Philly "Jus Words"

We stopped in Philadelphia again on the way back to NYC and found ourselves another open mic.

We called them up, and they said they were happy to have our band play. When we got there, we discovered it was more of an open forum/poetry jam called "Jus Words." There was even a house band providing backing music for a few spoken word and sung pieces.

When we got there, the host was discussing race relations and the recent arrest of a Harvard professor with the the audience (a huge crowd by the way, over 100 people there).

Also, it turned out we were three of the maybe six white people in the room. We felt somewhat out of our element. Gene began panicking, insisting that we would not be welcome and that even if we were allowed to play we'd be booed off the stage.

The bartender assured us that they'd love us and that this open mic was all about doing your own thing and being accepted for that. In our case, our own thing is weird rock music, so we'd be accepted for that. (I later talked to a few other people there who expressed their happiness at seeing a rock band there. One said that he much preferred punk to the normal hip hop and R&B normally played at that event.) Others came over and told us that we were welcome to play rock and expressed great interest in hearing us play.

Still, Gene needed a drink to steel his nerves. Dave ordered the bartenders specialty. She told him it was called "a piece of ass." She then poured two shots of 151 rum, another shot of hard liquor (I forget what), and some sour mix into a glass and passed it to Gene.

We eventually hauled our equipment up to the stage (they had a band, but no guitar) and set up.

We then received the best intro we've ever gotten and went on to play:
TAoCP2 - It was quite well received.
We were only allotted two songs, so I passed the mic to a still-nervous Gene, who cracked this joke to loosen up the crowd. If you listen closely, you'll notice two people laughing. That would be Dave and myself. Awkward...
We then played:
thE32nd - Holy carp! This is the most enthusiastic crowd ever!

Two more days worth of bootlegs are forthcoming. I'll post them when I finish them.

Pittsburg: Phoning it in Since 1758

We played another open mic in Pittsburg, PA last night. It seems that this is a really bad city to play music in during the summer. The students are all gone, and as Gene (who used to go to school here) said, the market is flooded with venues.

So we played a whole bunch of songs to no one except the bartender, sound guy, and MC, and I put together the most half-assed bootlegs yet.

First, Gene

thE32nd - (17)
Company - Soothing you in improperly balanced stereo since 2009.
If I Gave You a Guitar - If we ever install a poll plugin to the blog, the first question will have to be "If I gave you a guitar, would you write me a song?" Followed, of course, by "Do you like me? Circle one: Yes/No"
Chelsea Hotel - Dave likes this song, but he missed it. Sucker!
I Likes - Me talk good!

Then, all of us

It's a Good Thing - Zombie Dog phoning it in, Whoo! Actually, we played alright, I'm just too lazy to make the bootlegs sound good.
Total Eclipse of the Heart - I have nothing to say about this that wouldn't be a potentially offensive joke about our ritard in the second verse.
TAoCP2 - Ok. I'm trimming something out of this beast.

Finally, all of us but with Gene singing

thE32nd (full band) (18)
Commotion - I wish I knew if having my own room in Hell was standard or if it's actually a perk...
Catch Me - Barring any unusual capitalization, I'm pretty sure I got the name right.
Something In Between - Gene's told me that name something like three times, but I keep calling it Supervillain. I'm "that guy" in the band.
Karate - For the last time, we're like Jackie Chan in that movie where he was his own twin and not the one where he teamed up with Jet Li in feudal China.


Share and enjoy

Pittsburg, for real this time.

We finally made it to Pittsburg on this tour. Last night we played an open mic at PD's Pub. The audience was pretty apathetic, but their equipment was very nice.

Theoretically, there was a live feed of the show somewhere, but I haven't been able to find an archive of it yet. Perhaps on their MySpace?

It's a Good Thing - Nothing really exceptional or funny here.
Total Eclipse of the Heart - This is the catchiest drum beat the computer has ever picked for this song.
TAoCP2 - No time for banter! Next song! Next song!
Happiness - This was the happiest those bar patrons have ever been.
Fat Kid Emo Pants - Those woahs are painful, ain't they!

