Ugh. Got sucker punched at the bar last night by some bitch phaggot cock sucker.

I wouldn't be so mad if I didn't have to go home for a big dinner w/ my friends family. Gonna have to make up a story or something.

I think the best story would be to say that you got punched by a male hooker because you didn't have the money to pay him. Or you were raept at your mates apartment.

Lol. I'm gonna go with being an innocent bystander outside a bar when two drunk people got in a fight and I caught an elbow to the side of my face out of nowhere.

Poutine is the only thing I miss from studying in northern NY...

can't find my camera to take pictures of my wood

I suppose the outside a bar/took one outta nowhere is the best practical explanation. The male hooker story works too, but tranny hooker might be better?


Now, the going rates for original local bands vs. cover bands (and touring acts) are a little different a little. We all know this, those of us who gig. But after paying the opening and closing (it's a little weird around here re: local shows in that the headliner does not close much of the time; we went on around 12. Bars are officially open 'til four here and there's often acts on really late.) acts, crew from the club and our soundman we walked away with 400 and a "how often do you want to play here?" offer.

We were loading out after the show and totally normal-looking (our crowd is perhaps a little different from that who was there before the show to watch the hockey game?) girls were coming up to us asking when we were playing there next. Apparently we're fun live? (By the end of the set, I've jumped off the subs onto the dance floor to play the outro lead on One Of Us on...) We are a little over-the-top and very visual and energetic, and you can dance to it.

...and I think the last point is a big part of it. That and the generally melodic-if-often-raspy vocals. Noise-pop, if you will. That an odd, often noisy, violent sounding band has ladies making out with each other in front of the stage at shows is kind of great. Theory vs. practice, I suppose. This should not go over like it does.

Oh, and our drummer was wearing an SS officer's hat, at least for part of the show.

Should've switched it out for a yarmulke at some point. Or vice versa.

Somehow I think that would have been more tasteless than the Nazi hat alone which is just sorta punk rock fuck you.

I endorse stupid hats as a general rule. We need more of them.

'twas the intent.

You can't spell class without "ass".

I spent today moving into my new apartment with my fiance.




Shit is crazy, but in a good way.

^^^ CUUUUUUUUTE

i... waited all fucking day to see my girlfriend, left with my family to go out for dinner at 6:30 (see section: worst choice ever), waited 2 hours to get seated, and just got home now at 9:45. Free dinner is nice... but 3 hours? First world problems, i know hahahhaa. Wow i cant believe im actually saying this.

whatever, i wanted tro be with woman face 2 hours ago.

In other news, bought a second graphics card. SLI WILL BE MINE!

I'm about to go kick some people out of the pool then go home.

Also, my drive to work has been cut down by 3/4 since I moved ... no more 40-minute drives home.

Local music awards show this afternoon. We're playing seven songs. This should prove interesting.

The utter fucking incompetence of local soundd00ds here amazes the hell out of me. There is a reason why we bring our own guy whenever possible now. Like, drummer's monitor mix- click on 10, band on 1, DO NOT FUCKING TOUCH THE DRUMMER'S MONITOR MIX. Is this that hard? Granted this is a town where I've played with a national at a venue whose sounddouche was incapable of making sense of an in-ear monitor system- it plugs into the aux where a monitor feed would otherwise go?

This should be fun.

As implied above, we are without Our Guy today so we're pulling the 01v from the rack and we're all "you get what you get, here's a stereo feed."

A little Mackie or Soundcraft deal for Rändy's Roland samplerboxes might be in order here, something that provides enough juice for the click and then never has to go to FOH. (Frees up a channel for another synth, too...) Like, they can fuck up the FOH mix as bad as they want when Our Man Jim is not there, but at least the click + backing tracks are there, in his 'phones and in time?

The way I figure, main outs of said feed his headphonemap. Click is sampled, is an audio track, feeds only his headphonemap. Triggered sounds and backing track (we've put start/stop under the drummer's control for practical reasons) feeds off the auxes to FOH. Monitor mix comes back on another channel. Seems like it works?

