Hey, I forgot to mention two important bits of news: this Saturday is David Fanelli's natal day, so if you see him out and about Saturday (pro'ly with the lovely Mrs. Fanelli) be sure to wish him "Happy Birthday" and/or buy him a cocktail. If you're at the Colonel Hathi's Brigade gig @ Red Lion University tomorrow--and why wouldn't you be?--you can do it after midnight. The part of drummer in Elephant will be played by the Estimable Richard Kubach--aka "Kubacca"--at our gig Saturday night. As always, the part of "me" will be played by me...
Speaking of things played by me, the mighty (terrible) CHEESUS is re-forming for ONE NIGHT ONLY at Anna Bannana's Wednesday Sept. 23rd. If you've ever seen CHEESUS, you know, that's all I can say--Dave  had so much fun at the final gig, he was THROWN OUT.*  Oz and Testies are in town for a wedding, (no Gaynabler, sorry) so in the slapdash, half-ass tradition that is CHEESUS, we're putting on a show! It'll be nice to see some of the crew who NEVER bother to come see Elephant anymore, ahem coff coff...



*he almost got into a fight, although I'm not sure he was even aware of it.

Is what you should tell me anytime you see me out--seriously, did I NEED to close 2 bars and then OPEN a third? You tell me, I can't remember any of it. Fun was had, or so I'm told. Those who made it out Saturday got to hear the debut of not one but two new Elephant original songs, freshly written! Exciting, although there was a lotta starring at bit of paper with chords/lyrics on it. The Jimmy Cliff/J. Geils sounding one came off better, we gotta figure out a tempo for the one that's my fault--we played it so fast the words got buried, which is a shame as Fanelli definately wrote a good line of two for that one. This Saturday we'll try it at a less breakneck speed, hopefully with less me screwing up the chords--which I wrote, you'd figure I'd know 'em!

Good morning!
Okay, let's start off by bitching, shall we? Why does the Honolulu Weekly always forget to list us the first Saturday of every month? (occasionally they'll not list for the ENTIRE month) Did I do something to them in a previous life, or the current one?! How hard is it to remember we play EVERY frickin' Saturday?? Again, these are the same people who fired Dean C. and replaced his prose with the chick who writes "Sociallite", a weekly list of names dropped apparently written by someone who came in 4th @ the Special Olympics*.
Anyway, on to POSITIVE things--last Saturday was lots of fun, it was young Master O'Donnell's birthday, and after midnight it was (slightly less young) Master Hatfield's natal day, so we played some music for them--in Tattoo Mike's case, he got to SING his birthday song. We played 2 songs in a row for Shantelle--Outshined (!!) ** and Hey Man Nice Shot, . Even though we were Rex-free, I decided to play Bennie and the Jets, figuring I'm so awesome I could pull it off--errr, nope! We had Tonya back from her frigid homeland, the pretty dreadlock girl leaving the Islands, (boo...) our all-time fave Canadian Christine, (who got her Bryan Adams song for once) Cayenne modelling the best t-shirt ever***, just rockingness everywhere and the best part, since we didn't have to tear down, we could hang out afterwards! Fanelli and I went to Coconut Willies and had shots and Chimay with Brit-Brit, Jeff Commado, and several of the previously mentioned lovelies and then managed to talk our way into Kelley O'Neil's after last call. Poor Dave dropped some of his meat sandwich on the sidewalk and there were tears, it's true...
Sunday Church Of Elephant was kinda a paid rehersal--we played Someone To Shove twice, but only 'cause we'd never played it before and Pat has been on us to learn it for more than a year--but it was great to work with April,**** who busted me checking her butt out--I'd say sorry, but I'm only sorry I got caught. Anyway, it was fun, we played songs we've not played in awhile--Shadow was stoked we played Conquistador (which he said we hadn't played in a year--almost true, we played it the week previous at the Waterpark and the Rose). It's a nice feeling when someone likes one of your original tunes..




