Hello fans! It was great seeing a lot of you at the Backwoods Bistro for their 1 year anniversary celebration! After doing a few shows with you all, I think there are a couple of things we can count on:
One, no matter what time or place we have a gig, our folks represent big time! We've played at all sorts of venues at all sorts of times and every time we've had a great crowd.
Two, if they aren't prepared at the bar, it's going to be a long night for the bartenders! Our venues seem to underestimated our fan's, shall we say, thirst? haha! We should start seeing more supply of both bottled beer and bartenders going forward! A big shout out to all of you guys and gals! We really appreciate your support!
The forecast for the event was RAIN and then some! So instead of playing outside as was originally planned, the event was moved inside of the Bistro. That turned out to be a great call because at one point it was raining people outside! ha! We kicked off the celebration at 3pm, which was a change from our original 4pm start time. We decided to move to the first slot in order to help the other bands that were scheduled to play since most of them were playing the same drum set and I of course play a Roland drum kit. This worked out nicely because it made the transitions a lot easier for everyone else. We debated starting with "Back of the Bus" on the spot, but decided to keep our original set list in place since we were on a severe time crunch compared to most all of our shows so far (We had about an hour or so compared to the three plus hour marathons we're used to playing). We started with "Nervous" and I never heard one drum hit or beat the whole song! Craig had moved my monitor prior to the show to prop up his bass guitar and turned off the power. When he moved it back, he forgot the power button! Oh NO!!! Fortunately, I just relied on what I imagined it sounded like and finished the song with no issues. Craig and I had a funny moment during the song when he started wondering where the sound back to me was. Once he realized what had happened we gave each other the "Oh Well" nod and kept rolling. Hopefully, my band mates appreciate my ability to adapt to these scenarios as I seem to always have some sound issue (or lack thereof) but so far I've been able to get through each problem with no issues. Speaking of which, my band mates once again were spot on and sounded great! I was extremely pleased with their performance as they both came to rock! Our sound was about the best I think it has been and we attribute that to Rick Ott and Co. dialing in our true sound. (Rick and all the musicians on the ticket are all great people and sounded great as well!) At one point Bryan skipped a verse on "Hands to the Fire" and instead broke into this long killer lead. It was a nice surprise that worked with our tight time crunch. We ended up playing 16 songs, 2 of those for the sound check. We had another 2 we had to cut out because of our time, "Firing Man" and "County Line".
Our streak of playing a brand new song at every show came to an end, but I can assure you all it wasn't because we didn't have any new songs! B and I did a rough count last night and I would be willing to bet we have another 20-30 songs that we haven't developed yet. In the last 2 practices alone we have created 4-5 solid sounding songs that have a lot of potential. As we get closer to our "vacation" of a couple months, I would expect a bunch of new songs when we get back out there. I'm personally really excited about them.
As for what's next on the horizon, I'd say we are focused on practicing and maybe trying to fit in more recording as we can find time and you never know, we may sneak a surprise show in somewhere. It will be tricky over the next couple of months, but I expect we'll find time here and there to keep on rockin' baby!
- DMaster Miagi - Drums, Percussion, Vocals
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Friday, August 9, 2013
Entry 4 - Bombtown Recap from 8/1/13
Kaboom! That was the sound of the bomb that went off at Bombtown ("BT") last Thursday night! What a great time had by all! I dare say it may have been the best BT ever...
This BT marked a key event, the graduation of Matt Jr. from FSU which brought a solid crowd of usual "Bombtowners" plus an influx of new faces. This also meant a return visit of Jessica, Matt Jr's sister, which was a big plus as well. Everyone was in great spirits and ready to have a good time as to be expected, and so were we. I had made mention to Matthammed (our host) earlier in the day that our set list was moved around some and we may not do any free-styling parts as we had done for the last several BTs prior to this one. We do enjoy that part, but the way we planned our set list made it appear a little more difficult to fit in this time. So now on to the show!
