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Post by Baker on Oct 18, 2018 1:22:07 GMT
Has anybody here other than shinobimusashi and myself ever been in a band? All this music discussion of late has me reminiscing about my short-lived band, Demon Semen. Was looking for the sweet Demon Semen avatar Kilgore made for me a few years back but I must have had it saved on my old laptop because I can no longer find it. Oh well. The Complete Unauthorized Saga of Demon Semen will be up before I go to sleep tonight.
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Post by 🤯 on Oct 18, 2018 1:56:21 GMT
Has anybody here other than shinobimusashi and myself ever been in a band? All this music discussion of late has me reminiscing about my short-lived band, Demon Semen. Was looking for the sweet Demon Semen avatar Kilgore made for me a few years back but I must have had it saved on my old laptop because I can no longer find it. Oh well. The Complete Unauthorized Saga of Demon Semen will be up before I go to sleep tonight. I didn't think I could love you more. The fact you were in a band called Demon Semen just goes to prove that love is truly limitless.
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Post by iNCY on Oct 18, 2018 2:30:24 GMT
Has anybody here other than shinobimusashi and myself ever been in a band? All this music discussion of late has me reminiscing about my short-lived band, Demon Semen. Was looking for the sweet Demon Semen avatar Kilgore made for me a few years back but I must have had it saved on my old laptop because I can no longer find it. Oh well. The Complete Unauthorized Saga of Demon Semen will be up before I go to sleep tonight. You should call it: "Demon Semen - The Premature De-Escalation"
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Post by Baker on Oct 18, 2018 4:06:06 GMT
The Ballad of Demon Semen (Aka: A Musical Journey)
Part I: Foreplay
Before I get to the greatest short-lived band the world has ever known we have to go back in time to the very beginning.....
I was not in the school band growing up. I was not even in chorus. Being a rather shy youth, the idea of performing in public mortified me. Even the thought of giving an occasional speech in front of class caused more than one sleepless night.
I grew up listening to Dad Rock, Hair Metal, late 80s-early 90s pop, and the great Harry Chapin before moving on to my country music and disco(?!) phases. My first cassette tapes(!) were Guns N' Roses, Garth Brooks, Harry Chapin, and a hand-me-down Johnny Horton. Outside of a few short-lived phases I was not hugely "into" music growing up as anything more than background noise while riding somewhere with my parents. The only impact grunge had on me was in buying a flannel shirt or two. I actually listened to more rap than grunge/mid-90s rock (Regulate=GOAT). I knew who Nirvana was, but not the name Kurt Cobain. Cobain may have been the voice of my generation, but he was not MY voice. Instead I worshiped at the altar of Wayne & Garth. In fact, I distinctly remember an incident a day or two after Cobain died. My crush Kelly came to 1st period French class crying one day. "What's wrong?" I said. "Haven't you heard? Kurt Cobain committed suicide." She stammered out in between tears. "Kurt....Cobain, did you say? Tragic." I responded, hoping for nothing more than a cheap hug from "the love of my life." Success! :love: #Creep
At some point, inspired my hero, I did get an acoustic guitar. My guitar hero was not the great John Norum, or even the very good Kee Marcello. Nope. My first guitar hero was none other than.....
The Honkytonk Man! :rofl:
I took private guitar lessons every Thursday afternoon for a few years in middle school from a lady who lived a block or two away. I was really into at first. But within months, if not weeks, practicing became more of a chore than something I really wanted to do. I still stuck with it for a pretty long time mainly to appease my parents. I was even quite good!.....for somebody who rarely practiced. Played a few recitals. Remember being super nervous for the first one, but I got through it just fine, and the rest were a piece of cake after that.
At some point Metallica became my favorite band because, like, they were everybody's favorite band at the time. I started driving in the late 90s. My mom's hand-me-down 1988 Dodge Aries station wagon only had a tape player, and since I only had a handful of tapes (and no CDs yet iirc) I found myself listening to the radio more than I had at any point since probably my early 90s country music phase. This is really where I got "into" music.
