planned to rock the place, just as we did during our last visit. We were 100% wrong. The show leaked problems from the start. The sound guy didn’t show up until very late, and we couldn’t get the sound we wanted. Anyway, the show had to go on. Millhouse went on first and did a good job. They were followed by Armageddon, whose fans made up the core of the audience. For some reason or another, most people left right before we started (there are reports that we were conspired against by a particular band that was upset about a particular show they played with us during the summer). We were obviously not in the right mind frame for the show, and the music suffered. We didn’t really play that well and were visibly disappointed with what happened with the crowd. The only thing about the show that does not bring back bad memories is that Adam, our keyboardist debuted at that show. We did okay, even though he was secreting nervousness from ever pore in his body. One thing that still angers me to this day is that we got really jerked around for cash. Apparently, the contract was not made clear enough, so the place decided that because we disturbed some little kids, they would take $600. Some of that belonged to them, but half of it was ours. So as a result, each band made between $50 and $75 less than they should have. This was definitely not the return that we were looking for. The curse struck once again though, Laser Vortec relocated shortly thereafter.
Transit Union Hall on October ??, 1998:
No one other than me and Dave (from Marlie On Ice) seem to remember this show at all. Only a few vague points stick out. We went on first and I remember that we played Cyst. Other than that, the show will go down as the Atlantis of rock.
Transit Union Hall on November ??, 1998:
This show took place in the middle of bus strike. We feared that this would seriously hinder our attendance, but things turned out okay. This was definitely the best show that we’ve ever played since Adam joined the band. We ran into some problems with the organization (I set it up) on the day of the show, but every thing was eventually cleared up. Fink went on first, they were followed by Free King Otis, who were a little upset because they wanted to play right before Sub-D. Next was Millhouse, who put on a crazy show, which I can testify to because I was downstairs talking to the owner when I noticed that the ceiling was shaking! Craziness... Well, we went on, Mike looked like an art consultant in his suit, Mat wore a chicken as a tail, and we rocked out. The most significant thing about the set was the premiere of Sex Slave, which was excellently received by the audience. We played the DX theme and the whole thing was pretty much solid. On after us was Sub-D, who were amazingly amazing. After Sub-D came Marlie On Ice. This show turned out to be the end of the band. About twelve people watched, Kenny and Derek were drunk, and Dave chipped a tooth. Overall the night was a success, with a few minor blemishes.
Bowl-O-Drome on November ??, 1998
This show is more of a tidbit than anything. It was put together in one day and Mat and Nate couldn’t show up. So Adam, Mike and I played as Yoda Gang Bang, which is just a funny word that came to my head one day. Our set was a joke, which included some Empathize, Marlie On Ice, Evil Engine, and even a bit of surf too.
Curling Club on December 31, 1998
Although anyone who was there was probably too drunk to remember us, we played with Millhouse and Subdominant. A few notables in the set include “Backstreet’s Back” and “Ich Bin Ein Auslander” a.k.a. “Bring Me A Hamburger Bitch”. The show was okay, nothing extravagant happened.