We started with a cover, It's So Easy, mainly intended as a continuation from the ending at Down Below (we played this as our encore). We wanted to ride the wave of energy from that show right into this show and I think it worked. From Easy we went to Offensive, which was a brand new song we had never played out before. B and C were definitely on and that energy inspired several impromptu jams throughout the first set list that included a congrats jam to Matt Jr and a welcome home jam to Jessica, along with some random jam song in the middle that was created on the spot. The mood was perfect and we got to the last song of the first set, Rockin' Body, which is the song that usually gets a lot of Freestyle attention with it's 808 beat from my drum kit. Well, the free-styling spirits would not be denied and one of the best freestyle intros to Rockin' Body ensued. We then took a short but much needed break as we were all drained from going full throttle that first set. I know B and I were especially zapped and to that point I had completely soaked through 2 shirts. After a quick break, we gathered up before heading out for the second set and decided we would play a new song that incorporates the 909 drum kit to kick off the next set. The funny thing is, after we initially created this little jam the practice before the show, everyone swore they would remember it...then we all forgot it. So the next day B had it hit him in the car and he recorded the basic sound of it on his phone. We listened to that real quick then went and jammed it for about 15 minutes, mainly because this kicked off another round of free-styling that was dead on and had the crowd even more hyped than before! We then went on with the rest of the set, and stuck in yet another brand new song, County Line, right before the last 2 songs of the night, Last Call and I Am The Man. We ended up playing 31 songs that night and if you're keeping count, I soaked 3 shirts total. I also experienced a major cramp in my groin/thigh area right in the middle of I Am The Man. It was basically a rock solid knot for a little while. I switched to my left foot for a few bars then went right back to the right and it never let me down! I pleaded with it right before the encore (in front of the whole crowd) and it responded by backing off and letting me do my thing! And I appreciated it! hahahaha!
Also, we want to give a big shout out to our main free-stylers at this show, Jordan and Kale. You guys rocked the house!
Next Stop...Backwoods Bistro on August 17 at 4pm. The event kicks off at 3pm and goes on through the night. Here is a list of the bands that will be playing:
3:00pm-4:00pm Ashoka
4:15pm-5:15pm PIMP LIGHTNING
5:30pm-6:30pm Kenzie Report
6:45pm-7:45pm Mechanical Lincoln
8:00pm-9:15pm Brett Wellman
9:30pm-11:00pm Rick Ott Band and Lindsey Evans
See you guys there!
This BT marked a key event, the graduation of Matt Jr. from FSU which brought a solid crowd of usual "Bombtowners" plus an influx of new faces. This also meant a return visit of Jessica, Matt Jr's sister, which was a big plus as well. Everyone was in great spirits and ready to have a good time as to be expected, and so were we. I had made mention to Matthammed (our host) earlier in the day that our set list was moved around some and we may not do any free-styling parts as we had done for the last several BTs prior to this one. We do enjoy that part, but the way we planned our set list made it appear a little more difficult to fit in this time. So now on to the show!
We started with a cover, It's So Easy, mainly intended as a continuation from the ending at Down Below (we played this as our encore). We wanted to ride the wave of energy from that show right into this show and I think it worked. From Easy we went to Offensive, which was a brand new song we had never played out before. B and C were definitely on and that energy inspired several impromptu jams throughout the first set list that included a congrats jam to Matt Jr and a welcome home jam to Jessica, along with some random jam song in the middle that was created on the spot. The mood was perfect and we got to the last song of the first set, Rockin' Body, which is the song that usually gets a lot of Freestyle attention with it's 808 beat from my drum kit. Well, the free-styling spirits would not be denied and one of the best freestyle intros to Rockin' Body ensued. We then took a short but much needed break as we were all drained from going full throttle that first set. I know B and I were especially zapped and to that point I had completely soaked through 2 shirts. After a quick break, we gathered up before heading out for the second set and decided we would play a new song that incorporates the 909 drum kit to kick off the next set. The funny thing is, after we initially created this little jam the practice before the show, everyone swore they would remember it...then we all forgot it. So the next day B had it hit him in the car and he recorded the basic sound of it on his phone. We listened to that real quick then went and jammed it for about 15 minutes, mainly because this kicked off another round of free-styling that was dead on and had the crowd even more hyped than before! We then went on with the rest of the set, and stuck in yet another brand new song, County Line, right before the last 2 songs of the night, Last Call and I Am The Man. We ended up playing 31 songs that night and if you're keeping count, I soaked 3 shirts total. I also experienced a major cramp in my groin/thigh area right in the middle of I Am The Man. It was basically a rock solid knot for a little while. I switched to my left foot for a few bars then went right back to the right and it never let me down! I pleaded with it right before the encore (in front of the whole crowd) and it responded by backing off and letting me do my thing! And I appreciated it! hahahaha!
Also, we want to give a big shout out to our main free-stylers at this show, Jordan and Kale. You guys rocked the house!
Next Stop...Backwoods Bistro on August 17 at 4pm. The event kicks off at 3pm and goes on through the night. Here is a list of the bands that will be playing:
3:00pm-4:00pm Ashoka
4:15pm-5:15pm PIMP LIGHTNING
5:30pm-6:30pm Kenzie Report
6:45pm-7:45pm Mechanical Lincoln
8:00pm-9:15pm Brett Wellman
9:30pm-11:00pm Rick Ott Band and Lindsey Evans
See you guys there!
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