In 1998 I heard the triumphant strains of Europe's masterpiece The Final Countdown for the first time (that I can remember). My life was forever changed. THIS is what music should aspire to be. Days later I saw a commercial for the epic Monsters of Rock CD. Bought it at Best Buy the very next day. And thus began my CD buying binge. I bought at least one per week for years. A little quick math makes me think I must have had somewhere between 200-300 at some point. At first I was all about the Hair Metal I grew up on (and had forgotten all about for years) with some other stuff sprinkled in. At some point, I got into "proper" metal* which I had always dismissed as a sort of trashy try hard genre growing up.
*By proper metal I mean like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath/Ozzy, Dio, NWOBHM, the less extreme forms of thrash, etc. Death Metal is the worst form of "music" to ever exist. And Black Metal is basically just the same shit with (possibly?) edgier lyrics. I'll even take f'n Pearl Jam over Death Metal. Yeah, I went there.
I wasn't JUST a one dimensional metal guy though. Like I had lots of other stuff from all different genres. I even got into Nirvana (on the down low)! Hell, there were even long stretches of time where I'd go off metal, be it proper or hair, for months at a time. But overall I had more metal (in all its guises) than anything else.
Part II: A Seed Is Planted
Fast forward to 2003-2004: The Year of the Darkness. When I Believe In A Thing Called Love dropped I felt like I had finally found my Kurt Cobain in Justin Hawkins. It was love like I hadn't felt since the days of dreamy Kelly :love: (because fuck Amanda...but, like, in the bad way). I bought Permission To Land the next day and it spent Europe amounts of time in my CD player. I was CONVINCED The Darkness were going to save the dying rock genre. I don't think there has ever been a band I was more into in real time than 03-04 Darkness.
Two of my closest friends were quasi-musicians. One was a trend hopping drummer who was in a Blink 182-style band in high school because his H.S. friends were Blink fans. Then he became a classic rock/proper metal guy because that's what the rest of our little clique was into. A while later he'd get big into Grunge because that's what his hipster college friends liked (was there a Grunge revival in the mid 2000s? Was Grunge nostalgia already a thing?). The other guy had been playing guitar since childhood and was actually really damn good. Like to the point where he could have had a career in guitar, be it giving lessons or in a band, if he had been so inclined. A 3rd friend who was into country music took up the bass basically because everybody else in our little group was suddenly playing an instrument. Anyway, the drummer, guitarist, and bassist were all roommates. They subscribed to all these music mags like Guitar World.
The Darkness, coupled with the musical direction my friends were taking, inspired me to pick up my dusty old guitar for the first time in nearly a decade. I sucked! Somehow I had forgotten 99% of what I learned from those middle school lessons and didn't really have the drive/desire to get better. I jammed with them a few times, but mostly when I went over there a few times a week it was the guitarist & drummer rocking out while the bassist and I did other stuff.
We all worked together and had another friend called The Boz who was really into Radiohead. (He gave me a Radiohead CD one time so I could finally learn to appreciate "good music." I listened to it once and tried giving that sub-Pearl Jam shit back the next day, but The Boz refused. So it remained on the very last page of like my 8th CD holder 'book' that was always buried underneath the other 7. I do like Radiohead's Creep though). Anyway, The Boz convinced the manager of the restaurant where we all worked to let either his band or his friend's band (I forget which) play a little show on our outdoor deck (an enclosed tent-like area separate from the actual restaurant). The Boz's shitty band (or his friend's shitty band) playing a little show for some friends and coworkers on the patio of our restaurant gave me an idea.....
It started as a lark. It was never intended to be a serious thing. Nor did I expect anybody to take it seriously. I was probably drunk. Maybe high (though I never did smoke much). But I was with my 3 mates and said something like "We should start a band and play a show on the deck." This offhand comment caused lightbulbs in heads to go off. I can still see the look on the faces of my friends. It was a Eureka moment.
So we started practicing together. The bassist was green and not very good. I was even worse on my ancient guitar. It wasn't easy to practice since my friends lived in an apartment. The drummer always played very, very quietly, or would even air drum rather than play for real. On rare occasions (no more than 5 times) we'd practice for real at the drummer's parents house. We did this on and off for a few months. At some point I asked our manager if "my band" could play a show on the deck. The manager was super cool and more like an older friend who we actually hung out with on occasion than a real boss. Iirc he never even answered my question that day. He was skeptical of the whole concept. It was more like "You're in a band now? When the fuck did that happen?" But he soon agreed.
