Bend, Oregon: Players Bar & Grill KICKS ASS!

Saturday, we played Player's Bar & Grill in Bend, Oregon. We basically drove 8 hours there, played a show, and immediately drove back to get Jimmy to work before noon. 16 hours of driving within 22 hours. The experience we had in Bend was worth every minute of the drive!

For the uninitiated, Bend is in the mountains surrounded by desert looking conditions. I never really expected to see a desert in the mountains, but that's what I get for never leaving Seattle. I had zero expectations but I was told it has a growing population and thriving art scene. Unverified information, but you can Google that shit for yourself.

We had a sinking feeling when we drove up to Players because there was a sign out front that had a big, glowing "Lottery" sign, and one of the bands that were supposed to play (but cancelled) had their name spelled wrong. It was spelled "Hands on Thorat" instead of "Hands on Throat". We speculated for a few minutes what a "thorat" could be before we realized the misspelling. Visions of "Spinal Tap" danced through our heads.

Walking in, we were hit with a wall of cigarette smoke. I forgot that Oregon still allows smoking in the bars. I'm usually happy with this at first because I'm a smoker. Then, after an hour, my throat feels like a tobacco monkey just shit stale ashes straight into my mouth.

Besides the smoke, we saw some old couches by the stage, pull tabs, lottery signs, and some veteran drinkers making cozy with the bar. Places like this can only go two ways for a band: nightmarish or wonderful. In Vallejo, CA, it was nightmarish as the entire bar ended up in a bar fight. Keep our heads low and grab a beer.

Things started looking up when we were greeted by the opening band, Makeshift. They were extremely helpful and told us where we could park and what to expect from the bar. They explained how it was a "late" bar that gets spill-over from other bars. People will end up there later in the night, so it's better to buy for time as long as possible before playing.

Also, this is Labor Day weekend and not many people in town. I completely forgot about Labor Day before booking this 8 hour journey and immediately started kicking my own ass. Ah well, better than staying home and counting my dick.

We're introduced to Buck who booked us here. Buck immediately makes us feel at home and gets us free drinks and food. We cuddle up to the bar with Buck and start adding our own voice-overs to the television where some dog nanny show is playing. All we get from it as that this dog nanny is a bitch that invades people's houses, tells them how their little piece of shit dogs suck, and then the women who live there get jealous of the nanny because she's hotter than they are.

Fuck the dogs, Makeshift gets up and plays. Good rock music and sexy singer. Still no one in the bar. Hmmm. 8 hours for a dead show.

We go on at midnight, and suddenly there are people up front at the stage! Where did these people come from? It wasn't a ton of people, but for the small bar, we felt it was a great crowd. We start rocking out and jumping all over the place, and EVERYONE GETS INTO IT! Joseph leaps up on the table, I jump off the stage, Jimmy goes apeshit, and Ricky pounds like a mad man. Cameras start flashing, shots get delivered to us while we're playing, and a pit forms. Holy fuck! I even see the people playing pool in the back of the bar getting into it.

When we get off stage, we're assaulted for t-shirts, CDs, and autographs. Fuck, we felt like we were a famous band or something! Wow, Bend, Oregon knows how to make a band feel good!

We are definitely coming back here. Unlike some places, Players knows how to treat their entertainment. Now, I just need to learn how to sleep sitting straight up in the passenger seat without a pillow.

Good times.

Kirkland, WA: How to make enemies and win impotence

On Friday, THE THEM played Waldo's in Kirkland, Washington. We got to play with our friends and great musicians: Boot Liquor and "God Made Me The Raven". In addition, good friends and wonderful fans showed up all the way from Mukilteo and Mt Vernon. Great show, with a minor hiccup, and a couple of lessons for aspiring bands.

Lesson 1:
If you use fake blood or any other liquid for your stage show, use your own equipment and cover up anything owned by the club. Joseph, our singer, used some fake blood for his performance and it got on two of the microphones, the stage, and some of the cables. Though not really damaging anything, you can get some pissed off staff. If you break anything, you'll have to pay for it. And you risk not playing that venue again.
Just wrap the monitors in some plastic, use your own mics, cords, etc, and clean up your mess afterwards. No mess, no damage, no complaints. Joseph did, however, clean the stage as we promised we would.

