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May 24th, 2001
Alright, here ya go.
SO THERE I WAS Standing in front of the candy aisle, where the huge bags of Smarties are. Then I realized I forgot my money. So much for getting high on smarties before the talent show. We settled for coffee-flavored Nips. Maybe it was time for change...
We got there early and set up all our cool, awesome stuff including Tom's borrowed bass drum with 37th Parallel painted on it, the ol' B-15 (quiz question!), my effects pedals, which I probably didn't need half of them, and some artwork aand stuff from Dan. We must have sounded like complete idiots testing and yelling behind closed curtains, as Dan went to the crowd to check levels by ear (we can't afford giant mixers in the back yet.) After blasting some Nirvana, we got the thumbs-up (actually the rock sign on the hand, I dunno what its called!) from Dan that everything was equal. This was our first real performance, by the way, we obviously remeber most every detail.
So the show starts, we're the first act, and until all the parents and little and older siblings of schoolkids got there, I don't think anyone knew what to expect. Tom started out with a perfect-paced beat, and then I started the first few clean chords....then, "WOO-HOO!" off we go into some serious stage-shaking rock. Those of you who are professional and are laughing, surely you remember these feelings! Some lights effects provided by Laura and the simplest of lights setups added a visual sense of power...somewhat (it was a string of guitar lights and a little lamp hooked up to a surge protector...but Laura made it work!). We go through the first verse, the first chorous, the post-chorous riff...then to make it a reasonably long act, I gave myself a guitar solo. I started off with some F#s and Es, then some string-scratching before I went as insane as I could over the fretboard for about a minute. Last time I did something like taht was at the auditions...that moring I cut my index finger with a bagel knife, and I was bleeding all over the frets. Now that's grunge and rock to its most painful brilliance if you ask me...even though the solo sucked as I could barely play. But from the feedback I got, it was a hundred times better this time. I joined back in with John on keyboards as he was carrying the guitar riff during the solo, then we cut to verse 2. You know how the song goes from there, except teh last OOHHH YEAH! where Doug catapulted himself off the bass drum and I went back for some feedback as Tom went into an insane crashdown. Now THAT is the ultimate feeling of rock and grunge after all that. A short Thank you through a few seconds of feedback brought about a slow applause, which was backed up by Dan and friends, who were going crazy. We had to then throw all our stuff to either side for the next act, while they put on a piano duet.
Well, that was that. I'm gonna try and grab the soundtrack off the video my other brother Jesse recorded. Ironically with his filming from the back of the room we were all one big Blur on stage. It was our first performance, and it kicked some serious ass. I hope we do something like that again real soon. Rock on.
--Chris
May 23, 2001
I suppose Chris just hasn't had the time yet or he's too lazy to post something about the talent show here, so until he does here's my report.
Since i'm not in the same school as the rest of the band, i coulnd't perform with them. Doug took bass, Chris got guitar/vocals, and John and Tom took their normal positions. They were the first act, and kicked off the talent show quite well with their rendition of Song 2 by Blur with an extensive guitar solo added in the middle. After that it was... well the rest of the show wasn't the same calibur, let's put it that way. But the school has gotta give the little kids a break so 37th Parallel placed 3rd. Quite a suprise really since rock music is considered evil in that school...
I was in the back row with a bunch of friends and we provided the main cheering section for the Parallel. The band also handed out 3 promotional flyers, one featuring the collage and another featuring the planet logo and a third featuring the Black Wheel logo all found on Distorted Images. (The Black Wheel, which actually appears white on distorted images, is near the bottm. Scroll down for a while and you'll find it. It's also on the background of the main page.) These flyers were in high demand that night, who knows how many people will care tomorrow, it's a risky business.
All in all the talent show was a great success for the band. It's now a 5 day weekend, and we're planning on getting some stuff done. The main 3 songs right now that we want to work with are Xero, The Black Wheel, and irl. (no, not Irl, it's irl. That's how everyone types it on the internet so that's what it's called.)
yeah chris should post something here because he's the one who performed... i'm just an outside reviewer here.
--The Dan
May 16, 2001
Um... I wish I had something terribly interesting to report, but I don't. It's so hard to have practices with this talent show thing. The talent show practices just work on the songs for that show, and not 37th Parallel. (More on the talent show listed at Tour Dates) It's almost over though, and then school will be gone with summer, then comes the real practice time.
Chris showed me the music for a song called "irl" the other day. The title is internet language, not an abbreviation for a European country. I wrote the words a while ago... might change some of them when we do it as a whole band.
--The Dan
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