This had always been my pet project. The others were just along for the ride. Looking back on it now, I'm shocked they ever agreed to do it in the first place, and I give them all the credit in the world for going along with my zany scheme. My theory is they were willing to go along for the ride just to see me make a fool out of myself in the end, as I inevitably would (that was kind of the whole point). The guitarist and drummer had long outgrown my preferred form of music, and the bassist was just a hanger on whose heart was never really into it in the first place. He would soon drop out of the entire "stupid project", threatening to kill Demon Semen before we ever played our first (and bound to be last) show.
Oh, I suppose now is a good time to explain how our glorious name to came be. We were sitting around one day discussing what we should be called. After all, a band must have a name. I can only recall 3 of what I'm sure were many, many suggestions. The bassist suggested....wait for it......wait for it....Air Conditioning! :rofl: See, because it was hot out (making me think this would have been the summer of 2004) and the air conditioning was on. Our response to this WOAT band name idea was much the same as the children in Frosty The Snowman when that kid suggests Frosty be called Oatmeal. My big contribution was..... So Pure It's Painful...which...yikes! Maybe Air Conditioning wasn't so bad after all. Then the guitarist was all "Let's end this nonsense" and came up with the GOAT band name- Demon Semen. I wish I could take the credit for it. I really do. But I cannot. It was the guitarist all the way.
So here I am as the driving force behind this entire daft project and yet I can't even play an instrument. So naturally I become the lead singer. The first bassist was replaced by an associate of ours who either dated or was dating another friend we had. He worked in a music store, had been in real bands, and gave guitar & bass lessons (including to our original bassist before we knew him in an "it's a small world after all" sort of moment). Even though we didn't know him all that well, he fit in perfectly with our group. He had a similar outlook/sense of humor to myself in particular. We clicked to the point where his girlfriend/my friend Ashley once said we should be dating each other :lol: So he was actually a massive improvement over the first bassist in every possible way.
I cared far more about aesthetics, aping Joey Tempest, and showmanship than the actual music. (The more I post here, the more I realize how much being raised by Sports Entertainment affected me.) To me the most important things were what we were going to play, wear, and devising banter rather than, y'know, actually being good at music. I didn't care if we bombed so long as I got to carry out my vision. We had a band name. Now we had to have rock star names....
Me: "Countdown" Claude Vanity- Originally my wrestling video game CAW name. Guitarist: Atom Rock- A takeoff of his real name. Drummer- Boo- His childhood nickname....that he despised. Bassist #1- Jizzy Jeff- Jeff was his real name. The Jizzy was my contribution. GOAT bassist name. Obviously. Bassist #2- Frankie Fear- A version of his real first name + a throwaway line from Rocky V. Another one of my contributions.
So after months of on again/off again practice the big night is finally here. I can't remember exactly when it took place but it was some time between September 2004-June 2005.
*Tomorrow: Part III: The Birth of Demon Semen
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Post by @admin on Oct 18, 2018 4:39:06 GMT
Radiohead "sub-Pearl Jam"? *ignore list* Although being in a bad with this guy must have been sweet:
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Post by System on Oct 18, 2018 4:57:40 GMT
& I thought my wrestling posts were self indulgent 😂.
Death Metal and Black Metal are one of the few Metal genres I like, aside from Industrial Metal. I just can’t get into old bands like the ones mentioned, Iron Maiden just sounds ridiculous with the high pitched vocals IMO. Though I do like some Sabbath.