Lesson 2:
For any claimed damages, get an itemized receipt for said damages. The claim for our show was that we ruined two microphones. The sound guy said they cost $100 each, and asked if we had $200 (very angrily). I got $200 dollars, and he refused the money. I insisted he take at least $100 for any damages or trouble (real or percieved) which he takes. Later, he tells the staff the microphones were worth $150 each, and we only gave him $100 dollars and no one should give THE THEM any money from the door.
A few mistakes I made here. First, I didn't verify the microphones were actually broken. They probably just had some fake blood on them which could be wiped off. They stopped working on stage probably because of a cheap mic cable shorting out. (Happens alot).
Second, I didn't verify the make and model of the microphones. They were probably only worth $30 each, and the sound guy just made a $30 profit. I have no clue because I didn't verify and get an itemized receipt.
Basically, I'm out $100 for something could have been fixed with 5 minutes and a bottle of Windex. Lesson learned

From Pope:
"If they want you to pay for gear...ok. ....But you get to keep what you supposedly broke. Otherwise it's handing over money for something supposedly broken.If they want you to pay for gear...ok. ....But you get to keep what you supposedly broke. Otherwise it's handing over money for something supposedly broken."

Lesson 3:
If the sound guy's pissed, there's nothing you can do about it. Just work on getting your own sound guy for shows. Preferably one that knows how to mix guitars for punk shows. The sound guy for this show was mad before we even hit the stage. Not sure who shit in his latte or why he was taking it out on the bands.
But I can see why he was mad with fake blood on his equipment afterwards. Mia culpa. (See Lesson 1).

Lesson 4:
Fuck Waldo's. They should kiss our ass for bringing people there on a Labor Day weekend after a Seahawks game. Have fun with your Blues cover bands and hip-hop Wednesdays. Fuckers couldn't even update their own website to show that a band was playing. They printed 3 TINY versions of our flier that they said they would take out of our door charge. (Again not itemized.) No comped drinks for the bands. This is why the Eastside sucks ass. Have fun with your hip hop yuppy jocks.
I spent 3 hours on the Internet trying to get people within 5 miles to come out. I contacted all the bands to get them to play. I sent emails to Microsoft people to get them to come out and bring friends. I listed the event in the Stranger.
Without us, you would not have made any bar sales that night. Thanks for the appreciation. Don't contact us when we start selling out venues of your size, and your cheesy Led Zepplin cover band cancels.

Lesson 5:
Don't worry about it because a better show will happen the next day! Which it did, the next blog will be about our Bend, Oregon show. It kicked ass, the staff and sound guy were nice, helpful, and appreciative. Magically, the environment was relaxed, happy, and people were having fun. Go figure.

