A couple weeks ago I got a note from an old punk rocker named Marvin Goldstein.  In 1981 we (Eric, JP and I) used to tag along with the Zero Boys and their crowd and Marvin was part of that crowd.

Mavin was trying to remember who we were and after a few  emails we put the memories back together.  A couple days later Marvin emailed and asked if we could take the Slammies spot for s show he had coming up July 24th with LA punks Shattered Faith.

I've said it before, it's very tough to get 5 schedules together just for practicing and a show only 10 days away, I thought, would be next to impossible.  Add to that, our drummer had just notified us he was leaving and our new drummer was scheduled for surgery.

To make a long story short, the guys in the band we're stoked on the idea of playing this show so I set out to see what I could do about a drummer.

I gave our original drummer (well, technically our second drummer, but he had been with us since 1982) a call and he was immediately on board for the show.

We managed to get in a couple practices with Ken on drums.  Ken hadn't even heard the new album yet, so we knew we would have to play several covers and songs from the first album.  I would like to note that Ken has always had the ability to just listen to a song and then sit down and play it.  We were all pleasantly surprised at how quick he could play My Own Worst Enemy, the only song from the second album we really wanted in this set.

So in the late afternoon hours of July 24th we headed up to Indy to Sam's Saloon.  Sam's has a great atmosphere and a room that's just fantastic for smaller shows.

It had been over a year since we could all just hang out together and we had plenty of time for just that.  But before we knew it Marvin told us it was time to take the stage.

We started off with My Own Worst Enemy and followed it up with Fear's I Don't Care About You.  We then hit several songs from Damaged Ugly & Loud as well as songs by The Sex Pistols, The Clash and we ended the set with Stars & Stripes by The Circle Jerks.

Let us now pause a moment so that I may digress.

We hadn't play a show in Indy since the early 1980's.  I noted in another blog entry that we had played as many shows in May of this year than we did for the entire year of 2007.  This year we've had lots of shows on the calendar, but for various reasons venues keep closing (Thrashers, The Rooftop) before we could get there.

But remember, it's tough to get everyone together, as I stated at the beginning of this, so we've been happy with all the show's we've played and with the rest on the calendar.  But these shows weren't entirely all for Punk crowds.  While it seems there's always a few people around who have said after a set they loved hearing Classic Punk again, the audiences haven't been there to see a punk show.

The Sam's Saloon audience was there to see a punk show-and after the set, they made sure to tell us they loved what we were doing.  We finally found a crowd that was into what we're about.  That was pretty cool.

At the time of this writing we're gearing up to get Travis "Trash" dialed in on drums so we can head down to The Punkhouse in Madison August 16th.  After that we have a couple local shows lined up and then we're off to record the next album, One Nation.

But I have it on good authority we'll be back in Indy soon.