THE BLUE REVISION + DEVILCAKE + TOM FOOLERY & THE MISTAKES + THE FIASCOS
Bernie's
Monday December 30, 2002
Devilcake's first appearance at Bernie's in about 9 years, and the first ever with the current super-lineup. The evening got off to a scary start when Gourley slid down the stairs on his back into Bernie's. And then it got worse with the OSU campus lunatics, alcoholics, multiple-personality-disorder sufferers, Evil Dead 2 extras, backup dancers in Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video all milling around an otherwise empty Bernie's, dancing to ungodly LOUD country "music," clawing their way around like cave dancers encircling a bonfire. And yours truly kept making accidental eye contact with them. Highly not advisable. I finally took my glasses off, I thought they were going to start thinking I wanted a conversation or some advice from them.
And that's what we get for getting there so gott-damn early. Who ever knows with these things what time is appropriate for a band to show up? Back in the Apollo's days we'd roll up at 10:30pm, hang out for an hour, rock for another hour and then go home and watch a movie.
Then in the Midgard Comics days we'd show up at 6pm and be finished and back home by 8pm. So who really knows.
And we were all there stupidly early. MCB and I wandered over to UDF for H20 (and a new Guitar magazine for me) and we were still up to our eyeballs in time. Hmph.
The other bands all made a mass convergence at 9pm and it was quickly determined that Devilcake was going on 3rd or 4th, which did not bode well - some of us only had babysitters till midnight! So in the end we went on 2nd and played a compact little set and got the hell out like ninjas.
The Blue Revision went on first and let rip with some extremely modern and cool indie-rock activity with noodly bass, Joy Division drumming, early U2 guitar and swish synths that sounded more like jets landing and taking off than a uh... church organ or whatever. Three of the four guys sang and the songs were cool. Like Pavement but not annoying. I thought they were very good, I'd like to hear more of their stuff.
It seemed like we set up pretty quickly - too quickly in my case. I should've been on the other side of the stage near the mic, rather than running my shit back in the corner behind Steve. Darrin even got his drums set up pretty quickly (with a brilliant assist by me on setting up hardware) and pretty soon it was TIME TO MAKE THE DONUTS.
Nancy opted out of singing Marshmallow, so we skipped the ghoulish intro and just ran into the song like we useta. At the time I would've preferred to open with a faster song, but in retrospect Marshmallow was perfect, it helped to set the pace and let us sort of establish a groove before we all started spinning our wheels as fast as they would go. Plus that's what we get for not even pretending to make a setlist up beforehand.
And usually I would've preferred to dim the stage lights but I don't think it affected us/me like it did at Little Bros or Midgard. There's something about the lights being too bright onstage that totally kills the mood to me. We don't need to play in the pitch-dark, but if it's too bright it's like we're not even on a stage. I don't know. But it actually wasn't too bad at Bernie's. That low-ass ceiling worked for and against us simultaneously. I couldn't play my bass into the mic at the end of Marshmallow due to the low clearance. But I did it anyway and just tried not to poke the rafters with my headstock (ooer).
By the second chorus of Marshmallow I was physically wrecked. Yet again I forgot to take anything to blow my nose into. The heat onstage mixed with me yelling at the top of my lungs was the perfect combination to free all the snot in my head at once. Which is fantastic when there's nowhere to put it. Then we dove into Wienermobile and let it run amok. Between songs it was kinda like "uh, okay... what do we play now?" Eventually somebody (Kyle from Tom Foolery probably) started yelling out song titles and we happily obliged like a food-metal jukebox. Except Deez Nuts, which we somehow escaped playing.
Sometimes people yell out titles of songs we don't play anymore and that's a little awkward for us because I like to be accomodating, especially when people go to the trouble of learning something about Devilcake. And I want to encourage people to have their own favorite Devilcake songs and to participate in the show in general. But when people yell uh... insert embarassing song title here ... it's just kinda uncomfortable. So it was fortunate that we knew how to play all the songs yelled out, even if we didn't play all of them. We could have. But we didn't.
