Waxeater Always mean and always plastered

Two Minor Times videos — full sets — from our summer of 2002 tour

Here are two full sets from the very first Minor Times tour in the summer of 2002. These VHS cassettes have been sitting in my basement for roughly ten years now, but I finally got around to converting them to DVD. Just because.

This first one is from our tour kick-off/record release show in Sellersville, PA. Sellersville was close to our "hometown", so shows in the area brought out an interesting group of friends, fans, and assorted weirdos. If this venue looks weird, it's because it is: this was a VFW with an outdoor area that basically amounted to a barn in the woods.

This next video is from one of our last shows on the tour and is filmed by friend of the site, Rick, from... ricknroll.com, was it? I want to say rickroll.com, but there's no way that's right, right? Either way, this was shot in a basement in Adelphi, Maryland. All I really remember about this show was what a pain it was to get my bass rig downstairs and that they had a trampoline in the backyard, which of course I jumped on with my pants around my ankles, like an asshole.

Lana Del Ray! SOPA/PIPA!

And with that, my blogginess increased by roughly 1000%. It's the bloggiest this blog has ever been.

I'm thinking about adding some more stories from my touring days. I can call the entire collection "Get In The Minivan", like a total asshole. Which reminds me: my number one piece of advice to bands -- are small-time, touring bands even still a thing? Fuck, I'm old and out-of-touch -- that have any designs on touring, whether it's two weeks or two months, is to avoid the temptation of buying a minivan and touring with a trailer. What a fucking disaster. Of course it looks good on paper because you can detach the trailer and drive your kids to soccer practice or whatever, but there is nothing worse than sharing a minivan with 3-4 grumpy, smelly human beings and trailers are dangerously unwieldy. Is it raining or snowing outside? Are you playing a show that will require highway travel? Will you need to park at some point? Then fucking forget it. Spend the extra few bucks and buy yourself a real van. Or, do what pretty much half the bands I've ever shared a show with do and just borrow everyone else's expensive shit. This goes double for bass players. As a long-time bass player, I can't tell you how many times I've had to loan out my shit to other bass players who either don't own their own (what) or are too lazy to transport it. I know it's fucking heavy, but that's the price you pay for having pretty much the easiest job in the band. I remember playing a show at the wonderfully named 123 Fake Street in Rochester; we were booked pretty early, and before we went on, I was approached by two guys. By now, as a bass player, I had learned that nine times out of ten, when you or your band are approached by someone and you hear "hey, who's your bass player?", someone is about to ask to borrow your shit. Obviously, you can always say "no", but then you look like a real cocksucker in front of the promoter and all of the locals and you may make it difficult for yourself to get booked in that town again. Anyway, so of course they ask to borrow my cabinet and I reluctantly tell them "okay". Turns out there are like eight bands booked on this fucking show and they're going last, so we're not able to leave Rochester for Philadelphia until somewhere around midnight. Bass players, listen to me: buy yourself a Gallien-Krueger 400RB (you can find them in Craigslist for less than $200, they're loud as fuck, they sound great, and they're indestructible) and a cheap 2x12 or 1x15 cabinet. All of that shit will fit in your car, no problem, and propped on a milk crate or whatever, the sound will pass for a full stack. If you ever want to be taken seriously, own some shit.

Okay, later!

West Virginia

I've been lucky enough to play about half of the lower forty-eight states while in various bands, and the one that will always stick out the most, and for all the wrong reasons, is West Virginia. And it's not even close. Ohio has always been in a trip in some way, but it's still hard for me to believe that West Virginia is not actually located on another planet.

My very first time there, I played a show in a totally nondescript, slate grey building, out in the middle of nowhere. There were no signs, no visible address, and the only reason we knew we were in the right place was because the gravel parking lot was full of teenagers and twenty-somethings who looked almost out of place as we did.

The inside of the building was certainly a bit more... interesting: there was one large, open room, the walls and ceiling of which were painted black; four bronze stripper poles on elevated platforms were scattered about; two giant, plush sectional couches took up most of the space in the back; and there was a poorly built, homemade bar located in the center. The bar didn't have any taps, only a small refridgerator on the counter that contained some cheap liquor and a small variety of underwhelming beer. Although it was probably no later than six o'clock and the show wasn't scheduled to start for another hour or so, roughly half of the audience already seemed plastered.