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Post by iNCY on Oct 18, 2018 23:29:57 GMT
& I thought my wrestling posts were self indulgent 😂. I blame the rise of insta-famous Kardashian culture and parent who act like their children are special. :@ I long for the old days, I test as gifted in the IQ level, but my Mum and Dad raised me to believe I was worthless... Sure I am messed up, but I don't regale people with stories of my non-existent glory days. (H)
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Post by @admin on Oct 18, 2018 23:34:21 GMT
Nothing on PW will ever top the self indulgence of that guy Chaz who used to post pictures of himself every couple of weeks so everyone would tell him how good looking he was. 🤳
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Post by Kilgore on Oct 19, 2018 1:20:49 GMT
I played drums in bands from 7th grade to the end of high school. It was mostly hardcore bands because this was the height of the NYHC (New York Hardcore) scene that somehow evolved into the very different pop punk of the early 2000s from a lot of terrible Long Island bands (like Brand New for an example), but every band I was in was fairly unlistenable and definitely was not evolving into pop punk. Obviously, no name is going to compete with Demon Semen, and no band I was in even had a good name. I can only remember two (Sweet Revenge because there was a movie called that we saw listed on the cable PREVUE channel as we had the cliched "WHAT SHOULD WE CALL OUR BAND?" conversation), and some nonsense name that didn't mean anything (like NARFIX, or some embarrassing shit the best guitarist my age came up, whom I hated, but he was the best guitarist my age, so I put up with him, in between breaking the band up every few weeks). I started out as a really good for my age drummer, and by the time high school was winding down most of my peers had passed me by because I have absolutely no dedication to anything, including being a high school drummer in hardcore bands, as you might imagine. Towards the end of high school was the height of Nu Metal, and everybody I knew wanted to be Slipknot. I did not want to be Slipknot. I was not a good enough drummer to be Slipknot even if I wanted to. My drumset is in my Dad's attic and hasn't been played since 2002. I haven't played drums of any kind since 2004 when I set up a kit for a friend's kid brother. I think this is a pretty typical arc, music being a huge part of adolescence, and then it falls wasteside to an adult life that absolutely fucking blows. Any time one of "drum songs" comes on, the shit I played along to, I get a little nostalgic for the drums. I still remember parts, and memorize parts today out of habit. Who knows if I physically could even play them anymore, though. Probably not well. Adulthood saw a switch to guitar because it's more convenient in every conceivable way, but no bands as an adult. It's used as therapy almost, in a bad mood, or sad mood, put on an album, plug in the guitar, play along in the living room for a while. The band days are over, and I'll never know anything that reaches the greatness of Demon Semen. Baker I've seen the Demon Semen logo within the last six months somewhere. I chuckled when I saw it. It's not on this laptop, so it's probably on an external HD somewhere. I'll find it next week when I'm back in town.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2018 2:12:00 GMT
That's it, Kilgore, Baker, lets start a new band. Might as well put 🤯 in there too. Has to be Type O Negative covers only or I'm out bros Who was that one guy that used to post on PW that was in a band? I remember everybody would no sell it too whenever he would post pics or their music. I was going to review one of their albums in my failed Headbangers Ball thread but he disappeared and I forgot the name of his band.
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Post by Baker on Oct 19, 2018 2:17:43 GMT
That's it, Kilgore, Baker, lets start a new band. Might as well put 🤯 in there too. Has to be Type O Negative covers only or I'm out bros Who was that one guy that used to post on PW that was in a band? I remember everybody would no sell it too whenever he would post pics or their music. I was going to review one of their albums in my failed Headbangers Ball thread but he disappeared and I forgot the name of his band. I want to be in but I am not with familiar with Type O Negative other than knowing they had a really tall lead singer. Lemme go listen to a few of their songs and then I'll get back to you. The only old PWer I remember who was currently in a band had a handle like Showstopper87 or something along those lines. Think he had a Shawn Michaels avatar and used a quote I made about Brutus Beefcake as his sig. Probably not the guy you're thinking of though. This dude didn't stick around long but I liked him. Iirc he was into hair metal/proper metal just like I had been.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2018 2:22:12 GMT
That's it, Kilgore, Baker, lets start a new band. Might as well put 🤯 in there too. Has to be Type O Negative covers only or I'm out bros Who was that one guy that used to post on PW that was in a band? I remember everybody would no sell it too whenever he would post pics or their music. I was going to review one of their albums in my failed Headbangers Ball thread but he disappeared and I forgot the name of his band. I want to be in but I am not with familiar with Type O Negative other than knowing they had a really tall lead singer. Lemme go listen to a few of their songs and then I'll get back to you. The only old PWer I remember who was currently in a band had a handle like Showstopper87 or something along those lines. Think he had a Shawn Michaels avatar and used a quote I made about Brutus Beefcake as his sig. Probably not the guy you're thinking of though. This dude didn't stick around long but I liked him. Iirc he was into hair metal/proper metal just like I had been. Dude I figured you would fucking LOVE Type O. Go listen to Wolf Moon. Nah I remember Showstopper it wasn't him, he was a guy who had been around for a while by the time I had got here, his band looked and probably sounded like a Bullet For My Valentine type of metal band. I remember he was a cool dude though, I remember him saying something about meeting Tommy Tallarico once, the famous Sega Genesis chiptunes legend that did the soundtrack for Terminator CD(and Madden 96!)