Todd was rock-solid and my man REPRESENTED with the Keyz O Death. Oh, if you people only knew how it warms my heart to see that cheesy, red, $30 (original retail price), guitar-strap-having keyboard being assailed and tickled by Todd in the heat of battle. I like the Keyz O because, among other things, Todd can step up to the mic on things like Pie Hair Pie and Fribble and whatever else. That's what I'm talking about. He can take the reins and throw down the historically-accurate intro to Pie Hair Pie. Plus it just looks cool.
What's surprising about last night's set is that we literally haven't played together since the box set release party in August. No practices, no nothing. (You can't count 4 of us getting together on Sunday with me playing drums and Darrin playing bass either.) And shockingly enough, there were no trainwrecks, there were no missed cues, there were no flubs or broken anything.
Steve's new xmas pedal was sounding damn fine on his Hands Off My Oreos break. Gourley's intro to Hands Off was classic: "This is a song about keeping your hands off my Oreos. It's called Hands Off My Oreos." Pure Gourley.
Speaking of Gourley - perhaps inspired by his ass-tumble down the stairs, he was rolling around on the stage floor before we even started the first song. Talk about getting into character, dude was just BRINGING IT. There will never be another frontman for Devilcake. He is the essence of all that is Devilcake. Without him we're just five (or six or four) nerds with a fetish for classic metal and extremely retarded lyrics about food.
Pizza Party was a hell of a lot of fun. If I had known it was going to be so fun to play I would've extended the intro and the breakdown. I think any time you can get people to clap over their heads in time to your music, it's a victory. If it's on a Rock And Roll Monday Night, so the better. I'd like to get to the point where lots of people know our songs so they can sing along and act the fool too. Even if they've never heard us before, it's fun to try to make people yell I Want A Big Mac with us.
We barrelled through the set and didn't linger too long on the stage, hopefully. We kept it short and somebody said we could have easily played for another 45 minutes and people would've liked it. Which, even if that's not entirely true, I appreciate the fact that people weren't flipping us off and pelting us with coins and chanting for GWAR while we played. I don't take audience reactions for granted and it's extremely kick-ass when people enjoy themselves.
though there's no set list around to remind me, I'm pretty sure we played
Marshmallow
Wienermobile
Pie Hair Pie
I Want A Big Mac
Pizza Party
Hands Off My Oreos
Fribble
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
Monday, December 30, 2002
This is a belated post on a previous show:
============================
ETHOS + GREAT PLAINS GYPSIES + 7th CYCLE + DEVILCAKE + HARLOW
High Five
Saturday June 8th, 2002
============================
We, Devilcake, played High Five on Saturday night.
Before I get to the rest of the story, I just want to say that Harlow is pretty cool. After watching their set, I hung around trying to get in touch with the owner of the bar and was just hanging out with the other bands and the hot female bartenders. At the very end of the evening, around 3 am, I found Harlow sitting at the bar. I talked to them and told them that I really enjoyed their show. They all said that they loved Devilcake and that they listened to the whole set. Guitarist and lead singer, Amanda, and the bassist, Chimene, both said they had the hots for our singer, Gourley. Chimene said she loved Frankenstein's French Fries. That made me feel pretty fucking cool since, well, I wrote that one. Amanda's favorite song was Marshmallow. I didn't get to talk to Melody, the other guitarist, much which was a shame because she seemed very nice. Rebecca, the drummer, was running about. Us drummers tend to do that a lot. She showed up right as I was about to leave. I got to talk to her a little bit. She's only been playing for 3 years which just totally blew my mind. We talked tech a little bit. She was excited about getting her new drum set. I was looking to go, so I split. Duh me. I should have talked to her more 'cause she, and the rest of Harlow, are just cool cats all together. In fact, Rebecca was the first person to talk to the band after we finished our set. Toddeus gave her a freshly burnt copy of our new album. Way to go Todd. Again, Harlow rules. I just can't say that enough.
=-=-=-=-=-= And now the whole story =-=-=-=-=-=-=
MCB came over to my house to pick up the coffin around 3:00. We ran to Lowe's real quick to get some stuff for his mum and then grabbed a bite to eat. Driving separate cars, we got on the road around 4:15pm. We finally got to High Five around 5:30pm. This trip normally would take about 15 and no more than a half hour, however, there was a horrible wreck that slowed our pace down.
