At All Cost Final Show

Saw At All Cost's last show at Walter's last night. They were badass. Just like at the Chinese Star's show, I could hardly hear the vocals, although it may have been because we were standing to the side of the stage. I want to make sure that when Centaur Marauder plays people can hear the lyrics well. I also need to get one of those vocoder things that makes you sound like a robot.

We've been starting to look around for another amp to replace my little Marshall AVT50, which is a great amp but not really big enough to play shows. Also, I want something with lots of punch without being overly distorted.

The Chinese Stars

Last night I saw the Chinese Stars at BeerLand. The opening bands were:

• Dated - a young three piece that pretty much just made noise
• Alters - a punkish three piece that had serious issues on stage. First of all, the guitarist and vocalist (who happened to also be the singer for The Riverboat Gamblers) couldn't figure out how to use his Boss guitar tuner, nor tune by ear. After about 10 minutes, they just started playing out of tune. After a couple songs, the guitarist's D string broke, but they didn't have a replacement so they just kept playing out of tune and with a broken string. Eventually the guitarist from Dated lent them his guitar. On the first song played with this new guitar, Alter's guitarist broke the E string. I'm not kidding. Then he made some jokes about how everyone had friends that died during high school. Things just went downhill from there.
• Sensitive Hearts - a two peice with a girl pumping out simple synthesizer rhythms on a keyboard, and a guy singing to her and banging on a tom, floor tom, and symbol. In the middle of the set their equipment crapped out too, so for ten minutes while they fixed the problem they showed home movies on a projector screen. The skits were pretty much low budget adult swim skits, and were kind of funny in that bizarre understated way.

The Chinese Stars put on a pretty good show. I think the singer could have brought his vocals up in the mix a little more, but it was already loud as hell. They had home-made lighting effects that made it seem as though the band was dancing in firelight. I might steal that idea. The show lasted until almost two in the morning, which is strange considering that the Chinese Stars only played like six songs.

Cowboys From Hell Paso!

So I just got back from seeing a Pantera cover band at Dirty Dog called "Cowboys From Hell Paso." They were so bad ass rockin hardcore sweet Dime Bag washerboard style. Seriously, they f***ing rocked. Made me want to learn more Pantera. Then on the way back to the car, a conversation between me, Trevor, and a really good looking girl occured. Thins were going great until the girl's work acquaintences happened by and heaved her into the air, then dropped her and allowed her head to hit a stone wall. Then I broke up a potential fight that would have lasted for five seconds between Trevor and the kid who dropped her. Now I have returned home alone. Augghhhh this is fucked!

A Thrice Halloween

Saw Thrice at the Houston Verizon Center with Stephen last night. They were great, as usual, and they took things to the next level by wearing insanely bad-ass Star Wars costumes. Unfortunately, their set was cut pretty short so that Brand New could play two hours of monotonous shit. At one point during Brand New's set, Jesse Lacey told the crowd to essentially shut up so he could concentrate while he played solo on a 5 minute long teen-angst crybaby song. I'm pretty sure I heard him hit some wrong notes anyways.

Despite the fact that the tickets ended up being $33 (advertised as $23 on the web), we had to leave early because Brand New just sucked so much balls that we couldn't stand it any longer. Also, their costumes were cheesy black and white prison uniforms that probably cost $20 at Target. They must have put a lot of thought into them.

Islands

Caught the end of Islands's show at Mohawk last night. I'm not a huge Islands fan but what I saw of their show was good and I'd see them again. Plus I only had to pay $3 to get in because it was so late into the show. Once again, it is bad ass to live just a few blocks from some of the best music venues in Texas. Austin is dope.

uggarrr

bike to emos... saw a real good singer la band keyboard player three piece Crash Kings... saw the The Bravery good but not spectacular... thought they were Euro but their not... got drunk at Buffalo Bill's with Aaron... met Matthew who brought me back... met someone from the apartments at the bike racks and drank a little rum... nothing good so I came home and started watching new Office episode... passing out now.

R E C O V E R

Last Sunday night we saw Recover at the Mohawk in Austin, and they f*cking rocked. I really like their bass player, Ross Tweedy, cuz he moves around on stage real nice-like and brings tons of energy to the show. We need a bass player like that.


Stephen and I finished a new song the other day called "Blood Red Mouth". It's pretty good I think and close to what we're "going for".

So Thrice's new album dropped but I haven't downloaded it from iTunes because it doesn't contain the five bonus tracks that are on the physical CD. Am I the only one who hates having huge binders full of CDs and massive stacks of empty CD cases collecting dust in my closet? Raarrr! Not sure what I'm going to do about getting that album...

Last night I passed out on the couch after listening to the Black Flag channel on Pandora. I dreamt that I was somewhere with a young Henry Rollins, and something was happening that I don't remember. Probably something hardcore, but not in a gay way.

-tOM oUT