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Post by Kilgore on Oct 19, 2018 2:35:51 GMT
I vaguely remember that dude that was in a band. I think he was from Alabama, for some reason. He must have been. Why else would I think this?
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Post by iNCY on Oct 19, 2018 2:40:08 GMT
Nothing on PW will ever top the self indulgence of that guy Chaz who used to post pictures of himself every couple of weeks so everyone would tell him how good looking he was. 🤳 What about the guy with the tranny fetish that pretended to be a Brazilian chick that looked like a tranny? Anyway, for self indulgence nothing will ever beat FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS AT WALGREENS. Sometimes I go read it all over again, he posted it lots of places on the internet.
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Post by @admin on Oct 19, 2018 3:15:21 GMT
Nothing on PW will ever top the self indulgence of that guy Chaz who used to post pictures of himself every couple of weeks so everyone would tell him how good looking he was. 🤳 What about the guy with the tranny fetish that pretended to be a Brazilian chick that looked like a tranny? Anyway, for self indulgence nothing will ever beat FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS AT WALGREENS. Sometimes I go read it all over again, he posted it lots of places on the internet. What you call self indulgence, I call true creative genius.
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Post by iNCY on Oct 19, 2018 3:16:23 GMT
I was always a fan, it wasn't you was it? It struck me by the Home and Away references that it was an Australian.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2018 3:20:24 GMT
I had a quarterback face when I was in high school and would wear shirts like this: So I never had to ask to be the singer in the bands in high school, they would always come to me. I guess I just had that vibe. I've written nostalgia laden books about my band experiences on PW in the past so I'll use this post to talk about the brilliant guitar player I was in a band with my freshmen and sophomore years in high school in a tiny cow town in northeast Texas. This kid was freakishly talented and one of the coolest people I ever knew. It's crazy looking back now at some of the music we were playing at 15-16 years old, Ozzy, Metallica, Pantera, Skynrd, Zeppellin, Sabbath, so much shit it's crazy and the kid on guitar would play the shit perfectly note for note, he could play Van Halen's Erruption solo perfectly. He was just 15 and had the wherewithal to recruit me to be his singer because he knew all the girls liked me. I had no musical skills whatsoever but he would work with me every day we practiced until I finally started to sound good. I remember sounding like total shit, we went through a rough patch where I just had a really hard time singing the songs then one night it just really clicked, you could tell he was losing his patience with me but it was like he wouldn't give up, he would work with me to get the sound he wanted and it all clicked when we were playing Simple Man, I nailed the notes and it was just a great moment to where it was like "Oh, it's fucking on now", we were off to the races I just kept getting better and better. I left and ran away to Houston my Junior year in high school(turned out to be my last year in high school). I went to a HUGE high school in West Houston and was invited by some metal guys to watch their band practice one day. They asked me if I wanted to try to sing because they didn't have a singer, we played Walk by Pantera and they were floored with my performance, it was on. We advertised the fuck out of our first show. There was a sizeable metal fanbase in that high school and the hype about us grew until we finally played our first show in December 2002. We made like 1,000 flyers, I designed them and it makes me laugh remember it because these flyers were some straight up ECW/Paul Heyman shit. We papered the entire Southwestern part of Houston with these things and we got like 50 people to show up to our first show, which was all out fucking madness. If I had to classify our sound I'd say it was Metalcore a good year or so before that got popular. The two guitar players weren't as good as the one I had back home but they came up with original songs like nothing, they were a pair of fucking riff machines. They would come to me with a collection of new riffs every day and I'd help put them all together to compose a metal song that would start crazy mosh pits. Our first show was madness. 