*No medal, no hug for you
**which Kev never wants to do, he was in a rocking mood I guess
***a one-of-a-kind Elephant babydoll
****sporting her 2-of-a-kind black Elephant spagettistrap!

Aloha all!
Time for another batch of witless wisdom from the mouthpiece of the gray herd. Another rockin' weekend down, in what seems like the Neverending Un-Tour--hmm, I like that! I guess this Saturday was kinda like a tour, as we had to hump our gear and a stolen public address system to the Westside, Wet'n'Wild Hawaii, to rock out for lots of dripping wet people. We had the Satellite Grey guys and girls and the PIMPBOT from Waikiki, as Fern is want to say. We set up 20 ft. from the liquor and the smoking area and the PIMPBOT boys bellied up to bar immediately--they're rockstars! That's how they roll, MF-ers! The Big Rock Stampede had order cocktails to keep up. It was great to see Rylan aka "Big Sexy" on the gig, as he's been outta commission for a bit. Go see them @ Red Lion on the 4th before they go off to do their Asian tour, ie; the kinda tour that moves around.
I'd never seen Satellite Grey before, they're good, much more technical than us--they're like Rush, and we're like loud and terrible.* The bassist was especially impressive, considering his bass was nearly as big as he is--he's got a wah-wah! How friggin' Cliff Burton is that!!?? Awesome! The cool thing was since both of the other bands are primarily original music bands, we figured we'd better bring the orginal rock as well so we played songs we've never played with Kopps OR Rex, including  Conquistadors, a tune we've not played since Steve left the band. It's really heavy, like boot to the head, make Adam Carr's mouth fall open** heavy--since we re-learned it for the waterpark gig, we played it again at the Rose that night, much to Tattoo Mike's joy (i think it's his favorite song we play, he's actually sang it with us before!)
The I.R.S. gig started super-slow, but got hot and crazy by the end--despite gear malfunctions--sparks flying outta Kopper's rig--and general "we just PLAYED a gig, we're tired" malaise, rocking-ness was achieved! We're pros like that.
This week it's the Church Of Elephant, come down Saturday AND Sunday if you can!

*not really, but we definitely won if volume was the yardstick
**quite literally.

Guten Morgen, Meine Damen und Herren!
Welcome to yet another installment of "Something I'm doing at the lab that's isn't remotely work-related"--which is perfect, as you're reading this at your job and not working either! Nice when the Universe works like that.
This past weekend the Big Rock Stampede, aka the Daves and the other dorks, had to compete with both The Black Eyed Peas (which is a both a really crap pop band and a yummy Southern foodstuff--seriously, I love black eyed peas) AND one of the 6,000 Marley children--Zeppo? Billy?? Curly??? Ziggy, that's the one!--at the Shell. Drummer Dave really wanted to be at Bayfest, but to his credit showed up to the gig and pounded the hell outta the tubs, and even sang a bit of "Boom Boom Pow" for those who also had to forgo seeing Fergie and co. I wanted to go Friday and see Filter--a little birdie told me they weren't particularly great, apparently the tour guitarist was more concerned with striking poses than actually playing--so we played Hey Man Nice Shot--which, ironically, I f---ed up the first 2 choruses of because we've not played it in awhile and I'm old and forgetful. Big ups to Arron for jumping up to belt it out. We had a couple of guest throats, including Rob "Stone" Jones from the Star 101.9 Made In Hawaii dealy earlier.
For those who don't know, once a month Star does a promotion where they give local bands a chance to play at the Irish Rose and they play one of the band's songs on Star 101.9 for the week. Elephant has done it twice, opening for ourselves as it were--wierd, but whatever. This past week the band scheduled to play opted out, so our friends in the Stone Jones Band stepped up at the 11th hour, with a borrowed bassist, and kicked some ass!
So, this Saturday bring the kiddies out to the Park Formerly Known as Hawaiian Waters as we've got PIMPBOT, Satellite Grey, and Elephant playing for your splashing and sliding pleasure! You can see our knees--in my case, it's scary! Should be fun, I think we're doing an "all original set", as that's what the other bands are gonna do...