The others followed in 1/2 increments. First Todd, then Gourley, then Steve, then Ian. We thought that there was going to be a cookout and that everything was starting at 6pm, however that was not the case.
We hung out in the parking lot for the next 2 hours because there wasn't anything going on inside either. Some of the other bands were in there, but they were just sitting there as well because the bar wasn't open yet. About 7:30pm, Hex On Wheels went on. They weren't too bad I have to say. The singer and bassist seemed nice. I talked to her briefly when all the bands were wandering around trying to find out the order of the bands were going to play in. I and others in the band were excited to find that we were given the coveted slot right before Harlow. Anyways, Hex On Wheels played and they were pretty good.
Some friends of mine showed up from Cincinnati to check out their show. I haven't seen them (or talked to them for that matter) for practically a year. I think it was cool of them that they came all that way (it's a 2 hour drive) to see my band. They expected that we were going on at 9pm, because that is what I was told. I then had to inform them that they would be sitting through a few more bands before they got to us around 10:30/11:00pm. And they were cool with that.
Up next was Great Plains Drifters from Chicago. Talk about being mismatched on a roster. They were playing country/blues stuff. Ian and MCB were taking bids on who was going to break out the slide first. I'm not sure who won. I was talking to my friend for much of the night before we went on. I liked them. It was a nice change of pace after listening to the heavy sounds of Hex On Wheels. I got to talk to them after Harlow's set as they were sitting in one of the back rooms. They're pretty cool as well.
After Great Plains Drifters was 7 something or another. I went outside at this point and didn't hear much of their set, so no comments on them.
Then came DEVILCAKE!!! That would be the band I'm in. Yeah! It was chaos more than usual because we were trying to cram 7 people and their equipment on this teeny tiny stage. But we got it all worked out. it was hotter than fucking Hades up there. I was sweating up a storm before we were even playing. Those lights are torture but a necessity. The guy in the sound booth asked over the monitor if we wanted the lights dimmed. We said sure. And the show because. Todd did the ultra short intro and Gourley and Nancy went to town on the vocals. When the whole band kicked in at the second verse, the stage lights were going. I was so stoked. For all the other bands that night it was pretty much, lights are on and they are staying on. For us, they were pulling out all the stop. Flashing the lights and the strobes to the beat of the music. It pumped me up big time. We had the coffin strobe going and the inverted cross on with its eerie red lights and tons and tons of smoke. I really wish we would have taped it. It would have been a sight. I didn't cramp up too much thank goodness. We played a few new tunes, Frankenstein's French Fries and Flesh Feast, live for the first time and thankfully so since they made Harlow's hit list. Gourley added some new words on the fly to the end of "Salad Bar Man". He normally would do the whole "S to the A to the L to the A to the D - Man!", however this time he was singing "I know you want me, I know you need me" or something to that degree. I think it sounded pretty good and it was definitely more intelligible that the usual 'rap' ending. With two songs to go, we were told over the monitors 'Last song!'. Damn. Only "I Can't Believe It's Not Satan" and "Fribble" to go. We played through "Satan" and held the last note. I tried to segue directly into Fribble but it was decided that we weren't going to do that so I just let it fade to black and the show was over. Lots of hoots and hollers. I think I had a pretty good show. If I found a groove or not, I'm not sure. It's all usually a big blur. I had my head stuck in my drums as usually, but I did look up a few times to see, well, nothing more than smoke and the rest of the band, but I was consciously trying to make an effort to look up more often. I'm getting a little bit better with each show.
After we got all the shit put away, we talked to Rebecca from Harlow as I mentioned before. Up after us was supposed to be Harlow, but they let the other band, Ethos, go on after us. They weren't too bad either. They were doing a lot of vocal harmony stuff that I like. There were some very good 3 part harmony stuff sounding like Alice In Chains that I thought was pretty sweet.