50 people doesn't sound like much but for a band of 17 year old kids playing a local show that was a pretty fucking big crowd, it was in a small club where Pantera first got big in the late 80's. i ramble. My old guitar player from the small town I met back up with him sometime in 2003 and he had taken his skills to another level, he was showing me Steve Vai and Joe Satriani songs/solos he had learned and it was like man, holy shit. He's still playing clubs and bars around the area. My dad said he seen him playing a show at the local Harley Davidson shop playing 80's rock covers, Peter Frampton shit, I still think he's the best guitar player in Texas today, it's a shame his talents are being kinda wasted he should be playing stadiums and theaters and shit, i just never could get him into heavy metal though, playing 80's rock songs that people in Arkansas bars liked was what made him happy. I don't play any instruments, I tried to play Bass guitar out of necessity because we never could find a bass player but I sucked at it. I couldn't read music I didn't know notes or chords but I could pick up a guitar and tune it just right and I knew when the sound was right, I had a knack for arranging songs, even still to this day I come up with riffs and stuff in my head just out of habit. I can see myself coming back around to music someday and really learning to play. I would love to play some reggae. The only thing that would get me back into being in a "Band" would be Type O Negative covers though, that would be so much fun. I can sing the fuck out of Type O in the truck when I'm driving by myself. :lol:
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2018 3:38:15 GMT
My band in Houston was called Face First. I fucking HATED that name and begged them to change it but they had it set in before I got the job. Our most popular song was called Virgin Whore, just a balls out crazy nuts metal song that a lot of people liked, it was like our "hit" that people would mark for when we would play it. I tried and tried and tried to get them to change the name of the band to Virgin Whore but they wouldn't go for it they thought it was too extreme.
I still have a cassette tape with some guitar tracks my guitar player recorded for me so I could write the lyrics(he recorded it over Bob Marley Legend tape, this was the guy that introduced me to reggae). For all I know it is the last known recording of any of our music that exists, been trying to find a way to transfer it to a cd or mp3
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Post by Baker on Oct 19, 2018 3:59:56 GMT
I was thinking about my old band days at work today and realized our lone show would never have happened if we didn't get Frankie Not Poullain as Bassist #2. He was an infinitely better player than Bassist #1 and fully embraced the concept whereas #1 did not. But what really saved Demon Semen was his music store connections. That gave us a real practice space(!) in a soundproof room that we could use practically any time of the day. It also provided us with access to more equipment (a 2nd mic!). Also forgot to mention Demon Semen was originally intended to be a Europe cover band. That idea lasted all of 5 minutes since I was the lone Europe fan in the group. Part III: The Birth of Demon Semen (or More Stories of Self Indulgence)So finally the big day was upon us. After thinking about it a little more, I can come closer to pinpointing the date to April or May 2005. It was a pretty big deal at my workplace and a few of the surrounding bars we frequented. Flyers were printed (which I'm pretty sure marked the only public use of our stage names). We ended up with an audience of maybe 30-40 people trickling in and out. Mostly friends, coworkers, and a few friends of friends.Since I was all about the aesthetics my look for our big show was Serious Business. I sold out in the summer of 2003 by cutting the long rocker hair I had sported for a year or two, and it never really did grow back BUT I did bleach it one last time, or at least went with the frosted tips look. Can't remember for sure. I wimped out on the promised Rollie Fingers 'stache, opting instead to go with a Fu Manchu. I wore a pink bandanna in the style of a headband, tight pleather pants, and a super tight, white Europe tour shirt I bought on eBay that was literally from the 80s underneath my patented patch-covered jean jacket- unbuttoned, of course. The guitarist & drummer wore regular clothes, and I think the bassist did as well, though he may have added a little "rocker" flair. Again, I cannot remember for sure. A few of my loftier ideas never came to fruition. I never did get my dry ice machine or light show. Yeah, I was basically the Teddy Hart of Demon Semen. After all this hype the ol' stage fright once again reared its ugly head and I was super nervous the day of the show. I had never sang in public before other than during band practice, and even then it took a long time before I really felt comfortable. Hell, I didn't really like singing around ANYONE. These people are my friends and coworkers. I'm going to have to face them tomorrow....and every