So we blasted a 9-minute opus at the first (hopefully annual...no wait, monthly...no wait, bi-daily) FU Awards presented by 102.1 The Edge and Eye Weekly at The Sound Academy in Toronto. You have to drive through a ghetto that looks like it was rampaged by a giant Japanese sea-monster and you have to bribe a couple of sailors to get there, but once you're there, hoah man is it worth it!
We were playing with punky heavyweights Strike Anywhere, The Flatliners, Hostage Life, Keeping 6, Dodger and a kickass new band called Low & Behold. There were about 450 people there and it was our first show where Ticketmaster could rape you on processing charges. So it was also our first brush with financial rape. Milestones galore!
During our set, I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but I ate a donut off of my drumstick, which I thought was a way stupid vanity move that would have gotten me a pair of boobs to autograph. Alas no. But I autographed a pair of those of a passed out chick in the smoking area to make up for the snub. Does that make me a monster? Not in Beirut it doesn't!
After our set, someone tossed a bottle of hot urine into our merch box, which I take as a complement, because a) it's a personal gift, b) the person could have just wasted it down a toilet, and c) it's just what I needed to make one of my signature pots of "secret pee tea". I suspect it was the lead singer from Strike Anywhere who did it because I told him he looked like Zachary Ty Brian (which he doesn't but should (we all should)).
We did some silly interviews for Bite TV's show "Rippin N' Lippin'" and Punkradiocast's "MorbioPunk" shows, touching on society's most pressing hot topics such as hang-ginas, wakin' & bakin' bacon, and providing affordable housing for inner-city families in Manitoba*. We'll let suckas know when they're viewable.
We also met a dude whom I thought was pro-wrestler Dean Malenko, but Craig informed me that he was in fact the amazing and talented guitarist for I Mother Earth. Boy was I initially let down when he couldn't teach me how to pull off a proper figure-four leglock. He was a dapper dude, tres cool, tres nice, and tres exuding a look I could only describe as "Dean Malenko-esque".
All in all, it was a good time, mostly because I got to see a bunch of industry people get more shitfaced than a passed-out farmer in a pig-pen/German pornstar/me when I got potty-trained. It's true: they're just like you and me! Degenerates!
That's the word. You heard it here first.
-Hunter J
*last pressing topic not actually discussed.