The Elephant blog turns 80! Who'd thunk I had that much random stuff to blather, eeer, blog about??--oh wait, anyone's ever met me, nevermind. So, how was your weekend? Get enough sleep? Just asking, you look a little peaked... The Big Rock Stampede was three-legged for the beginning of the night, then we brought up Captain Kaos, aka Rob who was friggin' AWESOME! Live wire, that guy--have to go check out his band CAPTAIN KAOS. For some reason, Rob didn't wanna play his pretty red Les Paul Jr., even though he brought it and I've heard him play--guess he was going for Dave Lee Roth. Anyhoots, once Kev arrived from his obligation, it was pedal-down, jaws dropping**. We trotted out a MUCH improved Purple Rain, Steppenwolf, and no, Richard, we're NOT kidding, Epic. If your ass was there, we kicked the hell outta it. JD Commando and the lovely ladies of the Hard Rock Cafe, Kat-from-all-over, Rob Jones--we got witnesses! If you weren't there, missed out my friend. Beauty part is we get to do it all over again this week.







* "Coca-Cola, voodoo mambo, Ton-Ton Macoute", man, those B.O.C. guys are opaque!
**no, literally.

Whew!
The weekend rockfest is over, and man, I'm feeling it today! After a semester of "one gig a week", the Elephant crew kicked it into highway gear and played Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday, playing a club we've not played in 8 months (Red Lion) and a venue we've never played (the Polo fields in Wailua). Mahalos to Eddow (sp?) and crew at Red Lion University for hosting the Big Rock Stampede, especially since we played  whatever the hell we wanted to play and not what everyone does--we're a bit willful that way--but we did do requests, 'though pro'ly not as much Beatles as Toni'd like. We had Matt S. of Big Toe fame in the house--actually, we had 3/5 of Big Toe in attendance--we had lots of future lawyers, good vibes everywhere and no charges, whew!
Saturday at the Irish was killer, payday weekend apparently. We set some kind of decibel record during the first set and got yelled at, which is fine 'cause WE COULDN'T HEAR IT. (kidding, but we DID get yelled at) Once the dB count got under control, we had dancing, heckling (no, we don't know the Trouper, or any other Iron Maiden--we didn't know it the first 10 times you yelled for it!) Some really red dreadlocks, Chris dancing with girls two at a time. (Chris is the older asian guy who air-guitars like a fiend. Chris rocks) We learned a song on the spot, which came out a little King Crimson-y, as Kev kept singing on the +and of 6, in a song that in 4/4 (a little Broadway-meets-Raga-meets-arhythma)--whatever, you guys dug it***, never complain never explain. We had Jennifer's B-day, the lovely Kisha, our fave Canadian Christine, Cayanne (sp?) from the Hard Rock, Commando Jeff, military guys going mental, and some members of one of the other I.R.S. bands checking out how it's done, son**. Once again we played past last call, but that's what you guys wanted, so that's what you get.
Sunday afternoon was the long haul to the Polo Fields and some Chukkers? WTF? Anyway, I'd never seen Polo in person before, it's pretty intense--the horses are all throughbreds, big animals and they ride 'em hard. We thought we'd start kinda classic rock, as it seemed like an older crowd, but the harder we rocked, the more they got into it. Thanks to our new fans C & K for coming out two gigs in a row, the pretty girl from Wisconsin--I was happy to play the Ramones for you, thanks for dancing!--our fave babe from Kemo'o Farms Pub (in a BIKINI?!! you know how DANGEROUS that is??!! i'm an old man...) crazy Brazillian dancing girl, etc., SO much fun. We played past curfew--again? what with us rocking too long?--but hopefully the promoter guy didn't get in trouble, so we get to play again next season. 5 days off, and we rock again...



*Out on a bender and waiting for you, get me outta the bar
**yeah, a little cocky, but we rock, so deal. BTYFB
***except Pat. Hey, we don't care, even if you ARE the Boss Of Me! So there!