Rogue Hero

It was one of my first punk rock shows out of town. I was 19 and a half at the time. We were playing alongside our partners in grime, the Rain City Schwillers. Our destination: Bellingham, Washington. A small college town, just south of the Canadian border. The bar in which we were set to rock, was called the Rogue Hero. Silly name for a bar if you ask me. The Reverend Pope, drummer for the Schwillers, had arranged for a friend of his to drive us the two hours from North Seattle to Bellingham on his bus, which he occasionally lived in with his wife at the time.
Morale was high when we left Seattle. Joseph and our former drummer Barry were having some sort of contest with each other: to see who could spew out the most grotesque, derogatory comments about women the fastest. It was a close match. Aside from Joseph, Seth, Barry and I, there were several others along for the ride. The Rain City Schwillers which included the Rev. Pope, guitarists HaHa and Johnny Heartbreaker, as well as bassist Andy aka “Mic Jameson.” The Schwillers brought along several of their friends to share in the festivities. Joining us from our crew was our faithful Jew roadie Devon. Devon brought along his good friend from Kentucky. He went by the name of cheap whiskey (I can’t even remember what kind, just that it tasted awful, even for whiskey!).
One thing I should probably mention, is that in Washington state at least, it is perfectly legal to drink alcohol in a privately owned bus, as long as you don’t get too close to the front seat with your booze.(The booze bus!) So you had 2 of Seattle’s most alcoholic bands along with their comrades in an enclosed space, with 3 fifths of liquor and a seemingly endless supply of beer. And we were on our way to a bar!!! Needless to say, it was a very interesting night.
Now to be fair, not everyone of the bus got completely shit-faced drunk. Just two key people who happened to be in The Them. Jimmy Hall and Joseph Christ. Everyone else apparently had the foresight to pace themselves with the alcohol, but not me. Not Joseph. I started taking shots of whiskey and chasing them with Pabst Blue Ribbon almost immediately after we left Seattle. I wasn’t really watching Joseph so much, but his jokes kept getting dirtier and dirtier, and his voice kept getting louder and louder. Starting to slur too. The Schwillers, who looked as if they were enjoying everything at the beginning of the trip began to look a little apprehensive. The looks on their faces said: “Ok, seriously? Are you guys done yet?” But of course we weren’t done.
By the time we reach the club, I’m ripped, not blacked out drunk or anything like that, but by no means in any position to do anything that requires hand eye coordination. Like playing guitar. Or walking in a straight line. As the time to kick off our set drew closer, I began to get nervous, and how do I deal with nervousness and stress? Drink some water and noodle around on my guitar? Nah, not really my style that night. Instead, I continued to drink and smoke pot. By the time I actually started warming up, my hands felt as if they were made of rubber, clumsily moving up and down the fret board of my guitar.
While I’m hanging out in the bus by myself (because I’m underage at the time) Joseph comes in and joins me for yet another drink. His eyes are already as red as a fire truck, but what the hell, it’s a plush road gig right? And we’re rock stars, right? We assure each other that we’re both cool to play, and that its going to be a great show, when Joseph breaks a glass he happens to be drinking vodka from. Joseph thinks nothing of it, and continues to be belligerent. It’s only after I explain to him that we’re guests in some guys bus, and that the guy is nice enough to drive us, so maybe we shouldn’t leave a heap of broken glass strewn about his bus. Then he gets it and starts to help pick up the glass. He promptly informs our bus driver/host for the evening, that his wife happens to be the kind of woman that Joseph is attracted to. Oh Joseph, have you no shame?
The stage at Rogue hero was tiny, leaving only enough room for the drums and our amplifiers. Joseph begins by setting at least 15 open water bottles on the floor, next to the stage right beside him. I figured he must be dehydrated somewhat from all the booze, but come on. By this time, a sizeable crowd has assembled at the bar. It’s a Friday night, and the place is packed with potential fans.
Now begins one of the most shambolic performances in my, as well as the whole bands short career. Aside from being sloppy drunk….Well, there is no aside from being sloppy, shit faced drunk…Bad things usually happen when you reach the drunken stupor that half of our band succumbed to. At this point my memory gets a little hazy, but I’ll point out the highlights, or “lowlights” if you will.
Because I am so full of liquid courage, I think I’m going to compensate by giving a blistering performance; one with intense energy to make up for my lack of musical precision. That might have happened, had I not pulled my cord out from my amp. Now I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, so what, a guitarist pulls out his cord from his amp, what’s the big deal? Worse things have happened.” You’re probably right, but I pulled my cord out from my amplifier at least 7-15 times that night. One moment I would have full tone, then all of the sudden, absolutely nothing. And it would take at least 30 seconds to plug my cord back in and find the groove of the song again. When you consider half of our songs are only a minute and a half long, you begin to realize the severity of the situation. So imagine me, drunken and sweaty, with my metal face on in all my youthful glory. I take a few steps and BAM…No sound. ALL fucking night. And our set was just beginning…
So while I am repeatedly struggling to keep my cord in my amp, Joseph knocks over every single open bottle of water he so carefully placed in front of the stage. So not only are we drunk, the fucking floors are slippery! The set is not going so well at this point and people are beginning to walk outside to smoke, anything to escape the drunken excuse for a rock and roll band that is onstage. Joseph decides he’s going to fire up the crowd
(or make himself feel taller) by standing on a pool table and smashing a beer bottle on the ground. The Rogue hero staff does not like this one bit. They place one of the bouncers in front of the pool table for the duration of our set, just so Joseph will be discouraged to jump up on it again.
When that fails to rev up the crowd, Joseph then decides to pick up a small nearby trash can, and dump the contents on our formidable bassist, Sethalicious. To no avail. The crowd is not moved by the sight of Joseph dumping half eaten chicken wings and barbeque sauce on Seth.
Always the pessimistic realist, sensible Seth was begging Joseph to cut the set short that night, the damage had been done. He should have known better than to argue with a stubborn drunk. We continued playing our songs through the very end of our scheduled set, which was probably forty five minutes at the time. I don’t even want to imagine what that must have sounded like. I cringe when I start to think back to that night. They must not have even been decipherable as actual songs! Maybe it’s a good thing I can’t remember most of it…
To top it all off, during one of our slower numbers, “Demon Dance,” Joseph decided to strangle Seth with his microphone cord during one of the songs more complicated bass lines. Strangled him. With the FUCKING MIC CORD! The only thing I could ask myself later was, “how did he think that would make it a better show? How could that improve the quality of anything?” With that, Joseph slipped and fell flat on his back from the water that he himself spilled onto the floor, and our set was finally over.
Somebody who was filming both bands sets that night came over to us after we were done and explained that she stopped filming after our third song or so. We were that incoherent. In the parking lot, after we unloaded our stuff, Joseph was near hysterics.
“We sucked!” he yelled. Kicking the plastic Virgin Mary statue that we used to include as part of our stage props as he shouted. His speech dissolved into nothing but slurs and angry muttering, as he stormed off to be by himself. Seth just shook his head and smiled the way a loving wife does when her husband is being irrational, and she knows that any effort to calm him down would be futile.
Joseph is off trying to convince the promoter to let back into the Rogue hero, from which he was just barred. Barry our drummer took in a huff back to Seattle, opting not to stay the night in Bellingham with his then band mates and friends. They eventually let Joseph back into the bar, provided he sweep and mop up the mess he made.
Then came the only high point of the evening. Musically that is. The Rain City Schwillers probably played a typical frenzied set that won back what was remaining of the crowd. I say probably because none of us were present for the Schwillers performance. Seth and I were too busy dealing with drunken Joseph, who was busy kicking plastic statues of the Virgin Mary and trying to get un-banned from the club. So if any of the former Schwillers are reading this, thank guys!
The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful. After we packed all our gear back on the bus, The Them and The Rain City Schwillers headed back to our bus divers place for couches and floor spaces to crash on. I fell asleep on the bus and woke up next to the Jew. I heard Joseph drank a shitload of absinth and spent the rest of the night talking to a dog.
\ The next morning we all had breakfast at one of the greasy local diners. Everyone was red eyed and hung over. Me especially. I stuck to only water at the table and didn’t order anything when it was my turn, because my stomach felt queasy. Seth took the liberty of ordering a side of butter drenched hash browns on my behalf. Going against my better judgment, I ate some of the hash browns, then puked it up about 10 minutes later in bathroom of the diner. How many punk rock points do I get for that?
The mood on the ride back was a 180 degree turn from the ride up. No howling, drunken laughter, and smiling faces, but almost dead silence and hangovers for the lot of us. Gradually, the mood lifted, with Pope sharing an amusing anecdote about the time he went down on a chick and she miscarried on him. By the time we made it back to Seattle, most of us felt like somewhat normal humans again. Or as close to normal as people like us can feel.
We can look back on that show now and laugh, but it took awhile to get to that point. Every once and awhile, we’ll still run into someone who was at that show, or heard about that show. They are usually amazed that we’re still a band that makes music. They’re usually amazed we’re still alive. Sometimes I’m amazed.

