And now here we are, about a month after the GO! Bay Area mini-tour. It's taken me this long to get back to my every day existence and look back on it. What a wonderful, meaningful time that will stay with us forever. In 4 days we did 5 shows, met lots of really, really cool people, played with some awesome bands, recorded our side of the split EP we're doing with I Object (which came out great, and we're all really happy with - meanwhile scroll down and see us fighting over a cool I Object t-shirt.) and some of us did some sight seeing as well. Up front let me thank Bill for helping to schlep equipment around and taking groovy photos, Craig and The Love Songs for letting us borrow their equipment to rehearse, play and record, all the bands who played with us and loaned us equipment, everyone who set up all the shows and everyone came out to see us and said hi (or not).
It was a really intense time. At times it seemed like too much, like every second was filled with the band, and with 3 people flying in having a little down time isn't such a bad thing. So we tried to get some of that when we could.
Thursday, Jan 25th we met up, borrowed equipment from The Love Songs and made our way over to the rehearsal studio, Sound Wave in Oakland (which was a great spot). Got through our set and started writing new songs and going over possible pieces and seeing how they would fit together and all that. Truthfully, it was probably the most organic writing we've ever done, with people just throwing things in and songs coming together and me finding the right lyrics and it all just coming together.
Made our way up to The Eagle to play with the Gay Deceivers (a 2-piece from Oregon), Voetsek and Capitalist Casualities. Unfortunately The Love Songs had to cancel, since their drummer was in the hospital. We for some reason played last, which was kinda dumb (note to self: never play over a popular band like Capitalist Casualties). Craig was there and my friend Matt, plus Steve's brother, Doug, Martin from Limp Wrist, and my friend Sean, but we played so fucking late he didn't even get to see us. Fun show - all the bands neat in their own way. We were pretty good but maybe not so tight yet. I kept getting lots of feedback on the mic. Thanks to all the bands who helped us out by taking a little less in terms of take home cash so that we could help cover plane fares a little more.
Friday we kinda sorta made our way over to House of Faith recording studio in Oakland and hooked up with Bart there. Very laid back dude - are all recording engineers like that? They set up while Bill and I went to go buy a 1" tape - this is analog recording, not digital. Wow! Didn't know anyone still did that. Cool. We went song by song, rehearsing, writing and recording as we went. Once again, all of us had input, and the end result was something that we can really stand behind. Actually mixed, too - we were there a total of about 9 hours (although I later went back and remixed it in late Feb). And then somehow we headed up to SF again to play at The Hemlock. Young Offenders played first - odd, since they were the big draw for the show, and were incredible. Hard to describe, but definitely worth seeing. Turns out the bass player booked GO! in Belfast, Ireland in 1991. So they played, then Never Healed to about half the crowd, then us to a little less than half that crowd. Ouch. Note to self again - let's play before the headliners, ok?!?!?! Exhausted, we did a short set, but still fun. Steve's brother was there again, as was my partner Ken. Drink tickets got him some top notch tequila so he was pretty durned happy. Anyhow - it was raining heavily and like 1:30 in the morning by the time we left. Thanks to Never Healed for letting us borrow equipment.
Saturday slept in, and then we had the house show put on by this guy Will at this punk house in Oakland in the afternoon. Once I got there and saw it... it was just too awesome. Didn't have much room for us to play in - Aaron had to be careful not to move too much or he would've been impaled by one of the drum stands - and I was literally bouncing off the walls - but it was fantastic and just punk as all get out (whatever that means). Fun crowd, and thanks to Modern Eyes for letting us borrow their equipment. Unfortunately Burial Year broke up between the printing of the flyers and the show, so that was kind of a bummer. But a third band played and it was all good.
And then Saturday night we played Gilman Street in Berkeley, and we kinda stood out like a sore thumb cos it really wasn't our crowd and we were completely unlike the other bands - but they all rocked and were nice people (especially Butch from 30 Foot Fall - we had some good conversation) and Tulsa loaned up their equipment, which was just awesome. Plus some guys drove 3 hours from Fresno to see us, which, y'know, is pretty cool. Kinda reminds me of the European tour - we only did like 3 weeks or so (which was kinda short) and ended up doing only one show in France (Paris, natch - an amazing show) and these 2 guys had driven 8 hours to see us. I mean - what can you say in that instance, y'know? I don't think I would drive that far to see us! But this was a fun show and I think we were playing pretty tight by that point. At every show we kinda went over our set list as we were playing - skipping songs, moving songs around. And of course we jumped (see below). Sam Evac was there - who I hadn't seen in like a million years - and quick shout out to this guy The Fats (who I was kidding really wasn't that fat), that older gay guy I chatted with and all the other sweet friendly people at Gilman. Extra special thanks to The Fleshies and Tulsa who offered of their own accord to take less $$ so that we could get paid more, even though we really weren't the draw band of the evening by any stretch of the imagination. And to The Abi-Yo-Yos, who also rocked out. And all the dedicated volunteers at 924 Gilman Street who make it all happen every week. Last time we played there wsa in 1990! Truthfully we were lucky to even get on this bill at all and thanks to Joel for adding us to his Punk Rock Birthday Party! PS - Fresno guys - please send me a copy of the video! I'd love to put some on YouTube for people to check out. And it'd be the only video we have from the tour.
Got a little bit of sleep but not too much and then Sunday headed down to Santa Cruz to the campus there to play at the Soundbox, which is under The Hungry Slug cafe. Nice turn out and like a million bands - Hostile Takeover, Never Healed again (thanks again for letting us use your equipment), Acts of Sedition (featuring Will who booked the Oakland show), Spell It Out and this band from Salinas who were added last minute and I don't remember their name. Spell It Out were fucking awesome - the bassist was just over the top insane, and really all the bands were great and it was a fantastic day. Picked up the Acts of Sedition 7"EP and Never Healed 12" and both are intense and great. Acts of Sedition record is on super funky and way cool split vinyl. Have no idea how the pressing plant did that. Our set was a lot of fun and people at least seemed kinda into it (hard to tell nowadays), and Aaron topped it off by breaking his guitar in half. Or really it broke of it's own accord. Reminds of the European Tour - at the last show Aaron set his guitar on fire. Anyhow it was great having a chance to wear my Cookie Monster t-shirt and meet cool local people - and Ken and my former supervisor, Nancy, were there.
And then we went our seperate ways and not sure when we'll get together again but fuck, what a time - one that we'll all remember and I hope everyone who showed up will also. (My knees will remember it, too - no more jumping for me for a long time!)
PS - I do have some extra t-shirts left over, so lowered the prices a little - to $11 us, $13 canada and mexico, $17 eu, $18 australia and asia, and everyone else just ask, ok. And let me know BLUE or GREEN. You can paypal me by sending money to mike@designbymike.com. See a pic of the shirts at our website at bottom of the home page. Anyhow - bye bye - if you want to stay in contact write me.