Yo, all!
Hey, whatcha doin' this weekend? Gonna see Elephant a bunch of times? I think that'd be a real good idea, but hey, I'm pretty biased. After only 3 years of prep, Fanelli is done with the Bar, yeah Dave! Pretty soon, he'll be able to add "esq."** to his correspondences--ironically, I used to write that on the addresses of letters I sent to my BFF from High School Andrew and he ended up BEING an Attorney for the Justice Dep't. Who knew? I certainly didn't, I just thought it was a neat honorific. But, whatevers, the Big Rock Stampede is gonna blow the windows outta Red Lion University and with any luck I won't end the gig the same way I did the LAST time we played there. Saturday, we've got the Irish Rose, and then, Sunday, horses! We're playing some to-do out at the Polo Fields, so I'm gonna out on a limb and say there might be some polo. Or not. There will be Elephant, and come to think of it, don't they have Elephant polo in India? We should play one of those matches!


* not the Def Leppard album--admittedly a pretty rockin' platter--but the obscure Cheap Trick song. Just so we're clear.
** "Esquire", a title Lawyers get to use.

Instead of thanking all the people who came out to the 2 day Big Rock Stampede this past weekend, think I'll just point out to those who overslept/had grownup obligations/couldn't be bothered you missed out. Absolutely f--king pisssah, as Drummer Dave' is wont to say. We had people dancing themselves naked, and NOT getting thrown out--unlike like last week, we had the First Ever 2-For-1 Breast T-shirt Special, which Fanelli missed BOTH times--so, actually 4 Breasts total**. In case anyone ever wondered if I ever drop my guitar doing goofy stunts, yup, broke it too, good thing I brought a spare. We had the kids from A Deafening Silence (this month's Star 101.9 band) rocking out, The Billy Idol Dancers. Jeff Commando. And that was all just on Saturday! After a couple of kinda slow weeks it was nice to have a crowd, even though we got yelling at for playing past closing-hey, no-one wanted the rock to stop.
Sunday we had the first ever Interfaith Edition of the Church of Elephant:




Feeling like you missed out? Thanks to everyone who came out, especially everyone who got me a me b-day drink or card. We had dancing:




We had cake:




We had foolishness I can't explain easily:




And the Big Guy, the Capital J:



Okay, that's actually Kopper, but he really DOES look all Jesus-y. He even sang a hymn!

We even had a representative of the Elder Gods:




Just all sorts of fun and merriment--I had a GREAT birthday, thanks for making it a memorable one!









* happy birthday, happy birthday. Love that song.
**and they were just as pretty the second time around! Thanks to gingerhaired girl's husband for okaying the release of the twins.

Aloha! Thanks to everyone who ignored the tanking economy and came out to rock with Elephant the past few weeks! Your positive--yet very drunken--energy gets us going even when we're sick as dogs, which has been the reality lately. Still, feeling better than Michael Jackson.
The Kemo'o gig was awesome, it was great to see Soph and all her lovely employees (and seriously, there's some hotties working at the Pub) and guest voice Matt brought the rock big time, even without vocal monitors! We even did Would, which was fun as Hell. Some of the Schofield boys are back from the Suck--talked to Luke, who'd seen us 1 1/2 years ago and felt the Big Rock Stampede again--all in all, a great Thursday night.
The 4th was alot more tame than I'd have figured, 'though we had the Elephant faithful there--had a Molson's with Christine to celebrate the Great White North's birthday--Chris, Dyan, et al,  you know, the cool kids! We also had some guys getting ready to ship out--13 months of no alcohol, so gotta drink it now--who couldn't have been feeling very good in the morning, but were rocking out with their boxers out, just awesome. Jeff Commando just got the best tatoo, it's humbling, that's all I can say. Between Chuck and Jeff and the rest of the faithful herd we have the BEST FUCKING FANS. BTYFB = BTYFF.
This weekend is a double-shot of the mighty Elephant, with an extra special Church Of Elephant on the 19th, commerating yet another circuit around the Sun completed by yours truly. In years past, I've worn a cocktail dress to work on my Birthday, so there'll be shenanigans, for sure. Come on down!