We played our set fairly early on -- probably 2nd or 3rd. By then, the cheap tile floor on which we were playing was pretty well covered in beer. And while it was probably largely due to the alcohol, everyone was really into us. There was a ton of positive, drunken energy coming from everyone and we were totally feeling it. And maybe I was feeling it a bit more than the other guys, because less than a minute into our 2nd song, I slipped backwards like I had stepped on a fucking banana peel, with my feet tucked under my ass, though I had managed to do so without missing a single note. Rather than fuck the whole song up by attempting to upright myself, I figured I'd stay right where I was, staring at the black ceiling and sopping up the beer with the the only pair of jeans I brought on tour. A couple of seconds later, a man with shoulder-length hair appeared directly above me, like an angel who has double-fisting cans of cheap beer, and screamed at the top of his lungs, "YYYEEEAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" It was probably the most psyched I've ever seen any human being and even now, maybe a decade or so later, I still envy that guy's enthusiasm for shitty beer, loud music, and (more than likely) illegal backwoods gentlemans' clubs.

My other strongest memory of West Virginia isn't as pleasant, unfortunately. After a show, we grabbed a bite to eat at the nearest restaurant, which was a 50's diner, though we were never quite able to figure out whether it was a themed restaurant or the diner was legitimately frozen in time, because that's really the kind of place that West Virginia is. Shortly after ordering, a middle-aged man on his way out of the diner approached our table and said, "Hey, are you gentlemen in a band?" It probably seems like an odd thing to say to a group of strangers, but we always stuck out like a sore thumb in certain parts of the country, and West Virginia was one of them.

We told this guy that yeah, we were a touring band and we had just played a show in the area. So he sat down at our booth, uninvited, and proceeded to tell us that before becoming a local preacher, he was in what he claimed was a successful area Beach Boys soundalike band. In West Virginia. Chanelling his more recent profession, I suppose, the guy would not shut the fuck up about his favorite bands and his favorite guitars, none of which were in the slightest bit interesting. Oh, cool, you like Les Pauls. We wouldn't have given a single fuck about this guy or his stories even on a good day, but we were all tired and hungry, which made the whole thing that much more irritating. But we're nice guys and we're not in our element whatsoever, so we keep nodding. About forty-five minutes later, once he finally stopped talking about himself, he asked us a few pedestrian questions about us and our band. I stayed quiet while a couple of other band members gave him either short or totally farcical answers in an attempt to speed up the whole process. His feigned interest in us didn't last long. He turns his sights to modern music and says, "Now, if you were to ask me," -- we weren't planning on it, for the record -- "the problem isn't even so much the blacks these days." Our eyes nervously darted around the table as we knew things were about to get weird. "No, the real problem is with the faggots."

At this point, just about everyone had unequivicoally had enough, save for our vocalist, who insisted on continuing to fuck with him. "That's what I was trying to tell these guys!" he said, "See, guys?" Incredibly, after irritating us for what seemed like forever, this is the note the preacher chooses to go out on. He begins to gather his things and stands up. "Well, you fellas have a safe trip back to the east coast! I'll be praying for you!"

Fighter Hayabusa “Can Kill A Shark With Their Bare Hands”

Here's one I almost completely forgot about.

In the early-to-mid 2000's, I was playing bass in a band called The Minor Times, and as we gained more and more exposure, the band was making me somewhat miserable. I still enjoyed the hell out of the music we were making and the shows that we were getting, but the band itself -- the people that comprised it -- were driving me up a fucking wall. I hung on because I loved the music, but the majority of the time that I spent with those guys was not fun... at all. So when things came to a head just before our second prolonged tour, it was a bit of a blessing in disguise and I immediately returned to making music with my good friend, Matt, who I also played in Five Stars For Failure with. Our goal was fairly simple: play music we like and have fun doing it. Maybe we make a record, maybe we don't. Maybe we go on tour, maybe we don't. Etc. The name was a day one thing: Fighter Hayabusa was a character from Pro Wrestling (the videogame, for the NES) and served as a tribute to a very good friend of ours.

Despite a couple of hiccups finding a suitable, "full-time" bass player, we eventually filled out the rest of the band and did an excellent job of fulfilling our simple vision. Really, the whole thing was a drunken blast. Despite never really being a guitarist, I was able to write what I thought were a few good songs and we quickly recorded a demo, which I thought sounded pretty great at the time. We played some shows, moved the demo a bit, and continued writing. Soon after, for whatever reason, we added a second guitar player. It certainly helped that the guy owned and operated not only a recording studio, but some pretty nice, private, twenty-four hour rehearsal rooms. And while he was certainly a nice enough guy, the whole thing ended up being a bit of a disaster.