Harlow closed down the bar with an, in their words, interesting set. The PA kept blowing out in the middle of their songs which was wreaking some havoc. Some songs you would get to hear the beginning and not the end, other times you didn't get to hear the beginning but got to hear the end. The bass amp was up loud enough that you could hear that and I think Amanda's guitar was up loud enough that you could get the gist of what they were playing and you could hear much of the drums, but vocals were inaudible when the PA wasn't working. At one point some guy who obviously knew the words jumped up on stage and was singing with them. At first it was fine with the band and the crowd, however, then he wouldn't leave and was getting in Melody's way, so one of the roadies grabbed him by the waist and carried him away and he was never heard from again. Their set was very good and I enjoyed it tons. They all seemed to be connecting on stage, feeding off each other, melding as a band. It was a good time.
Well, that's all I gots. It's time to go to sleep now. Work awaits me in the morning... BOO!!!!
===============
Set list:
MARSHMALLOW
WIENERMOBILE
SACRIFICIAL LEG OF LAMB
HANDS OFF MY OREOS
PIZZA PARTY
CEREAL & BEER
FLESH FEAST
SOFT BATCH MAMA
FRANKENSTEIN
SALAD BAR MAN
I CANT BELIEVE ITS NOT SATAN
FRIBBLE (did not play this one... they pulled the plug... oh well)
============================
ETHOS + GREAT PLAINS GYPSIES + 7th CYCLE + DEVILCAKE + HARLOW
High Five
Saturday June 8th, 2002
============================
We, Devilcake, played High Five on Saturday night.
Before I get to the rest of the story, I just want to say that Harlow is pretty cool. After watching their set, I hung around trying to get in touch with the owner of the bar and was just hanging out with the other bands and the hot female bartenders. At the very end of the evening, around 3 am, I found Harlow sitting at the bar. I talked to them and told them that I really enjoyed their show. They all said that they loved Devilcake and that they listened to the whole set. Guitarist and lead singer, Amanda, and the bassist, Chimene, both said they had the hots for our singer, Gourley. Chimene said she loved Frankenstein's French Fries. That made me feel pretty fucking cool since, well, I wrote that one. Amanda's favorite song was Marshmallow. I didn't get to talk to Melody, the other guitarist, much which was a shame because she seemed very nice. Rebecca, the drummer, was running about. Us drummers tend to do that a lot. She showed up right as I was about to leave. I got to talk to her a little bit. She's only been playing for 3 years which just totally blew my mind. We talked tech a little bit. She was excited about getting her new drum set. I was looking to go, so I split. Duh me. I should have talked to her more 'cause she, and the rest of Harlow, are just cool cats all together. In fact, Rebecca was the first person to talk to the band after we finished our set. Toddeus gave her a freshly burnt copy of our new album. Way to go Todd. Again, Harlow rules. I just can't say that enough.
=-=-=-=-=-= And now the whole story =-=-=-=-=-=-=
MCB came over to my house to pick up the coffin around 3:00. We ran to Lowe's real quick to get some stuff for his mum and then grabbed a bite to eat. Driving separate cars, we got on the road around 4:15pm. We finally got to High Five around 5:30pm. This trip normally would take about 15 and no more than a half hour, however, there was a horrible wreck that slowed our pace down.
The others followed in 1/2 increments. First Todd, then Gourley, then Steve, then Ian. We thought that there was going to be a cookout and that everything was starting at 6pm, however that was not the case.
We hung out in the parking lot for the next 2 hours because there wasn't anything going on inside either. Some of the other bands were in there, but they were just sitting there as well because the bar wasn't open yet. About 7:30pm, Hex On Wheels went on. They weren't too bad I have to say. The singer and bassist seemed nice. I talked to her briefly when all the bands were wandering around trying to find out the order of the bands were going to play in. I and others in the band were excited to find that we were given the coveted slot right before Harlow. Anyways, Hex On Wheels played and they were pretty good.
Some friends of mine showed up from Cincinnati to check out their show. I haven't seen them (or talked to them for that matter) for practically a year. I think it was cool of them that they came all that way (it's a 2 hour drive) to see my band. They expected that we were going on at 9pm, because that is what I was told. I then had to inform them that they would be sitting through a few more bands before they got to us around 10:30/11:00pm. And they were cool with that.