other day for the foreseeable future. What if I bomb? What if I made a fool out of myself? Well, that was a given. But what if I make a REALLY BIG fool out of myself? It's not like I'm in a "real" band that can bomb in Texarkana and simply move on to Atlanta the next day where a fresh audience would know nothing about their failure the previous night. I even came *this close* to pretending I was sick and "postponing" (cancelling, really) the whole thing. But I made it through with the help of some pep talks and alcohol. So I was feeling pretty good when show time drew near. The boss gave us a few rules- No profanity/nothing controversial, which we were fine with since we were not an edgelord band. And we had to finish up by a certain time. This was also no problem since we only had about an hour worth of material, tops. Again, I never thought about this until today, but we may have broken the first rule. If so, it was never brought up. After recalling all these seemingly insignificant details you'd think I'd remember the setlist like the back of my hand. Well, you'd be wrong. I'm drawing a blank on much of it. Perhaps all that alcohol killed a few brain cells? I do remember we opened with Every Rose Has Its Thorn by Poison since it was a crowd pleasing song the majority of our audience was likely to know. Our guitarist also claimed it was incredibly easy to play to the point where it was almost a joke. I also know we did Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue. I could have swore we played Black Shuck by The Darkness but now I'm have second thoughts since "No Profanity" was one of the 2.5 rules we were given. Did we break the rule and nobody cared? Or did I sing something like... Black Shuck Black Shuck That dog don't give a huck (puck? buck?) I honestly do not remember. Perhaps we only played Black Shuck in practice? Could be a Mandela Effect situation at work here. I'm also kicking myself for not coming up with the genius plan to rework Guns N' Roses Right Next Door To Hell into Right Next Store To Heck. That would have been gold... and SO Baker Claude. Then there was The Book of Heavy Metal by an obscure Swedish band called Dream Evil that I discovered because they were the lone contemporary band AllMusic.com claimed was influenced by Europe. Naturally I bought their album a day or two after learning this info. The Book of Heavy Metal was very Manowar-ish. Every other song I sang like the original lead singer.....or at least like impersonating Joey Tempest impersonating the original lead singer. The Book of Heavy Metal was the only song I added my own take on. I sang it like a sincere ballad when the real version is more of a cheesy pure metal song. It's kind of hard to explain, but I added some anguished moans in the style of Joey Tempest and shoegazing where the real lead singer might be throwing up the metal horns. Oh, and Frankie the Bassist provided the backing vocals when necessary. We played at least 6 songs in total. Maybe 10. Possibly 12. But certainly no more than that. I also engaged in carefully planned banter in between most of the songs. I was wrong in my previous post about the flyers being the only public use of our stage names because I used them again when I introduced everybody in the band. I had a few plants in the crowd for some staged gags that I don't remember the details to. I also made a compromise with my mates at some point. Since they were going along with almost every daft scheme I had despite not being fans of the music I would "let them" do their grunge thing for a little while. We came up with an inside joke to get there..... I've always been a bit of a troll. Sometimes I just cannot help myself. I'd do stuff simply to get a reaction. It's probably that sports entertainment upbringing again. Anyway, one of my big gimmicks/trolls during this period was "Nirvana hater" and my catchphrase was "Those bastards killed hair metal!" or takeoffs of that. I didn't really hate Nirvana. I actually quite liked them. And this gimmick would have ended immediately if the Nirvana fans I trolled took Cobain's advice and had been all what "Whatever." But Nirvana fans, at least the ones I encountered, were the most humorless, po-faced, self-important wankers I had ever encountered. Bashing Nirvana or (god forbid) St. Kurt Cobain was sacrilege to these people. So, yeah, I enjoyed winding them up. To transition from my Cock Rock to their Grunge my bandmates started playing some Nirvana song. I forget which one. Probably Smells Like Teen Spirit. I made angry faces, glared at them, dropped my mic, and walked off 'stage' in a fake huff. It was an inside joke between the band and maybe 3 people in the audience. But it backfired. People thought I was genuinely pissed. Now all of a sudden I'm this asshole throwing hissy fits for no reason. I kept kayfabe for about 2 minutes before