On tour, the new guy was a bit of a wet blanket... something that was in direct conflict with the entire purpose of the band. Furthermore, his guitar playing -- while skilled -- was not only a poor fit, but actually kind of annoying. "Unnecessarily noodly" is probably the best description I can come up with. And despite having unlimited time in a professional studio, I think this EP ended up kinda sounding like shit. I'll take partial credit for my muddy guitar tone, which was half intentional. The mixing is also inconsistent, which I think is most evident in the vocal sound. This is particularly frustrating because half the time I think the vocals are awesome. That's not to say it's all bad. For instance, I do think that his guitar occasionally works and even less occasionally works well, even adding to the songs here and there. And, as previously mentioned, the vocals -- when heavily processed with effects -- are occasionally great. But, again, everything's all over the fucking place. I still stand by the ubiquitous usage of "Apocalypse Now" sound clips, which I know one reviewer hated, but fuck him anyway.

Initially, I thought the entire thing was a bit of an embarrassment and a major step down from our demo. But listening to this thing again today, probably for the first time since it was released (early 2006), it's not nearly as bad as previously believed. Check it out for yourself here:

Fighter Hayabusa "Can Kill A Shark With Their Bare Hands"

For the record, the name "Insect Politics" comes from Cronenberg's "The Fly" remake; "Beyond Liquordome" comes from The Simpsons and is still the name of my wi-fi network; "Kissed By A Brick" was the best physical description that we could come up with for a mutual acquaintance; "This Cheesesteak..." is a philosophy that I still stand by, to this day (that the more naked you are, the better food will taste); "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things" is an ancient inside joke; and I have zero fucking idea where I still "Terror Alert: Platinum" from.

Also, I really do feel bad knocking our former guitar player a bit because he was a nice guy, despite being a bit... I dunno, goofy or whatever. When we went on our first and only tour, he somehow convinced a buddy of his to lend us his minivan. On our way back home, with one show left in Virginia, our bass player was doing about 80 or so on 95 when a cylinder somehow rocketed through the engine and shut the car down in the left lane of heavy traffic. The whole thing was a nightmare and I was convinced we were going to die right there on the highway, but we somehow navigated our way over to the shoulder and ended up finishing up the tour in a rented SUV. As for this poor dude's van, we all pooled together and split the cost of a new engine with him.

A bunch of stupid bands

A thousand years ago, in the mid-nineties, I was only a couple of years into listening to the kind of shit you'd see on 120 Minutes after making the baffling transition over from early 90's hip-hop. Shortly after starting my senior year of high school, I fell into a crowd that introduced me to even more independent music: local bands that were releasing records on their friends' labels, their friends bands, the bands that inspired them, and so on. Most of this music was pretty "ugly" when compared to what I normally listened to, full of awful screaming and guitar chords that I didn't even know existed. Trying to pin a genre on most of these bands was an exercise in futility because what the fuck separates a "post-hardcore" band from a "math-rock" band, anyway?

A lot of these bands fell under the "emo" or "screamo" umbrella, which I promise you wasn't nearly as embarrassing back then as it is now. Without getting into a fucking thing, let's just say that the the term "emo" entered the lexicon with the Washington, DC band Embrace, and was short for "emotional hardcore". It was stupid, but it did (either directly or indirectly) launch a movement that, for a very brief period, spawned some great music. Though these days, it's all about androgynous shitheads pressing a button on a Casio keyboard, playing a couple of by-the-numbers breakdowns, shoehorning in some vaguely Christian lyrics, and then filming a video for YouTube. I know I'm old, but fuck.

Speaking of old, I recently dug up a couple of old videocassettes that included a bunch of live performances from some of that era's best bands, including the aforementioned Embrace, and converted them to DVD. Once that was done, I figured why not throw them up on YouTube while I was at it -- all 26 of them. A lot of these videos are of dubious quality, though I did my best to clean them up during the transfer, but I think it still helps you get a feel of the energy at the time, back in a day when bands weren't able to make MP3s available for download two days after forming, and you had to call people and write letters in order to book shows. Christ, what a pain in the ass.

I'll post a few of my favorites after the jump, and you can see the rest over on my YouTube page.

Elbow “Neat Little Rows”

Pretty sick. Reminds me a bit of Morphine.