Up next was Great Plains Drifters from Chicago. Talk about being mismatched on a roster. They were playing country/blues stuff. Ian and MCB were taking bids on who was going to break out the slide first. I'm not sure who won. I was talking to my friend for much of the night before we went on. I liked them. It was a nice change of pace after listening to the heavy sounds of Hex On Wheels. I got to talk to them after Harlow's set as they were sitting in one of the back rooms. They're pretty cool as well.
After Great Plains Drifters was 7 something or another. I went outside at this point and didn't hear much of their set, so no comments on them.
Then came DEVILCAKE!!! That would be the band I'm in. Yeah! It was chaos more than usual because we were trying to cram 7 people and their equipment on this teeny tiny stage. But we got it all worked out. it was hotter than fucking Hades up there. I was sweating up a storm before we were even playing. Those lights are torture but a necessity. The guy in the sound booth asked over the monitor if we wanted the lights dimmed. We said sure. And the show because. Todd did the ultra short intro and Gourley and Nancy went to town on the vocals. When the whole band kicked in at the second verse, the stage lights were going. I was so stoked. For all the other bands that night it was pretty much, lights are on and they are staying on. For us, they were pulling out all the stop. Flashing the lights and the strobes to the beat of the music. It pumped me up big time. We had the coffin strobe going and the inverted cross on with its eerie red lights and tons and tons of smoke. I really wish we would have taped it. It would have been a sight. I didn't cramp up too much thank goodness. We played a few new tunes, Frankenstein's French Fries and Flesh Feast, live for the first time and thankfully so since they made Harlow's hit list. Gourley added some new words on the fly to the end of "Salad Bar Man". He normally would do the whole "S to the A to the L to the A to the D - Man!", however this time he was singing "I know you want me, I know you need me" or something to that degree. I think it sounded pretty good and it was definitely more intelligible that the usual 'rap' ending. With two songs to go, we were told over the monitors 'Last song!'. Damn. Only "I Can't Believe It's Not Satan" and "Fribble" to go. We played through "Satan" and held the last note. I tried to segue directly into Fribble but it was decided that we weren't going to do that so I just let it fade to black and the show was over. Lots of hoots and hollers. I think I had a pretty good show. If I found a groove or not, I'm not sure. It's all usually a big blur. I had my head stuck in my drums as usually, but I did look up a few times to see, well, nothing more than smoke and the rest of the band, but I was consciously trying to make an effort to look up more often. I'm getting a little bit better with each show.
After we got all the shit put away, we talked to Rebecca from Harlow as I mentioned before. Up after us was supposed to be Harlow, but they let the other band, Ethos, go on after us. They weren't too bad either. They were doing a lot of vocal harmony stuff that I like. There were some very good 3 part harmony stuff sounding like Alice In Chains that I thought was pretty sweet.
Harlow closed down the bar with an, in their words, interesting set. The PA kept blowing out in the middle of their songs which was wreaking some havoc. Some songs you would get to hear the beginning and not the end, other times you didn't get to hear the beginning but got to hear the end. The bass amp was up loud enough that you could hear that and I think Amanda's guitar was up loud enough that you could get the gist of what they were playing and you could hear much of the drums, but vocals were inaudible when the PA wasn't working. At one point some guy who obviously knew the words jumped up on stage and was singing with them. At first it was fine with the band and the crowd, however, then he wouldn't leave and was getting in Melody's way, so one of the roadies grabbed him by the waist and carried him away and he was never heard from again. Their set was very good and I enjoyed it tons. They all seemed to be connecting on stage, feeding off each other, melding as a band. It was a good time.
Well, that's all I gots. It's time to go to sleep now. Work awaits me in the morning... BOO!!!!
===============
Set list:
MARSHMALLOW
WIENERMOBILE
SACRIFICIAL LEG OF LAMB
HANDS OFF MY OREOS
PIZZA PARTY
CEREAL & BEER
FLESH FEAST
SOFT BATCH MAMA
FRANKENSTEIN
SALAD BAR MAN
I CANT BELIEVE ITS NOT SATAN
FRIBBLE (did not play this one... they pulled the plug... oh well)
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