explaining the joke, which is something my wannabe Andy Kaufman self NEVER did. Not sure many people bought it to be honest. They just thought I was an asshole now. Oh well. So my friends did 3 or 4 of their grunge songs while I took my planned break, chatted with friends, drank a little more, and tried explaining what was going on. The drummer went all Phil Collins by now becoming the lead singer as well. I don't remember what they played. We had devised a gag for 'winning me back' once their grunge set was over. The band would start to play Final Countdown....slowly at first....then faster....until finally they worked up to the proper tempo (sadly, we never did incorporate keyboards). And I would slowly be coaxed back. Like the first notes would "wake me up" and I'd play it like the music won me back. Honestly, this was the most memorable, and best part of the entire show. We closed with Final Countdown. I gave 100% and felt like I nailed it. The crowd loved it (really the only reaction we got other than polite applause and some minor singalongs). I finally got to live out my rock star fantasy. *Tomorrow- Part IV: The Aftermath (or Even More Stories of Self Indulgence)
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Post by Baker on Oct 19, 2018 14:26:12 GMT
Part IV: The Aftermath (Or Even More Stories of Self Indulgence)
So we had just played the only show we ever intended to play. It was the talk of work for a day or two. We got a lot of compliments. Then people moved on with their lives, including us.
I don't think I ever picked up an instrument or sang in public again. The guitarist and drummer would play a little bit in their apartment just for fun but never joined any other bands that I am aware of. I didn't see much of the 2nd Bassist after our lone show. He ended up in a "real" band not long after our performance. They played pop/rock hits (including I Believe In A Thing Called Love) in local bars. I went to see them a few times but rarely, if ever, hung out with him beyond that.
Footage of our lone performance exists....or at least it did exist. But, no, I do not have access to it. A friend of ours named Lauren taped our show on an old school video recorder. I watched it twice. Once with most of my band and a few other people. Then again alone. It was honestly pretty cringey...and in a way far beyond the intentional cringe it was always intended to be. My own performance was pretty awful. I sounded more like Bob Dylan (and I can't stand Bob f'n Dylan) than Joey Tempest. Oh well. At least it wasn't Dave Mustaine. I botched lyrics and skipped entire verses. I spammed the hell out of my Joey Tempest-style moans, and "Rockin' Like Dokken" catchphrase during banter. I called for entirely too many guitar solos. Now calling for guitar solos is awesome and should be encouraged. But you don't need to do it Every. Single. Time. The way I did. Even my prancing around was not up to par. If I ever did have the tape (which I swear I don't) I probably would have burned it long ago.
The rest of the band was fine from what I remember, though I do remember thinking their grunge set also failed because you could barely hear the lead singer over the sound of his drums.
I lost touch with the rest of the band about a year later. We just went our separate ways. I haven't seen or spoken to any of them in 12 years. I heard the drummer ended up moving to California and has actually done work for video games and tv shows. What sort of work, I do not know. I have no idea what the guitarist has been up to over the last dozen years. The 2nd bassist played in a few local bar bands in the year that followed. Then I lost touch with him too. The 1st bassist hooked up with an older woman and became a coke fiend. We all drifted apart from him a few months before drifting apart from each other.
But our version of Final Countdown really was epic....or at the very least miles better than this.....
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Post by theend on Oct 24, 2018 19:57:04 GMT
I played in a punk band. Rythm guitar and lead screamer. We were in WI but oddly we had a following and sold records in TX.
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Post by Foos on Oct 29, 2018 17:56:13 GMT
I too, was in a high school band. We were active from 1997-2001 probably. Maybe 2002? I don't remember. We played covers, originals, and the occasional video game mashups. We played gigs on and off, battle of the bands, junk like that. Never recorded anything for real but some mp3s exist out there. If anyone knows of the MiniBosses, some of our video game stuff got mislabled under their name and was shared a ton. I played bass. Band broke up, as 2/5 members ended up moving out of Province within 1 month of each other, and I never cared enough to want to pursue anything.
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