More Cleveland

We played the Kobalt in Cleveland again.

No time for banter!

It's a Good Thing
Total Eclipse of the Heart
TAoCP2
Silly Dreams
Black Girlfriend
Company
thE32n'd - (16) half way there!

Cleveland acoustic set

We played an open mic hosted by The Uncanny XeLa outside of Cleveland. Our band were about the only musicians who showed up, so we each did sets.

Dave - rawking the house since 1983!

Christmas Eve - A ghost story by Dave. How sweet!
Must've been the pills I took - Dave's favorite Hank Williams the Eighty-Seventh cover

Gene - Singer/songwritering your faces off!

Black Girlfriend - Gene busts out the Porno for Pyros. (Hi mom!) Complete with Xe La discussing how this open mic usually goes and hecklers demanding drums.
Summer, a Year Ago - A new Gene original.
Bearsaw - This is another Gene original that I don't know the name of. However, you can't really hear it over the discussions of the bear loose on campus and the movie Saw II (warning: spoilers!), so I decided Bearsaw is a good name. (Gene says it's "Catch Me", but I'm sticking with "Bearsaw").
Bermuda Highway - Seriously! This is like New Gene Song Extravaganza '09 around here... Oh wait... He tells me this is a My Morning Jacket song. Cancel the Extravaganza
Commotion - How can you not get up and dance to this upbeat number?
Company - I suppose we could call it Old Gene Song Extravaganza '09...
Summer, Before Last - Ok. That's probably not the name, but I'm too lazy to find Gene for the real name again.

Zombie Dog - These songs sound awful acoustic!

Acoustic Grindcore - well that ended predicably!
It's a Good Thing - Actually, that went pretty well.
TAoCP2 - Meh...
Happiness - Theoretically, this one should work pretty well acoustically, right?

Steve - Too nerdy to rock, huh? Well I'll show you!

Nerd Rock - Not really rock with just an acoustic, but whatever.
Teenage Girlfriend - A brand new one! Never before heard by anyone but me.

Pickup show in Toledo

We randomly played in a bar run by one of Gene's friends in Toledo. Some other acts were playing that evening, and we loaned them some equipment. In a fit of gratitude, they let us clear the bar out with our loud-ass music.

It was an interesting setup because the house PA wasn't your standard "two big speakers next to a stage" array. They had an assortment of different sizes of speakers throughout the bar to play the radio through, so depending on where you were, different parts of the music were FAR more pronounced than others and blah blah blah to the nerdy nerd nerd.

It's a Good Thing - The DR-1 was really close to the vocalist, so somehow the vocals actually come through ok.
Total Eclipse of the Heart - In case you can't tell, our rhythm section was a little stoned that night. We also played the song at 240 bpm, which was an adventure.
TAoCP2 - and then the wheels fell off...
Happiness - Why is the song getting slower as we go?!?
Summertime Roll - I give up! We're not even using the microphones anymore!
thE32nd - (15)
Company - I'm done! It's all you Gene. *leaves in a huff*
Bean and Joe - By popular demand. (Seriously, there were death threats if Gene didn't play this.)

The girl running the open mic in Chicago who kept yelling, "Sexy beast!" at Gene while he played bought us a round and had this toast for us:

To all of you and your enormous dicks.

I couldn't stop laughing.

Then, the legitimate show we played the day after in Chicago was great. There were tons of people who were getting into it, my sister and brother in law were there, we played well, and the banter was good. Now, I yell, "Zombie Dog!" after roughly two thirds of the songs we play. Then,

Girl: My brother runs this place. I loved your set, BUT! WHAT IS YOUR BAND CALLED?!
Me: Uh... Zombie Dog.
Girl: Oh, huh.

Now we're hanging out in Toledo for a couple of days. We played a surprise show two nights ago, went dancing last night, and are about to hit up a sweat lodge which is some sort of insane sauna that's frankly quite scary.