The Terry story...

It was a hot, sunny day one summer ago, when Seattle’s finest punk/metal band The Them were taking a break between sets at their Queen Anne rehearsal studio. It was about 4 pm and after practicing their intense live set, it was time for a smoke.

Joseph, Seth, Jimmy, and their former drummer Barry were meandering around, shooting the usual shit, when somebody spied an approaching figure. Oh, it’s only Terry; the ex-con, uber hippie maintenance guy that lives at the rehearsal studio. He’s walking in the direction opposite of one of the many Shell stations located in lower Queen Anne. Terry is carrying a large plastic sack. Beer most likely.It turns out to be Milwaukee’s Beast, known for being one of the cheapest beers around. Even more inexpensive than Pabst Blue Ribbon.

He stumbles as he approaches the group. Terry gazes upon the group with red, stupid eyes. It’s 4 in the afternoon. Jimmy: “He just sort of came over, joined our circle, and started a conversation with us. He had a real problem staying on topic. Seemed a little less lucid than usual. Terry claimed that he just came from a moving Vietnam War memorial or something, and somehow that got him on the subject of tattoos. His eyes were SO red. If they were any more red, he would be crying blood.

Then, he glanced around at some of the bands various tattoos.”He said: “You guys, you guys are really crazy. You know what, I’m fuckin’ crazy.” (We don’t doubt you Terry) (He peers around and acknowledges the bands various tattoos.) “You know if I was gonna get a tattoo…”At this point, everything happened so fast, its impossible to recall every minute detail. Terry puts down his sack of cheap beer, and puts his hands to his pants, and proceeds to very slowly pull them down. We all thought he must be going somewhere with this, and oh boy did he ever. Once his pants reached his ankles, Terry proceeded to ever so slowly pull down his tight white underwear. Once his sizeable beer gut is lifted, it gives way to a dirty, repugnant, circumcised member. A foul odor that is slightly reminiscent of cheese and onions, wafts up from his not so personal area. “If I was gonna get a tattoo, I’d get it RIGHT…THERE!!!” (He points as he says)

Hilarity ensues at this point, Seth is busting a gut laughing while trying to make distance between himself and the offending cock. Joseph is planted where he has been the whole time, and pointing no less. Jimmy on the other hand is apparently trying to melt into the wall to escape this madness, his face contorting in a combination of disgust and delight. Terry pulls up his pants at somewhere along the way and appears quite pleased with himself.

That is when the band decided enough was enough, and it was time to ditch this sausage fest (quite literally I’m afraid) and return to practice. Once inside the studio someone asked: “What the fuck just happened? Do you think he planned that?” Then we were comforted by the fact that this guy who just exposed his dirty, old hippie cock to us, has a key to every studio in the warehouse, including ours. That’s piece of mind for $400 a month.