Like, at the end of the day, we might as well be playing to a karaoke track with a whopping one thing sent to one guy and you fucks can't figger this out? A band using synths rips these d00ds skulls in half! Thankfully the only competent guy in the city proper apparently is a personal friend of two of the band members.

In England you're lucky to be supplied a PA, let alone an incompetent sound guy

Ugh. the lack of decent pay for original bands is mind numbing. Let's see coverbands are pretty much just a radio, doing this a bit their own way, but just a bit, if you stray too far then people give you the WTF face... Original bands are actually showing you some talent and art you bar owning douchenozzles..... Of course this is the reason I am in 3 coverbands, to make some money. It's disheartening though for real artists. my cover bands are bringing anywhere from $600-2000/gig (2 bands have 6 members, and the GnR band of course has 5) Mostly walk away with $100-200/show each, except the high paying shows (rare) when we make some nice cash.

Our drummer too carries the burden of the click and backing tracks in all 3 bands, (3 different drummers) The busy band, our drummer had some new fangled electric kit from Europe (not available here yet) has a ridiculous amount of outs and he can load the backing tracks right into it on an SD card, We need to work on him controlling it a bit better but once ironed out it will be nice. Right now he's been sending backing tracks and kit to the FOH on one line, but I'm not happy with him having volume control of that. We bring the PA ourselves to most gigs, but it's real nice when the clubs have a built in. There's a few around here, and usually the soundmen there are pretty good.

Now, this is a big music town, which makes things funnier. Even a shithole dive bar has PA and will mic you up, probably even with real 57s and 58s. There's a crappy nasty bar that has industrial/goth/indie/electro dance party nights I used to go to that has a 32 channel Crest board and Crown amps and nice JBLs (and wired them up out of phase so the vocals were canceling like a karaoke machine the first night after they picked it up... )

Like, they can't even afford good booze but they'll swing a monster PA? Even at the shittiest venues here (aren't they all?) no one rolls un-miced. Which I gather is kinda odd. You get a full board, full system with four monitor wedges and subs, to play a 100-person max capacity bar as a local band. It's an odd place.

To be pulling in $400 a night doing originals on a consistent basis would be/is kickass. Now the cover band demographic around here is different too though; the venues that book original bands are all downtown where the cover band venues are all in the 'burbs and never the twain shall meet. We have tribute nights at a few downtown venues where you'll have multiple bands coming in and doing a handful of cover songs of one artist (who could be anyone, it could be The Beatles and The Stones, it actually could and has been Floyd, Waits or King Crimson) and occasionally now a metal cover band will roll in, but aside from the guys doing blues and jazz standards, downtown is pretty well all original, all the time.

We have the backing track set up on a Roland SP-555 which we're also using for in-between-songs noises- we have random samples and bits of electronica on there to fill the gaps when we're switching instruments. The click feeds one out on its own which- in theory?- should be routed to the drummer's monitor mix only. I don't think it's that hard to turn a knob until he says it's okay and then leave it there and go to the bar? I don't think we're a difficult band to mix? Drummer hits super-consistent, vocals are screaming loud most of the time so you're getting good level out front, and yeah, it's supposed to sound like that.

We've had a laptop by Chris's synths or had our soundguy do it re: tracks, but really we've found having the drummer control it is the best way. Because if he's not ready, we're all boned. He hits the thing, gets a four count, gives us a four count and it all goes. At least, in rehearsal.

I don't think I've ever played a gig where my amp has been mic'd! The drums usually go through the PA to give them some more oomph but the geetars and bass never do

...and I've never played something that wasn't an acoustic coffeeshop gig where it wasn't. Even when playing out-of-town. (Granted if we can get shows out-of-town...) Buffalo is odd like that. Everywhere has PA and mics everything.

Yeah, I've played MAYBE two gigs without my amp mic'd.